So, with a fellow PhD student I’ve set up a blog called ‘feminismandtwoguys‘.
The about is this
We are two guys (Steffen and Marc) who are studying in Manchester. This site is about us trying to learn from different types of feminism. That involves listening, reflecting, honouring the vast amount of physical and intellectual work that has been done by women.
This site is a chronicle of our learning, and an attempt to engage in fruitful and civil conversations with women and men about questions of social and environmental justice.
It is NOT an attempt;
- to claim that we have somehow ‘arrived’ at a state of being ‘feminist men’ (we disagree over whether men should use that label)
- to claim leadership of either ‘feminism’ or ‘pro-feminism’
- to mansplain
Once a month we will both write something on ‘a topic’ – some examples will be
- What does practical solidarity look like? What are the grey areas – i.e. when can it end up as silencing, ‘white knighting’ and mansplaining?
- What are the personal reasons/journeys that brought you to an understanding of feminism?
- What do you do in situations with other men when someone is being sexist, but not overtly and blatantly so?
- Which feminist theorists do you like? Which don’t you like?
- What changes would you like to see in the way your subculture (academia/activism) works?
- What are the big gaps in your feminist *practice* that worry you?
We hope to get a conversation going, and learn some stuff (though obvs women are under no obligation to do work of education that we should be doing ourselves).
The first topic (perhaps ill-chosen, but so it goes) was ‘should men sympathetic to feminism label themselves feminists?
Steffen’s take is here. Mine starts below (teaser). Please comment on t’other site rather than this one…
Should men sympathetic to feminism call themselves feminists? I don’t think so, for a few reasons. I think it is presumptuous, a misunderstanding, a hostage to fortune and a political mis-step. In what comes next, I want first off to acknowledge that my position is shaped by reading some fabulous supple thinkers (though errors remain mine). I can’t track down the exact publications, but these on the notion of ‘allyship’ were part of the mix, I think.
Continued here….
marchudson.net 
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