Does Feminism support male issues?

RockmanXX · 2021-02-14T12:18:42+00:00

By "Feminism", are you referring to the million dollar organizations like NOW&UN? They actively lobby against Shared Parenting&Egalitarian laws, UN prioritizes helping the poor girls&women in 3rd world over boys&men and also promotes Male Genital Mutilation.

If you're referring to Academic Feminists, you have Feminist Professors going around saying they hate Men. If by "Feminists" you're referring to the normies on Facebook&Twitter who identify as Feminists and post memes about "ItS OkAy FoR MeN tO CrY" then i guess, they're "kind of" sympathetic towards Men in a very patronizing way. I don't see these people taking a stand on real Male Issues such as infant circumcision, shared parenting,Gender Neutral criminal laws and Male Suicide Prevention. They're just virtue signalling and don't want to commit to Men's issues anymore than "ItS OkAy FoR MeN tO CrY".

Forgetaboutthelonely · 2021-02-14T11:44:08+00:00

No. Most of them saying this is lip service.

To feminists men are the enemy. And their idea of "helping" us is to "reform" us away from being oppressive patriarchs. Because they view men's issues as being men's own fault "patriarchy backfiring"

If they actually cared about men they'd treat misandrists the same way they treat TERF's.

Hell. They only dislike TERF's on a surface level because TERF's are anti trans.

But you'll never see them address that the core reason TERF's dislike trans people is because they see trans women as men infiltrating womens spaces and trans men as traitors.

Phantombiceps · 2021-02-14T11:59:56+00:00

Can anyone find a single feminist organization that has campaigned for a men’s rights issue or something along those lines?

Excellent-Bottle1415 · 2021-02-14T17:50:05+00:00

Nope, not at all. We may argue that in some cases, the benefits to women brought some bennefits to men along the way, but it's a collateral benefit so to speak (the pill allowing women's sexual revolution brought more pre-marital sex to men). Feminists dont support anything for males on purpose, and to be honest, if they (most of them anyway) could benefit women at the expence of men, they would (as they do quite often). For example (also on the sexual realm), many feminists are pro sex workers while systematicly demonazing their clients (think of Sweden's prostitution law).

INB4: english isnt my first language, so grammar...

Skirt_Douglas · 2021-02-14T18:03:59+00:00

Here is the thing, sometimes feminists have claim to support male issues. The problem with “male issues sympathetic” feminists, however, is that we don’t really agree on what male issues are in the first place, and we especially don’t agree on what solutions are necessary and in men’s best interest.

If you want to see how feminists who are “sympathetic toward male issues” treats male issues, check out Menslib. You may not notice a huge difference at first but after some time perusing that sub, you might see some patterns:

All male issues are framed as being self-inflicted, and all solutions to male issues revolve around individual man needing to “be more __________”. Maybe it’s be more vulnerable, be more sensitive, cry more, be more open to therapy, etc. Whatever it may be, the problems and solutions are always on the individual, it’s never systemic.

For example, it is well documented that men are falling behind in both lower and higher education. It is also well documented that there is systemic bias with educators that gives women and girls higher grades than earned, and giving men and boys lower grades than earned. This is a systemic problem that requires systemic reform to address, but you’ll notice feminists, and by extension Menslib, never acknowledges the systemic basis of the problem. When trying to address why men are falling behind in education, they always frame the problem as being an individual problem that blames the male, usually on some kind of acute case if “toxic masculinity”, for instance “men are falling behind because their fragile egos would rather not try then try and fail. To solve the problem, men just need to know it’s okay to fail! So next time you see a boy struggling with math or something, tell him it’s okay to not know the answer! Yeah... that will fix everything.” Whatever the explanation, the so-called “solution” always requires the individual men to magically fix the whole system by themselves just changing their individual behavior.

