Not just an ally

Radical feminism for men / Part 5

This essay first appeared on Julie Bindel’s Substack. Read the introduction to the series and Parts 2, 3, and 4.

Justice and self-interest

My research and writing on pornography and transgenderism are rooted in a commitment to justice. I believe my work is consistent with principles of dignity, solidarity, and equality at the heart of feminism and other liberation movements. I recognize that not all feminists agree with the positions I take, but I continue for principled and self-interested reasons. When I began this work nearly four decades ago, I concluded that radical feminists offered the best account of the sex/gender system and generated important political projects. I also believed that radical feminists charted a path that could help me become more fully human.

I never fit conventional masculinity norms. Growing up, I was short, skinny, and effeminate. My athletic skills ranged from barely competent to embarrassingly inept. I had no idea how to deal with sexuality. As a young adult, I figured out how to imitate some traditional masculine characteristics but was never very good at it, and my efforts to be “normal” were stunting my emotional development.

When I first embraced radical feminism, I assumed the critique of masculinity was relevant only to men like me, the ones who didn’t measure up. Once I started talking to men, informally or in research interviews, I realized that almost every man has at some point worried that he isn’t man enough. The good-looking high-school quarterback who drove the fast car and dated pretty girls—my youthful image of the guy who had it all—also struggled with the fear that he wasn’t man enough, even if he couldn’t articulate it.

Radical feminism gave me a language for letting go of patriarchal expectations. That hasn’t always made day-to-day life easier. My first challenge was to understand why as a boy and young man I had used pornography compulsively. Other difficult questions followed. Why was I so afraid of my sexual attraction to men? Why did I keep stumbling over sexist attitudes I hadn’t been aware of? I wanted to be the perfect feminist man, until I realized the struggle with patriarchal training never ends. Radical feminism didn’t promise a happy ending but showed me that a life of struggle could be richer and more creative than striving to be normal. My relationships with men and women could be deeper and more meaningful. I could let go of some of my fear.

James Baldwin captured this feeling better than I can. Starting in essays in the early 1960s, Baldwin wrote not only for black people but offered white people help in understanding ourselves, and he refused to be constrained by narrow conceptions of masculinity. In those struggles, Baldwin identified a key problem:

I think the inability to love is the central problem, because the inability masks a certain terror, and that terror is the terror of being touched. And, if you can’t be touched, you can’t be changed. And, if you can’t be changed, you can’t be alive.

Radical feminism was my entry into that struggle to be alive, to be as fully human as possible. From there, I grappled with the systems that produced white supremacy, economic inequality, global suffering, and ecological crises. There are many ways into these questions, and no intellectual framework or political movement has a monopoly on wisdom. But I will forever be grateful for finding radical feminism—for Andrea Dworkin’s analysis and power with language, for Jim Koplin’s wise counsel, for Gail Dines’ steadfast friendship, for the many women who were patient when I was slow to understand.

Men are told that feminism is a threat, and in some sense that is accurate. Feminism is a threat to our ability to hang on to conventional notions of masculinity that may seem to protect us. But once we let go of patriarchal pathology, we can more easily embrace love, touch, change, and life. We can see that feminism—especially the most radical feminism we are trained to fear the most—is not a threat but a great gift to men.

Conclusion: Shut up and speak up

We are living through another “crisis of masculinity,” which periodically appear when social movements threaten change. The conservative case for a benevolent sexism that has long dominated the right now contends with the hostile sexism of the manosphere. Liberals concerned with the problems of boys and men reject a radical feminist analysis, or often any feminist analysis. Instead of looking to feminism, men too often blame women and feminism, explicitly or implicitly. I continue to argue there is no progressive path forward for men without feminism.

I have highlighted ways that adopting a radical feminist perspective has put me in conflict with not only political adversaries but also with friends and colleagues, but I’m not asking anyone to feel sorry for me. I don’t feel sorry for myself. I lost friends but not my job, and I never felt at risk of physical attack. I know that radical feminist women who have offered similar critiques, going back to the late 1970s, face more harassment and more serious threats. I didn’t enjoy being a target, but I knew it came with the territory.

