the feminist librarian reads

The Problem With Male Feminists | Jem Bloomfield @ quiteirregular

The only way these could be problems for male feminists would be if they didn’t want to contribute, but wanted to be the Christopher Hitchens of feminism: lone fearless outriders sneering at the intellectual credentials of all those who disagree with them.  There will never be a Christopher Hitchens of feminism.  Partly because Hitchens seemed to have trouble imagining women could be as clever as he was, but also because the male hero, leading from a lonely and glamorous eminence, isn’t what feminism needs from men.  The craggily authoritative “public intellectual”, the charismatically self-destructive bad boy, the strict but sentimental “leader of men”: these are all male roles which feminism critiques, not roles waiting for the right guy to come along and fulfil.  Feminism isn’t just a set of propositions about the way the social, cultural and economic structure supports a harmful gender binary.  It’s a mode of operating – or rather, a set of modes – which includes an attentiveness to other’s voices, a willingness to take things seriously which you’d like to dismiss and an awkward, ongoing encounter with the reality of other people.  You can’t just sign up to the right statements and then expect people to snap into line because you look more like a leader than they do.