ABSTRACT

Beginning with the first stirrings of feminism in the United States (U.S) through the current era of activism, this chapter pays attention to men’s diverse motivations for supporting feminism. Black men played important roles in the initial era of United States feminism. Shifts to include men as full participants reflects feminism’s growing emphasis on the problems men face because of patriarchy, as well as expanding discussions of transwomen and genderqueer. In 1993, political scientist Kathy E. Ferguson, wrote, The Man Question: Visions of Subjectivity in Feminist Theory. Her focus was on moving beyond the limits of science focused on men as de facto experts and "subjects", and beyond men’s studies of the 1980s, which reinforced gender essentialism. The employment sector was rife with gender and racial discrimination. Black women, poor white women and immigrant women had long been in the workforce, ghettoized into mostly low-skilled, low-paying jobs.