All metrics used for measuring how much we have accomplished toward male issues progress are based on on trivial bullshit, such as how girly men seem to feel comfortable being. So on Menslib you’ll notice all kinds of threads saying “men should wear make up” or “men should wear nail polish.” Or “More men are taking up sowing during the pandemic, yay progress!” Look, I’m also thankful that in 2021 I can blast Charlie XCX without getting getting teased, but the struggle of male issues is not for “the right to be more girly”. It’s for the right to systemic support when we are being abused, the right to a fair educational system, the right to a fair trial, the right to have our humanity and personhood recognized by society. I acknowledge that the freedom for a man to be more feminine is important, but it is trivializing to act as if this is the primary struggle men issues faces.

It would be very nice to have feminists as allies on male issues, but that is not possible if they are not open to acknowledging the systemic causes of the problems and the systemic solutions that are required. Especially the solutions that require us to undo the damage that feminist organizations have done. To answer your question: yes, some feminist organizations claim to help men, and maybe even do their own version of trying. However, the feminist worldview and mindset keeps them from recognizing men as victims, or as a population that is in need of help. So when feminists try to “help” they end up just helping themselves by taking it as an opportunity to spread more propaganda about how men and masculinity are the problem. Thus, feminism is not a useful worldview for addressing male issues in the ways that they actually need to be addressed.

2021-02-14T12:50:10+00:00

No because of the simple fact that a big group are and were conditioned not to feel sympathy to men, and if they weren't, they were conditioned not to in these groups. They will never care and have never cared.

IPLAYTHEBIGTHING · 2021-02-14T12:57:16+00:00

some of them try, but their solution are often useless. Their solutoin to stuff like men having a harder time at dealing with emotions is attacking their masculinty and saying stuff like "just be more emotional". It's like telling a rape victom to "just get a gun" or call the police.

Also, im just talking about the trend that I see on my very personalized scope of vision of the internet, so I'm most probably strawmanning a lot of their actual views. So open mind always!!

bison_breakfast · 2021-02-14T13:27:32+00:00

Ok, I want to give a bit more of a balanced take on this question because it seems a lot of the responses are simply “no, feminism hates men, always has, always will”.

Feminism is a very strange movement and very difficult to actually define because there are so many issues and perspectives given its age, longevity and it’s widespread acceptance in mainstream American gender politics.

With all that said, I think the analytical approach that the Men’s Movement has in looking at male oppression borrows extremely heavy from feminist ideas such as intersectionality and patriarchy (or gynocentrism). For example, police brutality is often brought up as an affliction of “black men” but compared to women, men take up nearly 97% of police brutality victims. This gender disparity continues throughout ALL of our US justice system. So we could say that a black man suffers from being black AND being a man in this system. This is at the core of intersectionality which was first codified by prominent feminist bell hooks.

There are other example of this such as the idea of male disposability which is the flip of feminine infantilization that feminists sometimes (especially in the 60-70s) found abhorrent or the idea of the patriarchal oppression which led the men’s movement to exploring the deep and complex ways our traditional system of gender roles detrimentally affect men.

So feminism does support male issues in a sense by providing language and a framework for analyzing gendered issues that men experience.

rumpots420 · 2021-02-14T11:49:09+00:00

Some feminists do some don't. A lot of feminists seem to say that the former are the majority, but I can't really tell. Still, I think that good feminists and bad ones are both real and influential.

redgarnetamaranth · 2021-02-14T12:43:02+00:00

Apparently there are ‘socialist feminists’ trying to reclaim the movement. While not explicitly supporting men’s issues, they at least want push the gears away from the “men bad” principle fundamental to liberal feminism. Doubt it’ll go anywhere but I mean, there you go.

https://youtu.be/4JbNslheUko

matrixislife · 2021-02-14T14:27:43+00:00

Simple answer has to be no.
There's a whole host of men who've asked that question before, quite a few on this sub, who've come to the conclusion that while feminism says it's for women and men, it actually only supports women at the expense of men, or at least with men carrying the load. "He for She" for example.

