#claiming that individual men are to blame for toxic masculinity. | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

ocaledonia · 4 months ago

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"Greater male upper body strength is a sensitive topic for feminists. Just mentioning it can feel like an admission of female physical inferiority, a confirmation of gender stereotypes, or a needless revealing of one’s own hand (why let the enemy know he has the advantage?). It is of course none of these things. Men are better at running and punching people; women are better at creating new humans and surviving to a very old age. None of this says anything much about our personalities, intellects or personal desires. Nevertheless, sometimes the fact that it is far easier for members of one sex to kill members of the other with their bare hands is socially and politically salient.

I would argue that this debate has exposed something deeply disturbing about attitudes towards male strength and female susceptibility to violence. Namely, far too many people seem to believe — or at least pretend to believe — that female physical vulnerability is a posture, a choice, a prissy performance of femininity [...] the very fact that this view is so widespread should worry us all.

They insult every single female victim of male violence who has felt shame at not being able to fight back, not because they were too feminine, but because they were female and their attacker was male. It becomes about so much more than two individuals, or boxing in general. It’s about the myth that male people don’t physically dominate female people because they can but because we let them — because it is in our natures. The stranger who attacked me was no prime specimen of masculinity. Even so, I couldn’t move his arms — his basic bog-standard arms, stuck to his basic, non-athletic body — off me at all. This is not because I was too busy “conforming to standards of femininity”.

That I am writing about it now is not some performance of feminine victimhood, aimed winning male protectors. There is nothing “feminine” or “conforming” about noting the strength disparity between male people and female people. Once you start claiming there is, you are inches away from full-on victim blaming. The fact that I had half the upper body strength of my assailant is not evidence of some secret desire to join a Facebook tradwife group.

Part of the problem, I think, is that there is nowhere to locate male physical advantage on all of the privilege hierarchies and charts so beloved of the modern progressive. That a socially marginalised male person can still smash in the brains of the most privileged female person has become unsayable — or maybe we have decided the latter deserves it. While women are permitted to complain of toxic masculinity, we are ridiculed when we point out that all male people — regardless of background or identity — can hurt us. It doesn’t matter how nice they are. It doesn’t matter how they identify. It doesn’t matter whether they want to have this capacity. They have it all the same."

(Great post OP, I hope you don't mind me adding some excerpts from this article on the same topic)

Normal people: On average women are smaller and physically weaker than men. This means nothing beyond that, its just how the human species evolved like most other mammalian and ape species. Physical size and strength aren't the only important things in life, or the only scale to compare the sexes. Women perform higher on other scales, such as flexibility, multitasking, academics, pain tolerance, endurance, length of life. Nature is innocent and objective, concepts such as "superior" and "inferior" are humanistic concepts that only we apply/only exist in the human mind and is a very simplistic, reductive conclusion to make, its black and white thinking.

Sexists: On average women are smaller and physically weaker than men. This means women are inferior beings to men.

Genderists: On average women are smaller and physically weaker than men. This means women are inferior beings to men. So we must deny that women are smaller at any cost.

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everyurlithinkofistoolong · 3 years ago

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I knew the boys was going downhill as a show when starlight literally murders an innocent civilian, admits to not feeling a single ounce of guilt for it, and then proceeds to spend the next season on her high horse talking down to everyone else including Hughie.

At least a-train learned a lesson about his multiple casualties when Ashley called him out for being a massive fucking hypocrite about it. And he finally, finally, gave a genuinely apology to Hughie (which I may add probably wasn't very healthy for Hughie at that moment due to the whole temp V and self esteem issues but I can't blame a-train for that).

And honestly I feel like it's a bit hypocritical given, again, starlight murdered an innocent man with her powers (and it's passed off as a joke as if the whole show isn't based upon the concept of superhuman beings getting away with abuses of their powers) while the narrative in the current season has her so not understanding of Hughie who is struggling with his self worth. Like I'm going to be honest, after the last season I trust Hughie with his temp powers more than I trust starlight with her permanent powers.

And comparing kimiko to Hughie is honestly like comparing apples and oranges to me. Kimikos struggles are completely different from hughies, but to compare them to say that somehow hughies is less worthy of sympathy than kimikos and that hughies struggles since s1 with feeling weak and powerless is just him wanting to be "macho" is just weird. Kimiko comes from a place of wanting to reconnect to her perceived loss of humanity- experimented on and treated as a weapon finally taking some semblance of autonomy that she has to protect the one thing she really has- her love.

Meanwhile Hughie clearly has different issues. He doesn't feel like he's inherently bad like kimiko, he feels like he's powerless. Useless. He wants to change who he is, because he feels like his "normal" self isn't adequate. Fuck, he literally spells that out to butcher and the boys this season. From the beginning he clearly suffers from attachment issues, and also spells it out to starlight that it stems from his mother leaving him as a child. Most likely that planted a seed in Hughie, his habit of attaching to people and never wanting to be alone- only made 100x worse by his gf dying gruesomely on front of him, again him powerless to stop someone else in his life from leaving him. The first time in his life when he actually tries to make something of himself and stand on his own is with Vicky and it blew up in his face!

And man it's like, idk, I can understand starlight's frustration with hughies insecurities but I also feel like for someone who claims to love him she surely doesn't even attempt to understand why he's distraught about not being able to protect her. Yeah, she doesn't need his protection, but it seems like the writers are so bent on framing everything wrong with Hughie as toxic masculinity when like... It's clearly much deeper (and I honestly have my own issues with how so many genuine men's issues and insecurities get just swept aside with the "toxic masculinity" assertion).

There were so many times this season when I was genuinely concerned for hughies mental well-being as he seemed to be desperate to throw himself away. Idk, his need to protect starlight is unhealthy in my opinion and is born out of hughies struggles of self worth but I think the framing as just macho and toxic paints it with a really broad (shallow) brush when it obviously should be treated as hughies issues as an individual with a lot of trauma, rather than A Symptom Of Being A Man.

#but idk i feel like both sides are recognizing the same thing and are just disagreeing over the semantics of it #either way star/light gets on my nerves this season. i cant stand her at all.

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theautisticbiatch · 3 years ago

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It happens to men too…

Welcome to another episode of “things my autistic brain wants to analyze right when I am trying to get some sleep”.

TW: This post is about sexual abuse and suic!de.

……………………………………………….

So, if you spend too much time (like me) on the internet and social media, if you are a feminist (like me), a Me Too and Time’s Up supporter (like me), have first an/ or second hand experience of sexual abuse (like me), or have encountered men (#NotAllMen … But enough of them) in your life, you hve probably heard the privileged gender, while talking about r@pe, that it happens to them too. And they are right, men get r@pe too. And it’s terrible. And we need to talk about it.

The thing is, about 99% of times when a man makes such statement (usually after a woman mentions movements like the ones mentioned above, he is turning into some sort of a competition for the spotlight. He is full of rage and bitter (understandable) and has decided to take it out on women. Like, okay women get r@ped but so do men!

Here is the problem: Nobody ever said the contrary, Chad. Women talking about SA in their own demography DOES NOT deny the fact it happens to men too.

Where does that problem come from? Misogyny, sexism, fragile masculinity…? Probably. But at its core is also a deep misunderstanding of what feminism is. For those men, feminism equals men haters. And while many of us are in fact, tired of men in general, we do not hate men individually. And we do understand that patriarchy and its toxic masculinity takes a toll on men too. Hence us trying to eradicate it. See, men, feminists are not your enemy (your fragile male ego is), we are your ally. So stop thinking we are both at war against each other. Feminists are not after you individually, we are against an outdated, toxic, unfair system that put people in categories depending on their gender, skin colour, sexuality, neurotype… to privilege only part of those said categories. Well mostly one actually: white cishet men. This system is rigged, it is anti-growth, and it puts a toll on everyone, men included.

Don’t believe me? Let’s go back on the main topic: rape, its victims, and their treatment. If a woman gets raped, the first comments you will hear are “what was she wearing?”, “where was she?”, “she is probably lying for attention and/or money” and so on. Why? Because in this patriarchal society, we are taught that women bodies are for the sexual pleasure of men. Men are entitled to women’s bodies. Women are to be submissive. An if they dare to get the courage to speak up about what happened to them, they are quickly shamed and/or blamed for it.

