Dear Cis Male, Educate Yourself!

Dear CIS male feminist ally, I know you are there for me when things turn rough in the cyber world. But it does not matter how much you try to help your friends in the feministic strive for equality, as long as you do not educate yourself. So here is a rant of advice, just for you!

“Dear CIS male feminist ally, educate yourself. ” This is nothing new, and many have said the same as I will below, most likely more eloquently formulated. But I had this building rant inside me, and I though I would try out this new platform, so here we go.

I love you CIS male feminist ally. I know I am blessed to have so many of you surrounding me, supporting me and generally being awesome. Many of you are extremely humble and ready to listen and improve. This is what I count on here. Because you are the men who actively take the debate, educate your fellow men, listen to our needs, and try to make the transition to equal emotional and domestic labour. But, my question is, what is your interest in female culture?

Let’s be honest here, if you are anything like me, the absolute majority of the time you watch movies and series, they are about men, written by men. You read books about men, watch male comedians and politicians, listen to male podcasts…the list goes on. I do it too, it’s great, there is so much amazing culture made by men that it is easy to get stuck there. The problem though, is that women are inherently underrepresented, and we all know it. But it is not from a wish to make things “equal” that I want you to consume female culture. It is because I want you to learn. I want you, dear CIS male feminist, to not only see the oppression of being a woman in a patriarchy. I want you to see the wonderful marvelous culture of womanhood. Because let’s face it boys, you need it.

You are living in a society that is not letting you know how “the other half” lives. As a child I loved the book and especially movie Little Women set during the American civil war. In it, heart throb, Laurie, asks his tutor, mesmerized by the sisters March, what the girls in the house next door DO ALL DAY? What was it like, truly, to be a girl? The tutor answered “Over the mysteries of female life there is drawn a veil best left undisturbed.”

You need to disturb that veil. You need to understand female culture, with all the beauty it holds. Because beside the restrictions and limitations there are in being raised a woman in our society it also gives another kind of freedom. Freedom to be open with your emotions, to deeply connect. And if you really want to be a true feminist ally you need to try and see things from our view point, not only by feminist manifestos and dystopian books about handmaids (although everyone needs to read/watch a handmaids tale too). You need to listen in to female conversations, se our culture, be it discussions about menstrual cramps, or what a female friendship really means. Why don’t you watch Mean Girls or something else less dated and more cool that I am too old to have heard off? Take an interest in us. Read, watch, listen to our voices, not only in a feminist context but in any context. And if you don't feel ready to sacrifice your precious spare time and do that work, at least stop frowning at it. Just because girls like it, it does not mean it is inherently bad.

As a culture we have deemed girly stuff as less worthy of our interests, and the sad part of that is that we instead end up glorifying make virtues and forgetting about all the positive parts of femininity. I know the conversation about toxic masculinity is happening everywhere, especially now when #metoo finally has opened up the eyes of so man of our more masculine siblings. But what you gain when you read books for women, see movies made by women and listen into female conversations is not only an understanding of what parts of our shared culture that shapes the feminine role we live with today. You actually might end up learning something about the positive parts of felinity you miss out on in your stiff patriarchal gender role, assigned to you by an over consumption of RAMBO and 'boys will be boys' upbringing. What do you know of female friendship, female aging, the never ending strife to be the good girl when all you want to do is scream? What do you know about the complicated often painful relationship between a daughter and a mother, or the way women are taught that their value is in their constant ability to support and comfort? There is a very easy way to learn, just educate yourself. Next time you go to the book shelf, pick a book of a female author, and if reading is not your thing, I made a short list below.

Tips of the Hour:

Whip it - Movie about falling in love with a douche bag and roller derby, and choosing girl power.

My Name is Anne (accessible on Netflix)- New series based on the book series by L.M Montgomery about Anne of green gables, the advanced class is actually reading the books…

Women of the Hour with Lena Dunham- A podcast about women for women with women. Also check out her other stuff, she is pretty cool, and heavily debated.

Gilmore Girls (please god not the new series but the old one)- Funny, quirky, and profound about female friendship, mother-daughter relationships and men as objects of desire.