‘Ally’ Is More Than a Label — It’s an Action

Originally published on Lefty Cartoons and cross-posted here with their permission.

It’s easy to say you’re a male ally and a feminist. What’s not so easy is checking your privilege, being consciously aware of inequality, making a deliberate effort to use your privilege in a constructive way, and giving up oppressive behaviors.

But the thing is, that’s what being a male feminist means.

Check out this cartoon to see what it looks like when allies talk the talk, but don’t walk the walk.

For more information on this topic, check out the following:

• So You Call Yourself an Ally: 10 Things All ‘Allies’ Need to Know
• The Importance of Listening as a Privileged Person Fighting for Justice
• 30 Ways to Be a Better Ally in 2014

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Barry Deutsch is the Portland-based author and cartoonist of Ampersand, a political comic with a generally progressive sensibility. A new Ampersand comic appears in every issue of Dollars and Sense Magazine. Barry attended Oberlin College in Ohio in the late 1980s, the School of Visual Arts in New York City in the 1990s (where he took classes from comics legend Will Eisner), and graduated from Portland State University several years ago. While at PSU, his political cartoons won the Charles M. Schulz Award. His current comics project is my comic book Hereville, a fantasy adventure comic about an 11-year-old Jewish girl. Check out his blog and follow him on Twitter @barrydeutsch.