meninist

The original meninist surfaced on the website feminist.com in a 2001 manifesto announcing meninist to be a “new global organization of men that believes in a woman’s right for equality in society including political, social and especially in the workplace.” The group was founded by feminist.com founder Marianne Schnall’s husband, Tom Zatar Kay, as an online space where men who were feminists (hence meninists) could share ideas and experiences, and as part of that, members were invited to send letters to be posted on the site.

Kay’s conception of meninism, sadly, never quite took off. In 2013, a 28-year-old Ti Balogun started the “#MeninistTwitter” hashtag on Twitter to satirize, as he put it, “the way feminists express themselves, which is a turn-off.” While Balogun remorsefully admitted that “feminism has it’s place in society” and that “there are clearly women that are oppressed” in a 2013 interview with the HuffPost, the term meninism was quickly adopted by men who believed that they were victims of feminism.

Meninism doesn’t have an official manifesto, but generally speaking, there is significant overlap in beliefs many meninists hold and the views of other groups in the so-called manosphere. Meninists don’t necessarily go to the extreme that Men Go Their Own Way does in their belief that men should completely avoid contact with women. However, they do argue there are double standards against men, particularly when it comes to physical appearance and social etiquette.

While the term meninism may be realtively new, many of the ideas it stands for are not. In fact, starting in the 1970s, many men’s groups were created such as the National Coalition for Men, a large portion of which were established in response to second-wave feminism.