What I Learned From Feminism: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly 

I’ve been a feminist since I first read Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique in 1964. In fact, I still have my copy with the cover price of 75 cents. I was initially attracted to the words on the cover by anthropologist Ashley Montagu:

“The book we have been waiting for…the wisest, sanest, soundest, most understanding and compassionate treatment of contemporary American woman’s greatest problem…a triumph.”

I was 20 years old at the time and desperately wanted to understand my girlfriend, the young woman I would marry two years later. But as soon as I began reading, it became clear that “the problem that has no name” was my problem too.

I grew up in a family where both my mother and father suffered from unspoken anguish. My mother had always wanted to be a writer and illustrator, but had to go to work as a secretary to earn a living. She helped support my father who was a writer unable to sell his work. They never talked about her unfulfilled dreams or his failure to provide. Still struggling at mid-life, he became alternately manic and depressed. Trying to make a living in a job market that had little room for writers, put increasing stress on his psyche.

Hoping to avoid the problems they experienced, I saw feminism as support for breaking out of the old boxes that told men we had to be this way and told women they had to be that way. One of the great joys in my life is reading and one of my favorite book stores in those days was a feminist bookstore in San Francisco. Though most of the people in the store were women, I browsed the aisles and was lost in the richness of what I was reading.

Gradually I became aware of a young boy in the store. He was seven or eight years old and clearly the son of the store’s owner, a woman who I realized was looking at me with some suspicion. I paid little attention to either of them and want back to my reading. The boy walked by me a number of times and “accidently” bumped into me. When I looked up he was clearly angry with my presence, but I went back to my reading and ignored the intrusion.

Fifteen minutes later he came by again. This time when he bumped into me, he thrust a piece of paper in my hand. It was written in a child’s handwriting. It announced “We don’t like men here.” I was stunned. I had a wave of anger, followed by feeling ashamed. Was I really an intruder here? Then a deep sadness came over me. What was this boy learning about men and about himself, a boy who would grow up to be a man? I looked for the boy’s mother. When I caught her eye, she looked daggers at me and then turned her back. I soon left the store.

I saw a side of feminism that was fearful, hostile, and didn’t really understand that true liberation would free men and women both. This kind of anti-male feminism also failed to see that women’s liberation was deeply died to men’s liberation and neither would succeed fully without the other.

I saw a different side of feminism a few years later when I attended my first “Women’s Liberation Conference.” It was billed as a conference for women, but men were invited to attend. When my wife said she wanted to go, I jumped at the chance to join her. By this time I had a number of women friends (mostly friends of my wife) who were interested in liberation, but no men who I could talk with. I thought this was the place to meet some like-minded guys.

When my wife was invited to a “women’s lib” conference where men were invited to attend, I jumped at the chance to go with her. The conference was held at Asilomar conference center near Monterrey, California.

Picture 700-800 women and maybe 12 men in attendance. It was exciting and intimidating. It was clear that many of the women weren’t happy that men were attending and the few men I met seemed more interested in talking about sports and sex (good manly topics, but I wanted more). I finally met a couple of guys who seemed to want to go deeper and we talked about forming a men’s group. Only problem was that they lived in New York and I was in California.

I felt discouraged and lamented, “what am I doing here? The women hate that I’m here and the few men I might relate with live on the other side of the country.” But when I felt the most discouraged and alone, a few women reached out to me and their mentoring set me on course again. “Thank you for being here,” they told me. “It means a lot to us that you came. We need more men who care about the liberation of males and females. You’ll find other men to join with you. Don’t give up. Don’t ever give up.” Their words of encouragement sent me back home with a new resolve.  I will be forever grateful to those wise and caring women.

The angry bookstore owner I experienced in San Francisco was one side of feminism. The two women I met at the conference were another side. Through the years I’ve come to believe that there is a place for both sides of feminism in liberating us all. There is a place for women to have their separate groups, separate space, and maybe even separate bookstores (and of course men also need to have a safe place to heal). But there is also a place where we can come together as men and women and support each other in healing our wounds.

I’ll never know the life experiences of the woman at the San Francisco bookstore. I can only imagine the wounds that she must have experienced that may have come from men in her l life. I also can’t know the healing experiences of the women at Asilomar that enabled them to reach out and encourage me. But they all were instrumental in my growth as a man on the path of liberation.

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