I’m guessing everyone has experienced the whole; “well it’s men who created/did/started (insert talking point)” “even if women contribute, it’s men who created the problem!” Which aside from all the other shitty parts, is kind of a confusing argument.

To preface this, I know this idea comes from Marx, and I’m probably not using it correctly but it does work well for this.

The idea of “men” or the “patriarchy” is sort of an abstraction of the blame: you say it’s some farther away, greater force where “you aren’t the creator of but men are.” There’s a few reasons why people use it this sort of thinking in many different settings, but I think one of the reasons feminists use it is that it allows them to keep blame for anything off women. Because the blame in their view is from this greater men thing or patriarchy, individual actions, no matter how many, are incidental. Of course this isn’t really reflective of society, nor how how they treat it when it comes to women’s issues, at least as far as blaming men is concerned. In real culture, these pressures aren’t handed out by some omnipotent force conspiring against us, but on individual levels that add up into collectives.

Along with that, to say “men did X” isn’t really a defensible statement. It’s one thing to point out individuals doing something, or a specific group, but another to say a whole demographic did so. It’s an uncritical assumption that refuses to look at context and assumes all wrongs have to do with gender.

This isn’t to say we need to pin blame on women, or that men can’t be better to other men. I don’t think the collective blame thing is productive. I also think it’s worth mentioning that this is a pitfall any ideology or movement can fall into, not just feminism.