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Men in Feminism
The first substantial attempt to produce a dialogue between feminists and their male allies, this collection of essays assesses the benefits or disadvantages of male participation in feminism. This edition first published in 1987. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.
- GenresFeminism
288 pages, Paperback
First published May 6, 1987
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
June 10, 2025
PAPERS AND MORE FROM A 1984 CONFERENCE ON ‘MEN IN FEMINISM’
Editors Alice Jardine and Paul Smith wrote in the Introduction to this 1987 book, “This book has its most immediate beginnings in two sessions conducted at the Modern Language Association [MLA] meetings , Washington D.C., December, 1984… These sessions were … intended to produce a dialogue between male and female academics around the question of ‘Men in Feminism.’ … The dialogue… provoked a certain amount of interest and even caused some little controversy. Several people … suggested that [the papers] be edited into a book… we began to draw up a list of possible contributors… as we think many of our contributors demonstrate, thinking about ‘men in feminism’ brings up questions and problems which go right to the heart of feminist theory… we have tried to continue the MLA dialogue here between roughly equal numbers of men and women… we have attempted to foreground the heterogeneity, to leave apparent the rough edges of this always impassioned debate.”
Alice Jardine wrote in her paper, “And what do feminists want? … we do not want you to MIMIC us, to become the same as us; we don’t want your pathos or your guilt; and we don’t even want your admiration… What we want, I would even say what we need, is your WORK. We need you to get down to serious work. And like all serious work, that involves struggle and gain… I would like to offer a short and pragmatic agenda for beginning this vast work which has yet to begin. First… I think that you---our male allies---should issue a moratorium on talking about feminism/women/femininity/female sexuality/feminine identity, etc. It is much easier to speak about women than to speak AS a body-coded male---to imagine new man…” (Pg. 60)
P. Kamuf cites Paul Smith: “there is a risk of things seeming to settle too quickly, giving one but an imaginary resolution of the problem… He writes, 'in the context of academic feminist theory these men might perhaps do something akin to what women do within theory more generally: that is, they can be there to help to subvert, unsettle, and undermine the (seemingly rather fast to settle) laws of the discourse… This they might do purely by virtue of existing in it as a difference.’” (Pg. 80-81)
Cary Nelson suggests, “ As a discourse… feminism has no special need for male practitioners… feminism is structured, to be sure, by its differences with patriarchy… Like other theories grounded in its practitioners’s knowledge of a history of discrimination, feminism can gain a powerful (if not necessarily impartial) distance from the culture it critiques… feminists at present can benefit from the advocacy and self-reflection and alliance of men. This is not the same, however, as saying that feminists NEED men’s political cooperation, a claim that men may find reassuring but that may not be in women’s best interest.” (Pg. 156)
He continues, “feminism remains women’s project. If men take on feminist knowledge, they will do so not merely in intellectual admiration but because it is in their own interest. They may find it irresistible to be where the most vital intellectual activity is in their profession. They may find feminism the only practical, culturally possible route to their own personal growth. They may come to feel that not to be in feminism is virtually not to be in the world. They may come to realize… that feminism represents… the only historically effective discourse now available by which academic disciplines can come to reflect on and critique their enterprises. But it is absurd for men to assume that women will take a feminist commitment as something men are doing entirely FOR WOMEN. Thus men’s status in feminism must, at least in the present society, remain marginalized, no matter how great their commitment.” (Pg. 161)
Robert Scholes observes, “The female reader proposed by feminism is not an individual reading for herself but a class-conscious member of the class ‘woman’ reading on behalf of all the members of the class including herself. The power of feminist readings of texts depends to a great extent on the size and solidarity of this group and the clarity of the paradigm of reading that they share. Feminism has made its way against considerable open and tacit resistance from male critics, because the individual members of the class ‘woman’… [have] found similar structures of patriarchy operating throughout the established canon and in the works of male interpreters of the canon. A shared critical paradigm driven by feminist class-consciousness has enabled these achievements.” (Pg. 207)
This is certainly an ‘academic’ discussion, so don’t look herein for ‘practical’ political or social issues. But the discussions may still be to interest to those studying feminism.
