Hello boys! You are more than welcome here. We expect you to be supportive but most men of intelligence already believe that women are at least equal to them and should be treated so. Or do they? Is it possible to be a male feminist? Does such as thing exist? Is it desirable? As Janice Erlbaum put it, "Feminist men: oxymorons or simply morons?"
I ask, I guess, because in the last few weeks when I have expressed anger, I have inevitably been called a man-hater. The obvious response to this is, "Men? Look at me! Can't get enough of them! Some of my best friends are . . ." and then acknowledge that "men" may even have emotions. Will this do? Just saying, "Yeah, some men are all right, really" is all too reminiscent of those sleazy guys who claim to love all women but don't in reality appear to like them much. But yes, the truth is I do see lots of guys doing their bit. More and more.
They don't make a huge song and dance about it. When my eldest was little, in the early 1990s, a man at the school gates was rare; with my youngest, you cannot move for guys being "great dads" or, if I want to be sour, simply doing what women have always done. But there they are. Not to acknowledge that men do more childcare or that some women are earning more than guys is disingenuous. To not acknowledge the support that some men give women is to be unkind. The most honest and pro-woman doctor I have ever seen was a bloke. Should I say otherwise?
None of this, though, makes everything OK, and none of it makes feminism any less of a necessity. The raised male voices are increasingly those of men with strong anti-feminist views. The guys who just get on with it seem either unheard or unsure. So someone, like that peculiar MP Dominic Raab, can call feminists "obnoxious bigots" and know there will be "hear hears". We are fed a diet of women's rights having gone "too far", equal opportunities "madness" and "batshit crazy" political correctness. Yet these gross generalisations do not resonate with generations of younger men brought up by working mothers and surrounded by girls who will have equalled them intellectually. Yes, young men will have been raised with mixed messages about respecting women, but some genuinely do.
Many admire independent women and the choices they make and do not want a doormat at all, but worry that should they speak up, they will sound submissive.
The ghost of the "new man" stalks the land. This ever so self-righteous softer version of masculinity was partly created through sexual politics but really only existed so that advertisers could target a new market. The new man was only ever a phantom. Very few men were new. I vaguely recall some trying to behave a bit better in order to get off with more women. But the new man's nemesis, the "lad", soon took over to put everyone back in their place. While faking subversion, laddishness is simply what it says on the tin: a version of masculinity that cannot mature. It cannot actually live with itself. It withers on the vine (rehab) or lives in admiration of lost lads: Oliver Reed, George Best and Keith Moon.
Post-feminism didn't require men to be anything more than the wielder of credit cards. Which is why it was scarcely politics at all. But weaving between the stereotypes have been alliances between gay men and women, and straight men and women trying simply to get by. Lots of people don't identify themselves with the F word, but they are preoccupied with trying to understand the relations between the genders.
Our mutual suspicion is, in fact, another market. The self-help industry, apart from claiming to cure cancer with creative visualisation, also promises the equally implausible notion that men and women can live in harmony. This requires a certain amount of training and these books are basically manuals in how to operate the opposite sex .
The market ain't dumb. Men's Health in America, hardly some Dworkinite hotbed of radicalism, has just started a feminist blog. Why? Its author says, "I think a lot of people are probably feminist without even realising. It was an opportunity to create and open up dialogues for both sexes, dispel myths and negative connotations." Wow! Men's Health, which we thought was the Bible of metrosexuality, is talking about feminism! The deputy editor of UK's Men Health is more wary: "Our readers have awareness; we don't see the need to tag it as 'feminism'."
Once again the issue is not the issue, but the word. Men can think feminist thoughts, but let's not get carried away . . . Why is this so difficult? It is easy enough to say one is anti-racist. Why not the same with anti-sexism?
Of course, there is a history of men being involved in the women's movement – some of it good, some of it hilariously awful. I remember guys turning up on pro-choice marches and insisting they be at the front "to make an impact". I remember working at a leftwing magazine where the boss thought that getting in touch with his own feelings meant spurting them all over you, and that any self-proclaimed feminist should be grateful for this. There were guys who went off into woods, men's movement-style, following the mytho-poetics of Robert Bly. And those who forced themselves to pee sitting down, or be a bit gay, or spend arduous hours ensuring their girlfriends had an orgasm, as if this would give them points on some revolutionary clubcard. There were the politics of self-actualisation, which tipped into therapy, mess and screaming. I once went to a conference in Birmingham where John Stoltenberg, author of Refusing to Be a Man, stood up and announced that he wasn't speaking as a man but "as a penised individual". Yes, really.
But now I think, "At least these guys spoke up."
Maybe one small reason I want men to speak up again is that I have spent too long in the blogosphere reading the works of Julian Assange's supporters. Let me say again, I do not know if this man is innocent or guilty of what he is charged with in Sweden. But I do know I have seen a massive amount of hatred of women. Or "womanoids", as some charmingly call us. We are guilty of just about everything, including creating an "abuse industry" funded by the NSPCC. I've read accounts from "inside the mind of a sexual trade union feminist". Some men go so far as to quote Pat Robertson, the American evangelist for whom feminism "encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practise witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians". Anyone who believes in due process is a bunny-boiling whore or an operative for the CIA.
So I have to remind myself that not all men think this way. Many would be appalled at the women in their lives being described in the ways I have seen. Where are the male voices to counter such misogyny? Are they scared of being patronised? Maybe. But worse could happen. Women have always patronised men. Who said, "Though we adore men individually, we agree as a group they're rather stupid"? Yeah – that crazed radical Mary Poppins.
So now, right now, when women are not well represented in politics, when the poorest are being forced back into dependence on men, when feminism is seen as having gone too far, is it impossible to ask men to speak up in support? Is it uncool? Anyway, what does a feminist man look like? How about Kurt Cobain, Peter Tatchell, Baaba Maal, Antony Hegarty, Bill Bailey, David Steele and Barak Obama as my team's starter for 10 . . . over to you guys.
