There’s a season for everything, and this seems to be the week of interviews about the controversy surrounding my work. Monday, Persephone Magazine ran a piece by Zahra Tahira featuring an interview with me, and today, XoJane put up a post by associate editor Lesley Kinzel featuring another interview and some more questions. Plenty of heated debate in the comments section.
What do you hope to contribute to feminism, given your complicated history? More than that, what is the role of men in feminist conversations, in general, in your opinion?
I believe men can and should – heck, must – support the feminist project. How we do that is open to debate. For me, feminism provides a lens through which to see the path to a better, more just, fairer world for my children and everyone’s children. Feminism is about liberating both men and women from the restrictive, misery-making straitjacket of gender roles that leave most of us as incomplete people. We’re all invested in that, or should be.
For me, feminism offered me a vehicle with which to match my language and my life. Feminism challenged me to live differently, and it gave me a perspective on how to live kindly, honestly, and empathetically in a male body. Feminists don’t owe me a welcome. But feminism changed my life in countless ways for the better. I’d like more people – especially men – to hear that message.
Excerpt:
I’ve been reading you for several months and have become more and more bothered and conflicted without exactly knowing why until now. At first, I thought I was unduly influenced by learning of your past unethical and illegal actions but it turns out it isn’t only that, although, those actions coupled with your continuing pathology does not make for a pretty picture.
Every piece you produce SCREAMS out that you are a RAMPANT NARCISSIST! Some pieces are more subtle that others, but in totality, the chalk is on the board, “professor”. It’s been a long time since I’ve encountered someone as exceptionally pathological as you are, masquerading as a defender of women, but your appearance on Rikki Lake was so over the top, that all your sickness became flinching clear.
You’re a media whore and your penis is your agenda. Plain. Simple. Boring. You’re just like every other misogynist psychopath out there who is run by his dick, except you’ve learned how to manipulate with the written word instead of your fits. Tell ’em what they want to hear.
A man that goes on record about your deeply disturbing past unethical and illegal sexual conquests should be the first one not to wish the same on his own son, but because your penis was ‘harmed’ once in college, but of course, never mentioning on TV all the harm you did to countless women’s bodies and psyches, you CUT your own son without his consent and bragged about it.
Flavia Dzodan is one of the world’s most respected feminist voices for minority women. Learning that you sought to silence her was the final outrage. How dare you claim to be a friend of women or men for that matter? The only friend you have is you and your deluded wife, who no doubt will wind up maligned in one of your self-promoting pieces when she finally wakes up and divorces you.
“Every piece you produce SCREAMS out that you are a RAMPANT NARCISSIST!”
It’s…a blog. Blogs are narcissistic by nature. Do you have one?
Um, actually I do have a blog but and it’s narcissistic. So? I’m not claiming to be “pro-masculinity” or running around showing my tits to anyone nearby.
And I haven’t tried to kill anyone, slept with my students, or mutilated my children.
You???
You are right, Jane, he is simply a psychopathic narcissist – but that’s apparently what goes over among lots of segments of modern-day America.
On his blog, though, he’s kind of down to the 2 cheerleaders Ellen and Very Important Andrew What’s-His-Name, L.C.S.W. Oh, and a few sock puppets. But there are always new people that Hugo can win over.
Do you both consider yourselves to be feminists?
Not asking that to debate whether you both really are or not, I’m just curious.
But back to the topic, whatever Hugo wants to call himself doesn’t bother me. I may dicker with the details (I don’t think “shatters” gender myths and sometimes he even reinforces them) and I don’t always agree with him, but for me personally I do find agreement, or at least partial agreement, in a lot of what he writes. Even if I hate it, or I just shake my head and think “damn, you really don’t get it,” most often at minimum I find it engaging.
But that’s just me.
I’m a fan of Jaclyn Friedman, who I know has spoken against Hugo, and also of the blogger known as Clarissa, who, from what I’ve read of her, isn’t so much against Hugo as he’s just not her cup of tea. I respect both their positions. I think we *should* be debating “The Hugo Question, ” and I’m discovering all sorts of cool blogs, both pro and anti-Hugo, in all the brouhaha. But the mass fury thrown at every article, regardless of the content or the points raised, is something I’m not understanding.
The reason why you’re “controversial” completely escapes me.
I don’t get it.
You blog. I enjoy reading your blog. Other people may not enjoy reading your blog. That’s okay.
Sometimes I disagree with you. Sometimes I comment about it.
Other times, when I do agree with you, I share the link to the post on Facebook. Often some of my friends will “like” it. Others won’t. Others disagree with it. That’s okay. We discuss.
You tried to kill your girlfriend. I don’t like that. You slept with your students. Meh. You wrote profesional and academic recommendations for your lovers. THAT BUGS THE HECK OUT OF ME. But still, on the whole, I enjoy reading your blog.
Why the fuss? I don’t get it.