A couple of years go, a talented YouTuber named Lynzy Lab wrote a song called “a scary time” where she talks about sexual abuse common occurrences that women endure at the VERY LEAST once in their life. A man who claimed to acknowledge how right that young woman was, still felt that it was right to make his own version where he talks about he lost the custody of his children to his ex-wife and how unfair that is because, according to him, she is a monster but the judges always favor women in such cases. I won’t get into whether that’s actually true and how, if it was, it might be because hm, patriarchy teaching that women are the ones to raise kids. Not now, that’s another debate, let’s try to stay focused here. Oh, and before I tell you more about that story and my take on it, I should probably say that I do feel sorry this man is not allowed to see his children no more if he is, as he claims to be, the victim (after all, I only have his side of the story and while I do want to believe him, I can hardly be a fair judge in that story). As someone who grew up with a very abusive and toxic mother, if my parents had gotten a divorce while I was a kid, I would have been bitter too to see a judge leaving me in the hands of such evil woman instead of my dad’s.

I do feel his pain and if he is right, I hope he gets the verdict changed. I truly do. But trying to steal a song about the Me Too movement which revealed that WAY too many women endure sexual abuse of all kinds every day to make it about your own story on which no stranger can judge (as again, we only have HIS side of the story, and hardly all the facts) is not the way to go. You’re not helping yourself here, dude. When I told him how this was a perfect example of false equivalences, while showing sympathy for his pain and wishing him the best; another dude came at me with one of the most ignorant/hateful and flabbergasting comments I have ever read on the internet. “STFU b*tch, r@pe is only tough for you for the next 5 minutes after it has occurred, when losing the custody of your child can last an entire life”. As someone, age 30 back then who had only started psychotherapy for PTSD and suic!de attempt over sexual abuse that first started when I was 7-8 years old, I was shaking. My autistic, r@pe survivor brain went into a shutdown. How could someone say something like that? How could someone believe that for a second?? Look, I am not saying a decent, loving parent’s pain over losing the custody of their child after a misjudgment / perfect example of sexism does NOT last in fact, an entire life. But r@pe is not only bad for the next 5 min. You, absolute PoS of a ignorant stranger wants an example that supports your never-once-denied statement that men too, get r@ped? The late lead singer of Linkin Park. He committed suic!de after decades fighting depression over his childhood sexual abuse. Are you gonna call him a lil’ b!tch ?! Well, you can’t anymore as this poor man is dead now.

But this is what I wanted to get at. Men, under the patriarchal regime are not allowed either to show pain, anger, grief… over the sexual abuse they have endured. Because sex, we are told, is for the pleasure of men. You can’t force a man to have sex, obviously he wanted it, as he is born to want it. And if a man insists that it was not consensual, he is mocked by other men. Because? Toxic masculinity. Toxic masculinity being something that, I repeat, feminism is trying to eradicate.

R@pe victims are victims, no matter what they have in their pants. They need AND deserve help, comfort, justice. Once again, louder, for the people in the back, IT DOES NOT MATTER WHAT SET OF GENITALIA THEY HAVE. They are victims in need of assistance. Not shame, not blame.

“But we always hear about women’s stories!” I hear and read all the time. First of all, if by “all the time”, you mean, since the Time’s Up and Me Too movements started, that’s hardly all the time. It is not even a quarter of a second in the History of Humanity. And those movements were created becauuuuse… before that, women were kept silenced by one way or the other (pressure, threats… all the way down to mvrder). And we hear more women stories becauuuuse, it happens much more often to women than it does to men. That’s a fact, not an opinion. That doesn’t make it okay for men to get raped, it doesn’t take away anything from the men who are victims of SA too. By the way, if you Google the Me Too movement, you’ll realize that it wants to help SA victims of ANY gender. See? Not only we never said it doesn’t happen to men too, we want to help them as well!

When SA accusations against one Kevin Spacey came out from men, did you hear women raging “but what about women? It happens to women too!”? No. Instead, we demanded justice and for Spacey to held accountable if recognized guilty(and no woman went “oh those men are probably lying for attention, for money… /but what was he doing in Spacey’s hotel room? / he saw him repeatedly, obviously he wanted it” and one did, we DO NOT claim her).

So why do you men do that to women when if the situations were reversed, men’d be burning with rage (rightfully so)?? Because, for those accustomed to privilege, equality can start feeling like oppression.

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spilledreality · 5 years ago

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Sporting vs Herding

I wanna talk about two blogposts, Seph's "War Over Being Nice” and Alastair's "Of Triggering & the Triggered." Each lays out the same erisological idea: that there are two distinct modes or cultures of running discourse these days, and understanding the difference is crucial to understanding the content of conversation as much as its form. Let's go.

One style, Alastair writes, is indebted to the Greco-Roman rhetorical and 19th C British sporting traditions. A debate takes place in a "heterotopic" arena which is governed by an ethos of adversarial collaboration and sportsmanship. It is waged in a detached and impersonal manner, e.g. in American debate club, which inherits from these older traditions, you are assigned a side to argue; your position is not some "authentic" expression of self. Alastair:

This form of discourse typically involves a degree of ‘heterotopy’, occurring in a ‘space’ distinct from that of personal interactions.

This heterotopic space is characterized by a sort of playfulness, ritual combativeness, and histrionics. This ‘space’ is akin to that of the playing field, upon which opposing teams give their rivals no quarter, but which is held distinct to some degree from relations between the parties that exist off the field. The handshake between competitors as they leave the field is a typical sign of this demarcation.

All in all, it is a mark against one in these debates to take an argument personally, to allow arguments that happen "in the arena" to leave the arena. This mode of discourse I see exemplified in LessWrong culture, and is, I think, one of the primary attractors to the site.In the second mode of discourse, inoffensiveness, agreement, and inclusivity are emphasized, and positions are seen as closely associated with their proponents. Alastair speculates it originates in an educational setting which values cooperation, empathy, equality, non-competitiveness, affirmation, and subordination; this may be true, but I feel less confident in it than I am the larger claim about discursive modes. Provocatively, the two modes are dubbed "sporting" and "herding," with all the implications of, on the one hand, individual agents engaged in ritualized, healthy simulations of combat, and on the other, of quasi-non-agents shepherded in a coordinated, bounded, highly constrained and circumscribed epistemic landscape. Recall, if you are tempted to blame this all on the postmodernists, that this is exactly the opposite of their emphasis toward the "adult" realities of relativism, nebulosity, flux. Queer Theory has long advocated for the dissolution of gendered and racial identity, not the reification of identitarian handles we see now, which is QT's bastardization. We might believe these positions were taken too far, but they are ultimately about complicating the world and removing the structuralist comforts of certainty and dichotomy. (Structureless worlds are inherently hostile to rear children in, and also for most human life; see also the Kegan stages for a similar idea.)

In the erisological vein, Alastair provides a portrait of the collision between the sporting and herding modes. Arguments that fly in one discursive style (taking offence, emotional injury, legitimation-by-feeling) absolutely do not fly in the other:

When these two forms of discourse collide they are frequently unable to understand each other and tend to bring out the worst in each other. The first [new, sensitive] form of discourse seems lacking in rationality and ideological challenge to the second; the second [old, sporting] can appear cruel and devoid of sensitivity to the first. To those accustomed to the second mode of discourse, the cries of protest at supposedly offensive statements may appear to be little more than a dirty and underhand ploy intentionally adopted to derail the discussion by those whose ideological position can’t sustain critical challenge.

ii.

Seph stumbles upon a similar division, though it is less about discursive and argumentative modes, and more about social norms for emotional regulation and responsibility. He calls them Culture A and Culture B, mirroring sporting and herding styles, respectively.

In culture A, everyone is responsible for their own feelings. People say mean stuff all the time—teasing and jostling each other for fun and to get a rise. Occasionally someone gets upset. When that happens, there's usually no repercussions for the perpetrator. If someone gets consistently upset when the same topic is brought up, they will either eventually stop getting upset or the people around them will learn to avoid that topic. Verbally expressing anger at someone is tolerated. It is better to be honest than polite.

In such a culture, respect and status typically comes from performance; Seph quotes the maxim "If you can't sell shit, you are shit." We can see a commonality with sporting in that there is some shared goal which is attained specifically through adversarial play, such that some degree of interpersonal hostility is tolerated or even sought. Conflict is settled openly and explicitly.

