I mean it's pretty hard to take a group seriously when they are sounding an alarm on the manosphere while simultaneously pushing young men into it.
The manosphere gained popularity at a rate consistent with the increase of content targeting men designed to body shame, invalidate, and mock them.
It's a true FAFO moment. I don't agree with it; but there's a reason Gen Z men were the deciding factor for Trump (breaking a trend of young voting blocks consistently voting for liberal candidates in generals). Then, with that voting block Trump was able to target things like bodily autonomy and established precedent.
I feel for women. I really do. The plot got lost though and there were some pretty dire consequences as a result.
Civil rights can't be a zero sum game. Any movement for equality needs to be inclusive. Non inclusive equality movements are doomed to fail at best and at worst will cause a regression.
Misogyny kills, restricts, silences, exploits, denigrates, and severely disservices women and girls socially, politically, financially, in healthcare, and otherwise.
Misandry is the natural response to misogyny, and it essentially just hurts men's feelings. It has no teeth, because there isn't an entire social, legal, or governmental system behind it backing it (patriarchy). All it does is bring awareness and hopefully remove the jerk's access to the women they'd like to control and use. This is why they clock it as "misandry"... because misogynists and patriarchial types believe falling in line with what they want for women is women's "god given duty."
Can anyone explain to me why they believe they're the victims here?
>Misogyny kills, restricts, silences, exploits, denigrates, and severely disservices women and girls socially, politically, financially, in healthcare, and otherwise.
Yeah that's something we agree on. All of that is true.
>Misandry is a natural response, and it essentially just hurts men's feelings.
Thank you for not sugar coating and trying to call a square a circle.
Those hurt feelings are what drives those vulnerable young men into the arms of people who actually hate women and allows them to fulfill their longstanding desire to roll back women's rights.
>Can anyone explain to me why they believe they're victims here.
I mean you answered your own question. Misandry became normalized and that's what young men saw. They didn't look at what was happening to them through a historical lens. They saw a movement that said "hey equality for women means allowing yourself to get your feelings hurt and if you speak up then you're an incel".
You're essentially trying to make young men atone for the sins of generations of institutionalized misogyny. It's a valid response but realistically what did you think the outcome would be? You thought a bunch of kids would sit down and say "yes, I deserve to feel bad and feel invalidated because I'm a male and should atone for actions I didn't do"?
You think feminists “pushed” young men into the manosphere? Men chose to engage with this grifting nonsense. Why are men never responsible for their own behaviour?
Individuals need to be held responsible for their actions. However when a large portion of the population starts behaving a certain way the problem is systemic. 2 things can be true.
They absolutely did push them. They made mocking men through body shaming and name-calling not only socially acceptable but as a way to make money as "influencers".
Look up Google trends between words like "incel" "six feet" and "Andrew Tate" "Joe Rogan".
Were women subject to body shaming and oppression in the past? Absolutely they were. The young men joining the manosphere did not participate in that. Their entire perspective came from an entire social culture invalidating their struggles and mocking them.
Weirdos like Andrew Tate may have created the manosphere space but "feminists" pushed them into it when they decided to be vindictive instead of trying to break a cycle.
You know what’s positive masculinity? Thinking for yourself. Not blaming others for your mistakes. Admitting when you’re wrong. Learning and growing to be better every day. Caring for others. Creating and following a moral code.
You know what’s not positive masculinity? Whining about big bad woman wanting equality. Blaming women for your problems. Not owning your mistakes. Worshipping men who abuse women, children, and animals. Listening to men in the manosphere who are mocking you as they take your money. Blaming other people for your failures.
People wonder why there’s a “loneliness” epidemic? No one wants a toxic man who lets other, loser men turn him into a whiner who won’t own his behaviour. Can you imagine spending time around a guy who bitches and blames women for their problems? People want to be around positive, interesting, curious men who make them laugh and feel safe.
>You know what’s positive masculinity? Thinking for yourself.
Agreed but the last few years men were not afforded that. They were told that if they didn't think a certain way they were invalid. They were told if they didn't fit into a very narrow aesthetic then they weren't real men.
You know what positive femininity is? It's fighting for quality without feeling like you need to put other groups down in the process.
You know what's not positive feminity? Shifting the narrative from equality and shattering arcaheic societal norms to 'putting men in their place'.
>People wonder why there’s a “loneliness” epidemic? No one wants a toxic man who lets other, loser men turn him into a whiner who won’t own his behaviour. Can you imagine spending time around a guy who bitches and blames women for their problems? People want to be around positive, interesting, curious men who make them laugh and feel safe.
That's a perfect (albeit ironic) example of your first quote. You're not letting men think for themselves. You're telling them how to think and that if they don't think that way then they are invalid.
Either way you're screaming at air here. I'm not someone in the manosphere. I'm not lonely, an incel, or whatever else you're making up in your head to maintain your narrow world view. I'm not saying joining the manosphere is right. It's a disgusting community. What I am saying is that it's an inevitable conclusion when young men feel alienated by society and have no where else to go.
If men don't want to be good people that women desire to be around, they don't have to. However, if they refuse this, they have zero rights to complain about women being the reason they're alone/so often rejected. Men brought the loneliness upon themselves, and they're the only ones who can solve it.
By choosing to swallow manosphere grifter rhetoric that tells them it is all women's fault instead of seeking out positive male sources of support, they've only dug themselves a deeper hole. Men didn't go down this hateful pipeline because there are no better options for them... They go down it because the manosphere tells them that they aren't at fault, so it represents the path of least resistance and least personal responsibility. The manosphere also conveniently tells them that formal therapy is "for women" and "doesn't work on men." Huh.
It's the easiest path that makes them feel the best about themselves, so they do not have to critically think about the problem anymore or take any independent action to resolve it. This is the real reason the manosphere is catching so many legitimately struggling men and boys into thier trap, which pushes them ever further away from women. People don't like to be told that it's thier fault.
Where are these positive male influences? Are they in the room with us right now?
The manosphere was the only community telling young men that their struggles are valid, that they are valid. Then the leaders of those communities who are actually horrible people used the opportunity to enact agendas they spent decades trying to enact.
You have to seek them out and be able to identify them when you see them, because they're hidden amongst the flood of manosphere garbage right now. You might need to do some of the legwork yourself here due to the problem, and even look into becoming the role model you seek yourself.
I see a lot of manosphere dudes insult the ever-loving fuck out of positive role models, too. If you're already the type to fall into the bullshit, you probably are also the type to think men who respect women and demonstrate positive masculinity are disingenuous "beta cucks"... so you'll just pass them right up.
Why have I seen so many manosphere/chud posts denigrating women and judging them by thier bodies? Calling to repeal the 19th? Pitching the idea of state-mandated girlfriends and forced gestation, rape, and fantasies about murdering women/"foids"? All that stuff about liberal women being obese with a "bull ring" and wild colored hair, and them just being jealous of women that misogynists deem "acceptable"?
If none of that is coming directly from the manosphere... I wonder why I see it in every single male-dominated space (especially men's rights spaces) on the internet these days?
> I mean it's pretty hard to take a group seriously when they are sounding an alarm on the manosphere while simultaneously pushing young men into it.
> The manosphere gained popularity at a rate consistent with the increase of content targeting men designed to body shame, invalidate, and mock them.
The idea that feminists were the one targeting men with body shaming, invalidation and mocking is ridiculous. Those movements themselves lied to young men and did that exactly. What do you think early PUA nonsense was about?
> It's a true FAFO moment. I don't agree with it; but there's a reason Gen Z men were the deciding factor for Trump (breaking a trend of young voting blocks consistently voting for liberal candidates in generals). Then, with that voting block Trump was able to target things like bodily autonomy and established precedent.
This is absolute nonsense, it's not a "FAFO" moment for feminists, young men were intentionally targeted and brainwashed by Steve Bannon and his ilk to believe lies about women and feminism generally.
This comes off as blaming women and feminist generally for an increase in misogyny, which is ridiculous.
