Talk:Feminism/Men

You can't hope to answer the question of whether or not men can be feminists unless you know what a feminist is. You need a definition. A set of (female) examples can't answer the question.

It's like asking whether it's possible to be French and have Krangspiel, if you have only German examples. Unless you know what "Krangspiel" is, you cannot tell whether it is a cultural thing restricted to Germans or a general human emotion that everyone can share. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 212.159.16.190 (talk • contribs) 22:14, 24 September 2006.
 * I agree. In order to answer this question, we need a definition. I think this section out to be laid out more or less as follows: first a definition, or a discussion of several possible definitions, then an explanation of whether or not by that or those definition(s), men could be feminists, and then a discussion of why some men who hold feminist views and some female feminists may prefer to use or not to use the term 'feminist' to describe a man who otherwise matches the definition, assuming the chosen definition does not inherently exclude men.


 * I'm new to this Wikibook (and haven't been around Wikibooks much) so I don't know whether there's a clear definition laid out earlier in the book. In any case, I'm leaving these suggestions in the hope that even if I don't do something about it, someone else will.


 * My own reaction to the question is to say that of course men can be feminists. I would define a feminist as someone who believes that people hold different and unequal positions in society based on their genders, that women generally get the short end of the stick compared to men, and that this is a bad situation that needs to change. Said person should also describe themself as a feminist in order to be considered one (mainly in order to avoid associating people with the historical and ideological complexities of the feminist movement when they disavow the connection, though I feel ambivalent about this part of the definition). This is a working definition and would need to be cleaned up to be at all usable in the article, for what it's worth. BooksihAcolyte (talk) 06:31, 20 April 2009 (UTC)