If intersectionality was to include men (without the blame game that usually goes on, currently), would you support it or not?

LacklustreFriend · 2021-09-14T08:14:50+00:00

My answer is no. I have previously made a comment where I outlined my objections to intersectionality on a more philosophical level. That is, my objection to intersectionality isn't that men aren't included or that it's "misused" (although that is certainly part of it) but fundamentally it is a flawed idea. I think the idea that different "forms of oppression" are comparable is an incorrect one.

There are also objections that others have made where intersectionality is just individualism that has been paradoxically attempted to be subsumed into the 'woke' framework of the primacy of group identity, an objection that I don't think is baseless.

Catctus · 2021-09-14T05:12:11+00:00

The problem with intersectionalism is that it starts with a certain premise - people's lives can be more compex than such broad brush strokes. That's absolutely true and the lady who started it was right in saying that her life isn't just being black OR being a woman, both of those matter to her experience.

BUT intersectionalism is still married to group identity. It's not willing to go the whole way and say, "oh yeah people have complex lives and there are tons of types of experiences that can form your whole experience." The logical end of intersectionalism should be individualism, that everyone's individual experience matters.

The fact that it's not is troubling to me.

Sydnaktik · 2021-09-14T07:44:24+00:00

There's two things wrong with intersectionality.

The first one is that it is inherently impossible to accommodate all the nuanced ways in which humans are "oppressed" or discriminated against. There's heightism, neural divergence, ableism, ageism, ever more refined ethnic subdivisions, etc.. etc..

The second one deals with the political ramifications. Intersectionality is too powerful of a political tool, it can't help but be co-opted by special interest groups to push certain agendas and justify discrimination. In the land of make believe, you can say that men can be integrated into intersectionality theory. In the real world, if men are integrated into intersectionality you have to ask, "at whose expense?", who is now being cast as the scapegoat to accommodate addressing men's suffering?

quietlurk10 · 2021-09-14T05:31:54+00:00

The problem with intersectionality is that while it exists, in theory, to acknowledge the ways in which things overlap and compound, it in practice results in problems being talked to a standstill, and perfect being the enemy of good.

How many conversations about national issues have you watched become DOA in the past decade because the solution doesn’t specifically address the needs of a microcosm of a microcosm? How many solutions that would help a lot of people get shot down because it doesn’t specifically address some identity groups per issue? Minimum wage conversations that would help nearly everyone, derailed because we’re “speaking over the needs of disabled trans sex workers of color”? Medicare for all declared a “white issue” because it’s a “distraction from reparations”? Feminists especially love to shoot down things that would improve the lives of women if they improve the lives of men as well. The list goes on and on. Somebody will always have it worse and instead of focusing on projects that lift all boats, this countries vulnerable are made vulnerable through economic policy, we get in the weeds of minutia.

No one solution will ever be perfect, and while we should be cognizant of how the most vulnerable are impacted, we cannot let .001% of the population dictate and distract from the needs of the many.

thereslcjg2000 · 2021-09-15T00:32:28+00:00

Depends what you mean by intersectionality. In theory I think it’s a good idea to consider how various aspects of one’s identity together influence how one is treated. However, in practice intersectionality is often simplified into “characteristic x + characteristic y + characteristic z = more oppressed”. I don’t think that kind of narrative is helpful or realistic regardless of which identites are used.

Phantombiceps · 2021-09-14T06:40:11+00:00

Intersectionality, if it could get straightened out would be good psychotherapy and counseling practice, not politics. It is born of the pessimism of our cyberpunk and post modern age , the feeling that real and grand structural change is impossible. So it stands in, but is clearly counterfeit.

The foundation of intersectionality and standpoint epistemology, privilege theory, etc. for social or political matters was I think nicely wrecked by the marxist mathematician and philosopher Alan Baidou thirty years ago in his Ethics (used as a textbook for high schoolers ).

He argued along the lines of : OK,my needs, views, and experiences are very different from say an eskimo lesbian, but are also very different from my older brother- him and I are night and day. There is nothing interesting about difference, because it is the most ubiquitous thing ever. It is a given, it is our very world and environment.

