#y'all wanna take bets on how long it is before someone calls me a MRA for advocating for basic decency towards other human people?

[uncle-fruity]

I actually think y'all need to fix the way you talk about cis men too. I don't think we will ever be able to support marginalized men if we can't support the emotions of all men in general. If we can't see that men have a place in progressive spaces and opinions that are not just valid but valuable to our cause, then we will never be on the path to true equality.

And, like, that isn't to say that you should ignore or misrepresent oppressive systems or that we shouldn't point out how cis het rich white able-bodied men benefit from being cis het rich white able-bodied men. That isn't to say that when a man is disrespecting you or trying to downplay your struggles or trying to leverage his privileges & power over you that you shouldn't call him out and fight back. That isn't to say that we need to make *more* space for men than we do other people in our communities or that men should be allowed to talk over people -- being part of the discussion doesn't mean they are the only people at the table who matter. But it does matter that they're at the table in general and that they aren't treated like an enemy or an enemy-in-waiting by default.

But I do think it's a mistake to be mean or cruel to just any random cis man because you THINK he should be able to take it. As if an individual's hurt feelings is going to change the men who actually hurt you. As if all men need to be punished for what other men do. Generalizing about all men is always going to backfire on the most vulnerable among them.

I just don't see how it benefits anyone to write cis men off entirely. I understand feelings of trauma, of bitterness, of anger towards the system that values rich white men more than anyone else; I have those feelings too. But unless you're specifically railing against the men who created these conditions & uphold them, you're really just firing at people who "look" like the enemy with no critical thought or compassion.

I have seen the ways y'all talk about & generalize men. I have seen the things y'all insist are jokes or "not that serious" or whatever. It's not cute and it's not funny and it's not helping most of the time. I've seen some of the best male allies I have ever had in my life sink into deep depression and guilt spirals because of the way they're treated by certain "progressive" groups -- men who are the least threatening people I've ever met who feel like they need to police their every action and supress every complex/"negative" emotion to make sure everyone else is comfortable, to make sure no one saw them as a predator. I have seen men straight up just take domestic abuse from their partners because they think they "can't" be abused as men or that they're obligated to put their partner's needs over theirs, or even that they deserve emotional abuse because they want to be good men who listen to the women in their lives & get taken advantage of for attempting to radically do so.

These guys are not your enemies, but they are getting hit in the crossfire. Just like queer men get hit in the crossfire. Just like black men. Just like disabled men. Just like poor men. And, to be honest, a lot of y'all can't really tell the difference between a man and an oppressor to begin with. If you think there is no difference, or that all men are oppressors and all nonmen are victims, then I'm sorry to say you don't understand oppression as well as you need to to get a handle on how to fight it. Truth is, men suffer a lot under patriarchy. And, truth is, a LOT of men have been trying to talk about it in good faith, but most of y'all have no interest in hearing & learning about it because you perceive your own pain as more painful and you believe that all men deserve the pain they get for the actions of the loudest & meanest among them. And some of you think it's on men to fix their "own" problems without seeing how plenty of nonmen also perpetuate patriarchal ideology & won't take any personal responsibility. Not to mention that regardless of whose fault it is (I'd argue that we're all complicit to some degree), men need help and we need to help them. We do actually need to care about their feelings. It will make our whole community and our whole movement stronger.

And I gotta say that it makes all the arguments that are foundational to feminism sound hollow and cheap and hypocritical when you don't extend the same Basic Respect that all people deserve to men. I think it perpetuates the divide between men and everyone else. It worsens their isolation. It reinforces the idea that men need to be logical and emotionless. It's like everyone agrees that men need to engage with their emotions and consider their role in the patriarchy and then turning around and bullying them the moment their emotions aren't the "right ones." And yeah... I just don't think that men deserve extra nastiness or that they shouldn't feel bad when people make fun of them because "if they're offended then they're obviously misogynists"... can the rest of y'all not hear how manipulative and abusive that sounds?

I notice sometimes in queer and feminist spaces the idea of "this group is generally given more leniency and privileges in wider society; it's okay for us to be critical or even a little nasty to them because anywhere else they'd be praised". and that's understandable, i think. when you have real issues with men and how men act, it's ok to express that and to mock mens behavior. cis men who are generally praised and celebrated in society should be able to take some mean jokes or criticisms and accept they're not always going to be lauded.

but since queer and feminist spaces are generally more accepting of trans people and the wider society is not, this is also projected on to trans men. "trans men are men" was an affirming statement to our validity, but that was interpreted as "since trans men are men, and men are celebrated by society, I get to be a little nasty to them because the rest of society worships men. they can take it."

but the rest of society doesn't have that same level of trans acceptance. they don't see trans men as men, they see trans men as mentally ill, broken, mutilated women. so it's absolutely aggravating when we turn to queer and feminist spaces for solidarity, we face the same reactive nastiness cis men get and are told "come on, trans men are men. you are celebrated in society. you can take it." and when we look at the rest of society there's no celebration. there's only more nastiness and cruelty. so how can we "take it" when we have no community that accepts us and treats us without mockery? we don't have the shelter of acceptance that cis men have in the status quo, and sometimes we can't find a small umbrella of acceptance in queer communities either.

to be honest, I think a lot of people view trans men as a safe punching bag to vent their frustrations with men. you can mistreat a trans man and he's probably not going to fight you back since he's already so beat down. you can feel like you put a man in his place, you can feel like you're resisting the patriarchy. but all you did was act cruel to a marginalized person. and you know if you treated a cis man like that you might be putting yourself in danger, cos he might not take it lying down and he might not care as much about your wellbeing!

trans men are men, but trans men are not cis men. cis men are lauded and celebrated in society as long as they conform to the gender roles that were placed on them at birth. and this privilege is extremely conditional and not equally spread between men of different sexualities, races, ethnicities, ability, age, etc; trans men and intersex men are thrown to the side completely. I understand needing to vent about men. trans men do it too. but a persistent attitude of resentment and cruelty towards all men, including trans men, is not activism. all you do is push marginalized men out of the only communities they belong