Why doesn't intersectionality theory able to explain the disadvantage of men?

Vegetable_Camera5042 · 2024-04-28T21:50:20+00:00

intersectionality also ignores the fact that black men face police brutality way more than black women.

Puzzleheaded_Pea_889 · 2024-04-28T22:39:04+00:00

Adding to OP's point - the concept of intersectionality is applied inconsistently and selectively to jerrymander groups together to fit whatever narrative someone is currently trying to push. For example, if someone agrees with a gay Black man, they call him a queer POC, but if they disagree with him then suddenly he's a cis man (and therefore all his opinions can be dismissed as attempts to maintain his privilege). Furthermore, Asians and Jews are either minorities or 'white-adjacent' so that they can be similarly jerrymandered together with white people. If a Hispanic or Indigenous person has lighter skin you can also call them 'white-passing'.

DanK95 · 2024-04-28T22:26:53+00:00

Intersectionality should be able to explain the plights of men of colour but internet feminists often ignore the effects it has on men. For example, black men are seen as highly aggressive & inherent dangers to society & this is due to the stereotype that men are aggressive and because black people are seen as savages.

tritisan · 2024-04-28T22:14:23+00:00

Most leftists are only opportunistically so; their adherence to topics of equality and fairness extend only the point that they are self-satisfied with the result.

I'd say deep within the fabric of every human, there is selfish conservatism one way or another.

Cunari · 2024-04-29T01:22:40+00:00

Intersectionality is all about maximizing oppression. Not only are you oppressed for being a woman, but you are oppressed for identifying as a woman, and acting like a woman

BCRE8TVE · 2024-04-29T14:07:10+00:00

Why isn't intersectionality able to understand the disadvantages of men?

Because intersectionality is still built on the foundational feminist assumption that being male is always the biggest privilege and that it comes with virtually no issues. Being male means you are the oppressor and cannot be the oppressed.

Feminism, and therefore intersectionality, treat equality like a one-way street exclusively to the benefit of women.

outcastedOpal · 2024-04-28T23:49:02+00:00

Intersectionality and what people mean when they talk about intersectionality are two completely different things.

Theoretically, intersectionallity is supposed to show people that no one thing is a determining factor to your circumstances. The reason why a lot of black people are disadvantaged isnt just because theyre black. Its because alot of black people are poor, or mentally ill, ontop of being black. Or you could be a rich white man, but you might have some mental issues that are really affecting your life. Or maybe you dont benefit as mich from being white because you don't like a majority white neighborhood, so all youre bosses favour minorites anyway.

However intersectionality is used by people to basically stack their minority statuses to get more pitty points. Instead of showing how things are more complex then it would first seem, people just make cake out of it. Each layer they add to their "intersectionality cake" would let them have more power in a conversation, even though, as determined before, some of the disadvantage from being black comes from being poor. So youre doubling up perceived diasdvantages that you claim from both being balck and being poor. And in stacking this cake, they always leave out how they are priviledged in any way.

Now theoretically, intersectionality does acknowledge that men have issues too, but just like stacking intersectionality cake, a lot of people will look at you and stack your own "privilege cake" for you. They'll stack white with male and middleclass, and ignore your problems because they dont go on the priviledge cake. Even though a lot of percieved male or white privilege already comes from being rish/middleclass. And if you're a poor man, then theyre still counting your rish privilege because theyve mislabeled it as a part of male priviledge.

veggiter · 2024-04-29T05:08:41+00:00

For me it does explain it, but most people don't actually understand intersectionality or take it to its logical conclusion.

The whole point is that there are different facets of oppression that interact in novel ways and oppress people in a way that can be more than the sum of its parts.

It's not actually about box checking or tallying oppression. It's a complicated mess that isn't always predictable.

Tbh, intersectionality came from feminism, but it seems to me like it was doomed to challenge many of its presuppositions.

