insideMAN

Should feminists celebrate International Men’s Day?

by 5 Comments

Today a former critic of International Men’s Day (IMD), Joseph Gelfer, says it’s time for feminists to cautiously embrace the day. Here our news editor and UK Co-ordinator for IMD, Glen Poole, explores feminism’s evolving relationship with the day.

It’s International Men’s Day next month (Saturday 19th November). Launched in its current format in 1999, the annual day of observance, shines a spotlight on some of the issues facing men and boys around the world.

The binary nature of gender is such, that traditional women’s rights advocates have positioned themselves in rigid opposition to the day, but we are beginning to see a backlash within feminism, from a younger generation of more fluid and inclusive feminists, who see no conflict in expressing concern for both men’s issues and women’s issues.

Is International Men’s Day about Men’s Rights or Men’s Issues?

 

In an article for insideMAN, Joseph Gelfer, a researcher on men and masculinities explains why he has shifted from opposing International Men’s Day (IMD),  to saying he would “rather take the good with the bad than reject IMD in totality”. This marks a break with the position taken by many leading male feminists who have consistently opposed the day’s existence.

http://www.inside-man.co.uk/2016/11/01/i-changed-mind-international-mens-day/

Back in 2004, the feminist scholar Michael Flood, published an “an open letter of rejection” saying that IMD was at best naïve and “at worst hostile anti-feminist” and called for men’s organisations and their allies to boycott the day.

This feminist-led opposition to International Men’s Day has continued for more than a decade now. Last year, the University of York’s Equality and Diversity committee was forced to withdraw plans to mark IMD after academics, students and alumni complained that by saying “gender equality is for everyone” the committee was echoing “misogynistic rhetoric” about women’s rights being given greater priority than men’s issues.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/nov/19/international-mens-day-what-celebrating

While leading male feminists, such as Michael Kaufman, founder of the global White Ribbon campaign to end men’s violence against women and girls, have acknowledged that that IMD focuses on some of the very real problems that men and boys face, they still oppose the day.

Both Kaufman and his fellow commentator on men and masculinities, Michael Kimmel, have observed that IMD’s support for gender equality has grown over the years, but argue the annual event should be scrapped or replaced, because it isn’t feminist enough.

For Kaufman and his colleague, Gary Barker of Promundo, an NGO dedicated to transforming masculinity,  “the problem with the IMD idea is that men’s vulnerabilties” are not placed within the context of “the ongoing oppression of women”. Kimmel also takes issue with the framing of IMD, wondering if it is “inspired by feminism or opposed to it”, as if there were just two binary choices when it comes to gender politics.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-kaufman-phd/international-mens-day-wh_b_4302641.html

But asking if IMD should support feminism, is like asking if Easter or Fathers’ Day or Wednesdays should support feminism. It’s a date in the global calendar, that long outgrew its founder in Trinidad & Tobago and neither he, nor anyone else, has the power or authority to control how millions of people around the world mark IMD.

Like feminism and masculinity, it is unhelpful to think of International Men’s Day as a singular, homogenous thing. If there are “feminisms” and “masculinities” and “femininities”, then there are also “International Men’s Days”.

So the question of whether IMD should support feminism is an irrelevance, the question for feminists all over the world, is what does your International Men’s Day project look like and how will you “do” your feminism on IMD this year?

Since taking on the role of national co-ordinator for IMD in the UK, with the support of the day’s founder, our aim has been to create the day as an open and inclusive platform, where we can focus on the many different issues that men and boys face.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/thinking-man/10456888/Do-we-really-need-an-International-Mens-Day.html

In 2011, we hosted a national conference in the run up to IMD, where our aim was to look beyond the view that “women HAVE problems and men ARE problems” and explore the problems that men and boys have, in addition to, not in opposition to, the problems women and girls have.

After the event, around 100 individuals and organisations who either attended or were supportive, signed a joint letter to Government. The signatories included charities dealing with male victims of intimate violence; organisations helping separated dads; people working with gay, bisexual and transgender men; advocates for black men and boys and a campaigner for equal paternity leave, who now supports the Women’s Equality Party.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/nov/19/international-mens-day

 

It was a diverse mix of non-feminists, pro-feminists and a few anti-feminists; each with their own unique views on how to address men’s issues, but united in the belief that we can and should do more the help men and boys.

In the UK, this is what International Men’s Day is all about.  It is a piece of inclusive public theatre that invites everyone to take part and create their own unique International Men’s Days.

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/we-need-international-mens-day-about-as-much-as-a-white-history-month-or-able-body-action-day-a6740646.html

 

As such, anyone is free to take the stage, hide in the wings, sit back and watch or heckle from the sidelines, but whatever choice we make will shine a spotlight on how we “do” our gender politics.

