#men's issues

[uncle-fruity]

I think part of the issue is that when I say that men have issues that also need to be talked about, I am talking about the full system of oppression and the role the patriarchy plays within that system of oppression, and how those things impact men & boys for better or worse.

When I say that men & boys need a place within feminism to focus on their issues from a feminist perspective, I am saying so because understanding the full picture is vital to defeating the Patriarchy, not because I think men need to be centered in every conversation. Even if we went to the extreme point of view that men aren't suffering in any way from our current system, we would need to listen to the experiences of men & boys and include their needs when we work to reform the structure of our society. Any failure to consider half the population while building a safer, fairer, more compassionate society is not just a minor fuck up, but rather a massive oversight that *will* lead to the failure of that goal.

The reason I am so adamant about not dehumanizing *any* group of people for *any* reason *ever* is because that becomes a very dangerous tool for the actual oppressors who cannot let us form unified communities against them. The more we know about each other, the more we care about each other, the more we see each other as humans -- the more the oppressors struggle to keep us fighting amongst ourselves and not fighting them. This was one of the major motivators behind the assassination of Fred Hampton, who did incredible work in bringing gay liberation and civil rights groups together, and made each of those movements stronger for it. One reason the internet is such an effective tool for radicalization is that it already has a layer of dehumanization built in, in that it's easy to forget you're speaking to another real human, especially when emotions are running high. So it is critical that we are vigilant about our own ability to dehumanize people (especially on the internet), our personal biases that can provide targets for that dehumanizing, and then work against those tendencies even when they only manifest in small ways (for example, as a joke).

This is not a pissing contest to me. I'm not concerned with being The Most Oppressed Ever, and I am not interested in diluting or misrepresenting the pain and systemic issues of any other group of people. I want everyone to have their say, to speak for themselves and to be believed that they are experts about their own experiences & lives. If anything, I believe in radical inclusion, and only draw the line at bad faith, hateful rhetoric meant to further the exclusion and abuse of other people. And even then, I think people who are hateful and hurting and trying to blame it on other people still need a place to talk through those emotions -- just, in a different, more targeted & personalized conversation. The broader social justice movement is not the appropriate place to publicly work through hate & anger & bigotry on a personal level.

All in all, we are ALL part of this system whether you like it or not. Everyone who exists is impacted in one way or another by the systems we have in place. And if we want to be serious about working against abusive systems, we need to start by listening and speaking in good faith, and by rejecting abusive patterns within our communities.

[st-dionysus]

I want to take a moment to talk about transandrophobia and cisgender men. I've spoken a lot in the pass about cis women and other trans people who attack or dismiss transgender men for being men out of the fear of men or the fear of their daughters becoming men or the fear of lesbian lovers becoming men.

However, cis men also fear trans men's manhood. Cis men often feel threatened by our existence, since they view us as a challenge to their identity and their manhood. Cis men are terrified of the concept that a "woman" can become a man. So often they are horrified by the concept of us growing cocks or getting srs, of use having facial hair, gaining muscle, behaving masculine or feminine, walking into the showers, their gym spaces, using the urinal, pissing on the side of the road, or just being in any way male. Cis men don't just dislike that we're trans, they actively dislike that we're men, they fear us being men because if a "woman" can become a man, that challenges the structure of the patriarchy, it challenges the system, and it "perverts" the meaning of male and redefines manhood and masculinity. In doing so, we force cis men to consider these binaries and that scares them, we terrify them with the concept of "women" gaining access to male spaces where they might see them vulnerable.

[theexodvs]

Do MRAs who believe sexual assault and false accusations of sexual assault should be punished equally also support the death penalty or life sentences for false accusations of murder?

[alwaysbewoke]

"The Left has FAILED Men"... I guess

[nirivenova]

Idk who needs to read this but men are people who deserve to feel and express openly without shame or ridicule.

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

It’s International Men’s Day 2024.

And I know, if there’s one place we don’t need to be validated, it’s by a faceless, nauseatingly-“woke” trillion dollar global tech company like Google.

But still, it’s a great opportunity to ask; what might such an acknowledgment look like, if it were to exist?

Would Google nod its head to men’s mental or physical health?

Would it salute dads, who continue their renaissance into modern fatherhood?

Might it send up a flair for the deteriorating rates of boys in education?

Or could it acknowledge the sacrifice men around the world make, even with their own life, to keep our lights on, water running, and kitchen stocked?

Well, we won’t be finding out this year.

So let’s design our own Doodles…

To be frank, I don’t care what Google big wigs say.

But as the front page of the Internet, this lack of visibility is a good barometer for a world that still looks the other way when it comes to men and boys advocacy, and this is what I see when Google leaves its iconic search bar unchanged.

A world not ready to accept that we all face hardships, regardless of sex, and all deserve visibility, if even just for one day a year.

So, what does International Mens Day look like to you?

And how would you like to see it celebrated?

(Also to be clear, Google designed none of these IMD artworks, I did, so please don’t sue me for doing your job)

[cooltmoney95]

I genuinely believe that stuff like "toxic masculinity" and the "male loneliness epidemic" wouldn't be an issue if more people realized that it's a consequence of the systemic neglect and rejection of nurturing emotional intelligence in young boys.