The rest of his comments just go on and on doing the same. He's refusing to do any critical thinking about it. The only thing he can accept is that men read some mean tweets once from eeeeeevil feminist, so they have to take away our rights.
Was it Steve Bannon I saw in all of those social media posts designed to disenfranchise and invalidate the struggles of young men?
The young men joining the manosphere don't even know what PUA is. Sure there was a weird subsect of the internet that hated women. It was never mainstream though.
The manosphere became mainstream when young men got bombarded with posts saying their struggles were invalidated.
Look up the data. The manosphere exploded when the body shaming, incel, and invalidation of young men started becoming mainstream.
You're trying to connect dots that don't exist. This isn't a complicated concept.
> Was it Steve Bannon I saw in all of those social media posts designed to disenfranchise and invalidate the struggles of young men?
You don't know what disenfranchisement means. Men are not at risk of losing literally any of their rights. Being told you only get an equal piece of the pie isn't invalidating your struggle.
> The young men joining the manosphere don't even know what PUA is.
The ones now do not. But 15 years ago? Totally different.
> Sure there was a weird subsect of the internet that hated women. It was never mainstream though.
So you don't think misogyny is mainstream? What planet are you living on?
> The manosphere became mainstream when young men got bombarded with posts saying their struggles were invalidated.
No, you are just kidding yourself. Again, have you looked at all into the intentional strategies behind gamergate and radicalizing young men? They aren't a secret. If you think a couple of social media posts getting invalidated caused a ton of men to be radicalized in the way they were. You don't think intentional equipment onto the right wing social media pathways meant anything?
So in your mind, some mean posts from women online caused men to become misogynists who think it's okay to control women's bodies and rights?
>You don't know what disenfranchisement means. Men are not at risk of losing literally any of their rights. Being told you only get an equal piece of the pie isn't invalidating your struggle.
That's not what young men are being told. They are being told they need to atone for the sins of generations before them. That if they don't think and act in a way that's deemed desirable then it's invalid. They are being told their struggles are invalid because years of misogyny and arcaheic societal standards that they never participated in are justification for the mocking they receive.
>No, you are just kidding yourself.
I'm not. The pragmatic truth is that young men who swung the election for Trump in 2024 didn't participate in Gamergate. They were children. You're connecting dots that aren't there. You're blaming young men for things they didn't do and in the process creating a self fulfilling prophecy. Young men were told they deserve to be mocked and this made the vulnerable to the rhetoric from the manosphere telling them "see I told you feminists hated you and are bad people, we need to reclaim our manhood and put women in their place".
>So in your mind, some mean posts from women online caused men to become misogynists who think it's okay to control women's bodies and rights?
It's more nuanced than that but yes. It wasn't just a few posts though. It was an active campaign to mock men and invalidate their struggles. This pushed them straight into the arms of opportunistic personalities and politicians that have been working to dismantle women's rights for years. Now they're starting to be successful. It's a tragic irony.
You also seem to think that things that happened in the past can't affect what's happening now, which is ridiculous as well.
It's not more nuanced than that, you just are refusing to look at the big picture of the movement of misogyny in the US and would like to blame a very small, short-term issue for long-term planning and a trend towards misogyny that's been going on much longer than that.
Sure history matters, I understand the longstanding struggles women had to deal with with.
The pragmatic truth is that a bunch of teenagers and early 20's kids don't look at what's happening to them through a historical scope. All they hear/see is an entire movement telling them that they're invalid.
Let me ask you a question.
In your perfect world, how should have young men responded to the campaign they were seeing that was invalidating them?
When you have an answer then ask yourself if that's a realistic expectation of what amounts to a bunch of kids.
> The pragmatic truth is that a bunch of teenagers and early 20's kids don't look at what's happening to them through a historical scope.
That is correct. But that doesn't stop them from being affected by it. Kids don't magically learn from each other at exactly the same time and age, they learn from older kids and from the world around them.
> All they hear/see is an entire movement telling them that they're invalid.
Except that isn't happening. They are being told it's happening, people like Bannon are intentionally manipulating them and saying that an entire movement is doing that, but that does not reflect reality.
> In your perfect world, how should have young men responded to the campaign they were seeing that was invalidating them?
This question is full of assumptions that aren't true. Young men don't have to respond. There wasn't a campaign that was invalidating them. If you are ever in a situation where you feel like that is happening, you are obligated to learn more and find out what is actually real.
I have worked with young people my entire career, and I have higher expectations of them. However, they are victims of propaganda, just like you and I might be. No one is blaming anyone except the folks creating and perpetuating that propaganda.
There absolutely was a campaign against men. It may not have been formalized but you still can't scroll through social media without seeing content that mocks men.
Now was that campaign seeded by men like Bannon? Sure I could believe that. We get back to the choice issue though. Women didn't have to propagate that same toxic rhetoric. Had they made content that chose to fight against the narrative instead of participating in it then women probably wouldn't be facing murder charges for executing bodily autonomy.
So because men's feeling are hurt by women pointing out how badly men and male-dominated systems have and still are harming us... they in turn feel justified to rape, murder, exploit, control, diminish, and over-sexualize us as well as push to legally erode our (already limited and insufficient) rights so that we might be forced to fall back in line with a toxic patriarchial standard? Is that really an appropriate response to you?
So now they aren't just incels, they are murderers and rapists now too? Does that feel like an appropriate response?
To answer your question:
No they don't feel justified to be criminals. They do however, feel justified to vote for politicians that promise to make them feel seen and heard. Which is exactly what they did and now women catch murder charges for abortions.
If you want things to get worse then keeping giving into the rage. Call them incels, rapists, and murderers. It makes for good timtoks and short dopamine bursts but it's horrific for an equality movement and women's rights.
Laurie Penny is a real one and has been fighting the good fight for so long.
I want to add that Reddit itself has played an integral part in the rise of the manosphere. Literally over 15 years ago when the men's rights subreddit started taking off and it started spawning and inspiring more radical subreddits, and having a lot of crossover with white nationalist subreddits, we were sounding the alarm back then. A lot of the PUA Hate/early manosphere stuff came from reddit.
And research has proven it over and over again, it's not just feminist opinion, there is decent research on radicalization and hate speech on Reddit but Reddit is happy to be complicit instead of deal with this issue.
I don't know how many folks remember but a couple of years ago admins said they were getting serious about controlling hate on this hellsite and they were able to make some real progress in a bunch of areas except for misogyny. They just gave up because the problem was too big and took too much work.
>A lot of the PUA Hate/early manosphere stuff came from reddit.
One quick point of clarification on this. You are largely correct, but the PUA well predates Reddit. I'm an old grey beard, but the PUA/negging stuff was well established in the mid 90s (I was in my 20s then)
I do think what Reddit has done is taken those ideas and amplified and morphed them. PUA became the Red Pill and an entry point into the alt-right/fascist pipeline. Same thing with gaming subreddits. The Behind the Bastards episodes on Epstein touch on how those communities were radicalized and how people like Bannon and Epstein pushed for it to happen
You are absolutely right, I'm talking about the specific "PUAHate" communities that originated on reddit.
Basically, we're in agreement, Reddit was essentially the accelerator. The ideas didn't originate here, but they coordinated and were able to explode in popularity to become communities.
I go back as far as 4chan in the early 2000s (I was a teen), and this stuff was festering and growing there before Reddit even launched. If they actually did anything about all the problematic porn and misogyny on Reddit it would be a ghost town. They won't intervene because they'd lose nearly all standing and engagement, ending up like the other abandoned social media sites that cracked down on it.
10 years ago I was OBSESSED with reading the various incel subs. It was partially out of needing to know more about something that I viewed as a danger to myself as a young woman, and in a strange way also identifying with the content on a human level. Finding out how much these types of spaces were manipulated by Steve bannon and the like makes sense and is also deeply scary. I could totally see falling down this pipeline if I was born male. If I go far back enough in my username history I might be able to find arguments that I had with people in these subs. I can't remember if I ever commented then or not.
