The Boyfriend's Introduction to Feminism by Gideon W. Stone is a free ebook. It's a quick read: it has a funny, conversational writing style and it's around 100 pages. The author is a man and the book is aimed particularly at young men.
I wanted to share comments, including criticism. As usual, I like critical analysis and believe critical thinking is important to learning and to humanity's intellectual progress.
This is not a book summary or book review. This post is not meant as a substitute for reading the book; it's best as a supplement to go along with reading the book.
Overall, I liked the book enough that I recommended it to a couple men who I thought it could help.
Patriarchy
Beneath it all, patriarchy rests on three bedrock ideas:
1) Humans have two genders, 'men' and 'women'.
2) We can reliably tell men from women by their biological, psychological, and social traits.
3) Men are superior to women.
I think patriarchy advantages men relative to women (but overall it disadvantages everyone compared to a better, more equal system). The claim that men are superior is one of the excuses or justifications for biasing things in their favor, but I'm not convinced it's a core idea. Similarly, with American slavery, whites claimed to be superior to blacks, but I think enslaving blacks for the benefit of whites was the core issue, and claiming superiority was one of many justifications or excuses.
Here's a different definition I found on Reddit recently:
The Patriarchy is "a system of society or government in which men hold the power and women are largely excluded from it."
The focus on power or advantages makes more sense to me than focusing on the claim of superiority. I do like Stone pointing out the premise of there being two reliably identifiable genders. Also, Stone argues that it should be "patriarchy" not "the patriarchy" and I think he has a good point there:
You might notice I used ‘patriarchy’ instead of ‘the patriarchy’. A lot of people read ‘the patriarchy’ as ‘THE PATRIARCHY, LLC’ – as if we have a chairman and bimonthly meetings and a social committee to plan our Secret Santa. Just plain ‘patriarchy’ makes it sound more abstract but also broader in scope, which it is.
Patriarchy is a social institution – that is, a durable set of ideas that shape our relationships with each other. Other institutions include religion, marriage, and Thanksgiving. We don’t usually talk about ‘the religion’, ‘the marriage’, ‘the Thanksgiving’ – so it also makes more sense to talk about just ‘patriarchy’ and not ‘the patriarchy’.
Another reason to avoid the ‘the’ is that the rules of patriarchy can change from society to society, from vicious and obvious (Afghanistan) to subtle and insidious (some European countries). They are all related, but they are not all the same. There are lots of different patriarchies, all of which are patriarchy.
The point that there are multiple different patriarchies in different countries makes total sense to me. It also makes sense that avoiding the "the" is better regarding the misconception that patriarchy is centrally planned or explicitly organized.
Patriarchy, like racism, consists of social norms, traditions, memes, biases, ideas.
Later in the book:
The word 'patriarchy' literally means 'rule by fathers'.
and
Feminist writers adopted ‘patriarchy’ to refer to power dynamics in modern society more broadly.
Both of these statements emphasize power and advantage (ruling is a way of being powerful and advantaged), not the claim that men are superior.
Male Feminists
A lot of people say a man cannot be a feminist. Even some feminists say men can only be allies. But men have been feminists for generations.
I'm not sure about this. Certainly he's right in some sense: men can have feminist ideas. But I think there are valid concerns around men taking too much of the spotlight in the feminist movement and around male feminists not being genuine at higher rates than female feminists not being genuine.
A lot of men who claim to be feminists actually turn out to be misogynists. This is less of a problem with women. Some male "feminists" abuse and exploit their girlfriend or wife who was overly trusting because she thought their feminism made them safe.
And when male feminists get a lot of attention, there can be problems. Men haven't gone through women's experiences and often do a worse, biased or incomplete job at advocacy because they don't understand well enough what being on the receiving end of misogyny is like.
Male feminists also more commonly betray the movement in some way, so having them as leaders can be risky. Sometimes they subtly undermine some feminist claims or agree with some aspects of patriarchy (female feminists may do that too, but I think there's a valid concern about male feminists doing it more).