Leinadro · 2024-04-28T23:54:34+00:00

Because most people use intersectionally for the express purpose of denying discrimination against men.

veovis523 · 2024-04-29T13:01:37+00:00

It does, but it's an inconvenient truth for many progressives, so they tend to ignore the fact.

sanitaryinspector · 2024-04-28T22:04:42+00:00

Because it stems from self segregation in which men aren't allowed

Skirt_Douglas · 2024-04-29T02:58:28+00:00

Because intersectionality is based on the belief that the oppression theory behind it already has all of the answers there is to know, doing research and applying the scientific method to actually document the truth of how these intersections play out in real life was never part of the plan.

managedheap84 · 2024-04-29T08:16:19+00:00

Because most people see men, especially white men as not experiencing any disadvantage because they're not a minority. They're the "dominant group".

I've heard otherwise intelligent and well meaning people say things like this.

The messed up thing is that outside of a space like this even making a relatively factual statement like this feels like I'd be opening myself up for attack.

Bill Burr has a few good takes on this.

henrysmyagent · 2024-04-28T23:09:28+00:00

"Intersectionality" only applies to different races of women.

Men are expected to continue getting screwed and being thankful women still let us love in the civilization men built and maintain.

psychosythe · 2024-04-29T15:48:13+00:00

Because the intersectional writers and researchers choose not to explain it adequately.

tdono2112 · 2024-04-29T00:36:58+00:00

Intersectionality, as a theoretical perspective, theoretically CAN do this— because it should situate the unique experiences at the intersection of identities in the operations of power, it should have the tools to say “poor white male bodies are conditioned in such a manner that they are uniquely susceptible to X/Y/Z, whereas rich white male bodies experience privileges in situation A/B/C.” The goal is to remove the illusion of single-factor causality in the social sphere; everything always already happens in the context of everything else.

As a theoretical practice, it doesn’t tend to operate that way, rather functioning as a way to produce some form of oppression score. So instead of situating the identity of black men or white boys or straight male teenagers in a manner that actually analyzes and illuminates their experiences in particular contexts, it tends to universalize (which it should t be able to do) the experiences of women to discredit and silence male narratives.

This is the problem with modern gender discourse. It takes the philosophical problems with binary thinking that emerged in the 1970’s, doesn’t read it but robs it for jargon, and instead of trying to think beyond mere opposition, wants to simply flip the binaries and call that “liberation.”

TL:DR- it ought to be able, it just isn’t used that way.

mcmur · 2024-04-28T23:38:45+00:00

That’s because intersectionality is and always has been intentional bullshit.

It’s obvious flawed, bigoted and sexist way of looking at society.

BootyliciousURD · 2024-04-29T14:56:24+00:00

Intersectional analysis isn't about different forms of discrimination stacking together, it's about how being at the intersection of certain groups creates unique ways in which members of that intersection are privileged or disadvantaged. The experiences of A∩B isn't just the experiences of A + the experiences of B.

eli_ashe · 2024-04-30T05:30:12+00:00

I'd suggest part of the problem lay with assumptions of absolute categories. 'Blackness' or 'browness' being seen as 'not privileged', without good regard given to how they might actually also offer privileges. Intersectionality as a theory, in other words, tends pretty strongly towards gross categorical error in its principles.

It can hold that asian + woman might have privileges or risks associated with them, but it tends to have a very difficult time quantifying what those are, and hence tends to rely on a gross qualifier 'asian good, woman bad' to make the analysis really function well at all.

At its best intersectionality might try quantifying by way of statistics, as in, 'there's a 30% difference on average between asian and black women in thus and such a category, hence there is a '30% privilege on average' one way or the other', but this of course doesn't really tend to make much sense on an actual quantified scalar of individual lives. People individually don't actually experience that 30% difference, rather, certain individuals tend to experience that entire difference in outcome.

To give some sense of concreteness to this, if 30% fewer asian woman than black women own cars, that relative privilege isn't actually experienced in the lives of people as a 30% fewer of cars owned. Rather, there are a certain number of people who experience the whole '100%' reality of not owning cars.

This is a real problem with intersectionality as a theory, regardless of any of its other merits, of which there are some. Its useful for broadly understanding social demographics, and can give a real sense of how the 'odd are ever in your favor' to quote the modern poets on the point, but it doesn't really pan out well with any specificity to actual people's lives.

People just don't experience this '+30% privilege', either you have the stuffs or you don't. Either you get the job or you don't. Theory just completely falls apart upon application in other words.

Tho again, it can be useful for understanding broad scalar social phenomenon. Just doesn't scale itself to the individual level well at all.

