If my Facebook news feed is any reflection of my political, social, and moral stances on contemporary issues, I am all over the map. I am an atheist and a supporter of religious freedom (including the freedom to not be). I am a veteran but I despise nationalistic propaganda. And I am definitely a Feminist (with a capital "f"). Or a Feminist ally, depending on who you ask. I happily wear either label.
I get the sense that many people would find the fact that I am a man and Feminist to be a contradiction. However, just like the previous examples, they are not mutually exclusive.
Feminism is certainly a social justice movement for women. It picked up steam in the late 1800s as Feminists fought tirelessly for equality and basic human rights of women. The name of the movement still bears this venerable legacy, even if it isn't perfect and wasn't always perfect.
Feminism now is not quite as singular in purpose. Leading Feminist publications seem to care about a large variety of topics from a variety of viewpoints. As such, it absolutely cares about men (check this out) and historically has, even if it does and has focused on women more. It is also true that Feminists generally take the view that men, women, and other gender expressions are complete human beings. In so doing we hold everyone accountable for their actions.
If you ever bother to read feminist forums and comment sections on feminist articles, you will likely notice a couple of things:
1) Feminists care about involvement of race, class, faith, sexuality, etc. intersecting with gender issues. This gets complicated quickly and it is not always easy to figure out precisely what is going on.
2) Feminists agree on almost nothing. This is something I LOVE about the movement and this is ultimately its greatest strength, in my opinion. It is complicated, supportive, combative, intense, humane, and unapologetic.
This brings us to my situation. Like many of us, I grew up with only a vague notion of what Feminism was/is. There was even a time where I thought it was a group of angry women complaining about nothing. However, as I left my teenage years behind and was thrust into adulthood too early (read: I went to Iraq and hated it), I could not help but notice some strange trends regarding how we do gender in the U.S. My first real observations of troubling gender practices were from my time in the military, let us begin there.
Women are still not allowed to specialize in combat arms jobs and are kept separate during basic training. It is getting better (if you want to call having permission to kill and die for often bullshit reasons "better"), but that improvement is rather recent. The justifications for gender exclusion are insulting nonsense. Here is a non-comprehensive list of some things that a friend of mine (I love you bro) and I came up with off the top of our heads.
1) "Men wouldn't follow battle tactics because they'd be too worried about saving the women. Men can't handle seeing women get killed." This is extremely insulting to men. It suggests that professional war-fighters could not possibly do their job correctly because of the mere presence of a vagina. It suggests that seeing any woman die would be somehow worse than any other close friend in your unit (read: men are naturally more disposable to other men than women).
2) "Women would be raped in the infantry." This is the only one that made any semblance of sense, but it is still problematic. It is quite true that the U.S. Military has a sexual assault problem. However, this reasoning implies that this would naturally be the case. It suggests men should be viewed as animals unable to control ourselves. This is a strange argument given how much our military focuses on discipline. However, women do get raped in the military. And men, and who knows how many more cases go unreported in such a macho culture (FYI: this is what is being done about it). So what gives? Is the military just inherently rapey? Do we think that having women around more would make more rape happen? On this view, rape is about lack of sex (which is bullshit, rape is about power and control). So wouldn't more women mean more sex? Presumably some would want to have sex sometimes.
Whether or not you are confused about the nature of this issue, I presume most of us would want it to change. Ideas of how to affect change have been varied but generally have one common thread. The military itself needs a culture change. It needs a serious change in how it deals with dissent. One is expected to be willing to contradict superiors who give unlawful orders and expected to follow all orders without question. Anyone see a problem here?
The excuse I heard while serving: that women are just going to be raped, because men, was one of my first serious experiences with the concept of rape culture, although I did not know it then. Military commands are dismissive of rape allegations (they have a vested interest in sweeping issues under the rug), and nobody wants to be the person who complains a lot. You are a pariah and you live with some of your bosses. That is never a recipe for feeling safe to speak out.
Note that none of this implies that this has to be the current paradigm. A cultural problem is not an excuse to deny someone else equality. For example: it may be the case that Christianity (#notALLchristians, am I right?) in the U.S. has a serious prejudice against non-heterosexual people. That does not mean that we should deny people marriage equality.
3) "Hygienic disadvantages (menstrual cycles would interfere with
combat)." This has to be one of the dumbest I have heard. I guess women have never managed to fight in wars before? How did our species ever survive before tampons?
4) "Physical capabilities of women just don't cut it." And if women can do it? Many men can't hack it either, should we ban men too?
