Men are always asking me “why is feminism still important?” and “why should I care about feminism?”
I can’t answer that for you. Go out and learn it.
Go into the city with a female friend. Walk 20 feet behind her and listen.
Make an account on a social site. Use a female name and photo. Post something, anything.
Go to a Take Back The Night march. Listen to the survivors speak out afterwards.Set a timer on your phone or watch for two minutes. When the alarm goes off, another woman in the United States has been sexually assaulted.
Make an account on a dating site as a woman. Check your messages.
Take a walk through a toy store. Look at which toys are “meant” for boys and which are “meant” for girls.
Hang out with six of your female friends. Statistically, one of them has been raped. The chance that her rapist served any jail time for it is 3%.
Watch a movie. Almost any movie will do. Who’s the hero? Who gets saved? Who speaks the most?
Listen to other guys insult each other when they REALLY want to put each other down. “Pussy.” “Bitch.” “Sissy.” The worst thing for a man to be is like a woman.
But most importantly, read. Read bell hooks, read Jessica Valenti, read Amanda Marcotte, read Gail Collins, read Julia Serano. Read blogs and essays. Read literature written by women. I bet they didn’t assign you much of that in high school English class.
If I had unlimited time and energy to debate with you and patiently explain Why You Should Care About Feminism and counter each of your points with all the books and articles I’ve read, believe me, I would. But I don’t.
So go out and learn.It’s been a year — or perhaps a little more — since I decided to actively go out and learn what feminism is and why it’s there. Not why I *think* it’s there as a man, but why this idea was so important to my female friends. But in order to do so, I had to walk forward as though I had never heard the word before since the word feminism has been tainted by fearful men. So I blanked my mind and listened to the stories with compassion and belief. I was…disgusted? Shocked? Horrified? All that and more, really. Most of all, I was ashamed. Ashamed that I had turned a deaf ear and blind eye to the nature or our society, allowing these things to occur in abundance. I haven’t tried a lot of the things on this list; in fact, I’ve only read blogs about feminism and talked to my lady friends. But just that small thing, the willingness to see and learn, has forever changed my being for the better. I will now and forever try to make up for the 30 or so years that I lived in blindness.
Hey you! You rock! :)
