Sisterhood and Brotherhood are Powerful...Global...Forever

You can never truly know another person's sufferings.

But you can learn and support that person.

It totally boggles my mind to hear the number of people who think that feminism is no longer relevant. It boggles my mind even further to hear them say that males can't be feminists. At Quad Day, when I staffed the feminist booth, I heard several guys say that they couldn't join/sign up because they weren't women.

Apparantly, those guys don't know their history. The fact is, unless you identify as a separatist, the women's movement has always had its male supporters. Any kind of civil rights movement has had (and probably would not have gone as far without) its allies in different groups. From the beginnings of the first wave of feminism, with men attending the Seneca Falls convention, to the present day, there have always been men to support women's advancement. When I staffed my crisis center's fundraiser, a good third of the people in the marquee tent were men. And this fundraiser was enormously huge--the guests numbered in the thousands! My dad was the one who introduced me to women's liberation--way back in first grade. It is in no way "natural" or "intrinsic" for men to be sexist or put women down. Last time I checked, men are people and people do come with reasoning and ethics. And they are more than capable of noticing and pointing out when something isn't fair.

And that goes for just about any other kind of civil rights. The nation saw people of all races come out and show their support during the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s--it wasn't just limited to the black community. I've participated in the Day of Silence and other events that support LGBT rights because that's what I believe in. I'm heterosexual, but I've got the Day of Silence shirt and the rainbow ribbons. I have supported diversity initiatives and have never been fooled by people who use "tokenism" as a replacement for real and actual diversity.

As I am not part of many of the groups I support, I suppose I can never know exactly what they feel or have to go through. I realize that, and I'm not going to pretend to know everything.
But I can learn.
And with learning comes tolerance and support--exactly what the world needs to fight injustice. Sisterhood is certainly powerful, but having allies of all kinds is even more so.