OK my cousin, who actually knows what she is talking about, unlike me, says a sex change operation won’t work. I have to face the hard facts.  I plan to do that. So I have cancelled my sex change operation, but I have a plan B.

I herby announce that I am a feminist! Just saying we believe in equality is not enough either. Men who have been the beneficiaries for centuries of a system that rewards males  and are so embedded in that system that we don’t even see our own privilege, have to take a hard look at that system, our place in it, and what we can do about it.  We must renounce that system clearly and unequivocally. It is a noose around our necks, not just our wives, daughters and grand daughters. It is grossly unfair and the first step is to acknowledge that. We men must all do that.

We must also admit that we can never fully experience or appreciate what it is like to be on the pulverizing side of that system of dominance. We can never appreciate how women are often in fear when we think there is nothing to be afraid of.

Last night I watched a powerful film, Polytechnique, that gave me a glimpse into that world of fear, when I saw the faces of the women who had to stay behind in the class room with Marc Lepine holding an automatic rifle at them, as the men slunk off sheepishly, to relative safety. Lepine came after them too later, but none of the men died. 14 women died. The fear is real and it is justified. Women live in a society in which they are vulnerable to attack and weak men will attack them. It happens. Just like weak men take advantage of a system that erodes the opportunities for women in favor of men. That has happened for a long time and it must end.

We men have to speak up. It is not up to women to speak up. We must do it. Each in our own way. If we don’t speak up we acquiesce in a system that is fundamentally unjust and we are stained by our own silence. We are weinees.

Marc Lepine said he hate feminists. He blamed them. So I say, “I am a feminist.”