I've started to notice that I'm sexist. What do I do?

2020-01-01T20:08:11+00:00

TL;DR I feel like recent events made me realize that I have sexist beliefs and unfair double standards and biased against men. How can I overcome this?

The fact that you notice it means you are already well on your way. This gets to a basic conclusion I've reached about how to morally evaluate both myself and others:

Does the person look for and conscientiously work against their own worst faults, or do they just let behavioral "sleeping dogs lie" or maybe even blame it all on others/"the System"/capitalism/"the patriarchy"/(((der Juden)))/"cultural Marxism"/mind-controlling little green men?

You, I say, are doing it right and fully deserve praise for that.

Okay, so you asked what practical things you can do to counteract these nascent attitudes you're finding in yourself. Getting away from major media and most of the internet is a really good first step. Once you notice these news and entertainment sources starting to brainwash you, the most important way to stop the brainwashing is to get rid of the sources, right?

Talking about it all with others whom you trust is no less important, I think. You need genuine friends who won't automatically agree with you with whom you can hash out your ideas and try to see where your ideas are accurate to reality and where they aren't. In my experience, exclusively talking with people who already share your views and attitudes is a really bad idea.

There's my off-the-cuff response. Use it if it's useful; don't if it isn't.

Historybuffman · 2020-01-01T20:43:46+00:00

This is very difficult to overcome in the West, because modern Western culture is based off of Medieval/Dark ages culture, which is very gynocentric. If you're in the US or Europe, you're surrounded by misandry like a fish is surrounded by water. You can skip to the bottom if you want help in overcoming it, but here's some history if you're interested.

The Greeks and Romans, along with most other cultures on earth, did not have this strange idealization of women unique to medieval Europe. Greece and Rome, for one example, considered the male body to be the aesthetic ideal, and this is why bisexuality was as tolerated among men back then as bisexuality is tolerated today among women. Women in Greece and Rome were much more likely to be heterosexual, and the celebrated subject of art was almost always the male body instead of the female.

After the collapse of the Roman Empire, the main source of stability and hope in the entire continent was the Vatican. And Catholicism, which developed ultimately into a cult of the virgin Mary, became the source of the idea of the "sacred feminine" and the disposable male. This seems to have its own origins in the culture of the Goths, the Alemanni, and various other barbarian tribes which the Romans described as extremely courageous, dim-witted, and having no fear of death.

During the Dark Ages, people like Petrarch and Eleanor of Aquitaine took these ideas to new extremes. Eleanor of Aquitaine promoted the idea of "courtly love" which included ideas such as that love can only occur outside of marriage, that love should never be confessed, and that men should die for the woman they love even if she doesn't know he exists. Love became one-way instead of two-way. "De Amore" by Andreas Capellanus is a masterpiece of cuckold BDSM literature, except it was written as a guide for how society should actually be. And, it was taken seriously. By the time of Dante society actually became this way, and Dante's divine guide through paradise was a real woman named Beatrice, who he met only twice in his life. Petrarch's poetry describes Laura (a girl he stalked for three years, yet never met him) as a divine creature that his life depends on, and was among the best-selling literature in Medieval Europe. Obsessing over women who don't know you exist actually became the norm.

Around the time of Petrarch we also started reading about Greece and Rome again, and we ended up becoming the descendants of the barbarian, venus-figure-worshiping fruitcakes with just enough Greco-Roman culture to pick up where they left off. The Greeks already designed the first steam engine around 50 AD so it wasn't too difficult to make a second one in 1629.

That's why Dark Ages culture became commonplace, and why people are programmed to think women are sacred and men are animals today.

How to overcome it:

The enemy of ignorance is knowledge, and this cultural brainwashing is a perfect example. I gained a lot of perspective from learning about history, about other cultures/religions, and about logic. Those are the three things which I would suggest you to learn about, to give you a broader perspective on how things really are vs. how they appear through your cultural filters.

