Most every #IDEVAW I tweet out bits of Andrea Dworkin’s ‘I Want a 24 Truce During Which There is No Rape’. It’s powerful on many levels. But this year, I’m reflecting, particularly, on what it asks of pro-feminist men. #MVAW #EndVAW #16Days https://www.rapereliefshelter.bc.ca/learn/resources/i-want-24hour-truce-during-which-there-no-rape-andrea-dworkin-1983

I’ve had a lot of reasons to think about the role of pro-feminist men in the last year - not least with the disaster of #WhiteRibbon in Oz, and the fact that it has, for too long, taken top billing on this day. A far cry from the origins of #IDEVAW: https://kareningalasmith.com/tag/white-ribbon-day/

I also launched Prof. Bob Pease’s ‘Facing Patriarchy: From a violent gender order to a culture of peace’ last week ( https://www.zedbooks.net/shop/book/facing-patriarchy/) and that, too, led me back to thinking about Dworkin and 24hr Truce and what is means to be a pro-feminist man.

[As an aside, yes it does matter to me that men call themselves pro-feminists and not feminists. Blokes, please have some respect for this position, rather than writing op eds about why it’s a "pointless distraction”. Language matters.] https://theconversation.com/asking-if-men-can-be-feminists-is-a-pointless-distraction-30123

At the launch, I read out this bit of 24hr Truce: "What's involved in doing something about all of this? The men's movement seems to stay stuck on two points. The first is that men don't really feel very good about themselves. How could you?"

"The second is that men come to me or to other feminists and say: "What you're saying about men isn't true. It isn't true of me. I don't feel that way. I'm opposed to all of this. And I say: don't tell me. Tell the pornographers. Tell the pimps. Tell the war makers."

"Tell the rape apologists and the rape celebrationists and the pro-rape ideologues...There's no point in telling me...These men presume to speak for you. They are in the public arena saying that they represent you. If they don't, then you had better let them know."

And that really resonated with something Bob points out in Facing Patriarchy - that narratives about “good men” actually take us away from the work we need to do, especially around complicity in patriarchal systems.

As others (inc. @MichaelEDyson) have noted - there's value in thinking about being or becoming a “traitor to patriarchy”. In many ways, I think this is much more useful than language around allies, or even pro-feminists - at least in terms of thinking about activism and support.

So this #IDEVAW, and during the whole #16Days campaign, if you want to help - find ways to be a traitor. Think about what kind of treachery will be required to create the kind of collective action that can achieve a 24 hour truce during which there is no rape. #VAW #MVAW #EndVAW