5) "Women are too compassionate and nurturing for combat. They're not aggressive enough. They get hurt more easily." This might be the quintessential mansplaining type of example. Because Estrogen or something. Even if women were inherently more compassionate how does that mean they couldn't fight? Also, women getting hurt more is not that clear cut.
6) "Unintended pregnancy would be higher. They would have to take time off for child bearing and
rearing." And you don't in other jobs? Are men not supposed to take paternity leave? I wonder how anything gets done at companies that have both men and women.
7) "The availability of sex would undermine unit cohesion (other males would be jealous of the
one(s) dating the female(s))." This is related slightly to number one but I am going to cover this in the list below.
Piggy-backing on the obvious issues already mentioned are the not-so-obvious ones. These are my observations from the Signals Intelligence unit I worked at, which was fairly integrated (by Marine Corps standards).
1) Military members talk about women in their units like they are all sluts. Many people in your unit consistently talking about your workmates derogatorily is definitely going to hurt unit cohesion (point 7 above) way more than if two dudes were seeing the same woman or one of them had his heart broken by her. Also, why can't military women be as sexual as they want to? How could that possibly be a bad thing for heterosexual men they know? I know, STDs right? Not necessarily higher than men.
2) Military members get upset at different physical fitness requirements. They also say women cannot physically handle combat. This is a no-win situation for women. You are treated differently and derided for this difference you did not create. When you try to be the same (do a combat job) you are told you are different. It's rather insane.
3) Minor point: different uniforms. So we want everyone to be, well uniform, but let's have different uniform and grooming standards for men and women. I still have no idea what the U.S. Military would do with anyone not in a our assumed gender binary. I have always been mystified as to why we could not invent something universal that was fitted to the individual. Well, read the comments here: OH MY GOD, NOT "GIRLY" HATS!!!! In reality, this is likely a holdover of a bygone era when women were first only admitted into service in a very limited fashion and had to look, you know, LIKE WOMEN! Change happens very slowly sometimes and the U.S. Military is very slow with some things. Why would we let progress get in the way of tradition?
These observations, among others, in my early adult life demonstrated that while many legal victories had been won for women, we are culturally non-egalitarian (in the military at least). I still knew very little about gender bias in our culture at large and was dismissive of sexism claims when I left service after my contract expired.
...Fast forward one year...
When I arrived at Dartmouth College, I had no idea that I would major in linguistics. However, after I took my first introductory linguistics class, I was hooked. I took every linguistics class I could until I graduated. What does this have to do with feminism? EVERYTHING. The way we talk about gender matters and the way we talk about gendered talk is downright silly.
My linguistics education process was the first time I ran across peer reviewed literature that demonstrated empirically that we assume unsubstantiated gender biases (and no, women do NOT talk more than men), and that our ideas about gender are not necessarily natural or superior to any others. We are often sexist and do not even realize it. Talk about a shock to my worldview.
Note: Scholarship on linguistic construction of gender (including this) is incredibly fascinating!!
It turns out that we know very little about what we presume to know about gender (big surprise, right?). Our most basic assumptions are often only that. This realization inevitably leads the caring person to consider that they might have displayed sexist behavior them-self. It forces you to examine yourself as part of a larger cultural system reinforces (perhaps unwittingly) sexist notions that box us all into expected behavior patterns. It also forces you change your behavior because you likely don't want to continue such practices.
Consequently, I have attempted to do so. I have tried to be very aware of interrupting women. This has led to MANY embarrassing apologies. I have tried to speak up when friends of mine display overtly sexist behavior. I became quite the feminist clicktivist (pats self on back). I also argued with people online. Like, a lot. This is me.
Through attempts to be better than I was raised and attempts to learn more about that which I was blind to for so many years; I saw many actions which felt to me like a personal call to action. I saw strong women recovering from horrific abuse talk about their past and advocate for others. I saw men embracing a new masculinity. I saw old religious institutions and ideas openly challenged by brave individuals. I saw people breaking away from troubling feminist rhetoric and embracing more inclusive discourse.
Seeing this display of bravery and tolerance, I changed too. I became more willing to challenge expectations that people had for me. I was better at sticking up for myself and others. I learned how to identify privileges that I posses that others may not. I learned how to critic my own behavior without hating myself for it. I allowed myself to candidly show emotion (more than just every now and then) and compassion for others. I learned better how to express what I feel, not just what I think. Embracing a more inclusive idea of what it could mean to be man was cathartic and liberating.
TL,DR: Because the Marines and linguistics.