A change at the source is important but I think there needs to be a cultural shift as well. The normalization of emotional neglect in our culture is so great and it leaves us wide open for offenses like this on our teens and young adults. I feel like I see it changing but it's not fast enough for me and COVID put Gen z and Gen alpha so perilously online.
I'm a trans non-binary person now in the middle of a medical transition and I am genuinely afraid of how when my rights are inevitably assaulted, the general public will not put up any sort of defense because of the misogyny issue (misogyny is directly related to societal control of women, most trans issues are related to the state wanting control of people through binary gender, transition is an affront to that, therefore more misogyny = low support for trans).
All that to say: it's heartening to see people like you and Laurie taking this all seriously and taking action and at the very least paying attention.
You were right to sound the alarm, but sounding the alarm isn't enough. You have to win over people who may not immediately agree with you, and then win elections. Gain other forms of political power too. Everything else is just more words on the internet.
But this article complains about people not "listening" to the feminists. No one is entitled to be listened to, even if they are objectively right. That's not how it works! All you can do is win political battles.
Strong disagree, there are plenty of academics and serious thinkers who are devoted to analysis and sharing their opinion and it's our responsibility to listen to people who know things we don't.
You can control your own behavior with statements like that but not other people's behavior, especially if they're not sympathetic to what you're saying.
You guys have convinced yourselves that you don't need to engage with the rest of the world, and then wonder why the rest of the world isn't listening.
I'm not your enemy, I'm a sympathizer, I just am tired of seeing the left lose.
YEP I remember being like "I think these weird little fucks are a gateway drug to all kinds of racist, scary shit. Oh, and they hate women, which should be bad enough."
No one "ignored" it. We all heard the alarm and discussed it. Feminists were absolutely right about how toxic parts of the manosphere were becoming.
But discussion and raising alarm is not enough. You need political action.
There is no teacher to complain to. There is no central authority to settle disputes. There's just politics. All you can do is try to win people over and win elections.
The global far right has had some political gains recently, but there's signs the tide is turning. You just have to keep fighting.
All of the building blocks of the modern manosphere -- the victimhood narrative, the weird collection of collateral bigotries, even early forms of looksmaxxing -- existed on UseNet before 4chan even existed. I personally witnessed this.
He was literally who I first thought about when I read the title. I’ve followed that blog since its origins. (It started as something else, I just can’t remember the name.)
I followed tons of feminists speaking against the manosphere, but then Google dropped Reader and I stopped following blogs entirely. :(
Why should we? Not our horse, not our race. We just identify the source of the problem and then plan for what OUR response will be. Men's response is for them to determine, and a scary large quantity of them figured the "answer" to thier struggles is to lean in even further to what the manosphere is hawking (blatant misogyny).
It is OUR horse, OUR race, OUR society. We all exist together womens struggles are men's and men's struggles are women's struggles.
It's not men vs. women. It's all well adjusted people vs. bigots.
And feminism has had quite a lot to say about what men should and shouldn't enjoy. It never feminism bad or the manosphere good, but the fact that the manosphere has been so successful is clear evidence that non-bigots failed to reach young men in way they could understand.
It doesn't mean bigots are excused but it's obvious that feminism's goals have not been reached.
PART of the reason for that is sensational rhetoric that groups all men together as enemies of the movement.
Feminism still advocates that young men suppress their sexuality and shames them for things like.
Don't approach women. Don't look at women. If you think women are arousing you're probably a perv. The porn you watch is bad too. Porn is intrinsically degrading to the women in it. And don't watch animated porn either, it creates unrealistic body standards.
Obviously not all of this if any of it is intended to be this extreme. But I can tell you first hand this is about how I thought 2010s feminism wanted me to act as I was becoming a man. We all know repression like this is a terrible way to convince teenagers of anything and it left a lot of us ripe to be shown the most extreme (and often astro turfed) sides of Feminism and get pulled into the manosphere.
Once again, I consider myself a feminist and no amount of hate from a woman is gonna make me hate women. Above all, I consider feminism a net positive. This just another thing that we all need to talk about and come to an understanding on.
If men would like to enjoy things at women's expense, then those women rightfully do not want be around those men. Right? No one has to accept or tolerate anything in another that hurts them. They're not rejecting your masculinity, sexuality, or "things men like" when they do this... they're rejecting the things that men choose which demonstrably harms women, or the women at hand. What are feminists choosing that have harmed you? I've got a laundry list for myself on the reverse, but I am genuinely interested in hearing how feminists have harmed men beyond "hurting thier feelers" or deciding against them, opting instead to thrive alone.
You're aware that you're free to keep doing it of course, whatever thing that you do that feminists will "screeee" about... but I can't think of an accompanying reason why women would need to stick around for it.
It isn't the fault of either women or feminists for rejecting that which harms them, nor for speaking out broadly about it. When so many men now are likely to misinterpret and take a woman talking about the problem as a knee-jerk personal offensive, I think it must be because they are okay with the way this world operates right now, and would like it to keep it benefitting men at women's vast expense. Either that, or it's because they feel no percieved benefits of the patriarchy, so they instantly assume a woman talking about her lived experiences with it is "hysterical, " and "hateful, " or is not to be trusted.
If a series of men you dated throughout your life have all turned out to be either porn addicts, abusers, misogynists/anti-feminists, or worse... what do you believe she should be saying about men and male-dominated systems on the internet? You give her no creedance to express her hatred towards what happened to her? Is she allowed to say she hates men in a broad sense right after one rapes her? Is she not allowed to say it anymore once enough years have passed? And my last curiosity... do you always hallucinate the "all" part whenever women discuss men, male-dominated systems, and all the things they've endured at thier hands?
Patriarchy doesn't mean men have no problems, or that it if it "did exist" it would award them a harem of women and easy financial success. I feel like this is a common misconception in the manosphere. That's how I think they dupe them into hating women, the thing they each so deeply want, by telling them that they WOULD benefit from the "fake patriarchy" that feminists parade against if they only made it even more strict and "real."
Rarely have I ever heard a feminist actually say "all men," and they seem to be painfully aware of what happens if you do. They're accused of it a lot, but it usually isn't even in the quote a misogynist uses to smear them.
I am a feminist of the radical variety. The only time I personally hear this statement (all men) is in the context of the patriarchy benefitting all men over women *whom are at the same strata as themselves. This is true regardless whether men agree with it or not, or if they feel that they are personally benefitting from this supposed patriarchy. The fact is, a woman will obligately face worse outcomes than men will at the same exact rung of the totem pole, with all other things being equal. According to statistics, the only time she won't descend and can fly alongside her male peers currently is if she:
Chooses against having children
Actually wants the traditional/patriarchial setup for her life
I often do see misogynists who think they heard "all men," or who mischaracterize the speaker by "filling in the blanks." These are the ones who take it personally (which should only theoretically happen if you are a supporter of the systems and male behaviors that have harmed women). Whenever I have spoken about these things to men who aren't misogynists or patriarchial types, they just listen and then offer support. It is the same when I talk about it with female friends. Misogynists/traditionalists, however, get unreasonably angry when they hear it... and at women.
It just makes so little sense to me that the most common reaction to a woman describing these things and expressing her feelings about them is for men to start foaming at the mouth and blaming her for her own abuse, dismissing it, taking it personally, etc. Why aren't they angry at the men and systems that hurt her instead of her? I don't get it. And do you think it is a healthy response, when you think someone is insulting you or lumping you in with hateful losers by saying "all men", to join a movement for hateful losers that want to see women raped, tightly controlled, and essentially enslaved for male benefit... instead of like, just seeking clarification? Or find themselves a healthy masculine role model, male friend, or male source of support when they're struggling instead of deciding to hate women?
You gotta get those emotional responses under control and sharpen your understanding of the roots of the problem, that is, if your interest is in mending the damage instead of adding more fuel to it.
