Okay, this guy is amazing. I’m listening to an interview with Byron Hurt (will be available on the website this evening) on NPR right now. He’s produced a documentary about black masculinity and the misogyny, violence, and homophobia in hip-hop, Beyond Beats and Rhymes, that’ll air on PBS tonight. This guy knows what he’s talking about; he’s obviously educated about race and gender issues and isn’t afraid to use specific, perhaps academic, sometimes loaded terminology (like “socialization”!) that people giving interviews for the media tend to shy away from. I’ve never heard of him before, but this interview blew me away.

It’s so, so rare to run across genuine, self-professed male feminists, especially one who really gets it and is going to an effort to attempt to educate other men about sexism. (And those of you reading this who do, seriously, thank you. I love you guys.) Feminism can only do so much as a white, female movement. We need allies. We need men who aren’t afraid to confront other men about their sexism. We need people of color who aren’t afraid to work within their own communities to challenge sexism and who will fight racism within progressive movements.

This is something I and a lot of feminist bloggers don’t talk about or address much…but it is important. Men have a role to play in the feminist movement, too; sometimes it’s hard to communicate what that role should be, when we’re busy focusing on what it should not be. I know a lot of us get angry when we feel men are diverting attention from our issues and therefore minimizing them. But the truth is that (most of us) recognize and understand that sexism hurts and affects men too in different ways, and most of us find it deeply troubling.

Byron Hurt is doing what feminist men should be doing. He is challenging oppression, bigotry, and intolerance in his own community. Feminist men need to be able to organize and effect change independent of feminist women. There are many issues we can and should work together on, but at some point our interests and abilities diverge. A woman will never be able to explain why sexism is bad for men to men as effectively as another man. A man who attempts to get too involved in a women’s movement runs the risk of using his privilege to reproduce exactly the same unbalanced power dynamics which make women turn to feminism to begin with (and experiences like this, I think, and the reason so many of us are so leery of progressive men interested in the movement). Feminist men need to organize their own movements and focus on the areas where they can have the most positive impact, areas which often diverge from those of primary concern to women. Feminism cannot be an effective movement by focusing only on half of the population, but, frankly, women only have the time, energy, and ability to focus on our own half. There are so many issues which only affect women that we’ve really got our hands full. It’s very hard for our influence to extend beyond that. What we don’t need is men trying to take control of those aspects of the movement. What we need is men to focus on the issues which concern them instead of expecting women to work on men’s issues, too. They can do it better than we can, anyway; that’s their territory.

I don’t know if I’m getting my point across effectively; I’m having trouble articulating exactly what it is I admire so much about this guy. Just take note, feminist men: Byron Hurt is doing something right. I’ve been asked before by men what exactly they should do to fight sexism, and now I can point to this man as the answer. What he’s doing. That’s where you’ll help us the most; that’s how you can be effective.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 20th, 2007 at 2:08 pm and is filed under Random.