yesmanMasculinity in Crisis
Some domestic violence centre near me got closed down because feminists kept protesting its existence.
Feminists got things to answer for.
Men aren’t always the issue. Men need male places, women don’t like that. Men can be victims, women don’t like that. What I seen in the world men are a lot more sympathetic to mens issue. Women just brush it off and say all mens issues are due to men and that really women are the victims.
Nah. Feminists didn’t create the mess that systemically harms men. What actually creates it is systemic patriarchy. If you’ve never heard of Earl Silverman, give his story a read. He did try to create many of the things you advocate for, and the things that caused their failure was not feminists. It’s a tragedy.
That being said, we absolutely still need non toxic spaces where men can heal and be great allies to themselves and others
So all feminists have completely clean hands?
That’s the issue I’m raising.
As in the real world I’ve seen issues from women but not issues from men. But you go online and no women has ever done anything wrong and all men as bastards.
Not the case at all. I’m a big fan of bell hooks for example, but she’s not perfect. Still, she raises good points, like feminism is for everyone and that patriarchy can hurt men just as much as women.
Internet’s an echo chamber, so it’s good to get out and just talk to real people and ask them what’s important.
Feminism is too focused on women’s issues caused by men. If you want to talk true equality feminism is the wrong brand.
The truth is a lot of men have issues with women’s actions and that gets deflected as “patriarchy” and for something for men to solve. The sunndely women are not responsible for their actions.
Like say a women abuses a man. Feminist say “see this is the patriarchy in action. If men stopped with the patriarchy life would be better for everyone. Because then men could get help”. But when men actually try to get help they only going to get it from men. Women quite often say men don’t need it.
You should check out bell hooks sometime, she talks a lot about that! It’s a misunderstanding a lot of people have that comes from hot takes.
Despite the contemporary visionary feminist thinking that makes clear that a patriarchal thinker need not be a male, most folks continue to see men as the problem of patriarchy. This is simply not the case. Women can be as wedded to patriarchal thinking and action as men.
Understanding Patriarchy : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive
In this essay bell hooks offers a quick introduction to patriarchy and particularly the way it affects men. She draws on examples from her own life and from...
And this here highlights a core issue, the poor choice of language used to communicate the ideas.
Patriarchy and toxic masculinity, for example, are horrible terms for non academic conversations. The academics should have realized this long ago, and made a concerted effort to change the language into more gender neutral ones. The fact that not only has this not happened, but there is pushback on such suggestions, sort of proves the bias that does exist in this space.
Their poor choice of labels can only be expected to lead to the type of “man bad/woman good” thought process. Because outside of very specific academic circles, that’s exactly how those terms are read. When you read “toxic masculinity” you see “bad/broken men”. When you read “patriarchy” you read “men in control”, both terms are tailor made to lead directly to ‘blame men’ ideologies.
For a movement that, at one point, seemed very aware of & intent on changing language that reenforces old gender roles… they also seem to be fine creating and perpetuating language that actively reenforces those roles, when its men who’s roles are being reenforced.
I think a lot of feminists, hooks included, were pretty fed up with the academy. Their problem was that white upper class women were setting the terms of what feminism was in a way that excluded women of color who had also worked for many generations without being recognized. She was a supporter of using the term kyriarchy, which is more neutral and includes all structures of oppression.
That being said, I don’t think we need an academic interpretation to say fuck the patriarchy. It’s empowering! And for men too. We don’t need to wait for the correct wording to fight against it. We can be awesome allies and good to each other, because we know the systems of oppression we’re all fighting against.
Archiarchy.