Calling For Equality

Feminist Michael Kaufman on the benefits of diversity hiring, pride for our prime minister and why patriarchy hurts men, too.

- Courtney Shea

Your new book, The Time Has Come, which gives men their marching orders about joining the fight for gender equality, strikes a remarkably non-defensive tone. It would be easy to start by being negative, but this is a positive book about the profound changes in the lives of men that are sparked by advances for, and through the efforts of, women.

Feminism is good for men. Not just because it’s the right thing, but because it improves our relationships, our families, our workplaces and, ultimately, ourselves. Equality is a challenge, though. It involves men giving up the ways they exercise power and privilege, which I describe as a 10,000-year-old affirmative action program.

Ha! And yet, there’s this idea that white men are getting the short end of the stick in diversity hiring.