Problems in Justin's feminism
Essay time! (Sorry for the lenght—I made it a list so it's easier to read.) There's been very interesting and insightful conversation about Justin's problematic feminism, and I think there's lot confusion for why people didn't recognize that before. For my part, I didn't know about him before IEWU, so I don't have any first hand knowledge about that. But it's very interesting to me how in hindsight it seems so very clear that his feminism has huge, massive problems. Why he hasn't been called out? Was he just irrelevant, people didn't know or care about him?
It seems like the more you dig, the more problems appear.
Some very clear problems in his (and Jamie's) feminism (many of these points originally from another redditor's great comment for my previous post & from Ophie Dokie's research streams) are the following:
Not understanding consent, doing victim blaming—even after doing the podcast for years. In an episode about consent (discussion between Liz and Jamie), which is published June 2023—after filming IEWU—Jamie clearly lacks understanding of consent and Liz needs to explain that to him like it was the first time he's heard about it. He victim blaims throughout the episode. The man has been doing the podcast for years and has been producing a movie about DV, yet he still thinks that going to second date with a man who was violent towards you is giving the man the idea that the violence was okay. Well okay then.
I think thag a lot of their feminist work focuses on "us, the good guys", which is problematic in so many ways. This comes up e.g. in the fucking awful round table discussion which preceeded the podcast (you find this from Wayferer's YT or from Ophie Dokie's Baldonk & metoo reseach stream) and in the above mentioned episode about consent. They contrast themselves with some horrible things other men have done to make their own actions look less serious.
Not seeing women as human, but as others, something essentially different. As part of the podcast intro Justin says: "maybe it's sexism but I think women are better". This isn't feminism. They see women as princess/goddess/something delicate in a pedestal. This repeats the whore/madonna dichotomy. Surely they wouldn't call any woman a whore publicly, but because they have a very specific idea of what is to be feminine and a good woman, not all women fit into that.
Women needs to be saved, thus women have no agency. They see themselves as saviours, they are the good guys who save both women from bad men and the world by being the leaders of unpolitical male feminist movement. They are the good guys so they deserve to get the women, as it's their god given right as a men. This, too, upholds the patriarchal ideas of gender and the hierarchical gender order.
Essentialist views on gender. E.g. an old Baha'i talk (Justin's and his wife's). They seem to buy into the masculine / feminine energy thing. They've participated in a men's retreat and women's retreat (source: Justin's PR people's texts and an interview with Variety). This energy things repeats the patriarchal ideas of rigid gender roles and essentialist gender differences. They try to speak in an inclusive way, but the diversity of genders doesn't actually fit into this binary idea. They talk a lot about the sanctity of motherhood and birth (womb world looool). This raises the question that how does he actually relate to some real material questions like abortion. In the round table discussion they all seem to have a very abstract, moral based idea of bodily autonomy—they treat SA and cheating as interchangeable—instead of understanding it as a very concrete, bodily question.
Abusing therapy language and feminist discources. The podcast has an episode called Do men abuse therapy language, or smth like that. Haven't listened to it yet, but I'm interested in what they say abt that. They use feminist discources (like internalized misogyny) and therapy language ("i'm imperfect") as an excuse for their shitty behaviour. We all hsve internalized misogyny but that isn't sn excuse to treat women like shit. Socialization affects us all, but it's dangerous and inaccurate to suggest that men are essentially so different that it's so very difficult for them to change themselves so that they wouldn't be so misogynystic and unsafe. They use socialization as an excuse to shitty behaviour.
Homosociality. I think the podcast is made for men, not for women. Not a problem in itself, but the way it's made (and motivations we can only speculate on) is a problem. I think a lot of Justin's and Jamie's behaviour is motivated by wanting to get attention and approval from other men, not from women. Women are just tools in that, by positioning themselves as allies of women they can get praise from women, which then turns into admiration by other men because they can be like "all these women like me, by being a good guy you actually get more women". The more I think about it, the more it seems like all they do is actually made by men in mind and feminism is just a tool to position yourself as "a knower" and "a teacher" to other men. And actually they say it out loud and that's the contradiction in their work: they try to talk to men and be some leaders of redefineing masculinity, but their audience is mainly women. The problem: trying to participate in feminism but trying to exclude women. This is the exact problem in the round table discussion about Metoo (thanks Ophie for the stream!!) from years ago. There's a need for men's spaces too, but to collect random men to discuss women's experiences of sexual violence over dinner is the most tone deaf thing I've ever heard of.
Trying to make feminism a straight cis men's movement. I do firmly believe that there's space and a need for straight cis men in feminism, but centering the feelings of straight cis men is to apply patriarchal power structures to a movement of which whole purpose is to dismantle those very structures. The problem is that he tries to formulate feminism into something that is digestable for specific kind of men instead of trying to get these men to understand the need for feminism. Example: not using the term toxic masculinity because it alienates men (Justin says this in the Gens talk espisode). He's trying to strip feminism of these important consepts that activists and scholars have formed so we would have concepts to describe how patriarchal structures affect men, for example how precisely toxic masculinity affect gay and trans men's experiences of the world because homophobia is such a central paft of toxic masculinity, and you think that you can decide that no, actually this alienates straight cis men so we shouldn't use this?? Fuck off.
Doing feminism as a personal brand, not participating in a collective movement that tries to achieve a societal change. In the Gens talk podcast episode Justin was in he said that (paraphrasing) a couple of years ago he would have been jelous about other men coming to the male feminist space because he had felt that it tales away from him. As a feminist that should be your goal. If you feel like others starting to talk about the same feminist topics as you is taking away from you, then your reasons for the feminist work aren't genuine. Feminism is and always has been a collective movement, not some cult of which leader you should strive to be. Furthermore Justin's feminism just seems very ingenuine, as it looks like he actually just copied another man's—who's a survivor and in a feminist community with other survivors actually doing feminist work—social media presence. (I madea separate post abt this.)
Rejecting politics. Feminism is essentially political and depoliticizing feminism takes away all the potential for change it has as a movement. It's unbelievably egregious to accuse Blake of weponizing feminism when his whole carieer is based on weponizing feminism. The depoliticization also includes rejecting identity politics, which is personally annoyes me. There's relevant criticism to be made, but usually it's only used as an excuse to disregard marginalized experiences and furthermore disregards the importance identity politics can have to marginalized people. And then there's the fact that focusing on straight cis men is also identity politics. The depoliticization really raises the question of what feminism is then, and what's it for? Justin loves to talk about "the work" and learning to show emotions, but even if he succeeded in that, what does it do? Is your feminism only about self-improvement? This individualization and self-help-zation of collective movement focuses only on ME. To be fair, the podcast has episodes on abortion, BLM, financial freedom and sex work, and so on, but I haven't listened to these yet. It's possible that the guests make the episodes good.
Bonus: I think it's interesting to be so hooked in the good/bad guy dichotomy, but then make a movie with character like Ryle and talk about how you wanted to make him likable and symphatetic because there's no bad guys. But then he tries to make the abuser a good, likable guy. Seems like he just can't escape this dichotomy he has in his head.
I know I'm probably implementing paranoid reading, but I think his feminism needs to be criticized because he uses it as a shield to defend himself from valid criticism.
I'm sure there's more, but here's some!