Why are you equating male sexuality with harming women? I made a point that I appreciate what feminism has done for women and I wouldn't trade it for men being less repressed.
Rather than respecting my perspective you just assumed that I want men to be able to harm women for some reason went on a tirade about a perspective that I already disagree with.
Why does male sexuality so often harm women? I didn't do or intimate anything you just talked about, so I'm not sure how to respond. That's all I've got.
Call it male sexuality if you want I would say greed and a lack of respect for boundaries and autonomy are the primary drivers. Also gender dynamics that stereotype men as sexual givers and women as sexual takers.
If you're arguing that rape, harassment, and abuse are uniquely male or an intrinsic part of male sexuality I disagree categorically.
>I didn't do or intimate anything you just talked about
I was trying to explain how many men received the messaging from feminism in that time. I took the fact that it did a lot for women and helped far more than it hurt as a given and focused only on what I was actuslly adding to the conversation not on what any sane person would agree with.
I was pointing that along with the good of making creepy behavior taboo we also made male sexuality and men and women interacting in general into something of a taboo. If I'm right about that, it's a misstep that inadvertently did some of the work for the manosphere.
I'm not saying it's feminist's fault that the manosphere exists at all. Men are responsible for their actions. However as people who are anti bigot there are lessons to he learned here.
Oh, so the feminists should have just expressed themselves sweeter and nicer and maybe even smile as to not "force" the misogynists deeper into the manosphere. Got it. Yes, I believe you already need an element of misogyny inside of you to see what those chuds say and ever consider it a viable option... and you also need some within you to take personal offense to the things feminists say.
Don't put those stupid chud words in my mouth. I'm not girls need to be nice about sexists and abusers and so on. I'm saying that deconstructing the patriarchy and the social reconstruction to follow requires input from everyone if it's gonna be as good as we can make it.
If we wanted to just turn the tables telling men to just shit up and leave women alone it would be fine but we want equality.
You seem to be of the opinion that I'm some kind of misogynist, but I really am not so please forgive if I'm being ignorant.
I dunno, it was pretty clear to me. Misogyny and toxic manosphere crap is rising, and there is no significant resistance to it. There is significant resistance, however, to those who have been harmed by it and speak out.
Feminists for the last 3 decades or so have made it a zero sum game (as a minimum). They've systematically lobbied and protested against equality for men in regards to domestic violence support and fathers rights.
All you have to do is look at Erin Pizzey. She was the ultimate feminist, she essentially created refuge centres for women, lauded as one of the most important people in the world when it came to helping protect women from violent men.
Except, what she found out from inside her own centre is that many of the women there were abusers as well, but beyond that often the instigators of the abuse.
The second she pointed that out, the second she dare suggest that something needs to be done for men because they are being abused, ex-communicado. She went against the feminist zeitgeist (only women can be victims) and her legacy was stripped.
Erin Pizzey was a bastion for human safety, but because it included men she was ousted and her name essentially removed from the records.
That should tell you how much feminism actually cares about equality.
Yes. I believe significant barriers are preventing men from formulating the answer. However, it isn't my problem to solve self-inflicted male loneliness. The financial struggles hit us all, and women even worse. I empathize with the kinds of problems that aren't self-inflicted.
I don't care what you think, I have decided. And I'll weigh in on any and every conversion I feel like contributing in! You don't get to dictate that for me, nor does anyone else. Big yikes.
Plenty of people who call themselves 'feminist' but actively hate men actually made this worse.
To be clear, it's not their fault. That blame lies with a culture that taught young boys they were intolerable whilst failing to protect them from echo chambers which accepted those same boys and taught them to embrace their worst aspects.
However, attributing this discovery as a 'feminist' win is not going to win over any of those people that it needs to.
Feminists do not hate men, and the only thing that could be considered a "win" here is the fact that we were right all along, even while we were ridiculed endlessly and said to be in "hysterics" for raising the alarms.
Yes, actual feminists are out for equality. There's a group of people however that wear the title of 'feminist' as armour and scapegoat to push extreme agendas, incite division and generally be terrible people. This is the case almost any large group - it gets invaded by narcissists.
My point is that these men and boys are so far gone that they consider feminists their enemy, they will not respond to this being described as something identified by feminists, especially as all reasonable people have been shining a light on this problem for a long time. Sometimes it's more practical to suck it up for the greater good than it is to say 'I told you so'.
What sort of extreme agendas do the 'false feminists' push? Can you give me some examples?
Just because misogynists are diametrically opposed to those who aren't broken doesn't mean we should just give up and shut up. I won't end the fight until misogyny and patriarchial systems are eradicated. I am not and will never be satisfied to be like, "welp, they're still misogynists and some people claim my response to the horrific crap is making it worse... so I may as well just sit down and accept it!"
Would you do that for anything that deeply affects you and about 51% of the population's lives?
The manosphere and it's origins existed long before the feminist response to it. Feminists didn't cause this, they just stopped putting up with it and are vocal about spreading the word about how harmful it is. The resulting lonely misogynists who feel owed access to female attention, sexuality, and labor despite thier unsavoryness are who forged the manosphere. "Clearly it is women and jews' and feminisms fault that women don't want me! They are acting outside of NaTuRe and JeSuS and BiOlOgY and MoRaLiTy and they're destroying society (read: patriarchial/traditionalist society is what they're destroying, not society itself)!"
They then dupe men and boys who are legitimately struggling into the absolute opposite of the answer, further radicalizing them and alienating them from the women they so crave.
Scary_Towel268 | a day ago
Worse than ignored actively mocked
TeamHope4 | a day ago
I recall the term "feminazi" being thrown at us.
shiner_bock | a day ago
'Feminazi' was popularized in the 1990s by that POS Rush Limbaugh.
Worth_Affect_4014 | a day ago
Dogpiled. Rape threatened. Doxxed.
mira_poix | a day ago
Attention whores.... hysterical...emotional wackos....
bunnypaste | a day ago
Yep, they told us we were fearmongering and "hysterical."
Cairse | a day ago
I mean it's pretty hard to take a group seriously when they are sounding an alarm on the manosphere while simultaneously pushing young men into it.
The manosphere gained popularity at a rate consistent with the increase of content targeting men designed to body shame, invalidate, and mock them.
It's a true FAFO moment. I don't agree with it; but there's a reason Gen Z men were the deciding factor for Trump (breaking a trend of young voting blocks consistently voting for liberal candidates in generals). Then, with that voting block Trump was able to target things like bodily autonomy and established precedent.
I feel for women. I really do. The plot got lost though and there were some pretty dire consequences as a result.
Civil rights can't be a zero sum game. Any movement for equality needs to be inclusive. Non inclusive equality movements are doomed to fail at best and at worst will cause a regression.
bunnypaste | 19 hours ago
Misogyny kills, restricts, silences, exploits, denigrates, and severely disservices women and girls socially, politically, financially, in healthcare, and otherwise.
Misandry is the natural response to misogyny, and it essentially just hurts men's feelings. It has no teeth, because there isn't an entire social, legal, or governmental system behind it backing it (patriarchy). All it does is bring awareness and hopefully remove the jerk's access to the women they'd like to control and use. This is why they clock it as "misandry"... because misogynists and patriarchial types believe falling in line with what they want for women is women's "god given duty."
Can anyone explain to me why they believe they're the victims here?
Cairse | 18 hours ago
>Misogyny kills, restricts, silences, exploits, denigrates, and severely disservices women and girls socially, politically, financially, in healthcare, and otherwise.
Yeah that's something we agree on. All of that is true.
>Misandry is a natural response, and it essentially just hurts men's feelings.
Thank you for not sugar coating and trying to call a square a circle.
Those hurt feelings are what drives those vulnerable young men into the arms of people who actually hate women and allows them to fulfill their longstanding desire to roll back women's rights.
>Can anyone explain to me why they believe they're victims here.
I mean you answered your own question. Misandry became normalized and that's what young men saw. They didn't look at what was happening to them through a historical lens. They saw a movement that said "hey equality for women means allowing yourself to get your feelings hurt and if you speak up then you're an incel".
