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Feminism is NOT enough by itself to liberate men from the problems they confront; a treatise on male empowerment

AHumanThatListens

October 24, 2019

4 upvotes

/r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates

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Title	Feminism is NOT enough by itself to liberate men from the problems they confront; a treatise on male empowerment
Author	AHumanThatListens
Upvotes	4
Comments	34
Date	October 24, 2019 12:25 PM UTC (6 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates/comments/dmfnr3/feminism_is_not_enough_by_itself_to_liberate_men/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates/feminism-is-not-enough-by-itself-to-liberate-men.1203230 https://theredarchive.com/post/1203230

Comments

[–]mewacketergi 0 points1 point2 points 6 years ago (8 children) | Copy Link

[–]AHumanThatListens[S] 0 points1 point2 points 6 years ago (7 children) | Copy Link

[–]mewacketergi 0 points1 point2 points 6 years ago (6 children) | Copy Link

[–]AHumanThatListens[S] 0 points1 point2 points 6 years ago (5 children) | Copy Link

[–]mewacketergi 0 points1 point2 points 6 years ago (4 children) | Copy Link

[–]AHumanThatListens[S] 0 points1 point2 points 6 years ago (3 children) | Copy Link

[–]mewacketergi 0 points1 point2 points 6 years ago (2 children) | Copy Link

[–]AHumanThatListens[S] 0 points1 point2 points 6 years ago (1 child) | Copy Link

[–]mewacketergi 0 points1 point2 points 6 years ago* (0 children) | Copy Link

[–]Melthengylf -1 points0 points1 point 6 years ago (145 children) | Copy Link

[–]LacklustreFriend 7 points8 points9 points 6 years ago (16 children) | Copy Link

[–]Oncefa2left-wing male advocate 4 points5 points6 points 6 years ago (13 children) | Copy Link

[–]LacklustreFriend 9 points10 points11 points 6 years ago (9 children) | Copy Link

[–]Oncefa2left-wing male advocate 6 points7 points8 points 6 years ago* (7 children) | Copy Link

I'm not saying all feminists are guilty of this. But feminism, as a movement, bears some guilt.

Feminism bears a very large amount of guilt here. In fact I'd say a majority of the issues that we discuss are caused, to one extent or another, by feminism (an argument that I outlined here).

Even though "gender feminism" may have won in an academic or "elitist" sense, most regular people who call themselves feminists support equity feminism more than they do gender feminism.

So I think it's important to make this distinction for two reasons:

From an MRA perspective, equity feminism is not a threat, and should be encouraged in place of gender feminism.
There are some feminists who support men's rights issues, and I think it's important to not alienate them from us. They can still be feminists, and still care about issues that effect men.

It is important to point out the negatives of feminism though simply because of how many of these issues are caused by them to one extent or another. And the voices of actual feminists who point out this hypocrisy inside of feminism could become one of our biggest allies, and they should be applauded for their honesty and courage to stand up within that platform.

[–]Blauwpetje 2 points3 points4 points 6 years ago (0 children) | Copy Link

[–]operratic 0 points1 point2 points 6 years ago (3 children) | Copy Link

[–]Oncefa2left-wing male advocate 1 point2 points3 points 6 years ago (1 child) | Copy Link

[–]mewacketergi 0 points1 point2 points 6 years ago* (0 children) | Copy Link

[–]mewacketergi 0 points1 point2 points 6 years ago (0 children) | Copy Link

From an MRA perspective, equity feminism is not a threat, and should be encouraged in place of gender feminism.

The equity feminists are most lovely, but to what sort of an endangered species resort do you go to find one?

Even though "gender feminism" may have won in an academic or "elitist" sense, most regular people who call themselves feminists support equity feminism more than they do gender feminism.

This is a very good observation, and thank you for it!

Unfortunately, the deception is still ongoing rather successfully: if you read someone like Kimmel (an epitome of an academic who used to do some real social science, but has since then thrown all of his chips in on propaganda), -- his go-to formula for christening auditoriums full of people as "feminists" lies in exactly this deception. And then he proceeds to add insult to the injury and claim that the only reason men oppose feminism is that they are fearful of "losing their unearned privilege".

