Giuseppe Name: Giuseppe Gender Identification: Male, Guy, Pronoun is He, Gender nonconforming but ‘so called’ cis male. Feminism, How do you define it? I define feminism as, like I define a lot of other ideologies and large ideological trends, basically, to me, it is a wide framework of an ideology to oppose patriarchy and systemic and structural male supremacy, and you know, a fight for a relative equality, whatever that means, for any gender identities.
Do you consider yourself a feminist? Absolutely.
How would you explain patriarchy? Patriarchy is an adaptable, flexible, ever changing system of male control and male domination and it has existed long before capitalism but it has always been intersectional with the other kinds of systems of oppression that have existed alongside it, so where there was feudalism or monarchy, or where there was slavery, chattel slavery or the earlier forms, those existed intersectionally with patriarchy, you could divorce patriarchy from them or vice versa, so patriarchy changes under different systems, but today patriarchy, or modern patriarchy as it exists interwoven and intersectional with white supremacy and capitalism and none of these things can be completely divorced from each other no matter how much they may adapt to new systems of oppression.
Why the use of the word patriarchy over sexism? Sexism is the ideology, or the mentality, and patriarchy is the system. So where-
as you have white supremacy as the system, you have racism as the ruling class ideology that is taught to everyone in a society. We are all socialized with sexism, or male chauvinism, or whatever other kind of language we want around it, under a system of patriarchy, or as bell hooks calls it “white-supremacist, capitalist, patriarchy”
Why do you consider yourself a feminist when it is this term that a lot of people don’t identify with, especially if they consider their gender to be male? There are multiple answers to that. One answer, I self identify as a communist, despite the fact that it is a heavily stigmatized ideology and political persuasion that has included a lot of people that I strongly disagree with, and there are a lot of feminists that I strongly disagree with as well. But, at the same time, A, I’m a feminist because I was raised as such by my mother who is a feminist and she is a part of a project to dismantle patriarchy, and so am I, and I was raised in that fight. And simultaneously I can’t be an antiracist, an antiimperialist or a marxist or communist, without being a feminist. In my opinion, you are not actually fighting capitalism or white supremacy unless you are also fighting patriarchy. So, I am a feminist because I have no choice. Because it was how I was raised. Because it is the struggle I was raised in, and it is the fight for our lives that some of us will take to the grave.
How do you feel about men who co opt women’s struggle? I think that systems of oppression and conservative forces within those systems can always engage in that, so there are a tremendous amount of racists that use antiracist language, we can see that in the democrat and republican
parties, we can see a lot of people who, capitalists, who will sell anti-capitalism to us, you can smash a window, and then gap will put up a sticker that pretends to show a smashed window and has on the other side, a hoodie and a mask. So the reality is, anything can be coopted by people who are fundamentally conservative and trying to maintain that privilege and maintain that system and I think that the question needs to be called on them, the ideology needs to be sharpened, the politics and the action around it need to be sharpened, and they need to be put back into their place, which is, as the structural oppressor.
How do you feel that you can be a positive force in women’s struggle as a male? The great line “I don’t want you to help me with my liberation, I want you to fight along side me because it is indelibly linked to mine.” The struggle against patriarchy is my own liberation, is every single person on this planet’s liberation, there is no one that is not a victim of the alienation that is created by patriarchy, there is no one who is not boxed and controlled and dominated by this system, and I have privilege in it, less than a lot of cis males because of my experiences, but I have a lot of privilege and that privilege is a loss. It means that there are things that I don’t have, and therefore my liberation has to come through fighting patriarchy and the liberation of all those who I love across the planet, and certainly in my own family and my own circles is absolutely a fight against patriarchy, so I don’t have a choice. I feel that if I want to be free, not if i want to be happy, if I want to be happy I can be complacent with my privilege, and if I want to be free I have to fight this system of patriarchy.
Do you think that males can also be negatively affected by patriarchy? I think that all people , regardless of their gender identity or gender presentation, are oppressed and alienated by patriarchy. The construction of machismo, masculinity, is something that comes out of a ruling class and a ruling system, a regime of patriarchy. And so in order for us to be free we have to be out of the confines of that. This kind of goes back to what I was just saying about, I could be happy and complacent in my privilege, but I would not be free. Instead, men across the planet, and all cultures that are affected by patriarchy which is certainly the vast majority of them, are insecure, have self doubt and self hate, haze each other, dehumanize each other, dehumanize the people around them, and lead lives that are so much based on isolation, on being confined, on being controlled, just as women do, and its a different form of control in many ways. For most men it is not a form of violent control by women, it is a form of violent control by other men. We are pressured, we are pushed, we are controlled by each other, we are our own police, our own colonizing force that makes sure that every other man falls in line. Doesn’t step out of bounds. And so men are incredibly mentally unhealthy, men are incredibly disaffected and alienated by this. We don’t know who we are, we only know what we are made to do, and that is true for men, women and other gender identities as well. I think that man’s liberation, and I use it in a gendered way, not as humankind, man’s liberation is fundamentally linked to women and all other gender liberations, and that men will not be free until he is capable of fighting that privilege and actually seeking the dismantling of patriarchy.