Male "feminist" dating coaches are profiting off of misogyny
Here's why I don't think you should hire them, quote them, or further elevate their profiles.
Quick note: I have lost control of my inbox and schedule. If you have emailed me seeking a scholarship recently, I may have missed it. I can’t respond to every email, but if you’ve sent me one that requires a response lately (Feminist Advice Friday, scholarships, etc) and have not received a response, please try again!
They’re suddenly everywhere: the dude who thinks men really don’t know that never cleaning up after themselves is unattractive; the dude who likes to wear a wig and pretend to be his long-suffering wife; the dude who laughs at other men’s misogyny and gets marriage proposals from women who love him for doing this.
They share one thing in common: they’re all profiting off of a system they claim to oppose—and they’re doing it by drawing on insights from women who understand the system better, but who rarely get the same publicity these “feminist” men do.
The male feminist coach industrial complex is just the latest in a long line of trends co-opting women’s experiences and turning them into profit for men.
Men should be shouldering the burden of educating men. That’s true professionally, and it’s true in personal relationships. But this is not, as so many like to insist, because men only listen to men. Men get defensive about feminism no matter who is talking. And they generally refuse to listen to men or women who tell them to change their behavior—just as moderate and right-wing “I don’t see color” racists won’t listen to anyone about racism.
The actual philosophical reason men should be teaching other men about feminism is that men do not have to deal with sexism. Women face the threat of actual violence in nearly every interaction with a man. Men can generally argue with other men without fear of being raped or stalked. And while sexist men will trot out all kinds of misogynistic bullshit in arguments with people of all genders, when men argue with other men, they shield women from dealing with it.
The entire purpose of telling men to educate other men is to protect women.
These men have perverted that advice. They hide behind a shield of “men should teach other men,” even though their main audience is women. They’re profiting off of the very people they oppress. Women pay them for coaching, content, books, and more. Women tell them what great men they are, feeding their narcissism and increasing their defensiveness when other women confront them with their own inevitable sexism.
And that’s just the tip of the proverbial iceberg with these high-profile male “feminist” coaches and content creators. Here’s why I think we need to stop buying their hype.
The invalidity of men as feminist experts
Men cannot be experts on feminism. They can be supporters. They can be knowledgeable. They can learn a lot. But they do not experience life as a woman in a patriarchy, and an educated feminist woman will therefore always be a more reliable resource than an educated feminist man.
The only person who gets to decide if a man is a feminist is a woman. Because these men are profiting off of their “feminism,” though, they have an interest in lashing out at any woman who criticizes them—anathema to real feminism.
These men are raised in a patriarchy that privileges their wants and needs. This means that, even if they are able to completely abandon sexist behavior, they will always have to fight against sexist impulses. Being treated as an “expert” undermines their ability to do this, causing most feminist coaches to become more misogynistic and problematic with time.
You will always, always learn more about feminism from a woman. And every time you share a feminist man’s perspective, you are taking attention—and often, significant resources—away from a woman.
Men do not need or deserve to be praised for being feminist. This is doubly true for most male feminist coaches, who are deeply problematic, and often not even particularly feminist.
A failure to understand patriarchal dynamics
You will never hear me offering “one weird trick” or “ten communication skills” or “DM me with the word ‘mom rage’ to get my free guide to end bickering over household inequity.” That’s because, while we can take small steps toward improvement—notably avoiding misogynist men and leaving at the first red flag—individual solutions do not cure patriarchy.
It makes me less marketable, but it also means I’m telling women the truth.
Patriarchal relationship dynamics do not exist because of women’s poor communication, because they haven’t gentle parented their husbands enough, or because men just don’t understand that children need food to live.
Patriarchy exists because it benefits men. Men do less household labor because they want to. They control and abuse their partners because doing so works to get them what they want. They sexually coerce their partners because they’ve been socialized to see women as appliances, not people.
It is disrespectful to women to pretend that there is a way to coach them into getting their partners to behave better. The only coaching women need in these scenarios is coaching to understand how bad it is, so they can get out.
Men who think women need coaching so men can improve do not understand patriarchy, are not feminists, and are certainly not experts on anything relationship-related.
