#claiming that individual men are to blame for toxic masculinity.

[cartridgeconverter]

If I see one more rancid opinion about men on this godforsaken website I will probably lose it in some way

[anxioushourglass]

I am a detrans woman... I find myself very frustrated with the amount of trans hate in the detrans community. I don't like how detrans people cite transgender people and surgeries and dysphoria as toxic and as if it's some brainwashing cult.

I think there are a few things that I need to get off my chest about this just to vent my frustrations...

Yes there is medical malpractice when it comes to pushing surgeries and hrt on people with gender dysphoria. I feel like gender therapists ought to start small and work their way up to more serious aspects of a transition. Many doctors do this right. Many do it wrong. The way we treat gender dysphoria itself has to improve but it isn't something we need to regulate so harshly that trans men and women can't get the treatment they desperately deserve and need. It's a complicated situation and every individual is different. There's currently no really great surefire way to tell that a person who is sure they want treatment will regret it later. The truth is most people don't regret treatment. Being able to tell apart a person who is actually trans or not is crossing some boundaries that I don't think is up for a doctor to decide for an individual. I was so certain I wanted it and even rushed the process. I think the best suggestion for that problem is for an individual to take the time to really think about. A doctor can't decide for me whether I'm trans or not. They can't exactly see it. They can't diagnose it.

Some people do choose to transition for complicated reasons that they don't quite understand themselves. Some people transition as a form of self harm or self repression. They aren't ready to be a man or a woman or they want to feel included in a community when they're very alone in the world and want a place to be. Maybe they feel like they must just be trans because they look so masculine for a woman or feel so feminine for a man. Cis people sometimes get confused about their gender especially now that it's such a big topic in today's global conversation. THIS DOES NOT MEAN THAT TRANS PEOPLE ARE "SECRETLY" REPRESSING THEMSELVES.

Trans people are the ones who need gender affirming care. Detrans people are just people who got the wrong treatment for themselves. I feel like we can point fingers at doctors for letting this happen and blame them for getting the wrong treatment but I really feel like that's just one big wrench to throw into the suffering of actual transgender people.

I was wrong about being trans and that's okay. I made choices and chose treatment because at the time I thought that's what I needed. Learning about who I was and what was really going on took time. It's okay that I was wrong. I'm not going to point fingers and claim that the irreversible change in my voice and hair on my chin is because trans people media manipulated me to do it. I made my own choices. Why should I try and hold other people accountable for my own actions?

[everyurlithinkofistoolong]

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.

[theautisticbiatch]

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.

[spilledreality]

Sporting vs Herding

i.

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."

v.

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. 

[lastsonlost]

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.

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?

[tonitoni77]

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

[anti-marxistcult]

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

[thevividgreenmoss]

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

[autismgavemychildvaccines]

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. 

[sulpher]

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 )

[loudlytransparenttrash]

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. 

[kravenergeist]

Rebranding Our Terminology

Words carry power. Hopefully we all know this by now. If we want to send a message, change people’s minds, and promote positive change in the world, we need to be very careful with our wording. Because if there’s one thing our modern political history should have taught us by now, it’s that those in opposition to positive change will find a way to use anything you say against you.

Take the term “global warming.” It’s a pretty simple concept. It means “the overall temperature of the Earth is slowly rising.” It shouldn’t take a genius to figure out that this term is referring to the claim that the average temperature of the planet overall, across all oceans and landmasses, from year to year, is steadily increasing. Regardless of what you make of the pattern, we can all agree that the term itself is referring to a pattern and not a static concept. This doesn’t imply that the concept of coldness itself has stopped existing in the world in its entirety, just that when you add it all up every year, factoring in every measurable place on earth - warm and cold alike - that it’s getting higher overall.

But even a term as innocuous as this can be used to discredit the very pattern it was created to highlight. All it takes is a senator throwing a snowball through congress to sway the lowest common denominator amongst people towards the complete opposite way of thinking. Now the term “global warming” is treated like a joke in some parts of the country. And it’s become so out of hand, that the term is little more than a political buzz word that instantly turns people’s minds one way or another as soon as they hear it, and no longer serves its intended purpose as a rhetorical concept.