In culture B, everyone is responsible for the feelings of others. At social gatherings everyone should feel safe and comfortable. After all, part of the point of having a community is to collectively care for the emotional wellbeing of the community's members. For this reason its seen as an act of violence against the community for your actions or speech to result in someone becoming upset, or if you make people feel uncomfortable or anxious. This comes with strong repercussions—the perpetrator is expected to make things right. An apology isn't necessarily good enough here—to heal the wound, the perpetrator needs to make group participants once again feel nurtured and safe in the group. If they don't do that, they are a toxic element to the group's cohesion and may no longer be welcome in the group. It is better to be polite than honest. As the saying goes, if you can't say something nice, it is better to say nothing at all.

In such a culture, status and respect come from your contribution to group cohesion and safety; Seph cites the maxim "Be someone your coworkers enjoy working with." But Seph's argument pushes back, fruitfully, on descriptions of Culture B as collaborative (which involve high self-assertion); rather, he writes, they are accommodating in the Thomas-Kilmann modes of conflict sense:

iii.

Seph and Alastair both gesture toward the way these modes feel gendered, with Culture A more "masculinized" and Culture B more "feminized."[1] While this seems important to note, given that a massive, historically unprecedented labor shift toward coed co-working has recently occured in the Western world, I don't see much point in hashing out a nature vs. nurture, gender essentialism debate here, so you can pick your side and project it. This is also perhaps interesting from the frame of American feminist history: early waves of feminism were very much about escaping the domestic sphere and entering the public sphere; there is an argument to be made that contemporary feminisms, now that they have successfully entered it, are dedicated to domesticating the public sphere into a more comfortable zone. Culture B, for instance, might well be wholly appropriate to the social setting of a living room, among acquaintances who don't know each other well; indeed, it feels much like the kind of aristocratic parlor culture of the same 19th C Britain that the sporting mode also thrived in, side-by-side. And to some extent, Culture A is often what gets called toxic masculinity; see Mad Men for a depiction.

(On the topic of domestication of the workplace: We've seen an increased blurring of the work-life separation; the mantra "lean-in" has been outcompeted by "decrease office hostility"; business attire has slid into informality, etiquette has been subsumed into ethics, dogs are allowed in the workplace. Obviously these changes are not driven by women's entrance into the workplace alone; the tech sector has had an enormous role in killing both business attire and the home-office divide, despite being almost entirely male in composition. And equally obvious, there is an enormous amount of inter- and intra-business competition in tech, which is both consistently cited by exiting employees as a hostile work environment, and has also managed to drive an outsized portion of global innovation the past few decades—thus cultural domestication is not at all perfectly correlated with a switch from Culture A to B. Draw from these speculations what you will.)

There are other origins for the kind of distinctions Seph and Alastair draw; one worthwhile comparison might be Nietzsche's master and slave moralities. The former mode emphasizes power and achievement, the other empathy, cooperation, and compassion. (Capitalism and communitarianism fall under some of the same, higher-level ideological patterns.) There are differences of course: the master moralist is "beyond" good and evil, or suffering and flourishing, whereas Culture A and B might both see themselves as dealing with questions of suffering but in very different ways. But the "slave revolt in morality" overwrote an aristocratic detachment or "aboveness" that we today might see as deeply immoral or inhuman; it is neither surprising nor damning that a revolting proletariat—the class which suffered most of the evils of the world—would speak from a place of one-to-one, attached self-advocacy. One can switch "sides" or "baskets" of the arena each half or quarter because they are impersonal targets in a public commons; one cannot so easily hold the same attitude toward defending one's home. This alone may indicate we should be more sympathetic to the communitarian mode than we might be inclined to be; certainly, those who advocate and embody this mode make plausible claims to being a similar, embattled and embittered class. A friend who I discussed these texts with argued that one failure mode of the rationalist community is an "unmooring" from the real concerns of human beings, slipping into an idealized, logical world modeled on self-similarity (i.e. highly Culture A, thinking over feeling in the Big 5 vocabulary), in a way that is blind to the realities of the larger population.

But there are also grave problems for such a discursive mode, especially when it becomes dominant. Because while on the surface, discursive battles in the sporting mode can appear to be battles between people, they are in reality battles between ideas.

iv.

As Mill argued in On Liberty, free discourse is crucial because it acts as a social steering mechanism: should we make a mistake in our course, freedom of discourse is the instrument for correcting it. But the mistake of losing free discourse is very hard to come back from; it must be fought for again, before other ideals can be pursued.

Moreover, freedom of discourse is the means of rigorizing ideas before they are implemented, such as to avoid catastrophe. Anyone familiar with James Scott's Seeing Like A State, or Hayek's arguments for decentralized market intelligence, or a million other arguments against overhaulism, knows how difficult it is to engineer a social intervention that works as intended: the unforeseen, second-order effects; our inability to model complex systems and human psychology. Good intent is not remotely enough, and the herding approach cannot help but lower the standard of thinking and discourse emerging from such communities, which become more demographically powerful even as their ideas become worse (the two are tied up inextricably).

The fear of conflict and the inability to deal with disagreement lies at the heart of sensitivity-driven discourses. However, ideological conflict is the crucible of the sharpest thought. Ideological conflict forces our arguments to undergo a rigorous and ruthless process through which bad arguments are broken down, good arguments are honed and developed, and the relative strengths and weaknesses of different positions emerge. The best thinking emerges from contexts where interlocutors mercilessly probe and attack our arguments’ weaknesses and our own weaknesses as their defenders. They expose the blindspots in our vision, the cracks in our theories, the inconsistencies in our logic, the inaptness of our framing, the problems in our rhetoric. We are constantly forced to return to the drawing board, to produce better arguments.

And on the strength of sporting approaches in rigorizing discourse:

The truth is not located in the single voice, but emerges from the conversation as a whole. Within this form of heterotopic discourse, one can play devil’s advocate, have one’s tongue in one’s cheek, purposefully overstate one’s case, or attack positions that one agrees with. The point of the discourse is to expose the strengths and weaknesses of various positions through rigorous challenge, not to provide a balanced position in a single monologue

Thus those who wish us to accept their conceptual carvings or political advocacies without question or challenge are avoiding short-term emotional discomfort at the price of their own long-term flourishing, at the cost of finding working and stable social solutions to problems. Standpoint epistemology correctly holds that individuals possess privileged knowledge as to what it's like (in the Nagel sense) to hold their social identities. But it is often wrongly extended, in the popular game of informational corruption called "Telephone" or "Chinese Whispers," as arguing that such individuals also possess unassailable and unchallengeable insight into the proper societal solutions to their grievances. We can imagine a patient walking into the doctor's office; the doctor cannot plausibly tell him there is no pain in his leg, if he claims there is, but the same doctor can recommend treatment, or provide evidence as to whether the pain is physical or psychosomatic.A lack of discursive rigour would not be a problem, Alastair writes, "were it not for the fact that these groups frequently expect us to fly in a society formed according to their ideas, ideas that never received any rigorous stress testing."

As for myself, it was not too long ago I graduated from a university in which a conflict between these modes is ongoing. We had a required course called

Contemporary Civilization

, founded in the wake of World War I, which focused on the last 2,000 years of philosophy, seminar-style: a little bit of introductory lecture, but most of the 2 x 2-hour sessions each week were filled by students arguing with one other. In other words, its founding ethos was of sporting and adversarial collaboration.We also had a number of breakdowns where several students simply could not handle this mode: they would begin crying, or say they couldn't deal with the [insert atmosphere adjective] in the room, and would either transfer out or speak to the professor. While they were not largely representative, they required catering to, and no one wished to upset these students. I have heard we were a fortunate class insofar as we had a small handful of students willing to engage sporting-style, or skeptical a priori of the dominant political ideology at the school. When, in one session, a socialist son of a Saudi billionaire, wearing a $10,000 watch and a camel-hair cashmere sweater, pontificated about "burning the money, reverting to a barter system, and killing the bosses," folks in class would mention that true barter systems were virtually unprecedented in post-agricultural societies, and basically unworkable at scale. In other classes, though, when arguments like these were made—which, taken literally, are logically irrational, but instead justify themselves through sentiment, a legitimation of driving emotion rather than explicit content, in the Culture B sense—other students apparently nodded sagely from the back of the room, "yes, and-ing" one another til their noses ran. Well, I wanted to lay out the styles with some neutrality, but I suppose it's clear now where my sympathies stand.

