Five things men must do

[Male Women's Studies Student recently posted an open question about what feminist men should teach other men about feminism.  MWSS has consented to me posting my full response here.]

I write this with great caution.  I am not the voice for all women, although for the sake of simplicity, I have condensed the discussion to one of women and men, knowing that all of the beautiful and painful complication is lost in the process.  Forgive me for that.  Please know that I myself occupy positions at the top of other hierarchies and have to check myself when I am in spaces led and motivated by ending the oppression of those at the bottom of them.  My intention here is to outline some of the things men can and must do in teaching other men to be feminists and in being responsible about their own feminism.  This is merely a draft of a list, as there are many things that could be added.  I welcome those additions and any other critiques.

Teach men humility. Do not congratulate yourself for caring about women's oppression, or realizing that you have the capacity to care. There should be no patting yourself on the back for being here - you should be here. You are essential to the success of this movement, but, hey, so are we. Generations of women have being doing this work and it is on their shoulders that we are all are standing. You must also not expect progressive women to trust you instantaneously. Identifying as a feminist isn't enough - we must see you practice it. We must see you live it. You are accustomed to claiming expertise - don't. Don't expect to ever know more about women's experiences of oppression than women. Likewise, don't expect that there won't be many, many women you speak to or teach who are less able to articulate their own oppression than you are able to articulate their oppression. (Oppression works very well that way).

Teach men that they have unearned privilege. You must call out other men. Check them on rape jokes, racist jokes, gay jokes, dyke jokes, blonde jokes, and jokes about your momma. When they talk about 'special rights,' help them see where they have been treated 'specially' all along. Point out bias in movies, television, and magazines. To the best of your ability, ensure your home, workplace, and social gatherings are safe spaces for women of all races, religions, and incomes. Help other men realize this. Help men see the way in which masculinity suffocates them, squelches their emotional range, restricts their hearts, turns them into brutish, humanity-less humans. Help them see how patriarchy denies them their humanity but feminism embraces it. But be careful. Realize that we (or most of us) are working towards a world where both of our social categories will be eradicated. At the very least, we are working toward a world where your category doesn't determine the conditions of ours. So yes, you are constrained by masculinity - but it is a confinement that privileges you at the expense of us...you must not forget that. Teach men they are not 'oppressed' in the way that women are oppressed - such a malleable use of the term, as Marilyn Frye notes, renders oppression meaningless.

Teach men to account for their unearned privilege. You cannot refuse male privilege or give it up. It comes into the room with you. It is in the room even when you are not here. This privilege manifests is large and small ways. Think about how much space you take up. How much are you talking? How loud are you saying it? How wide are your legs spread? How often do you interrupt, and who do you interrupt more than others? Know that a critique of masculinity (or men as a social group) is not an individual attack on you. Know also that, in some ways, it is. If you feel guilty or badly about it, don't expect us to sympathize or process it with you. Part of our liberation means no longer being responsible for counseling you through your emotions. Teach other men to talk to male feminist leaders if you are insecure about your involvement with feminist women's activism. It may make you uncomfortable and insecure to surround yourself with fierce women, especially if you face ostracization from non-feminist men. But don't expect us to make you feel better about working with women - understand how insulting that may appear to us. Don't think that being marginalized in some other dimension (being Latino, being low-income, being queer) gives you greater access to understanding women's oppression or some closer claim to feminism. It may mean you understand marginalization, but it does not cancel out your male privilege.

Teach men they are not the first, nor the only. Don't recreate the wheel - many men have come before you. Read Allan Johnson, Robert Jensen, Jackson Katz, Steven Schacht, Michael Kimmel, Michael Messner, Robert Connell (and these are just a few of the white ones, in whose works other white men may see themselves reflected). Know they too have their flaws and are hampered. Build from them. Teach their work so that other men may know that they are not the first ones, that they are not isolated against the tide. Other men have done this, therefore you can, too. More importantly, don't forget to teach work by women - your analysis cannot come in from just reading works by white men. Your growth as men cannot come from just spending time talking about feminism with other men. If you teach, teach works by women of color, women from the Global South, women who are poor or working-class, women with disabilities. Even if you do not teach, read them. Know that there is a multiplicity of feminisms and that feminism itself is ever changing, ever growing.

Teach men to work with us, not for us. Don't teach men that we need men to save us, to be our leaders. Resist your chivalric impulses, and remember that earlier point about humility. The source of our oppression is, funnily enough, not the key to our liberation. We need you to educate and transform other men who will believe you more readily than us, but this doesn't mean you are inherently more believable or more entitled to preach feminism. Don't expect we want to or are ready to discuss where you fit in or what role you should take - many of us are still trying to figure out where we fit in, too. Learn to listen. Speak less and listen more. Lead less and listen more. Listening is essential to your transformation.