The rage of ‘I used to be so much worse!’
Men are not experts on feminism. They cannot teach women about their own oppression, and should never speak over women about feminism.
I’ve been with my husband for 15 years now. He has been a feminist—shouldering an equitable share of the load, treating me like a human being, advocating for women’s rights, supporting me as a parent, and learning progressively more about feminism—for every single one of those 15 years.
He is a civil rights litigator who often deals professionally with the effects of women’s oppression. He cares deeply about these issues, has thought deeply about them, and has never endorsed any form of misogyny.
But he’ll be the first to tell you he’s far from an expert on feminism. Because he’s not a woman. Because he has never lived the experience of gendered oppression. Because he knows life as a woman is about a lot more than what he can read, or learn, or advocate for.
So he always defers to women, and would never try to teach women what feminism is about. I think this is the correct position for male feminists.
Here’s something else that distinguishes my husband from the men profiting off of feminist content creation: Virtually all of these men have an origin story that involves them previously being much more sexist than they currently are. “I used to be such a monster, and it ruined my relationships, but now I view women as human! I’m going to teach you how to value them as humans, too!”
Somehow, we are supposed to give men who have historically acted as raging misogynists special authority to explain feminism to other men (and, often, to women).
Has it not occurred to these men that there is something fundamentally wrong with their thinking or their moral compass?
Has it not occurred to them that someone with a history of misogyny is the least credible expert on feminism?
Has it not occurred to them that, if they could be so wrong in the past, they likely continue to be wrong about many things now? That they likely still engage in misogyny in a myriad of ways?
It is enraging that a history of misogyny followed by self-proclaimed enlightenment has now become a path to fame and riches—and that these men are almost always enriched by the very people they oppress.
Profiting off of oppression
Overwhelmingly, it’s not men but women who love these coaches. They buy their seminars, share their content, pay for their bonus work, and send them tips. Often, these men post images of the payments they’ve received, and they’re almost exclusively from women. If you ask any male “feminist” coach who his primary audience is, he’ll tell you women—often while expressing confusion as to why he can’t get more male clients.
These men are preaching to, and profiting off of, the converted. As such, they’re not offering a valuable service, convincing men to join the feminist movement, or even deepening the conversation. They’re just recycling the stuff they’ve learned from feminist women, and using it to elevate their own profile.
They are profiting off of sexism, earning a living from the very people they claim to want to protect from exploitation. And in so doing, they exploit these women while speaking over the voices of better qualified, more thoughtful women creators.
Replicating patriarchal abuse
No one is perfect. All human beings get defensive, get it wrong, say and do the wrong thing. I get things wrong literally all the time.
There’s a strange thing that happens when you develop a public profile and are deeply invested in social justice: you get a lot of unfair, and frankly unhinged, criticism. You have to develop a thick skin, and doing so requires learning to quickly differentiate legitimate critics from those who are desperately looking to fight you or condescend to you.
But these men have elevated themselves to the status of experts. Many of them have also inexplicably decided that they therefore get to condescend to women about their own oppression. I have seen every single big name male “feminist” get defensive and aggressive with women who attempt to call them on problematic content.
When they do this, they replicate patriarchal abuse on their supposedly “feminist” platforms. They pretend there’s something feminist about the way they treat their detractors. Perhaps even more troubling, they model defensiveness and abuse to other men—the very people they should be teaching.
Until the men who consider themselves feminists can start interacting with critical women productively and kindly, they’ll be indistinguishable from the other abusive men these women interact with every day.
Ego, narcissism, and defensiveness
These men become more and more enamored of themselves with time. They attempt to immunize themselves from criticism while claiming to have some sort of unique insight into women’s oppression.
Women play a pivotal role in this phenomenon. It works like this:
Women are thrilled to find a rare feminist man, so they lavish him with praise. This intensifies the man’s belief in his own goodness. When women criticize him, he weaponizes other women’s praise against them. The more praise he gets, the more defensive he becomes. And the more defensive he becomes, the more incapable of learning he grows to be. So even men who start out with good intentions tend to become worse over time, because their belief in their own greatness spirals out of control.