Russelsteapot42 · 2021-02-14T17:39:17+00:00

From what I can tell, the problem is that radical feminism has so deeply infiltrated and entrenched itself into mainstream feminism that people don't question or challenge it, even when they don't agree with it. Most of the ideas that men are inherently bad come from that.

themolestedsliver · 2021-02-16T17:47:58+00:00

No they dont. Feminism loves to play victim Olympics even when the statements made are very misleading like "women get paid less than men!" Or "1 out of 5 women experince sexual assault" not to mention all the victim blaming buzzwords they made so men cant use the term sexism.

hugemongus123 · 2021-02-14T15:13:04+00:00

Is there any proof what so ever that feminist are for equality, and not just pro women? (and in many cases pro women and against men) Besides them saying that they are, I wouldn't be surprised if time spent working for women/men would be something like 100/1.

Honokeman · 2021-02-14T15:43:51+00:00

Feminism is much too broad a term to give a useful answer to your question. It's like asking "Do Christians support gay marriage? Transubstantiation? Women in the clergy?" There are schools of Christian thought that fall on contradictory sides of these, and many other, issues, but they all can legitimately be called Christian. Someone telling you "I'm a Christian," tells you very little about their beliefs and goals.

Likewise, if someone says "I'm a feminist," there is very little you can gleam from that. Just one example would be sex work. Some feminists think it's empowering and should be legal, others think it's degrading and should be illegal.

I think the most that can be said is that feminism is not intrinsically opposed to men's issues. I think the sects of feminism that actively support men's issues are few and far between. However, many aspects of feminism align with men's issues, approaching the same problem from a different direction. For example, ensuring employers don't punish women for taking time off for their kids helps men achieve the same goal.

You will also find sects of feminism that actively work against men's rights, although I think this is usually less of an intentional attack on men than a misguided attempt to help women.

dzialamdzielo · 2021-02-14T11:47:43+00:00

No but also yes.

Feminism has mainstreamed concerns and care for sexual consent and bodily autonomy (“my body, my choice”). The widespread acceptance and reverence for those values is invaluable to ending non consensual genital cutting of male children a/k/a circumcision, for example.

Edit: reading comprehension, my dudes. That slogan is now in everyone’s minds because of feminism and most people intuitively agree with it. That’s good for men even if feminism isn’t intending to do good for men with it. Think about what you’re objecting to here: is it bad that we as a society care more about consent and bodily autonomy? If not feminists, then who do you think is responsible for the increased care and attention to consent?

YesAmAThrowaway · 2021-02-14T13:05:44+00:00

If yes we should think about changing the name because it wouldn't accurately reflect the intention.

DistrictAccurate · 2021-02-14T15:59:51+00:00

https://www.reddit.com/r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates/comments/lec134/re_do_you_guys_hate_feminism/

ScaredDelta · 2021-02-14T17:43:55+00:00

Dude you must be a comedian

Gala0 · 2021-02-14T17:52:19+00:00

Ofc not.

CoffeehasSentience · 2021-02-14T19:52:55+00:00

Some of them. The most "obvious" ones I'd say.

I'd say more than support they acknowledge but the causes are kind of misunderstood a bit sometimes (like men's suicide where it's mostly talked as it's mostly just men's pride in their masculinity rather than how people react to men having ugly emotions which can fuel the idea to suicide a lot).

Nath43673 · 2021-02-14T22:51:57+00:00

In answering that question, I've had feminists tell me directly that feminism is for women, and that where things benefit men it is essentially a side-effect of bringing down the patriarchy, etc.

As others have said, I guess it depends who you talk to.

I take the view that there are some useful things to be gleaned from feminism for male advocacy, and that male advocacy can be feminist-compatible (except in those instances where feminism has worked against it). Feminism just won't ever be for men in the same way that it is for women. And that's OK.

2021-02-19T16:58:31+00:00

Most feminist organisations devote a lot of effort into demonising men and laughing at or disregarding their issues

HumanNumber348 · 2021-02-14T17:23:09+00:00

Feminism is generally a bit too focused on women’s issues imo, but yes it absolutely does support men’s issues too. I just wish we would support them more aggressively.

Title	Does Feminism support male issues?
Author	Concerning-entity
Upvotes	87
Comments	104
Date	February 14, 2021 11:35 AM UTC (5 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates/comments/ljmun1/does_feminism_support_male_issues/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates/does-feminism-support-male-issues.1061927 https://theredarchive.com/post/1061927

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