Rather, it is our commonalities that are interesting and need to be organized around - and this would be progress because as a species we haven’t done it yet -despite having the tech and knowing what those common needs are ( family, clean water, housing, sex, freedom of speech etc., etc.)

TheMaskofMan · 2021-09-14T08:45:42+00:00

De facto it ends up being a victim-hierarchy regardless of being practiced without liberal goggles that excludes certain criteria in the math equation. So no. That is a form of Slave Morality I'd rather avoid in my personal life and in larger culture. Argue your position from a point of strength, not weakness. Say that men deserve this for what they bring to the table, the taxes the pay, the homes they defend, the things they build. Not that they are victims.

Final_Bruh · 2021-09-14T05:18:00+00:00

My political ideology could arguably be described as male-inclusive intersectionality already. I acknowledge the concept feminists call the "patriarchy" exists but I think they radically misunderstand it as a gender hierarchy when really it's men at the apex looking out for their self interest and throwing everyone below them under the bus, with the common man arguably getting an even worse hand than the common woman. The idea of it being a gender hierarchy is due to first wave feminism taking root in the mid 20th century when the United States was seeing unusual economic prosperity and the strict gender roles typically contained within the culture of the ruling class began to be pushed as an ideal for everyone to follow due to everyone being able to afford a middle class lifestyle. (I should mention that "middle class" does not actually refer to the median, but rather the midpoint between the common working class and the ruling class; it really refers to roughly the 90-99.9th percentile of the population in normal economic times.) For the majority of human history, what feminists refer to as "patriarchy" has been more like what I described at the beginning of the paragraph, and as that prosperity subsides over the course of the later 20th and beginning of the 21st century we're seeing a return to that system but we're still seeing the concept as a gender hierarchy. What we're missing here is a dialogue between people with different worldviews.

Fast-Mongoose-4989 · 2021-09-14T05:32:14+00:00

Maybe if it gets men the help they nead

Oncefa2 · 2021-09-14T12:05:35+00:00

I've always liked some of the assumptions not just of intersectionality, but of feminism more broadly.

I just think it's applied in a dishonest manner.

Logically speaking, intersectionality should see wealthy white women as the most privileged in society, and poor black men as the most oppressed.

But somewhere along the way they messed up their analysis of gender.

Where are the intersectionalists when it comes to police brutality against black men for example? When will we talk about police brutality and legal discrimination against men and how a lot of our gender stereotypes against men are the same racial stereotypes we have against black people. Thus obviously compounding things for black men specifically.

So yes a good bit of my frustration is basic intellectual dishonest and hypocrisy. Get rid of that and I'd probably be on board, at least to a point (there are some interesting arguments here in the comments, I'll admit, especially around individualism being the logical outcome of intersectionality, but it's probably still useful as a good starting point when talking about averages).

Ok_Comment_8515 · 2021-09-14T10:58:32+00:00

Yes and no. I think it provides a pretty good starting point for the analysis of how different identities can intermix. If you were to look at intersectionality as a frame of analysis I would say I have always believed in it. But when most people use it they come in with a number of bad assumptions and do little wider analysis on privileged groups. This is a problem I find not just with men v women but also things like class ethnicity and race. The complex analysis that intersectionality is meant to represent give way to cookie cutter interpretations of these issues. Just getting them to acknowledged men have problem won't fix this

Comfortable_Ad_9154 · 2021-09-14T12:42:59+00:00

Maybe, I dont disagree with the basic premise. But for me to be ok with it, the concept would have to include all types of advantages/disadvantages, not just those pertaining to some groups. It also would have to acknowledge the situational nature and varying levels of impact of those advantages/disadvantages. Both of which I feel are why men are excluded.

hottake_toothache · 2021-09-14T12:59:23+00:00

It is really hard for me to imagine such a form of intersectionality.

publicdefecation · 2021-09-14T15:56:09+00:00

What I find interesting is how gender or race will be strategically muted when dealing with certain issues.