But that's just me.

[radmalenia]

waaaahhhh waaahhhhhh waaaahhhh

Nothing on my blog should make you cry like a baby like that.

Unless maybe you're a girl or woman processing severe trauma from patriarchal abuse, or one who has detransitioned and is mourning what genderism did to you/processing trauma from what you went through during that. If so please know you are not alone at all, a great many women have your back wholeheartedly, all are in the same boat to varying degrees; and we are fighting for you💜

But I'm guessing you aren't one of those, anon. I'm guessing you're trying to mock women for discussing the misogyny they experience. Well, you can just go cope with it 🖕 women are people and therefore we have something called "the human spirit" - which is viscerally resistant to oppression, domination, abuse, lack of freedom, disrespect, etc. Therefore, women are never going to just shut up and back down let males continue to treat us as worse than objects the way they've been doing for centuries.

We will continue until they can no longer do that shit to us. And so men have a choice...they will either:

1: Get their act together and learn to both make and function in a world that is NOT based around enslaving half the human population and treating them as inferior - or

2: Men will continue down this path of destruction where they continually choose to perpetuate the enslavement of women, over choosing the health and progress of the human race as a whole.

So far they've repeatedly chosen to do misogyny and abuse over doing unity and ethicality (despite the huge progress for all of us that would come with that. Despite it just being the right thing to do, also...instead they repeatedly choose evil). Their ego, their evil, their inhumanity; will be the death of them if they never change. Perhaps the death of all humanity, if they take women down with them.

Maybe that truth is something for you to cry about? But you shouldn't cry over it, you should channel the rage and disgust into fighting for the betterment of us all - you should be aware more and more women are waking up to this reality; and if all humanity is eventually going to go down because of males then at least all us women will go down swinging.

Whatever your deal is, go get some therapy. I am not your parent or your therapist, I obviously don't know you at all; and I get the impression you're very immature and ignorant and just trying to be a little misogynistic twerp. Go take that bullshit somewhere else.

Maybe you'll learn something from this response if you even see it. Or maybe you just see multiple paragraphs and don't bother to read it - which would be more expected of someone who doesn't understand the misogynistic issues women face and just wants to mock them.

Regardless, you've done nothing but make a fool of yourself with this ask.

[dkettchen]

✨ Men's day PSA ✨

by your friendly neighborhood transmasc men's lib activist ⁓

To the women, male feminists, gays, nonbinaries and transmascs who haven't gotten with the program yet:

If you want the rest of us (incl all trans & otherwise genderqueer ppl) to be free, cishet men need to be freed, because misandry and gender roles affect all of us, but they're the ones defining society's mainstream conception of what it is to be a Man™.

And cishet men can't do that by themselves, so they need your allyship!

Here's my old video on men's issues if you need a general intro to men's lib. Feel free to also check out my videos on men's studies and matriarchy, as well as the various things linked in their descriptions.

Here's some simple things you can do for the men in your life:

question your misandry & anti-men/-masculinity biases

ex. do you think it's fine to make fun of/be mean to men? how do you feel about your own masculine qualities? would you do/think the same thing to/about them if they were a woman/queer person? etc

meet men with kindness & give them the benefit of the doubt

men, like anyone else, are people and not a monolith, the vast majority of them are perfectly lovely and safe to interact with and don't deserve your prejudice, they deserve to be treated as well as anyone else & are usually used to being treated significantly worse

include them in stuff & teach them skills they traditionally don't get to participate in

there are plenty of matriarchal skills that are hecking useful & not available to a lot of cishet men the way they are to women and queer people, ex. make-up, hair/nails/skin care, fashion, sewing/knitting/crafting, or even just like base social skills/presentability

value them

ex. show that you want for them to be alive, healthy, and happy; compliment them/their looks; (where applicable) express your attraction to them incl what abt them you're attracted to; etc

support them in their own self-liberation efforts

ex. emotions/mental health/self-worth, fashion/self-care, parenting/home-making, etc

respect their current limits & comfort zone

ex. if they're not/not yet comfy w something more extremely out of their comfort zone, don't push it, as it might discourage them; understand that certain things don't come to them as easily (yet) as they do to you

remember intersectionality as with all things

ex. don't forget that plenty of men have marginalised identities (mental health, disability, class, race, queerness, etc) and therefore are not the Image of Privilege you may make Men™ out to be; don't invalidate/erase transmascs' & queer men's claim to female gender role things/femininity in order to validate their manhood/masculinity; be mindful of different issues & stereotypes affecting men of different ethnicities; etc

[generalchelseamayhem]

Every time someone scathingly refers to the "male loneliness epidemic" like it's not a real thing or it actually doesn't matter at all, the name Norah Vincent flashes into my mind, and I can't for the life of me imagine why.

[catboypalug]

Looking, in retrospect, at the wreck of the not-quite-relationship that was the closest I ever got to dating, I'm coming to terms with how I caused part of it.