You're essentially trying to make young men atone for the sins of generations of institutionalized misogyny. It's a valid response but realistically what did you think the outcome would be? You thought a bunch of kids would sit down and say "yes, I deserve to feel bad and feel invalidated because I'm a male and should atone for actions I didn't do"?
blarges | a day ago
You think feminists “pushed” young men into the manosphere? Men chose to engage with this grifting nonsense. Why are men never responsible for their own behaviour?
kenny2812 | a day ago
Individuals need to be held responsible for their actions. However when a large portion of the population starts behaving a certain way the problem is systemic. 2 things can be true.
Cairse | a day ago
They absolutely did push them. They made mocking men through body shaming and name-calling not only socially acceptable but as a way to make money as "influencers".
Look up Google trends between words like "incel" "six feet" and "Andrew Tate" "Joe Rogan".
Were women subject to body shaming and oppression in the past? Absolutely they were. The young men joining the manosphere did not participate in that. Their entire perspective came from an entire social culture invalidating their struggles and mocking them.
Weirdos like Andrew Tate may have created the manosphere space but "feminists" pushed them into it when they decided to be vindictive instead of trying to break a cycle.
blarges | a day ago
You know what’s positive masculinity? Thinking for yourself. Not blaming others for your mistakes. Admitting when you’re wrong. Learning and growing to be better every day. Caring for others. Creating and following a moral code.
You know what’s not positive masculinity? Whining about big bad woman wanting equality. Blaming women for your problems. Not owning your mistakes. Worshipping men who abuse women, children, and animals. Listening to men in the manosphere who are mocking you as they take your money. Blaming other people for your failures.
People wonder why there’s a “loneliness” epidemic? No one wants a toxic man who lets other, loser men turn him into a whiner who won’t own his behaviour. Can you imagine spending time around a guy who bitches and blames women for their problems? People want to be around positive, interesting, curious men who make them laugh and feel safe.
Cairse | 23 hours ago
>You know what’s positive masculinity? Thinking for yourself.
Agreed but the last few years men were not afforded that. They were told that if they didn't think a certain way they were invalid. They were told if they didn't fit into a very narrow aesthetic then they weren't real men.
You know what positive femininity is? It's fighting for quality without feeling like you need to put other groups down in the process.
You know what's not positive feminity? Shifting the narrative from equality and shattering arcaheic societal norms to 'putting men in their place'.
>People wonder why there’s a “loneliness” epidemic? No one wants a toxic man who lets other, loser men turn him into a whiner who won’t own his behaviour. Can you imagine spending time around a guy who bitches and blames women for their problems? People want to be around positive, interesting, curious men who make them laugh and feel safe.
That's a perfect (albeit ironic) example of your first quote. You're not letting men think for themselves. You're telling them how to think and that if they don't think that way then they are invalid.
Either way you're screaming at air here. I'm not someone in the manosphere. I'm not lonely, an incel, or whatever else you're making up in your head to maintain your narrow world view. I'm not saying joining the manosphere is right. It's a disgusting community. What I am saying is that it's an inevitable conclusion when young men feel alienated by society and have no where else to go.
bunnypaste | 19 hours ago
If men don't want to be good people that women desire to be around, they don't have to. However, if they refuse this, they have zero rights to complain about women being the reason they're alone/so often rejected. Men brought the loneliness upon themselves, and they're the only ones who can solve it.
By choosing to swallow manosphere grifter rhetoric that tells them it is all women's fault instead of seeking out positive male sources of support, they've only dug themselves a deeper hole. Men didn't go down this hateful pipeline because there are no better options for them... They go down it because the manosphere tells them that they aren't at fault, so it represents the path of least resistance and least personal responsibility. The manosphere also conveniently tells them that formal therapy is "for women" and "doesn't work on men." Huh.
It's the easiest path that makes them feel the best about themselves, so they do not have to critically think about the problem anymore or take any independent action to resolve it. This is the real reason the manosphere is catching so many legitimately struggling men and boys into thier trap, which pushes them ever further away from women. People don't like to be told that it's thier fault.
Cairse | 18 hours ago
Where are these positive male influences? Are they in the room with us right now?
The manosphere was the only community telling young men that their struggles are valid, that they are valid. Then the leaders of those communities who are actually horrible people used the opportunity to enact agendas they spent decades trying to enact.
bunnypaste | 17 hours ago
You have to seek them out and be able to identify them when you see them, because they're hidden amongst the flood of manosphere garbage right now. You might need to do some of the legwork yourself here due to the problem, and even look into becoming the role model you seek yourself.
I see a lot of manosphere dudes insult the ever-loving fuck out of positive role models, too. If you're already the type to fall into the bullshit, you probably are also the type to think men who respect women and demonstrate positive masculinity are disingenuous "beta cucks"... so you'll just pass them right up.
bunnypaste | 19 hours ago
Why have I seen so many manosphere/chud posts denigrating women and judging them by thier bodies? Calling to repeal the 19th? Pitching the idea of state-mandated girlfriends and forced gestation, rape, and fantasies about murdering women/"foids"? All that stuff about liberal women being obese with a "bull ring" and wild colored hair, and them just being jealous of women that misogynists deem "acceptable"?
If none of that is coming directly from the manosphere... I wonder why I see it in every single male-dominated space (especially men's rights spaces) on the internet these days?
SeasonPositive6771 | a day ago
> I mean it's pretty hard to take a group seriously when they are sounding an alarm on the manosphere while simultaneously pushing young men into it.
> The manosphere gained popularity at a rate consistent with the increase of content targeting men designed to body shame, invalidate, and mock them.
The idea that feminists were the one targeting men with body shaming, invalidation and mocking is ridiculous. Those movements themselves lied to young men and did that exactly. What do you think early PUA nonsense was about?
> It's a true FAFO moment. I don't agree with it; but there's a reason Gen Z men were the deciding factor for Trump (breaking a trend of young voting blocks consistently voting for liberal candidates in generals). Then, with that voting block Trump was able to target things like bodily autonomy and established precedent.
This is absolute nonsense, it's not a "FAFO" moment for feminists, young men were intentionally targeted and brainwashed by Steve Bannon and his ilk to believe lies about women and feminism generally.
This comes off as blaming women and feminist generally for an increase in misogyny, which is ridiculous.
bunnypaste | 18 hours ago
Yeah, he's literally claiming that feminists have brought misogyny upon themselves. What in the actual crap...
SeasonPositive6771 | 18 hours ago
The rest of his comments just go on and on doing the same. He's refusing to do any critical thinking about it. The only thing he can accept is that men read some mean tweets once from eeeeeevil feminist, so they have to take away our rights.
bunnypaste | 17 hours ago
Isn't that just the best assessment of the situation...
Sad, but accurate.
Cairse | a day ago
Oh sorry I must have been mistaken.
Was it Steve Bannon I saw in all of those social media posts designed to disenfranchise and invalidate the struggles of young men?
The young men joining the manosphere don't even know what PUA is. Sure there was a weird subsect of the internet that hated women. It was never mainstream though.
The manosphere became mainstream when young men got bombarded with posts saying their struggles were invalidated.
Look up the data. The manosphere exploded when the body shaming, incel, and invalidation of young men started becoming mainstream.
You're trying to connect dots that don't exist. This isn't a complicated concept.
SeasonPositive6771 | a day ago
Yes, you are mistaken.
> Was it Steve Bannon I saw in all of those social media posts designed to disenfranchise and invalidate the struggles of young men?
You don't know what disenfranchisement means. Men are not at risk of losing literally any of their rights. Being told you only get an equal piece of the pie isn't invalidating your struggle.
> The young men joining the manosphere don't even know what PUA is.
The ones now do not. But 15 years ago? Totally different.
> Sure there was a weird subsect of the internet that hated women. It was never mainstream though.
So you don't think misogyny is mainstream? What planet are you living on?
