Blaming men for men's issues.

Nath43673 · 2020-08-05T00:09:22+00:00

I think the Apex Fallacy is still one of the biggest blind spots for people when talking about the source of gender roles or "patriarchy".

Dismissing men's issues with "men made the rules" or "most CEOs / leaders are men" shows a lack of basic social/political understanding and Systems Thinking.

Similarly, I've seen people respond to issues of male victims of violence with "but most of the perpetrators are men" as if that solves the issue or makes it OK somehow. It's an extremely shallow thought process.

Egalitarianwhistle · 2020-08-05T00:16:03+00:00

IT's also weird to lump everyone into identity groups and make them responsibile for each other. When I point out that men are more likely to be murdered, I am told that it doesn't matter since other men killed them. If only I had taught men not to murder, then I wouldn't be dead.

It's frankly dehumanizing. I fear this will get worse before it gets better. I see it as we are responsible for building civilization together. They see it as, if we kill all men, then everything will be a utopia.

Demiansky · 2020-08-04T23:51:54+00:00

I think this is a good subject, thank you. This is a conclusion I also independently came to some time ago. I remember enthusiastically taking gender studies classes in college, thinking that I would find insight about thoughts on masculinity that I myself struggled with. Yet absolutely nothing described or illuminated my own experience. Instead, it was all about men hurting women and men hurting men. And to be clear, a lot of this was true, but I slowly started to realize that academic and pop feminism had an extremely infantalizing perspective of women: women's perceptions and deeds have no power to change the world. And yet I'd experienced the power that women's perceptions had in the world very acutely.

So to give you an example per your request: I've always had a vibrant personality that brings children joy, and their joy brings me joy. I always wanted to be an elementary or preschool teacher, but the perception of women always made me feel very, very ashamed for wanting this. There's a reason you don't see men in these professions, and it had nothing to do with men not wanting to do them: it's because of pedophilia hysteria, primarily driven by paranoid mothers. What's more, a woman is less likely to choose a low earner to marry, and so of course being a preschool teacher is less attractive to men in these regards too.

And of course, if you are a man who wants to be a stay at home father, you will face subtle ridicule and shame as well. If you try to participate in baby forums or infertility forums in excited anticipation of being a father, you'll be acused of being a pervert lurker. To make a long story short, our society extols the virtues of nurturing motherhood. It looks upon men who behave the same way or desire the same life with grave suspicion.

And so in my own life I've shunted this vibrant part of myself--- the best part of myself---- aside and instead pursued the career driven life that women expect of me. Sadly, my greatest aspiration was to be a wonderful father first and a provider second, but even then I feel ashamed for wanting that.

I've never, ever, ever heard a gender studies professor or piece of literature express that this is a problem.

hackathons2 · 2020-08-05T00:52:32+00:00

Let’s say that all of the richest corporations in the world are controlled by men. What does that mean for the other 99.99% of men? Absolutely nothing. Even if all positions of power of all time were held by men, that says something about those seats, not about the gender.

If the King sends you to war and you die or the Queen sends you to die, you would blame the monarchy not all men or all women. And if you tried to find a suitor by being outside the norms of society at any point, you would also be out of luck with all likelihood. Those norms are controlled by the collection of society, male and female.

And in reality, men and women have had varying degrees of influence through history and any hand-wavy simplistic theory is a waste of time.

mhandanna · 2020-08-05T02:45:07+00:00

TLDR: Male hyperagency, female hypoagency

Why Violence against Men Is Often Ignored

When pressured to admit that violence against men is largely normalized and ignored compared to violence against women, many respond by trying to justify the imbalance. For example, some contend that violence against women is “gendered” and should therefore be taken more seriously. However, a lot of violence against men is also gender-based. During the Rwandan genocide, it was mainly men and boys who were targeted for murder because of their gender. The gendered nature of the killings was largely downplayed, however. During the Srebrenica massacre, men and teenage boysaccounted for the vast majority of the victims. Sexual abuse against men is also believed by many social theorists to be an attack on masculinity intended to demoralize victims by making them feel incapable of fulfilling the male role. Even if we were to accept that violence against men is not gendered, that would not justify ignoring the more common and widespread victimization of men and boys.

A related argument holds that because men are usually victimized by other men, it is less important than violence inflicted on men and women arbitrarily. For some reason this is not considered “gendered” violence, because it is assumed that men cannot target other men for being men. This line of thinking is highly unsatisfactory. Men tend to be quite competitive with other men and there is at least some evidence that women like women more than men like other men. When a man rapes or castrates an enemy during wartime, it is not just a random act of violence, it is a direct attack on masculinity.

