Trump isn’t an icon of positive masculinity. He also did very little for young men during his four years as president

  • Hacksaw@lemmy.ca
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    2 months ago

    You’re close to getting it but you’re not quite there. The patriarchy oppressed men AND women. It oppressed white people AND minorities.

    Feminists, LGBTQ+, and black rights activists have each fought against the hierarchal structure for an end to their oppression and to enshrine their own rights. These people fight for equality, but they obviously do it when they’re the ones harmed by inequality. They also support eachother in their respective fights as allies.

    None of these groups will fight on behalf of other groups for many reasons, not the least of which is that they DON’T KNOW what it’s like to be in a group they don’t belong to. The most they can do is support eachother’s fights.

    Unfortunately many of the advantages that the patriarchy offered men was through oppressing others. For example if you were a “manly” man you could attract a “feminine” woman to do chores and raise kids for you. Nowadays women have better deals available. So men are at a unique crossroads, they can work on their own fights: the freedom to express human emotions, the freedom to participate in “feminine” pursuits like being in the lives of your kids, taking paternity leave, fighting for an education system that doesn’t leave boys in the dust, among other things. OR they can try to go back to the hierarchal ways of life, adopting the “manly alpha” persona and hoping to find a “feminine” wife to take care of the house and kids. The latter FEELS easier, but success is difficult.

    Nobody else got that choice because no one else thought that taking apart the hierarchy was as painful for them as much as it is to men. It lays bare all of our limitations and removes all the privileges. But if we understand that the hierarchy is what CREATED those limitations and gave the privileges at the cost of operating others, then we know the right thing is to start fighting our fights and stop being left behind.

    It’s not feminism’s fault we’re left behind. Why would women fight men’s fights against the hierarchy/patriarchy FOR us, when women don’t even live the problems we live. We’re left behind because we stayed behind. Because it felt good. Now it doesn’t. Now we fight for our freedom from the hierarchy.

    • DancingBear
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      2 months ago

      This is an article about young men.

      But yes, if feminism changed our classrooms and our dialogues in such a way that young woman are now able to achieve in way that they were not even allowed to before, to the detriment of young boys, then yes. This is feminisms fault especially as a group that claims to advocate for equality. Especially as a group that claims to also be fighting to help men and young boys out of the patriarchy.

      Yes, feminism can be critiqued. If it has failed our men and young boys, it has also failed our women and young girls.

      Even people in this thread have said that feminism fights for men as well. You can’t say that feminism fights for men until someone says the men and boys have been let down and then all of a sudden feminism is not fighting for the men.

      Otherwise feminism is an ethereal veil of bullshit.

      You’re either fighting for equality and equity or you’re fighting for superiority and some weird idea of revenge.

      We need to find solutions that help both our boys and our girls succeed in an equitable environment.

      If you’re saying well, we removed patriarchy it’s not our fault the boys are failing. I find that morally repugnant and an example of harm caused by feminism.

      • Hacksaw@lemmy.ca
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        2 months ago

        … I’m not feminism man so I’m not sure what your trying to say.

        Anyways “Welcome to the left” i guess, everyone has to identify the systemic barriers holding them back and fight to have them removed. You don’t fight alone, we all help and support eachother. But no one can identify your barriers for you, they don’t live your life.

        You’re coming in here saying “a side effect of the fighting done by feminism is reveal the obstacles holding boys back” then thank feminism I guess and join the fight for boys and men against the patriarchy/hierarchy.

        If you’re going to sit here pretending that these problems were CREATED by feminism and you want to attack the idea of “women fighting to remove their obstacles”, well I don’t know what to tell you, but you’re going to be alone and you’re not going to get far. We don’t win by diminishing eachother.

        For example, you talk about how feminists fought hard to get women into schools and make the education fair for women. Now that women outnumber men in higher learning you’re saying feminists stopped, but then you’re complaining that feminists aren’t fighting for men? Why would they? And even if they wanted to, how can WOMEN understand the obstacles holding back MEN? Feminism isn’t well suited for these challenges, but feminism certainly didn’t set out to hold men and boys back in education. The fact that the education system doesn’t meet the needs of young boys has nothing to do with feminism.

        Now you want to fight for more physical activity, more hands on learning in schools because that’s what boys NEED? All the power to you. There are a lot of people fighting for that and you should join. Left wing activists of all stripes support this because we all support eachother and better, more equitable education helps us all. Demand higher school budgets and get physical and hands on learning back in schools.

        You wanna sit here and whine like a baby blaming feminists for cutting school budgets and removing PE, science labs shop classes and hands on tech courses based on no facts at all? Enjoy the downvotes and loneliness I guess!

        • DancingBear
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          2 months ago

          Thank you for proving my point. Feminism can not solve the issues facing men and boys. And critique of feminism is not misogyny.

          I’m far from alone. I understand that folks have been taught that any critique of feminism is somehow on par with misogyny.

          Half of the posters here have argued that feminism is already solving the issues facing men and boys and half have argued that feminism by design is not responsible for these issues. The cognitive dissonance that allows folks to hold both ideas in their minds at the same time is very real, and shows a major fault of feminism by itself, namely, that feminism and feminists are unaware of both the problems they are trying to solve, as well as the problems they are unable to solve.

          Question everything. Otherwise you’re in the same rabbit hole as these young men in the article, just on the other side of the fence.

          • Hacksaw@lemmy.ca
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            2 months ago

            Dude I didn’t prove shit. I don’t understand how saying “men and boys need help” is a critique of feminism.

            I know a lot of people are suggesting to address these things through “feminism” and that these problems belong to the “patriarchy”. But fundamentally what they mean is use a leftist approach to deal with obstacles affecting you caused by the existing hierarchy.

            They’re saying that because what no one wants is another alpha male Jordan Peterson/Enon Musk style bullshit peddler claiming that men have been harmed by feminism and will be better off if we just restore the patriarchy and become “alpha” or whatever lingo they’re using these days. That might be superficially true, but oppressing others isn’t the way to get ahead.

            It’s starting to become obvious which side you’re learning on, but hopefully you’ll come over and help fight for men and boys issues in a way that improves society instead of harming it.

            • DancingBear
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              2 months ago

              I didn’t prove shit either. I think we’re on the same page.

              If men have been harmed by feminism I think as men and as advocates for men and boys we would need to listen to the hypothesis and then look at it and try to solve the problem rather than worry about whose fault it is, whoever’s fault it is is less important in my opinion than trying to understand if there is a problem which seems to be true and then to go on and try to identify the problem and find the cause.

              I don’t believe that many phrases that are helpful to feminist arguments and causes for women and girls that genuinely help them are as helpful when we are specifically talking about helping men and boys.

              Yes, patriarchy of the 1% is probably not the best phrase.

              • Hacksaw@lemmy.ca
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                2 months ago

                You keep saying “men have been harmed by feminism” and I couldn’t agree with you less.