Has the political left failed men?

One_Ad_3499 · 2023-01-04T16:59:04+00:00

Why do feminists see men as a kind of monolith? When I listen to them I have a feeling that they think we are all part of some cabal in which we meet each other in dark rooms and discuss how to oppress woman

bsanchey · 2023-01-04T16:19:05+00:00

I’m with you on that. I am as left as it gets I want universal healthcare and to eliminate poverty and all that stuff but yeah men’s issues have been completely ignored. And in my opinion a true leftist and left policies would help men with these issues.

TheTinMenBlog · 2023-01-04T16:03:15+00:00

Believe me or not, I am left wing. It’s in my blood.

It always has been, and likely always will be.

I’ve been to the marches, I’ve protested in the streets, I bought the t shirt, become a member and donor to left political parties, and voted devoutly for them for the past fifteen years.

I believe in the total equality of the sexes, I believe in justice and reform, and not just for women and girls, but for everybody.

But I’ll be honest with you.

I’ve become increasingly disappointed and alienated from my peers.

As the more my understanding of sexism against men and boys grows, the more I see the holes in the minds and hearts of my fellow progressive leftists.

I see a failure to extend their own noble principles, their beliefs and compassion, their love and commitment, to 50 percent of the population.I see hypocrisy, and fingers-in-ears ignorance.

And I see my fellow men and women, similarly alienated and frustrated too.

The left, who rightly popularised the concepts of accountability, seem allergic to the idea of accepting any accountability for themselves.

Dishing out painful but useful lessons to society, for all our benefits, but too often failing to sit down and learn anything themselves at all.

Yes. The finger is forever pointed, but never in the mirror. And worse, they so often participate in the same bigotry they claim abhor, themselves.

The irony is not lost on me.

Is it time to shine the spotlight back onto those who have shone it so brightly, for so many years?

Because yes, there are hard lessons to be learnt, and painful growth to be had, for everyone of us.

So what do you think…

For all the worthy progress the left have made in the realm of social justice; have they been quietly failing our men and boys?

~

A bit of inspiration taken from u/knightfluttershy thanks!

Images Joakim Hankasalo, Lorenzo Mainmone, MT Elgassier, Adrien Converse, Leohoho, Mathius Fariass, Gradienta, from Unsplash.

shit-zen-giggles · 2023-01-04T17:37:56+00:00

The SPLC found in the linked study that the majority of young, democrat men think that feminism has done more harm than good:

https://web.archive.org/web/20220531182334/https://www.splcenter.org/news/2022/06/01/poll-finds-support-great-replacement-hard-right-ideas

Consequencially, they came up with a new agenda:

https://web.archive.org/web/20220908161120/https://edition.cnn.com/2022/09/08/us/andrew-tate-manosphere-misogyny-solutions-cec/index.html

Then Richard Reeves book 'of boys and men' was published just in time for the mid term election hype cycle:

https://www.commonsense.news/p/the-boys-feminism-left-behind

In the book Reeves almost religiously avoids even mentioning systemic discrimination (other than to deny it's existance, e.g. gender grading bias in schools)

coincidences...

gratis_eekhoorn · 2023-01-04T18:05:09+00:00

''failing'' implies it isn't intentional...

ThighErda · 2023-01-04T20:52:45+00:00

It also failed men in terms of circumcision, they somehow believed prepuce became magical when women have it & terrible when men have it. (Talking about midwest leftists)

hotpotato138 · 2023-01-04T20:51:01+00:00

Yeah, the left definitely fucked up on this.

frackingfaxer · 2023-01-05T01:54:21+00:00

Yes, they have. Though that failure should be understood as a broader failure of the mainstream Left in abandoning working-class interests in favour of the sort of identity politics that makes men, often working-class men, out to be the enemy. In spite of whatever failings one might attribute to the "old" Left, they never declared the ordinary man on the street to be a privileged member of a patriarchy that needed to be overthrown. There was room to point out the unique issues faced by men, as done by old socialists like E. Belfort Bax and George Orwell.

FlexMissile99 · 2023-01-04T23:32:32+00:00

I vote for my country's most likely to get into power left wing party (Labour, UK), but I consider myself politically homeless. The current crop of Labour politicians and most of the vocal party supporters are only slightly better than the Tories on economic issues and culturally just as bad (but on the other side of the spectrum - if the Tories are haunted by the ugly ghosts of classism, and misogyny, then Labour are battling with the spectres of misandry and all sorts of stupidly reductionist positions surrounding identity politics). Basically, they garnish really pretty right wing economics with a scattering of woke pieties - pretty much the worst of both worlds in my view.

