“One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman,” wrote Simone de Beauvoir. It’s high time we revisited that famous feminist motto and applied it to men to interrogate the construction of male identity.
Look at men through a feminist lens, and what do we see? Suddenly, we understand how men are made, and the stories we tell about inherent masculine nature prove false. We see that the love men bear for women is not a given. We see that in a way, men prefer men—which doesn’t prevent them from being homophobes.
I am a white woman, trans and lesbian, and my point of view is no less neutral or neutered than anyone else’s. I will call on statistics, theories, histories, stories, drawings, and punchlines to give you a new perspective on your fathers, brothers, partners, exes—and maybe even yourself.
Daisy Letourneur founded the blog La Mecxpliqueuse (The Mansplainer), where she has been writing about masculinity since 2017. She is also a feminist, trans, and lesbian activist, a member of the collective Toutes Des Femmes (All Women).