I want to state up first I get it, I’m on the right side, most of these men are awful, and every man-o-sphere influence is awful. Andrew Tate belongs in a 6 foot deep hole, or a hole in the back of his head. Joe Rogan should be sent to the Hague.
But when dudes complain, even about genuine issues, we have a tendency to just attack them for it. If a guy complains that being short can kinda suck (and it can. More so than just getting girls, it can hurt your career and everything.) People, even leftists, tend to just call them a sad manlet or something. Same thing with dudes complaining they can’t get a girlfriend, are they not alienated under capitalism? I’m not saying we have to coddle the incels, but we could do better at presenting a future, a better one, maybe?
The discourse about height, and dick size, are both stupid but here (in this safe space) can I admit that there’s a point to both? They affect people, it’s a real thing.
And back to the Joe Rogan’s, I feel bad that men and boys get sucked into that. I have some pity for them, these desperate losers.
Anyways, Im sure I’m going to think this is dumb, but I just can’t help but feel like there’s a gigantic community of extremely disaffected people that while I mostly loathe, I also really feel bad for. I don’t think it would’ve taken much to push me there, I grew up in a good environment with some good role models, but without that, left to the wolves, I’m as susceptible to the grifters as everyone is.
Yeah, this has been an ongoing struggle at least as long as I’ve been in feminist spaces (one would assume much longer). I remember it getting rehashed many times back on ShitRedditSays, back when that was a relevant place. And I agree, Hexbear is kind of shitty about men’s issues - not the worst by far, but also worse than SRS was ten years ago, so nothing to be proud of.
Body shaming isn’t good, no matter how many people are about to jump out of the woodwork to tell me they only do it to acceptable targets (fuck off with that bully logic).
Men should be able to wear colorful clothing without society judging them. “just be queer” isn’t actual advice (some unfortunate sods just aren’t born that way). Telling people “ignore what society thinks” is ignoring the problem in the first place.
Societal expectations that men are stoic islands with no emotions or needs are, indeed, really fucked up and damaging.
You don’t have to have a solution to these problems, and if you don’t, the best thing to say is “yeah that sucks,” or “I’ve been there,” not “not a real problem” (fuck off), or “women have it worse” (yeah we know).
There’s a big obvious difference between MRA types and just men talking honestly about how the patriarchy affects them negatively - MRAs don’t actually want to fix these things, but instead to use them as a cudgel to tell GSMs their problems are fake. If the conclusion someone is pushing isn’t “uppity women should know their place” then it’s probably genuine. And yes, you can tell MRA types to fuck off, if they show up.
It is a shame that we don’t have a leftist, feminist, positive example of masculinity to point people at. I agree with folks here that it’d be a worthwhile project. We also talked about it back on SRS 10 years ago and nobody has gotten it off the ground. Do it if you think you can. If it helps, I think the most obvious starting point for that is some dudes running a fitness youtube channel.
One simple thing that SRS did that Hexbear doesn’t is to call out gender policing (:gender-policing:). Dropping instances of gender policing in the dunk tank would probably help people internalize that this is a bad thing that should be called out.