Anonymous asked: what do you think straight white men actually have to contribute to SJ/Feminist discussion other than signal boosting?

Disabled and neurodivergent straight white men have written things that have been really valuable to me about disability and neurodiversity! Suicidal straight white men have helped to identify some of the reasons for the really high male suicide rate, and to start identifying what good resources will need to look like. Poor straight white men have shared their experiences with class and wealth discrimination in conversations about those topics, and had some really interesting insights about disparities in police reactions and in social services! Homeless straight white men have insights into the challenges of homelessness!

Straight white men who have been victims of abuse have often had really valuable insights about masculinity and our treatment of male abuse victims, and the lack of resources for male survivors of domestic violence, as well as the way men who are abused by women will often be assumed to be the abuser when the police are called. Straight white men who’ve been raped deal with unique stigmas and disbelief and social reactions and I want social justice to be a place where they can talk about this. Gender nonconforming straight white men can still be incidental targets of homophobia and gender-policing violence. My straight white male friends who are immigrants still have to deal with the othering and alienating U.S. immigration system and in some cases with prejudice against English-language-learners. Some of them were not read as white in their home countries. Straight white men who’ve been to prison have been subjected to a level of casual institutional violence that I find horrifying and I’m happy to listen to them about that. Despite being straight, and white, and men, my Jewish friends were pretty bothered by the aforementioned swastika incident and it prompted some really interesting conversations about anti-semitism and bridging different religious perspectives.

Tumblr activism is near-obsessively oriented towards race, gender and sexual orientation, but those are not in fact the only forms of marginalization.

(And for each of the above things, wouldn’t not being a white man make it worse? Maybe. But I’m lucky to have a community that, when I say “I face homophobia” doesn’t go “at least you’re cis” and I would like to extend the same courtesy to marginalized-in-other-respects straight white men.)

And as for a rich NT abled upper-class gender-conforming U.S.-born straight white man with an idyllic childhood, the right faith, and the right relationships (if there are any)…. don’t we kind of want him around? To give us money and networking opportunities and jobs, if nothing else? Like, don’t get me wrong, I think spaces that amplify marginalized voices are really really really important. But I don’t think amplifying marginalized voices is the only important job within social justice, and I think there are absolutely roles that this hypothetical man could fill.