> The manosphere became mainstream when young men got bombarded with posts saying their struggles were invalidated.
No, you are just kidding yourself. Again, have you looked at all into the intentional strategies behind gamergate and radicalizing young men? They aren't a secret. If you think a couple of social media posts getting invalidated caused a ton of men to be radicalized in the way they were. You don't think intentional equipment onto the right wing social media pathways meant anything?
So in your mind, some mean posts from women online caused men to become misogynists who think it's okay to control women's bodies and rights?
Cairse | 22 hours ago
>You don't know what disenfranchisement means. Men are not at risk of losing literally any of their rights. Being told you only get an equal piece of the pie isn't invalidating your struggle.
That's not what young men are being told. They are being told they need to atone for the sins of generations before them. That if they don't think and act in a way that's deemed desirable then it's invalid. They are being told their struggles are invalid because years of misogyny and arcaheic societal standards that they never participated in are justification for the mocking they receive.
>No, you are just kidding yourself.
I'm not. The pragmatic truth is that young men who swung the election for Trump in 2024 didn't participate in Gamergate. They were children. You're connecting dots that aren't there. You're blaming young men for things they didn't do and in the process creating a self fulfilling prophecy. Young men were told they deserve to be mocked and this made the vulnerable to the rhetoric from the manosphere telling them "see I told you feminists hated you and are bad people, we need to reclaim our manhood and put women in their place".
>So in your mind, some mean posts from women online caused men to become misogynists who think it's okay to control women's bodies and rights?
It's more nuanced than that but yes. It wasn't just a few posts though. It was an active campaign to mock men and invalidate their struggles. This pushed them straight into the arms of opportunistic personalities and politicians that have been working to dismantle women's rights for years. Now they're starting to be successful. It's a tragic irony.
SeasonPositive6771 | 20 hours ago
Again, that's not what disenfranchisement means.
You also seem to think that things that happened in the past can't affect what's happening now, which is ridiculous as well.
It's not more nuanced than that, you just are refusing to look at the big picture of the movement of misogyny in the US and would like to blame a very small, short-term issue for long-term planning and a trend towards misogyny that's been going on much longer than that.
Cairse | 18 hours ago
Sure history matters, I understand the longstanding struggles women had to deal with with.
The pragmatic truth is that a bunch of teenagers and early 20's kids don't look at what's happening to them through a historical scope. All they hear/see is an entire movement telling them that they're invalid.
Let me ask you a question.
In your perfect world, how should have young men responded to the campaign they were seeing that was invalidating them?
When you have an answer then ask yourself if that's a realistic expectation of what amounts to a bunch of kids.
SeasonPositive6771 | 18 hours ago
> The pragmatic truth is that a bunch of teenagers and early 20's kids don't look at what's happening to them through a historical scope.
That is correct. But that doesn't stop them from being affected by it. Kids don't magically learn from each other at exactly the same time and age, they learn from older kids and from the world around them.
> All they hear/see is an entire movement telling them that they're invalid.
Except that isn't happening. They are being told it's happening, people like Bannon are intentionally manipulating them and saying that an entire movement is doing that, but that does not reflect reality.
> In your perfect world, how should have young men responded to the campaign they were seeing that was invalidating them?
This question is full of assumptions that aren't true. Young men don't have to respond. There wasn't a campaign that was invalidating them. If you are ever in a situation where you feel like that is happening, you are obligated to learn more and find out what is actually real.
I have worked with young people my entire career, and I have higher expectations of them. However, they are victims of propaganda, just like you and I might be. No one is blaming anyone except the folks creating and perpetuating that propaganda.
Cairse | 18 hours ago
There absolutely was a campaign against men. It may not have been formalized but you still can't scroll through social media without seeing content that mocks men.
Now was that campaign seeded by men like Bannon? Sure I could believe that. We get back to the choice issue though. Women didn't have to propagate that same toxic rhetoric. Had they made content that chose to fight against the narrative instead of participating in it then women probably wouldn't be facing murder charges for executing bodily autonomy.
bunnypaste | 18 hours ago
So because men's feeling are hurt by women pointing out how badly men and male-dominated systems have and still are harming us... they in turn feel justified to rape, murder, exploit, control, diminish, and over-sexualize us as well as push to legally erode our (already limited and insufficient) rights so that we might be forced to fall back in line with a toxic patriarchial standard? Is that really an appropriate response to you?
Cairse | 18 hours ago
So now they aren't just incels, they are murderers and rapists now too? Does that feel like an appropriate response?
To answer your question:
No they don't feel justified to be criminals. They do however, feel justified to vote for politicians that promise to make them feel seen and heard. Which is exactly what they did and now women catch murder charges for abortions.
If you want things to get worse then keeping giving into the rage. Call them incels, rapists, and murderers. It makes for good timtoks and short dopamine bursts but it's horrific for an equality movement and women's rights.
closingloops | a day ago
And rightfully so. The Guardian's bullshit won't vindicate you.
bunnypaste | 18 hours ago
I have always felt that The Guardian had high-quality journalism.
SeasonPositive6771 | a day ago
Laurie Penny is a real one and has been fighting the good fight for so long.
I want to add that Reddit itself has played an integral part in the rise of the manosphere. Literally over 15 years ago when the men's rights subreddit started taking off and it started spawning and inspiring more radical subreddits, and having a lot of crossover with white nationalist subreddits, we were sounding the alarm back then. A lot of the PUA Hate/early manosphere stuff came from reddit.
And research has proven it over and over again, it's not just feminist opinion, there is decent research on radicalization and hate speech on Reddit but Reddit is happy to be complicit instead of deal with this issue.
I don't know how many folks remember but a couple of years ago admins said they were getting serious about controlling hate on this hellsite and they were able to make some real progress in a bunch of areas except for misogyny. They just gave up because the problem was too big and took too much work.
RegressToTheMean | a day ago
>A lot of the PUA Hate/early manosphere stuff came from reddit.
One quick point of clarification on this. You are largely correct, but the PUA well predates Reddit. I'm an old grey beard, but the PUA/negging stuff was well established in the mid 90s (I was in my 20s then)
I do think what Reddit has done is taken those ideas and amplified and morphed them. PUA became the Red Pill and an entry point into the alt-right/fascist pipeline. Same thing with gaming subreddits. The Behind the Bastards episodes on Epstein touch on how those communities were radicalized and how people like Bannon and Epstein pushed for it to happen
SeasonPositive6771 | a day ago
You are absolutely right, I'm talking about the specific "PUAHate" communities that originated on reddit.
Basically, we're in agreement, Reddit was essentially the accelerator. The ideas didn't originate here, but they coordinated and were able to explode in popularity to become communities.
bunnypaste | a day ago
I go back as far as 4chan in the early 2000s (I was a teen), and this stuff was festering and growing there before Reddit even launched. If they actually did anything about all the problematic porn and misogyny on Reddit it would be a ghost town. They won't intervene because they'd lose nearly all standing and engagement, ending up like the other abandoned social media sites that cracked down on it.
Misogyny drives the platform.
ladybadcrumble | 17 hours ago
10 years ago I was OBSESSED with reading the various incel subs. It was partially out of needing to know more about something that I viewed as a danger to myself as a young woman, and in a strange way also identifying with the content on a human level. Finding out how much these types of spaces were manipulated by Steve bannon and the like makes sense and is also deeply scary. I could totally see falling down this pipeline if I was born male. If I go far back enough in my username history I might be able to find arguments that I had with people in these subs. I can't remember if I ever commented then or not.
A change at the source is important but I think there needs to be a cultural shift as well. The normalization of emotional neglect in our culture is so great and it leaves us wide open for offenses like this on our teens and young adults. I feel like I see it changing but it's not fast enough for me and COVID put Gen z and Gen alpha so perilously online.
I'm a trans non-binary person now in the middle of a medical transition and I am genuinely afraid of how when my rights are inevitably assaulted, the general public will not put up any sort of defense because of the misogyny issue (misogyny is directly related to societal control of women, most trans issues are related to the state wanting control of people through binary gender, transition is an affront to that, therefore more misogyny = low support for trans).
