Hi there, fellow rad-fems. It's time to put down your cup of "male tears" and take a shot of perspective.
While it might be easy to blame all of our problems on men, it's not helping our cause progress as quickly as it should be. Yes, there are plenty of misogynists out there, and they are causing a huge setback to gender equality, but the majority of men are probably feeling the same frustrations about gender roles that we are, they just don't know that feminism is a cause that will help them too.
I already know what you are thinking. "It isn't my job to educate men on feminism! If they feel oppressed by gender roles they should be helping themselves, since they are the gender that, historically speaking, is committing the oppression." I'm not here to tell you these aren't valid points (because they are), but to explain why, in some cases, they should be overlooked. Feminism seems like an inherently women's rights idea, but our society does in fact have men's rights issues that it can address. The most prominent problems that come to mind are the standards of hegemonic masculinity, sexual assault, and trans men’s rights. Speaking about any of these is becoming less taboo in our society, but it is time to open the floodgates to discussion so that we can all break free from oppression.
All men feel societal pressure to conform to the standards of hegemonic masculinity, even if they do not consciously realize they are doing so. The term “hegemonic masculinity” refers to the criteria men must meet in order to be viewed as “masculine” in our society. These measures include being physically strong, hiding emotion or signs of weakness, eating meat, and having sex with a plethora of women, etc. These standards are rigid, and young men especially open themselves up for bullying if they are unable or do not wish to uphold such standards. We have all seen smaller, more docile, and brainier boys get taunted for such traits, and it is no surprise that it has a tremendous impact on their self-esteem. And since there are not a lot of overly aggressive Adonis’s walking around, it’s likely that most men have felt this kind of bullying at some point in their life. What men and women alike need to realize is that breaking down certain oppressive gender roles for one gender will help collapse the roles of the other, creating a kinder and less restrictive world for all of us.
Because men are shamed for showing the amount of vulnerability that women are allowed, sexual assault against men has become a rather taboo subject. Men are less likely to report sexual assault because they fear being labeled “homosexual” or “weak”. They feel a different kind of shame than women who have been assaulted because of what they have been taught about their own masculinity. Because of these factors, sexual assault against men is not being discussed as it should, and making “don’t drop the soap in prison” jokes does not count. Feminists have been notorious for standing up for victims of sexual assault, and we shouldn’t neglect victims because they are men, or because their perpetrator might have been a woman, as seen in recent student/teacher sex scandals.
This is by no means a free pass for men to let their female counterparts do all the work, though. If we want to get to the core of gender inequality we need everyone to stand together to say no to rigid gender roles and discrimination. Men need to educate themselves on real men’s rights issues, and not disregard feminists as crazy “feminazis.”
We need to teach our sons and daughters not to bully others for their appearance or interests, and we definitely need to teach our sons to remove “faggot” from their vocabulary. Women need to realize that men feel the confined by gender roles as well, and that we need these men on our side to advance the feminist agenda. The issues of modern gender inequality cannot be solved if we don’t have support from all sectors of society, so it is imperative to view such concerns outside of our personal perspective.
