I just stepped down as moderator from all five of the subreddits I used to moderate over on Reddit. I just can’t ethically justify continued activity on Reddit, and especially free volunteer labour for an openly greedy company that is engaged in scummy behaviour, forcing mods to open protesting communities or be demoted.
So my online activism for boys and men is now focused here and on Mastodon. And I am welcoming everyone coming over from Reddit, especially from LeftWingMaleAdvocates, the sub I put in the majority of my time and effort as a mod.
Let’s build something good here, as we did previously on Reddit. It appears we have a wider reach here, so let’s debate in good faith and with civil manners.
Here, in this magazine (i.e. community or subreddit in Kbin-speak) we wish to discuss and spread awareness of various issues that disproportionately affect males.
We believe men are not being well-served by either side of the mainstream political spectrum. We oppose the right wing’s exploitation of men’s issues as a wedge to recruit men to inegalitarian traditional values. But we also oppose feminist attempts to deny male issues, or shoehorn them into a biased ideology that blames “male privilege” and guilt-trips men.
We have no objection to the genuinely egalitarian aspects of feminism, but we will criticize feminist ideology wherever it is inegalitarian and/or untruthful, especially now that it holds institutional power. Too often feminism has promoted a one-sided “equality”, dismantling male advantages while exploiting, reinforcing, preserving, and downplaying female advantages - particularly in cases involving alleged abuse.
In practice this means that most of us are politically homeless. The natural home for male advocacy should be the left wing, which professes to be explicitly egalitarian. But in modern practice, men’s issues are habitually ignored, denied, or even opposed.
We seek to address male issues without falling into the traps of an impossible return to the past or a disastrous sexism. Men and women have equal value, and we need to work together for a better future.
Re: your stance of feminism and its role in the betterment of the lives of men.
I don’t think it’s unreasonable to suggest that the primary problem at the core of most issues facing men today is the narrow, unrealistic, and frankly unhealthy image of masculinity that our society expects us to strive for. And I have to imagine that the (or at least a) goal of any sensible male advocacy group would be to push back against the notion that a man who doesn’t meet this single societal ideal of manliness has failed to be a man.
However, I also don’t think it can be dismissed as coincidence that so many of the words used to belittle men and boys who behave in ways they’re not “supposed” to imply femininity.
“Don’t be such a pussy.”
“That guy’s a little bitch.”
“Haha, he cried like a girl!”
Would you not agree that one of the most powerful ways to go about robbing these types of sentiments of their power over young boys is to help feminists destigmatise simply being a girl or a woman? Most issues facing men aren’t because women are being given advantages, but because men face the disadvantage of not being allowed to adopt roles or attitudes deemed beneath us — just as women are not allowed to adopt roles and attitudes deemed beyond their place.
I firmly believe that feminism, if truly successful, will allow men the freedom to be who and what they want to be because “masculine”/“feminine” will no longer equate to “good”/“bad” or “strong”/“weak”.
How could feminism in any way give men “the freedom to be who and what they want” when they portray men as the problem? Feminism is toxic to healthy masculinity and healthy gender relations.
Friend, I think you’re already falling into the “us vs them” mentality. We should be able to separate the loud, misandrist, “men are the problem, women are the solution”, feminists from the “we’re equal before the law, but I still perceive inequality and something should be done about it”, passive feminists.
That is what is done to MRAs who were just saying “men have issues too, here are some” and being labeled as misogynist, radical, dangerous, and incel (which also shouldn’t be an insult, much less one exclusive to men).
Each community has their loud, obnoxious members, but they shouldn’t be representative of that community unless the community is mostly loud and obnoxious itself.
As such, I’d like to challenge your view that feminism is the problem and propose that it has much more to do with tradition and religion. Men and women alike face irreconcilable gender roles, prejudice, and traditional and societal obligations, that lead to their oppression:
The issue is much deeper than simple “women say men are the problem, which is the problem”. Tribalism, identity-politics, and myopic, single-viewed, unidirectional thinking is toxic.
We do not say that women are the problem. But we also disagree that men are the problem.
We need to address traditional gender norms in an egalitarian way. We support freeing women from them. But we must not forget about freeing men also.
That means we can’t accept misandry from any movement that claims to fight for gender equality. And that unfortunately leads us into conflict with feminist ideology and feminist praxis.
I think you are conflating men as a group with men as individuals. I think Russia is terrible, but I’ve met many lovely Russian people.
While I can’t speak for feminists, I think when they say “men are the problem” that’s shorthand for a system that generally pays men more, expects them to take on less domestic responsibilities, allows them to vote away women’s rights, and all of the other longstanding injustices.