To expand your historical awareness, I strongly suggest reading Greco-Roman and European history. Read the original texts, not "summaries" by biased later authors. You'll notice an enormous difference between the logic and clarity of the Romans, and the delusional nuttiness of the dark ages (which became our culture today). The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius is a great example of Roman philosophy, and shows the cultural and moral viewpoints of the educated Romans. The Aeneid is the great cultural classic of Ancient Rome, and shows through the hero Aeneas and his wife the expectations of the family found in Roman culture. To understand Dark Ages Culture, there's Il Canzoniere by Petrarch and The Song of Roland. And of course, De Amore by Andreas Capellanus.

For cultural awareness, Chinese and Japanese culture and religion are great starting points. Asian culture is actually much more gender-equal than either modern Western culture or ancient Greco-Roman culture, because it is based on Confucianism and duty. The husband has a duty to protect and nurture the wife, and the wife has a duty to honor and obey the husband. However, both husband and wife have equal responsibility to fulfill their respective roles. A wife who did not obey is as guilty as a husband who did not protect. A great book on Confucianism is the Book of Mencius.

Daoism is also a great example of gender equality in Asian culture. Yin (female) and Yang (male) are equal and opposite, yet only through their balance is harmony achieved. The sacred text of Daoism is the Dao De Jing... My favorite translation of it is by Moss Roberts.

Finally, logic isn't something that depends on the source. It's more like math than history... You can learn it from youtube videos and it will still be just as correct as a book by Bertrand Russell. Learn about fallacies and syllogisms. Maybe deductive logic too, if you're interested.

TL;DR Overcoming cultural brainwashing is hard, and gynocentrism has been a part of Western culture for 1800 years. If you want to gain greater awareness of what's real instead of just what your culture tells you is real, then you need to look outside your culture. You won't be able to overcome this completely without a lot of reading. Good luck 😊

Fixed: The Aeneid is much better for understanding Greco-Roman culture than Lysistrata.

LogicalHumanDude · 2020-01-02T08:55:59+00:00

Honestly, you might be able to realize how out of control it is going. Actually, according to statistics, i’m pretty sure that men suicide rates are 3x higher. You might start to see that when a man is getting beaten up, everyone laughs or thinks he deserved it. It’s especially hard in the Modern Western culture where society deems women more dominant.

I’m not sure if you know this based on your goal and i’m assuming you’re recent into it, but men get higher jail time than women for THE SAME CRIMES! And, to top it all off, and the one that drives me crazy. Dads can’t even be near their kids without everyone assuming that he is a pedophile.

I read a thread on r/AskReddit the other day. Some guy was trying to get fit. He started doing running and his watch told him when to stop. One day, he was jogging and 2 girls ran away and called the police for “trying to rape him.” He was trying to get fit, as the dude who posted the comment said “arrested for one of the biggest crimes in the world: getting fit.”

Good luck! It’s hard to do but I know you can do it!

CVTHIZZKID · 2020-01-02T05:55:31+00:00

If you find this to be a truly significant issue in your life, you might want to consider going to a male therapist and working through some of these attitudes with him.

But therapy can be pretty expensive if your insurance does not cover it, so it’s not necessarily a first resort if this isn’t a major problem for you.

Svennboii · 2020-01-01T20:07:42+00:00

No idea tbh l. Just browse this and r/femism and r/Mrapatrol and you almost hate women coz of femenism.

JestyerAverageJoe · 2020-01-01T22:53:26+00:00

Watch the feminist-directed documentary film named The Red Pill. It's an explanation of men's rights from a liberal feminist female's perspective. It's available for free on Amazon and I believe YouTube too. Let me know what you think.

SeaofBloodRedRoses · 2020-01-02T08:49:10+00:00

Not too long ago, I discovered a youtube channel that I never would have considered watching, as their political views are... well, really extreme in the opposite direction compared to my own. Not KKK or anything, but certainly right wing American (I'm left wing Canadian, so a huge gap there).

However, I didn't actually get a confirmation on her politican stance until my 5th or 6th video. She didn't talk about politics at all until it became directly relevant to a personal experience of hers. For the most part, she spoke about things I profoundly agreed with, such as men's rights, double standards, and pointless labels (which I find seem to only reinforce the gender binary, especially the ones that attempt to break out of it). It got me thinking, because there are some attitudes among right wing voters that you won't necessarily notice all that much. Excluding the extremes, of course. For instance, and a big one, is that a right wing's response to someone being gay will most often be "Okay. Cool? Who cares. You do you." It's not a celebration, it's just... yay?