Male feminists can get extra attention because they're male. Using male privilege to outcompete women for attention is anti-feminist. A male feminist should take active steps to deal with this in some way, not just passively let it happen without acknowledgment and with the implication that he earned all his fans through merit.
Women should have power and leadership positions sometimes, and the feminist movement should be a place which enables that and supports women.
I do acknowledge Stone's point that policing the gender of feminists is in conflict with the feminist ideal of equality and a society that isn't focused on gender. But I still have concerns.
Here I am, a man, drawing attention to a feminist book written by a man who says men can be full feminists. I do personally read about feminism from women more than from men. I think Stone does a good job of speaking to men, which could help some people in my audience (which skews towards young men, although that's unintentional and I'd prefer an even gender split for my readership). But despite the good things about the book, I wanted to challenge Stone some on this topic. The book didn't do much to explain, acknowledge or address these concerns with male feminists (in fairness, I should mention that one of the major goals of the book was to keep it short).
I also want to say that I'm not an expert on feminism and I might not be bringing up the most important points. I'm not trying to be a feminist leader. This is a side topic for me. I'm interested in feminism and I think I learned enough to write some blog posts. But I care more about topics like epistemology, rationality and debate methodology, and I put more work into studying those topics. I hope that my general skill as a thinker and writer lets me bring up some worthwhile points and explain them well.
Inclusivity
If you decide you are a feminist... you are a feminist. One of the weird but nice things about feminism is that once you’re in, you’re in. Nobody can kick you out.
I disagree with this. I think whether you're a feminist depends on what ideas you have. You can say you're a feminist but be lying. You can believe you're a feminist but be fooling yourself. Being a feminist requires having certain ideas or attitudes. If you're a man who exploits your wife's labor, weaponizes your incompetence, and pressures her into sex, then you aren't a proper feminist. If you would rape women if you knew you could get away with it, and you think all men are like that (and always will be), you're not a feminist.
I do think there's something positive about having an inclusive attitude, especially in literature, as long as it doesn't involve toning down criticism of misogyny.
But being inclusive can be a problem at in-person meetups or in some types of online spaces (that emphasize supporting women, not debating) because misogynist men who think they're feminists can be disruptive. Having arrogant, clueless men show up is a practical problem. There's a hard issue here about balancing inclusivity and equality with also having some spaces that are safe from misogynist men. (Misogynist women can be disruptive too, but create fewer, milder practical problems in some scenarios.)
Misogyny Is the Default
It is a common misconception that only elite men are part of The Patriarchy. Almost everybody is part of patriarchy. It's not enough to say, 'I'm not in charge of anything!’ It's not enough to say, 'Oh, I don't really believe men are better than women!’ Unless we confront how these ideas color our entire worldview, we're also part of patriarchy....
It is hard not to participate in patriarchy. We have a hard time imagining anything different, because every part of our society and culture is tainted by patriarchy, going back thousands of years. Patriarchy took over before humans invented writing, so we have to literally dig up and piece together evidence there was ever anything else.
Stone claims that primates generally don't have patriarchies and that humans weren't patriarchal in the past. He says Europe got patriarchy around 7,000 years ago from nomadic invaders from central Asia. He thinks, before that, Europe was more peaceful with women leading families. I have no idea if his historical claims are well-researched or not but I thought they were interesting enough to mention. I didn't know there were specific historical claims like that about the origins of patriarchy that I could look up.
Choices
... patriarchy also denies men choices – like sitting down to pee, or seeing a therapist, or being emotionally available for our children, or anything that might be considered ‘girly shit.’ ...
When men are denied choices, they sometimes assume that means male privilege is illusory.... patriarchy does not protect young men, but tells us that needing protection is feminine....
