Rebecca Walker
Image by Megan Holmes
Rebecca Walker
Issue #20
The multi-talented writer sits down and has a good, frank talk about men
By Tara Lombardo
Published: June 14th, 2004 | 12:01pm
Named one of Time magazine’s “50 Future Leaders of America,” Rebecca Walker is an activist, writer, and entrepreneur. After graduating from Yale in 1992, she founded Third Wave Direct Action Corporation, a non-profit organization devoted to cultivating young women’s leadership and activism. Following in the footsteps of her mother, Alice Walker, Rebecca Walker is the author of To Be Real and Black, White, and Jewish. In her latest book, What Makes a Man, Walker compiles 22 essays by writers (including Michael Datcher, Ruth Bettelheim, and Michael Moore) on the topic of being male in the 21st century.
The following is a continuation of the interview published in issue No. 20.
In your new book, What Makes A Man, you talk about how a re-education within the feminist movement has been really good for women and that there should be something parallel like that happening for men. Do you think that the feminist movement should include men in the struggle, and if so, how?
The women’s movement has always included men in the struggle. Part of it is doing the work to remind people that that’s true. It’s like we need white people to deal with their own racism, we need straight people to deal with their heterosexism, and we need men to deal with their sexism. We need for us to not be the only ones deconstructing these limiting identities. People are deeply unhappy because of the expectations put on them in terms of who they are supposed to be. We all need to figure out how to put a little more space between our own minds and the demands that are being constantly projected onto us.
I think men have to do their part. The more that men understand that the repression of their emotions and the way they were taught that the only way to express themselves is through violence and rage and the more they connect with their desire for peace and their connectivity with other human beings that they love….the happier we will all be (laughs). One has to be strategic about the bringing together of people whose awareness has not been raised to point where they can peacefully exist with people that their behavior can hurt. I’m not against women-only spaces or women only groups; I don’t think that men being involved in this work means that men should be everywhere up in the movement (laughs). The door is open for men to find creative and authentic ways of helping us to get out of this.
The current struggle surrounding gay marriage seems to include a redefinition of what marriage is. What are some of your thoughts on this?
I remember when we were all saying that we shouldn’t be fighting for gay marriage. There was a lot of discussion around “why are we fighting for marriage, it’s just re-inscribing the same old problematic paradigm of the nuclear family.” People felt so strongly about it that that’s just where it went. What I like is that it’s pushing our consciousness about love and I’m all about love (laughs). It is really asserting that love is the primary force here and it cannot be restrained, it cannot be denied and we are going to love each other in all of our different configurations no matter what anyone says about it. I think the people who resist it find themselves to be enemies of love. It’s such a self-defeating position. It’s akin to the civil rights movement in that it’s coming, you know? It’s unstoppable. They can try, but we are not going back to a colored water fountain. It’s the same tide of that unstoppable force towards true liberation. I’m all for it. We are in a very interesting cultural moment and whether it’s a reaction to the coming of age of all of these sons of the movement or all these sons of single moms or lesbian moms … but it’s happening and I’m really glad. It gives me hope.
That’s what we are going to call this piece, “IT’S HAPPENING…” (both laugh)
Comments
Please login to be able to comment on this article.
more