All that to say: it's heartening to see people like you and Laurie taking this all seriously and taking action and at the very least paying attention.
00rb | a day ago
You were right to sound the alarm, but sounding the alarm isn't enough. You have to win over people who may not immediately agree with you, and then win elections. Gain other forms of political power too. Everything else is just more words on the internet.
SeasonPositive6771 | a day ago
Oh I've been doing all that, too.
00rb | a day ago
But this article complains about people not "listening" to the feminists. No one is entitled to be listened to, even if they are objectively right. That's not how it works! All you can do is win political battles.
SeasonPositive6771 | a day ago
Strong disagree, there are plenty of academics and serious thinkers who are devoted to analysis and sharing their opinion and it's our responsibility to listen to people who know things we don't.
00rb | a day ago
You can control your own behavior with statements like that but not other people's behavior, especially if they're not sympathetic to what you're saying.
SeasonPositive6771 | a day ago
Your argument is incoherent and boring.
00rb | a day ago
You guys have convinced yourselves that you don't need to engage with the rest of the world, and then wonder why the rest of the world isn't listening.
I'm not your enemy, I'm a sympathizer, I just am tired of seeing the left lose.
stygianpool | a day ago
YEP I remember being like "I think these weird little fucks are a gateway drug to all kinds of racist, scary shit. Oh, and they hate women, which should be bad enough."
Crickets
00rb | a day ago
No one "ignored" it. We all heard the alarm and discussed it. Feminists were absolutely right about how toxic parts of the manosphere were becoming.
But discussion and raising alarm is not enough. You need political action.
There is no teacher to complain to. There is no central authority to settle disputes. There's just politics. All you can do is try to win people over and win elections.
The global far right has had some political gains recently, but there's signs the tide is turning. You just have to keep fighting.
weresubwoofer | 7 hours ago
Thank you for putting it so clearly.
LemonFreshenedBorax- | 21 hours ago
All of the building blocks of the modern manosphere -- the victimhood narrative, the weird collection of collateral bigotries, even early forms of looksmaxxing -- existed on UseNet before 4chan even existed. I personally witnessed this.
cheerful_cynic | a day ago
SRS shitredditsays was the canary in the coalmine
greengardenmoss | a day ago
Shoutout to David Futrelle, who started a blog in 2010 about the manosphere.
His blog is called: We Hunted the Mammoth. It's interesting to look back at the earlier stuff.
https://www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/
blissfully_happy | a day ago
He was literally who I first thought about when I read the title. I’ve followed that blog since its origins. (It started as something else, I just can’t remember the name.)
I followed tons of feminists speaking against the manosphere, but then Google dropped Reader and I stopped following blogs entirely. :(
MovieSock | a day ago
Of course we were. It was ever thus. We're "females", we don't count! :eyeroll:
Dredgeon | a day ago
Alternate title: Feminists began raising the alarm about the manosphere decades ago but did not consider men when looking for solutions.
bunnypaste | 17 hours ago
Why should we? Not our horse, not our race. We just identify the source of the problem and then plan for what OUR response will be. Men's response is for them to determine, and a scary large quantity of them figured the "answer" to thier struggles is to lean in even further to what the manosphere is hawking (blatant misogyny).
Dredgeon | 16 hours ago
It is OUR horse, OUR race, OUR society. We all exist together womens struggles are men's and men's struggles are women's struggles.
It's not men vs. women. It's all well adjusted people vs. bigots.
And feminism has had quite a lot to say about what men should and shouldn't enjoy. It never feminism bad or the manosphere good, but the fact that the manosphere has been so successful is clear evidence that non-bigots failed to reach young men in way they could understand.
It doesn't mean bigots are excused but it's obvious that feminism's goals have not been reached.
PART of the reason for that is sensational rhetoric that groups all men together as enemies of the movement.
Feminism still advocates that young men suppress their sexuality and shames them for things like.
Don't approach women. Don't look at women. If you think women are arousing you're probably a perv. The porn you watch is bad too. Porn is intrinsically degrading to the women in it. And don't watch animated porn either, it creates unrealistic body standards.
Obviously not all of this if any of it is intended to be this extreme. But I can tell you first hand this is about how I thought 2010s feminism wanted me to act as I was becoming a man. We all know repression like this is a terrible way to convince teenagers of anything and it left a lot of us ripe to be shown the most extreme (and often astro turfed) sides of Feminism and get pulled into the manosphere.
Once again, I consider myself a feminist and no amount of hate from a woman is gonna make me hate women. Above all, I consider feminism a net positive. This just another thing that we all need to talk about and come to an understanding on.
bunnypaste | 15 hours ago
If men would like to enjoy things at women's expense, then those women rightfully do not want be around those men. Right? No one has to accept or tolerate anything in another that hurts them. They're not rejecting your masculinity, sexuality, or "things men like" when they do this... they're rejecting the things that men choose which demonstrably harms women, or the women at hand. What are feminists choosing that have harmed you? I've got a laundry list for myself on the reverse, but I am genuinely interested in hearing how feminists have harmed men beyond "hurting thier feelers" or deciding against them, opting instead to thrive alone.
You're aware that you're free to keep doing it of course, whatever thing that you do that feminists will "screeee" about... but I can't think of an accompanying reason why women would need to stick around for it.
It isn't the fault of either women or feminists for rejecting that which harms them, nor for speaking out broadly about it. When so many men now are likely to misinterpret and take a woman talking about the problem as a knee-jerk personal offensive, I think it must be because they are okay with the way this world operates right now, and would like it to keep it benefitting men at women's vast expense. Either that, or it's because they feel no percieved benefits of the patriarchy, so they instantly assume a woman talking about her lived experiences with it is "hysterical, " and "hateful, " or is not to be trusted.
If a series of men you dated throughout your life have all turned out to be either porn addicts, abusers, misogynists/anti-feminists, or worse... what do you believe she should be saying about men and male-dominated systems on the internet? You give her no creedance to express her hatred towards what happened to her? Is she allowed to say she hates men in a broad sense right after one rapes her? Is she not allowed to say it anymore once enough years have passed? And my last curiosity... do you always hallucinate the "all" part whenever women discuss men, male-dominated systems, and all the things they've endured at thier hands?
Patriarchy doesn't mean men have no problems, or that it if it "did exist" it would award them a harem of women and easy financial success. I feel like this is a common misconception in the manosphere. That's how I think they dupe them into hating women, the thing they each so deeply want, by telling them that they WOULD benefit from the "fake patriarchy" that feminists parade against if they only made it even more strict and "real."
Rarely have I ever heard a feminist actually say "all men," and they seem to be painfully aware of what happens if you do. They're accused of it a lot, but it usually isn't even in the quote a misogynist uses to smear them.
I am a feminist of the radical variety. The only time I personally hear this statement (all men) is in the context of the patriarchy benefitting all men over women *whom are at the same strata as themselves. This is true regardless whether men agree with it or not, or if they feel that they are personally benefitting from this supposed patriarchy. The fact is, a woman will obligately face worse outcomes than men will at the same exact rung of the totem pole, with all other things being equal. According to statistics, the only time she won't descend and can fly alongside her male peers currently is if she:
I often do see misogynists who think they heard "all men," or who mischaracterize the speaker by "filling in the blanks." These are the ones who take it personally (which should only theoretically happen if you are a supporter of the systems and male behaviors that have harmed women). Whenever I have spoken about these things to men who aren't misogynists or patriarchial types, they just listen and then offer support. It is the same when I talk about it with female friends. Misogynists/traditionalists, however, get unreasonably angry when they hear it... and at women.
