I've always believed that feminism is an important function of a modern queer diaspora. Moreover, active feminism is important for gay men because gay men can benefit from patriarchy. We have a glass ceiling of our own that mirrors the women's glass ceiling, and yet we often comfortably play footsie with hetero-normative discourses.
So, when gay men badger other gay men because of socially constructed ideals about how a man is supposed to act, when our position in the bedroom becomes a foundation for establishing gender roles, when we touch a woman at the club without her consent, or decry them with derogatory words, what we're doing is protecting and promoting misogyny and sexism. If classism, sexism, and racism are inextricably linked through a thread of oppression, then the intersection of race, gender, and sexuality are bound together through a thread of equality, anchored in waves of feminism.
It is this premise that compelled me to ask Black gay/queer/same gender loving men to share with me what their relationship to feminism is. Their voices are a form of resistance against patriarchy; and a form of solidarity with the women whose struggles we share.