A third excuse, usually not explicitly stated but strongly implied, is that men somehow “deserve” to be victimized. After all, if men are the majority of the perpetrators, then it is somehow just that they get a taste of their own medicine. In a 2004 postabout the violence in and around the Mexican border town of Ciudad Juárez, political scientist Adam Jones quoted an article by Debbie Nathan in the Texas Observeras follows: “Slaughtered, butchered and scorched male corpses are found far more frequently than women’s bodies are. [But] few seem surprised, much less outraged, by this male-on-male carnage.” Drawing on the arguments above, Jones went on:

The standard operating procedure in feminist scholarship and activism dictates that when a complex social phenomenon like murder is addressed, certain rules must be followed. Briefly put, trends that evoke concern and sympathy for women—in this case, the sharp rise in women’s murder rates in Ciudad Juárez—must be carefully separated out and presented in isolation. Data that threaten to offset or contextualize the portrait, perhaps to the detriment of an emphasis on female victims, must be ignored or suppressed. Hence the invisibility of the nine-tenths of Juárez’s murder victims who are male. […] This feminist strategy reflects, and exploits, cultural convictions about men that are nearly universal. Men are seen as the “natural” victims of homicidal killing, for two main reasons. In part, this is because in most cases, men’s killers are other men—and we all know that “boys will be boys.” Second, men are viewed as implicated victims.

In other words, men are generally perceived as responsible for their own victimization on some level. Women, on the other hand, are largely innocent so violence committed against them is a more serious crime. This is merely a doctrine of collective guilt and punishment.

peanutbutterjams · 2020-08-05T03:17:02+00:00

The idea that "men created those rules" is ridiculous. There was no men's meeting at which all men decided the rules by which society lives. It's literally impossible to gain such a consensus.

It's just as prejudiced to suggest that men are somehow responsible for the actions of other men as it is to suggest that one black person is responsible for the actions of all black people. It's classic bigotry and the fact that many feminists are blind to this is testament to how badly the veil needs to be lifted.

We are evolved animals who only very recently had enough stability and prosperity to rationally examine our social, economic and political systems. Many feminists want to claim this progress as an attribute of feminism, which really lifts the masks on their sense of female superiority, but this progress has been happening for centuries. The only reason women can vote and can (relatively safely) walk the streets is because men divested themselves of power in the most peaceful transfer of power the world has ever known. The progress that allows even more progress was created exclusively under men and to say that men are therefore representative of oppression and tyranny is pure sexism.

Male gender expectations are impressed upon men just as strongly as female gender expectations are impressed upon women but somehow women get the full support of society in overcoming a near-insurmountable obstacle in ridding themselves of these assumptions while men are expected to resist the same power all on their lonesome, and are castigated if they don't slay this particular sociological Hydra.

It's information, information about how society still views women and men. Women get the full benefit of society's protection while men are not only expected to provide said protection but also fend for themselves without anyone's support.

The people who don't see this aren't evil, or hateful, or selfish. They're just limited in their vision - just like the men in the past who accepted a system that restricted a woman's rights. We should treat them as we would like the memory of those men treated: with a little empathy and a little patience.

thereslcjg2000 · 2020-08-05T01:49:13+00:00

People like that seem to see the genders as sports teams competing against each other. Hence, if someone who happens to be a specific gender does something, clearly everyone of that gender was in on the move and has no right complaining about it.

Neveah_Hope_Dreams · 2020-08-05T04:02:09+00:00

Thankyou!

Yes. People seem to freaking forget that lots of male issues are due to radical feminists. Silencing men and not taking them seriously when they are abused or raped is a perfect example. And false accusations.

Strikester101 · 2020-08-05T11:32:36+00:00

I totally agree with most you are saying. It is the job of men and women to diminish hurtful gender roles, in both directions. I think your "boys don't cry" example makes a lot of sense.

The second example however, I find a bit unfortunate. I know what you are trying to say but we also need to consider that men are often in higher paying jobs and some studies suggest that men often find more intelligent women unattractive (https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/attraction-evolved/201609/are-men-just-not-interested-in-clever-women). Intelligence does not necessarily corespensons with earnings but I think it is a good indicator of success in a career.

*Edit: grammar

hypercube885 · 2020-08-05T03:19:26+00:00

In general it's frustrating to notice all these little things that are subtly sexist against men. No one realizes it, so the same people insist that they're not one of the sexist ones and their feminism is actually helping men too. It's hard to criticize these things because the ignorance is so deeply intrenched. Hopefully more people will realize this eventually.

eldred2 · 2020-08-05T16:18:31+00:00

It's just a form of victim blaming. The same kind logic can be used to blame women for the issue affecting them. E.g. The vast majority of people raping women were raised by women. Women need to stop teaching their children to rape.

azazelcrowley · 2020-08-05T19:33:57+00:00

"The last labour government-" - Tories, almost 15 years into governing the country.

"But patriarchy made those rules" - Feminists, almost 40 years into controlling gender relations.

ArthurDent4ever · 2020-08-05T03:01:35+00:00

Your suggestion seems to revolve around getting these women to take responsibility for something (anything). Good luck with that.

Edit: these

PurpleBanner · 2020-08-04T23:28:32+00:00

What do you think ? Do you have other examples ?!

What I think is that this very subject matter has been trodden over so many times, that to discuss it any further at all will reveal a lot of entrenched bitterness over the same old topics. The topics themselves which never get resolved because there is an unexpressed desire for them to not be resolved.

Title	Blaming men for men's issues.
Author	OkLetterhead9
Upvotes	87
Comments	52
Date	August 4, 2020 10:40 PM UTC (6 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates/comments/i3tirv/blaming_men_for_mens_issues/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates/blaming-men-for-mens-issues.1063020 https://theredarchive.com/post/1063020

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