Important peice of framing for male advocates: misandrist sentiments vs. misandrist people

Hi r/LWMA, I believe this is my first time making a full post here. I’m here because I’m frustrated with the rampant misandry and shady mod behavior on menslib. I want to add a bit of theory to the discussion here that I hope will empower male advocates to win hearts and minds in real life conversation. Although, a lot of this is borrowed from feminism, I hope for the sake of my perception of this space that this isn’t an issue.

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I like that I see open criticism and calling out of misandry here, I think it's a really important step to making real change. What I really want to do is spread that discussion outside purpose built spaces like this one so that more widespread change can occur, this post is pursuant of that. To do this, I want to borrow a piece of framework from more moderate forms of feminism that I have a lot of admiration for. In short, I think one of the most powerful things a cohort of feminists have done to open public conversation about misogny is draw a distinction between misogynist people and misogynist sentiments. to summarize, a misogynist sentiment is an idea or expression that, taken on its own, is misogynist. a misogynist person, on the other hand, is one who dismisses, dehumanizes, or hates women as a matter of character.

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The reason why this is a powerful conversation tool is because the human brain is naturally evasive to concluding that it is evil or has done wrong. If you go around calling people misogynists for every microaggression or ignorance, they will be naturally resistant to that. a much more persuasive approach is to point out that a certain statement or sentiment seems to express misogyny, while leading with the fact that its not necessarily reflective of the person's character, especially if they are willing to learn and grow. this both allows the target of criticism to protect their ego and even give a chance for ego nourishment if they're willing to genuinely reconsider. I do recognize the way that many progressive movements have transformed the word "education" and its surrounding language into a dog-whistle for bullying, but I think that's besides the point here. the reason progressives who want to bully do this is because they recognize the power in the distinction and want to weaponize it for their own insidious purposes.

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In short, I think male advocates need to learn to lead with this distinction and keep it at front of mind when it comes to misandry. this has a few implications. 1) people who express misandrist sentiments are not necessarily misandrist people. I do not mean to deny the existence of misandrist people, some folks out there genuinely just hate men, I'm sure we here all have some experience with that. what I do mean to say is that we must recognize that there are people out there who either harbor no ill will towards men, or even genuinely want to help men in their issues, but end up expressing misandrist sentiments anyway for a variety of reasons (received beliefs, propaganda, traditionalist views on gender, simple ignorance, etc). it is important to lead with empathy when talking to a latter case, this is the only way to really win hearts and minds.

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2) this is the really important one that I think we all intuitively understand but bears explicitly pointing out, so I'm gonna bold it, people who genuinely want to help men are not immune to misandrist sentiment, and this does not mean that they don't care. it has been feminist consensus for some time now that feminists are perfectly capable of expressing misogyny, and this does not necessarily make them anti-feminist or non-feminist, just ignorant. for example, its easy to find people who are clearly coming from a feminist angle but think in a way that infantilizes women and denies their agency in line with misogynist sentiment. its important that we, as male advocates, start understanding misandry in this way. Culturally received misandry has always been coming from traditional gender roles, and now its starting to come from ignorantly absorbed aspects of radical misandrist feminism. given how easy it is to absorb misandrist tropes in current year, its important that we don't completely discount the male advocacy of people who express those sentiments.

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For example, I stated earlier that I'm frustrated with the misandry in menslib. its worth clarifying that I don't think that menslib posters are misandrists as a matter of character, as in genuinely hating men. I think the problem is that misandrist ideas and sentiments are widespread, and there is little room to call out and criticize them. this is why I'm not necessarily as cynical about menslib and similar sub-movements of feminism as many other is this sub seem to be. There are some people who clearly see menslib as a easy space to push misandry under a smokescreen, these people are misandrists as a matter of character. at the same time, i think the vast majority of people in menslib are genuinely interested in advocating for men, but end up expressing misandrist sentiment anyways because their space is saturated with it. These people are not misandrist people, and deserve empathy, both as a matter of morals and pragmatism. The medium is the message, so a space that is built around clinging uncritically to a movement will inevitably make dogmatists of its members.

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If we lead with empathy I think things genuinely can get better in coalition with those feminists who show that they genuinely care. I'm being selective with my language here because I recognize that a lot of the worst examples of institutional misandry, the duluth model, the erasure of male rape and dv victims in law and academia, scoffing at the notion of a dv shelter for men, police bias against men, and the carelessness towards false SA allegations, all have their roots in feminism. what I'm saying is that feminists who recognize this condition and express a desire to bring about a feminism that rises above it are worth working with.

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I apologize if my thinking here is not very original, I just wanted to get this out. I absolutely invite criticism of my ideas, and id like to know what you all think.