For the MP, Jess Philips, for example,  “doing feminism” on International Men’s Day last year, meant opposing a debate about men’s issues in parliament and engaging in what one commentator described as “politically inept”, “cowardly flipflopping”.

http://www.spiked-online.com/newsite/article/jess-phillips-is-not-my-hero/17730#.WBfG6OF97Uo

Others decided to do their feminism in more constructive ways. The feminist director, the South Bank Centre, Jude Kelly, moved the “Being a Man” festival to November, to coincide with IMD and said:

“Events like International Men’s Day and Southbank Centre’s Being a Man festival are helping men to investigate what conflicts the modern man faces in a world where everything is changing: work, family, image and gender balance.”

https://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/international-mens-day-helping-men-talk-about-being-a-man/

 

Then there was the student in York, Ruth Morris, who showed the 200 academics, students and alumni signed an open letter opposing IMD that they weren’t doing feminism in her name. Ruth set up a petition that that garnered over 4,000 signatures by declaring:

“True feminists should be fighting for gender equality for both men and women. To cancel men’s day is simply hypocritical. Equality is not just for women and should concern all genders. All feminists are being wrongly portrayed here which is simply unfair. We are not man-haters and the university should go ahead with plans to celebrate all diversity, not just one gender.”

And for me personally, most heartening of all, was the decision of University of Surrey’s Feminist Society, who invited a male student to research and present a talk on men’s issues. In response a spokesperson for the society said:

http://www.inside-man.co.uk/2016/02/16/4655/

 

“There are clearly a great many issues which men face today, and a great many which are almost invisible to the public at large, and I believe that is much that Feminism as a broad movement can do to solve, mitigate and highlight these issues.”

Yes, there are many different feminisms and yes, there are many different International Men’s Days and what Joseph Gelfer, Jude Kelly, Ruth Morris and the University of Surrey’s Feminist Society show us, is that it is entirely possible to do your feminism in a way that is supportive of International Men’s Day, without compromising your principles or commitment to gender equality.

http://freethoughtblogs.com/hetpat/2015/11/18/why-i-am-done-arguing-about-international-mens-day/

 

Glen Poole has recently published his latest book, You Can Stop Male Suicide, which is available to buy online from www.StopMaleSuicide.com.

 

 

  • Pingback: Is International Men’s Day about Men’s Rights or Men’s Issues? | IMD UK()

  • Groan

    Of course they should if they are at all interested in the social construction of gender. Being an old fart I remember that it as in fact feminists that “uncovered” many of the issues that MRAs go on about now. By being the first to look at things in terms of gender. So the differential arrest ,conviction and sentencing was at first feminist issue as women were diverted from punishment because of their fragility or illness, Similarly so exclusion of men from childcare. Assumptions of financial responsibility for “dependant” women. High rates of homelessness. To name but a few issues I read about first from self described “feminist” authors. Possibly the 70s was some sort of new dawn (or just plain chaotic) but when I returned to thse issues a couple of decades later I discovered it had all gone right off the rails. Hypocritical and illogical. To take one of Mr. Davis’s issues last year. He was expressing a feminist point. Men are held to be personally responsible for their actions in a way women aren’t within the Criminal justice system, possibly good for women “getting off” as individuals but entirely consistent with a social construction of gender that sees the male as responsible and female less so. Of course feminists should be interested if they have any integrity with their own theoretical hypotheses!!! Otherwise its just a bunch of people trying to get more nice stuff for women.

    • Chuck

      >> Being an old fart I remember that it as in fact feminists that “uncovered” many of the issues that MRAs go on about now.

      You remember how Erin Pizzey (the feminist who opened the first domestic abuse shelter for women) discovered that women were abusing men?

      Do you remember how the feminist movement responded to that?

      • Groan

        Indeed. Erin was open minded and saw the evidence before her. Just as I remember well her appearances on radio and TV powerfully advocating for women. She has been shut down and shamefully ignored as pioneer so much of that early open minded “challenge” has been turned into a sort of intolerant “cult”. Having heard her speak it is clear she was a casualty of a concerted campaign that continues.
        My point was that it was often women, like Erin, that first looked into sex differences and uncovered issues for men. According to Erin all was fine until she started suggesting a refuge for men having “discovered” that men could also be abused. Some of those women identified themselves as “feminist”. My point is that this early promise was indeed betrayed. Certainly it is clear that most “feminists” now do not have an open mind at all. Yet probably one of the most feminist authors in terms of his theory is Warren Farrel, who does nothing but apply a feminist theoretical approach.Yet he too has been accused of encouraging rape!

  • insideMAN

    At insideMAN we are committed to conversations that are reflective of men and boys in all their diversity. We want to hear the voices of men from across the political spectrum; men of all sexualities, men of all nationalities, men and boys of all ages, men of all religions and beliefs, men of all physical and mental abilities and men with many different interests and experiences of life.

    This doesn’t mean that women, feminists, and people concerned with the problems men cause are not welcome to join the conversation. You are. In fact, everyone is invited to take part in this important conversation, our only request has been that everyone expresses themselves in a way that ensures each other’s voices can be heard.

    We stand full-heartedly by this principle, to have a productive and enlightening conversation, there needs to be a space where people with opposing opinions can feel welcome even if their views differ.