Men’s Power with Women, Other Men, and Society

Abstract

My aim in this paper is to analyze men’s power from the perspective afforded by the emerging antisexist men’s movement. In the last several years, an antisexist men’s movement has appeared in North America and in the Western European countries. While it is not so widely known as the women’s movement, the men’s movement has generated a variety of books, publications, and organizations* and is now an established presence. The present and future political relationship between the women’s movement and the men’s movement raises complex questions which I do not deal with here, though they are clearly important ones. Instead, here I present my own view of the contribution which the men’s movement and men’s analysis make to a feminist understanding of men and power, and of men’s power over women, particularly in relation to the power that men often perceive women have over them. Then I will analyze two other power relationships men are implicated in—men’s power with other men, and men’s power in society generally—and suggest how these two other power relationships interact with men’s power over women.