It just makes so little sense to me that the most common reaction to a woman describing these things and expressing her feelings about them is for men to start foaming at the mouth and blaming her for her own abuse, dismissing it, taking it personally, etc. Why aren't they angry at the men and systems that hurt her instead of her? I don't get it. And do you think it is a healthy response, when you think someone is insulting you or lumping you in with hateful losers by saying "all men", to join a movement for hateful losers that want to see women raped, tightly controlled, and essentially enslaved for male benefit... instead of like, just seeking clarification? Or find themselves a healthy masculine role model, male friend, or male source of support when they're struggling instead of deciding to hate women?
You gotta get those emotional responses under control and sharpen your understanding of the roots of the problem, that is, if your interest is in mending the damage instead of adding more fuel to it.
Dredgeon | 15 hours ago
Why are you equating male sexuality with harming women? I made a point that I appreciate what feminism has done for women and I wouldn't trade it for men being less repressed.
Rather than respecting my perspective you just assumed that I want men to be able to harm women for some reason went on a tirade about a perspective that I already disagree with.
bunnypaste | 14 hours ago
Why does male sexuality so often harm women? I didn't do or intimate anything you just talked about, so I'm not sure how to respond. That's all I've got.
Dredgeon | 13 hours ago
Call it male sexuality if you want I would say greed and a lack of respect for boundaries and autonomy are the primary drivers. Also gender dynamics that stereotype men as sexual givers and women as sexual takers.
If you're arguing that rape, harassment, and abuse are uniquely male or an intrinsic part of male sexuality I disagree categorically.
>I didn't do or intimate anything you just talked about
I was trying to explain how many men received the messaging from feminism in that time. I took the fact that it did a lot for women and helped far more than it hurt as a given and focused only on what I was actuslly adding to the conversation not on what any sane person would agree with.
I was pointing that along with the good of making creepy behavior taboo we also made male sexuality and men and women interacting in general into something of a taboo. If I'm right about that, it's a misstep that inadvertently did some of the work for the manosphere.
I'm not saying it's feminist's fault that the manosphere exists at all. Men are responsible for their actions. However as people who are anti bigot there are lessons to he learned here.
bunnypaste | 10 hours ago
Oh, so the feminists should have just expressed themselves sweeter and nicer and maybe even smile as to not "force" the misogynists deeper into the manosphere. Got it. Yes, I believe you already need an element of misogyny inside of you to see what those chuds say and ever consider it a viable option... and you also need some within you to take personal offense to the things feminists say.
Dredgeon | 9 hours ago
Don't put those stupid chud words in my mouth. I'm not girls need to be nice about sexists and abusers and so on. I'm saying that deconstructing the patriarchy and the social reconstruction to follow requires input from everyone if it's gonna be as good as we can make it.
If we wanted to just turn the tables telling men to just shit up and leave women alone it would be fine but we want equality.
You seem to be of the opinion that I'm some kind of misogynist, but I really am not so please forgive if I'm being ignorant.
InitiativeUsual3795 | a day ago
What a dumb oversimplification of a complex issue
bunnypaste | a day ago
I dunno, it was pretty clear to me. Misogyny and toxic manosphere crap is rising, and there is no significant resistance to it. There is significant resistance, however, to those who have been harmed by it and speak out.
MovieSock | a day ago
Okay, what details do you think that they could have expanded on?
whatfresh_hellisthis | a day ago
I think maybe you just can't use critical thinking skills, bc what you said is completely false. You a man?
MovieSock | 16 hours ago
No answer to my question, huh? Do you need me to simplify it for you?
Iwubinvesting | a day ago
I'd argue feminist of a decade ago created the manosphere because of how vitriolic they were towards men.
OneMonk | a day ago
There is definitely an environment that exists today where any support for men is basically bashed as anti woman.
HeadHunt0rUK | a day ago
Feminists for the last 3 decades or so have made it a zero sum game (as a minimum). They've systematically lobbied and protested against equality for men in regards to domestic violence support and fathers rights.
All you have to do is look at Erin Pizzey. She was the ultimate feminist, she essentially created refuge centres for women, lauded as one of the most important people in the world when it came to helping protect women from violent men.
Except, what she found out from inside her own centre is that many of the women there were abusers as well, but beyond that often the instigators of the abuse.
The second she pointed that out, the second she dare suggest that something needs to be done for men because they are being abused, ex-communicado. She went against the feminist zeitgeist (only women can be victims) and her legacy was stripped.
Erin Pizzey was a bastion for human safety, but because it included men she was ousted and her name essentially removed from the records.
That should tell you how much feminism actually cares about equality.
bunnypaste | 17 hours ago
Yeah, none of this ever happened. Big lol on the self-victimization.
bunnypaste | 17 hours ago
No, there really isn't.
OneMonk | 17 hours ago
Assuming you are a woman… The fact you feel you can speak to a man’s lived experience is quite telling.
If you are so confident, can you name one specifically pro man support system?
bunnypaste | 16 hours ago
Make one.
OneMonk | 16 hours ago
So you can’t. If it was easy, or even possible, don’t you think others would have?
bunnypaste | 14 hours ago
Yes. I believe significant barriers are preventing men from formulating the answer. However, it isn't my problem to solve self-inflicted male loneliness. The financial struggles hit us all, and women even worse. I empathize with the kinds of problems that aren't self-inflicted.
OneMonk | 14 hours ago
I don’t believe I ever made the distinction, and you don’t seem very full of empathy, perhaps don’t weigh in on conversations you know nothing about.
bunnypaste | 10 hours ago
I don't care what you think, I have decided. And I'll weigh in on any and every conversion I feel like contributing in! You don't get to dictate that for me, nor does anyone else. Big yikes.
Sharkhous | a day ago
Plenty of people who call themselves 'feminist' but actively hate men actually made this worse.
To be clear, it's not their fault. That blame lies with a culture that taught young boys they were intolerable whilst failing to protect them from echo chambers which accepted those same boys and taught them to embrace their worst aspects.
However, attributing this discovery as a 'feminist' win is not going to win over any of those people that it needs to.
bunnypaste | 17 hours ago
Feminists do not hate men, and the only thing that could be considered a "win" here is the fact that we were right all along, even while we were ridiculed endlessly and said to be in "hysterics" for raising the alarms.
Sharkhous | 13 hours ago
Yes, actual feminists are out for equality. There's a group of people however that wear the title of 'feminist' as armour and scapegoat to push extreme agendas, incite division and generally be terrible people. This is the case almost any large group - it gets invaded by narcissists.
My point is that these men and boys are so far gone that they consider feminists their enemy, they will not respond to this being described as something identified by feminists, especially as all reasonable people have been shining a light on this problem for a long time. Sometimes it's more practical to suck it up for the greater good than it is to say 'I told you so'.
bunnypaste | 9 hours ago
What sort of extreme agendas do the 'false feminists' push? Can you give me some examples?
Just because misogynists are diametrically opposed to those who aren't broken doesn't mean we should just give up and shut up. I won't end the fight until misogyny and patriarchial systems are eradicated. I am not and will never be satisfied to be like, "welp, they're still misogynists and some people claim my response to the horrific crap is making it worse... so I may as well just sit down and accept it!"
Would you do that for anything that deeply affects you and about 51% of the population's lives?
briankerin | a day ago
This seems disingenuous; hasn't feminism been raising the alarm about the "manosphere" since its has existed as a movement and not just decades ago?
closingloops | a day ago
The manosphere is feminism's ugly baby. But this one couldn't be aborted.
bunnypaste | 17 hours ago
The manosphere and it's origins existed long before the feminist response to it. Feminists didn't cause this, they just stopped putting up with it and are vocal about spreading the word about how harmful it is. The resulting lonely misogynists who feel owed access to female attention, sexuality, and labor despite thier unsavoryness are who forged the manosphere. "Clearly it is women and jews' and feminisms fault that women don't want me! They are acting outside of NaTuRe and JeSuS and BiOlOgY and MoRaLiTy and they're destroying society (read: patriarchial/traditionalist society is what they're destroying, not society itself)!"
They then dupe men and boys who are legitimately struggling into the absolute opposite of the answer, further radicalizing them and alienating them from the women they so crave.