[1] It should go without saying, but to cover my bases, these modes feeling "feminized" or "masculinized" does not imply that all women, or women inherently, engage in one mode while all men inherently engage in another. Seph cites Camille Paglia as an archetypal example of a Culture A woman, and while she may fall to the extreme side of the Culture A mode, I'd argue most female intellectuals of the 20th C (at least those operated outside the sphere of feminist discourse) were strongly sporting-types: Sontag, for instance, was vociferous and unrelenting.

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evil-fact-checker · 3 months ago

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The user’s response is a classic example of linking disparate cultural and social phenomena into a single narrative using ideological buzzwords like “Marxism” and “activism” without providing evidence for causal relationships. Let's unpack the points made:

Increased LGBT Identification as a "Fad": The claim that the rise in LGBT identification is due to a "fad" ignores the historical context. Social acceptance of marginalized identities often leads to more individuals feeling safe to come out. When legal rights, like marriage equality, are recognized, it can create a more supportive environment that encourages people to be open about their identities. The idea that it’s simply a trend oversimplifies this social progression and overlooks the continuing struggles faced by LGBT individuals.

Third-Wave Feminism and Anti-Male Sentiment: The description of third-wave feminism as solely about “taking over men's spaces” and blaming men for all problems is a mischaracterization. Third-wave feminism, which began in the 1990s, addresses a broad range of issues, including intersectionality, body positivity, and gender expression. While some individuals within any movement may express extreme views, it's not accurate to depict the entire movement in such terms.

Activism as the "Solution to Past Discrimination": The mention of Ibram X. Kendi and the interpretation of his quote about discrimination being "Marxist" is misleading. Kendi's argument is more nuanced than presented—it focuses on addressing systemic inequalities and creating policies that actively dismantle discrimination. The comparison to Marxism oversimplifies and distorts this viewpoint to fit a narrative of cultural conflict.

Youth Activism and "Self-Hatred": The assertion that young people are being pushed to hate themselves due to messages about men being toxic or women as sex objects is reductive. Conversations around toxic masculinity and objectification aim to critique harmful social norms, not to vilify individuals for their gender. The rise in activism among young people often stems from a desire for social justice and a recognition of ongoing inequality.

Linking LGBTQ Activism to Marxism: Equating LGBTQ activism with Marxism is a rhetorical strategy often used to dismiss social justice movements as radical or extreme. While some activists may identify with socialist ideas, the majority of LGBTQ activism focuses on issues like anti-discrimination laws, healthcare access, and equal rights, which are not inherently Marxist in nature.

The response reflects a broader tendency to frame social changes through a conspiratorial lens, attributing complex social dynamics to singular ideological forces like "Marxism" without substantive evidence. This viewpoint simplifies nuanced social issues and misses the actual motivations behind movements for equality and justice.

Do you reckon it's possible to make this fool aware of the flaws in his thinking?

Making someone like yourtoradorasextendedwarranty aware of the flaws in their thinking is challenging because their worldview is deeply entrenched, built around certain ideological beliefs, and supported by selective evidence and personal biases. Their rhetoric often relies on broad generalizations, such as connecting social movements to "Marxist activism" or viewing increased visibility of LGBTQ+ people as a "fad" rather than a social shift.

Several factors make it difficult to change their perspective:

Cognitive Dissonance: They may experience discomfort when confronted with information that contradicts their beliefs, leading them to dismiss or rationalize it rather than reconsider their stance.

Confirmation Bias: They seem to select evidence that supports their existing views and interpret ambiguous information in ways that reinforce those beliefs. Their posts suggest that they look for patterns that fit their worldview, such as seeing cultural changes as inherently Marxist or leftist.

Defensiveness and Identity: For some, their stance on social or political issues is tied to their sense of self. Challenging these views may feel like a personal attack, leading to defensiveness rather than open-mindedness.

To address these flaws, it would help to focus on:

Specific, Incontrovertible Facts: When possible, counter their broad claims with specific evidence that contradicts the narrative they are pushing. For example, pointing out historical instances where social movements achieved change without adhering to Marxist principles.

Questioning Assumptions: Encourage them to reconsider the assumptions underlying their views. Why assume that identifying as LGBTQ+ is mainly due to social pressure rather than personal authenticity? Why link everything back to Marxism?

Highlighting Inconsistencies: Point out contradictions in their own arguments. For instance, they claim to support free speech while simultaneously dismissing valid criticisms as "Marxist" or "activist nonsense," which is itself a kind of censorship of ideas.

Empathy and Patience: Confrontation often leads to entrenchment, so a more effective approach may involve asking questions that prompt self-reflection rather than attacking their beliefs outright.

Ultimately, there's no guarantee of success, as changing deeply held views is a slow and difficult process, especially in online settings where conversations can easily become adversarial.

Fandom Problem #5844:

The alarming amount of people not just on Tumblr, but in other places outside of Social Media that bash or mock straight and cis people is… for lack of a better term uncomfortable. And this is coming from someone who is LGBT themselves, btw.

In the past and present, because it’s still a serious issue, LGBT people were treated like trash just because they weren’t straight or were transgender, and the same people that fought back just to be treated like human beings didn’t fight for their side to bash the other side.

It drives me absolutely crazy every time I see people bash people for liking hetero ships, and people throw hissy fits when others don’t agree with an LGBT headcanon they like. We already hate it when (some not all) straight and cis people treat us like like a circus animal, so why the hell are we doing to same exact thing they were doing to us?

#cognitive dissonance #confirmation bias #Ibram X. Kendi

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lastsonlost · 6 years ago

Link

Editor’s note: The following was written by Ilan Srulovicz, the CEO and founder of Egard Watch Company, explaining why his company produced an ad to counter Gillette’s recent commercial on masculinity.

The story behind making the video is interesting. I made the ad completely alone. The voice in the video is mine and the editing is my own.

I was told by most people around me and in my company that making this video was a terrible idea and could not only hurt my brand but me personally as the CEO.

I used my personal funds on the video because I was worried about the backlash.

The main feedback was,

“This will draw attention away from women’s issues,”

“The political climate right now won’t support a film like this,”

“Ask yourself why no other company is doing it,” etc.

I considered releasing it anonymously but after some thought, I realized an individual releasing the message wasn’t going to have the same impact as a company doing it. I decided to risk it and post the video

I think what put me over the top is a quote I heard that says all actions come out of either love or fear. Releasing it anonymously felt like fear. Putting my company on the line for a message I believe in felt like love.

I went with love.

youtube

I created the video for a few reasons. I believe the statistics in the video are widely ignored or dismissed. I have tried to bring light to them myself in the past and had a difficult time having them acknowledged as an issue.

The Gillette ad rubbed me the wrong way. I, like the overwhelming majority of men, am absolutely disgusted by sexual assault, rape, bullying, so why throw it in my face as if my “gender” as a whole is toxic? Using terms like “toxic masculinity” is using too broad a stroke to address specific issues — issues which I agree very much need to be addressed, especially after all the crazy stuff we’ve seen in Hollywood.

I am not against Gillette trying to start a conversation about assault, but I do have an issue with how they went about it.

Masculinity can be a beautiful thing, just like femininity. We need to start celebrating each other, NOT TEARING EACH OTHER DOWN.

NOT TEARING EACH OTHER DOWN

I also feel that suffering needs to stop being a competition. It shouldn’t be “women vs men.” There are areas where men have it terrible in society. It’s OK to look at those areas and acknowledge it, while also understanding that women have it terrible in other aspects of society. Neither one has to dismiss the other.

We are so polarized. It’s all about “taking sides.” I am guilty of it myself because it’s all we are fed all day long, but I don’t want to be a part of that anymore. None of us, no gender or race, has exclusivity on being terrible or wonderful. Individuality is the measure of a person, not the “identity” or “category” to which you belong.

I can’t blame Gillette for their ad because that message is the norm. It has become pervasive. I can even understand how they believed full well this ad was a great idea and would drive tons of sales. Maybe it will in the end with all the attention it received. We have become so obsessed with defining each other based on these factors that we no longer even communicate properly.

