MOD NOTE: Please note the following part of the forum rules:
The initial OP posted below covers it well enough: the premise of this thread is that men's issues exist. Don't bother posting if you don't believe there is such a thing.
Here's hoping this isn't considered too redundant. I've noticed that our existing threads about sexism tend to get bogged down in Oppression Olympics or else wildly derailed, so I thought I'd make a thread specifically to talk about discrimination issues that disproportionately affect men.
No Oppression Olympics here, okay? No saying "But that's not important because women suffer X which is worse!" And no discussing these issues purely in terms of how much better women have it. Okay? If the discussion cannot meaningfully proceed without making a comparison to male and female treatment, that's fine, but on the whole I want this thread to be about how men are harmed by society and how we can fix it. Issues like:
- The male-only draft (in countries that have one)
- Circumcision
- Cavalier attitudes toward men's pain and sickness, AKA "Walk it off!"
- The Success Myth, which defines a man's desirability by his material success. Also The Myth of Men Not Being Hot, which denies that men can be sexually attractive as male beings.
- Sexual abuse of men.
- Family law.
- General attitudes that men are dangerous or untrustworthy.
I could go on making the list, but I think you get the idea.
Despite what you might have heard about feminists not caring about men, it's not true. I care about men. Patriarchy sucks for them as much as it sucks for women, in a lot of ways. So I'm putting my keyboard where my mouth is and making a thread for us to all care about men.
Also? If you're male and think of something as a men's issue, by golly that makes it a men's issue fit for inclusion in this thread. I might disagree with you as to the solution, but as a woman I'm not going to tell you you have no right to be concerned about it. No "womansplaining" here.
Edited by nombretomado on Dec 15th 2019 at 5:19:34 AM
A procrastination in of itself
Yep, which makes the apparently desire to not connect toxic masculinity with institutional sexism very weird, as toxic masculinity is the manifestation of institutional sexism that directly impacts around half the population.
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran
Good lord, the one time I don't have the opportunity to check the forums every ten minutes is also the one time I should eat part of my words.
You guys are right on this. At the time, I was very much thinking of "institutionalized sexism" as something that is done by one gender to the other. In hindsight, it also includes the things that a given gender does amongst themselves, such as Toxic Masculinity. My bad, and I'm glad to say that we are basically in agreement.
Having said that...
Don't shoot the message you say? If the message was "These are real problems we should do something about", I would agree with you. But it wasn't, not by a long shot. It was "Men are the real victims and are not the ones that need to change". That is a message I will gladly shoot to the moon.
If people want something to be done about these problems, stop bringing them up in opposition to feminism. If anything, bring them up in support.
Edited by Kayeka on Jan 21st 2019 at 7:09:35 PM
Queen of Good Things, Honest
I'm a male feminist, and me and my female friends and colleagues in the movement do talk at great length about societal issues that are hurting men. We do this because they're the same societal issues that are hurting women, stemming from staunch traditionalist fervor surrounding a strict and oppressive gender binary.
At the heart of both toxic masculinity and the oppressive "female role", you find Patriarchal values. The Patriarchy is a social structure that exists to force women into a submissive role and men into a dominant one, and cruelly punishes perceived defection from either side. Women are punished for failure to conform to society's expected subservience, while men are punished for any momentary failure to live up to the "Real Man - God of Sex and Violence" standard.
These punishments are doled out socially and sometimes violently by men and women alike, who have internalized Patriarchal values and found success in their lives by their conformation. These men and women are "normal", and so they are rewarded by other perceived "normal" men and women while "deviants" are shunned.
The issues are two sides of a coin. For every man persecuted for trying to be a homemaker, there is a woman persecuted for trying to be a breadwinner. For every man torn away from his children, there is a woman told that her sole purpose for existing is to be a mother. For every man shunned and beaten for being too passive, there is a woman shunned and beaten for being too aggressive.
This is why feminists care about issues that affect men: because we are all, as individuals, slaves under the same societal yoke. But feminists are also tentative about men, because that yoke exists to uplift the idea of men above the idea of women, even as it tears down individual men and women alike.
The problem with MRA is that it exists as a response to feminism, as a counterpoint, an argument. Its purpose is to silence feminists, to reassert the Patriarchal standard, rather than try to help men escape from it. The Patriarchy holds the idea of men above the idea of women, and MRA works to enforce that ideology on an individual level.
Edited by TobiasDrake on Jan 21st 2019 at 11:48:44 AM
My Tumblr. Currently liveblogging Haruhi Suzumiya and revisiting Danganronpa V3.
That's all, folks
Well, the gillette ad was made by a woman and the message was for women, telling them that they are the real victims and that men were the problem, which is just the regular sexist/reactionary rhetoric. Of course, anyone who lives in the real world should see that this is not how things work. THAT is the problem with the ad.
A procrastination in of itself
Yeah the ones telling men to break away from the harmful tradditonal gender roles, they’re the reactionaries...
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran
Oh, bother.
Here's an opinion piece on the ad from Harris O’Malley, a dating advice blogger who has also addressed issues such as toxic masculinity.
No, Gillette Didn’t Declare War on Masculinity…
As it turns out, I have a lot more to say about it because, well, it’s made people lose their goddamn monkey minds. This is an ad that is literally just saying “hey, men can do better” and people are acting as though this was the announcement that XY chromosomes have been made illegal and having chest hair means that you’re going to get rounded up to camps.
This line near the end sums up the problems with calling the ad an attack on men:
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
, Hell, the watch ad is literally a reaction to the Gilette ad.
Oh right, i'm familiar with o'malley. He's always been a big proponent of positive masculinity so i'm not surprised that he would have this to say.
