A construção da identidade feminista de homens: um caso pioneiro no Brasil

Abstract

This Final Graduation Project for the Education Program has as its aim to explore feminist identity and get to know the trajectory of feminist men, based on bibliographical and empirical research. As such, it reports the trajectory of the feminist movement and its theory all the way until men‟s studies; conceptualizes the terms gender, identity, and feminist identity; and explores the possibility of a feminist identity in male subjects who, as a whole, have a dominant position in gender relations. The bibliographical gathering was done on the internet using “feminist identity” and “feminist men” as key-words at first, revealing the scarcity of work on the topic; after that, it was carried out in the last ten meetings of the Brazilian Educational Research Association (Associação Nacional de Pós-Graduação e Pesquisa em Educação - ANPED), and in two journals: Revista Brasileira de Educação (RBE) and Revista de Estudos Feministas (REF) in the years of 2013, 2014, 2015 and issues available for 2016, which also confirmed its scarcity. To illustrate the inclusion of men in the feminist movement, it shows the trajectory of a male feminist scholar, founder of an NGO, and of a university gender studies center, both pioneers in the study of men and masculinities: INSTITUTO PAPAI and Núcleo de Pesquisa em Gênero e Masculidades – GEMA, member of the North and Northeast Feminist Network of Gender Studies Centers (Rede Feminista Norte e Nordeste de Estudos e Pesquisas sobre Mulheres e Relações de Gênero - Redor). The interviewed scholar views the feminist movement as a collective project or, in other words, feminism is everyone‟s struggle, male or female. The importance of men in such movement, which targets empowering women and a change in men‟s and women‟s identities, is confirmed, in the overall struggle for gender equity. The conclusion points out the importance of inclusion of men in the feminist movement and of the theme in the training of educators.