LifestyleBattling an internal masculinity struggle right now with the gay community. Any tips would be appreciated.

submitted by nbailey73 from self.LGBDropTheT

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[–]censorshipment 8 insightful - 14 fun8 insightful - 13 fun9 insightful - 14 fun -  (31 children)

I say this as a lesbian radfem: it's not okay to be a man in general. That's why there's a horde of men not identifying as men. I partially blame older feminists - I partially blame conservatives and liberals who each think some men are "lesser men" - I partially blame drug companies pushing mind-altering meds to men/boys.

Life for men was better before the 70s, but it was worse for women.

[–]CuntWorshiperWomenholic full time | vagina fetishist part-time 14 insightful - 2 fun14 insightful - 1 fun15 insightful - 2 fun -  (28 children)

I partially blame older feminists.

Nah! Still their own fault though. The drug companies are owned by who? Politics (especially in the past) are dominated by who? If feminism needs to exist, who is to blame?

I already heard this “partially feminists fault” and don’t buy that.

Life for men was better before the 70s, but it was worse for women.

It was a lot worse for women before than is for men now. Not even comparable.

Despite the fact that I can’t stand the “straight white cis men” that the wokies throw at every opportunity they have anymore let’s not act like men a such victims “can’t be men anymore boohoo” please. I would argue that they are just being treated with the same hostility they have always treated anyone who wasn’t a het men but being honest they’re not, especially if you going to compare how feminists treat/treated men vs how men treat/treated women.

You may be listening to Camille PagliAss kisser too much, be careful.

[–]censorshipment 6 insightful - 7 fun6 insightful - 6 fun7 insightful - 7 fun -  (2 children)

I'm talking about men under 40 who were kids during/after the 80s. They are far more emotionally and mentally fragile and "less masculine" than older men. They are afraid of women and afraid to display "toxic masculinity" and to be scolded for it. They are extremely self-conscious and hypersensitive. Their fragility stems from feminist politics, emasculation and "mental illness" meds.

[–]AlexisK 15 insightful - 1 fun15 insightful - 0 fun16 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Men on men violence is not women's fault and not women's issue.

Men not beating women and "being less masculine" (what does that even mean?) is not a fault, but a victory for both men and women.

Older men are very mentally fragile and emotional too, they just spending those emotions as agression, most often agression to weaker people - kids, younger men, women. This was always the case before, nothing changed. Only changes is that gender stereotypes were partially abolished, so women started doing "men's jobs" and men started wearing different colors and clothing - and it has nothing to do with feminism, Glam Rock, David Bowie and many men activists, who were fighting for this, are reason of it. Stop blaming women on everything!

[–]censorshipment 2 insightful - 9 fun2 insightful - 8 fun3 insightful - 9 fun -  (0 children)

First of all, I'm not just talking about white ass men. White men aren't the default. Black men have been buck broken by white people and black women. I'll leave it at that.

[–]mvmlego 3 insightful - 8 fun3 insightful - 7 fun4 insightful - 8 fun -  (24 children)

The drug companies are owned by who? Politics (especially in the past) are dominated by who? If feminism needs to exist, who is to blame?

Even if the answer to both of those first two questions is a simple "men", the answer to the third question is considerably more complicated. The fact that feminism was necessary doesn't preclude the feminist movement from incorporating excesses, which can and should be critiqued.

All activist movements have their excesses--even the ones that I'm personally very fond of--because most activists aren't looking to analyze the issue in a balanced way; they're looking to steer others toward certain conclusions by shoring them up with whatever they can find, even to the point of incorporating a plethora of irrelevant or incorrect talking points as long as they provide rhetorical support for the activist's conclusions.

I think some decent examples of this from the feminist movement are the highly publicized figures about on-campus rape and the gender wage gap that circulated extensively around 2015 to 2017, which had the effect of unfairly placing blame on men, in the sense that those problems were blown out of proportion.

If you're skeptical about feminism's excesses, then I'd encourage you to ask u/nbailey73 what he found so alienating about the Language, Gender, and Power class. It's possible that he was completely overreacting, but I don't think that's the case.

[–]nbailey73[S] 11 insightful - 1 fun11 insightful - 0 fun12 insightful - 1 fun -  (5 children)

Seeing in that they brought up the topic of baby penises, intersex genitalia, and anti-men debate up on the first day of class, I definitely don't think I'm overreacting when I say the class made me feel extremely uncomfortable. I'm glad I dropped it for a gardening class. At the end of the day, growing food will be a better skill than learning about baby genitals and intersex theory.

[–]ColoredTwice 8 insightful - 1 fun8 insightful - 0 fun9 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

There no such thing as intersex theory. They are just misrepresenting us and lying about our conditions, and acting against what intersex organisations are asking to do...but we don't have such support and finances and coverage as trans lobby, so we are just ignored and used as cannon fodder and "gotcha" by gender identity ideologists.