If and when the UK gets proportional representation, I will move my vote elsewhere, but for now, voting Labour is the only way my vote has a chance of counting and getting the terrible Tories out, so I do it, however begrudgingly. I've long suspected that a party that was economically left wing while being socially middle of the road or even slightly right of centre would be a force to be reckoned with in the UK. I know so many men (and indeed women) like me, who are tired of the UK's crippling social and economic inequality, tired of all our failing public services, but don't think that all women and 'minorities' (an odd term - given that so many statistical minorities e.g. the seriously disabled and terminally ill are almost never mentioned by the leftists who use it) are automatically the biggest victims in the world and deserving of all sorts of special privileges by virtue of them having a uterus or mildly brown skin. Ditto for the blanket-fire blaming of 'straight white men' for all the world's problems.

I also think that there's something to be said for marriage as a stabilising unit in society, and that traditional gender roles might share a similar purpose (I'm still figuring out my thoughts on this). It comes back to G.K. Chesterton's old chestnut: don't go wondering into a field and start ripping up fences before you've figured out why they're there. They might just be protecting you from a raging bull!

Langland88 · 2023-01-05T09:41:00+00:00

I consider myself left of center and I agree that the political left has failed men men just as much as the right.

My issue is that the political left is weaponizing Misandry as a means to push their agenda which bothers me personally. There is a lot more policies from the left wing that I favor more than I do from the right wing but the modern day Feminist agenda and the misandry it includes with it, however, is not one of them.

Moist-Quiet-647 · 2023-01-05T17:49:47+00:00

The Left has not "failed" men because they never tried.

hehimCA · 2023-01-04T16:19:47+00:00

Yes the Democratic Party in the US seems to hate men. It’s crazy. I’m in the same boat. Abandoned by the left — a man without a party.

Cunari · 2023-01-04T20:14:55+00:00

The political parties cater to the people with power. Conservatives to wealthy men and leftists to young attractive women. Hence why groups like the disabled get shafted and the key way to help them is “getting them to work”

insane_gravy · 2023-01-04T20:59:35+00:00

The political left in America are, in the end, just bog standard idpol liberals who want a different kind of capitalism than what we have now. And that is why they continue to fail; you cannot fix the problems of late stage capitalism with more capitalism, let alone idpol scolding. If you want to reach men from a left-leaning perspective, start by reading something like State and Revolution.

MGTOWManofMystery · 2023-01-04T23:01:14+00:00

IdPol liberals, yes. The true Left? No.

CircleToShoot · 2023-01-04T17:54:54+00:00

Don’t agree with the 3rd slide. If anything, I’d say men’s issues are bunched together as collective behaviour. Any example of emotional outpouring or disregulation was framed as ‘toxic masculinity’ for a while there.

I remember trying to take ownership of my mistakes and someone chirping in ‘we all have to be aware of our toxic masculinity’. I told him to cop on. My failings were mine and his are his. If you want to evoke change within yourself, you need to address your own problems. That’s the start point for you alone.

hello_marmalade · 2023-01-05T01:57:24+00:00

Yes. A thing to point out though - the first point about make problems only being seen as individualized failings or internalized issues to me is pretty clearly an effect of men being seen as the “creators” or “controllers” and “actors” of society - a criticism I’ve often seen thrown out by feminists, in a way that’s critical of how women are not seen as actors.

A number of issues that men face are failed by feminist framing, which while has historically been a positive movement, for the past two decades has been showing it’s limitations in terms of societal analysis. I point this out because I honestly think that feminism is truly a roadblock to addressing men’s issues. It’s often said that feminism points out these issues, but I think this is pretty illustrative of how it may ostensibly point out these issues, but does little in the way of supporting men in these issues.

Egalitarian thinking is necessary to move human society further, imo.

omegaphallic · 2023-01-05T02:59:02+00:00

Yes sadly, but so has the center and right.

BrokenBlueWalrus · 2023-01-05T08:28:24+00:00

check the Vaush video. Even socialists are starting to notice a bad trend thats undermining their efforts.

Quix_Nix · 2023-01-04T16:19:30+00:00

I say if it quacks like a duck and walks like a duck it's a duck

If it talks like a right winger and mocks like a right winger then it's not left wing.

