On men's pro- and anti-feminist engagement in Sweden

This article describes and analyses Swedish men’s contemporary pro- and anti-feminist engagement. Men who engage with feminism view it as either enabling or constraining the satisfaction of their needs. The pro-feminist men believed feminism helped them improve the lives of both women and men by changing themselves and other men. The anti-feminist men opposed feminism in two general ways. Liberal anti-feminists considered it a threat to individual men, while conservative anti-feminists believed it threatened nuclear families and Western society. A combination of spoken (in the form of interviews) and written (in the form of social and traditional media) accounts from Swedish men on feminism constituted the study’s data. Beyond describing pro- and anti-feminist men’s differing viewpoints on feminism, a model articulating the main aspirations of men’s pro- and anti-feminist engagement is presented. The model asserts that the groups take on different positions in the struggle over recognizing and satisfying social and material needs.