Allies

I spotted a twitter thing last night that was fairly interesting, #ThingsFeministMenHaveSaidToMe. And i think the time has come to address the issue of Allies in social justice movements. Allies are those people not directly affected by a form of discrimination, but who are supporters of the social justice movement to limit that discrimination. They can be found in (around?) every movement, and sometimes they cause problems.

Take feminism, for example. There are a lot of men who support feminism, including me. Some of them identify as Feminists and some do not. I’ve heard conflicting advice on whether men ought to call themselves feminists, some women have suggested that men call themselves feminist allies instead.

I’m partial to Allison Kilkenny’s advice in this: Men can be feminists, but only if they don’t make it their brand. Only if they don’t take up speaking slots that could have gone to women, and write books that could have been written by women, and print “Male Feminist” on their business cards. Because at some point they’re hurting the movement rather than helping.

There can be some confusion about who gets to call themselves an ally, as well. I use a sports metaphor here. Coaches and support staff are definitely allies, they might even get their name on the trophy. Maybe you could consider them part of the team… but when they’re talking about the players, they should probably say They instead of We. Sponsors could be considered allies, but not for one single day after the money stops flowing. Cheerleaders, well, you could probably consider them allies. They probably help out somehow, though the best sports do without them entirely.

The fans… they don’t get to be called allies. No way. It’s weird and creepy when Seattle does their “Twelfth Man” thing, we don’t need to bring that mentality out into the real world. A good rule of thumb is that if the team wouldn’t notice that you didn’t show up one day, you aren’t an ally.

I think I could be considered a feminist ally in this case. I’ve promoted it, argued for it, donated money to it. For LGBT stuff… well, I’m not sure if I’ve ever sponsored anything or spoken out much. I could probably be considered more of a fan than anything else. It would be shady as hell to start calling myself a queer ally.

Maybe Ally should be a title that gets bestowed rather than one you claim for yourself. On the other hand… remember when I wrote about the “We Were Children” screening? One of the first nations activists called us “Our Greatest Allies” and I’ve got to say, we did not earn that. We didn’t do anything! We just showed up, watched the movie, and asked what I hope were decent questions. I can’t say that having that title bestowed upon me makes me any more likely to describe myself that way.

I made a joke in that post about the cookies… it’s a reference to the idea that there are no ally cookies, you can’t expect to be rewarded just for basic human decency. It’s a reasonable idea. After all, if the movement is a success it will result in lessening discrimination and helping bring oppressed people up to par, not giving them an advantage. So why should allies get an advantage?