Profeminist Men Research Articles

Engaging Men and Boys in Gender Justice Through Pro-Feminist Podcasts

This article explores pro-feminist podcasting as an emergent approach to engaging men and boys in gender justice. In recent years, an increasing number of podcasts have surfaced which implicitly or explicitly espouse pro-feminist praxis. However, scholarship in this area remains underexamined. This article seeks to move the literature forward by 1) situating pro-feminist podcasting within the wider multi-disciplinary literatures on critical podcasting pedagogies; 2) sharing examples from the current landscape of English-language pro-feminist podcasts; and 3) discussing the potential benefits, challenges, and risks of this approach. In doing so, this article considers how pro-feminist podcasts have the potential to expand men’s engagement efforts to wider audiences, provide new accessible entry points, and help facilitate ways to bring together and mobilise groups of pro-feminist men. However, there are several challenges and tensions involved in pro-feminist podcasting - as is the case with other forms of engaging men and pro-feminist allyship - which demonstrate that this work should be undertaken with care, ongoing reflexivity, and accountability. Overall, this article seeks to start a conversation about the potential of podcasting in the field of engaging men and boys and to draw attention to the need for further work and research in this area.

Antifeminism, Profeminism, and the Myth of White Men’s Disadvantage

AbstractThis article analyzes how members of antifeminist and profeminist men’s groups discursively situate themselves as stigmatized by privilege. While the antifeminist men engage in symbolic dis...

Aligning with feminism: Critical autoethnographic reflections of a profeminist heterosexual male teacher educator

In the last two decades, education scholarship has made significant progress in advancing the feminist social justice agenda with women scholars having been almost entirely the drivers of this movement. Women scholars in teacher education have been successful in establishing and consolidating this disciplinary field of study quite firmly in the teacher education curriculum. Despite this, many forms of oppression, including domestic or intimate partner violence and sex- and gender-based violence, continue to plague South African universities and society in general. The current COVID-19 pandemic's mandatory home confinement restrictions have further exacerbated the conditions for individuals likely to experience domestic violence. Men have been relatively silent and inactive in this social justice project. There is also limited extant scholarship that addresses the role that profeminist men might play in this social justice enterprise. There is also little work that attempts to understand the level of sophistication with which men understand feminism, determine with which feminisms men might align themselves, and the accountability and responsibility that might come with assuming certain positions. In this critical autoethnographic piece, I engage with the questions of how critical pedagogical encounters in a teacher education course might serve as disruptive devices that trouble stubbornly resistant gendered socialisations. I draw on my experiences as a teacher educator as I struggle to locate and identify my own profeminist positionality and the tensions this presents. I contemplate the poststructuralist caution about writing (my)self into a text given that the writing self is an evolving/changing self. I reflect on my attempt to disrupt obliviousness as I contemplate the prospect of self-disclosure as a point of entry for profeminist men's praxis in a teacher education programme subscribed to by young men (and women) deeply socialised in a patriarchal history and culture.

De nieuwe lichting

Abstract ‘The new batch’. Anja Meulenbelt and men's liberation in the Netherlands Dutch writer and activist Anja Meulenbelt was a key figure in second wave feminism in the Netherlands. Her autofictional novel De schaamte voorbij is considered a milestone in feminist literature in Dutch. Besides her literary work, she had published widely on gender and literary criticism from the 1970s onwards and continues to do so today. A lesser known aspect of her writing and activism concerns masculinity and male emancipation. Second wave feminism was accompanied by a pro-feminist men’s movement which included a number of short-lived periodicals such as Mannentaal en Manuscript. Meulenbelt took serious interest in this movement and commented on it in various essays and articles, arguing that its questioning of the male gender role could contribute to gender equality. This article traces Meulenbelt’s involvement with men’s activism and masculinity studies and discusses the representation of men and masculinity in two novels: De schaamte voorbij and Alba. While the former suggests an impasse in heterosexual relationships with men, even with those of the ‘new generation’ who have been influenced by feminism, the latter depicts a more gratifying relationship with an emancipated male partner.

Recreating Men’s Relationship with Nature: Toward a Profeminist Environmentalism

While feminist and profeminist scholars are increasingly in agreement with the thesis that hegemonic and destructive forms of masculinity are the source of current environmental crises, there is less agreement on how to address this issue or on the way forward for ecologically conscious and profeminist men. Some forms of ecofeminism essentialize women as being closer to nature than men, while arguing that men are closer to culture. There seems little capacity for men to change in this view. In a parallel development, some ecomasculinity theorists argue that the problem is not with the nature of masculinity per se but with the separation of men’s natural maleness from forms of masculinity that suppress their infinite capacity to care. It will be argued that such latter approaches espouse either an ecofeminine or ecomasculinist perspective rather than a social ecofeminist view. This article will explore the implications of the social ecofeminist critique (or what some writers refer to as feminist environmentalism) for understanding socially constructed masculinism, and what men can do about it, in the context of the social divisions between men across the world.

