This isn’t me demonising male advocacy as being misogynistic at all; nor am I talking about this subreddit. As you know, I love men- I’ll call out any misandry wherever it rears its ugly head (Twitter being the main culprit), and so I’ve spent a lot of time in spaces like this.

However, I have noticed that in certain male advocacy spaces online, women are talked about in a derogatory way and that misogyny is rampant. The same way men aren’t the enemy, women aren’t the enemy either. There’s a real toxic right wing subculture around male advocacy though which I do think is worth addressing- the internalised misandrists- the tradcon men who expect men to conform to the “idealistic” view of what masculinity is, and shame those men who don’t fall into that box (perhaps the man is flamboyant) as “beta”, “soyboy”, “simp”, or “cuck”. There’s the religious Christians who believe it’s sinful for a man to wear a dress and that women are men’s property, and should always be these delicate little flowers , homemakers, mothers etc (that’s not to shame homemakers or mothers either- they’re just as valid as any woman, but we should be free to make that choice rather than having the expectation imposed on us)… and then there’s the internalized misogynists- the women who buy into that mindset. The funny thing is that they’ll give Bible references… and then when you actually read that section of the Bible, it says nothing of the sort (or it says something that they’re reading into too much and assuming it means something else)- and I’m not hating on Christians either- I was raised Catholic . And then there’s the misogynists who think they’re owed romance, sex and relationships from women- and that’s before we get into the really dark side of the red pill, MGTOW, and Andrew Tate.

It’s something that always bothered me when I first started looking into egalitarianism, because so many of the people who were (rightly) against misandry, spewed misogynistic talking points and toxic gender stereotypes- and they tended to be the ones with the most followers- it meant I got sucked into certain bigoted beliefs. Luckily, more progressive and inclusive spaces on the topic emerged over the years, but the “dark side” still remained the one with bigger reach.

I know that the vast majority of male advocates are genuinely doing so because they care about male issues and hate to see misandry being normalised. I’d like to imagine most people here are fairly egalitarian, and I would hope they’re OK with having a female ally in me on this sub (I feel like we can learn a lot from each other- I know I’ll never truly understand the male experience, but I can do my best to sympathise- just don’t be resentful towards women collectively if you’ve had bad experiences with them- don’t sink to misandrists’ level by painting a massive group of varied individuals as a monolith). We’re quite lucky on this sub that no misogyny has been a rule from its inception, and that any misogynistic comments will be immediately stamped out by the admin team. Maybe having a female admin here makes it easier to combat the misogyny than it is in other male spaces?

Just as it’s wrong for misandry to be so commonplace in female advocacy spaces, it’s bad for misogyny to be so common in male advocacy spaces.

There are other subs and communities I’ve visited where I’ve felt unwelcome, and where I’ve felt people are just saying horrible things about women under the guise of male advocacy- you can call out misandry without turning to misogyny; just as people should call out misogyny without turning to misandry. I don’t like seeing people make assumptions about male advocates as a whole based on the extremists, but based on some of the comments I’ve seen elsewhere, I do get why they do it as many of those comments have a wide reach. I think it’s important to hold the bad eggs accountable and explore the dark side. Make people realise that standing up for men is a worthy cause, and that most of us hate the extremist side too.

So I’m just wondering how people would feel about this?

View Poll