It’s fake nice guy syndrome on steroids.
Male coaches as enablers of abusive behavior
As soon as a man identifies as a nice guy and concludes that he belongs in the feminist club, it becomes much easier for him to behave badly. He’ll hide behind his “nice guy cloak,” weaponizing it against women who criticize him.
And other men will witness it.
The real role of men in feminism should be teaching other men how to treat women. This should include lessons on real accountability. It is inevitable that we will all get things wrong. These men can use these moments as a chance to show men how to interact in more productive ways with women, by doing so themselves. Instead, they just mock and dismiss women who criticize them. This models the very behavior that these men claim to want to eliminate.
A lot of these guys also buy into the myth of the bumbling nice guy. They think that men don’t really mean to be sexist, or they even believe that patriarchy doesn’t benefit men. They think men just need to be educated. This is a failure to hold men accountable. An entry-level requirement to understanding oppression is knowing that it benefits the oppressor and that abuse is not accidental. Do some men mistreat women because they don’t know better? Maybe. Patriarchy, though, is absolutely a deliberate male creation designed to benefit men.
These men talk about better communication or making lists or understanding your partner, failing constantly to recognize oppressive gendered dynamics for what they are.
My own experiences with male creators
As my own platform grows, men who want to build their businesses or gain feminist credibility continue to reach out to me. It’s reasonable to want to network with people in a similar world, but there’s something unique about these networking attempts: the men always want something, and they never offer anything in return. I have interacted with numerous male relationship gurus, and I’ve noticed some trends over time:
They all want immediate one-on-one contact with me, usually by phone and often by video call. There’s a tendency to believe they are entitled to my time just by asking for it, and to believe they are entitled to the most taxing forms of communication. They ask nicely, so I have repeatedly made the mistake of giving in.
They all approach me with what I’ve come to think of as fake fear. They’ll fawn, or be overly conciliatory in a way that subtly conveys, “I think you’re irrational and crazy because you’re so strident, and I fear offending you.” This is always a huge flag indicating these men find direct and confrontational discussions of feminism intimidating and offensive.
They often confess that they don’t know how to detect abusive men in their own work. Sooner or later they all tell me that the men they work with all “seem nice,” apparently oblivious to the fact that, statistically, most men engage in some form of abuse and at least 1 in 5 will assault a partner.
They want to talk about other men, and they speak as knowledgeable experts. Many of them rant about how bad “some men” can be. They all seem to think they’re in the feminist club. Not a single one of them has ever asked me how they personally can be less oppressive.
Eventually, they all grow to hate me. There seems to be a dynamic with a lot of men whereby they decide they are the exception to the rule, and expect me to treat them as such. When I don’t—by, for example, holding them to the same standards I hold other men—they quickly become offended. And when they behave inappropriately, they don’t apologize or correct course. They give me the silent treatment.
For these guys, it’s about ego—not about actual feminism. And for that reason, we need to stop propping them up, paying them, and treating them as anything other than predators.
So who do I think you should actually follow? Some of my favorite women content creators—all of whom have fewer viewers than their male equivalents—include:
This is by no means a complete list. If you have someone you think I should add, please share them. If I haven’t added you, it’s not a slight; it’s that I’m forgetful.
Personally, I think that it's okay for them to exist but in a manosphere. I don't know what all these women are doing there. Not every creator's knowledge is perfect, and that's okay.
I have encountered many accounts of men advocating for women, especially for household equity, and I've never seen men watching that. There are several men in the comments, of course, blaming women for their own defects, or arguing that this is not true.
Why women must take up all the space that's designed for men? Or it's in fact not designed for men... Because men don't usually scroll instagram within the household labor topics.
I'd respect these creators more if they targeted their ads to audiences of conservative men. Let's see how far your coaching goes.
Back when that guy wrote that ‘I left my glass on the counter’ essay, I saw that he had parlayed that experience into coaching, a book deal etc and it made me rage internally. Millions of women have been making similar arguments for years and all of a sudden he and his counterparts were monetizing it. Sigh.