Link

This gives us a good indication of how feminists intend to "solve" issues affecting men and boys -- by treating them as deviants and defective females.

This is reminiscent of Stalinism. People who challenged the party line would sometimes be confined to insane asylums. It's also reminiscent of slave masters in the antebellum south. A man named Samuel Cartwright hypothesized that slaves suffered from a condition he called "drapetomania" -- a mental disorder characterized by a desire to escape slavery and become a free individual.

Feminist theories about masculinity are no less nutty. The article notes:

There is no evidence that masculinity itself contributes to violence. Universities that run similar programs, such as UNC-Chapel Hill and Northwestern, have admitted that their programming isn’t supported by any evidence.

In other words, this is a feelings/hate-based approach to addressing men's issues -- completely devoid of any commitment to rationality, empirical evidence, empathy or indeed sanity. The lunatics are running the asylum.

Key areas of focus:

"to impact campus culture to increase acceptance of gender diversity, promote healthy relationships with an emphasis on consent, and prevent interpersonal violence."

Men, the program argues, suffer when they are told to “act like a man” or when they are encouraged to fulfill traditional gender roles, such as being “successful” or “the breadwinner.”

“traditional ideas of masculinity place men into rigid (or restrictive) boxes [which]... prevent them from developing their emotional maturity.”

Demonstrated commitment to diversity, social justice

The program will be run by the Orwellian named "Healthy Masculinities Coordinator", who will be paid $4,000 a month to abuse these young men.

What is perhaps most striking about the program is that it firmly commits to traditional gender roles while simultaneously claiming to oppose them. All responsibility is placed on the male, none on the female; the role that females play in shaping male behavior* is completely ignored; males are the actors, females are the acted-upon; out-dated notions about males being the sole perpetrators of violence and sexual assault are endorsed; and chivalry is the highest value.

Most troubling of all is the claim, [Masculinity] "prevent[s] them from developing their emotional maturity.” In other words, men are inherently defective. Are women actually more "emotionally mature" than men? No. There is no evidence for this. If anything it's the other way around. Allowing one's emotions to override rational thought is a characteristic of children, not mature adults.

What these women don't seem to understand (perhaps because they have never experienced it) is that emotive men are treated radically different than emotive women. One is afforded contempt, the other sympathy. Feminists themselves -- in an almost sublime act of hypocrisy -- are often the biggest perpetrators of this, referring to MRA's as "crybabies" and drinking from "male tears" mugs.

For a group of people who place such an emphasis on "lived experiences", it is remarkable that these women (and a small number of highly feminized men) feel entitled to speak authoritatively about the male experience. The anarchist Bob Black noted this several decades ago in his essay Feminism as Fascism:

"According to feminoid epistemology, men understand nothing of the real nature of women. One might logically suppose that the estrangement of the sexes resulting from disparate roles and discrimination would work both ways, and so most of us attending to our actual experiences reluctantly conclude. But no: men don’t understand women, but women (at any rate their radical feminist vanguard) understand men."

Feminist theories about masculinity have been born, ironically, through the safety and comfort afforded them by the efforts of stoical (ie "toxic") men who perform virtually all of the most dangerous jobs. Without these men, feminists wouldn't be able to even turn on a light, let alone write anti-male screeds on their computers.

Men are not going to be helped by being lectured at by people who hate them. We need profound changes in law and public policy.

Edit:

*Gad Saad just wrote a great article on the subject of how females shape male behavior (and vice versa).

"Ewes (female rams) will mate with the ram that wins the brutal intrasexual head-butting contest. They reward targeted aggression by granting sexual access."

It is absurd to examine why eg men are more likely to engage in physical fights without reference to female social power and sexual selection. It would be like a scientist analyzing why rams butt heads without reference to the ewe. It is equally absurd to demand that men stop engaging in behavior that evidently quite a few women find attractive.

Are human beings really all that different than rams when it comes to sex? Evidently not. A woman who studied gender based shaming for ten years came to the "surprising" conclusion that it is primarily women rather than men who enforce the male gender role. This makes perfect sense: if women found sensitivity more attractive than strength and social status then men would be having crying competitions (the ideal mate is of course both strong AND sensitive. As Saad writes: "The ideal man is rugged and sensitive; masculine and caring; aggressive in some pursuits and gentle in others. Think of the male archetype in romance novels.")

What does this mean? It means that "toxic masculinity" could just as well be called "toxic femininity" (and vice versa), since both sexes are rewarding certain behaviors and traits. If feminists are actually serious about changing male behavior (which is a creepy totalitarian idea to begin with) they should be targeting their campaigns at the more powerful group, which in the case of sexual selection is the female.

The article on gender shaming includes the following passage:

"Most women pledge allegiance to this idea that women can explore their emotions, break down, fall apart—and it's healthy," Brown said. "But guys are not allowed to fall apart." Ironically, she explained, men are often pressured to open up and talk about their feelings, and they are criticized for being emotionally walled-off; but if they get too real, they are met with revulsion. She recalled the first time she realized that she had been complicit in the shaming: "Holy Shit!" she said. "I am the patriarchy!"

So men are now going to be shamed on two fronts (actually about a thousand fronts at this point). They will be shamed by feminists for being "too masculine", and they will be shamed by other women for being "too feminine."

This is what happens when you abandon reason in favor of feelings.