If 'I am woman', what is man? British masculinity and the Women's Liberation Movement, 1970-1990

Abstract

This thesis examines the theory and analysis by the Women’s Liberation Movement (WLM) about men - including their sons, husbands, fathers, friends and others - in the context of the project of liberation. The Women’s Liberation Movement (WLM) from the late 1960s has been widely recognised as naming men as oppressors in the systemic subordination of women. Beyond this, however, there has been little attention paid to the specific critique of men and masculinity that was made by this influential movement. Filling this gap, this thesis uncovers a consistent thread of thinking in the critique of men and masculinity that was sustained across campaigns and across the duration of the WLM. That thinking understood masculinity as a mechanism to assert power over others but, more explicitly, pointed to specific traits such as selfishness, hierarchical thinking, aggression and detachment as socially endorsed norms of masculinity. Rather than creating new forms of ‘masculinity’, feminists argued that, if systems of oppression were to be dismantled, gender categories such as masculinity would need to be abandoned in favour of a more egalitarian world in which women and men might coexist with a shared commitment to collective responsibility, regard for others, nonviolence and care.