In the debates over the sexual-exploitation industries and ideology of the transgender movement, I have met pro-feminist men who refuse to engage the issues, often claiming they have no right to dictate a position for women. I agree that our goal as men in feminist intellectual and political spaces is not to dictate, but I reject the duck-and-cover approach to contentious issues. Not every individual has to be actively involved in every debate, of course, but when the wider culture is riven by conflicts, we have an obligation not to avert our eyes.

Pro-feminist men must choose which feminist analyses to incorporate in their work. I have argued that to make those choices responsibly, we should realize that we have a personal stake in feminism. As we work for justice we also advance our own self-interest, defined not narrowly as patriarchal privilege but broadly as the quest to be fully human. That’s why I understand myself as not just an ally to women but as an active participant in feminism.

People—including me and every other pro-feminist man—routinely fail to live up to the principles we espouse and standards we set. But I am comfortable with the intellectual choices I have made, though I remind myself now and then to rethink basic assumptions. Still, as confident as I might be, I am always uncertain about when to speak.

Through feminism, I learned that I should move out of the center and not assume that everyone is waiting for my insights. But if we want to help build feminist movements, we need more men to become involved, to support women and challenge other men. Women can manage without us, but liberation movements can be more effective with support from people in positions of unearned power and privilege. And to build that support, we have to tell our stories about why we embrace feminism, which is more effective than lecturing other men. We can tell those stories in all-male spaces, but often our voices are useful to back up women in mixed settings.

So, pro-feminist men should shut up and follow women but also speak up to connect with men and support women. Take yourself out of the center, but sometimes ask others to focus on your message. When to step back, and when to step up? It’s not always obvious, and it’s always tempting to justify decisions that coincide with what we want to do. If we are fearful of speaking in a situation, we might be tempted to say, “This is when I should step back and let women speak.” If we feel like mouthing off, we might be tempted to say, “I have a responsibility to speak now.”

When I first started working in feminism, I was quick to step back and let women speak. As I became more comfortable speaking in public, I was more willing to assert myself. Since my retirement, I no longer seek public forums. I could provide reasons for those decisions, but I am never sure about the balance between sound reasoning and self-absorbed rationalizations. We all have the capacity to argue convincingly that the action we want to take is the right thing to do.

Shut up or speak up? I don’t always know, but I am going to give Andrea Dworkin the last word, since it was her words that first inspired me.

“I Want a Twenty-Four-Hour Truce During Which There Is No Rape” began as a speech to a pro-feminist men’s group in 1983 that answered the common question feminists face: “What do women want from men?” Just give us one day of rest, she said, “one day in which no new bodies are piled up, one day in which no new agony is added to the old.” That will not happen until men take seriously feminism, which is also the vehicle for saving ourselves. Dworkin asked men to embrace feminism for women’s sake but also because feminism is men’s only hope of escaping the pathology of patriarchal masculinity. She challenged men to renounce our sexual prerogatives, let go of our fears, and help women and ourselves:

I came here today because I don’t believe that rape is inevitable or natural. If I did, I would have no reason to be here. If I did, my political practice would be different than it is. Have you ever wondered why we are not just in armed combat against you? It’s not because there’s a shortage of kitchen knives in this country. It is because we believe in your humanity, against all the evidence.

Next are the words of Dworkin that I have quoted most often. When I first read them, I felt their power in my body. Every time I re-read them, I feel that same power.

We do not want to do the work of helping you to believe in your humanity. We cannot do it anymore. We have always tried. We have been repaid with systematic exploitation and systematic abuse. You are going to have to do this yourselves from now on and you know it. (pp. 169-170)

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Robert Jensen is Emeritus Professor in the School of Journalism and Media at the University of Texas at Austin. His most recent book, This I Don’t Believe: A Fulfilling Life without Meaning, will be published by Blue Ear Books in 2026. Jensen is also the author of It’s Debatable: Talking Authentically about Tricky Topics (Olive Branch Press, 2024). More information at

https://robertwjensen.org/

or email rjensen@austin.utexas.edu.