The Feminist Leader Who Became a Men's-Rights Activist

mewacketergi · 2019-07-29T13:14:41+00:00

Karen DeCrow, the feminist attorney and author who served as president of the National Organization for Women from 1974 to 1977, died of melanoma last Friday at 76. Although her passing was widely noted in the media, most the obituaries and tributes overlooked the more unorthodox aspects of her work. A lifelong champion of women’s rights, DeCrow was nonetheless skeptical about many key aspects of latter-day feminism, including its focus on sexual violence and male abuse of women. She was also, for much of her career, a men’s-rights activist.

[...]

She certainly never stopped being a feminist. She also never abandoned the belief—often seen in recent years as a quaint relic of 1970s unisex feminism—that men and women are far more alike than different. But if she refused to see biology as destiny, she was equally skeptical of patriarchy as destiny. In an 1994 Chicago Tribune essay on Naomi Wolf’s Fire with Fire, she proposed to “take gender out of the gender debate” and focus on the human, questioning whether men really have more power over their lives than women do: “Wolf is accurate and on target when she writes that women must move from a self-image of weakness to one of strength. But if we fail to see that which glares before our eyes—that men have frailties as we do—we only will be batting .500.

[...]

DeCrow’s foreword to Why Men Earn More—her last text to appear in a book—concluded, “We have been working for gender equality for a short time, given the span of human history. Eventually, it will even up. I am very hopeful.” She always believed that fulfilling this hope requires looking at both sides of gender issues. As we say goodbye to this pioneer of modern feminism, we should ask ourselves if it is the movement’s loss that it did not follow her direction.

There was a time when the "gender war" feminism wasn't a gold standard. And an appreciation for the history of the feminist movement could help us, as male advocates, better understand how a series of bargains with the Devil culminated in their movement ending up where it is today, so hilariously and sadly far, far away from their originally stated goals of "equal opportunities and fair treatment for everyone".

Kore624 · 2019-07-30T23:00:13+00:00

Shocking, a feminist that believes in equality.

mewacketergi · 2019-07-30T16:00:28+00:00

Feminism was never gonna go DeCrow's way. It's futile to even entertain that thought.

Title	The Feminist Leader Who Became a Men's-Rights Activist
Author	mewacketergi
Upvotes	18
Comments	13
Date	July 29, 2019 1:09 PM UTC (6 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates/comments/cjb19r/the_feminist_leader_who_became_a_mensrights/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates/the-feminist-leader-who-became-a-mens-rights.1064612 https://theredarchive.com/post/1064612

Comments