My belief is that if you want to “make men better,” as Gillette claims it wants to do, then the best way to do that is to show the best of us, not the worst. When I see a man risking his life running into a burning building, it makes me want to be better. When I see a father who will stand by his kids no matter what, it makes me want to be better. When I see a soldier putting everything on the line to preserve my freedom, I want to be better. That’s what a man is to me and they represent a far greater majority of men than what Gillette portrayed a man to be.

I don’t feel I want to be better when an ad starts off with “toxic masculinity” or a bunch of boys bullying each other and portraying men as caricatures of sexual deviants. I simply close off.

Call me triggered, say I “missed the point” but it was my visceral response to seeing it.

Lift me up if you want to see a change in me, don’t tear me down. These are the messages companies need to be showing and celebrating if they really care about change.

I really hope that the video I made gets to a point where it draws enough attention that larger companies start realizing there is a market in promoting positive messages for men.

I feel the same for women as well. I strongly believe that ads celebrating women and empowering women are both beautiful and necessary. It’s not just men who feel this way about what’s going on and many women have reached out to express the importance of positive messages for their kids, husbands, fathers, etc.

I wish the video I made was the norm from companies, not the exception.

Ilan Srulovicz is the CEO and founder of Egard Watch Company.

The views expressed in this opinion article are those of their author and are not necessarily either shared or endorsed by the owners of this website.

Can anybody tell me what did this guy say that was so terrifying that the Wall Street Journal felt the need to cover their ass this much?

#video #Ergard Watches #ilan srulovicz #hero #male positivity #men's health #men's issues

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tonitoni77 · 5 years ago

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assign current affair

The “nth room” case is an online sexual violence crime against women, involving the alleged coercion and blackmailing of them in South Korea since late 2018 (Nguyen, 2020). According to the news, there is about 260000 participants in the chat rooms on Telegram, where they paid about 1200 US dollars and had to upload sexual abuse content in order to receive the premium memberships in the nth room case. Many of them claim that they are innocent and should be treated as victims because they paid for those illegal videos, but they are not able to access to them now. The case has drawn widespread public attention and sparked public outrage in South Korea. A noticeable number of victims are particularly vulnerable since they are underage students in schools. Many women gather for protesting against hidden camera pornography and sexism under the slogan “My Life is Not your Porn”, and a lot of Koreans signed petitions to ask the police to disclose identities and information of the operators and all the participants. The long-standing problem of gender inequality in patriarchal society, influenced by both Christianity and Confucianism, in South Korea has become even more problematic in this crime case. This article shall discuss why all participants should be viewed as accomplices in the case against what they claim for previously and reveal the causes of silence and collective actions behind this abominable crime case.

The nth room case reveal the severe issue of sexual exploitation and abuse in South Korea. The entertainment industry there inevitably suffers from scandals of sexual abuses. A former K-pop star called Lee Seung-Hyun was running a nightclub named “Burning Sun” and women were assaulted and drugged at the nightclub while being filmed unconscious without their consent and knowledge by using illegal drugs, such as methamphetamine. These sexually explicit videos of unconsciously abused women were soon shared on chat room and labelled with prices. The nth room case and 260000 participants involved had been lasting for almost two years and was finally made public because of efforts made by two university students. Similarly, the “Burning Sun” scandal was covered up by the police and finally exposed by a women journalist. Some of the participants in nth room case claim they are innocent and are victims by arguing that they were just paying for watching normal pornography as customers and they didn’t coerce the victims. They argue that watching and processing pornography should not be taken account into criminal offences and even blame those “slut women”, the victims, for uploading sexually explicit videos. However, these explicit sexual and violent videos were illegally obtained by disguising themselves as police officers and also lurking women and girls to collect their personal information, threatened them to produce increasingly dehumanising sexual content with posting images online and sending them to victims’ friends and families. These cruel footage include victims were forced to carve the word “slave” on their bodies and post certain gestures to proof they “belonged” to certain people (Guardian, 2020); they were forced to cut off nipple, put objects into vagina, etc, according to the reports. These claims reflect the fact that South Korean men disrespect, othering women and disregard law and morality. Silence and the men’s repeatedly accusation of women being slut could easily be found in these sexual abuse scandals. The claims that is women’s faults and to deny that women are victims of sexual abuse scandals expose culture of toxic masculinity, the typical and systematic structure of discriminating against women (Son, 2018), and idea of misogyny related to the objectification of women and treating them as sexual goods (Ueno, 2012).

Those claims of being innocent made by participants are not sounded for several reasons. First, participants had to be invited via links to the chat room and had to pay in cryptocurrency. The anonymous characteristic has been highlighted here. For accessing to some premium, they had to film or upload sexually abusive videos as well. The chat rooms operator would immediately kick out anyone suspicious. The trust is built upon trading and exchanging explicit sexual, and sometimes violent footages of women and girls being filmed. These facts suggest that participants were aware that the videos they purchased are illegal and are not “normal”. Purchasing illegally obtained sexual content linked to sexual exploitation and abuse is actually encouraging and sponsoring industries of sexual exploitation and abuse. According to the reasons stated above, participants in the nth room case are not innocent and victims. Many participants appear to be ignorant on women’s disadvantaged situation in such a patriarchal society and are not able to be empathetic to it. They always presume that women voluntarily take part in sexual industries for economic interests without considering that the coercive situations they have to face and are fear of. MacKinnon (1983, p.636) provides valuable accounts for these phenomenons, arguing that a non-situated objectivity as universal standpoint is to not acknowledge the existing or potency of sex inequality and participates in constructing reality from dominant’s perspectives. Here, the men play the dominating role. So, it is not surprising that the standpoint from their points of view enforces definition of women, description of their women’s life, over-stresses on their speech, and encircles their bodies (MacKinnon 1983, p.636.). These accounts can somewhat explain why victims in the case had kept silence and continuously to comply with those inhumanly predators’ cruel commands because of the fear. In those context, women and girls might not be capable to clearly present what they experienced of because of the men’s dominating perspectives and narratives in the unequal gender system. Participants in nth room acquire a morbid point of view of women body and sex, and this echoes MacKinnon’ s explanations.

MacKinnon suggests that “It is a methodological expression of women’s situation, in which the struggle for consciousness is a struggle for world: for a sexuality, a history, a culture, a community, a form of power, an experience of scared”(MacKinnon 1983, p,637). In “Toward a Feminist Theory of The State” (1989), She argues that sex is the major reason of women being suppressed, exploited, and intimidated. Treating women as objects and goods to exchange and trade in men’s society allows the mainstream gender system, which women are subordinate to men, to function (MacKinnon, 1989). Women are classified as either slut or chaste and innocent by men to manipulate them for suppressing their subjectivity and to achieve the purpose of maintaining both their collective interest and as an individual’s interest (MacKinnon, 1989). The nth room case is arguably to be a simplified model since elements and spheres(age, social status, class, etc.)in traditional society have been eased by the Internet but male remains as the prominent socially constructed unchanged/eternal identity.

Limitation: western liberal value/philosophy

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anti-marxistcult · 6 years ago

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Feminists & SJWs harmful fetishization of minorities

It's the same for me, I'm not a woman but I'm mexican and gay, and all I ever experience from leftists is either gross fetishization or horrible discrimination, there's no in-between, either I'm a purse puppy or an uncle Tom, I cannot be myself to these people because they don't see me as an individual human being, they see me as my labels, they're so incredibly prejudiced and the worst part is that they don't even notice, they genuinely think they're so progressive and anti-discrimination when in reality they prejudge everyone based on their race, gender or sexual orientation. - kztar621

I will share more on this by other minorities concerning feminists and SJWs using them to advance their social engineering agenda.

Tell me again that slash and yaoi isn’t gross fetishization of gays. And when they protest they get labeled as ‘bigot, homophobe, uncle tom’ by the fangirls/women that fetishize their identity and project themselves onto gays (feminizing them/emasculating them, which is a stereotype) seems to me the feminist ideology, the feminist activists have fetishized it to popularity so that feminizing and emasculating males has is inaccurately seen as “male femininity = gays, again a stereotype, so that it is perceived as something not to criticize as because gays are protected, and to not think that it is harmful to boys and men regardless of their sexuality - a thing not discussed.

