Men and feminism and homophobia

Hugo Schwyzer has a great post on the subject I'd like to point out. He makes some fantastic points about practical things men can do as feminists, things he's learned from actually duking it out as a women's history teacher. This quote got me to thinking:

I wish it were not so, but I know that my sex immunizes me against the charge of being a "frustrated, angry, man-hating feminazi." (I know full well those words have been used against my fine female colleagues who also teach women's history). Rather than take advantage of this unearned legitimacy, I try and use it to explore my students' attitudes towards feminism, challenging them to look at their own overt and subliminal assumptions about women in authority.

Of course, some of my students are convinced I'm as gay as a bunny.

That made me laugh, I have to admit. I didn't ever think much on the gayness of bunnies, but it's funny.

But I find it interesting that our culture's automatic reaction to a man who expresses interest in advancing women's rights is to assume that he would not like to have a woman in his bed, to put it bluntly. Sometimes I forget that most people think that a man's sexual interest in women is entirely dependent on his ability to dominate, since that kind of principle just isn't really much of a factor in my life. Sure, I know men who are attracted to submissive women, but I also know men who are attracted to brassy, opinionated women. It's easy to forget that to the culture at large, homophobic as it is, it's still easier to grasp that a man could be gay than to grasp that he might be disinterested in dominating a female sex partner.

Of course, people don't think it that through like that. I think the knee-jerk reaction comes out of the hodge-podge, illogical, prejudice-driven thinking that dominates discourse on gender and sexuality. In our culture, "gay" is everything that is not strapped into the me Tarzan you Jane gender role-playing. Sexism and homophobia are the same urge, the desire to make everyone stick to strict gender roles, the ones that are best adapted to keeping men dominant over women. Obviously, it's not just feminist straight men that our culture cannot comprehend, but as any outspoken feminist knows, some people cannot conceive that a woman will want to be equal to a man and still sleep with men.

Because sexism and sexual orientation are seen as dependent on each other in our culture, we have some really odd stereotypes of gays and lesbians, too. For instance, it's well-believed that lesbians "choose" their sexual orientation as an explicit rejection of men. I continue to meet people who seem to be under the impression that two women together in bed are getting it on with one thing on their minds--men and how they aren't there. And since, for men at least, dominating women and fucking them are considered one and the same thing, gay men are seen as exempt from sexism. As much as I enjoy "Queer Eye", for instance, I am always perplexed that one of the premises is that the Fab Five know better how to please a woman than the straight man that lives with her, just because they are gay. (In reality, if they pull the trick off it's because they cleaned and decorated, something any sentient being would appreciate.)