Original Article: The Limits of Empathy and Why Men Can't Be Feminists
There are a number of issues that, in my mind, come to the forefront when I read your blog on this matter. I'm going to do my best to write on them in such a way that doesn't make me feel like I'm sounding like so many men I can't stand.
I'm going to try and summarize your blog in a sentence, just so I know what I'm working with and (although I hope I'm not misrepresenting your own words) at least you can read the impression I'm working with and to which I'm reacting.
You're asserting, from the experiences of being female and from recent(?) exposure to James Cone's liberation/power theology, that males cannot be feminist because of the way differences in shared experiences prevent a fullness of empathetic theological formation.
Out of all of this, I want to work with essentialism, empathy, and power. I'll start with essentialism. It seems to me that you're saying males cannot be feminist because there is a experience (or development thereof) that is essential to the female sex that prevents any degree of empathy on the part of males. I'm not sure if you're trying to say that there is a shared biological experience among females that necessitates and facilitates feminist theology or if you're saying that there is a shared ontological experience of encountering reality among females that does so. In either case, I find this to be rather offensive for two reasons. First, I am male and consider myself to be a feminist. To be far, this is what contributes to my interest in this post in the first place. Second, that this assertion works with a troublesome gender binary. With the increasing awareness of GLBTQ advocacy in our world, we can no longer operate with biological binaries as categorical determiners. Moreover, I would argue that working with the 'men are from mars / women are from venus' framework is equally troublesome.
Giving you the benefit of the doubt, if you're not saying that the biological differences between males and females prevents the empathetic formation necessary for feminist theology and if you're not saying that there are gender binaries operating that cause distinctly different perceptions of the world in males and females (which in turn also prevents empathetic formation), then it seems that you're saying there's something else preventing males from feminist empathetic formation. I will agree there there plenty of other possibilities that could prevent such empathy. Sexism, greed, power dynamics, scriptural interpretation etc. all contribute to the formation of individual and communal worldviews that build walls between the sexes rather than facilitate intercommunication between them. But even these troubling possibilities shouldn't be deemed as legitimate reasons for making a sweeping statement 'preventing' all males from locating themselves within the feminist historical movement. If physical biology and sociological preconditions aren't the experiences you say separate males from empathetic community with females in the feminist movement, what experience of being female do you assert 'prequalifies' a female for 'membership' within the feminist movement? What about being male makes 'sharing' such an experience impossible?
Concerning power, it seems that a decent portion of your argument here is grounded in the historic manifestations of the distance between the haves and the have-nots, particularly insofar as males have respectively personified the former and females the later. You are arguing, unless I'm missing an implicit essentialist assertion, that because males have historically embodied positions of authority and females have not, "between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us. (Luke 16:26)" Moreover, you assert that the driving male interest in feminist is really only a means of getting past male guilt for any intentional or unintentional participation/support of sexism. I find this to be terribly offensive. I will agree however, that because of the doctrine of sin, our best intentions are marred by our own self-interests. Nevertheless, any Lutheran theological assertion that all masculine intention to support/participate in the feminist movement is _only_ driven by the desire to remove guilt from one's self (admittedly ignoring the blessed exchange's relevance here) cannot really be Lutheran at all simply because it ignores the presence of the simul within the human creature. As I mentioned on twitter, this statement you make is just as offensive as saying that white people are only interested in causes to abolish racism in order to feel less guilty about being white. In response, you brought up the point that GLBT supporters are not known as GLBT, which despite being true merely illustrates that this whole argument comes down to a matter of semantics. Although there may be instances wherein this 'guilt confrontation' is the driving factor in attracting/keeping certain individuals within larger political movements, saying that this is the norm is offensive both to the individuals and to the movements themselves. Feminism does have its moments when it is about confronting the guilt males have to take in their systemic abuse, neglect, etc. of females. But in addition to the critical importance of the feminist movement, it also has constructive importance as well. Making sexuality a definitional characteristic of feminism does not serve the movement's constructive thrust. It states what the movement is not and does not assert what the movement is.
I too have read Cone's work (some of it) and I will agree that power dynamics and the differences between those who have and those who do not play a big role in communal formation and solidarity when it comes to racial or sexual liberative theologies. In a sense you're mad-libbing the Christian mantra from Mark 10. Instead of selling all that one has and giving to the poor, which given the relationship between money and power is valid, you're putting in gender, power, position of authority, etc. in the place of money. On the face of things, this seems well and good. However there are irrevocable characteristics that mediate our physical existence as well as our relationships to one another. Despite Jesus' words about removing eyeballs or limbs, I cannot 'give away my maleness' especially if we confess that gendered humanity is created imago Dei. Nor should I have to locate myself in the midst of a binary (or otherwise divided) system of Christian anthropological reformation given that the very nature of Christian community is one in which the distinctions of race, sex, and power do not hold chief importance. These accidental (Aquinas' not State Farm's) characteristics play a part in the kingdom but only in a vocational sense.
If your concern with power is not with some sort of inherently corrupted nature it imbues onto human beings (as if we needed any help in that area), but rather with the construction of liberative feminist community, then I am especially confused by what role (if any) you think males have in this endeavor. If I, as a male, cannot be a feminist because of biology or historical association with power, then how can I be understood as an ally? Aren't those particularities (for good or ill) still at play in my role as an ally of the feminist movement? If males are not participants within the historical movement of feminism, then how do you even begin to talk about instances when male participation has already taken place?
In the end, it seems that your interest in excluding males from 'membership' within the feminist movement is not one that seeks to better the movement in itself but rather seeks to find a specialized locality for your own particular importance within a larger movement. We all like to feel like we're needed. But saying that redefining the parameters of my particular subset of a demographic is somehow helping the larger demographic is incorrect. In the long run, making a definitional statement about a larger community in order to change its communal contour to adhere to my own particularity, is a disservice to the community I claim to support and perpetuates disingenuous membership therein.