Now on one hand, you could see this as a reflection of how right wingers don't understand the shit that SAGA people go through, but at the same time... I'm SAGA, and I would MUCH rather someone said "Cool, doesn't really bother me though." It takes out that concept of pride and celebration because... I mean, if your slogan is "love is love," but you're trying to separate SAGA love from straight love, then are you really vying for love is love? Love is love should be, who cares who you want in your pants. Which is exactly how the vast majority of right wing voters view it. Left wing voters see it more as something that stands out. But if you're trying to make it accepted as a normal part of society, why would you want to be standing on a roof and screaming it out instead of acting like there's no difference whatsoever between the two? The first encourages a hate response because it offers that opening. The second drills the idea behind it into people's subconscious brains - they'll slowly come to be more okay with it without even realising it, but if you're shouting on rooftops, they will actively oppose it. Right?

This youtuber supported Trump, which is just fucking ridiculous to me. I mean, you look at the constant lies, the law breaking, the fact that businessmen and politics never mix well, the corruption, the quid pro quo, the shitty international policies, the fact that the wage gap has increased exponentially... but if I ignore that part of it and simply look at the social side of things, she presented really well thought out arguments for a lot of serious issues. A lot of which align a lot with this sub (which I am new to).

These arguments weren't new to me, but they still seemed alien. I'm a guy. I'm a big, broad shouldered guy, and despite being indigenous by blood and culture, my skin is white. I never get people on my side looking at the descrimination that I face. I have been in multiple situations where I have incontrovertible proof that I was 100% not at fault - camera evidence and witnesses galore, and I was the one handed the sexual harassment papers (when nothing in the conflict ever had anything to do with that in the first place). There are some serious issues in men's rights that nobody is talking about!

I am left wing, and you absolutely will find subtle misandry in left wing spaces. So it seemed like no matter where I turned, I either got shut down and told to go die, or at best, told "but women have it worse." I had these opinions, I wanted to shine a light on these issues, but nobody supported them alongside me. The people who did were automatically branded as racists, incels, rapists, misogynysts, whatever. You name it. The very mention of men's rights screamed supremacists because that's what people wanted it to mean (and because there are legitimately some supremacists who go by men's rights activist titles).

If a child is raised Islamic, they will more often than not grow up to follow Islamic traditions and rules, following religious norms, even if they don't really believe deep down. If someone is raised Canadian, they will learn Canadian English or French, and at first glance at European syntax, slang, or grammar, they would think "that's wrong." If someone is raised to be racist, they will more often than not be racist. Not because they were taught to hate, but because they were taught that people of other races are different, and those specific differences are bad.

We are caught in an echo chamber that we can't break out of. It took me ages to find groups that actually discussed men's rights without the supremacy (and this sub isn't perfect - it's filled with "feminists are like this ___," which is a blatant generalisation and does not reflect well on the sub). It took you ages to realise that something wasn't right in the world. Some people never come to that realisation, but in the end, the only people who are racist/sexist/etc are the ones who come to see the truth and ultimately choose to remain steadfast.

Growing up in an only-white town surrounded by people who tell you that black people are "dirty" will leave you coming out of there thinking it. You'll treat them poorly and the learned behaviours will show. But that's all it is. Learned behaviour. It's temporary. You learn not to do that fairly quickly. You learn not to pass on the same racist message. You learn to treat them as people, even if it takes a bit to overcome that behaviour you've been drilling through your head for decades now. Who you are isn't defined until you realise that they're exactly the same as you.

Everyone here has been raised on the same messages. Men are bad. Men are all rapists. Men all want sex and aren't allowed to have standards. Women aren't capable of abuse. Men have to have sex if a woman offers. Men aren't allowed to have a say in their own wedding. Men aren't meant to cry or show feelings. Men aren't allowed to hir girls, even in self defence. Women are always right. It's a man's responsibility to die so that a woman he's never met can escape the sinking ship. These things have been ingrained into our heads. The way I see it, now that you've realised that the world is a fucked up place, you have four options.

