Friday, April 8, 2011

Talking about feminism

It's important for men to talk openly about their relationships with women. That's always going to be the most important part of a project like this one -- just getting men to talk. By and large, this doesn't happen; so I think we have to look at it as a goal in itself, since little else can happen without it.

To some extent this means being flexible enough in focus to accommodate what men honestly want to say when reflecting on their relationships with women. For many men, trying to articulate themselves along feminist lines is daunting enough, without the added expectation of being fluent in considerations of class. So the emphasis for me is on making working class men comfortable in their pursuit of feminism -- in other words, class and feminism coming together in practice, if not immediately in theory.

As I reflect on my own role, I'm a little disappointed I haven't pursued this thinking more aggressively, because I think it's prevented me from saying very much around here lately. And that sucks! So I'm going to try to put more of the raw material from my own life out here, without worrying so much about where it falls or whether it will do any good. I think an inevitable part of being a "feminist man in solidarity with women" is that a lot of the time you aren't going to know this in advance; though this mustn't stop you from trying.

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