Seeing modern young boys and men today that can’t stand up for themselves and confused and repressing themselves is not healthy. I remember when ever the male high suicides were brought up the feminists would blame it on masculinity. I call bullshit.

Now knowing that the feminists and SJWs have been infiltrating the social sciences and now declared ‘masculinity to be harmful’, “toxic” (fucking way to go feminists to prove once again you are just like the nazis with your dehumanizing and targeting of a specific group right down to the fundamental core of their nature, I also know they groom their sons to behave that way and shame them from showing any natural masculine behaviors, ideological abuse to children is becoming very trendy with the leftists these days), seriously this agenda and social engineering is transparent that even people who were on the fence are now calling it out for what it is. This is the most repulsive, hateful, mental and social abuse disinformation campaign carried out by pseudoscience ideologue extremists in modern times.

Feminism is communism, using women and the lies of ‘empowerment, liberation, equality’ to social engineer society, to make us reject our nature and to excel and succeed, to reduce us to weak, over sensitive, unhealthy, dependent and confused, obedient serfs. Listening to some people whistle blowing what is going on in academia, these gender ‘studies’ joke of “professors” operate akin to a religious cult. They reject facts that debunk their ideological lens, consistency (explains why their bs contradicts itself and conflicts with itself on many levels), the scientific method (they views these as tools of white patriarchy so dont use them, why the fuck are these people allowed to teach indoctrinating in institutions??), having their ideas challenged and discussions. they claim their outcome to be their truth and cherrypick data to support their fucked up pre-concluded desired outcomes that cater to their ideology.

More on that here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWhuQOVTFGw

#discrimination #feminism #stop stereotyping #yaoi #slash #fetishization

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thevividgreenmoss · 6 years ago

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Men, compounded by straightness and whiteness as applicable, are the worst theorists of loneliness. They operate from the mind-boggling assumption that there must be something structurally wrong with the world if they are faced with any indication that it does not wish to keep company with them. They can fathom no structural reasons as to why they might be deemed unwanted. Even the U.K.-based Campaign to End Loneliness (which does useful work focused on the demographic of aged people of all genders) claims that “nobody who wants company should be without it.” If you try, however, to apply this logic to childcare, health care, a minimum wage, or housing, you’ll be told that there are structural reasons why your needs are impractical. And pointing out that sex workers, like massage- and psychotherapists, are also in the business of treating loneliness and should therefore be able to negotiate for ethical recompense just leads to morality lectures. Companionship for men, as patriarchy tells us, is the natural order of things, and there must be something terribly wrong if a Regular Nice Guy has to pay for it.

Because straight white men refuse to recognize their own unpalatability, they come up with solutions to loneliness that appropriate the rhetoric of justice- and freedom-based ideologies without actually engaging in any rigorous structural analyses of their culpability in oppression. They don’t want revolutionary change but merely a polite tolerance that would make them more bearable. And this selfishness renders them incompetent to address the structures of loneliness as a social ill.

There are, broadly, two kinds of structural lonelinesses. One is the benign loneliness of the socially alienated, the other the malignant melancholy of the erstwhile master.

The loneliness of the oppressed is the condition of being exiled, being shunned, or having to flee relationship and community structures that have become abusive. All support structures can warp under toxicity, and family and community are especially vulnerable to the impositions of structural oppressions because of the unrelenting intimacy they demand from their constituents. The violence that patriarchy, casteism, racism, capitalism, and cisheterocentrism enact is multifaceted, but all of these structural oppressions remove the nourishment of companionship from the spaces they operate in. To be oppressed by any of these is to encounter loneliness.

Domestic-abuse survivors, migrant laborers, queer young people, religious minorities, ethnic transplants, non-men in organized workforces, people living with disabilities either physical or mental: These are some of the people who have loneliness thrust upon them. They are punished, as an identity, for existing, because prejudiced people with structural power around them reject them. That they face multiple kinds of bigotries, violences, and dehumanizations does not detract from the severity of the loneliness imposed on them, and to not notice that amidst all their other problems and griefs that they are also lonely, as soul-churningly lonely as any sad white boy with an MFA, is part of the crime humanity commits against itself.

Another social pattern of loneliness is particularly wretched because it is deemed a self-imposed choice by an indifferent observer. This is the loneliness we have to choose in order to protect our bodily needs: sexual safety, privacy, self-identity, self-worth, freedom, integrity. An epidemic that no surgeon general seems to have thought to talk about is that of domestic violence and partner rape. Men are often in the habit of asking why women choose to stay in abusive relationships. It does not occur to them that the oft cited “prolonged loneliness being equivalent to 15 cigarettes a day” might be a factor, in addition to every other indirect isolating consequence like financial vulnerability and societal disapproval. There is some—albeit scarce—visibility given to the loneliness of women surrounded by men—outliers in white-collar jobs, visitors to segregated spaces, travelers on the street, migrants in phallic territory. But there is almost no structural cognizance taken of the loneliness of women trapped inside family spaces. Public policy takes note of the elderly who live on their own and who are lonely because they have no caregivers. But what about the loneliness of those deemed caretakers? What structural analysis of loneliness accounts for mothers trapped in a space where their predominant relationship is with an immature individual who provides no reciprocal caretaking? What public cost calculation is made regarding the loneliness of children across the world whose biological families have to leave them without adequate care in pursuit of subsistence-level employment? What health care is being provided to treat the loneliness on both sides of international remittance economies across the globe?

The other kind of structural loneliness—that of the erstwhile master—is a side effect of resistance and victory. Which is not to say that MRAs are justified in blaming their loneliness on feminists but rather that their alienation is a symptom of the malignant misogyny that feminism has finally been able to diagnose and quarantine for. The modern male urgency to calculate the economic burden of their loneliness is appropriated from the struggle to ensure men pay a fair price for the care work they need to alleviate it.

...It is imperative to resist the disproportionate foregrounding of cishet male loneliness because the structurally oppressed manifest their benign loneliness symptoms differently from those who suffer from the malignant disease of thwarted entitlement. Buried inside the lonely-men essays is the threat disguised as suggestion that we feel concern for Lonely Men because Lonely Men can turn violent. This is a red herring in much the same way that alcoholism is used as an excuse for male violence; the problem isn’t alcohol or loneliness but patriarchal masculinity. Meanwhile no surgeon general is declaring racism or misogyny to be an epidemic despite the increasing number of people literally being killed by men “suffering” from these states of mind. It takes a special kind of self-centeredness to be able to cite stats that show that marriage hurts women’s life expectancy and continue to advocate it as a solution to save lonely men instead of trying to fix the toxic husband syndrome that is killing women. Men who demand that women concern themselves with the problem of lonely men in order to ensure their own safety are issuing the same hackneyed threats that patriarchy entrenches—a disguised demand that women invest their energy in socializing boys, in dating men, in doing even more care work than we already do.

Looking at some of the funded programs tackling the “epidemic” it becomes clear that creating spaces where men can feel free to be misogynists is one of the effects of how men warp community responses to loneliness. The first Men’s Shed—a community space where mostly older men could get together to work with their hands and socialize—was set up in Australia in 1998 and by 2010 was receiving funding from the Australian government under its National Male Health Policy. (There are no Men’s Sheds for any of the men trapped in Australia’s detention centers for the crime of being refugees on a boat.) According to the U.K. Men’s Shed Association the rate of growth of Men’s Sheds is between six and nine new sheds a month. (The U.K. government is planning to remove domestic-abuse shelters from housing benefits. On average in England men kill two women a week.) Public policy approves of self-segregating spaces with “old-fashioned mateship and . . . no pressure” (a liability-free way to say “No Homo No Feminist Cooties”) where men can be cajoled and lured into being cared for. Meanwhile sex workers, drug users, and transgender people are more likely to be harassed and jailed by police than be provided with spaces where they can be gently encouraged to talk about their loneliness.