That girl was a crazy bitch, but I was also unhealthy in how I approached it. When she showed interest in me, I had this constant feeling of "this is the only girl who will ever like me, I HAVE to date her, this is my only chance to have a relationship, this is it, this is the one." And, well, that kind of mindset makes you act weird about someone. I'm realizing I probably seemed like a creep to her at times. Like a drowning man clawing at the first hand to reach out and dragging them under, my desperation just hurt everyone involved. And it made me think about how many other lonely dudes trying to date are probably suffering with the same problem. They start socially awkward, don't have much success, and the more they remain alone, the more desperate they become to find someone, anyone who would be willing to be with them - but that very desperation drives people away. The failure causes self-hatred and insecurity that only causes more self-hatred, more pain. Things only seem to get worse, a downward spiral of loneliness and desperation.

I don't really have any advice to give that hasn't already been said a thousand times over - pick up a hobby, work on a creative activity, cultivate good friendships, find happiness in your life and don't attach your self-worth to the idea of having a relationship. I just want to point out what a vicious, self-reinforcing cycle it can be, and say: I get it. I know how awful it can be, but things can get better.

[isaacsapphire]

Gender and IF

[cazort]

I saw a radical feminist make the claim "my anger isn't hurting men" when her blog was chock full of negative overgeneralizations about men that depicted them in a fully negative light and read negative intent into virtually everything that they did, it was nothing short of a hate blog. And I'm like...seriously, how can you be this dumb? It's such a short-sighted and frankly out-of-touch, privileged perspective.

Anger alone doesn't hurt men, but hate does. Words and ideas do. The cultural framing of men as "predators" and "threats", the reading of negative intention into men's actions, and the sweeping characterization of men as bad and dangerous not only hurts men, it literally kills them:

It is what is going through the cop's head when he shoots an unarmed black man.

It is what is going through people's heads when they view a random single man attending a social event as a threat and exclude him.

It is a key factor that leads people to assume bad faith in an ambiguous social interaction, and leads people to interpret men's behavior as malicious when in reality it was just socially awkward.

It's a huge factor in why people don't believe male rape victims, which in turn results in these victims not opening up about what they experienced and just suffering alone in silence.

It's a huge factor in why people downplay or ignore the risks of bodily harm and death that men face in their workplaces.

Collectively these factors are a big factor in male suicide.

I'm never going to shame someone for being angry at men (or at anyone.) It's not constructive to shame people for their emotions. And it's understandable that a lot of women would be angry at men, especially when they have suffered awful violence and/or abuses at the hands of men, especially when they have experienced a pattern of such abuses in their life, paired with little compassion or understanding from men. Plenty of women are understandably traumatized.

But when people act on that anger by spewing hate, by spinning a whole web of hate and lies, a whole worldview based around negatively characterizing men and blaming all the world's problems on them, that's when I am going to take issue.

And no, I won't sit idly by when people claim that "it isn't hurting men" when it is visibly hurting a long list of men I personally know.

If we are to really make feminism about gender equality and not just a man-hating echo chamber, we really need to challenge, and exclude these perspectives from our feminism.

[itsbansheebitch]

Breast Cancer "Awareness": Let's Talk

The breast cancer awareness movement used to be a very important part of our history, but recently it has been seen as a target for scams, fraud, and fake charities.

I always was confused as a kid why breast cancer "awareness" ALWAYS focused on women (see pink bow, pink boxing gloves, and "fight like a girl") when men can ALSO get breast cancer. WHY are we gatekeeping a life threatening disease???

Not to mention the sexualization of breast cancer. Why is the body part more marketable than the person? You aren't donating to save boobs, you're donating to SAVE LIVES. Why is that so hard to market?

Anyway, if you see an organization say that x% of donations/profits goes to breast cancer AWARENESS you can know with certainty that that money is going straight to more marketing. Don't waste your time with donating to those people. Instead, get annual or 6 month checkups and remember to remind your friends that no matter your gender or sex, you too can get breast cancer. THAT will ACTUALLY help with "Awareness."

[transgender-png]

hate when someone refers to a guy being stubborn/hotheaded/hard to open up/other bad trait as "being a guy/a man thing".

i KNOW if a woman was being emotional or defensive or hell, even one of the things i mentioned before, and i said "it's because she's a woman" i would earn myself a one way ticket to Asshole Town and rightfully so! but someone saying the same thing about a man is apparently okay, because he's a man?

this is an issue i noticed long before i started transitioning, but i notice it a lot more now.

it's no wonder men act like douchebags when theyre taught from a very young age that that's how they're supposed to be. if you teach someone they're supposed to be aggressive and tough and emotionless because that's what it means to be their gender, of course they're going to grow up to act like that.

and if you read this post and think that because im standing up for an issue men face, that i cant also believe in women's rights and stand up for them, then i think you need to reassess your reading comprehension skills and how open-minded you really are, because the fact that women have issues that are caused mostly by men in our society and men have issues that are caused mostly by women in our society are two things that can, and do, coexist, and you should be including men in your feminism too. no one benefits and everyone is hurt under the patriarchy.