The difference between feminism (or even feminists) and men is that the former is a movement or a chosen label, while the latter is not something one can choose to be. So when you generalize the latter (“men are pigs”, “men are responsible for the world’s problems”, or even “Kill All Men”), it really comes across as outright hateful. At least more so than criticizing a movement (feminism) or generalizing feminists (although I don’t believe in doing that too). Seriously, if you were to replace “men” with “blacks”, or even “women” in feminist drivel, you’d be (rightfully) called out for spreading hate. For how much feminism pushes inclusivity and careful, considerate use in language (think: using ‘police officer’ instead of ‘policeman’), when it comes to men, they just give fuck all.
And for the ‘wage gap’, it should really be renamed the ‘earnings gap’ as for the same amount and type of work, men and women are generally paid the same. The main reason there’s a gap is that men generally work more and in higher paying fields. Now why they choose to do so is certainly worth discussion, but to frame it as men being paid more with the insinuation that they both do the same amount of work, is disingenuous.
Men taking on less domestic responsibilities is part of gender roles, no? In exchange they are expected to earn more by working more. Not to mention when you say domestic responsibilities, I doubt you include male dominated tasks like mowing the lawn, or fixing the car. Again, framing it as one-sided privilege (‘men have the privilege of doing less house work”) is disingenuous. I don’t think housekeeping or child-rearing, which is female-dominated, is a walk in the park either, for reference.
If you believe the system allows specifically men to vote away women’s rights (abortions I believe?), and that men shouldn’t have a say in that. Do you also believe women shouldn’t have a say in voting on issues like Selective Service or even conscription, in some countries, that primarily or uniquely affect men? Furthermore, in many countries, women are outright born with the right to vote, whereas men have to sign up for Selective Service or Conscription (what happened to ‘My Body, My Choice’?)
E: grammar
In Western countries like most of the European ones, men and women receive equal pay for equal jobs.
Families already share responsibilities equally (fair, not everywhere; I can speak for the north of Italy), and women feel free not to engage with boyfriends who are not up to that.
Finally, in the US it’s mostly women who are voting against women’s childbirth rights.
I haven’t spent much time in the north of Italy but we have some suppliers there and every single one of the engineers at the one I worked with was male. I don’t doubt they have equal pay for the same job, but I don’t believe for a minute that the average women in northern italy makes the same as an average man.
As for voting, there was only one woman on the supreme court that voted to overturn roe vs wade. The rest of the votes came from men
Nobody is stopping them from going for higher paying jobs or working more hours. But it’s not expected of women like it’s expected of men.
Right but one thing I really admired about that italian company was that they’d bring on engineers as apprentices right out of high school and train them on software or machining. I think that’d really admirable, and it’s great that people can work their way into high paid positions.
But i still fail to see why an engineer with a high school education should be paid more than a nurse or teacher with some college education. Is the former really that much of harder job, or that much less in demand?
This is a class problem, not gender. Join us.
I don’t, but most feminists do.
Then they should blame society, not men as a group. Most men don’t have any more influence on the system than most women do.
And what do you think constant negative messaging about men as a group being the problem does to the minds of boys growing up? Are you surprised many of them go down the alt-right radicalization pipeline?
I don’t know where this is true, but certainly not in Western countries, where such discrimination by gender is illegal.
More a question of expecting men to take on different domestic responsibilities, on top of expecting men to be the primary providers.
Instead, men overwhelmingly voted for granting women equal rights.
You mean injustices such as conscription, age of retirement, homelessness, etc?
Most of the feminists I know are straight and either married or partnered - they clearly don’t hate all men. Some maybe do, but I don’t think it’s the majority.
I’m in the US and it’s absolutely endemic. Women still make significantly less than men on average and gender discrimination is baked right into jobs. My city starts teachers at $56k and police officers at $70k - one of those jobs requires a GED and the other requires a Bachelors degree. Even with a Master’s teachers can make as little as $61k - and that’s entirely because it’s traditionally a “women’s job”. Can you name any male dominated field where most workers have a master’s degree and make that little?
Europe’s maybe a little better, but there’s still no country where women outearn men - if there really was equality there you’d expect to see that look more like a bell curve.
Most feminists collectivize men as “the patriarchy” and hold them collectively accountable for a host of societal problems. And whenever an individual man misbehaves, they often immediately link that back to the patriarchal collective.
You may not recognize that as hate, but what is effectively the difference?
Not for the same job with the same responsibilities, working the same hours. If women want to make the same or more than men, then they can step up and do the same jobs for the same hours as men.
Even taking school shootings into account, one of these jobs is significantly more dangerous than the other and requires shift work. And again, if women want to make more money, then they should become police officers instead of teachers… Who’s stopping them?
That’s because men are still expected to be the primary providers. And unfortunately that’s not something easily changed. Most women expect that, and feel ill at ease when roles are reversed. Do you really want to force women into dangerous or strenuous high-earning jobs? Or maybe we can respect our men more who bring home the bacon, so to say?
