Why Feminism Needs Men's Rights Groups

I support the idea of having a men's advocacy group. I even think that feminist movements could benefit from their existence. More on that shortly.

First, there is an interesting article in Time Magazine in which Jessica Roy describes her experience at a "Men's Rights" conference earlier this year in Detroit. You read that correctly, a conference for men's rights. From her report, and to perhaps no one's surprise, she encountered a group of largely misogynist men who seemed to interpret the increased push for women's social and economic equality as an affront men's freedom. Roy describes how:

This isn't the type of atmosphere I had in mind when I sat in my dorm room at Occidental College and thought about how to support my fellow black men on campus. I do not think that hate and misogyny are a requirement for men being able to speak their minds and address their grievances (this also applies to the more recent "I don't need feminism because.." phenomenon).

A couple friends and I revived a group on campus called Harambee (togetherness) to support the academic and social success of the few black men on Occidental's liberal campus. We would meet and talk about whatever was going on in people's lives, and formed a big brother little-brother system to make sure each freshmen had an older mentor. We also went out to dinner as a group, and even formed an intramural basketball team (2014 Tournament Champions!). We also had a joint meeting with Nia Akoma, the black women's group on campus, and had a very productive conversation about campus climate and how to continue to support one another.

This was our idea of a men's group. A far cry from what seems to be the anti-feminist "men-have-it-worse-than-women" rhetoric that has come about with the rise of women's advocacy.

So, as the title of this blog post asks, why do I think the feminist movements can benefit from men's advocacy groups? I'll admit that it's a loaded question. I'd actually argue that these groups can actually benefit each other, the main reason being that we share many of the same interests. When you think about violence against women, you are generally thinking about violence against women, committed by men (blanket statement, but stay with me). Now ask yourself this: what is another large group that are also victims of violence committed by men? You guessed it, also men.

The Los Angeles Homicide Report has a very detailed database of every murder victim in the region in the last 12 months. It includes place, location, age, race, and gender, and more. At the time of this post, a total of 68 women were killed, compared to 469 men. Assuming that over 90% of  these murderers are male, the rate of man-on-man violence is disturbingly high. Add on how many men kill each other in wars across that globe and you've got some serious numbers.

Map of murder in South Los Angeles [LA Homicide Report]

If we just look a murder statistics it would seem that the men are more affected by violence than women. But of course the concept of violence is much more complicated and we cannot just look at these statistics.

This re-framing doesn't take away from the fact that violence against women is a systematic tool that has been used to keep women subjected for thousands of years. It does, however, widen the scope of the topic. The issue is larger than violence against women. It's violence by men in general. And by increasing the scope of the problem, we can include more people to fight against it. Often times the "oppressor" (man in this case) won't act until they realize they have skin in the game.

So instead of the typical scenario that goes like:

Feminist: Denounce violence against women! And by the way you're the problem!

Clueless Man: No I'm not, I never hit a woman, stop attacking me!

We can have scenarios that go more like:

Feminist: Denounce violence against women! Men are also victims so join our cause!

Clueless Man with potential: Oh yeah your right. Where do I sign up?

Yes, maybe its not fair that women should have to do this to get the movement going. But as a man, I can already tell you that it would be a better way of getting these issue through our thick heads.

I believe in men's rights, or more accurately, men's advocacy. In the case of African American men like myself, we have the "rights" on paper, but few avenues by which to advocate for them. In many cases, women do not even have these rights written into law, so what is there to enforce?

So maybe my title of this post shouldn't be "Why Feminism Needs Men's Groups." Perhaps it should be something like "Why Feminism and Men's Groups Need Each Other."

In today's polarized social universe I do not think men feel safe to congregate and talk about issues that they face without being labeled as sexist/misogynist by feminists. And in the rare chances they do congregate, they often are sexist/misogynist. Despite this, I think men and women can turn wedge issues into common issues. But forming men's groups will be tricky in this country. Could you imagine a white men's support group? Maybe that will be my next post.


Greg