But somehow men leave the heavy lifting against gender bias and gender hatred to women. The most charitable explanation is that men worry they cannot speak about this subject authentically, that their perspective is of less value than a woman's. Others fret they'll get it wrong, that they'll inadvertently say something that is itself sexist, thereby revealing that they too don't "get it" – so it's safer to say nothing. The diffidence of the men who took part in last week's #twittersilence was striking, several indicating that they were only "sort of" taking part.
Underlying all of this is that fear of ridicule, the suspicion that there is something funny about a man in a No Page Three T-shirt, or even about the simple act of calling himself a feminist. (Freedland, 2013).
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