Dear Amy,

My name is Mike. I'm seventeen, and I live in Jersey [I'm bumped back and forth between my mother's house in north jersey & my father's house in south jersey]. I have supported the idea of feminism since about seventh or eighth grade when i first started listening to Bikini Kill. I often look at situations, and apply feminism to them in my mind.

Doing this has compelled me to write small essays and papers on feminism & feminist theory, seen by myself only of course. Recently in my English class we had to write on a social issue that effects us. While most of the conservative republicans in my class did anti abortion and pro-war in Iraq, I did feminist issues of today, which my feminist liberal teacher was quite happy with. I think the purpose of my e-mail is, I don't know, almost to ask if it is alright if a male writes thesis and theory on feminism. Even though I consider myself a male feminist, sometimes I feel a bit intimidated by the things that I read written by fellow feminists. Thank you for taking the time out to read my letter.

Sincerely,

Dear Michael,

I'm glad that you reached out. First, sorry that you have to live in the land of conservatism. It's much easier living life in NYC and pretending that this is the norm.

I absolutely think that men can and should be feminists -- not only to benefit the fight for women's equality, but for themselves. There are so many issues that men are equally struggling with -- access to affordable and quality health care, flex time at work, better salaries, more career options. It use to be that men contributed to feminism by fighting for these things for women, when in reality, they too have to fight for these things. I'm sure that there are other more obvious things just at your high school.

Thanks for sharing and you certainly are as entitled as I am to own the feminist label.

-- Amy