Which Feminism? Dilemmas in Profeminist Men\u2019s Praxis to End Violence Against Women

Much of the work to engage men in preventing violence against women across the globe is profeminist—it is informed by feminist perspectives and done by or in collaboration with women and women’s organisations. Men involved in this work typically are expected to support feminism and to be accountable to women and feminism. But which feminism should profeminist men support? There has been relatively little discussion of this question in the ‘engaging men’ field. Yet, organisations and individuals involved in undertaking this work, whether it is delivered by or with men, adopt a range of different approaches and the significant diversity of thought within feminist activism is also reflected to some extent within the engaging men field. This can make accountability more challenging, because it means asking: to whom specifically should profeminist men be accountable? The relationship between feminism and the theories and strategies adopted by organisations and activists in this field is often left implicit or vague, and there can be a lack of clarity or transparency about the nature of the feminist social change that such groups seek to help bring about. The paper therefore contributes to the articulation of how profeminist men should understand their relationship to feminism, and considers how they can make choices about which feminism to adopt. It argues that, by discussing more explicitly the different interpretations of feminism shaping the engaging men field, this work will be better equipped to tackle men’s violence against women through more open, rigorous and profoundly profeminist praxis.

Of Mindsets and Men: Tackling Masculinity, Patriarchy, and Privilege in Delhi

As efforts to engage men and boys in gender justice work have proliferated across the globe, so too has evidence of the potential for this work to reinforce rather than deconstruct gender inequalities, resulting in calls to assess the assumptions that underpin this work. Although a significant amount of male-based gender justice work is based in the Global South, analytical literature on efforts to engage men and boys and on pro-feminist men has been largely confined to the Global North. This article responds to the need for a better understanding of how the tensions and risks of involving men in gender justice work are dealt with in the Global South, with an exploration of the narratives of fifteen male and one assigned male at birth (AMAB) middle-class young people working to promote gender equality in New Delhi, India. I demonstrate that there is great diversity in perspectives and approach among male and AMAB gender justice workers in Delhi. While many identified as feminists, felt the need to be accountable to women’s organizations and critiqued the idea of men as victims of patriarchy, others distanced themselves from the “radical” and “political” nature of feminism, expressed concerns about the centrality of women in gender justice work and framed men as equal victims of patriarchy. I argue that the latter approach is underpinned by a focus on “mind sets” and individuals as the locus of change. In the absence of discussion of power, the structural and the political, a focus on the personal risks creating room to question the extent of female oppression and male privilege, undermining feminist goals in the interests of a more “inclusive” approach to gender justice.

Men’s Networking for Gender Justice

Concerned with the ways in which profeminist men’s organizing is taking shape in contemporary Italy and Spain, this article focuses on the collective engagement of men working toward gender justice in the current context of globalized/localized economic crisis and information society. This article results from the author’s PhD ethnographic research conducted among profeminist actors in Italy and Spain, and constitutes a reworked version of the paper presented at the American Men’s Studies Association (AMSA) International Conference 2015 in New York City (NYC).

The Boy-Child in Australian Lesbian Feminist Discourse and Community

With the development of second wave feminism and the emergence of an increasingly visible and articulate community of lesbians within feminist circles in the 1970s, an influential strand of radical feminism began to advocate separatism as a political strategy for lesbians. Simultaneously, the Australian women’s movement was opening up a space in which it was possible to acknowledge the dual role of some women as lesbians and as mothers, and a small minority of lesbians were using artificial insemination and other methods to conceive children in the context of lesbian relationships. The co-existence of these two strands of lesbian feminist thought gave rise to a new issue: that of the place of the boy-child in lesbian feminist ideology and communities. Drawing on oral history interviews and archival research, this article explores the debate about boy children in Australian lesbian feminist circles in the 1970s and 1980s. A range of views were expressed, from the suggestion that boy children presented an opportunity to raise a new generation of pro-feminist men, to the view that the boy child threatened women’s autonomy and need for sisterhood. This article traces the development of these arguments and considers the impact of the debate on the mothers of boys, their boy-children and the broader lesbian feminist community.