So, many scientists rebranded. They stopped using the term “global warming” and started using the term “climate change.” It’s not quite as descriptive, and is a little more ambiguous and neutral in its implications. But as a term, it still describes what we’re talking about, without providing the opposition with fodder for discrediting our argument. Although, as some people have proven, not everyone comprehends the difference between “climate” and “weather,” which has still lead to some unfortunate misinformation. So perhaps, another rebranding is in order here. But still, when someone opposed to preventing climate change refers to the concept itself, they don’t call it “climate change,” they call it “global warming.” It helps their argument more.

Now let’s talk about what I’m really here to talk about: “toxic masculinity.” We all know what it is (even if you don’t think you do). We deal with it every day (even if you don’t think you do). It effects men and women and all other sexes in various ways, and has an overall negative impact on most people’s day to day life (even if you don’t think it does). Broadly speaking, it is the overall cultural pressure exerted upon men and women and other gender identities to behave a certain way, particular within other groups of men or women, in a way that reinforces the previously established order. It is a pressure that is designed to dis-empower specific groups of people, and elevate a very select few that fall into a very particular demographic. It is tied to other rhetorical concepts like “patriarchy” and “feminism” and “rape culture,” and many other terms that, like “global warming,” have become political buzzwords that anyone with a political stance automatically categorizes in their head as something they’re “for” or “against.”

And like all of these other rhetorical concepts, “toxic masculinity” is a very non-neutral term. It makes a very declarative statement, which without a doubt was its intended purpose. But like with “global warming,” the term is too easily misconstrued to discredit the very pattern it was created to highlight. It’s too easy for someone to twist the words to imply that it means “all men are toxic.” This is a misrepresentation, but again, we must look at this from the perspective of the lowest common denominator amongst people. Simply by having the word “masculinity” embedded in the term, like with “global warming,” the term carries with it an implication that can easily be misconstrued depending on your perspective. How easy would it be for someone to look a term like “toxic masculinity,” and for it to translate into their head as “all men are toxic?” “And if this is a movement that embraces such a backwards concept as ‘all men are toxic,’” they might then say, “Why should I support them?”

We can blame these voters who fall for these twisted arguments for being too gullible, ignorant or easily manipulated, and claim that the responsibility lies with them to parse our words. But regardless of these people’s rhetorical competency, they all still vote. And if we want to ensure the highest number of people to hear our voices (and more importantly, the highest number of votes), then it behooves us to do all we can to meet these common denominators halfway.

We need to rebrand. Terms like “toxic masculinity,” “rape culture,” and even “feminism,” for all its historical significance, have become so politicized so as to lose their usefulness as rhetorical concepts. If all we want to do is draw a line in the sand and declare ourselves as being on one side of the fence for like-minded individuals to rally around, then yeah, they serve that purpose just fine. But in doing this, we will also be ensuring that there will always be people on the wrong side of that fence, because there will always be people who can twist the pointedness of our words in an attempt to misconstrue our arguments.

This, to me, is an unsustainable action plan. Each election year, we lose more and more moderate voters to twisted rhetoric. If our intention is to have a conversation, to open up the floor for discussion, and maybe bring a few more people over to the right side of the fence, then we need to choose some more neutral terminology to rally around. “Culture of oppression” was one that came to mind as something to replace “toxic masculinity.” I’ve heard it used before in other contexts, and like “climate change,” it still accurately conveys the meaning in a more ambiguous and neutral way. It can’t be twisted to imply that men specifically are the enemy in general. And most importantly, the term hasn’t seeped as much into our modern media discourse as a political buzz word, and is less likely to be misconstrued to subvert our entire argument.

Maybe a simple rebranding isn’t the solution. Maybe it’s putting a band-aid on a much larger problem. But regardless of whether there even is a solution, we still need to recognize what’s happening. Words carry power. And our opponents know it. So why should we make their jobs easier? If we expect to be able to change people’s minds, we need to be very careful with our word choice. Our opponents will do whatever they can to manipulate our words to use them against us, and so we must be every bit as pedantic with our words in order to counteract this. I believe that relying on more neutral terminology could lower the barrier of entry for those political moderates and swing voters, and is less likely to be used as a weapon to discredit our arguments. Each of us on this side of the fence will still know what we really mean when we say “culture of oppression,” just like we all know what we really mean when we say “climate change.” What’s important is that the people with whom we argue about it, and the people in the middle who might be swayed by those arguments, are equally able to understand it too.

