All Men Need Feminism
All Men Need Feminism.
It’s Women’s History Month, and this article is for men. Why? Because all men need feminism. Dudes, we need to be doing better! We all, including us queer men, are in a social position closest to privilege organized by a patriarchal hierarchy. No matter how disenfranchised we feel from male privilege due to our sexual orientation, gender expression, or degree of classically male characteristics, systemic patriarchal values move through us consciously or not.
The issue isn’t being a “man”; the problem is how we have been socialized as male and the subsequent internalized misogynistic and patriarchal values that harm those who live in the feminine spectrum and us. This Women’s History Month and for the rest of the year, I encourage you to take a beat and ask yourself where your values and bias come from regarding gender, consider how patriarchy has harmed you, and how feminism can impact your life.
Patriarchy in our Community
As an LGBTQ-specialized psychotherapist, I possess a solid queer feminist theoretical orientation with working with clients. At Denver Men’s Therapy, I work with many gay, bi, trans, queer, and questioning men. Most of these guys want to use therapy to learn who they are outside of the harmful socialized expectations of the male gender role informed by systemic patriarchy.
It’s essential to understand the formal definition of patriarchy as how our culture is organized by placing power, privilege, and authority on men and excluding women. When I talk about the psychological impact of patriarchy on men, I’m referring to how harsh and rigid cultural expectations of manhood limit, restrict, and cut off men from their relationship with themselves. Psychologically and socially, I see this as the root cause of perpetuating patriarchy, IE, patriarchal violence towards women, femininity, and one’s inner feminine characteristics. We are socialized to hate those parts of ourselves, and so we direct that hate toward embodiments that remind us of our shame.
Frederick Joseph and Patriarchy Blues
New York Times Best Selling Author Frederick Joseph invites deep considerations of the interplay of race, gender, identity, history, and culture in our lives in his feminist-based social justice-framed writing in his book Patriarchy Blues. In his book, he states, “Males cannot love themselves in patriarchal culture if their very self-definition relies on submission to patriarchal roles. When men embrace feminist thinking and practice, which emphasizes the value of mutual growth and self-actualization in all relationships, their emotional well-being will be enhanced. A genuine feminist politics always brings us from bondage to freedom, from lovelessness to loving.”
Patriarchy is elusive and abstract. The only thing we know about it is that we’re supposed to uphold it; otherwise, we’re shamed. Every human is harmed by patriarchy because it stops us from genuinely examining who we are and identifying our intrinsic values. It prevents us from pursuing goals based on joy and authentic pleasure out of fear of it being associated with femininity. We lose ourselves through being socialized male in how we have been shamed, guilted, and ridiculed into prioritizing this false concept of patriarchy, manhood, and gender roles. We need to step back and look at how being socialized in a rigid gender binary has harmed us. At the same time, we have the most privilege as men in this conversation, allowing us to make the most change. We dudes need to take responsibility for dismantling the patriarchy.
Joseph states, “As a cisgender heterosexual man, I belong to the group that has created and perpetuated these oppressive behaviors and systems. Therefore, it is largely up to us to help destroy them. But it’s not enough to simply pick up a weapon; We should be locking arms with our sisters on the front lines.” I couldn’t agree more. Even within queer contexts, feminism seems to be polarized as it is formed in opposition to patriarchy. At the same time, throughout the waves of feminism, there have also been overt forms of racism and classism that have divided feminists. However, intersectional feminists like Angela Davis, Charlene A. Carruthers, Fredericks Joseph, and bell hooks carry feminism into the future in their multidimensional and equitable perspectives. And guys, if you are not reading these authors, you are missing out. They will change your life.
bell hooks and Feminism is for Everybody
bell hooks was an author, theorist, educator, and social critic whose work centered around race, class, gender, sexuality, and feminism. Her book Feminism is for Everybody, Passionate Politics was written as a resource for Hooks to hand to people who question or doubt feminist thoughts instead of having to defend her perspectives repeatedly in social interactions. The book is an approachable and relatable handbook for understanding the positive attributes of multifaceted feminism to eliminate sexism, sexist exploitation, and oppression in all our lives.