Some people argue that because men get harmed, society does not value men. Yes: welcome to patriarchy. Patriarchy harms men while claiming it helps them. For example, men are more likely than women to commit suicide. Of course, a key tenet of patriarchy is that a man who needs help is weak. ‘Real men’ know that therapy is basically the same as a Gestapo interrogation, and would rather take their secrets to the grave. Men kill themselves rather than get help, because patriarchy told them they were better off dead.
Getting rid of patriarchy begins with seeing through the lies and learning to think about our lives honestly. And that goes for women, too: most women end up supporting patriarchy because it's easier to go along than fight back. It is easier to think and behave the way other people do, than to try to think and behave differently.
I liked this section.
Another example I saw recently of a choice denied to men is enunciating (more information). Straight men use a smaller range of vowel sounds. Enunciating sounds gay. (I wonder if this is related to presenting as using low effort. Our culture has a lot of stigma against trying too hard.)
Citation Error
Some of the best evidence for the social construction of gender is the fact that different societies have different social constructs. In fact, plenty of cultures have recognized more than 2 genders, anywhere from 3 to 7.[42] These societies were stable for long periods of time, which suggests that any number we assign to genders is arbitrary. Genders are not traits that humans discover; they are categories humans create.
Footnote 42 cites 10 Societies That Recognize More Than Two Genders. In the article, I found lots of examples with 3 genders, one with 5, and one with 6, but none with 7.
Equal Victimhood?
With words like ‘big’ and ‘strong’ Lovell tells us we ought to look aggressive, too. Feminists have written tons about how beauty standards harm women, but in 2001 a study reported “nearly as many men as women are unhappy with how they look”; the authors noted the problem had been growing the last 25 years.
This suggests that beauty standards impact men and women about equally. I don't agree. I think they harm women more, as you might expect in a patriarchy.
Protectors
Car crashes are one of the leading causes of death of Americans, especially children. About 1 in 5 child deaths is from a car crash. If men are protectors, then extremely safe cars – like the 2024 Honda Accord – should be extremely masculine. They protect people extremely well. But no: men show off their masculinity in desperately loud track cars and trucks with kid-killer lifts.
lol :(
Easy Toxic Masculinity
You can think of those expectations as a box. Masculinity has walls; outside the box are all the things men are not supposed to do or be. Some men fit inside the box just fine. Like Lovell, they find it easy to be that kind of man. But many of us do not.
Lovell is a man who wrote a popular pro-masculinity book which Stone criticizes.
I think it's an error to assume Lovell finds it easy to by the sort of aggressive man he advocates being. He might be unhappy and conflicted. Who knows? Why assume someone likes their objectively bad lifestyle or finds it a good, easy fit for them?
Lovell shares an anecdote in his book. His son was bleeding and crying, so Lovell intentionally cut himself with a knife and bled in front of his crying son to shut his son up and "teach" him "masculinity". I wouldn't expect Lovell or his son or anyone else to find that kind of lifestyle or gender performances happy or easy to fit inside of.
Other Comments
I like how Stone says feminism is good for men, not a compromise or sacrifice that noble men make to benefit women. He basically says there is no conflict of interest between men and women. He says equality is better for everyone. This fits my pre-existing classical liberal principles. For an example of how patriarchy harms men, Stone talks about how, in Afghanistan, after removing women from public life, powerful men started sexually abusing boys.
I don't like the recurring negative references to anal sex throughout the book, which I read as standard masculine homophobia, in the guise of joking, with the goal of connecting with his target audience. Whatever Stone's personal attitudes to homosexuality, I think those jokes will appeal primarily to readers with some level of homophobia. Relevantly, I did like and agree with the material near the beginning about how jokes do matter and don't excuse bad attitudes.
I also didn't like the section about age of consent laws, which I found confusing, and I don't think it addressed grooming adequately. (I know keeping it short was a major goal.)
I'd like it if the book challenged men more for their bad behavior. But a gentle introduction has value too. Hopefully the book can persuade some men to read more afterwards. The book barely talked about unequal domestic labor or workplace sexual harassment, which are topics where I think many men need to be challenged and educated to do better.
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