[judedeluca]

BTW, not trying to convince you of anything, I haven't read Shazam! and feel... Complicated about Geoff Johns. Is that a sentence? Not a native English speaker.

Ah, my bad.

Please note if I get testy during this it is absolutely NOT aimed at you in any way, but it’s just how I feel about Johns.

Okay so Geoff Johns was one of the three current comic writers who got me into buying comics on a regular basis in 2005, alongside Grant Morrison and Gail Simone. I was following Johns’ “Teen Titans,” Morrison’s “Seven Soldiers,” and Simone’s “Villains United.”

What got me into Johns’ “TT” was, I was already a Titans fan, but I saw he introduced a version of Batwoman based on Bette Kane. Bette was the original Batgirl in the Silver Age, the niece to Batwoman Kathy Kane, but no one ever referenced that anymore and I love Betty so I wanted to know more.

I was supporting Johns’ Teen Titans as well as his Legion related stuff, JSA, and some of his Green Lantern writing too…

But then came Brightest Day and I began to realize the man had a disturbing tendency to rely on mutilating and dismembering characters, including a lot of Titans such as Pantha, Baby Wildebeest, Damage, and Tempest, as well as Legionnaires like Kinetix. Tempest especially bothered me because apparently Johns didn’t like him because he wasn’t “Bad ass” like Hal Jordan, so Johns went out of his way to kill Tempest’s entire family in “Infinite Crisis” before having his zombie girlfriend murder him.

Flashpoint and The New 52 only solidified my dislike for the man, as I absolutely HATED his Justice League and Aquaman stuff and only supported them because my friend worked on the titles as an inker.

Looking back on his older stuff I saw a lot of other stuff I disliked. There was his gross racist handling of Judomaster in JSA where he retconned out her ability to speak English to pair her up with Damage via having him teach her English, even though in Birds of Prey a year prior she could speak English perfectly.

With his Legion of Super-Heroes writing he retconned Lightning Lad and Saturn Girl, turning Garth into a hothead who barely went a single panel without screaming at someone while Imra could barely control him. The woman used to be called “Iron Ass Imra” and he essentially ripped out her spine. These two had one of the best marriages in the DCU and he ruined it with his toxic masculine bullshit. Thank God Paul Levitz managed to fix this mess.

He also tried to downplay and/or erase Lightning Lass’s queerness by putting her back together with her ex-boyfriend Timber Wolf, ignoring her steady relationship with her girlfriend Shrinking Violet. The two of them were one of the earliest lesbian couple DC had (even if they couldn’t outright say it) but nope, Ayla’s back with Brin like Violet didn’t exist. Again, Paul Levitz rectified this problem.

He turned Star Boy into a caricature of schizophrenics by retconning him into being mentally ill and having him serve as the wacky comic relief in the JSA when he wasn’t breaking the fourth wall or dropping foreshadowing. So basically a ripoff of Deadpool. His whole JSA run really hasn’t aged well.

His Teen Titans consisted of making Superboy obsessed with being a clone of Lex Luthor and Superman, made Wonder Girl obsessed with Superboy, and he drove Rose Wilson insane to make her the new Ravager which included her graphically gouging out her own eye after her father pumped her full of drugs.

His love for Barry Allen and Hal Jordan blatantly outshines his work with the other Flash and Green Lantern characters, and he���s essentially crafted a sequel to Watchmen no one asked for or needed in order to absolve Barry Allen, God of the Silver Age, of ruining the DCU by blaming it all on Doctor Manhattan.

He’s also obsessed with portraying morally grey men and downright evil men like Captain Cold, Sinestro, Black Adam, and Superboy Prime as flawed individuals who are, at the end of the day heroic, when they do completely horrible things and never get punished for them. Cold’s a hypocrite with how he’ll ignore certain Rogues breaking his precious rules but then makes a big deal of how other villains violate said rules. SInestro is a sociopath who murdered Kyle Rayner’s mother in cold blood just to break Kyle’s will, but still gets to be remembered as a great Green Lantern. Adam brutally slaughters people like the Psycho Pirate and almost no one complains. And Prime is a monster who’s murdered children and pregnant woman, including an entire world, but is still considered a victim. He’s now added Doctor Manhattan to the list, since he claims a man who orchestrated the death of Alan Scott and casually fucked up an entire universe simply to see what would happen is somehow not a villain.

