As a promising crowd filtered into the Morgan Room of Poling on Wednesday, Feb. 13 at 7 p.m., they viewed a PowerPoint screen reading: “Madame, a man preaching about Feminism is like a cat’s walking on his hind legs. It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all.” The quote was credited to Mark Willhardt, a professor of English here at Monmouth College. The audience knew that they were coming into a presentation on feminism given by a male professor. Rob Hale took this play on a quote from James Boswell’s “Life of Johnson,” and humorously opened his presentation as part of the “F-word” series.

Being the first “F-word” presentation of the semester, the women’s studies department and Pi Beta Phi sorority wanted to make sure that their next presenter would give an excellent presentation. The audience, full of students, faculty members and a few community members, appeared to agree that Hale’s performance fulfilled just that and more. Alissa Diffenderfer, a junior at Monmouth College, noted, “It [the presentation] really explains a lot of what went on while having Rob as a professor and seeing how his views influenced his teachings.”

After Marlo Belschner, professor of English, introduced him, Hale took the stage and began his presentation on feminism. He began by noting the difficulty that comes with talking about feminism as a male because of the challenge of mixing personal and professional ideas when he talks about it. He noted, “Biology does not dictate the kinds of things you say or your ideals. It can influence your ideology, but it cannot dictate it.” This indicates that the difficultly in giving the presentation was in large part because he is not a woman. And with that, he began to take his audience on his quest and journey to who he is today as a feminist. 

His life began surrounded by men, as he grew up in a family of five boys and one mom-- well, two moms including his very influential family maid whom he considered his second mom. He was exposed to a lot of women as he grew up with his “two” moms, grandmother, multiple female teachers, grandmas, aunts and his mom’s best friend whom he noted as a very strong and spirited woman.

But as he was surrounded by good women, he admitted to not having many female friends until he reached middle school and joined co-ed activities such as the band, youth group and theater. With that background, he fast-forwarded to his college life where he continued to have influential women in his life. Throughout his college career, he was influenced by feminist books such as “Life of a Slave Girl” by Harriet A. Jabobs, and he was exposed to many great women who treated him well, such as his two moms, other relatives, teachers, professors and colleagues. These influences and experiences helped him to learn the value of seeing similarities and differences between male and females, noting that each sex has different experiences and thus making each sex value different things and offer different outlooks on life.

As Hale moved onto writing his dissertation, he was influenced once again by a woman, and this time he did not realize how much impact this incident would have on him as a person and in his studies. His mother died of cancer while he was attending graduate school, and as he wrote his dissertation on the use of “mothers” in Wordsworth’s poetry, he found himself using his research as a mourning time. After his dissertation was finished and graduate school was complete, Hale’s interest in feminism didn’t stop. He has since written two articles on the “mothers” in Wordsworth’s poems and another article on a forgotten poet Joanna Baillie.

Hale ended his presentation by noting that his most important work in feminism is his job as a father, and that he thinks in a way that it is easier for him to be a feminist because he can say more than a woman can, saying, “if a woman says it, it’s agenda, but when a man says it, it’s justice.” But on the other side, he noted that a woman might be able to be a better feminist because they live it hands-on. He said, “I won’t ever totally get it…and that’s okay.”

And indeed his presentation made it “okay,” because as Steve Buban, a sociology and anthropology professor at MC, said, “I thought it was a wonderful blend of autobiography and scholarship, and Hale continues to impress us with his teachings.”

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