Why misandry, and why Now? What do you think?

Oncefa2 · 2021-02-18T14:00:20+00:00

I think part of it is social media, which is dominated by women.

Social media is becoming increasingly more powerful and that's where you see all this #KillAllMen, #WomenSupportingWomen, and stuff like that.

There isn't a "brotherhood" out there for men. At best we have a few brave souls dancing with cancel culture for daring to say that we should be a little nicer to men.

And at worst we have extremist groups feeding on young men who can't find a place for themselves because of how toxic the atmosphere is for them.

redgarnetamaranth · 2021-02-18T13:47:58+00:00

Kill all men castrate men reduce male population etc has definitely been a thing in the past. There was the suffragette bombing in the 30’s and there’s Solanas who shot worhol. I thought it was because of trump, but the warren farrel protest at the university of Toronto happened before his term and that was pretty nasty. Was it more prevalent a decade ago? Is it getting better now? Hard to quantify

AskingToFeminists · 2021-02-18T14:17:19+00:00

Actually, the why has been discussed quite a bit, and even a while back. If you listen for example to the old videos by Karen Straughan, you will find that the question of why is addressed quite a bit.

My own main explanation of why we ended in such a system is that it is due to malagency

LacklustreFriend · 2021-02-18T15:08:57+00:00

Modernity, essentially. We are predisposed to care about the wellbeing of women more than men. In the past, this was balanced by balanced by the brutality of nature (and in turn, society). Men and women were pressured or confined into certain roles to make the best of a harsh reality. With modernity, the brutality of nature has been removed, there is no longer to put constraint on our natural bias towards women.

Modernity has also atomized society. When people are living disconnect lives, people can no longer see the trials and tribulations of those around you. It's easy to forget about the countless men who work the dirty dangerous jobs to hold our society together when you spend your whole life far removed in offices and apartment. In a village or small town, you used to know these people, now they are a nobody. Your leaders and authority used to be village elder or bailiff, people you knew personally and that you could trust to have your best interests in mind. Now, we have faceless politicians we have never met governing from far off places. It's easy imagine them as corrupt and abusive (whether it's true or not) and in the case of male leaders, leaders of the evil patriarchy.

The topic of the state replacing the role of men is something that occasionally comes up in MRA spaces. There's an element of truth to it. Instructions of family have broken down, many women, girls and boys have gone significant periods or all of their lives without meaningful relationships with men. Fatherhood is extremely important. Increasingly, people no longer see the sacrifice of men, husbands and fathers in their personal lives.

To be clear, modernity is not a bad thing. It, like any dramatic change to society, results in new societal problems that often take decades if not centuries to resolve. The current dysfunction within gender dynamics is one of those problems that needs to be solved.

RockmanXX · 2021-02-18T15:31:54+00:00

Why now, and not e.g. 50 or 100 years ago?

Tender Years Doctrine is over 100 years old, a lot of these biased laws&attitudes you see today had a precedence that went unnoticed.

Why has the system sided so fanatically with women and trashed men?

The system was ALWAYS like this. Humans value Men less by default, it was only a matter of time before we arrived at this juncture. Men were valued little more in the past because women relied on Men due to a lack of female employment opportunities&birth control. What do you think happens when you make one half of the population that is already highly valued, less dependent on the already LESS valued half of the population?

This is the Biological Contract Men have with the Tribe(Society), unless you produce something of value(ie:Labour) you are a liability to the Tribe. Perhaps, you should be asking the bigger question. Does Society exist to serve Men&Women Equally? Is the basis of human society egalitarian or is it Darwinian? Men face a paradoxical barrier to entry when it comes to empathy, humans won't value them unless Men provide something of value first but if you're suffering&need some sort of help, you're not providing something of value, you're being a burden and thus they can't feel sorry for you.

Blutarg · 2021-02-18T16:37:43+00:00

Putting on my tinfoil hat for a moment, I can't help but notice that whenever things are getting worse for the working class, and the masses start to get riled up to demand a fair shake from the rich, along comes feminism to divide them along sex lines and weaken their power. And it's always supported by the people at the top of the ladder.

Blauwpetje · 2021-02-18T16:33:53+00:00

First: many women believed the 'emancipation' of the 70s would lead to equality of outcome. When still many CEO's and leading politicians are men, they think that must be due to some male conspiracy (not seeing the apex fallacy, neither the possibility of different choices in life on average made by the sexes). Second (this sounds like the opposite): men are less necessary than before, f ex most work that requires physical strength is largely automatized, which makes it easier, if not to hate, than anyway to disrespect men; Third: affirmative action makes it harder for men to get a degree and earn more than their wives, and then they're blamed for not pulling their weight to sustain a family; forth: all women have some bad experiences with men (and vice versa), and small irritations between the sexes have always existed, but are now politicized; fifth: revolutionary romantics: when things don't go the way you want them, it is easier and more interesting to suppose there is an enemy to blame for that than to admit society is a complicated phenomenon. And of course (sixth) there are groups pushing this all to make society fall apart, maybe both neoliberals and Maoist-like groups.