[–]mvmlego 4 insightful - 5 fun4 insightful - 4 fun5 insightful - 5 fun -  (3 children)

Thanks for the confirmation. Also, if you don't mind sharing, what exactly was the subject of the debate that occurred on your first day of class?

[–]nbailey73[S] 7 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 0 fun8 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Basically, on the first day of class we began talking about intersex terms and how there are 5 sexes that are determined by looking at baby genitalia (these sexes being male and female and then the three types of intersex configurations). After that we then began to talk about research bias and how scientific research isn’t to be trusted because it is “funded primarily by straight wealthy white men with conservative political agenda.” This then caused a stir in the class that caused all the SJWs to start lashing out on all the cis males in the class, myself included. I then dropped the class after I kept being told I was privileged by classmates when I simply said that not all white men who research are doing it for conservative reasons. The class was WAY too woke for me and I’m very glad to be out of it. On my last day of class, I mentioned that men have several struggles as well, such as genital mutilation from birth, higher suicide rates, and other men’s issues. These obviously were dismissed.

[–]reluctant_commenter 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Basically, on the first day of class we began talking about intersex terms and how there are 5 sexes that are determined by looking at baby genitalia

Uh, whoa. That is a blatant lie. (Also that's goddamn weird.) In case you haven't heard it in your classes, as a sanity check:

  • There are 2 types of gametes that human reproduction is based on (sperm and ova).

  • Correspondingly, there are 2 sexes.

The fact that you were fed this pseudoscientific lie in a college class is actually insane. I am so sorry you're having to deal with this bullshit. Hope the gardening class goes much better!

This then caused a stir in the class that caused all the SJWs to start lashing out on all the cis males in the class, myself included.

What in the?! That's nuts. Yeah, I'm really glad you dropped that class.

As another example of men getting the short stick-- being a gay male is illegal in about 90 countries and being a gay female is illegal in around 45. And gay men, far and away, have the highest rate of being targeted for anti-homophobic hate crimes in the alphabet soup.

[–]mvmlego 1 insightful - 5 fun1 insightful - 4 fun2 insightful - 5 fun -  (0 children)

Thank you for the details. That's feminist epistemology for ya'. Best of luck to you with your college career in the future.

[–]VioletRemiCat, homosexual one 9 insightful - 1 fun9 insightful - 0 fun10 insightful - 1 fun -  (17 children)

Feminists does not hold much, or any, political and financial power to make such huge changes anyways, thought.

[–]GDC 9 insightful - 1 fun9 insightful - 0 fun10 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

This. The excesses were done by politicians pretending to be socially progressive, people who were in office 40 years ago denying the right to marry our loved ones are the ones pushing T on us all today (#Biden, pelosi, and crew).

[–]mvmlego 2 insightful - 8 fun2 insightful - 7 fun3 insightful - 8 fun -  (15 children)

What changes are you talking about, and how is that relevant to my comment? Even if feminists don't hold significant political power or financial power, the power which they do hold among various cultural institutions can be and sometimes is abused in ways that unfairly lay fault on men. As I said in my last comment, ask the OP if you'd like to learn about a detailed, personal example of this occurring.

[–]VioletRemiCat, homosexual one 9 insightful - 1 fun9 insightful - 0 fun10 insightful - 1 fun -  (14 children)

Feminism starting from second wave was about abolishing sexist stereotypes, so described situation in OP post is opposite to that, and it is partially what feminism is fighting against, but with main focus on women. Obviously outliers can happen, but question was about social changes and power, and those changes are systematic ones, not sometimes happening ones. I have no idea how getting voting rights, or fighting against sex/gender stereotypes can hurt in described way - it is not women who are fault in "men backlashing against feminism achievements and trying to return sex stereotypes back", it is people who don't want changes and pushing 1800s standarts who are fault.

abused

By whom?

[–]mvmlego 2 insightful - 7 fun2 insightful - 6 fun3 insightful - 7 fun -  (13 children)

I think that while second-wave feminism did an admirable job at breaking down stereotypes and gender roles that were harmful to women, the movement's effects on men were mixed. Men's traditional, stifling gender roles were, to some extent, removed, but they were replaced by a set of explicitly negative stereotypes which portrayed men as harmful or malicious toward women in cases where they weren't. This was squarely a result of feminist rhetoric, and it's only worsened with the third wave.

This often manifests as feminist academics declaring innocent aspects of culture--particularly male culture--as harmful to women, which is why I've repeatedly suggested asking the OP about his experiences in his Language, Gender, and Power class, which he described as:

nothing but a social justice warrior class dedicated to basically talking about how bad men are.

