Can a Man Be a Feminist?: Moving from Dominance to Alliance

Sample

Ben sat as his desk while he was prepping for his Gender Communication class later that afternoon. As he was looking over his notes, an e-mail popped up from Damon, a student in his gender course. Stopping what he was doing, he clicked on the e-mail: From: DamonLane@dsu.edu To: BenIrving@dsu.edu Subject: Question about feminism… Dr. Irving — I was reading the description of feminism, and I got to thinking…Can a man be a feminist? I always thought feminism was a negative word, but based on this, I think I might even consider myself a feminist. Just thought I’d ask before we got in class and everyone was listening. See you in a few hours! — Damon Ben appreciated the question because he had often pondered this issue himself—but he had never come to a definitive conclusion. Later, Ben joined two of his colleagues, Morgan and Leigh, for lunch in the conference room. “So today in Gender, we’re talking about feminism and how for a lot of people it’s the new ‘f-word.’ I just got an e-mail from a male student who asked if it was possible for men to be feminists. Leigh, I know we’ve talked about it before, but I’m still not sold on the idea.”