Male expectations

[map_of_the_world]

Something that really, really pisses me off is men expecting women to educate them on feminism and at the same time behaving like they are doing us a favour or its some great benevolent act on their part that they are interested.

I was sorting the emails in the feminist group email account the other day and one of the emails was from a male student basically wanting to come a long and take notes on the group, and interview "key members" for an assignment he was doing.

he prefaced this by saying i hold pro feminism views, although my knowledge is quite hazy at best, how can you hold pro feminist views if your knowledge of feminism is hazy exactly? How can you know feminism (or any political movement) is something you want to support until you know what it is?

Anyway I told him no, he couldn't come and take notes, because we were not guinea pigs, members may very well feel uncomfortable and guarded in what they say if they knew it was going to be written up by someone outside the group, it wasn't our job to educate men about feminism and we were an egalitarian group so we didn't have "Key members"

And he sent me this really rude passive aggressive email in reply, clearly pissed off that we wouldn't cater to his needs. He told me I hadn't understood what he was asking when I clearly had. Ive noticed that the passive aggressive thing is really common as well, it happens a lot online when men post to feminist blogs asking completely inane questions which are totally googleable and then the female posters are like "go find out for yourself" and the men say something like "I was only trying to learn, you should be pleased/grateful I'm interested" Like what does he want a cookie?


Its not that I think men shouldn't be involved in feminism, I think they should, our group is open to men, I just think it is not our job to educate them on what feminism is, there are plenty of resources both online and in book form that they can find to educate themselves.

It has always been women's job to cater to men's need and wants and I'm dammed if I'm going to let that happen in feminist spaces.

Comments

[fox-in-sand.livejournal.com]

You're so right. Especially on such basic stuff that can be looked up easily. What are their motives I wonder? Or are they just used to being catered for?

[nectarine-words.livejournal.com]

I think there are two things, firstly they are just used to being catered for and then they just get pissed when we tell them either we arnt going to educate them or we tell them things about feminism they don't like (Such as all men have privilege, its not all about them etc.)

Men are taught to take what they want after all and will make lots of noise about how unfair life is untill they get it I guess

[sweetgingertea.livejournal.com]

You are absolutely right. Men act like they are doing us a big favor if they even "tolerate" feminist discussion. Fuck that.

[vientral.livejournal.com]

So what constitutes basic knowledge? And would it be less annoying if it were a woman?

[nectarine-words.livejournal.com]

I think basic knowledge is at least the general idea of what feminism is, what its aims are, its general history

It would be less anoying if it was a women because to me women supporting each other in becoming educated is part of what feminism is about and spending time educating men who just want to be educated but dont want to support us is a waste of time and a replaying of reditional gender roles where women have been there to facilitate mens whishes.

[vientral.livejournal.com]

The general idea of feminism being equality essentially. It just doesn't seem equal to automatically include a woman and treat a man with derision, anger even. He may have shown himself to be ignorant but your response seems have done nothing but encourage his negative attitude and if your response would have been different for a woman it just doesn't seem fair to me.

[hello-trouble.livejournal.com]

agree totally! it's interesting i read this right after reading this post: http://community.livejournal.com/debunkingwhite/593730.html?style=mine (the gist of it is: white people, don't expect people of colour to educate you about race)

i'm obviously not against talking to people/educating people about feminism. but when people who say they are pro-feminist but can't be bothered to read up a bit about what that entails instead wants you to spoonfeed it to them & give them a gold star, thats insulting and also diverts your energies from more pressing matters.

also the way he approached you like your his anthropology project would make me suspicious!

[nectarine-words.livejournal.com]

yeah I saw that and its really interesting the number of white people that just dont get it, even ones who consider themselves anti racist allies.its especialy head banging of people who use the internet because even if you cant buy books and your librarys crap and there are no progresive groups/movements in your area you can find anything about anything on line. I really think its just lazines and not thinking about power relationships.

[levanael.livejournal.com]

Personally I've found that sort of thing in pretty much every movement I've ever been involved in... I've been involved in a lot of movements and have been perfectly happy to get off my ass and do some research on it rather than ask a bunch of basic questions to people who have better things to do, but apparently a lot of people just can't wrap their minds around such a task.

I think my next plan of action for such things is to compile a list of web resources and just print 'em out so when people ask me questions I can hand them a list of websites instead of having to answer a bunch of basic questions over and over again.