It’s been an emotional day for me. E. won a major art prize. I was listening to Gethsemane from Jesus Christ Superstar and had a personal revelation of sorts. I’m still working on my take-home midterm. And I spent the evening reading this incredible thread that begins by pointing out the lack of a male feminist movement at DarkDaughta’s blog.

Since I’m still in midterm mode, so I’m going to post a couple of excerpts from the discussion:

DarkDaughta said:
Then I thought about men and realized with sadness that they had not had even one giant, worldwide movement that invited them to redefine their relationships to patriarchy, themselves as men, their relationships to each other, to children, to wimmin. There has been no collective, gathered, centralize production of any bodies of thought, theory, writing, culture that offered opportunities for them to revolutionize their ways of being. Nada, zilch, bubcuss.

Hugo said:
The myth is that privilege always makes the possessor of privilege happy. And many men deny being privileged because they are acutely aware that they are unhappy! Your post captures the reality of this perfectly, and why pro-feminist men’s work is so danged important, to help us climb out of our dreadful isolation that leads us to stunning cruelty.

Cats and Dogma said:
When my wife found out we were expecting twins, I vocally hoped for girls, because I could be unambivalent about raising strong, loud girls. We got one of each, and I am scared to death of how to teach my son to be gentle, to be ethical, to never take for granted what will likely always be offered up to him.

I connected with many excerpts but for the moment these three stand out. It’s left me alternately discouraged and hopeful, introspective and visionary. There’s a lot more in there–I encourage anyone interested in feminism, especially pro-feminist men, to check it out.