#Or that yes they are hurt by the patriarchy and strict gender roles

[telepathicfeline]

You all do know that there’s a middle ground between “men are inherently evil, society has nothing to do with it” and “men aren’t at fault for their actions, they are hurt just as much (if not more) by patriarchy than women?”

[lurkiestvoid]

"nooooo we can't use that word, that word doesn't exist and if it did it comes with too many implications, instead we have to dance around That Word by explaining it with whole paragraphs about how this systemically oppressive gender dichotomy does indeed also oppress the privileged demographic in a wide variety of ways but also includes at minimum half a dozen caveats that it's not That Word because That Word Is Bad And Means Bad Things"

I know this is a take no one asked for and might get me hunted for sport but I think maybe it's time we had a discussion about and possibly even allowed ourselves to use the word "misandry"

[genderkoolaid]

okay. I feel like I explain this every time I talk about men's issues but I just saw some more bad takes on transandrophobia so I'm going to go over exactly my thoughts on men & gendered oppression.

My argument is no "men, as a class, are oppressed exactly like women as a class, and all of society is always against masculinity & therefore any proof of society valuing masculinity/men over femininity/women disproves my point." My arguments are:

A fundamental part of patriarchal masculinity is competition and threats/fear. Yes, cis men are The Best, but the patriarchy does not give unconditional love and support to everyone perceived as a cis man. Creating a strict definition of what a man is keeps people in a state of fear that makes them easy to control. bell hooks talks about this beautifully in The Will to Change: "When we love maleness, we extend our love whether males are performing or not. Performance is different from simply being. In patriarchal culture males are not allowed simply to be who they are and to glory in their unique identity. Their value is always determined by what they do. In an antipatriarchal culture males do not have to prove their value and worth. They know from birth that simply being gives them value, the right to be cherished and loved." Men cannot be unconditionally comfortable without proving that they have worth via fulfillment of patriarchal standards- which are intertwined with capitalistic standards, because patriarchy & other social systems cannot be separated for anyone. This does not mean that men receive no benefits from the patriarchy- the way the patriarchy negatively affects men does not need to be a mirror of how it affects women in order to be real. I frankly don't care if this counts as oppression or not; its a part of the patriarchy and it hurts people, especially...

Marginalized men & marginalized perceived-men. We cannot act like marginalized women experience the intersection of gender and [x], but marginalized men have their gender completely ignored. It's just not accurate. This does not mean they never benefit from being perceived as men, either, or that they cannot contribute to misogyny. But marginalized men's gender absolutely plays a role in how they are perceived and treated. Testosterone can be seen as a positive for cis men while trans men are seen as hyper-violent "emotional women with male rage," because the patriarchy does not care about hypocrisy, it cares about control. White men can be encouraged to show their anger and be seen as powerful while Black men have their lives destroyed if they do anything but shape all of their emotions around making white people comfortable. There is a consistent trend of portraying marginalized men as having the worst of masculine traits- being ugly, sexually aggressive, uncontrollable monsters- or lacking the proper traits of masculinity- being infertile/failing to be properly sexual, being meek and easily dominated, being effeminate or having female traits- while dominant men are always perfectly balanced and in control of their masculinity.

The point of using "misandry" or "antimasculism" is not "all things male/masculine are treated badly." It's is being able to talk about how masculinity is weaponized against those who do it "wrong." All language is wrong, but some language is useful.

Also, if you want to hear more about the intersection of masculinity/manhood and Blackness, I'd recommend both the videos of F.D Signifier and the work of thotscholar.

[graylinesspam]

Happy June everybody!

I've seen some really good discussion on my dash the last >24hrs, about labels in the lgbt community and the use of queer and reclaiming slurs and identifying turf rhetoric.

I'm gonna put my 2¢ into this discussion real quick because I think some of us are missing a big base concept of the LGBT community.

The community is wide and vast and diverse as it should be. And no matter your involvement in it, your label, your age, your race, there is one defining sociopolitical stance that makes us who we are. And that's simply being different.

I know that sounds fucking cheesy but stick with me here. Queerness intersects with so many other social struggles, struggles with class and religion, race and disability. And as any struggle it is a fight for freedom from the preset social structures.

Queerness (and yes I'm using that umbrella term for a reason) is about not being hetero-normative more than it is about anything else. It's about choosing to live your life against the social structures. It's not about the specifics of how everyone does it so as much as it is that you do. Trans lesbians and cis-Ace guys are always going to have more in common than they will with any hetero-normative person.

Don't misinterpret me, this isn't a 'straight people are the enemy' argument. This is an argument against rigid definitions and labels. Because the structure itself is what we're fighting. The structure that tells us that one man marries one woman in a Christian ceremony and they settle down into a white picket fence three bedroom home with their two and a half kids. And they better be white and conventional attractive and fit perfectly into their assigned gender roles. (and everyone else can suffer)

That is the enemy.