I wish it was more surprising to me that this person genuinely went to “This female dominated field starts at less pay than this entirely different male dominated field, wymyn are swo oppwessed!”
"and that’s entirely because it’s traditionally a “women’s job”
citation?
I’m also from the US and you’re full of shit
Women in the 18-30 age bracket are out-earning their equivalent male counterparts by a significant margin at this point, across most fields
Until just now I read your name as RandoCanadian :laughing-emoji:
Exactly. Of course men in their 50s-70s will outearn women because that’s how things were in the past. The future is clearly shown by how much money 20 year olds are making. The only reason young women are making less is because they choose to stop working and have a kid (And yes, men are pressured to have kids too).
but men are pressured to work even harder to support that kid
Male workers having children then becomes an economic benefit, as the man has to work harder
Female workers having children is an economic loss, as the worker stops working entirely.
From an financial point of view, anyways
Another reason why i’m all pro WFH policies. It gets men back in constant contact with their children and makes all the excuses a woman might make to not have to work anymore really weak.
The government of Russia ≠ the people of Russia. Men are just a gender. There is no government of men. When you say “men are the problem”, you are talking about individual men and men as a whole.
Society also expects men to earn more and ties their value to how much wealth they have. Women play a part in this too just as men do. It also expects men to take on more responsibilities outside of the house.
There are as many injustices against men as there are against women. What happened with Roe v. Wade being overturned is terrible, but when it happened people actually cared for women’s wellbeing. Including myself.
Where is the outrage over any of the injustices that men face (the draft, male genital mutilation, exclusion from homeless/DV shelters, family court, etc.)? There is none, because when women are victims of injustice people care; conversely when men are victims no one cares.
At worst, feminist literature will try to ignore male victims to make DV seem like a gendered crime, taking away services from men, and make out so-called male victims as abusers in disguise (like the book “Why Does He Do That?”).
Obviously you are technically correct, but I still think many feminists use “men” as a shorthand for the broader male-dominated system. If I say “I love the way women smell” I really don’t need to clarify that I probably don’t mean all women in all situations, it’s kinda obvious.
That’s a logical fallacy. There probably should be more outrage about those things, but that doesn’t change the initial situation.
And that shows their bigotry, which we are calling out.
No, it’s not. Calling it a logical fallacy is bigotry. Outrage over any of the injustices that men face is a human rights issue.
And that reveals their blatant sexism and focus on female supremacy
If i used “women” as a shorthand for a broader female-dominated system of oppression against men (like how feminism very much behaves), people might physically attack me. We have to reiterate repeatedly that feminism != women because feminism does some very nasty sexist genocidal things and blaming all women for those things would be as silly as blaming all germans for the actions of the nazi’s
They don’t make that distinction against men because they’re actively trying to attack men, and so want all of those ‘miscommunications’ and ‘oh i didn’t mean it that way even though thats absolutely what i said’ bullshitery so they can hide how outrageously sexist they are being while pretending not to be.
It’s ‘funny’ how you are perfectly capable of seeing this logical fallacy… until you’re doing it yourself.
The fallacy you are claiming they are making is the same one you made yourself when you waltzed in here and made it all about how hard things are for women.
Perhaps there’s some truth to that, though in my circles i hear a lot more about the patriarchy than complaints about men in general.
I suppose i’m trying to defend a position that’s not my own, and yeah, using “men” to describe a system created by some men to advantage all (or at least white) men in a broad way is absolutely sexist - but it’s hardly the main issue here.
The patriarchy is a code word
It means “men having power, or free of power women hold”
And if you run into the right ones, the mask comes off entirely. Just look at the production of The Power and you’ll get plenty of great examples of misandry on display, proudly.
the system wasn’t created to advantage men, otherwise feminism wouldn’t have happened.
The system was created to advantage the wealthy and powerful, and keep them that way. That they were white or male is incidental. Any other race or gender in that position can and will create the same problems.
Saying something ridiculously sexist like “There wouldn’t be wars if society was run by women” or any other similar forms such as “the future is female” is just as braindead stupid as someone saying:
“Racism would disappear if X was run by Y people”
It’s not the color or gender of the people, it’s the incentive that the positions of power create to subjugate others.
Feminists actively promote the idea that just having women in power solves problems, and that is a blatantly stupidly sexist idea to believe.
True, but women make up the majority of the population in the US, and so in an equal society we’d expect them to make up a very slight majority of fortune 500 CEOs, congressional representatives, supreme court justices and presidents. Whether or not you think that’d make a real difference in the world doesn’t change that it’s a perfectly legitimate goal and I don’t think it’s one that’s particularly sexist.
If you were to argue that you should have more women in those roles to make up for the historical injustice… that becomes a bit less clear as it would create a situation where present day men are disenfranchised to make up for the mistakes of our forefathers.