Whatever small bits of writing from him I still like are not enough for me to still be an overall fan of him. I don’t care what he’s done with Shazam, I don’t care if people think it’s been really good. If other people like it I’m happy they’re enjoying it.

But really, fuck him. Fuck him a million times over. I hope there comes a day when DC throws his ass out the door along with Didio, Eddie Berganza, Tom King, James Robinson, Bob Harras, Scott Lobdell. Jim Lee, and all the other fake geek guy assholes who’ve practically ruined DC’s characters for all of us.

Geoff Johns makes me sick to my stomach as a comic fan, a writer, a man, and a human being.

Yet there is still a part of me that wonders, looking back on the stuff he did for Stars and S.T.R.I.P.E., what someone at that fucking company must’ve done to him. And I do feel bad his work keeps getting interfered with by editors, just not enough to absolve him of his own individual grossness.

[throwawayaccount9001]

Masculinity

In today’s day and age in America, most everything is political. Ideas tend to be pushed to the Left or Right of the political spectrum. In doing so, people on the opposite side of the spectrum treat the ideas as less than valid. A prime example of this is the idea of “Toxic Masculinity”. Most of the men on the Right of politics would hear this and call it a farce. People on the left would identify it as a widespread issue. The truth is somewhere in the middle. 

Is Toxic Masculinity the disastrous problem that the Left claims it is? I cannot know for certain. What I do know for certain is that it does exist much to the contrary of the claims of the Right. How do I know this? For me, I can identify the behavior in people in my own life. What I want to talk about today is not the political aspect of the term but the real world impacts Toxic Masculinity can have.

When most people hear the word ‘Masculinity’ they think of the traditional attributes to men such as strength, courage, and stoicism. Much like all behavior or ideologies, this too is subject to toxicity. What I would identify as traditional attributes of Toxic Masculinity is the following: 1. A façade of strength. True strength means less than the perception that you are a strong individual.  2. A façade of courage. Pretending that nothing will dismay you and any claims to the contrary are lies.  3. Stoicism. When handled correctly, people identify Stoicism as silent suffering. This is important when there is a greater problem at hand than your immediate feelings. Stoicism becomes a problem when you are never able to stop and express those feelings. Toxic Stoicism in Men has them bottle up their feelings and suffer alone. 

There is much more to Toxic Masculinity than these things but to me, they are the most prominent. Whatever has taken over the Men of today, the very idea of fragility seems almost Feminine to them and contrary to Masculinity. As a result, we see generations of Men who have valid problems that are masked as a result of Masculinity. These bottled problems fester and when the issue comes about, rather than addressing it properly, the individuals lash out as admission of ones problems is, in their minds, contrary to what is masculine.

All of this goes to say that I find the current idea of Masculinity in America wrong and I pity those who subscribe to this idea of Masculinity. Do I believe Men should be feminine? No, of course not. Do I believe that Men should only be manly Men? I do not believe that either. Once again, the truth is somewhere in the middle.

The beauty of life is in the diversity of all things. As I sit here at my desk looking at the outside world, I know there are a variety of birds in the sky, trees across the land, and people across the world. It is through the diversity of these same birds, trees and people that we can appreciate what makes one unique. In their own types, you then find uniformity. The idea that Men must adhere to a single standard across all Men is just not valid in the same way that all birds should act the same way as 1 bird. Must all birds act like the mighty Eagle? I would say no. There is a place for all things from the mighty Eagle, to the swift Woodpecker or the ever so common Ducks. Just like these animals, Men too are varied and different. How can we hold Men to a single standard when we are so varied across size, shape, occupation, religion, culture and race? 

Unfortunately a person in my life subscribes to this idea and it is damaging in many ways. As a result of their perspective, they look down on others with an elitist standpoint, refuse to admit weakness, and lash out at those who would identify this façade. For them, I have pity and sorrow in my heart. I believe the truest of Men are able to identify their problems and rather than live in shame of it, strive to be better. 