When you try to bring those kinds of structures into the community you fundamentally undermine the entire purpose of it. There are no good gender roles here. There are no roles of any kind. The strict definitions you're trying to assign to each label are hurting your community. Labels are a good tool for identifying people who may have similar life experiences as yourself. Or as a medium to communicate with straight people, but they are not lines we draw between ourselves.

We cannot survive divided. We must support and protect each other. That's the point of the community.

No more discussions of who can use what labels, no more fighting against 'slurs' that people have been using since before you were born. No more excluding sex and attraction and kink. And no more relying on it either. Sex cannot be a taboo in our community. And it cannot be the aspect from which we define ourselves either.

No more morally policing people who are just trying to live their lives, no more stepping on each other and throwing 'gross and weird' queers under the bus so you can virtue signal as the "Good gays".

No more telling people who they can be based on their genitals or their sexuality. No more telling lesbians to cut men out of their life because that's how we 'fight the patriarchy'. No more telling trans people how they should transition. No more allying with people based on their bodies, their looks, their health.

Asexuality is queer because it's a fundamentally different experience to build a relationship that isn't based on heterosexual attraction. Since sex is the basis by which straight people seem to couple, by not doing that, by connecting through other factors, you differ.

Queer men, or trans women, or others born male are welcome in our community because they are fundamentally choosing to be different from the role they were cast in by the social structure. Now does that include a lot of work unlearning their societal programming? Absolutely. But I welcome my brothers and sisters regardless of their gentitals.

And let's not for a minute pretend that queer 'males' are any more dangerous to us than terfs and the distructivly sexist (and blatantly racist and classist) roles they try to pigeonhole women into.

Other alt communities are our allies. Anyone fighting moral conformity. Anyone fighting racism and sexism and ableism and classism.

If your way of trying to obtain the life you want to live consists of trying to look good to the oppressors so they give you a pass, then your doing it wrong.

Use a hundred different labels to describe yourself. Use neopronouns. Base your relationships off of how well you can support each other. Practice your religion in a way that fulfills you and your identity. Cut off your shitty family. Or don't. Keep your elders close so that you can learn everything you can about how the world has changed, then figure out how to change it more.

Society as it stands will crumble in our collective grasps. We just have a break a little bit of it everyday.

(that being said, general advice, educate yourself on lgbt history, talk to our elders, educate yourself on intersecting struggles. Rascim, ableism, and classism. All of that is required reading babies.)

(((Do not come into the notes saying some shit like, Yeah, everyone is our ally except____. At best it'll be fucking obvious that we don't align ourselves with seriously bad people like pedos or something, and at worst you'll say someone we specifically do ally with and I'll be forced to publically shame you.)))

[i-who-has-never-had-a-name]

Let's get some things straight: I'm not. And I'm not a girl, yet not a man.

But if it isn't an identity then what? Gender is and has always been a classification of personality traits. You said it yourself best: you aren't automatically a woman just because you don't like to play with cars and what not. But why does this concept even exist? Why do those stereotypes and those norms even exist? There is nothing inherently biological about the social construct that is gender. On a material level you can't grasp it. And don't say anything about genitals because otherwise butch women and feminine men wouldn't be seen as freaks but as just normal women and men. You can't destroy the patriarchy without destroying the very concept of gender. You can't comprehend why trans women would want to be women but yet you yourself don't fit the strict mold of gender that was assigned to you at birth. What is it that is so bad about not wanting to be in a pre-determined role since birth? Is the pain and dysphoria that trans people experience not valid and do they not deserve to be treated as victims of the patriarchy just as much as women? Do you not think that trans women have not been called "bitches" and "whores"?. I just can't seem to comprehend your dislike of trans people. And what do you even think of trans men?

And yes my initial reaction might have been a bit vulgar, but you must understand that even if you do not say the t-word, a lot of your people side with the alt-right and even if they do not, the blatant transphobia you all emit is leading to a rise in transphobia that results in persecution like the one that is going in Florida rn (and other parts of the world). Your lack of acceptance for a marginalized group is leading to a rise in suicides in trans youth. It is leading to a rise in discrimination and poverty and suffering. So I do think that my rage is somewhat justified if you consider ongoing problems (or "touch some grass").

I know a lot of terfs just want "safe women spaces" but there have never been any. Rich women are horrible to poor ones just as much as white women are horrible to woc. Did you know that your bioessentialist (and therefore non-scientific) view has lead to attacks on butch women in bathrooms? Or that it has lead to cis women with high testosterone levels being banned from sports? That it has lead to more chaos instead of solidarity against the alt-right?