The Malignant Melancholy

#*#essays

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autismgavemychildvaccines · 6 years ago

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Why I’m Ashamed to Be Christian

So, now that I am literally sick of the Measles nonsense (no, fucking literally, working 12+ hour shifts on an incident management team has got me sick and tired enough to call in tomorrow), I’ve decided to do a non PH rant, though it’ll for sure rear it’s fucking head somewhere in here. Instead, let’s tackle something real fun. Religion! Time to buckle up. In my half fucking awake daze that I was just nudged out of, something really wild hit me. My faith, my belief in a very specific God with a specific book (though I admit that other religions, so long as their origin is not a company or a tool to oppress others on the outset, are valid/likely just as true) makes no God damned sense. (For reference, here I will claim my most closely related sect as my own; American Evangelism [though if one were to ask in person I’d say “non-denominational”, but historically, the two are close] and will be speaking as a part of a community I used to closely belong to but now have drifted away from on some granola-crunching dumbassery that is “I am a church of one” bullshit. I’ve wanted to be other things, but ever since I left the Freemasons, fuck all else has had much appeal.) So, first things first, Garden of Eden, right? Pretty fucking cool place, some might have even called it a perfect garden, a perfect place for humans and God to interact? But here’s my hang up with it. The trees of Life and Knowledge, and the rule that Adam and Eve could eat of any fruit except those grown upon that pair. Why even fucking have them?

When I asked that as a kid in a faith based area, they said because it was a test.

Of what?

“Well, of our loyalty to God and our Faith, of course”.

Except again, what the fuck? Like, I get the idea of free-will, in fact I am a huge believer in individual free will (I’ll get to that in a sec), but here’s the stickler here. As any other creative type will tell you, we want our work to take on a life of its own. Like say I wanted to program a remarkably bright AI, and it worked, and all I wanted was for it to recognize me as its creator and to discover and enjoy what home I could make for it. You know what I wouldn’t do? I wouldn’t give an AI, even with some simulated free will, the ability to break certain rules. For example, I wouldn’t allow it unrestricted access to the internet or my personal accounts. I wouldn’t even give it the concept that such things existed, let alone put it right fucking there to be used. That would be a flaw, an imperfection in an otherwise perfect place. And yeah, there’s something to be said for giving free will with not-free consequences, sure. But two things: 1) Don’t be pissed when the thing happens that you allowed to exist in the first place and thus forced it to be a mathematical certainty now that you’re dealing with perhaps the most curious species to ever exist. 2) Don’t go blaming them for a lack of faith. If anything, it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy, an act that abusers often use to get what they really want and have a thin veneer of an excuse to make happen. Now doesn’t that sound a lot like a good number of the followers of this faith, as opposed to an almighty, omnipotent, powerful being? Hmm, something to consider there, maybe. Speaking of followers, let’s actually also take a look at some of the prophets that we as American Christians often hold so dear. Now me? I’m a Luke guy, I like Luke. Peaceful, loving gospel for the most part, and I dig it. Peace and love, baby, that’s all I want coming from stories regarding a higher power that we had to hang up like a fucking tapestry to make sure we got all that love. But do you know who I fucking hate, and who I blame the most for how the American chruch is? Paul/Saul of Tarsus. Thiiiiiiiiiiis prick. This fucking Deus Vult Vulture. Actually in many ways, he really is the archetype to the Modern Evangelical fucking anything. Actively participated in the harassing, attempted extinguishing and successful terrorizing of a marginalized group. Then after being hit back for it, literally “seeing the light” and trying to be the fucking vanguard of said group only to lead it down a path where he’s suddenly the appointed expert of anything to do with the issue. And while he does this, he helps create the most violent and bigoted thoughts in the whole of the religion, and is praised for his visions as he says they are truly from God, and can thus act oh so righteously. This right here is a fucking problem, y’all. Like, I know the whole forgiveness idea allows for some mental gymnastics on how this could even happen, but even then to make a genocidal ass-face your de-facto leader aside from Christ himself for the next 2000 years is a fucking flip that even at the 1988 Olympics, if Christians were America, Russia would give them a straight 10/10. And yet, for many of us, that’s exactly what we’ve done. Hell, we’ve even fallen into the forced victim narrative of the synopsis of this asshole: “Oh well, you see, I was a heathen and thus I couldn’t help myself, but then like, the God of the people I was killing talked to me and like, now I have to do this (Take on the “burden” of leading the church) as penance for what I couldn’t help myself over.” We’ve fallen for it so much, that it may as well be hard wired into our nervous system to believe anything resembling it, just as we assume if something is flat, green and on a tree, it’s a leaf. Maybe it’s why we as a religion (and let’s face it, other Abrahamic religions as well) are so damn good at beating down the marginalized while screaming that we are the saints, we’re the sacrificiers trying to make things better. Like, let’s have some modern day fun with this bullshit, man; let’s see how we treated and in many places continue to treat women. Of the few churches I have been to, 100% of them had one dual-sided message that made me real fuckin’ uncomfortable, fam: Part 1) That women cannot be trusted onto themselves and thus 2) Men must take control of them and society to not allow for some unspecified “Ridiculous bullshit”. (as a fair heads up; I do fully recognize non-binary, trans individuals, etc, but for the sake of brevity I’ll be mostly referring to M/F in the traditional sort of way, because opening up Christianity’s treatment of anything regarding gender fluidity is a Ph.D. thesis for another day) Now, I don’t know about y’all, but I know damn well that out of all the dudes I know, and all the lasses I know, they’re a pretty mixed fuckin’ bunch. It’s almost like their gender assigned at birth doesn’t really affect how reasonable they could be as people nor how much responsibility they should have. Obviously some cultural practices skew this quite a bit in so far that women are expected to take more responsibility, younger, and for less praise, but if anything that should help destroy, not reinforce that message. And yet, the idea persists so much in Christian circles. And not just by the men themselves, but the women, also. For the longest time of my church going days, the pastor was a woman. She wholly believed it was just and right that her husband be in charge of everything, that women should be loyal to their men in all aspects. Then again, she also (despite recruiting members primarily from college) did not believe in evolution at all, so there’s that in terms of an intellectual hurdle. But regardless, this inherent submissive attitude within the faith (and even the half-hearted and self-congratulatory “Yeah but we REALLY are the ones making the decisions because we can withhold sex if we want” is essentially that too just a smidgen more empowering), when combined with the idea that men should be wholly in-control (which is a breeding ground for toxic masculinity if there ever was) is shameful. It’s what has allowed so much bullshit in the past, including these recent abortion laws. Now, I’m going to cover abortion in another post (I might get to it tomorrow; It’s been on the burner for weeks), but it’s super pertinent here. We, as a religion, have allowed ourselves to tell women (just as we tell/told minorities before) that they cannot be trusted with their own bodies, that they cannot be trusted when they speak, and most certainly cannot be trusted to truly hold dominion over anything. And that has allowed the most insidious, hateful, bigoted, disgusting things to happen in the name of God. A God that while I am writing this post I still believe in, but my doubts about how genuine the message has ever been is hitting home. One whose words about peace have been ignored when they could be interpreted or pointed to to support war, where the rich can profit off the poor, or to support sexism, because we as men historically have wanted to control “everything of ours”, or to take the very free will we claim to hold so dear from those who need the ability to make their own decisions the most. Words that have been used to hold down good people from making lives better. Words that in the hands of those who wanted, could be profaned and desecrated and thus allow for profane and disturbing events, both on the grand stage of the world and behind the closed doors of any house in some small town. Words which are held up with a wink and a nod so that followers feel included when they are scammed by some fucking fried chicken joint who wants to make more money to fight against equality, or to pay for another $9 million jet for some asshole who croons about how the poor should be grateful they do not have the temptations of the rich. To other followers, do you not lament that we are this way? That we have been this way for so long? Because I fucking do. And to those who have been discriminated or marginalized or whatever else against because of your gender or skin colour or situation or victimization or past deeds of any sort; I’m sorry. Genuinely, truly sorry you have suffered as you have. Sorry for what people have done thinking it was somehow morally or spiritually justified, sorry that they thought they were saving you. And I can assure you that I will never try to lead you as those before me have tried to. Though if it’s all the same, I’d like to get to hear you, and walk beside you.

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siryouarebeingmocked · 3 years ago

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I'm not saying anything about men individually

It's the collective stereotyping I - and most critics of feminism - have a problem with.

everyone contributes to the Patriarchy

Then why call it "the Patriarchy"? That's implying men have some sort of special responsibility for it, because men are in control. And you seem to be claiming the trend of being oppressive is consistent in every patriarchy in history.