For example, BLM will take a male issue (police brutality) and strategically mute the gendered aspect of it to make it a racial one. No discussion on how men and women have a different experience of police brutality.

In Canada, the drug war and eugenics movement was spear headed by a feminist senator: Emily Murphy but the issue is often framed as a racial one even though her motivation was to protect women. No discussion on how racism by white women have oppressed colored men.

If intersectionality were to address how men of color have been oppressed by the actions of white women than I can at least accept it as a truly egalitarian movement rather than another angle the left uses to politically capitalize on the suffering of colored men and women.

But then again I really tire of victim narratives. They're divisive and not constructive. So while I think intersectionality would be more internally consistent if they were to address the grievances of colored men being oppressed by white women, I still wouldn't want to put energy behind it.

genkernels · 2021-09-15T16:19:35+00:00

One could focus on the ways people's struggles are alike and compatible "men's rights are human rights", or one could focus on the ways people are zero-sum and incompatible "autist racialized men are not able to compete politically or sexually for basic needs". It is a matter of seeking solidarity together ("Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God’s children.") or solely seeking solidarity with ("he for she").

Intersectionalism likes to present itself as an acknowledgement of compounding disadvantages "black men suffer more from the prison system than women or white men". However, it is not ultimately about the acknowledgement, but the primacy of such disadvantages. All or almost all of the problems that the intersectional lens is applied to also apply to groups outside the instersectional focus, but the core of intersectionalism is to avoid seeking the solidarity together afforded by that fact. It balkanizes society into incompatible goals, rather than reach for compatible goals that can be reached by broad consensus.

hendrixski · 2021-09-15T02:48:16+00:00

Absolutely. 100% yes.

Just one example: The makeup of the prison system is an example of intersectionality. If you're poor, black, or a man, then systems of oppression combine to make you more likely to be suspected, charged, convicted, and sentenced more heavily.

Poor black men commit just as many crimes as rich white women do, but no cop is stopping white women every week to check her purse for pills. Cops aren't escalating encounters to make her have a criminal record that warrants jailing her for jaywalking. That's the intersectional privilege of white women. I 100% support labeling it as such.

SexEleven · 2021-09-14T18:37:53+00:00

It depends on what type of intersectionality. It’s a word like critical race theory which people use very differently. There is Crenshaw’s original definition which was an innovation in discrimination law stating it’s possible for employers to discriminate against black women specifically in a way that is different than simply discriminating against women as a whole and black people as a whole. Then there is the pop wokeism version which we probably all think is oversimplified and problematic in many ways. Then there is the version which I think is common sense and basically reduces to the approach of psychotherapists - treat every person as an individual, attending to the many ways they have suffered and been advantaged (all their intersecting “identities”). I think including male disadvantaged is a step in that direction, but by itself, it only slightly changes the accuracy of the framework.

There are tons advantages and disadvantages people face in our society, most of which are never mentioned in intersectionality discourse, and they interact/intersect in complex ways. It’s so complex you can’t make assumptions about individuals based on group membership alone. There are many queer trans/enby people of color who have better lives than straight white cis men. My neighbor growing up was a straight white cis man and then his mom died from cancer and he killed himself before graduating high school. Was he privileged? You’re a fucking idiotic monster if you think that.

A real intersectionality would include struggles of men, wealth, income, mental health, physical health, adverse childhood experiences, trauma, heightism, perceived ugliness, and on and on. I would support that because it’s basically what social science research tries to figure out - what are all the variables that predict one’s life chances and outcomes and how can we use that knowledge to make a more fair society.

WeaknessTechnical654 · 2021-09-14T05:40:31+00:00

Blauwpetje · 2021-09-14T12:11:56+00:00

Intersectionalism is too tied up with identity politics seeing your political relevant identity as something absolute and unchangeable (other than class politics seeing possibilities to change your wealth and power), validating 'lived experience' over logic and facts, and listening to 'marginalized voices' over free speech and democracy. Trying to include men would be some kind of cheating, but neither intersectionals nor their adversaries would buy it.

