Breaking with Societal Masculinity – Deniz Boran

The tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the minds of the
living. (Marx)
The tradition of inequality between the two genders and the first great societal defeat of women,
through which men established their dominance, is the oldest of these traditions, rooted in the
societal division of labor. The status of societal gender roles and the behavioral boundaries
assigned to them serve the seamless reproduction of male dominance over women in all forms
within class societies.
This history of women’s oppression is the history of the dehumanization of the male gender: for this
dominance is built on pure degradation, violence, and exploitation. And it is older than any other
form of current oppression. Even we socialist men are often—consciously or unconsciously—part
of this dominance.
Capitalism is the alienation of humanity from its humanness. Revolutionaries are people who “light
a fire in the house of the night.” They do this by placing all the values of humanity at the center of
their political existence and fighting for these values. While the process of becoming human—that
is, the abolition of all alienation—can only be fully achieved on a societal level with a transition to
a mode of production where the produced goods are no longer alienated objects to their producers,
individuals can become human even in a capitalist world by breaking with all dehumanizing ways
and forms of life—that is, by developing a revolutionary personality.
For the socialist man, this means above all breaking with societal masculinity.
Ümit Yetik (Baran Munzur), a communist guerrilla fighter of the MLKP who fell in Dersîm, wrote
in his report on women’s liberation following a workshop about his feelings and thoughts:
“When I critically and self-critically examine my reality, I come to a conclusion: It is my duty to
understand women and free myself from my patriarchal behaviors. You cannot free yourself from
them quickly; I don’t approach this matter with such illusions. I now know that this liberation is the
result of a long-term struggle. The central point that will free me from them is that I have become
aware of it. This [men’s workshop] should become a starting point for me. I must continue to
develop with this understanding that I have gained. I also think that my being a revolutionary will
have no meaning if I do not continue to develop. We always say that we want to create a new world
without exploitation, where equality prevails and resources are shared. To achieve this means
starting to bring about change in myself today. I have now become aware of this. Only when I and
my male comrades can free ourselves from these patriarchal behavioral patterns will we come
closer to our goal. This perspective is now my fundamental thought.”
The question of whether the approach to women’s liberation could become an obstacle to my
revolutionary development was one I long answered with “No.” But it has become clear to me that
every revolutionary man reaches a moment where he must confront women’s liberation, and this
confrontation fundamentally shapes his development.
How could it be that I, as a socialist man, was unable to understand my comrade who stands beside
me, who is equally determined and follows the same path? How could I, as a revolutionary, still
feed off the advantages that come to me as a member of the oppressing gender? And these
advantages do not only arise in spaces outside “our” hegemony. No one can doubt that it is easier to
be a revolutionary man than a revolutionary woman. You are taken more seriously, you are seen as a
point of reference for solutions, you have the final word… And from this reflection of male
dominance in revolutionary organizations emerges a type of male revolutionary who places himself
at the center of his field of work, does not take responsible female comrades seriously, builds his
personal “male” dominance and hegemony, and competes with his male comrades for it.
Is it conceivable that such a revolutionary man could become a miniature of the “new human” of
the communist world? Or is this man not rather a representative of the *tradition of all dead
generations* who would repeatedly fall back into the bourgeois horizon?
The answer is obvious.
When a woman is murdered or raped anywhere on this earth… What feelings does this evoke in us?
Do we feel shame for the actions of men, do we become angry and set as our first goal to kill this
masculinity? Or do we see these acts as something that has nothing to do with us, as the deeds of
individual, degenerate, and mentally ill men?
“The pest of every tree lies within itself.“
As the saying goes, “The pest of every tree lies within itself.” So it is with masculinity in the
socialist man. What is the antidote?
“I have now set myself this inner confrontation as a task. To become part of the new life, I must free
myself from these behaviors early on. I am hopeful because I know that these behaviors were
instilled in me by the bourgeois-capitalist system and are not part of my character. And therefore, I
now fight to willfully push back the behaviors that were imposed on me without my consent. Now
is the time to stand up and move forward. Nothing will change by waiting. The *right* thing is to
move forward, holding onto hope. And this will be my first step toward being a revolutionary on my
path to becoming a ‘new human.’ And only when I have created the new human can I be a
determined revolutionary.”
These are not the words of a man who is just beginning to become a revolutionary, standing at the
start of the path. Ümit Yetik writes this after a workshop, after “thinking for years that he had
already overcome societal masculinity.” He had “lied to himself for years,” he writes. And what
about us socialist men here? To what extent have we overcome societal masculinity in our
revolutionary personality, in everyday life, at home, in relationships, at meetings, during actions?
Do we truly reject all forms of advantages offered to us solely because of our biological gender?
How honest are we when we claim to have largely abandoned patriarchal behaviors? Or are we
merely deceiving ourselves and our comrades, even though our reality is an open secret?
The answers to these questions are equally obvious.
The socialist man must have the will to shed societal masculinity. But that alone is not enough. The
very fact that we ask ourselves this question is a struggle of our female comrades. The emergence of
such a will is the result of a veritable ideological war waged by socialist women with men.
Breaking with societal masculinity is not something we can achieve after a single workshop. But if
we want to change, we must question ourselves and our behaviors. This also means admitting that
we have not yet achieved the break with societal masculinity. It means stopping with general and
abstract responses to the critical questions of our female comrades and starting to discuss and allow
ourselves to be discussed concretely.
What can this development look like in practice?
The communist fighter of the MLKP, Halil Aksakal (Mazlum Aktas), describes his development
with a concrete example in his “Report on Women’s Liberation”:
“In the past, I resisted the (just or unjust) distribution of tasks to my female comrades, but that has
changed. For example, during the operation in Hasakê, I was a commander of an arm in the
offensive group. My defense was a female friend from the PKK. I was against it and managed to
convince everyone that the female friend should be in the offensive group, and I would take over
her defense. The reason I did this was to put into practice the theoretical thoughts and perspectives
of the party on the military front, and in doing so, I also fought a battle against myself.”
What lessons can we socialist men draw from this example for ourselves here?
Our female comrades are in the process of turning the world upside down. We must ask ourselves
where we become obstacles to them. For every time we step on their toes, we become complicit in
upholding male dominance over women. If we sincerely want the end of male dominance over
women, we will support our female comrades in their and our war against this dominance. We must
take on more general tasks so that they can carry out the tasks of women’s liberation. We must
support them logistically and technically, and in some (often most) cases, we must simply step back
to allow the will of women to unfold.
If we want to become human again—people who do not carry and reproduce the *tradition of all
dead generations* but represent the “new”—we must seriously engage with the question of
women’s liberation, desire change, and follow in the footsteps of Ümit and Mazlum.
Then we will be able to free our minds from this nightmare