Men Champion Women’s Cause

Feminism is a word that some people wouldn’t touch with a 10-foot pole. Though it is sometimes perceived as a unilateral campaign against men, women’s rights and gender equality groups are increasingly presenting it as a movement in which people of all genders can be involved. Many scholars, activists, and student leaders are coming to redefine the term. Many of these are men.

“As a guy, I’m happy to be a feminist,” says Hugo Van Vuuren ’07, a workshop leader at the Office of Sexual Response and Prevention and the co-founder of MenSpeakUp, a website that promotes gender equality. “All it means is that you believe in equal rights.”

MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT FEMINISM

Many men are reluctant to self-identify as feminist even though they support women’s issues, says Susan B. Marine, director of the Women’s Center and assistant dean of student life.

“Men hold onto the assumption that feminists are man-haters, that there’s no way to be pro-women without being anti-men,” she says. “We need to show that it’s not just a women’s movement so that men can feel willing to sign on.”

Marine explains that part of the aversion to self-identifying as feminist has to do with misconceptions surrounding the term, partially perpetuated by feminists themselves.

Van Vuuren explains men’s varying involvement with a bell curve model, with one end representing males who objectify women, including rapists and misogynists, and the other side featuring men who are overtly and actively involved in feminist advocacy.

While these two poles often attract the most attention, Van Vuuren suggests that most men lie in the middle.

These men support women but do not publicly vocalize their sentiments, indicating that more men care about women’s issues than meets the eye, but few engage in these discussions. These are the kind of men Van Vuuren hopes will transition to the side of visible advocacy.

A PRIVILEGED PERSPECTIVE

Though men can approach the feminist movement with intentions to help, they can often end up assuming dominant roles at the expense of women’s empowerment.

“Men are socialized to be the leader and be in charge, and women are socialized to let men do that,” says Chris Linder, director of the Office of Women’s Programs and Studies at Colorado State University, adding that this can lead to a sense of superiority among men.

Linder conducted a study to examine women’s experiences collaborating with men in the feminist movement. While she notes that men and women successfully co-facilitated workshops, including discussions of sexual assault, she also observed drawbacks when men crowded out the very women they were trying to help.

“Men have a general lack of awareness around their privilege,” Linder says. “They are not aware of dominant identities, so they inadvertently take up extra space.”

SOCIAL PERMISSION

Harvard Men Against Rape is one successful example of men coming together to advocate for women’s equality and safety from sexual assault.

According to HMAR member Christopher M. Gilbert, a student at the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, the group’s goal is not to be a leader in the movement for women’s rights, but to back it up.

Gilbert adds that while only a handful of men participated in OSAPR training sessions several years ago, this year 25 to 30 men have dedicated themselves to participating in substantive anti-misogyny work.

“There’s not much space for men in those type of groups, and we wanted to give a special space for men that want to engage in that work,” Gilbert says, referring to groups like HMAR.

However, he notes that male participants are still few, often because of social pressure that they feel to conform to traditional standards of masculinity. He notes that it is easier for men to care about race issues, but few are quick to rally around gender outreach, and this is something that must be changed.

MEN IN ACTION

Andres Castro Samayoa ’10, an intern at the Women’s Center and co-president of the Women’s Leadership Project, demonstrates the ability to take on a leadership role in the women’s movement while making sure women’s voices are still heard.

Though he says that he initially questioned his leadership position in a women’s organization, he realized that a “long-term, feasible, workable solution” must involve all genders.

“I wondered about the political implications of being a male leading WLP and whether it would be seen as a political irony by having a non-woman in a leadership position,” Castro Samayoa says. “It is something that I grapple with and it was important for me to use it as an opportunity to invite people of other genders to be a part of it.”

Marine says that men’s effectiveness in the movement depends on whether they lead in a thoughtful manner.

“It’s not counteractive to the goals of feminism to have men lead women’s groups, but it could be problematic if they’re not self-aware about how they approach their work,” Marine says.

ENCOURAGING SUPPORT

Both Marine and Castro Samayoa suggest ways for men to become respectfully involved and supportive of feminism.

Marine says that men can be more effective by confronting other men about issues of gender equality.

“When a man addresses another man about a problem in society, he may be more likely to see it as something pertinent to his own life than if a woman brought it up,” she says.

Castro Samayoa notes that men, like those coming from the middle of the bell curve, need to have their assumptions about feminism challenged in order to take an active stance in the movement.

“I had a visceral philosophy and general idea of how I would like to see the world, but I didn’t know quite how to express it,” he says, adding that he wanted to take a more proactive role when he came to Harvard. “College helped me find a community where I started to realize that feminism was about creating communities and trying to come together to develop tangible ways of supporting women.”

By using their voices to encourage equality, respect for people of all genders, and healthier social norms among men and women, he says, men can help people see women’s rights as human rights.

—Staff writer Nadia L. Farjood can be reached at nadiafarjood@college.harvard.edu.

—Staff writer Alice E.M. Underwood can be reached at aeunderw@fas.harvard.edu.