MEN AND MASCULINITIES / October 2002 Pease / MEN’S INTERESTS (Re)Constructing Men’s Interests

Do men have too much to lose to be reliable allies with women in challenging patriar-chy? This article addresses this question by exploring feminist views about the “man question ” and reflecting on a dialogue in a pro-feminist electronic discussion group aboutwhether it ismen’s interests to change. It challenges the view thatmen, as individu-als, have objective interests that arise as a consequence of being men in a patriarchal society and argues thatwhilemenmay construct interests toward their ownmaterial well being, they may also construct ideal interests that are formed by support for more abstract principles. It is thus suggested that men formulate a sense of having particular interests and that they behave on the basis of this formulation. The implications of this view for reconstructing men’s interests toward support for feminism are discussed. Key words:men’s interests, changing men, feminism, objective interests, material inter-ests, emancipatory interests, gender justice The potential for men to change and the reasons why they might do so have been the subject of considerable debate within feminism. It has been said that one belief a feminist needs for working with men in progressive movements is that “men are capable of change, indeed that men are demon-strating change in their individual relations to women and to each other” (Cockburn 1988, 304). Some feminists have pointed out that menwill not change simply because women want them to and that they will not relinquish power and privilege on request (Phillips 1993, 16; Segal 1989, 12).However, a totalwithdrawal from men is likely to lead to a lessening of demands on men. The more women pressure men to change, the more men will be forced to examine the pre-sumptions and prerogatives of masculinity. How aremen expected to respond to these demands? Three feminist read-ings of men and change can be identified. These three views each give a Author’s Note: I would like to thank the profem participants cited in this article for their permis-sion to quote excerpts from their contributions to the electronic discussion list. The Web site address for the list i