CodeOfFire · 2021-02-18T14:52:36+00:00

It's quite complex and what I'm going to say might seem reactionary, this is just my observation of the way things are and I'm open to hearing other opinions. Misandry in the current current system likely comes down to a mixture of male disposability, the idea of male privilege, the idea of 'toxic masculinity' and what do men actually do.

Male disposability: Men are the more disposable gender. A society can afford to lose more men than women because one man can impregnate multiple women in a short span of time. Also because men don't get pregnant or breastfeed or anything of that nature, men tend to have greater muscle mass and greater freedom to do other things. While this does give men an obvious advantage, not being hindered by your own biology. It also means that people tend to be less sympathetic towards men and we're also expected to be the protector and provider and generally used to do the dirty and dangerous jobs that society needs done to function. Women can produce children and society needs a new generation to survive, so we put resources into protecting women (even if looking back this did more harm than good) whereas men are expected to be the ones doing the protecting and this can often mean men putting themselves in harm's way.

Male privilege: There is a lot of talk about male privilege. "Men have it easier, look at all the men in positions of power and authority compared to women" says the feminist. And while it is true that men do hold the majority of the power this only tells half the story. Men are disproportionately represented at the top, but they're also disproportionately represented at the bottom. Men make up the majority of homeless, suicide victims and tend to do the most dirty and dangerous jobs and often do worse in education. People typically compare themselves to people who have it better, probably an evolutionary strategy to identify what another person is doing so you can imitate it to become successful yourself. But this also means people tend to be blind to the conditions of those below them, especially if those people are part of groups that you deem to be 'priveleged'.

Even when feminists do acknowledge when men suffer or have it worse in some categories, they typically respond by saying that men are still at fault. More men are homeless- Caused by capitalism, which was invented by men. Male suicide rate- caused 'toxic masculinity' which was created by men. Men do worse at education- the men are just not trying so it's there own fault. When women suffer it's men's fault, when men suffer it's men's fault, because men have more power. That's how the logic goes at least.

However, once again this only tells half the story. Are homeless men the result of capitalism, perhaps. But was capitalism Invented by men, no. Capitalism and free markets and trade developed organically and most economists who are pro-captialism have this view and when they write about capitalism they often write about what people do economically when left to their own devices. Is the male suicide rate the result of 'toxic masculinity'? Well what is 'toxic masculinity'? (More on this later). Do boys do worse at education because they don't try? Well there was a time when girls did worse at education and do you know what happened? Feminists argued that this was because girls and boys learned differently and that we were teaching boys and girls in a way that only benefits boys and that this should change. And we did change, we adapted how we taught children to account for the differences between boys and girls and eventually things evened out. But we kept changing and constructing education methods that benefit girls even as they overtake boys. And if you bring this up to a feminist you will be told that your sexist, even though it's the exact same logic that feminists used to get the education system to change in the first place.

'Toxic Masculinity': A lot of talk about this. But what is it? I've heard a dozen separate definitions of it and there are flaws with each of them. Does toxic masculinity exist? Well some stereotypically masculine behaviours can be viewed as toxic, just as some stereotypically feminine behaviours can be seen as toxic, but people tend become sceptical of any mention of 'toxic femininity'. If one exists then surely the mother exists. I once heard someone say that 'toxic masculinity' includes things like domestic violence and homophobia. But are these things masculine? Most men I know consider things like domestic violence and rape and harassment to be unmasculine. Most men I know say that if you do any of these things then your not a man and should not be called one because that doesn't fit into what they think a man should be like (they do typically think that the 'protector and provider' role is what a man should be like though. As for homophobia, how is homophobia in anyway connected to masculinity? You have masculine gay men and you have effeminate straight men. Women can be homophobic too, and homophobic women are usually quite feminine. Some even go as far to argue that the concept of masculinity itself is wholly toxic and should be done away with. For my own part, I think that this largely comes down to a feminist caricature of masculinity and lack of understanding of the purpose and positivities that a healthy masculinity can bring.

What do men actually do?: I think that men overall feel as if they have no purpose. This isn't unique to our age, every society, civilization and tribe throughout history has needed to grapple with the same question. What on earth should we do with all these young men? And why shouldn't they ask themselves this. Young men are full of energy, they want to prove themselves as men, they want to get laid, they can be aggressive and violent, they will go to ridiculously extreme lengths to achieve something. Of course women are like this as well, but it seems to be that men on average have these things in greater quantities, especially on the extremes. So historically societies have tried to take this potential destructive energy and put it towards something productive. This usually involved things like initiation rituals, myths with young men as the protagonist, tasking men with being the soldier caste. The purpose being to turn boys into men and give them a sense of masculinity that can benefit their society and give them responsibilty. I'm not saying that we should go back to this, but it occurs in every society historically from hunter-gatherer tribes with male initiation rituals, to modern countries that conscript young men. Alongside denegrating masculinity and trying to shame men and boys for being masculine, we've also destroyed the norms, rituals and expectations that took the potentially destructive energy of young men and turned into something beneficial. Is it any wonder that as we continue to question and deconstruct the concept of masculinity we see an increasing number of young men turn to radical ideologies such as the far right, far left and radical islam among others, or in some cases young men just drop out of society all together or become MGTOW. None of which is beneficial or productive for society.

