As a group, men put an incredible amount of pressure-on themselves and each other-to conform to the "masculine" ideal. This comes from a deeply rooted ideological assumption about the inherent, so-called "natural" differences between men and women. It's an uphill challenge to shake off that social conditioning.
That being said..I believe that there are many men who sincerely want to help the feminist movement in its goals. However, I also believe that male allies or would-be allies of feminists don't speak out as often because they fear the inevitable backlash from other men. You can call it cowardice or complacency, and you wouldn't be wrong.
I wonder how white civil rights leaders felt in the 1960s, particularly in the South. Pretty sure many of them were ostracized, disowned, and despised-hell, many were murdered by Klansmen and other racist slime! It's one thing for members of an oppressed group to recognize social inequality; but how can more members of dominant groups find the courage to stand side-by-side with the oppressed, to actually recognize that yes, privilege is real, deprivation is real, inequality is real, and it's holding back society as a whole?
I don't have any answers tonight. But I do know that more of us men must confront each other frankly and firmly about sexism, just as whites have to confront each other about racism, and straight people have to confront each other about homophobia.
Martin Luther King, Jr.'s words still ring true:
Lamentably, it is an historical fact that privileged groups seldom give up their privileges voluntarily. Individuals may see the moral light and voluntarily give up their unjust posture; but, as Reinhold Niebuhr has reminded us, groups tend to be more immoral than individuals
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http://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html
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