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From: riddle@ut-sally.UUCP (Prentiss Riddle)
Newsgroups: net.women
Subject: Re: Men and feminism
Message-ID: <784@ut-sally.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 16-Jan-84 14:19:11 EST
Article-I.D.: ut-sally.784
Posted: Mon Jan 16 14:19:11 1984
Date-Received: Tue, 17-Jan-84 02:39:04 EST
References: <6415@watdaisy.UUCP>
Organization: U. Texas CS Dept., Austin, Texas
Lines: 26

A friend of mine raised an interesting point the other day.  He was brought
up in an outspokenly feminist household and has never had a doubt in his mind
about the equality of the sexes and the need of women (and men!) to be free
to develop outside of traditional sexual roles.  Nevertheless he has grown
weary of hostility from the sort of over-zealous feminists who refuse to
believe that anyone can be a feminist who happens to have a penis.

His point was that not only are there many male feminists today, but that
there must have been many male feminists from the very beginnings of the
movement, fighting "right beside Susan B." as he put it.  One common-sense
demonstration of this is that if legislation was passed which eventually
gave women the right to vote, there must have been a large number of men
willing to vote for it.  Yet you never read about these men in the standard
accounts of the women's movement.

I know very little about the history of feminism.  Is my friend correct?
Where could he look to find out more about men who have fought against
sexism?  Is the material out there, or is this an overlooked point of
history on which some basic work needs to be done?  If feminism is to
mature from an "up with women!" movement to a movement truly committed to
freeing all of us from sexual straightjackets, maybe men's role in its
history deserves a little more consideration.
----
Prentiss Riddle
("Aprendiz de todo, maestro de nada.")
{ihnp4,seismo,ctvax}!ut-sally!riddle