Yeah, you read that right: Men’s Health magazine, full of “how to have better sex” and “how to lose the belly fat!” advice for men, has a blog for men about feminism. This unequivocally rocks for three reasons.
First, it’s a sign that the feminist blogosphere has moved into the mainstream. When feminist verticals like Broadsheet and Double X are either disappearing or folding back into their original publications, it’s a good indicator for the future that a mainstream popular men’s magazine has taken up the feminist cause.
Second, hopefully a blog like this can help de-stigmatize the label “feminist” for readers. ...
Finally, the blog could help bring men to the movement. For men, feminism and what it entails is rarely discussed outside of a historical context...
Tired of hearing how advances for women can only mean an impending "End of Men"? Well, so is Hugo Schwyzer at the Guardian. He wrote a great article about what feminist advances may mean for men, my favorite bit of which can be found below.
Traditionalists warn that women who exercise "too much" sovereignty over their bodies (by utilising contraception, availing themselves of abortion or new reproductive technologies) risk making men irrelevant. And men who feel irrelevant will behave like perpetual teenagers, refusing to make lasting commitments, cheerful in the certainty that whatever happens sexually, a "woman will take care of things".
We socialise women to be afraid of one thing more than anything else: being alone. The anti-feminist opponents of progress are masters at exploiting that fear, urging women to resist the siren song of technologically assisted autonomy lest they find themselves growing old without a man. The anecdotal evidence that a great many men in Britain and the US do seem stuck in what the scholar Michael Kimmel calls "Guyland" – an enduring adolescence that seems to last decades – seems to legitimate the shrill jeremiads of the traditionalists.
But the opponents of progress are wrong.
Leaving aside their wrongness on the larger questions of women's autonomy and reproductive ethics, they're wrong about men. They're wrong in their insistence that with female vulnerability, men will rise to responsibility, while without it, men will invariably sink down to drifting, predatory fecklessness. While it is absolutely true that we've raised men to believe that their worth is contingent on how well they take of vulnerable women, it's also undeniably true that traditional gender roles have exacted an enormous cost from men.
Male privilege is not a guarantor of either happiness or health, and trying desperately to play the part of protector and provider has robbed generations of men of both. Feminism, in concert with these many new and exciting reproductive and contraceptive technologies, offers men a chance to rethink and re-evaluate their worth and their purpose. It offers them an opportunity to be intimate allies with their female partners, to forge relationships based on more than duty and dependency. It gives men a chance to be loved for the wholeness of who we are, rather than solely for what we can provide.
I am so glad that there are voices against the outdated "traditionalist" thinking Hugo cites. To read more about traditionalism and why it is short-sighted, read the full article here.
These guys, from the National Youth Poetry Slam (Chico Speaks Out Team 2005), made my day on Tuesday when a friend pointed out this video. Not work/school appropriate, but definitely something that should be checked out.
Planning my grandparent's 50th anniversary luncheon with my mother was such a time-suck that I've been completely absent from the internets for the past week or so. I didn't even read any of my blog subscriptions which was a blasphemy of the highest degree. My very small audience will be happy to note that I'm currently sitting on a rant on the pornification of bisexuality.
In other news, I totally caught that interview with Jessica Valenti, writer and founder of the popular Feministing.com, on Moblogic:
Nothing particularly hard-hitting there, but we feminists tend to be a bit stand-offish in wider forums with our views. Probably because of trolls on comments like this:
Jessica Valenti is a bigot, she just happens to back what is currently a politically correct and popular form of bigotry.
The way they talk on her website you'd think women were living in some kind of planet of the apes scenario and yet she seems to manage to live a rather privileged life of celebrity, book deals and socialising.
She's not even an intelligent bigot, or she's highly intellectually dishonest, but then again her career is based on this notion that women are horribly oppressed - it's in her interests to keep perpetuating this idea.
No, I will not link to the comment. Trolls don't get free audiences here.
First of all, since when is feminism popular? I think our dear troll is confusing feminism with Suicide Girls or the various teenie-bopper fads that confuse titillation with empowerment and equality.
It's really obvious that Jessica is "privileged". I mean, she has to put up with asinine trolls and their sophomoric logic day in and day out! I do that too, although on a much smaller scale, and I can tell you how much fun it is, and how much money I make. Jessica's "socializing" is called activism. Instead of getting drunk and shooting the breeze with buddies, which is fun in moderation, try something more productive like writing books.
Finally, our dear troll punctuates his sentiment with the tired-and-true, "shuttup opportunistic man-hating whore!" sentiment. Any feminist knows she's doing something right when she gets this gem thrown at her. From trolls in my very personal rape thread whining about teh poor menz to anonymous emails about how I alienate people from feminism with my awful, terrible book reviews and pop-culture sociology, there seems to be no shortage of men, and the occasional woman, who seem to think that the people pointing out discrimination are somehow more to blame for society's ills than the people that perpetuate those attitudes with the defense of their willful ignorance.
The Female Impersonator has a new contributor and our first male voice. Ryan will be posting here semi-regularly, focusing mostly on issues in the entertainment industry.
He went to Rhode Island College and Columbia College in Chicago, focusing on screenwriting. He has written several screenplays and is currently trying to find a way to live in New York City. Ryan is excited to have an outlet for his feminist thoughts, and I know I'm interested to read them.
Please welcome a new perspective. His first post will be appearing tonight or tomorrow!
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