In Search of Progressive Black Masculinities

During the last several decades, research concerning the developmental trajectories, experiences, and behaviors of college men as “gendered” persons has emerged. In this article, we first critically review literature on Black men’s gender development and expressions within college contexts to highlight certain knowledge gaps. We then conceptualize and discuss progressive Black masculinities by relying on Mutua’s germinal work on the subject. Further, we engage Black feminist scholarship, both to firmly situate our more pressing argument for conceptual innovation and to address knowledge gaps in the literature on Black men’s gender experiences. It is our belief that scholars who study gender development and expressions of masculinities among Black undergraduate men could benefit from employing autocritography, and its built-in assumptions, to inform several aspects of their research designs. Autocritography is a critical autobiography that some Black profeminist men engage to invite readers into their gendered lifeworlds.

Feminist solidarity: no boys allowed? Views of pro-feminist men on collaboration and alliance-building with women's movements

The field of men's pro-feminist organising continues to build global momentum. Boys and men are both capable, and interested, to take action to support the feminist movement. This article explores the experiences of five men active in pro-feminist organising, focusing in particular on their ways of building solidarity and alliances with women's rights networks. The current context of men's pro-feminist organising and the ways in which alliances are being forged with women's rights networks will be explored, demonstrating a diversity of approaches. The challenges are many, particularly as women's rights networks find themselves in a hostile funding climate, and ‘men's rights’ groups continue to delegitimise women's rights and deny the existence of gender inequality. Despite these challenges, pro-feminist men's organisations are employing strategies to enhance relationships with women's rights networks, and ensure their efforts retain feminist at the core. The importance of self-reflexivity and listening for pro-feminist men to operate in feminist spaces will be stressed, as well as to build broader coalitions and create additional resources for gender equality work.

Managing oppositional masculinity politics: the gendering of a government-commissioned research project

In this paper, we draw on pro-feminist, anti-essentialist espistemological and theoretical frameworks, in conjunction with adopting autoethnographic narratives, both to provide critical insight into and contextualize the particular testimony and witnessing of our own personal involvement in the gendering of a government-commissioned research project on boys’ education. The research project was undertaken in a politically volatile environment, when the ‘what about the boys?’ debate was at its zenith in Australia. As pro-feminist men attempting to ameliorate some of the negative impacts of the boys’ debate, whilst contributing to the new sociology of masculinities field, we had to negotiate a complex gender politics operating within the bureaucracy, including aligning with allies, to undertake this research in ways that remained honest to our own politics and the research evidence we collected. Our experiences and negotiation of the gendered and politicized relationships between the bureaucrats who commissioned the research and us as researchers constitute the foci of this paper. The paper demonstrates the ways in which doing research produces a ‘set of findings’ beyond those that are the subject of the research questions. The approach adopted in the research rejected ‘epistemological innocence’ by making evident our own ‘positionalities’ and in so doing demonstrates the ways in which this research was socially framed, managed and contested and tells us much about the topic of the research and about the gendering of research.

Emotions and Redefining Black Masculinity

Using an intersectional analysis of Black masculinities, we explored how 2 African American men’s personal emotions regarding violence against women and their perceptions of masculinity became politicized by experiences that led to their participation in the founding of 2 separate profeminist men’s organizations. Through the public use of their personal narratives, the men used organizational activities to foster new raced-gendered feeling rules regarding emotion that challenge hegemonic masculinity generally and Black hegemonic masculinities, in particular. Narrative themes indicating reconceptualization of Black masculinity and feeling rules for men included (a) ‘‘becoming aware’’ of an injustice to a woman that generated negative emotions, and (b) ‘‘becoming active’’ in the profeminist men’s movement that allowed the transformation of negative emotions into positive ones. We make recommendations for future research that pays particular attention to how depictions of Black masculinity stigmatize Black men’s emotionality in ways that exacerbate differences in emotion norms between men and women and among different racially constructed groups of men.

Killing Bill –– men as rebellious feminists in the politics of passing

This thesis explores constructions of gendered and gender political positions and practices of men identifying as ‘feminist’. The analysis is based on qualitative interviews with 28 men aged 20-34. At issue is how seemingly contradictory positions for men as feminists are made comprehensible in theory and practice. An introduction showcase theoretical discussions on gendered experiences and the possibilities of men being feminist, mainly from standpoint, radical feminist and poststructuralist radical constructionist perspectives. Men doing feminism emerge as an unresolved complex matter. This is followed by a critical discussion of state feminism, double emancipation and research on men and masculinities in the welfare state. The support for men’s participation, predominantly as white heterosexual fathers, in the Swedish gender equality project has consequences for the construction of men as potentially ‘new’, ‘good’ gender equal feminist subjects. In the construction of profeminist positions in interview performances, interviewees are located in-between the radical feminist, poststructuralist and gender equality perspectives on men, masculinity and feminism. Two themes involve an implementation of the concept of passing and introduce the analytical concept of co-fielding. Passing consists of the microsociological process of making radical and deconstructive profeminist positions authentic and yet being able to manage masculinity in homosocial contexts. Co-fielding refers to the conjoint interlacing of experiences, knowledge and meaning-making in interview interaction where relations of researcher-researched are characterized by discursive closeness and overlapping positions. Co-fielding practices affect the outcomes of co-construction of interview performances, the negotiation of gender and power relations and the reflexive use of (in this case feminist) knowledge in qualitative interviews. In analyzing the presentations of self, ambiguous meanings of profeminist positions emerge and the doing, undoing and redoing of feminism and masculinity appear multi-faceted. Radical feminism and radical constructionism seem intersected in making men’s feminist positions comprehensible. Such rebellious positions emerge as oxymoronic and, when critically brought into the gender equality context, located in a no man’s land out of place. In all, the thesis seeks to bring together theoretical, national and empirical locations of profeminist men, and in a concluding chapter also explore issues of ethics in feminist research and cross-gender interviewing.

