I’ve come across some debates recently on the relationship between males and feminism that have got me thinking about how feminism should be taught to boys and young men (or old men! But I’m trying to keep somewhat on task with the theme of youth, sexuality, and education).

Some of these arguments, written by men, women, and I’m sure others, have been incredibly sensitive and on-point, except that their conclusion—that men cannot really be feminists—left me feeling uncomfortable. And when something makes me uncomfortable, I know I need to understand it better. These arguments have two main points: 1) accepting men as feminists is a perpetuation of patriarchy because men can’t remove themselves from their power and privilege in relation to women, and 2) if you’re not politicized by being treated as part of a marginalized category of persons, then you can really only ever be pro- (i.e., men can’t be feminists any more than, for instance, white people can be black nationalists).

This race-based comparison that kept cropping up actually raises a lot of questions about the nature of responsible alliance, coalition, and other forms of solidarity work that I’ll have to explore in another post. (I often wonder if this kind of thinking doesn’t foist the responsibility for problems back onto the oppressed.)

This race analogy also just doesn't fit here. If you’re white, you can’t choose to identify as black or as a black nationalist because race, being a social construct, functions by the social and material resources that differentially accrue to racialized bodies. The inequalities here have to do with the way your “racial belonging” is perceived. For a white person to claim blackness would be an oppressive act of appropriation. But in my thinking (so far at least), to identify as a feminist is not to identify as a woman. There are a lot of flavors of feminism, for sure, but I’ve long been under the impression that at its heart, feminism is “the radical notion that women are people” (to trot out that well-worn phrase by Cheris Kramarae and Paula Treichler) and therefore deserving of all the moral worth belonging to their humanity, and all the opportunities which should enable its full expression. Plus, as Bitch says in its FAQ, “feminism isn’t all about women—it’s about resisting and creating alternatives to systematic oppression.”

http://bitchmagazine.org/post/what-does-a-feminist-look-like-teaching-boys-about-feminism