Alpha0rgaxm · 2023-01-15T06:20:08+00:00

I just had a discussion somewhat similar to this the other day with a female friend who claimed "if you had been through what I been through you would see why I hate men". I am really sick of this shit. I had to tell her that even if someone or a certain group (race, gender, sexuality etc.) you can't go around your whole life being fearful and hateful because then the evil persons who did this to you win. It is like a second victory because now they have taken your life and your freedom in a sense. So I would say that yes the left has failed men, absolutely. I should not have even had to explain that shit. No wonder so many dudes are becoming incels and other stupid groups. The right is the only ones (only theoretically, you know they won't actually fix the issues) who pay some mind to male issues. This is very bad for civilized society and for a leftist movement. You need men and women for a strong left movement.

SCArnoldos · 2023-01-04T16:58:18+00:00

Left and Right are very different between the US and EU, but what they have universally in common is the foundational belief: the Left believes that everything depends on nurture, therefore men can be taught (or rather, social engineered) to be less masculine, while the Right believes that nurture cannot change nature, therefore everyone must fulfill their traditional gender role.

Both of these beliefs are flawed, which is why I don't consider myself as either Leftist or Rightist.

Left's "tabula rasa" philosophy is what has led to this "unwillingness to acknowledge any biological basis for sex differences" you speak of.

artonion · 2023-01-04T23:09:02+00:00

Initial thoughts: Yes it has to some degrees failed the working class, of which half of us are men.

III. Such as? I’d like to think all sane people can differentiate between masculinity and toxic masculinity.

IV. I feel like we as men have won so much from feminism, more and more so with every “wave”.

Let’s not let woke rainbow capitalism turn us against each other, under the pretence of being leftist.

gratis_eekhoorn · 2023-01-04T16:46:59+00:00

[permanently deleted]

gvsteve · 2023-01-04T20:03:27+00:00

How would you say that public discussion of toxic masculinity has negatively affected you?

punkerthanpunk · 2023-01-04T20:24:22+00:00

Interesting.Can you elaborate more on the naturally ocurring parts of the masculine identity?some examples

NoWeird8388 · 2023-01-07T13:27:58+00:00

Andrew_Baster · 2023-01-08T21:26:33+00:00

Yes, it has.

Vovamas · 2023-08-14T20:25:53+00:00

Liberal politics do hurt men by large. Despite our idealistic view of the world, political parties work just like publicly traded corporations. Their number one goal is to return "profit" to their shareholders (or voters in this case), often at the cost of outsiders. Men are significantly more prone to hold conservative views, just our nature. I am not gonna go in depth why it's almost purely a biological process, I know some people on here will challenge me on this and I will just consider you ignorant of established science.

So the left doesn't owe anything to men, their primary demographic are women or anyone identifying as such. And when they display token gratitude toward the men, they formulate solutions through the prism of feminine identity. Which is total bologney, we are trying not to impose our male laws and controls on your female body, right? At least, I, myself, am not doing or condoning that as a political centrist. Even as it seems the only way to bring left and right together is to be hated by both, lol. Yet, you try to assist us by helping us understand better how our own brains, masculinized by Testosterone already inside the mother's womb, should think and operate!! This is exactly the same energy as Andrew Tate fan telling a depressed woman she needs to accept her role as male property to instantly cure unhappiness.

Men want to compete, by nature. Many men also want to do dangerous and reckless things, by nature, if there is a decent risk -to-reword ratio. Women stay away from jobs where there is high risk of death or injury- they don't build bridges or skyscrapers, women rarely take active duty in the military. Obviously, the negative aspect of that is there are way more conmen, frauds and criminals in the male population. Also, our competition doesn't turn us into bitter enemies. For every sore loser, there are three guys who will accept the winner and take their loss in stride. Just look at the homoerotic stuff that goes on between MMA fighters: hugging each other, touching butts, introducing their wives and girlfriends to each other, etc. at the end of a bloody brawl. Raising each other's hands. One of the greatest examples of this honorable attitude- see the ending of a 2nd fight between Mark Coleman and Fyodor Emilianenko.

Yet, the left's solution to all male problems - just become a girl. Don't take initiative, don't do dangerous things, report everything to your friends or authorities. Don't even attempt to mimic the positive aspects of masculinity, such as stoicism. But do bring your self-sacrifice and provider instinct to the table please, we still need it to make our society work out somehow. Do you smell the hypocrisy here?

Title	Has the political left failed men?
Author	TheTinMenBlog
Upvotes	327
Comments	123
Date	January 4, 2023 4:03 PM UTC (3 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates/comments/10376wg/has_the_political_left_failed_men/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates/has-the-political-left-failed-men.1147086 https://theredarchive.com/post/1147086

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