By Chris Howard-Williams
My summer with the Women’s Center is drawing to a close. During my time here, I’ve tried to educate myself about feminism and what I can do as a man to promote the cause of feminism. For my last blog post in this effort, I want to focus on a slightly different question. Instead of the “how”, I want to touch on the “why” – Why should I, as a man, support feminism?
I’m not going to lie … there are many articles out there already that explain the importance of feminism for men that will put it more eloquently than I ever could. A quick Google search of “How men benefit from feminism” pulled up many different articles to read. Reading through just three of the first articles that popped up from the Independent , the Crimson White, and the Medium, I realized there’s nothing I can really add to the discussion that would be new, save for one thing – my own voice.
So, in my own words, why do I support feminism? Here’s my short list based on my own personal experiences with the inequality and toxic masculinity that still exist:
- Because I want to be able to cry and show emotion without it being seen as showing my “feminine side”;
- Because I want to be able to enjoy cooking and baking at home without being teased about making someone a “good wife”;
- Because I want to be able to say that I don’t enjoy sports without wondering if I’ll be viewed as “less than a man” because of it;
- Because I want to be able to stop the “male posturing” for strength and dominance without being called a derogatory term for the female anatomy;
- Because I don’t want to be regarded more highly than someone else simply because of my gender (or the color of my skin, while we’re on the subject);
- Because I want the women in my life to be considered for who they are and what they can accomplish rather than to be viewed through antiquated stereotypes;
- But most importantly, because it’s the right thing to do!
There’s probably more that I could list, but those are the big ones, folks. Equity and equality matter, and they’re needed. Men, if you don’t understand why, it’s time to educate yourselves. It can start with a simple Google search, but it takes a real inner-self search as well. It’s time to usher out the old, the outdated, the ignorance and the broken gender roles. It’s time for the new to become the norm.