Hiding in the shadow of one’s faults is not honest and there is no nobility in projecting a untouchable image. If your feelings are hurt, it is ok to open up and express that to others. What is not okay is lashing out as a result of your hurt feelings and denying that you are in pain. This behavior only pushes the people around you away. Rather than blaming others for provoking you, have the courage to admit your wrongdoing and work to improve it. Blaming others for your emotion and trying to absolve yourself of responsibility as a result of anger diminishes your authority. How can people take you seriously when you resign all responsibility to your emotions? 

A person once told me that a Man is always in control of their emotions. Do I take this as the word of truth? No. I believe they are mostly correct though. I believe Men should strive to be in control of their emotions. Failure is ok. It is another opportunity to improve.

The issue I take with all of this in relation to Toxic Masculinity is that the fear of seeming effeminate or not masculine leads one to destruction. It leads one astray from just principles and proper behavior. I assert that the Men we should look up to are not those who are projecting this seemingly perfect façade but the Men who will declare their faults as true and strive to fix them.

It may not be enjoyable and will most likely be painful in shame & embarrassment. That is okay. These feelings of shame & embarrassment are temporary and when you can admit that you have flaws, it will be liberating to you to know that you don’t always have to have flaws. The identification of these problems will allow you to work on them so that one day you may be free of them.

While I am not a perfect induvial, I strive to be.  On my path, I will falter and stumble on my way. The long road ahead of me will daunt my spirit but I must holdfast. I believe that you should be the change you want to see in the world. if I want other Men to acknowledge their faults and work on improving them, then I must be the first to do so. It is through my example that I hope to inspire others to follow in my footsteps. Only then can we have a better world together. 

If you have read all of this and wonder why I have written this, I have written this in response to a person I know and their behavior. While I can do nothing to address this topic with them, I see them and these thoughts cloud my mind. I cannot see them and their toxicity without these ideas. Maybe I am wrong for thinking these things? If I am wrong for desiring one to abandon their pride and work on their faults, I think I am ok with being wrong. 

[humorepoch9-blog]

What Your Sons and Daughters Will Learn at University

Universities in the 20th century were dedicated to the advancement of knowledge. Scholarship and research were pursued, and diverse opinions were exchanged and argued in the “marketplace of ideas.”

This is no longer the case. Particularly in the social sciences, humanities, education, social work, and law, a single political ideology has replaced scholarship and research, because the ideology presents fixed answers to all questions. And, although the most important thing in universities today is the diversity of race, gender, sexual practice, ethnicity, economic class, and physical and mental capability, there is no longer diversity of opinion. Only those committed to the ideology are admitted to academic staff or administration.

Universities have been transformed by the near-universal adoption of three interrelated theories: postmodernism, postcolonialism, and social justice. These theories and their implications will be explored here.

There Is No Truth; Nothing Is Good or Bad

Postmodernism: In the past, academics were trained to seek truth. Today, academics deny that there is such a thing as objective Truth. Instead, they argue that no one can be objective, that everyone is inevitably subjective, and consequently everyone has their own truth. The correct point of view, they urge, is relativism. This means not only that truth is relative to the subjectivity of each individual, but also that ethics and morality are relative to the individual and the culture, so there is no such thing as Good and Evil, or even Right and Wrong. So too with the ways of knowing; your children will learn that there is no objective basis for preferring chemistry over alchemy, astronomy over astrology, or medical doctors over witch doctors. They will learn that facts do not exist; only interpretations do.

All Cultures Are Equally Good; Diversity Is Our Strength

Our social understanding has also been transformed by postmodern relativism. Because moral and ethical principles are deemed to be no more than the collective subjectivity of our culture, it is now regarded as inappropriate to judge the principles and actions of other cultures. This doctrine is called “cultural relativism.” For example, while racism is held to be the highest sin in the West, and slavery the greatest of our historical sins, your children will learn that we are not allowed to criticize contemporary racism and slavery in Africa, the Middle East, and the equivalents in South Asia.

The political manifestation of cultural relativism is multiculturalism, an incoherent concept that projects the integration of multiple incompatible cultures. Diversity is lauded as a virtue in itself.  Imagine a country with fifty different languages, each derived from a different culture. That would not be a society, but a tower of babble. How would it work if there were multiple codes of law requiring and forbidding contrary behaviors: driving on the left and driving on the right; monogamy and polygamy; male dominance and gender equality; arranged marriage and individual choice? Your children will learn that our culture is nothing special and that other cultures are awesome.