What is so supportive and comprehensive in this book is how it discusses that everyone is under the oppressive nature of patriarchy. This perspective illuminates patriarchy as a false concept, an artificial construct used to claim and maintain dominance over populations. Patriarchy is an arbitrary organization of value and is utilized for supremacy and capitalism in the general functioning of contemporary culture.
hooks highlights how even men do not want to participate in upholding patriarchy but feel that they have to out of fear of losing control of their power. hooks states:
“Most men are disturbed by hatred and fear of women, by male violence against women, even the men who perpetuate this violence. But they fear letting go of the benefits. They were not certain what will happen to the world they know most intimately if patriarchy changes. So they find it easier to passively support male domination even when they know in their minds and hearts that it is wrong. Again and again men tell me they have no idea what it is feminists want. I believe them. I believe in their capacity to change and to grow. And I believe that if they knew more about feminism they would no longer fear it, for they would find in feminism feminist movement the hope of their own release from the bondage of patriarchy.”
Queer Feminism
For LGBTQ considerations, adapting and highlighting hooks’s words is vital. Let’s not just think of her accounts of hatred and fear of women as limited to gendered women. Let’s include how examples of femininity within a queer culture are shamed and aggressed upon every day at the hands of dominant culture gay men. Masc-for-masc superiority, femme and bottom shaming, and transphobia all fall within patriarchal-motivated aggression. Most prevalent is our own internalized homophobia that we experience at any given moment. That’s patriarchy. As I said before, patriarchy is pervasive and insidious. It moves through all of us and, if not attended to, causes harm to others through our unconscious biases. hooks states, “Feminist politics aimed to end domination to free us to be who we are-to live lives where we love justice, where we can live in peace. Feminism is for everyone.
Speaking from an even more queerly situated perspective, I do hope that the sentiments of bell hooks and Frederick Joseph can be carried forward to dismantle patriarchy and, at the same time, not be dependent upon feminism. The two exist in opposition to each other and contribute to the polarization of gender, gender politics, and gender expression. Ideally, from the deconstruction of patriarchy through beautiful feminism, we can take conversations beyond a binary discussion. To simplify, history and today are patriarchal, the future is feminist, and the ideal is nonbinary: gender expansive and explorative.
Ocean Atlas and NonBinary for Beginners
Author of Nonbinary For Beginners Ocean Atlas provides a beautiful summary for this consideration of looking past the dichotomous relationship between patriarchy and feminism, black and white, male and female, and provides a comprehensive understanding of how rich life can be when we dismantle systems of oppression, patriarchy.
Atlas states, “Stepping out of the binary has implications beyond gender that will enrich our lives. We are conditioned to think in black and white, right and wrong, good and bad, period, black-and-white thinking, or all-or-nothing or polarized thinking is a trauma response to try to make sense of and gain a semblance of control in a confusing world. It is also a tool that people in power use to keep their power—If the public is not thinking critically, they are easier to control. But the world is not black and white. It is gray and sparkly and all of the colors of the rainbow.”
All Men Need Feminism.
It is up to us, men, to dismantle this system of oppression. We have the most access to it even though we are under its thumb. So, how is it that we cannot just lock arms with our sisters but also lock arms with all siblings and take accountability for expanding consciousness and embracing the richness of diversity in our lives? It might be scary, and we were socialized to be tough. We all know that is a fallacy. And everyone, including those who value male privilege the most, will benefit by expanding beyond this harmful theoretical frame of patriarchy. So, let’s start with feminism and take it from there.
Feminist Curiosity
I encourage you to cultivate curiosity around why all men need feminism and engage with the literary works of Frederick Joseph, bell hooks, Ocean Atlas, and other future-oriented, anti-patriarchy thinkers. Check me out at Denver Men’s Therapy if you are seeking therapy to help you understand how patriarchy has harmed you and discover your authentic self and relationship to gender. Just because patriarchy is embedded in our history doesn’t mean it has to continue. This Women’s History Month, see how feminism can support you.
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