I Have To Ask (and understand this better)

mustbepurged · 2023-01-05T09:25:54+00:00

The last parts of your long paragraph point to a class issue rather than gender, which is a fair point. You sound like a person who leans politically progressive, a spectrum in politics which has largely abandoned mainstream care for men’s issues.

Men have been socialized to be more stoic because these men are perceived to be more masculine and reliable. In classic Greek thought, stoicism was seen as a virtue. Society simply cannot function if large groups of men weren’t stoic. Are you gonna ask the sewage worker about how he feels about his job? Are you gonna ask the hedge fund guy about micro aggressions? Sewage guy would laugh and drink a beer after work. Hedge fund guy would laugh and snort cocaine off a hooker’s ass. These are outlets (unhealthy sometimes) for men who need to remain stoic for the occupation.

My argument is that traditional masculinity made sense, and still makes sense today for a functional society in the western world. The only way to change this if we became rules over by AI or another alien race.

Before you talk about nature vs nurture, just think about it: if half of the blue collar men working traditional blue collar jobs became less masculine, would society still function? Would a country still function? Would a country which exists in a world of conflicting nations be able to survive?

itslexibicth · 2023-01-05T09:20:42+00:00

If you want HR to be even more biased towards women, then yeah, I might draw the line there.

But if you do want the betterment of both women and men's lives, then I suggest you look into the word "egalitarian" rather than "feminist."

Next_Log_2731 · 2023-01-05T21:19:09+00:00

I admit I do decry men a fair amount

Tells me all I need to know.

IE men are socialized that they always have to lead or be in control which may cause a more common inflated sense of self, tendency towards aggressive responses or a defensive persona that makes it more difficult to create healthy interpersonal relationships.

No. We don't have issues creating relationships with other people. Women have been no-fault divorcing us for the last 50 years(at least in the US). Imagine if I could ruin your life with the stroke of a pen and make you pay for it. I get to keep the house, the kids, half of your money and business, and you have to pay me at least $1k a month in child support. You asshats would be shitting yourselves about how 'society' is so misogynistic. On the flip side of this, women have been conditioned to attempt to be in charge of 'interpersonal relationships'.

I don’t personally think only female and non binary people are negatively impacted by a male centric society/culture.

So what are you trying to say? We need a female centric society/culture?

What a feminist might be railing to change may be simply the female side to a cultural or political issue.

Ok. That is exactly what you're trying to say. (And no fucking duh)

Where do you draw the line?

The part where you're basically advocating for a gynocentric society and trying to hide it in a poorly structured word salad, sprinkled with some random bs about 'upperclass men' to create a "not all men" strawman in some sort of vein attempt to get more men to support a feminist/gynocentric political agenda. I'll give you a little hint though, the system shits on all men the same, rich dudes are just able to pay for it easier.

Maybe we should build some more bridges than deepen the divide.

I'll give you a moment to reflect on that yourself.

_name_of_the_user_ · 2023-01-05T13:07:30+00:00

Lots to unpack here so I'll take things point by point and expand/answer as I can for myself.

Where do you draw the line?

The label "feminist" matters none, what matters is the actions and beliefs. If a person is for equality and labels themselves feminist they're good in my book. Maybe a little mislead but that's a different topic. On the other hand if a person says they're for equality but will ignore all of the structural and systemic issues men face then they're a supremacist piece of shit in my opinion.

Is a woman advocating for say a more responsive HR system in regards to sexual harassment enough to claim the ‘stupid feminist’ title?

That really depends on the situation. If they're asking for due process - a recognized right all people should share - to be further reduced then they aren't a 'stupid feminist' they are a fascist. If the HR department isn't doing their job I'll grab a sign and protest with them.

Is it required to jeer if someone calls for more ‘blind’ hiring?

Once again, it depends. If the hiring is sexist it shouldn't be and I'll protest against the sexism. But that's the crux of the issue. Sexist quotas are sexist no matter how you look at them. Hiring should be about taking the best candidate for the job, quotas rarely are helpful. I don't think anyone here is jeering blind hiring, we're jeering sexism and the false idea that equality of outcome is sustainable or possible. Equality of opportunity should be the goal, not equality of outcome.

Or standardized maternity and paternity leave?

I live in a place where that already exists and I'm very grateful for it. The months I took off to bond with my children were some of the best of my life.

I hesitate to call myself a feminist because people seem to assume that means I loathe men.

I'm glad to read this, honestly. You should be critical of the label you claim. You should seek out alternative opinions and examine how those might have been formed. (But then I read the next part and well...)

I admit I do decry men a fair amount, more so to point out cultural norms that are damaging to people in large.

Are they? Cultural norms are only harmful if everything else is decried. And replacing old norms with new ones only to decry the old is just as harmful. Live and let live should be the goal, not my way or the highway.

IE men are socialized that they always have to lead or be in control which may cause a more common inflated sense of self, tendency towards aggressive responses or a defensive persona that makes it more difficult to create healthy interpersonal relationships. However, it leads to the other side of the coin where people socialized as men might repress emotions more often damaging their mental health and quality of life (multiplied by the real men don’t need help narrative), or when a man is a survivor of sexual/domestic/general violence they’re even less likely to feel safe enough to report it let alone receive the support they need.

