Author: E.A.
Women are powerful. Women are prominent actors in historical change– something academic institutions and society, in general, are finally beginning to recognize.
Men are powerful. Men are prominent actors in historical change– for so long, they’ve held the spotlight.
So why do we still feel the need to protect them while advocating for the spotlight to be shared?
In Editing for Equality: The Outcomes of the ArtFeminism Wikipedia Edit-a-thons, they state “the intent is not to [...] downplay the achievements of men through a malicious rewriting of history,” which on the surface seems like a necessary disclaimer. When looking beyond this, however, it is evident that this is classic “feminist guilt”: feeling bad for excluding men from
narratives they’ve always been a part of. But writing women into history never implies that men will be written out, so why is there always the need to apologize or refute this seemingly obvious fact?
For so long, marginalized groups have been excluded from historical narratives and discriminated against in society. When movements arise to provide empowerment for groups that have suffered for so long, there are suddenly pointless countermovements or a greater need for ‘equality’ than before. For example, even though the Black Lives Matter organization originated in 2013, there were no mainstream countermovements until 2020 when the Black Lives Matter movement gained rapid momentum. The All Lives Matter “movement” “advocates” precisely what their name suggests, that all lives matter. Members of this group fail to realize that by saying black lives matter, it is not insinuating that other lives don’t matter. The All Lives Matter “movement” is inherently racist as it was a response to the social injustice and police violence toward Black communities, pulling attention away from the issue at hand.
All Lives Matter is like a child throwing a tantrum when their parent puts a bandaid on their sibling. The parent never suggests that one matters more but, at that moment, is focusing only on the child that needs attention. Columbia Law Professor Kimberle Crenshaw (pictured to the right) puts it nicely: that saying Black Lives Matter “is simply aspirational;” meaning it is advocated for in the hopes that systemic change can occur so that black people are not “twice as likely to be killed by a police officer while unarmed” as just one of many injustices.
While this is not to equate Black Lives Matter with feminism, both concepts show that when marginalized people speak up for equality, they are met with fierce resistance. This translates into unnecessary guilt and feeling at fault for asking for true equality.
So, it is almost unsurprising that Men’s Rights Activism emerged on Reddit and then found its way to Wikipedia. Most people can acknowledge that men have, and always have had rights, but somehow when it’s time to spotlight women, men feel threatened and form counterintuitive “activist” groups. When we look deeper into why such groups advocate for “the other side” or “equality” in society, they are rarely based on real issues. They spawn out of resistance to crucial societal change in which they (men or white people) would find their realities altered. These dominant groups in society are against change that would institute true equality. They are resistant to the people they’ve seen on the outskirts of society speaking up for their rights.
The author notes that Wikipedia’s “content is skewed by the lack of female participation, resulting in systemic absences in an increasingly important repository of shared knowledge.” Where female contribution to narratives is missing, activist movements (although not self-identified as “overtly activist”) like this one help bridge the gap and encourage voices that have been silenced to be heard. There has never been an inability for male voices to be heard or recognized as worth a place in academia. This shows the necessity for movements that empower women- and women only. Men have had their time and place, and they will continue to. Now, there’s simply more room for women to be heard, which would not be possible without feminist movements.
So, even though the author did not intend her statement as an apology to men, she, whether intentionally or not, attempted to soften the blow for fragile men who feel threatened by women gaining power. Much like “All Lives Matter” or “men’s rights” movements, there will almost always be resistance to movements that drive societal change. It must always be known that women, and other marginalized groups alike, do not owe anyone an apology or an excuse for reclaiming what was unfairly withheld from them for so long.