After 40 years, goodbye to my (male) feminism
I've been a radicalized feminist since 1978, and an unconscious one prior to that. I've read the core literature, and have believed since the beginning that the single best place to start any battle for a more peaceful and humane world is with womens' rights.
It's time to stop. I've taken off my pink pussy hat. Perhaps I feel this way since I spent the recent Women's March in NYC looking at the same posters and the same angry cops I did at Take Back the Night marches on Broadway in 1984. Or the Senaca Falls womens' peace encampments. Etc. etc.
And maybe it's because I realize that strong women don't need, nor necessarily appreciate, male fellow travelers. Generic feminism now means being women-centered in a more exclusionary way than the earlier part of this wave did, I believe. (I wonder if that was true of the first and second waves of Western feminism--that they too grew more exclusionary as they evolved? I have no idea.)
Mostly, though, I became aligned with feminism because I believed it promised a breakdown of gender stereotypes that seemed laughable even in the 70's---that women should be submissive and men should be strong. I hoped and dreamed for a new reality where women could be whatever they wanted to be...and so could men. So could I, I dreamed.
If that was the promise, this wave of Western feminism has never honored its commitment to men who supported it. I understand why--helping men was never a primary (nor even secondary) goal, nor should it have been. But, now more than ever, strong women do not want weak men. I've been deluding myself all along that feminism accepted weakness when no other option was available.
In my personal life, I've chosen and benefited from a cadre of women who every one else in my community described as "strong." Athletes, artists, scholars, lawyers on the right side of the underdog battle, activists. When I am filling my role as a traditionally strong man, things have gone well with them.
But---when I have felt tired, or defeated, or sick, and allowed myself the privilege of exposing my weakness to the women in my life, only one thing has occurred: I've scared the shit out of them. I've gutted their strength. They don't want me to be weak, reject me in that condition, refuse to offer solace for the most part, and have found me sexually and emotionally unappealing. Nothing turns a strong woman against you faster than needing to curl up in a ball and cry. Or saying "I don't know what to do."
I can't afford to be a feminist any more. I can't afford to be weak, and I now need to take time to focus on myself. You women are doing fine--as fine as any of us on the battered radical left these days.
So carry on!
It's time to stop. I've taken off my pink pussy hat. Perhaps I feel this way since I spent the recent Women's March in NYC looking at the same posters and the same angry cops I did at Take Back the Night marches on Broadway in 1984. Or the Senaca Falls womens' peace encampments. Etc. etc.
And maybe it's because I realize that strong women don't need, nor necessarily appreciate, male fellow travelers. Generic feminism now means being women-centered in a more exclusionary way than the earlier part of this wave did, I believe. (I wonder if that was true of the first and second waves of Western feminism--that they too grew more exclusionary as they evolved? I have no idea.)
Mostly, though, I became aligned with feminism because I believed it promised a breakdown of gender stereotypes that seemed laughable even in the 70's---that women should be submissive and men should be strong. I hoped and dreamed for a new reality where women could be whatever they wanted to be...and so could men. So could I, I dreamed.
If that was the promise, this wave of Western feminism has never honored its commitment to men who supported it. I understand why--helping men was never a primary (nor even secondary) goal, nor should it have been. But, now more than ever, strong women do not want weak men. I've been deluding myself all along that feminism accepted weakness when no other option was available.
In my personal life, I've chosen and benefited from a cadre of women who every one else in my community described as "strong." Athletes, artists, scholars, lawyers on the right side of the underdog battle, activists. When I am filling my role as a traditionally strong man, things have gone well with them.
But---when I have felt tired, or defeated, or sick, and allowed myself the privilege of exposing my weakness to the women in my life, only one thing has occurred: I've scared the shit out of them. I've gutted their strength. They don't want me to be weak, reject me in that condition, refuse to offer solace for the most part, and have found me sexually and emotionally unappealing. Nothing turns a strong woman against you faster than needing to curl up in a ball and cry. Or saying "I don't know what to do."
I can't afford to be a feminist any more. I can't afford to be weak, and I now need to take time to focus on myself. You women are doing fine--as fine as any of us on the battered radical left these days.
So carry on!
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