Men at the March: Men’s Participation in Take Back the Night and SlutWalk

• In Event: 313 - Regular Session. Masculinities 2

Abstract

Feminist scholars and activists have long struggled with whether and how to incorporate men into feminist movements, and by extension feminist protest events. We wade into this debate by evaluating how distinct logics of separatism and inclusion of men shape feminist protest events, as well as the media coverage of those events. We anchor this question in an examination of newspaper accounts of two feminist events, Take Back the Night and SlutWalk. We argue that Take Back the Night and SlutWalk organizers tended to use different logics, or ways of doing feminism, in making the decision to include or exclude men, and that these choices had far reaching consequences for both public reactions to the events and the media coverage the activists received. We discuss how these distinct logics sometimes operated simultaneously as organizers negotiated between the benefits of separatism and contemporary calls for men's inclusion. This article contributes to the scholarly and popular debates about the importance of men’s participation in feminist movements.

Authors

• Kelsy Kretschmer, Southern Illinois University-Carbondale

• Kristen Barber, Southern Illinois University-Carbondale