Men and gender activism in South Africa: observations, critique and recommendations for the future

abstract This focus describes the origins, philosophies and rationales of some of the early pro-feminist men's organisations in South Africa since 1994. It looks at some of the literature on men and masculinities in South Africa and makes the claim that work with men in South Africa is in both women's and men's interest. The paper provides an overview of select male involvement programmes in South Africa and attempts to identify lessons emerging from these efforts. It challenges the overly narrow focus characteristic of many of these programmes. It also makes the case that work with men needs to move beyond a narrow reliance on workshops and community education and become more activist in its approach to demanding solutions to domestic and sexual violence and to promoting gender equality. The paper concludes by drawing on an example of successful gender activism and points to possible next steps.

Narrative Therapy as a Counter-Hegemonic Practice

This article illustrates the practice of narrative therapy as an application of pro-feminist men’s scholarship. Narrative therapy examines gender discourses that support women’s oppression and men’s engagement in practices of entitlement and dominance. By engaging in collaborative conversations, men in narrative therapy may develop a reflexive awareness that creates space for alternative ways of being. A case example illustrates narrative practices, such as deconstructing dominant discourses, separating the problem of male training from individual men, inviting men to examine their relationship with patriarchy and its effects on their lives and relationships, and inspiring men to perform alternative narratives of self that have preferred real effects and counter the practices of hegemonic masculinity.

Men Helping Men to Become Pro-Feminist

SUMMARY In this article, Poling explores the process of mentoring and mutual accountability between men who struggle to be pro-feminist and nonviolent. Two students share their own struggles with changing awareness and their responsibility to prevent violence against women. They focus on issues of worship in local congregations where there are men who have been violent. Poling responds with an analysis of the stages of conversion for pro-feminist men.

Teaching Men's Studies in Religion at an All-Women's College

An all-women's college could provide the perfect opportunity to address two important issues: to develop an additional model for teaching men's studies within undergraduate religious studies and to facilitate a collective women's response to profeminist men's studies. To accomplish both these tasks, we piloted a new course at Agnes Scott College during fall semester 1999, entitled “Women, Masculinities, and Religion.” This course, including its female participants' responses to men's studies work in religion during the 1990s, constitutes one specific site of the intersection of men's studies scholarship and professional practice, the further exploration of which may both enhance pedagogical conversations within the academy and contribute to the future shape of genuinely profeminist men's studies work within the field of religious studies. To these ends, this paper describes the shape and content of the course, and examines both related pedagogical issues and students' responses to the course design and content.

The Role of Profeminist Men in Dealing With Woman Abuse on the Canadian College Campus

Stopping woman abuse on the North American college campus has not been very successful thus far. There is a major backlash, where students, faculty, and administrators too often either feel that the problem is not very significant or support the patriarchal rights of men. Programs begun by many campuses have not worked very well, partially because they depend on women to police the actions of men and partially because so few men come under formal social control that most offenders know that they can get away with their actions. Building on empirical research that suggests that male peer support is the most important factor on whether a male will be abusive, the authors suggest ways in which profeminist men can begin to tilt the balance against male aggression. This can include shaming or working with bullies or those who are abusive, protesting pornography, and involving oneself with education programs and/or support groups.

Beyond The Father Wound: Memory‐Work And The Deconstruction Of The Father–son Relationship

This article examines how profeminist men in a collaborative inquiry group used memory‐work to make sense of their experiences of discontent with their fathers. It challenges the current conceptualisation of this dissatisfaction with fathers as ‘the father wound’ and the emphasis on encouraging men to forgive their fathers unilaterally for what they have done. The article also challenges the view that boys need to identify with their fathers to establish their gender identity and suggests that sons can construct their masculine subjectivity through dis‐identification with patriarchal fathers and through empathy with the experiences of their mothers.