And that is supposed to be one of the best academic intellectuals they have available, in charge of telling us who the men are, and what motivates them... An intellectual crisis, indeed.

[–]mewacketergi 0 points1 point2 points 6 years ago (0 children) | Copy Link

That is called negative selection; their movement has systematically purged those with a conscience from candidates for influence and leadership positions. Yet somehow, it is still a "minority who are guilty of this".

Also, you are leaving the "why" of the gender feminists winning, u/Oncefa2: why do you think they won?

I think I know a good portion of the answer, -- if they stuck with the egalitarian ideal, then without inventing new and new ever-more-minuscule novel forms of oppression, at some point the equity-oriented feminist movement would have had to say: "That's it, we are done here! People of both genders are treated as equally as they are going to be in our imperfect world, and the barriers to entry are almost completely gone. We live in a post-feminist world now. Time to wrap this up and go home."

Do you think people who are used to dedicating their entire careers to "fighting oppression" would ever do that? Therefore, the goal posts are always moving...

[–]AHumanThatListens[S] 1 point2 points3 points 6 years ago (0 children) | Copy Link

[–]mewacketergi 0 points1 point2 points 6 years ago (0 children) | Copy Link

[–]Blauwpetje 1 point2 points3 points 6 years ago (0 children) | Copy Link

[–]Melthengylf 0 points1 point2 points 6 years ago (0 children) | Copy Link

[–]mewacketergi 0 points1 point2 points 6 years ago (127 children) | Copy Link

[–]Melthengylf 0 points1 point2 points 6 years ago (126 children) | Copy Link

Some phrases that I love from the text:

in the area of gender justice, women have been making great strides forward, talking to each other about the obstacles they face, calling out and defining their issues as women, and pushing back against sexist norms – while men’s issues are still most often shrouded in silence.

Feminism is overall a very progressive phenomenon – one that takes women’s issues, yanks them out of the dark, and calls them out so that they can be known about and dealt with.

The constructive answer to this problem is to replicate for men what feminism has been doing for women

I’d like to say to those who don’t like how anti-male attitudes and stereotypes fester in some environments: You’re quite right to feel this way. When I hear someone say “men don’t have any needs of their own,” or “all men are perverts” or even “the patriarchy is the problem, and feminism battles the patriarchy, and men benefit from that anyway,” I try to clarify that a progressive movement does not exclude or sideline other concerns, but rather, it works hand-in-hand with them

A group that faces struggles cannot effectively deal with these struggles until it is able to empower itself. And the path to empowerment is paved with the cement of consciousness. This part of any anti-oppression project – consciousness-raising and empowerment – is the glue that binds all the other causes together and truly causes changes to occur on every level of society, right down to the very attitudes people have about others and themselves

Now let’s clarify something: “empowerment” does not mean lording one’s power over others. Empowerment means that a person or group is able to feel a sense of self-determination. When a person is empowered, they have less of a need to dominate other people, because they are content with where they are and have less need to make comparative judgments about their position or abilities relative to others.

THIS is the heart of feminism – An overall sense of sisterhood in womanhood, and a pride in womanhood, as a result. And from there comes the strength to build a movement and fight for change, which reinforces the sense of empowerment.

Now – if we apply the concept of “empowerment” to men, what do we see? Men these days are feeling less and less empowered as men. These men’s rights advocates, pickup artists, and “men going their own way” are searching for a sense of collective masculine empowerment. But this is very hard to do without a collective sense of self-understanding as men.

What – not who – is stopping men from feeling empowered?

Anti-feminist men’s movements make the mistake of automatically looking for someone to blame when grappling with the barriers they face as men.

these stereotypes deeply cut into and affect men’s lives, often in a very silent manner; every social construct about men is infused with many of the assumptions that men are:

You may not like where some modern strands of feminism go; you may find yourself at loggerheads with some people that call themselves feminists. That’s ok. It happens to me all the time. But let’s be real here: do you want women to go back to being thought of as unfit / unable to work most jobs, unable to vote, to buy property, to freely choose sexual partners, to go outside of their home alone, to achieve pretty much any measure of independence for themselves from their family? If the answer to these questions is “no,” then you are not completely against feminism and you inherently recognize feminism’s progressive qualities at least to some extent.

