The word turns off
a lot of men (insert snarky comment about man-hating feminazis here) --
and women. But here's why black men should be embracing the "f" word.
When
I was a little boy, my mother and father used to argue a lot. Some
mornings, I would wake up to the alarming sound of my parents arguing
loudly. The disagreement would continue until my father would yell with
finality, "That is it! I'm not talking about this anymore!" The dispute
would end right there. My mother never got the last word.
My
dad's yelling made me shrink in fear; I wanted to do something to make
him stop raging against my mother. In those moments, I felt powerless
because I was too small to confront my father. I learned early that he
had an unfair advantage because of his gender. His size, strength and
power intimidated my mother. I never saw my father hit her, but I did
witness how injurious his verbal jabs could be when they landed on my
mom's psyche.
My father didn't always mistreat my mother,
but when he did, I identified with her pain, not his bullying. When he
hurt her, he hurt me, too. My mother and I had a special bond. She was
funny, smart, loving and beautiful. She was a great listener who made me
feel special and important. And whenever the going got tough, she was
my rock and my foundation.
One morning, after my father yelled at
my mom during an argument, she and I stood in the bathroom together,
alone, getting ready for the day ahead of us. The tension in the house
was as thick as a cloud of dark smoke. I could tell that my mother was
upset. "I love you, Ma, but I just wish that you had a little more spunk
when you argue with Daddy," I said, low enough so my father couldn't
hear me. She looked at me, rubbed my back and forced a smile.
I
so badly wanted my mother to stand up for herself. I didn't understand
why she had to submit to him whenever they fought. Who was he to lay
down the law in the household? What made him so special?
I
grew to resent my father's dominance in the household, even though I
loved him as dearly as I loved my mother. His anger and intimidation
shut down my mother, sister and me from freely expressing our opinions
whenever they didn't sit well with his own. Something about the inequity
in their relationship felt unjust to me, but at that young age, I
couldn't articulate why.
One day, as we sat at the kitchen
table after another of their many spats, my mother told me, "Byron,
don't ever treat a woman the way your father treats me." I wish I had
listened to her advice.
As I grew older and got into my
own relationships with girls and women, I sometimes behaved as I saw my
father behave. I, too, became defensive and verbally abusive whenever
the girl or woman I was dating criticized or challenged me. I would
belittle my girlfriends by scrutinizing their weight or their choices in
clothes. In one particular college relationship, I often used my
physical size to intimidate my petite girlfriend, standing over her and
yelling to get my point across during arguments.
I had
internalized what I had seen in my home and was slowly becoming what I
had disdained as a young boy. Although my mother attempted to teach me
better, I, like a lot of boys and men, felt entitled to mistreat the
female gender when it benefited me to do so.
After graduating from
college, I needed a job. I learned about a new outreach program that
was set to launch. It was called the Mentors in Violence
Prevention Project. As a student-athlete, I had done community outreach,
and the MVP Project seemed like a good gig until I got a real job in my
field: journalism.
Founded by Jackson Katz, the MVP
Project was designed to use the status of athletes to make gender
violence socially unacceptable. When I met with Katz, I didn't realize
that the project was a domestic violence prevention program. Had I known
that, I wouldn't have gone in for the job interview.
So
when Katz explained that they were looking to hire a man to help
institutionalize curricula about preventing gender violence at high
schools and colleges around the country, I almost walked out the door.
But during my interview, Katz asked me an interesting question. "Byron,
how does African-American men's violence against African-American women
uplift the African-American community?"
No one had ever
asked me that question before. As an African-American man who was deeply
concerned about race issues, I had never given much thought about how
emotional abuse, battering, sexual assault, street harassment and rape
could affect
an entire community,just as racism does
.
The
following day, I attended a workshop about preventing gender violence,
facilitated by Katz. There, he posed a question to all of the men in the
room: "Men, what things do you do to protect yourself from being raped
or sexually assaulted?"
Not one man, including myself,
could quickly answer the question. Finally, one man raised his hand and
said, "Nothing." Then Katz asked the women, "What things do you do to
protect yourself from being raped or sexually assaulted?" Nearly all of
the women in the room raised their hand. One by one, each woman
testified:
"I don't make eye contact with men when I walk down the street," said one.
"I don't put my drink down at parties," said another.
"I use the buddy system when I go to parties."
"I cross the street when I see a group of guys walking in my direction."
"I use my keys as a potential weapon."
"I carry mace or pepper spray."
"I watch what I wear."
The
women went on for several minutes, until their side of the blackboard
was completely filled with responses. The men's side of the blackboard
was blank. I was stunned. I had never heard a group of women say these
things before. I thought about all of the women in my life -- including
my mother, sister and girlfriend -- and realized that I had a lot to
learn about gender.
Days after that workshop, Katz offered
me the job as a mentor-training specialist, and I accepted his offer.
Although I didn't know much about gender issues from an academic
standpoint, I quickly learned on the job. I read books and essays by
bell hooks, Patricia Hill Collins, Angela Davis and other feminist
writers.
Like most guys, I had bought into the stereotype
that all feminists were white, lesbian, unattractive male bashers who
hated all men. But after reading the work of these black feminists, I
realized that this was far from the truth. After digging into their
work, I came to really respect the intelligence, courage and honesty of
these women.
Feminists did not hate men. In fact, they
loved men. But just as my father had silenced my mother during their
arguments to avoid hearing her gripes, men silenced feminists by
belittling them in order to dodge hearing the truth about who we are.
I
learned that feminists offered an important critique about a
male-dominated society that routinely, and globally, treated women like
second-class citizens. They spoke the truth, and even though I was a
man, their truth spoke to me. Through feminism, I developed a language
that helped me better articulate things that I had experienced growing
up as a male.
Feminist writings about patriarchy, racism,
capitalism and structural sexism resonated with me because I had
witnessed firsthand the kind of male dominance they challenged. I saw it
as a child in my home and perpetuated it as an adult. Their analysis of
male culture and male behavior helped me put my father's patriarchy
into a much larger social context, and also helped me understand myself
better.
I decided that I loved feminists and embraced
feminism. Not only does feminism give woman a voice, but it also clears
the way for men to free themselves from the stranglehold of traditional
masculinity. When we hurt the women in our lives, we hurt ourselves, and
we hurt our community, too.
As I became an adult, my
father's behavior toward my mother changed. As he aged he mellowed, and
stopped being so argumentative and verbally abusive. My mother grew to
assert herself more whenever they disagreed.
It shocked me
to hear her get in the last word as my father listened without getting
angry. That was quite a reversal. Neither of them would consider
themselves to be feminists, but I believe they both learned over time
how to be fuller individuals who treated each other with mutual respect.
By the time my father died from cancer in 2007, he was proudly sporting
the baseball cap around town that I had given him that read, "End
Violence Against Women." Who says men can't be feminists?
Byron Hurt is an award-winning documentary filmmaker and anti-sexist activist.
http://www.theroot.com/views/why-i-am-male-feminist 