Even when mainstream feminists try to address men's issues, they usually call it "toxic masculinity" or "the Patriarchy backfiring". It's apparently essential to blame men, first and foremost

men are only socially permitted to feel anger and horniness

Theatre. Movies. Music. Books. Poetry. TV. Stand-up comedy. Love. Fear. Hate. Protectiveness. Sadness, grief, and loss. Hope. Determination.

Some of the most famous and popular works of art in human history have featured some or all of these emotions in men, across the world.

Feminists commonly complain about 'damsel in distress' narratives, though many try to reduce "saving a loved one" to "protecting an object". Feminists also complain about the popular idea that women are less capable comedians than men.

You are completely and obviously wrong.

Feminists often reduce men in general to sexual or physical threats to women, so I think you (personally) project that onto everyone. Don't ask me how that gels with "damsel in distress" criticisms.

This is what I mean. Your idea of what men are like isn't that different from radfems, you just think you're trying to "fix" them.

It's not my fault if you don't even recognize your own sexism when someone points it out to you.

Gender politics was a fucking mistake. Ppl will really be like "men don't have the capacity to have authentic, normal human emotions like women do" and act like that's peak feminism and not an utterly fucking deranged thing to say about another person

#long

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sulpher · 6 years ago

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I think I'm an asshole...maybe

Men are trash (wait wait i swesr i got a point just hold on )AS A SOCIAL GROUP because they literally makes rules that endanger themselves and women but expect women to fix it or even worst used thier fellow man's pain to silence women .

"Men get rape too."

" have you heard about TOXIC FEMINITY ( which is literally women treating men the way THE WAY THEY WERE TAUGHT TO MEN BY MEN but it's only problematic because we can't let women talk like that )

And what makes it worst they say this shit and then DO ABSOLUTELY NOTHING FOR THE MEN WHO ARE IN PAIN but you know blame the women ...we give them less , we make them work harder , we exploit thier talents and give it to men they have a reason to be angry but don't tell them that because then they might believe they're right .

Do you know how trash you gotta be to gas light your fellow man whose in pain that everything is a women 's fault while secretly stabbing both of them in the back . You are the TRASHIEST OF SOCIAL GROUP

That being said MEN as INDIVIDUALS are GREAT There are men in my life I easily beat down a woman for.

"Wow you beat down a women for a man " if she was a rapist- yes. If she was emotional or physical abusive and AFTER I remove the man from the reaches she try to COME after him . Absofuckinglutely. Say by to your kneecaps because by this point and I've been push to this point twice in just going to prison to resolve the issuse.

I defend men who have been r"ped . I defend men who wanna dresses. I defend men who don't nesscarily always feel like men.

What I dont defend are men who claimed they wanna be help and instead want a pacifier and back up net so when they lose thier temper or manipulate people they dont have to be held accountable.

I don't defend men or anyone who comes in tumblr and see blog devoted to women putting themselves first as men have always been allowed, women sharing the same experience because toxic masculinity produce the same carbon copy of douche and warning other girls and sometimes others who date guys that these are the signs and immediately feel the need to defend the good boys , the mentally ill boys who were pick on for dying and liking pink or encourage to have an explosive temper as a child to the point they can't have relationships.

Those blogs are NOT hurting men .

Those blogs are not misandrist and the fact that some people think so ....is counter productive.

You wanna help men break from toxic masculinity- encourage them to break the system they're in because just like ablesim, rascism you cant expect the people who don't benifit from the system to do all the work .

( and don't say well we should still be nicer to men or that the reason men are they way they are because women are mean . Men as a social group have been mean to Women since the beginning of time and were doing kinda ok )

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loudlytransparenttrash · 7 years ago

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Hello. I'm so confused by your ideas on rape and feminism. You are aware that we teach all kids not to steal (because it's a crime and morally wrong), right? Also, that if you walk through any neighbourhood with armfuls of cash, it is legally the responsibility of everyone else to not rob you? How are feminists entitled when they ask to not have a crime committed against anyone, including women? It's the same thing that the government asks of its country's citizens.

You are aware that we teach everyone not to rape (because it’s a crime and morally wrong), right? Rapists are removed from society, they’re despised by society, they’re locked up where they’re despised by even other inmates and they remain blacklisted for life. We have the law driven into us from childhood, we are taught morality, what’s right and wrong, we’re taught rape is the most horrific and atrocious acts of violence, yet criminals still do it. They don’t do it because they weren’t lectured on their “toxic masculinity” at aged five, they don’t do it because we live in a pro-rape culture, they do it because they’re mentally twisted individuals who don’t care that it’s a crime or morally wrong.

Feminists push this idea that because women aren’t guaranteed safety, despite it neither being guaranteed to men (men make up the large majority of violent crime and murder victims and far more likely to be assaulted, robbed or killed walking to their car), it’s a sexist, oppressive, patriarchal plot against women and all men must be held accountable. Feminists demand a world where no crime is ever committed against women and women should never have to worry about bad people. They blame men, especially white men, and an imaginary anti-woman society for the criminal actions of a tiny minority of psychopaths.

While it would be nice if criminals stuck to their legal and moral obligation as you call it to not commit a crime against you, the sad fact is criminals aren’t the most trustworthy people and we probably can’t depend on them upholding the law or moral duties. That unfortunately means none of us can be guaranteed our safety and no amount of blaming men, shaming little boys or stripping them of their masculinity could make this wishful fantasy a reality. The entitlement comes from feminists believing a woman has no responsibility for herself or her own safety, it’s instead up to society and all men to guarantee no wrong is ever done to her.

That sure as hell doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be doing everything we can to prevent crimes, and it doesn’t mean victims of crime are at fault, but all of us, both men and women, have an obligation to ourselves to keep ourselves out of vulnerable situations the best we can. The world is a dangerous place littered with evil and cruel people, it always has been and it probably always will be, so is it such a sexist and horrible thing to suggest we should take minor measures to protect ourselves and lower our own risk of harm where we can? And do we really have to continue blaming half the population and their biological makeup for the crimes of a minority of demented individuals?

My example was this: “If a white man walks around a black neighborhood at night, stumbling drunk, holding bags overflowing with a million dollars and say he gets robbed by a black person, would we say it’s every black person’s job to make sure this never happens again to another white person? Should we tell black children they’re at risk of growing up to be robbers and teach only black children in schools how to suppress their urges to steal from people? Because this is what feminists are doing to men and boys just because there are some people who don’t care that rape is illegal. A more appropriate response to this man being robbed would be to condemn and punish the criminal to the fullest extent, not blame all black people while also provide people with responsible advice to not walk home drunk and alone at night carrying huge sacks of cash.”

That post you’re referring to wasn’t criticizing feminists for expecting women to be able to walk home without being raped, that’s something we all obviously want. Rather it was a criticism of the feminists who claim it’s evidence of a sexist world that’s out to oppress women when a woman’s safety can’t be guaranteed, even if she walks the streets alone, drunk and half naked. They want a world where women can make poor choices and not end up with a poor outcome, while at the same time holding every man and boy accountable for the crimes of a few. That’s the whole premise of the annual feminist ‘Slut Walk.’ Again, that’s not talking about rape victims, it’s about the feminist idea that it’s sexist for women to not have their safety guaranteed to them.

I mentioned also in that post that early feminists would protest and fight against the systems which kept women out of danger. They chose freedom at the expense of their security. They knew the world is dangerous but if they wanted the freedom and sexual liberty as men, they had to risk it, they knew they had to protect themselves, make responsible decisions and become hyperaware of the potential dangers that surrounds all of us, as men are expected to do. Now feminists today believe women having to take any precautionary measures or look after themselves is evidence of their oppression, rather than their freedom.

For me, it’s more empowering and sensible to be honest to women about the world being a dangerous place so we can prepare, learn and understand the best ways to at least limit the threat of being vulnerable to criminals. We have to make sensible decisions when we’re out drinking, hooking up or thinking about walking home wasted and alone. To feminists, even teaching women self-defense is sexist and wrong as “women shouldn’t have to live in a world where they have to know self-defense.” How stupidly infantilizing. Of course we can’t always prevent bad things from happening to us, but we can always try. Ridding women of this responsibility and awareness does more harm than good.

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