Who Stole Meninism?

(TW: suicidal ideation, misogyny)

My first encounter with meninism was in early 2014, when a post from the Campaign Against Living Miserably (CALM) caught my eye. CALM, an anti-suicide organisation, focused on preventing men in the UK from committing suicide; as a man who’s struggled with suicidal ideation now and then, it struck me.

Here, in CALM, was a campaign dedicated to allowing men room to express themselves and admit that they could lose control without being less of a man. Here was a campaign for an actual men’s issue (disproportionately high suicide rates among men) that didn’t blame women/feminists for the problems of men; this was a men’s campaign, not an anti-women campaign.

The next step was reading the Good Men Project; while it did and does still have its problems, the website hosts incredible conversations in general on the state of men and masculinity, and has become increasingly diverse and inclusive over the past year. I don’t remember how I first found the Project, but after encountering CALM I went back to bone up. Through the Good Men Project, I expanded my understanding of masculinity and my experience as a man, and I’m fully supportive of like-minded consciousness-raising efforts like this. With reference to the Project’s slogan, it’s the conversation every man needs to have.

I used to be okay with the term “meninism”, though I never applied that label to myself; resisting social injustice with specific reference to my lived experience as a cis, queer, non-Western man of colour was part of what I did. I believe that masculinity in its current state must be made less toxic, and more accepting of all genders and sexualities. I believe that masculinity must be made less toxic to non-men. I believed, past tense, in meninism. So what happened?

Jesus fuck, guys.

I asked a question in the title: who stole meninism? This is my answer: chucklefucks like this did. People who use “meninism” to attack women and feminists, regardless of how “sarcastic” they think they’re being, have taken the word away from us. They’ve irradiated it with casual misogyny and the visceral opposition to feminism popular with certain corners of the Internet.

The worst part, though, is that we’ve let them.

I haven’t seen much pushback from men against the co-opting of our cause by misogynists and anti-feminists. Anything “for men” now comes with an implicit side of “against women and non-men”. Fuck that noise.

“Men who want to be feminists do not need to be given a space in feminism. They need to take the space they have in society & make it feminist.”

— Kelley Temple, National Union of Students UK Women’s Officer

I’ve seen this quote floating around the Internet, repeatedly, and in various forms. It’s true; as men, we shouldn’t be demanding feminists make space for us, but instead make our spaces feminist. I’m all for men doing that in solidarity with women. To those men, though, I’m going to make a very special request:

Back in May, in the wake of the Isla Vista killings, I called upon men as a whole, and men who cared about other men especially, to “save a brother”; I asked men to call out misogyny and redirect their rage against the patriarchal oppression of men. I’m going to ask us to do this again. We need to speak up in our masculine communities and make ourselves heard, let them know that we aren’t going to stand for this nonsense. It’s less a case of “more harm than good” than “all harm, all the time” when, thanks to these folks, “meninism” is now a dirty word.

Men (and masculine-of-centre folks) need spaces to discuss and organise around their issues, and if these misogynists are going to take our spaces from us it’s high time we kick them out. Let’s go.

Robert Bivouac now needs a new word for the cause. Thanks, #MeninistTwitter. He can be found on Twitter at @boygainvillea; please @ him with suggestions.

NOTE: The title of this piece is an ironic reference to C.H. Sommers’ “Who Stole Feminism”, a decidedly anti-feminist screed by an alleged “equity feminist” and conservative. It’s ironic because it’s actually relevant.