Tl;dr- Men are more disposable, there are issues with the concept of male privilege and men today lack purpose and meaning.

At least that's my opinion.

ElegantDecline · 2021-02-18T14:47:26+00:00

They are being used by those in charge.. The 1%... As a buffer of sorts between them and the rest of society.

rowdygentleman13 · 2021-02-18T20:30:56+00:00

Simply because of what you said: feminism is the darling of capitalism. Feminism and wokeness is a cash cow, companies are making so much money off it that no one cares about the misandry and hatred brought forth by some extreme groups. But all this only works if the cash keeps flowing.

I think that when the cash stops flowing, men tend to band together to survive and in turn create a strong brotherhood of men. That’s literally how America was created. Any system that sides with one gender and doesn’t consider the issues of the other is destined to collapse. Maybe this is a necessary and fated future.

AnnArchist · 2021-02-18T17:32:56+00:00

It's sexism. I actively avoid the misandry in general nowadays. Just call it what it is.

Xemnas81 · 2021-02-19T13:52:19+00:00

Because both at the bottom tier of the feminist pyramid (teenage girls on Tumblr complaining about how boys suck and are idiots) and the top (NOW, UNWomen/CEDAW, feminist standpoint epistemologists in the Academy telling Men and Masculnity Studies departments that their research is Problematic, etc.) gynocentrism is hegemonic, without removing the material superstructure for male disposability.

adam-l · 2021-02-18T21:27:18+00:00

It's a great discussion, and I think we've pretty much identified the issue.

In my opinion, at the core of the problem there are two issues (and a half more): the higher biological value of women, and the change in the working conditions.

As /u/RockmanXX writes, "Humans value Men less by default". It's been called the empathy gap, /u/CodeOfFire mentions it as male disposability, /u/AskingToFeminists as the gendered "protector" role that is inscribed in human instincts.

In Evolutionary Psychology this is discussed as women being the more valuable sex for the reproduction, and thus for survival of the species.

All these practically mean that both men and women are biologically biased to favor women.

And as /u/RockmanXX succinctly notes, and historian Martin van Creveld brilliantly illustrated in his book The Privileged Sex, women were always privileged. The current situation is simply the current form of female privilege, while "traditionalism" was the older form of female privilege.

This explains the why.

. Why now, then, becomes "Why is feminism the way the system promotes women's interests today?". And in this, /u/LacklustreFriend is spot on. As van Creveld put it, having weathered the dark ages of brutal work, war and social unrest content to keep a role in the background, once work became clean and safe, office work, women were encouraged to expand their power outside their house. Capitalists were only glad to double their workforce.

Men welcomed women in their work spaces, because men like women.

There's a third issue, that's closely related to 2, (the entrance of women in the workforce).

The way it has been simply put by sociologists, is that "men will work for sex". Therefore, sex must be kept expensive and out of reach. It's the reason, for example, that there are no legal brothels in US. And it's the reason "believe all women" flourished: By making sex dangerous and quasi-illegal for men, and assigning women to the role of the sex police, men are forced to look for sex in roles that go against their biological instincts, i.e. monogamy, provider, and lately increasingly child support ATM. The work space must be kept "safe" for the women-workers, while men can still be harnessed to pay for child expenses even when not receiving the (sexual and otherwise) "benefits" of family.

To all these, I'd like to add the natural repulsion of the predominantly male elite against other men, a typical case of class hatred, which now that there's the availability of a female workforce to count onto, is more free to be expressed.

TheSpaceDuck · 2021-02-18T17:16:59+00:00

I think one of the reasons why it's not discussed even among people who are aware of it is precisely that they know most are aware of it. What I think is needed is more scientific studies on the effects of misandry and the resulting lack of empathy towards men in violence towards men and other topics.

That being said, there's no such thing as the "manosphere". The groups you mentioned have nothing to do with each other. The men's rights movement is about people who believe men should have equal rights and opportunities. Many people believe that without even being aware the movement exists. MGTOW are pretty much gender segregation advocates. Sort of like the male version of "TERFs". And "Redpillers" are its own beast which I'd rather not discuss.

Title	Why misandry, and why Now? What do you think?
Author	adam-l
Upvotes	63
Comments	43
Date	February 18, 2021 12:58 PM UTC (5 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates/comments/lmm76m/why_misandry_and_why_now_what_do_you_think/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates/why-misandry-and-why-now-what-do-you-think.1061908 https://theredarchive.com/post/1061908

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