What are men's roles and responsibilities in the feminist project for gender egalitarianism?

Abstract

The #MeToo and the Time's Up movements have captured the urgency to address systemic manifestations of sexism, patriarchy, and misogyny in all aspects of society. Among the myriad discourses that have been catalyzed by these contemporaneous movements includes one related to the role of men in achieving gender egalitarianism. Men are allocated unearned privilege associated with being a man in a culture that is inherently phallogocentric. This fact alone charges men with the responsibility to account for the discursive and the institutional systems that afford them unearned privilege at certain relational costs that must be borne by women and, concomitantly, the feminine. The #MeToo and the Time's Up movements—which have initiated greater cultural recognition of the problems associated with establishing a society that is predicated on androcentric values—mark a pressing need, one that is much overdue, for men to interrogate the inequitable ways in which gender configures contemporary social relations. As a contribution to this effort, this article draws on reflexive accounts from men academics broadly invested in the study of gender and organizations and who are at different stages of their careers and from dispersed geographical areas, to respond to the question: What are men's roles and responsibilities in the feminist project for gender egalitarianism? In answering this question, these academics, individually and collectively, identify paths for allyship moving forward.