The West Is Evil; The Rest Are Virtuous

Postcolonialism, the dominant theory in the social sciences today, is inspired by the Marxist-Leninist theory of imperialism, in which the conflict between the capitalist and proletariat classes is allegedly exported to the exploitation of colonized countries. By this means, the theory goes, oppression and poverty take place in colonies instead of in relation to the metropolitan working class. Postcolonialism posits that all of the problems in societies around the world today are the result of the relatively short Western imperial dominance and colonization. For example, British imperialism is blamed for what are in fact indigenous cultures, such as the South Asian caste system and the African tribal system. So too, problems of backwardness and corruption in countries once, decades ago, colonies continue to be blamed on past Western imperialism. The West is thus the continuing focus on anti-imperialist and anti-colonialist sentiment. Your children will learn that our society is evil, and the cause of all the evil in the wider world.

Only the West Was Imperialist and Colonialist

This ahistorical approach of postcolonialism ignores the hundreds of empires and their colonies throughout history, as well as ignoring contemporary empires, such as the Arab Muslim Empire that conquered all of the central Middle East, North Africa, southern Europe, Persia, Central Asia, and northern India, and occupied them minimally for hundreds of years, but 1400 years in the central Middle East and North Africa, and occupy them today. China, once the Communists took power, invaded Inner Mongolia to the north, Chinese Turkestan to the west, and Tibet to the south. Once in control, the government flooded these colonies with Han Chinese, in effect ethnically cleansing them. Postcolonialists have nothing to say about any of this; they wish to condemn exclusively the West. Your children will learn to reject history and comparisons with other societies, lest the claimed unique sins of the West be challenged.

Western Imperialism Was a Racist Project

Postcolonialists like to stress the racial dimension of Western imperialism: as an illustration of racism. But postmodernists are not interested in Arab slave raiding in “black” Africa, or Ottoman slaving among the whites in the Balkans, or the North Africans slave raiding of whites in Europe, from Ireland through Italy and beyond. Your children will learn that only whites are racist.

Israeli Colonialists Are White Supremacists

A remarkable example of this line of thinking is the characterization of Israel as a settler colonialist, white supremacist, apartheid society Allegedly white Israelis are oppressing Palestinian people of color. The (non-postmodern) facts make this a difficult argument to sustain. As is well established by all evidence, Jewish tribes and kingdoms occupied Judea and Samaria for a thousand years before the Romans invaded and fought war after imperial war against the indigenous Jews, and then enslaved or exiled most of them, renaming the land “Palestine.” Then, five centuries later, the Arabs from Arabia invaded and conquered Palestine, going on to conquer half of the world. The Jews returned to “Palestine” after 1400 years; most were refugees or stateless, so not colonists from a metropolis. Almost half of Israelis are Jewish Arabs thrown out of Arab countries, not to mention the Ethiopian and Indian Jews. Furthermore, Arab Muslims and Christians make up 21% of Israeli citizens. So to characterize multicolored Israelis as “whites” oppressing “Palestinian people of color’ is an imaginary distinction.

Canadian? You Have No Right to Stolen Native Land

If indigenous Jews are deemed to have no claim to their ancient homeland, then Euro-Canadians, Asian Canadians, African Canadians, and Latin Canadians are colonialist settlers without even an excuse. You have stolen Native land. The only moral course, according to postcolonialism, is to give everything back. At the very least, in order for “decolonization” to be implemented, the First Nations must be ranked above the interloping settlers, must be given special preference in all benefits, the law must make special exceptions for them. First nations must receive ongoing grants, pay no taxes, be given special reserved places in universities and government offices, and they have a veto over any public policy and be ceremonially bowed to at every public event.

As we are guided by postcolonialism rather than by human rights, we can disregard the human right of equal treatment before the law. That is just a rule of foreign settlers anyway. And the cities and industries and institutions built by the settlers, so the decolonialization story goes, really should belong to the natives, even though they lived in simple settlements or were nomads, depending upon simple shelters, with limited hunting or cultivating subsistence economies. There was no civil peace among the many Native bands and tribes, with raiding, enslavement, torture, and slaughter common.