I think this hints at one of the biggest issues I have with feminism. You're dancing around the point but like many you're blind to it. You see that there are systemic issues that effect men negatively, but you then equate men's issues with individualist issues. (If I'm misunderstanding then correct me) Men's lack of ability to seek help doesn't stem from emotions and feelings, it stems from experiences and statistics that men who seek help receive the exact opposite of help. Receiving help when they ask for it is a privilege women have that they seem to not be able to understand men don't have. Not as society is today. Telling men to cry more, to express emotions more doesn't fix the issue of those actions leading to men being further victimized.

Another thing is that while women will often say they want to just be listened to, they want men to stop trying to fix everything, the opposite is true. Do unto others... Men do those things because that's what men want in return when we talk about our issues. Telling men to express their emotions wont fix the systemic issues we face, and claiming that's all we need to do is blind to apathetic.

I don’t personally think only female and non binary people are negatively impacted by a male centric society/culture.

male centric society/culture

O.o

Our society is solidly gynocentric. This could be a whole post/topic on it's own so I wont get into it in detail, but our society is very very much gynocentric. If you'd like to discuss more by all means let's go for it, but this comment is already getting long and I've still got a fair amount of your points to go through.

It can just be harder to see because upper class men’s privileges tend to be applied to any random guy on the street.

Very VERY agreed. This is called apex fallacy and is promoted by feminist propaganda time and time again.

If upper class man’s wife is emotionally abusive he can afford the lawyer to make a skewed justice system work in his favor. Regular joe can’t even get into a shelter. If upper class man is being put at risk in the workplace, he can quit and get a new job or use connections or any number of things. Joe has to just hope he doesn’t get injured.

100%

What I’m saying is that no issue is one sided.

100,000,000%

What a feminist might be railing to change may be simply the female side to a cultural or political issue.

Then why do feminists rail against men and men's side of the issues when we bring them up. They'll say we're derailing when we're agreeing and amplifying their points. They'll laugh and boo when men try to bring up men's issues in parliament. They'll protest speakers and media about men's issues. They protest the 273 girls that were taken from Boko Harem but completely ignore the thousands of boys that were killed. They seek further quotas and privileges in education when men and boys are further behind now then women were when title IX was introduced, at every level of education. They claim women need more refuges despite decades of research showing IPV rates are equal... No, like I said I judge people on their actions and the actions of feminism has shown they are not egalitarian, they are supremacists that seek to advance women by dehumanizing men.

Maybe we should build some more bridges than deepen the divide.

We've tried, over and over again we tried. Men helped feminism from the very beginning, even signing and assisting to write the Declaration of Sentiments. (a sexist and disgusting take on gender right from the beginning but that's another topic as well) Men helped women get the right to vote, the right to abortion, they created birth control and breast pumps to assist women entering the workforce more freely. etc. etc. etc. Men have been there helping women at each and every step, now it's men's turn to receive some help. So far I've seen very VERY little of women and feminists trying to build some bridges and help men.

I’m willing to discuss and learn about the other side of the issues!

I'm extremely glad to see this. Here's a topic for you, if you'd like to build bridges; LPS or legal paternal surrender. LPS would allow men to opt out of parenthood within a month of finding out of a pregnancy with no backlash or legal consequence. From there women would be able to make their own decisions using that knowledge and their self awareness of their own life situation and desires to determine how she wants to proceed. This would give men a similar ability to exercise their parental rights to what women have already. Without this women can impregnate themselves against a man's will - through sperm jacking. rape, sabotaging birth control, paternity fraud, or just accidental pregnancy - and make a decision that will greatly affect a man's life without his consent. It legalizes extortion to give women the ability to exercise their parental rights but not men. So, are you willing to build a bridge and support men and LPS so that we can elevate men to being equal with women?

IceCorrect · 2023-01-05T16:14:45+00:00

it more difficult to create healthy interpersonal relationships

This is the part when men cant win. At one hand women want more positon of power and in relationships they want that men to be better than them or they would treat him like crap. But when women start to outearn men in her dating pool, she complain "where all the men gone?", like it was men fault once again. Same with daitng women expect men to make 1st move, but they must do it "the right way" and no women can tell what is the right way, beacuse there is no rule that would apply for situations.

You say that false accusations are less than 5%, I can say the same about rapist, yet still its fine for women to treat all men as potential rapist

omino23 · 2023-01-05T21:39:53+00:00

Seems like you have a lot of anti-male bias, its so obvious that you have completely bought into the feminist narrative that the root of all men's suffering is because they are "defective women". I suggest you try therapy till you are able to see men as human beings that are different but equal to women. Others here might be willing to try and debate with you and explain the problems that men face, but we don't have to justify our movement to you or answer your loaded questions. Maybe you should take your bad faith arguments back to your feminist echo chambers?

Title	I Have To Ask (and understand this better)
Author	itslexibicth
Upvotes	2
Comments	16
Date	January 5, 2023 2:24 AM UTC (3 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/AntiFeminists
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/antifeminists/comments/103munc/i_have_to_ask_and_understand_this_better/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/AntiFeminists/i-have-to-ask-and-understand-this-better.1218346 https://theredarchive.com/post/1218346

Comments