Have you ever expressed your views to someone IRL, and what was their reaction?

AskingToFeminists · 2019-12-10T11:41:05+00:00

I did, to some extent, and generally the reaction was positive. Although I try to pick my battles and the people I choose to discuss it with.

I know people who aren't really able to have a heated discussion about something without feeling like it is the end of the world that you disagree with them. With those, I don't talk about anything remotely controversial.

I also know people who will thank you for showing them they were wrong, and those are a pleasure to discuss with, and people everywhere between those two extremes.

I have a work colleague that often joke that she is a feminist, meaning "female supremacist" by the term. I explained to her what happened with the grievance studies papers and what they exposed, and she was in complete agreement with me in how shocked and disgusted she was by how much of a perversion of science those fields are.

Generally, average people are rather on our side, if we take some time to explain it properly. We can't rely on buzzwords and expect people to understand what is meant, like feminists, but reason is on our side, and taking a few minutes to explain how things are and what we think about is is usually enough to get most people to agree with us.

serpentineeyelash · 2019-12-10T13:55:47+00:00

I first started learning about men's issues (at first, female-on-male domestic violence) around 2014, and tried talking about them to people around me, like my family members and occasionally in my politics classes at university. My social circle tends to be left-leaning.

I quickly realized I was receiving a level of hostile opposition that I'd never received on any other issue. My mother interpreted some hyperbolic rhetoric of mine as a belief that all women are evil, my (right-leaning) father flatly refused to believe a woman could seriously harm a man, and my brother dismissed the issues with laughable ad hominems like “MRAs masturbate to My Little Pony”. (Though some of these people later came around somewhat after more arguing.) The response from my fellow students was more mixed but still overall negative.

Anyway, I soon learned to keep my mouth shut on men's issues, and rarely have the courage to mention that aspect of my views IRL anymore. So I'm not sure how different the reaction might be today.

In one way the political climate has probably got better: some men's issues/talking points have become more mainstream and been co-opted by feminists or traditionalists or both. But in another way it's got worse: the rise of Trump and crypto-fascists has made the left even more suspicious of any ideas out of step with political correctness.

Melthengylf · 2019-12-10T16:35:25+00:00

At a personal level, I have. When done in person, I would say 80% of both women and men were sympathetic. This is restricted to people in person and from my own culture; I've found reddit to be mostly unsympathetic, but I don't know if it is because of the american culture or because it is the internet.

I was able to frame the issues of men in a way that is mostly palatable to both men and women. It did take great effort. My ideas might be seen as extremely feminist for this subreddit standard, but they are still fringe in the feminist hegemony that I'm involved in.

Although feminism has already absorbed some male issues like suicide, through toxic masculinity, through my own method I was able for people to take some other issues seriously, like workplace fatalities, homicide victimhood, punitive disparity and situations about dating, in a way that is more empathetic and understanding than feminism is usually able to. I'm very proud of that.

Forgetaboutthelonely · 2019-12-10T19:57:13+00:00

not all of them. only a few of my closest friends know about my antifeminist streak.

and none of them know my stance on incels/nice guys and the like.

but they all generally agree with me when it's brought up.

TAKEitTOrCIRCLEJERK · 2019-12-10T06:00:30+00:00

Of course! There's a general consensus that boys are being under-served by our current system, and we have a ton of boys and young men falling into the alt-right.

The average person understands this and wants to help.

Xemnas81 · 2019-12-11T03:08:43+00:00

Yeah, lost most of my school friends for it. Around the time I graduated college

spudmix · 2019-12-12T03:27:30+00:00

I don't think I've ever had someone sincerely disagree with me on my men's advocacy views in person, and I talk about them quite a bit. People have different ideas about the solutions, of course, but in general everyone has been supportive and at worst I'll get a "you're right, but I think it's more important to concentrate my efforts on <feminism/the environment/homelessness/whatever>".

CoffeehasSentience · 2019-12-12T05:33:21+00:00

A lot of people tend to agree with me, specially when I mention how we have less empathy for guys. The ones who don't end up revealing me how they actually don't give a shit about men because if any man has a problem then he must be a weak man. It's mostly that, both from right-wing people and feminists (not all of them of course, but the ones who disagree; the ones who agree say it's kinda a hard problem to even solve and recognize): if a man has a problem, he's weak and shit.

mrsuperguy · 2019-12-15T11:25:54+00:00

i've not talked about this much in person but i have brought it up a couple times to online friend groups.

i have one good friend in particular with whom there is a lot of friction about gender politics including mens rights and as a result wedon't discuss it much. there's also an online friend group where i asked peoples' thoughts out of the blue and it was surprisingly super positive. i think perhaps past exchanges with this friend had made me really worried other friends would react the same way but i was really releived they didn't. another guy even said he felt the same way!

Title	Have you ever expressed your views to someone IRL, and what was their reaction?
Author	Thin-Ant
Upvotes	14
Comments	12
Date	December 10, 2019 1:54 AM UTC (6 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates/comments/e8juhs/have_you_ever_expressed_your_views_to_someone_irl/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates/have-you-ever-expressed-your-views-to-someone-irl.1064316 https://theredarchive.com/post/1064316

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