To continue going on as normal, to passively stop spreading the toxic nature of society, to actively work against these messages, or to go balls deep into hating anyone who speaks against men's rights (which, as I mentioned, you will see on this sub - such as "feminists are such ____," in such broad generalisations).

You weren't sexist. Sexism is descrimination, but it's also an active hate. What you do from now on is what determines that. Don't be so hard on yourself. You wanted out? You've broken free of the echo chamber. You're out. To stay out, you can try to engage in social circles that talk about this stuff, and you can do that while staying in your old social circles (such as feminist movements). The broad view will make you a better person and help you understand everything better. It also might embitter you towards the human race in general, but most people get past that.

What to do next is up to you. You're out of the echo chamber. Now what?

spamtheant · 2020-01-02T09:09:51+00:00

The most important thing is to address the victim mindset. That will limit your life and potentially damage you.

The fact of the matter is that most people are not out to hurt you, if you work hard at whatever career you choose you will probably do well and if you are genuinely being badly treated you can move. If you worry about being assaulted then simple precaustions like not getting completely bladdered and being assertive and acting confidently even if you are not will minimise risks. Do not avoid the male dominated industry because of fear of discrimination, choose the industry based on what <b>you</b> want to do. If you like working with people in a safe comfortable environment with flexible working hours it is going to be a female dominated industry. There is nothing wrong with that if it is what you want.

On how to overcome sexism, none of us is perfect and there is no gold standard against which everything can be judged. Misandry is ubiquitous in the west but once you realise this then its effect on your own mind is sharply reduced. My belief is that a reduced concern for men is an innate biological trait so cannot be eliminated. What can be done is to keep and open mind and mentally flip the sexes in situations to see if equal standards are being applied. Keep a sceptical mindset regaring everything and if something seems surprising check the evidence yourself.

2020-01-02T17:52:40+00:00

[permanently deleted]

2020-01-02T20:06:32+00:00

I personally felt more connected to my fellow guys when I joined this subreddit as my mum is a feminist (not really, but she works in a very male dominated industry and she feels her ideas are ignore before they have even been shared while other are unbraced, she is awesome and listens to me and agrees that most of the problems men face are real, she is essentially what a feminist is meant to be, someone who fights for equality, not inequality) so I would recommend just exploring the men's rights community and that will be a good start

littlepaperfolk · 2020-01-03T00:23:08+00:00

You are aware of it and you want to change it. Great first step. I work in the field of domestic violence and sexual assault and I will NOT male bash under any circumstances. Abusive, misogynistic men are NOT the norm. They are #@$holes. I must admit that it’s hard some days to do the work and to see so much in the way of ugly, controlling and violent behaviours. But these men are most certainly not “all men” nor even a significant portion of the male sex. Nor are men the blithering, doofus dads we see on prime time TV, who cant turn the oven on or feed a baby. Mainstream TV does continue to push sexist rubbish on us all the time. Switch it off or change what you watch. There are loads of good programs that don’t endlessly drag you through the sexist spin cycle.

There are dedicated men who do anti-violence work too, who challenge sexist and misogynistic attitudes. I imagine being a cop or a worker in children’s protection services can make one feel very jaded and sad too because they get to see the worst of humanity every day at work. But we must all resist urges to undermine anyone based on sexist drivel.

Its so important to surround yourself with good, intelligent, kind people of both sexes. Join a book club, an environmental group, an art class, a creative writer’s group. Watch equestrian sports, where women and men compete equally and celebrate each other’s wins and riding ability.

Read, read, read. John Le Carre, Martin Amis, Nick Hornby, Jordan Peterson, Ian McEwan, Kazuo Ishiguro, Cormac McCarthy, Johnathon Coe...I could list a thousand male writers whose works I love. Literature is a great way to broaden one’s understanding of humanity.

Resist sister!

Title	I've started to notice that I'm sexist. What do I do?
Author	[deleted]
Upvotes	27
Comments	34
Date	January 1, 2020 7:52 PM UTC (6 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/MensRights
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/eimssl/ive_started_to_notice_that_im_sexist_what_do_i_do/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/MensRights/ive-started-to-notice-that-im-sexist-what-do-i-do.1201721 https://theredarchive.com/post/1201721

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