Editors Alice Jardine and Paul Smith wrote in the Introduction to this 1987 book, “This book has its most immediate beginnings in two sessions conducted at the Modern Language Association [MLA] meetings , Washington D.C., December, 1984… These sessions were … intended to produce a dialogue between male and female academics around the question of ‘Men in Feminism.’ … The dialogue… provoked a certain amount of interest and even caused some little controversy. Several people … suggested that [the papers] be edited into a book… we began to draw up a list of possible contributors… as we think many of our contributors demonstrate, thinking about ‘men in feminism’ brings up questions and problems which go right to the heart of feminist theory… we have tried to continue the MLA dialogue here between roughly equal numbers of men and women… we have attempted to foreground the heterogeneity, to leave apparent the rough edges of this always impassioned debate.”
Alice Jardine wrote in her paper, “And what do feminists want? … we do not want you to MIMIC us, to become the same as us; we don’t want your pathos or your guilt; and we don’t even want your admiration… What we want, I would even say what we need, is your WORK. We need you to get down to serious work. And like all serious work, that involves struggle and gain… I would like to offer a short and pragmatic agenda for beginning this vast work which has yet to begin. First… I think that you---our male allies---should issue a moratorium on talking about feminism/women/femininity/female sexuality/feminine identity, etc. It is much easier to speak about women than to speak AS a body-coded male---to imagine new man…” (Pg. 60)
P. Kamuf cites Paul Smith: “there is a risk of things seeming to settle too quickly, giving one but an imaginary resolution of the problem… He writes, 'in the context of academic feminist theory these men might perhaps do something akin to what women do within theory more generally: that is, they can be there to help to subvert, unsettle, and undermine the (seemingly rather fast to settle) laws of the discourse… This they might do purely by virtue of existing in it as a difference.’” (Pg. 80-81)
Cary Nelson suggests, “ As a discourse… feminism has no special need for male practitioners… feminism is structured, to be sure, by its differences with patriarchy… Like other theories grounded in its practitioners’s knowledge of a history of discrimination, feminism can gain a powerful (if not necessarily impartial) distance from the culture it critiques… feminists at present can benefit from the advocacy and self-reflection and alliance of men. This is not the same, however, as saying that feminists NEED men’s political cooperation, a claim that men may find reassuring but that may not be in women’s best interest.” (Pg. 156)
He continues, “feminism remains women’s project. If men take on feminist knowledge, they will do so not merely in intellectual admiration but because it is in their own interest. They may find it irresistible to be where the most vital intellectual activity is in their profession. They may find feminism the only practical, culturally possible route to their own personal growth. They may come to feel that not to be in feminism is virtually not to be in the world. They may come to realize… that feminism represents… the only historically effective discourse now available by which academic disciplines can come to reflect on and critique their enterprises. But it is absurd for men to assume that women will take a feminist commitment as something men are doing entirely FOR WOMEN. Thus men’s status in feminism must, at least in the present society, remain marginalized, no matter how great their commitment.” (Pg. 161)
Robert Scholes observes, “The female reader proposed by feminism is not an individual reading for herself but a class-conscious member of the class ‘woman’ reading on behalf of all the members of the class including herself. The power of feminist readings of texts depends to a great extent on the size and solidarity of this group and the clarity of the paradigm of reading that they share. Feminism has made its way against considerable open and tacit resistance from male critics, because the individual members of the class ‘woman’… [have] found similar structures of patriarchy operating throughout the established canon and in the works of male interpreters of the canon. A shared critical paradigm driven by feminist class-consciousness has enabled these achievements.” (Pg. 207)
This is certainly an ‘academic’ discussion, so don’t look herein for ‘practical’ political or social issues. But the discussions may still be to interest to those studying feminism.
December 9, 2022
very dated, but humorous!
May 25, 2014
A fascinating, if inevitably dated, interrogation of a ridiculous formation of a legitimate concern.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews