Abstract
Can men be feminists? Is ‘male feminism’ even viable? Is it at all politically requisite? If the progression central to the development of anti-patriarchal cultural consciousness is ‘Feminine, Feminist, and Female’ (Showalter, Literature 13) can men have any business in the sisterhood? If women ‘need to need men less in order to enjoy them more’ (Greer) then ‘male feminism’ may be equivalent to ignorant sabotage. But every third waver must have asked whether social and sexual justice need men to be more than pro-feminists? In this chapter I discuss problems with existing models of male-embodied feminism as well as the two potential validations of male-embodied feminism in masculinity studies and transgender studies, before positing a way out of the male-embodied feminist impasse.
[T]his is akin to saying that a non-white view is desirable because it would help to fill in a hole to lessen the critical pressure and to give the illusion of a certain incompleteness that needs the native’s input to be more complete, but is ultimately dependent on white authority to attain any form of “real” completion… Indigenous anthropology allows white anthropology to further anthropologize Man. (Minh-Ha, When the Moon Waxes Red)
Arlene Rimmer to Arnold Rimmer, in the Red Dwarf episode ‘Parallel Universe.’
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Shail, A. (2004). ‘You’re Not One of Those Boring Masculinists, Are You?’ The Question of Male-Embodied Feminism. In: Gillis, S., Howie, G., Munford, R. (eds) Third Wave Feminism. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230523173_9
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