Imaginary-Sense3733 · 2021-09-14T17:36:08+00:00

I think the worst thing about intersectionality is it's tendency to suck all the oxygen out of the room whenever it comes up in the context of political discussions. It's one of those things that literally everyone by definition is going to have a slightly different position on based on their individual identity, and it just leads to circular arguments that aren't ever going to produce a consensus until one identity group is able to form a big enough group to dominate the discussion.

I can see it being quite a useful tool in a therapeutic context; seeing how the intersection of me being say, white, straight and male but also neuroatypical made me the way I am today could be a helpful journey to go on. But in politics it mostly serves as a tool to divide working class activists amongst themselves unfortunately. If for example, in a Union setting negotiating higher pay, one person wants to focus on gender discrimination keeping women out of high paying jobs, then another points out that their race means they're often treated incredibly poorly at work and are stuck in low ranking menial jobs ,but another activist points out that their disability keeps them from being considered for any job at all, then all that discussion managed to achieve was to split a unified campaign for better wages into 3 antagonistic alternatives.

Algoresball · 2021-09-15T17:42:37+00:00

The concept is very sound and I do support it. What I don’t support as you say is how men’s issues are excluded. Take incarceration rates. And intersectional perspective on it should take race, class, mental health, and gender and more into account . But since it’s an issue that impacts men, gender is almost always left out.

DanteLivra · 2021-09-14T15:19:14+00:00

Intersectionality is just individualism with extra steps.

austin101123 · 2021-09-16T00:30:29+00:00

Intersectionality just looking at various properties of people and how it effects their life? Absolutely.

That doesn't mean I'll agree with what other people do with their intersectionality. It's much too often oversimplified into a universal good/bad.

BloodFartTheQueefer · 2021-09-16T14:23:41+00:00

I see intersectionality as 2 contradictory ideas. One is trivial true (and therefore useless) and the other is demonstrably false (yet popular).

The first is that the intersection of different identities can lead to unique or exacerbated issues compared to just the sum of the parts. The latter idea is that more oppressed identities = more oppressed. Period. Then there is all the standpoint theory and all of that nonsense which builds off of that assumption.

reddut_gang · 2021-09-20T01:42:24+00:00

No. It's clear where priorities are going to go in this "you scratch my back I scratch yours" type of dynamic.

NoPast · 2021-09-20T16:32:00+00:00

As a leftist No, never.

Intersectionality is basically a product of the anti-communist postmodern left-wing of neoliberalism that is so prevalent in academia and among "progressive" bourgoise intellectuals and naive hyper-emotivist "activists" who have replaced materialism with general feeling-good and virtue signalling.

They replace a egalitarian and universalist aspiration for liberation (marxism and socialism) with an western-centric zero-sum game of "victims" and "oppressors" and general Resentment, they replace rationality and the quest for Truth (who are considered product of the bad patriarchal western society) with some Nietzschean parody of "slave morality" where the truth is whatever the more "oppressed" believe.

They put all sources of oppression (classism, sexism, homophobia, racism etc) on the same level and by doing that they obscure how by most indicator the vast majority of people are oppressed more by modern capitalism that by other -ism.

Their worldview is not egalitarians but minoritarians: the minority are good for the only sake of being a minority and powerless. This explain why the are puzzled when confronted with reality (women and minorities are as anti-abortion as white ethero cis man if no more, immigrants generally don't support open borders and are more right-wing about tons of issues that white, male are socially and structurally discriminated in a lot of areas etc.).

The academic field that are a byproduct of intersectionality (fat study, gender studies, queer studies etc) are generally the pinnacle of being ideological and filled with terrible science.

WeEatBabies · 2021-09-14T12:54:27+00:00

Slavers is where I draw the line, I do not negotiate nor talk to them!

Title	If intersectionality was to include men (without the blame game that usually goes on, currently), would you support it or not?
Author	SpiritedPenguin
Upvotes	69
Comments	44
Date	September 14, 2021 4:49 AM UTC (4 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates/comments/pnw3sa/if_intersectionality_was_to_include_men_without/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates/if-intersectionality-was-to-include-men-without.1070523 https://theredarchive.com/post/1070523

Comments