I know you think it's as simple as women are born as women and men are born as women but it's just scientifically, culturally and socially just not accurate if you take a closer look. I have tried understanding the view of terfs but I remember always being sidelined by them bc I never fit the western mold of what a cis-woman should be. I just don't think that what you are doing is leading to anything productive. I know you just think we are some cringe group of leftists being irrational and doing mental gymnastics to include a small group of people in our spaces but it's so much more than that. It's a battle ongoing for millenia. It's much more nuanced.

And what I meant by saying that you're no better that a hetero man is that though you have experienced misogyny and homophobia and oppression by men you can't seem to empathize with a group that is also oppressed by men.

I messaged you and reblogged twice because it hurts seeing someone so blind to the ongoing battle against the the Burgeoisie and their social constructs. It hurts knowing what even such small comments on Tumblr can lead to.

If you don't want to face as much criticism as here go to reddit, facebook or 4chan.

>I open a video about "Barbie and Plastic Feminism" expecting a valid critique involving feminist from a woman.

>The presenter is a "she/they" TiM.

>I Look at the channel name.

>Of course it has "Bitchie" in the name, probably an AGP.

>I decide to check out the videos:

>I close the video and report the channel so you never see a gore like that again.

LMFAOOO IT JUST GET WORSE!!

[serialreblogger]

begging y'all to stop reblogging posts about the queer community that are clearly written by transphobes/exclusionists

[waywardbluebirdsong-blog]

“Bad” Feminist

Roxanne Gay’s Bad Feminist attempts to debunk the concept that there is a correct way to be a feminists offering alternative perspectives on how feminism can be enacted in one’s life. Her many views, ultimately allowing oneself to be a “bad” feminist, are valid interpretations of feminism. But simply by listing ways one can be a feminist inherently defines feminism. This is where the flaw in her argument lies. Yes, there are many ways to be feminist, but no, these cannot be defined, boxed in, or formed into checklists. The rigidity of the act of defining feminism is harmful to the movement as it is exclusionary and intimidating. Feminism is not an entity that one has to apply themselves to, it is one’s relationship to the concept of gender equality.

Growing up under the overwhelming influence of third wave feminism, as most abundantly enforced through media, was an intimidating atmosphere of “right��� and “wrong.” Women’s opinions were publically displayed, publicly critiqued, and publically endowed. I have been lucky enough to live in an environment that for the most part has attempted to value women wholly. This is not to say that this has always been successful. While I’ve been taught that I have complex value and worth, and have been taught the notion of feminism, I have also been taught how to be feminist and what feminism is. The passion for feminism that surrounded me became so strongly political and powerful, it became an intimidating culture. Simultaneously the prolific critiquing of women in media generated a belief that there was a wrong way to be a feminist, or even a women. Simply by defining feminism, whether it be “good” or “bad” or even “in between,” feminism becomes something one has to adhere to, thereby removing the ability to use feminism to develop individuality.

The most broad definition of feminism is the belief that women should have equal opportunities as men. Throughout history, many different movements have tackled this term and used it to represent their cause, leading to controversy over the actual definition of the word. In my opinion, it doesn’t matter how you practice your own feminism so long as you agree that men and women should have the same opportunities in life and the choice to act on their own will. The term “feminism” can be controversial when it comes to the merging of cultures, and modern feminism has adopted a persona that has been stereotyped to the belief that women are greater than men, and western ideals should be implemented to women around the world. This strict view of feminism should not override the beliefs of other feminists who do not believe their idea of what it means to be a free woman should be imposed on others. By defining the term, we are narrowing the broad array of views and opinions of many different people in many different cultures. It is easy to forget that women choose to live in certain ways based on religious or cultural reasons and to define such a broad movement would undermine the work that has been achieved throughout history. What is important is that men and women have the same opportunities to live the lives they choose without social, political, or cultural constructs getting in the way.  

Feminism doesn’t hold boundaries in its motive, it can be expressed and acknowledged in many ways and through a variety of people with different morals and backgrounds, irony grows with bashing other women in their take on the struggle of gender equality. At the end of the day, we need to treat individual material matters and motives from women in particular as distinct as possible. If a woman wants to wear a hijab let her be, if a woman wants to wear something sexy for her own sake or even for a heterosexual man let her be, at the end of the day these are pieces of cloth that an individual feels good in and should be treated as such-just cloth, instead of over interpreting a generalized motive you disagree with from a group of people. If a woman chooses to become a stripper or a prostitute, don’t assume it’s a strike against feminism. Instead of bashing a stripper perhaps turn the attention towards the crowd who is paying for it and putting this into existence. If a woman doesn’t want to befriend or date men let her be. If a “radical” feminist trans woman doesn’t want to shave anything but the top of her head let her be. If a woman planned her wedding two years in advance and doesn’t have a job let her be. I think none of these choices are directly anti-feminist, because they all serve as just that, choices. Feminism is used to increase the amount of opportunity and choices women can have without judgement or oppression. Questioning the authenticity of feminist motives because of how someone styled their hair today seems petty and almost insignificant among a bigger picture. How can we stop girl school bombings within third world countries while continuing to educate young people? Why are so many reproductive rights under question and organizations for it under attack? How can we break through rigid gender roles and open people’s minds into gearing more women into science and math careers? How can we dismantle unrealistic beauty standards of the western world? How can feminist rallies be more inclusive towards people of color? The choices women make followed by a generalized critique of a certain group of women is hurtful in the fight for equality. Informing others of the faults in the patriarchy can get more men and women on the same page, and the mere acknowledgement of gender inequalities can get the ball rolling. Knowing your disadvantages and privilege can help fight for your rights and the rights of others. The freedom of women and their choices has to be embraced by others to perpetuate that exact freedom, it’s the restrictions and guidelines that continue to limit and separate women in feminism.