Also it's rather disingenuous to say that in aggregate women are not victims of these systems. That's not to say that it doesn't harm men but the dynamic is kind of different and even when certain men are punished for failing to live up to their role, you don't need to be a stereotypical roided out white fratboy to enjoy the benefits of an androcentric society.
Furthermore, the criticism of the ad has to do with specific behaviors and attitudes that society either tolerates or actively teaches men to do and have, not men as an inherent concept. If you are already not doing them and trying your best to oppose other men who do them, then the ad is an affirmation of your attitude. If you are doing them, then it is asking you to do some self-reflection and change your behavior, but it's not inherently because you are a man, rather it's because you're doing something wrong.
Edited by Draghinazzo on Jan 21st 2019 at 11:49:40 AM
For the people offended, the issue is they've gone to great lengths to laud these behaviors as positive.
I got my first piece of hatemail not for the gay characters or the trans characters or even bad writing but a line in my book The Rules of Supervillainy where the protagonist reveals his "trick" that a character is berating him over because Gary has a surprising number of ex-partners seemingly out of his league.
Gary reveals the secret as...
"Look for women who want to have a good time and show it to them."
I was called a cuck mocking masculinity for this one joke and a traitor to manhood. I admit I was directly mocking pick-up artists there. :)
Edited by CharlesPhipps on Jan 22nd 2019 at 1:03:17 AM
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.
Jupiterian Local
They literally show a clip of Terry Crews testifying before Congress saying "men need to hold other men accountable". It's hard to get more explicit about your message than that.
@M84 — That article is excellent. I especially appreciated the paragraph towards the end:
I'm all about that. If something does good (and it's hard to argue that the Gillette ad is harmful), then I'm less interested in ensuring that the motives behind it are 100% pure and altruistic than in the fact that it's doing good. The kneejerk "meh, they're just trying to sell more razors" cynicism irks me. Yes, of course they're trying to sell more razors. But if they help make things better in the process, who cares?
Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.
Unreasonably Quirky
As a rule of thumb, I never take anyone seriously if they use the word "cuck" in any context other than, you know, actual cuckoldry porn.
Call me Stick
Even if it's flipped and used to refer to the kind of people who coined the term?
Edited by TroperOnAStickV2 on Jan 22nd 2019 at 12:36:51 PM
Hopefully I'll feel confident to change my avatar off this scumbag soon. Apologies to any scumbags I insulted.
Captain of the Dead City
If I see the word cuck used unironically, I check out of taking that person seriously in any way. Same for SJW, same for snowflake, same for beta males, same for Soros conspiracy theorists and flat earthers and so on.
"...in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach."
The Dragon of the Eastern Sea
Where did you come from where did you go
Call me Stick
I firmly believe that the first three (four if you count "cuck") of those can be flipped on their stereotypical users. Last two are another story entirely, not in the least because they're not terms but specific ideas.
Edited by TroperOnAStickV2 on Jan 23rd 2019 at 10:07:39 AM
Hopefully I'll feel confident to change my avatar off this scumbag soon. Apologies to any scumbags I insulted.
We really don't need to be "flipping" right-wing language back on them; it doesn't work.
Call me Stick
May be the writer in me, but I like Ironic Echo stuff. If we can turn a phrase against the people who coined it, get it to have the opposite connotations of what was intended, that would be satisfying and kind of karmic, no?
Edited by TroperOnAStickV2 on Jan 23rd 2019 at 10:30:51 AM
Hopefully I'll feel confident to change my avatar off this scumbag soon. Apologies to any scumbags I insulted.
Oh, bother.
In real life, ironic echoes don't have the same impact.
Disgusted, but not surprised
Call me Stick
Are you quite sure about that? At the very least, it would make it harder for them to use it, stripping a tool away from their "arsenal".
Edited by TroperOnAStickV2 on Jan 23rd 2019 at 10:33:55 AM
Hopefully I'll feel confident to change my avatar off this scumbag soon. Apologies to any scumbags I insulted.
Oh, bother.
This Is Reality. As much as you might wish it did, real people don't act the way fictional characters do.
We don't live in a story. Stop treating it as if we are.
Edited by M84 on Jan 23rd 2019 at 11:36:11 PM
Disgusted, but not surprised
Call me Stick
Seriously? It's rhetoric, not a narrative trick. Discredit the term, flip what people take it as.
Edited by TroperOnAStickV2 on Jan 23rd 2019 at 10:41:13 AM
Hopefully I'll feel confident to change my avatar off this scumbag soon. Apologies to any scumbags I insulted.
Oh, bother.
What's even the point? Do you just want to be able to use words like "cuck" or something? Why?
All you're doing is validating them by admitting that those insults have value. When you use words like "cuck" and "snowflake" and other alt-right or MRA bullshit, you are speaking their language. You are sinking to their level. And you can't win that way. For one thing, they have a lot more practice acting on that level than you do.
You're not going to be able to flip the term.
Edited by M84 on Jan 23rd 2019 at 11:42:46 PM
Disgusted, but not surprised
Call me Stick
The point is to strip terms they use away from them, to use them against the people they really apply to.
Edited by TroperOnAStickV2 on Jan 23rd 2019 at 10:44:42 AM
Hopefully I'll feel confident to change my avatar off this scumbag soon. Apologies to any scumbags I insulted.
Oh, bother.
That is not going to work. All you will do is confirm to them and to people on the outside that such terms are acceptable. And by that point, you've already lost.
Several of the points Kayeka makes are that the issues the watch ad brings up are indeed due to toxic masculinity.
Disgusted, but not surprised