Male Feminism

In "Feminism is for EVERYBODY" by Bell Hooks I loved the chapter on Feminist Masculinity. It went right along with the questions I posed in one of my other posts, why isn't there a maleist group? Well it turns out there is, it's just not really publicized. While Hooks' stance on maleism is a bit different than what I originally outlined, I really like what she says. Hooks says, "What is needed is a vision of masculinity where self-esteem and self-love of one's unique being forms the basis of identity." Men need to move away from the patriarchal masculinity that says they get their identity from dominating others. In other words men need to become less macho in order for women and men to be equal and for feminism to be seen as okay. I agree with Hooks in that melding of the sexes instead of stark division is what is needed. There needs to be more literature stressing the development of an identity based less in sexism and more in other aspects.
At the Beyond Tolerance lecture on Thursday, Mark Rhodes made us examine the emphasis we ourselves and society place on different aspects of our identity. One category was our sex. Most people I talked to put down that your sex played a big part in the identity we and society creates for us. Two of the columns on the works sheet were list the ways in which this identity is positively viewed by society and list the ways in which this identity is negatively viewed by society. A friend of mine put that being a female is society means being beautiful (positive) and weak (negative). And I had to agree. Society has made the female seem only for show in its beauty and worthless in its weakness. But I know many beautiful, strong women, beautifully powerful women, and utterly amazing women. Still society sees these women as weak of body and mind, only around to please men. Society needs to start embracing the idea that a woman can be strong and that a man can be weak. In class we pondered whether one sex, being defined in relation to what it has and the other doesn't, could change without the other one changing. I have decided that no it cannot. Until the definition of a woman can stand alone from the definition of a man, one cannot change without the other changing as well. Until a man can be accepted as sensitive and "womanly", a woman cannot fully be accepted as strong and "manly".