 thinking, balanced man, but it must have been hugely so, to the men who put it in place and the men who kept it there. No one can deny that we are all equally vulnerable to violence, the impetus of life and uncontrolled fate. But it is hard to ignore the fact that women — practically on a daily basis — encounter some form of violence, usually pretty unique, because they are women.
Now, what’s the problem with HeForShe? What is the problem with Emma Watson, and the campaign for that matter, asking men to participate in the feminist struggle? Certainly, it is of great importance that they do; immediately. The problem is that she more or less directly says that men have felt ‘unwelcome’ in the feminist corner thus far — by ‘inviting’ men to get involved where they have felt unwelcome before, seemingly righting this wrong, she implies that the feminist movement is to blame for the lack of male participation in the struggle for women’s rights.
Another thing that is the fault of us women! Can’t we get anything right?
I think it should be fairly obvious why men may have not been involved in the women’s movement in a big way over the course of history. It is a direct result of this thing: patriarchy, both the fact that men did not want to get involved, and the fact that early feminists may not have wanted them there. Can you really blame them?
To say that the feminist movement has shut men out and made them feel unwelcome — and to now say ‘I invite men to join us’ — is to completely deny and ignore very important parts of our shared history and context, as men and women. It is to deny the truth that women have indeed been victimised and marginalised, sadly, most often at the hands of men. The feminist movement emerged and continues to emerge as a direct response to this victimisation and marginalisation that women face, at the hands of men, and at the hands of patriarchy, all over the world, though perhaps in varying forms. It is, by nature, a force of opposition and resistance to existing structures of power. You can’t simply blot out that part of it; you cannot erase that part of our history, to make it easier, simpler, or nicer to think about. How is it — that the lack of male participation in the feminist movement is seen as the problem, and the fault, of feminists? Why is it — that so many people seem to believe that the negative image that men have today, is the fault of feminists? I think it’s wonderful if men want to get involved in the struggle for equality and freedom for women. Why would we assume they need to be invited? Why have they waited to be invited? I believe men should — and should want to — step in and step forward to prove their commitment — and, in effect, prove themselves. Sadly, we cannot give them the benefit of the doubt. Sadly, every good man does have something to prove. That, in my mind, is possibly the biggest way in which patriarchy affects men negatively.
Why didn’t UN Women select a man to be the spokesperson for a campaign like HeForShe? Why does a women’s rights organisation believe that the work of getting men involved in feminism is their responsibility? Why did those men — celebrities, mostly — who are now openly supporting HeForShe, wait for Emma Watson to invite them to join a struggle that’s been going on for hundreds of years, and affects every single one of us, every day?
Campaigns like HeForShe only fix in place and reassert existing misconceptions, stereotypes and deliberately unsound interpretations about the feminist struggle and about feminists; though Watson says that feminists are not ‘man-haters’, pretty much everything else she says simply reasserts several age-old misogynistic ideas about women who fight for their rights. It undermines the hard work of the brave women and men who have fought the fight, and achieved so much for us all.