Feminism is for Everybody, Especially the Bearded Ones

LHDM's post on feminist origins got me thinking. What were mine? What was the story of how I became a feminist? As I thought back, I realized that this year marks the tenth anniversary of my conversion. And, yes, it was a conversion experience. I was never an anti-feminist. Growing up in small-town West Texas, I simply didn't know that much about real feminism. There was the general sense of disapproval from my family, church, and friends, as well as media caricatures, but to be perfectly honest I never really thought about the subject. What I did think and agonize about growing up were deeply personal feelings of manly inadequacy. I was a computer geek and book worm; I was never good at (nor had any desire to become good at) sports; I cried when I got upset; I preferred the easy-going play and gossip with girls on the playground to kicking balls around and fighting with the boys. Then there were the secrect boy crushes. Of course none of these things endeared me to my schoolmates; I often felt ostracized.


Ten years ago I read a little book by bell hooks, Feminism is for Everybody, in a college sociology class. I remember coming to a passage in her introduction and reading it over and over again: "Again and again men tell me they have no idea what it is feminists want. I believe them. I believe in their capacity to change and grow. And I believe that if they knew more about feminism they would no longer fear it, for they would find in feminist movement the hope of their own release from the bondage of patriarchy" (ix). Their own release from the bondage of patriarchy. For the first time it became perfectly clear to me why I, as a man, should be a feminist. The feelings of ostracism and unvalued difference that I had felt as long as I could remember were residues left by the gilded chains that patriarchal societies place on men. As hooks argued, we bearded ones certainly benefit from patriarcal domination, but the cost is simply too high.


After devoting my graduate career to the study of manhood and sexuality, I now know to call what hooks was talking about "hegemonic masculinity." The set of manly ideals that a patriarchal society holds us bearded ones to doesn't only ensure the continuity of male domination of women (although it definitelty does that); it also classifies and subordinates some men to others along lines of difference.


So, in honor of my ten years as a feminist and in protest against the recent wave of right-wing attacks on women's rights across this country, I offer my beard to the cause. It isn't much, but perhaps, as a potent symbol of masculine status, it can point us toward a new kind of manhood--one that recognizes patriarchy for what it is, binding men as well as women within a vicious cycle of domination and injustice. Feminism has many faces. For me, it looks like a dude with a beard.