White Men Are Evil; Women of Color Are Virtuous

Social justice theory teaches that the world is divided between oppressors and victims. Some categories of people are oppressors and other are victims: males are oppressors, and females are victims; whites are oppressors, and people of color are victims; heterosexuals are oppressors, and gays, lesbians, bisexual, etc. are victims; Christians and Jews are oppressors, and Muslims are victims. Your sons will learn that they are stigmatized by their toxic masculinity.

Individuals Are Not Important; Only Category Membership Is

Social justice theory has taken university life by storm. It is the result of the relentless working of Marxist theory, adopted by youngsters during the American cultural revolution of the 1960s, then brought to universities as many of those youngsters became college professors. Marxism as an academic theory was explicitly followed by some in the 1970s and 1980s, but it did not sweep everything else away, because the idea economic class conflict was not popular in the prosperous general North American population. The cultural Marxist innovation that brought social justice theory to dominance was the extension of class conflict from economics to gender, race, sexual practice, ethnicity, religion, and other mass categories. We see this in sociology, which is no longer defined as the study of society but has for decades been defined as the study of inequality. For social justice theory, equality is not the equality of opportunity that is the partner of merit, but rather equality of result, which ensures the members of each category at equality of representation irrespective of merit. Your sons will learn that they should “step aside” to give more space and power to females. Your daughters, if white, will learn that they must defer to members of racial minorities.

Justice Is Equal Representation According to Percentages of the Population

As there is allegedly structural discrimination against all members of victim categories, in order for equality of result to prevail, representation according to percentages of populations must be mandated in all organizations, in all books assigned or references cited, in all awards and benefits. Ideas such as merit and excellence are dismissed as white-male supremacist dog whistles; they are to be replaced by “diversity” of gender, race, sexual preference, ethnicity, economic class, religion, and so on. (Note that “diversity” does not include “diversity of opinion”; for only social justice ideology is acceptable. Any criticism or opposition is regarded as “hate speech.”) Academic committees now twist themselves into pretzels trying to explain that “diversity is excellence.”

Members of Oppressor Categories Must Be Suppressed

Of course, the requirement of representation according to population applies only one way: to members of victim classes. If whites, men, heterosexuals, Christians, etc. are underrepresented, that is fine; the fewer the better. For example, females now make up 60% of university graduates, although in the general age cohort males are 51%. There is no social justice clamoring for males to be fully represented.  Members of disfavored oppressor categories are disparaged. The classics of Western civilization should be ignored because they are the work, almost exclusively, of “dead white men.” Only works of females, people of color and non-Western authors should be considered virtuous. So too in political history. The American Constitution should be discarded because its writers were slaveholders.

Victims of The World Unite!

“intersectionality” is an idea invented by a feminist law professor. It argues that some individuals fall into several victim categories, for example, black, female lesbians have three points in the victim stakes, as opposed to male members of the First Nations who receive only one point. Further, on the action front, members of each victim category are urged to unite and ally with members of other victim categories, because sharing the victim designation is the most important status in the world. This leads to some anomalies. Black victims of racism are urged to unite with Arab victims of colonialism, even though Arabs have been and still are holders of black slaves.

Female victims of sexism are urged to support Palestinian victims of “white” colonialism, even though Palestinian women have always been and continue to be subordinated to men, and are subjected to a wide range of abuse. Your children will learn that to be accepted, they must assume victim status or become champions of victims, and ally with other victims.

Being Educated Is About Being on The Right Side

As Karl Marx said, “The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways. The point, however, is to change it.” The objective of a university education today is to ensure that students chose “the right side” in changing the world. The idea that it probably makes sense to try to understand the world before attempting to change it, is rejected as outmoded, modernist empiricism and realism, now superseded by postmodernism and social justice. If there is no Truth, and whatever one feels or believes is one’s truth, then trying to gain an objective understanding of the world is futile. Anyway, Marxist social justice offers all the answers anyone needs, so no inquiry or serious research is required. Be confident that at university your children will learn “the right side” to be on, if little else.

Source: https://www.mindingthecampus.org/2018/09/04/what-your-sons-and-daughters-will-learn-at-university/