So, I'm just curious about the term Masculism / Masculinism. Until recently, I'd never heard the term used outside of a feminist context, where it was often times described as a reaction to feminism seeking to reestablish male privilege. Now that it's starting to gain coinage among MRAs and the mainstream public, I feel we should look into its history and etymology to determine if it's actually appropriate for us to appropriate it.

One of the earliest examples of it's usage I can find of it is Kimmel's 1998 work "Who's Afraid of Men Doing Feminism?", a feminist work detailing three types of reaction to feminism, which I will paraphrase below:

Pro-feminist: A male feminist.

Masculist: Someone who focuses on the issues men face, while mostly ignoring the issues women face.

Anti-feminist: Someone who is against intervention and believes in a "hands off" approach to gender issues.

There is also a reference to Cathy Young's 1994 work "Man Troubles: Making Sense of the Men's Movement" in which she declares:

Mas*cu*lism, n. 1. the belief that equality between the sexes requires the recognition and redress of prejudice and discrimination against men as well as women. 2. the movement organized around this belief. Not to worry: This word is not in the dictionary. But it would be if the decision were up to Warren Farrell, Jack Kammer, and others activists in the men's movement."

I admit, on the surface it's a nice definition, one that most of us could back, even with Young's sirening about it.

Although, as of yet, I haven't found anything by Farrell or Kammer actually declaring or defining that, which might mean that it is a false attribution. It's kind of telling that every article discussing the term inevitably repeats: "It has been said that Warren Farrell and Jack Kammer define..."

The distinction, I feel, is an important one. I could easily enough, for example, say "It has been said that Barack Obama defines women as either 'cute blowjob factories' or 'ugly beer retrieval units.' " He has never said that, to my knowledge. But now that I've expressed that lie, it paradoxically becomes a factually true statement, and anyone can say "It has been said that Barack Obama..." to smear his name with false association. Likewise if the term masculist is used to redefine and reclassify MRAs by claiming it's a legitimate term created and used by our movement's forefathers.

Returning to the topic at hand, I still can't find any evidence that those two created the definition of masculism, just more and more examples of "it's said that they created the definition."

Furthermore, I see it as a cooptive effort - after all, we can't complain about how feminism is a gendered term if we accept the name masculism. It's a petty, inconsequential grievance, to be sure, but it's still one way to shut it up. Rename the Men's Rights Movement so that it uses a gendered term, and convince the activists to start using that term, so they'll stop complaining about feminism using a gendered term.

(Frankly, I'm waiting for the Women's Rights Movement to resurface and join hands with the Men's Rights Movement to smack down Feminism, but eh.)

So, since the term makes my hair raise on hackles, anyone good at researching care to devote some effort into trying to tackle it's origins?