Zeph Smith
Sep 3, 2018 · 3 min read

“ all men have been getting is thanks for the last thousand years. Statues, history books, holidays, nobel prizes…I could go on”

I have not been around for a thousand years, but I read extensively from many varied sources today. I hope you don’t think that today all men receive is praise, as that is far from the lived reality for many men in the developed world — there is a LOT of put down on men today. Some of it is deserved, and some of it is not, but our society is not really a rosy utopia for men today.

Take something like the enfranchisement of women in the US, led by many of the brave and resourceful women named in the article. However much support or lack thereof the suffragettes generated among women, they could not succeed in a democracy until a stable super-majority of men (who had the vote) shared the cause. Yes some men opposed the cause (along with some women), but the majority of men were in favor of it or it would not have changed. From the modern story telling you’d think that women’s suffrage (the vote) was a story of all women against all men, but that was far from the reality. Nobody is suggesting that we today sing only the praises of men, ignoring the women! Only that we recognize that it took great numbers of men as well as women, working together, to effect meaningful change.

Which is more praiseworthy — to seek more power for oneself and one’s group, or to seek more power for another group of which one is not part? The majority of voting men, required to pass amendments albeit indirectly, deserve some portion of the credit for doing so (just some credit, not overshadowing the suffragettes’ deserved credit but just complementing it), as they were voting against what a patriarchal framing would suggest to be their own selfish interests, a historic and remarkable event To relegate them to the dustbin is a disservice to the movement.

And no, we do not spend all of our time praising the men who supported suffrage; the are virtually never mentioned and only anonomous.

I learned the names and accomplishments of the first wave feminists noted in the article literally 50 years ago; they were rightly celebrated then and they are rightly celebrated now. They are hardly hidden; it’s hard for anybody to attend college without knowing their names. But can you name a single prominent man who also supported or advocated for suffage for women in that era? History has mostly erased their names, tho their support was crucial to success (not to take anything away from the women, whom I admire greatly). It’s just that in the quest to oversimply the morality play, the story line has changed to “women good/men bad” when in reality that’s the wrong lesson to learn from the history of their success.

Why does this matter? Because we need broad coalitions if we want to save a democracy in peril today. Spurning or demeaning potential allies in order to serve narrow political interests (or to retain an emotionally satisfying simple narrative which gives one’s own group in the unquestionable moral high ground) is a losing strategy. And we can’t afford too many more political losses, fueled by pushing moderates into the opposition camp through disrespecting them and their needs. That is the opposite of the successful strategy persued by the first wave feminists; I think sometimes the modern heirs of this movement have taken this advance so much for granted that they don’t understand how difficult the struggle was and how crucial it was to form alliances, rather than demonize half the population and sanctify the other half.

    Zeph Smith

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