Problems are also present in theory by way of subjective analysis. Classically men are 'privileged' because they can work for master while the women don't. Now, some of that attitude is shifting, but the point here is that the low income man 'has greater privileges' in the usual analysis of this in part because statistically they are more likely to work more for master, and apparently master dolls out privileges based on what work you're doing for 'em. Some might call that not a privilege, but at best that is a subjective judgement made primarily by folks who benefit by making it thus, e.g. women, who have primarily developed that theory.

Hence, the theory's application is biased, which is another reason why it looks as bad as it does. In theory tho, one could have a 'proper analysis of privileges and risks' toss it into the basic intersectional framework, and maybe come out with something that is reasonable at a social scalar. Again, theory just falls apart on individual analysis tho.

BloomingBrains · 2024-04-30T07:26:08+00:00

Intersectionality is one among many social justice concepts modern feminists selectively employ only when it suits them, and ignore when it favors men.

safestuff987 · 2024-05-01T19:27:44+00:00

The basis of the theory has some truth to it, but the problem is that the theory in itself is rather ambiguous at best. People have made up their own interpretations of the theory and ran with it. And a lot of those people have cherry picked aspects of the theory to support what they think is right.

Most people only care about issues that immediately affect them.

Intersectionality seems to be most popular among feminists, who are overwhelmingly women, so most development of the theory has been done from that lens.

I think the fundamental problem is that nobody can agree on which "factor" affects you more than the other. Take the "intersectionality calculator" for example.

https://intersectionalityscore.com/

Playing with the sliders, the income slider only has a range of 5 points, cis/transgender has a range of 6, orientation has a range of 10, while race and gender have a whopping 15 each. Whoever made that calculator clearly thinks that your income/wealth level isn't as relevant as your race and gender are when determining how hard your life is.

Infinite_Street6298 · 2024-05-03T03:54:49+00:00

Because intersectionality is just common sense (if someone has multiple sources of problems, those problems will compound and make their life shittier) rebranded into some weird radlib nonsense that just confuses more than clarifies, and is often weaponized as most if not all idpol ideology is.

But to really answer your question, it's because it simply does not include the one most highly relevant categorization: class. If it did, you'd see how disproportionately poor men are affected by all of these issues vs women of almost any class, especially higher classes. But as an example, using class, they would have to admit that wealthy women are far better off and far more advantaged than poorer men, which is a drastic concession for people who have framed their entire ideology around the idea that all men are monolithic oppressors of all women.

Killrtddy · 2025-09-23T11:14:08+00:00

I know this is old, but I just wanted to pop in and say, whoever is using intersectionality as a way to oppress men or make men look "bad" is using the theory wrong. They are using it for their purpose, to prove whatever point they're trying to make. However, intersectionality was not explicitly created for women but for everyone. In higher education, we teach it to include every human that exists. And we teach it to show how humans face different forms of oppression and privilege, based on their unique identities and experiences. Intersectionality includes everyone, not just women.

We constantly talk about how black men are oppressed and were historically viewed as beasts or heathens, and how that affects them today (Generational trauma) in forms of oppression. But everyone experiences oppression, and everyone experiences privilege (except for black women and black trans women). Suppose you aren't able to understand why. In that case, you may not understand black women's history and how the white patriarchy was designed for black men to fight against black women to prove their masculinity, because white men were demasculinating them.

risunokairu · 2024-04-28T23:26:37+00:00

Because it is a form of Marxism and uses the oppressor oppressed model male is oppressor and not male is oppressed. White is oppressor not white is oppressed. Straight is oppressor not straight is oppressed.

You can’t be the oppressor and face oppression. There are only groups and no Individuals. Only oppressed groups and oppressor groups.

SpicyMarshmellow · 2024-04-28T22:36:25+00:00

Because privilege, oppression, and interactions between human beings in general aren't fucking math.

Title	Why doesn't intersectionality theory able to explain the disadvantage of men?
Author	yuendeming1994
Upvotes	121
Comments	73
Date	April 28, 2024 8:34 PM UTC (2 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates/comments/1cfgdu5/why_doesnt_intersectionality_theory_able_to/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates/why-doesnt-intersectionality-theory-able-to.1516731 https://theredarchive.com/post/1516731

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