You Don't Have to like Women to be a Feminist

For men who like, lust after and love men, womanhood usually doesn't take up centre stage in our lives. But what if it did? Perhaps womanhood defines our lives more than simply involving mothers, aunts and our friends (or Lady Gagas, although I prefer Anamatronic from Scissor Sisters myself if we're going there). Obviously these are important pillars for all men, especially with women being stereotypically seen as more accepting of gay lifestyles. However, womanhood doesn't simply end there for us.

For starters, the battleground that gay men, bisexual men, men who have sex with men and open-minded heterosexual me have been fighting is the same battleground that feminists have been fighting, that of masculine privilege. A Montreal study conducted by Vivienne McKenna highlights how violence against same-sex love has a gendered nature to it. She talks of how public space is at current masculine in nature (she cites Shirley Ardener in saying that the presence of men is used to define a particular place as "public"), and entry into this is "secured through the enactment of a sanctioned gender identity"; put another way, it was man who established that "It's Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve." When same-sex love is publicly carried out, it is challenging this whole sanctioning process, the established order, the masculinised space. When two men hold hands in public, they are attacked not necessarily because they are feminine, or doing something feminine, but because they are not masculine (or doing something that's not masculine)... so say the powers that be anyway. Some people would argue that it is hyper-masculine, because it's double the man. To some people it is; to the dominating preudices however, it's not. Because it is neither masculine nor feminine, same-sex couples thus open up a space which is outside our gender binaries, which can be very feminist. Considering many feminist schools have been trying to break gender binaries for longer than the LGBT movement has existed, it's stupid to think that they can't help us expand on this.

This is not to exclude the whole (Western) history that exists between gay men and femininity (I say Western because it differs everywhere; India and Thailand have third genders existing, whereas handbags and rounded tops are considered normal for men in patriarchal Japan and China). For a man to act feminine, in personality, clothing, career, etc... he is shoving a middle finger up to those who demand everyone else conform to their prejudiced philosophies; because of the subjective nature of what masculinity and femininity consists of however, this leaves all men open to random violence if they are unlucky enough to come across someone with strong definitions of masculine and feminine. Nevertheless, this is what many schools of feminism do as well; they shove a middle finger up to accepted standards by saying that all standards are fine, regardless if they are classified as masculine or feminine. There are other schools of feminism that prefer the feminine, and advocate that above masculinity. Whilst this isn't subject to critique, it does affect every gay men who is labelled by others as camp or girly. Not only are these men brave enough to embody the traits endorsed by these feminist schools (whether they appreciate it or not), but they legitimise it upon themselves, just as feminist groups try to legitimise the view that feminine traits aren't bad or beneath masculine traits. There's a lot more in common than meets the eye, even if the men and women mentioned hate each other.

Unfortunately, major clashes have existed as long as the gay movement has over the issue of gender, one of the earliest being the figurative battles between "Swish" and Anti-Swish groups in 1950's USA. The Cold War context (exemplified in the Lavender Scare, where homosexuals were purged from all US federal jobs in the early 1950's for their suspected links with Communism) and the need to unite nations/suppress "deviance" is a major factor in starting this split, which we now see in less politicised terms of camp vs. straight-acting. And the desire for acceptability by what we would now term as "straight-acting gays" in regimes that exclude, yesterday and today, is one that should elicit sympathy from all oppressed groups. However the anti-swish/camp groups forget that in stigmatising what they consider not masculine, not only do they further the stigma around same-sex desire (which is not masculine to the powers that be), as well as acts of gendered dissent, but also continue to de facto endorse masculine privilege in saying that "non-masculine" qualities (including "feminine" ones) are not as worthy of respect.

This act of agent provocateur carries over into the "Swish" groups, particularly in the era of the "faghag" and the pink pound. As argued in the Guardian, Gok Wan, one of the kinder guys, still has a one-dimensional view of how women should look. Unfortunately, there are people like Marc from Ugly Betty, who instead use fashion and looks to judge and dominate. This is not only not feminist, but is also very oppressive, as it is not the place of a gay men to tell others what is better or worse. "Keeping up with the latest trends", or worse, believing you are making new ones, usually (not always though) involves supporting industries that isn't trying to make women's lives more comfortable, but one that's trying to make profit and endorsing damaging ideologies to achieve this, the repercussions of this including eating disorders that indeed have affected men as well as many women. Indeed, without these men, all men would not be as comfortable in being open emotionally or looking after themselves. However, there is a danger that this liberation from masculine archetypes is done through the oppression of another group (in this case, women). The competition to be beautiful doesn't just exist in women, and doesn't just reflect back on women.

There is no such thing as an abstention when it comes to any oppressed group - you either support them or you disagree with what they stand for, here being gender equality, and to be honest, disagreeing with gender equality kind of suggests you prefer to oppress women. You can't really claim ignorance when it comes to oppression. Just because gay men don't plan on engaging intimately with women in the long run doesn't mean that their life decisions don't have repercussions - many a time, gay and bi women have split from their male counterparts due to the ignorance of these women's different oppressions and different histories, thus, depriving gay men half of their political colleagues. An example of these different histories can be seen through the 1980's AIDS pandemic; although it was a devastating blow to the gay community's morale, the setting up of AIDS agencies forced the issue of male homosexuality into public and government spheres, worldwide. Lesbians have never had this urgency to publicise upon (as fantastic as lesbians occupying the ITV news studios live on air was), and has meant that in terms of liberation, lesbians are further behind than gay men. If gay men continually fail to recognise these differences within the movement and the individuals, there won't be a liberation, just a gay version of sexism.

Feminism affects gay men more than they probably realise. Firstly, we Westerners are doing the very acts that many feminist schools of thought have achieved and are still trying to achieve. Secondly, there are many ways that the actions of men who like men can have negative consequences upon women. Thirdly, women can (and do) fight with us in multiple ways - to not support them in return is oppression for women, political suicide for us. Men who like men have to support feminism, at the very least, because it serves their own interests.



This article is admittedly very brief - lesbian histories are vast, global and complex, and some lesbian groups themselves have their own faults in discriminating against/ignoring bisexuals, transexuals, and their histories (the B and the T, which again, is political suicide). Some of these groups however have fears of the parody of the feminine, and such critiques of drag and gender transgression shouldn't necessarily be thrown away. Neither should the typical vestiges of the pink pound be, like fashion; everything can be reclaimed for a good cause. There are also many individuals whose lives aren't represented in this article; every gay man is an individual just as much as every woman is. I hope that by using well-known paradigms (read "stereotypes"), the issues are made clearer.







Tom Pengelly

[The reference for the study cited is as follows:
Namaste, Viviane K., ‘Genderbashing – Sexuality, Gender, and the Regulation of Public Space’, in Stryker, Susan and Whittle, Stephen (eds.)(2006), The Transgender Studies Reader, Routledge, New York]

[The Guardian article cited can be found here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/jul/06/gok-wan-femininity]