Gendered Claims: Men in feminism in 1980s Australia

This article looks at the role that men played in the feminist project in Australia during the 1980s, a time of increased public awareness and institutional presence of feminist politics.  It will show that the 1980s was a period of growing concerns about the feminisation of the Australian society, and in particular the workplace. This prompted many men and some women throughout Western societies to scapegoat feminism as the reason for their sense of gendered displacement. Men therefore, began making gendered claims, simultaneously motivated by such backlash rhetoric that was highly antagonistic to feminism, and yet also empowered by the very language, theories and discourses of feminism that were encouraging individuals to reassess their identity and values. These gendered claims took a variety of forms, and this article is concerned with those that signified a continued interrogation and positive engagement with feminism by men which challenged the backlash rhetoric of this decade. In presenting these examples, I highlight the at times ambiguous and contested presence of men alongside feminist debates and practices of the 1980s as nonetheless integral to the history of contemporary Australian feminism.