Think about this for a second: which men are most likely to get angriest when it is suggested that they [men] are the oppressors, or that they wield power over women? Those that feel most unfulfilled, invalidated, marginalized, powerless, and overall ignored, of course.

The problem with the “privilege” formulation is that, especially in cases of “challenging male privilege,” it often appears to the men being challenged as though their privilege is a bad thing that must be taken away – a negative paradigm – when the real issue is that everybody should have such privileges

[–]mewacketergi 0 points1 point2 points 6 years ago* (125 children) | Copy Link

If you pick and choose sufficiently, I guess you can read this blog post as something good and noble, but to me, it looks uncritical enough that no amount of picking and choosing will help.

But let’s be real here: do you want women to go back to being thought of as unfit / unable to work most jobs, unable to vote, to buy property, to freely choose sexual partners, to go outside of their home alone, to achieve pretty much any measure of independence for themselves from their family? If the answer to these questions is “no,” then you are not completely against feminism and you inherently recognize feminism’s progressive qualities at least to some extent.

This is just some incredibly warped thinking.

Post-industrial individualist society backed by advanced technology happened, therefore, "yay feminism"? Seriously? This kind of conflation of ideas makes me think the author may be a kind and well-meaning, but not very bright person, and also conveniently ignores that most critics of feminism today are pretty egalitarian in their views on gender roles in a way I could call malicious.

A much more defensible position would be what Warren Farrell wrote (in... I forget what book that was, the Myth of Male Power?): a social movement dedicated to transition from survival-oriented traditionalist to freedom-of-expression-oriented modern gender roles was probably going to happen, and that's good, but there was no objective need for it to be as ugly, hypocritical and selective in application of its standards as a noticeable part of the second wave and an overwhelming majority of the third wave were. And when people draw attention of feminists to these hypocrisies, what usually happens is: "But forget about these pesky details, look at how noble and luminous our noble ideas are supposed to be!"

Outside of feminism, the only time I have seen this happen so systematically was when I discussed religion with my religious friends, when I was younger.

Edit:

Anti-feminist men’s movements make the mistake of automatically looking for someone to blame when grappling with the barriers they face as men.

This reads like propaganda of an authoritarian government. How thoroughly do you need to brainwash yourself into ignoring every factual criticism of feminism suspending it's mantra "but it just about equality and fair treatment" when it grows inconvenient for them, and "if you believe in that, then congratulations, turns out, you are a feminist!" repeated by its popularization figureheads, like Michael Kimmel, to output this nonsense in good faith?!

[–]Melthengylf 0 points1 point2 points 6 years ago (124 children) | Copy Link

[–]mewacketergi 0 points1 point2 points 6 years ago (123 children) | Copy Link

It could have happened, but it happened in the real world through feminism.

Citation needed.

What I see first and foremost is a convenient deception of propagandists perpetuated through the gender-studies academia indoctrination that these changes were brought about by the ideology, and not by the underlying technology.

If feminist organizations reproduce traditional structures (which they do), the fault is still at the traditional structures, not the feminist people themselves who are brainwashed by thousands of years to reproduce gender roles.

So the feminist hypocrisy and lack of consistency in carrying out their supposed noble ideals... is... wait for it... the fault of an invisible, nebulous evil force called "the Patriarchy"? Why not the Flying Spaghetti Monster then, or the Russell's orbital teapot?

Edit: A typo.

[–]Melthengylf 0 points1 point2 points 6 years ago (122 children) | Copy Link

[–]mewacketergi 0 points1 point2 points 6 years ago (121 children) | Copy Link

[–]Melthengylf 0 points1 point2 points 6 years ago (120 children) | Copy Link

[–]mewacketergi 0 points1 point2 points 6 years ago (119 children) | Copy Link

Comments

Sommers, C. H. (1995). Who stole feminism?: How women have betrayed women. Simon and Schuster.