[astroloquacious]

This!! Men are also negatively affected by the patriarchy!! They are also held to unrealistic body standards (patriarchal ideas of masculinity as a 6'3" jacked guy), and encouraged to emotionally neuter themselves (women can never show anger and must always be nice and accomodating, but men have to turn sadness or hurt into anger or another 'acceptible' masculine emotion), and they're pigeon-holed into specific gender roles and careers just like women (women are caretakers, men are breadwinners--- what if a dad WANTS to spend every day with his kids, what if he LIKES teaching or nursing or idk fucking knitting quilts for the art fair??). They are pressured into expressing their sexualities a specific way (men are expected to be hypersexual, they're expected to be heterosexual, they're expected to divorce emotions or sensuality from the act of sex and treat it like a number's game).

The patriarchy fucks over EVERYONE, because, no matter your gender, the patriarchy reduces us to 2-dimensional roles, and punishes anyone who steps outside those roles. Yes, women are 2ndary citizens under the patriarchy; but one of the ways that that's maintained is that men are threatened with BECOMING 2ndary citizens if they do not help uphold its structure. If they perform masculinity incorrectly, they are called "girly" not just because being feminine is allegedly an insult; it's also a warning. "If you do not uphold patriarchal masculinity correctly," the insult says, "you will be demoted and lumped in with the women, with the gays, and with others who failed to support the system."

There are legitimate grievances men, cis or trans, have with the patriarchy. The front-facing MRA/redpill movement's biggest disservice, I think, was convincing men that the problem was women/feminists, and convincing women/feminists that the problem was men. This is also why the TERF/"""gender critical""" movement has become so strong; because the understanding that, actually, strict gender roles limit ALL OF US got lost in the backlash.

The problem is we are 3-dimensional people in a system that expects us to make ourselves smaller in order to fit into 2-dimensional boxes. Regardless of our biological sex, regardless of our gender and whether we're cis or trans or nonbinary, gender essentialism HURTS. EVERYONE. AND. PUNISHES. THOSE. WHO. DON'T. CONFORM.

TL;DR fight the patriarchy, not each other.

I think 2016-style "Men's rights activist" misogyny really did a number on our ability to talk about gender online in ways that we have yet to fully unpack.

At this point everyone is so jaded from dealing with those trolls that any time a men's issue of any kind is brought up the kneejerk reaction is "ugh, this again! Reverse sexism doesn't exist!" even if nobody said anything about "reverse sexism."

That's how we got into a situation where a statement like "trans men and tranmascs face specific struggles and prejudices. Maybe we should have a word for that so we can talk about how it affects us" sets off the MRA Troll Alarm and gets everyone on the defensive.

[castrateurfate]

Patriarchate hurts men too huh? Does white supremacy hurt white people? Should we seek to end white supremacy to make life better for the poor white people? Homophobia hurts straight people too right? Why isn’t gay pride more focused on helping the straight victims of homophobia? It seems really exclusionary to not center oppressors in your activism.

Yes, patriarchy does in fact affect men. And white supremacy does affect white people too (Did we forget about European Jews? Again?). Homophobia is just an asset of patriarchy so yes, it does also affect men as well.

I never ONCE said that we should focus the fight for equality on oppressors. Not once.

I am merely pointing out that oppression isn't just individual things but an intersectional web that is the result of unjust hierarchies

Intersectionality is key to understanding how oppression forms in our society.

We shouldn't play fucking favorites like you pretend I'm doing, we should understand the scope that oppression has on all.

And patriarchy isn't just shoved down people's throats like a confused suppository by just men.

My own mother was the one who tried to enforce strict gender roles onto me from a young age, my father was the one who kept it to himself.

So not only is oppression intersectional but so are the oppressors.

You need to stop having such a black and white view on how oppression works. Maybe get off Twitter and read some Davis.