Male Feminists?

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So, the other day, gabrielleabelle made a post questioning the labeling of Angel as a feminist icon. The general consensus, not surprisingly, is that Angel is NOT the feminist icon we are looking for. But it did make me wonder - are there ANY male feminist icons in popular culture? I can't think of any.

Okay. "Icon" is a pretty high bar. How about just a portrayal of a male feminist character? Any medium. How many can you think of?

I'm also including gingerwall's list of criteria from the same post, just for reference. Your criteria may be different (I expect the third one is particularly difficult to find in pop culture, which might eliminate everybody, lol), but I thought it might be helpful for people who want guidelines.

Here would be my qualifications for the Best Male Feminist Role Model in All of Everything Ever:
- Let the women in his life be autonomous agents and make their own decisions.
- Listen to and carefully consider what women have to say about issues that affect both of them.
- Be aware of how organizations that he is a part of contribute to the oppression of the women in his life and work to change or protest those cultures, all the while getting feedback from those women to make sure he is accurately reflecting their lived experience.
- Encourage the women in his life to defy traditional gender roles and take on powerful positions, even at the expense of his own control and power.

Comments

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Huh. I could never get past Mal's treatment of Inara enough to call him a feminist. I don't see him as acknowledging male oppression as a problem so much as being the problem. He embodies the reason the Happy Hooker myth doesn't work, because he still treats Inara like a whore.

He does include women equally in his crew, but that seems to me to be another of Joss' half-assed world-building efforts - in this 'verse, there is gender equality, oh, except for the fact that Mal treats Inara horribly because of her profession. (See also: in this 'verse, the dominant culture is a mix of Western and Chinese, oh, except there are no actual Chinese people around.)

"The privilege of the sword" (by Ellen Kushner, which nobody seems to have read)

Hee! True story - I checked out the first book from the library, and it's been sitting around waiting for my summer class to be over and I'm not overwhelmed with school reading.

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About Mal and Inara:

I don't really see it the same way. Firefly was criticised a lot because of the companion concept being seen as glorifying prostitution. I think the show was to some extent a discussion of the topic with two viewpoints that are found within feminist movements. One that says that prostitution could work without inherently being bad for women under the right circumstances. And the other one that says prostitution will always degrade women.

In my mind Inara promotes the first and Mal the second stance but both are feminist stances. Mal confronts Inara about what she does and points out the crude ugly sides, while Inara shows him that she's by no means in a constant state of oppression because of what she does.
Mal never judges her as amoral but he questions wether she is truly free (since that's a question so central to his own life).

They banter a lot, but I never thought he actually disrespected Inara (nor the woman he slept with on brothel planet). I saw those two as having a feminist discurse, not as one trying to opress the other.

And yay about you reading Swordspoint! Please please let me know how you like it. The first one is not exactly feminist though, except for a shortstory in the back, where EK addresses "Richard and Alec's inability to deal with the wretched situation women are in, in their society". The second book is all about the women though and elaborates on the topic from all sides.