Why Feminism Matters to Men

For decades feminists have been telling us that gender is not a biological fact, but a socially constructed reality. In other words, gender is not determined by whether or not you have ovaries, gonads, breasts, a penis, a vagina, or an x or y chromosome. I mean, to be frank, there exist very few people in this world who really know what biological “hardware” I have, but people still look at me and see a woman. When I walk by people on the street, I don’t see what’s underneath their clothing and I sure can’t look into their genetic coding, but I still see men and women. How is this possible if gender is strictly biological? Well, according to many feminists, it is not. Rather, gender is a performance that we put on everyday. It is performed through daily rituals like putting on make-up (or not), wearing gender-specific clothing (pink vs. blue), speaking in certain tones (high pitched vs. deep), sitting in certain positions (legs crossed vs. open). As we repeat these acts throughout our life, we perpetuate the idea that certain ways of thinking, acting, and feeling are feminine  while others are masculine, but this is not an objective reality; this is an act, a farce, a performance that we repeat and pass along to others. Over time these performances change as commonly held beliefs and norms about gender and other social issues become disrupted, by social movements for example. Sometimes these changes make space for more gender diversity and sometimes they don’t, but the point is that gender as we know it now is not inevitable; it can (and will) change. 

Often when feminists talk about the social construction of gender, they are implicitly referring to the ways in which femininity has changed over time. There is very little work that asks how changes in masculinity happen over time and place. This is an important area of study for people who do work on gender, though. If we show how femininity and masculinity are constructed in ways that affect the lives of both men and women, we can establish a platform for collaborative efforts that work toward gender diversity and equality. In short, more attention to the social construction of masculinity would show how and why feminism is not just for women.

With that in mind, I stumbled upon an article the other day that discusses how intimacy between men has become socially unacceptable as ideas about masculinity have changed overtime. In the article, authors Brett and Kate McKay feature photographs of men in the 19^th and early 20^th century who demonstrate a physical closeness or intimacy, by holding hands and embracing for example. According to the authors, some of these photographs predate the idea of homosexuality and it is impossible to state with certainty their sexual orientations (and furthermore, do we really need to know?). However, it is probably safe to assume that many of these men were simply taking photographs with their friends and that certain levels of comfort and familiarity were more socially acceptable between men at some points in history than others. Nowadays we live in a world where men feel the need to withhold from being intimate with others, lest their sexuality come into question, like when a man compliments another man and justifies this act by saying “no homo.” Is it possible to talk about this loss of intimacy and connection with other human beings as a form of oppression? What are the broader consequences of this loss on society? What do you think?

LINK TO- "Bossom Buddies: A Photo History of Male Affection" by Brett and Kate McKay