Clearly, he perceived feminist rhetoric as contributing to his problem, not solving it. If you're interested in learning about examples of feminists or feminist-leaning organizations abusing their cultural influence in ways that are harmful to men (if only through the propagation of negative stereotypes about them), then I recommend this blog, which tends to be pretty level-headed:

https://becauseits2015.wordpress.com/2016/09/17/social-justices-punching-bags-men-white-people-straight-people/

[–]VioletRemiCat, homosexual one 10 insightful - 6 fun10 insightful - 5 fun11 insightful - 6 fun -  (4 children)

That article is very weird. It is mostly focusig on things that aren't even remotely feminism, but on woke ideology, which is anti-feminist. Like 1.1 is much more often applied to women, NYT often writting about domestic violence abusers in good light, while killed by them victims in bad. 1.2 is even weirder, small percent of men are violent, but almost all violent crimes are made by men. Same as not all men are rapists, but almost all rapes are done by men, and later it is talking about female experience, when you are walking dark night and hearing male steps behind, for example - you can't understand such experience. Feminism is about women and our experience, so if you read "men in women's toilets are scary" it means "men in women's toilets are scary to women", always should be added "to women". And later weird thing about sex segregation - in unisex spaces rapes are 9 times more often happening, harassment against women almost 60 times more often is happening. Homicide victims is weird as well, overwhelming majority of men killed by men, not by women, and most are killed by men as well, so it is male on male violence, what have it to do with feminism? Same with sexual minorities, a lot of visible feminists were lesbians themselves. Case with Trump is taken without context, as Trump said before that "woman must sit at home and make food" for a congresman, so it has different meaning when he is speaking about men or women. Denying sexism is weird part as well and it is going into "critical X theory" zone - which are in most cases anti-feminism as well.

And last parts are strange as well. Almost all negative things in article are either made by men, or not caused by feminism at all, as articles or quotes taken are mostly by people who aren't feminists, as they are in most cases against women rights, they are just woke.

I understand where you are coming from, thought. As people like Censorshipment above are calling themselves feminists, while just being men-haters and not advocating for women rights in most cases, or people like LibFems calling themselves feminists, while advocating pro-rape and anti-female sports. The fact they are identifying themselves as feminists is similar as transwomen are identifying themselves as females - in both cases it is just not true. And men indeed have a lot of problems, but most of them are not coming from feminism at all.

...it is derailing post, thought.

[–]mvmlego 3 insightful - 6 fun3 insightful - 5 fun4 insightful - 6 fun -  (3 children)

First of all, this was not a derailment. The OP made it clear that certain feminist talking points contributed to his self-esteem and identity issues, and the article that I linked to contained examples of that list the sorts of talking points that he may have had in mind. I should have been more specific with regard to which points in the article that I considered significant, but I was pressed for time. Anyhow, regarding the first two sections:

1.1

1.1 is much more often applied to women

Bull crap. You can't find a single headline by a prestigious publication that makes plainly unflattering generalizations about women in the same way that the ones listed in the article do about men.

1.2

almost all violent crimes are made by men. Same as not all men are rapists, but almost all rapes are done by men... Homicide victims is weird as well, overwhelming majority of men killed by men, not by women, and most are killed by men as well, so it is male on male violence, what have it to do with feminism?

Feminists aren't responsible for violence perpetrated by men, but they're responsible for their responses to it, which often involves speaking and acting in overly-general terms about men as violent, while over-emphasizing women as the victims of male violence.

From a statistical standpoint, it's correct to portray men as the primary victims of violence in addition to portraying them as the primary perpetrators of violence. If feminists only focus on the latter, and on top of that assign group guilt to men in the same way that white nationalists do to racial minorities, then they create an environment that breeds plainly sexist attitudes and policy proposals, such as curfews for men and sex-segregated public transportation.

These examples are worth emphasizing for a couple of reasons. Not only are they the most egregious examples given in the article of feminist rhetoric that's harmful to men; they're the most unequivocally feminist. Both of the articles proposing those policies were written by Meghan Murphy--the founder of Feminist Current, which is a wholly gender-critical feminist publication.

As I said, feminism has its excesses, just like every other movement. I'm not blaming you for them; I'd just like you to acknowledge that they exist, and that they can harm men.

(EDIT: grammar)

[–]VioletRemiCat, homosexual one 8 insightful - 1 fun8 insightful - 0 fun9 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Part about microagression I dropped mostly because it is so overused for anything and anywhere, that it is impossible to talk about it at all.

1.1

Sadly, that Twitter account that was collecting news articles where perpetuators of domestic violence were shown in good faith, while victims in bad faith, was banned "for transphobia", so I can't link their megathread anymore. And in most cases it is not the fault and not doing of feminism as well - it is mostly done by "progressive" media on the west (where I live it is very often to see articles with headers like "woman pissed off her husband and he killed her"). And "progressive" is changing tides very often. In 2013-2016 years it was a good fashion to call everything feminism and say that you support women, in 2018-2021 it is new fashion trend by "progressive" to support transwomen and say opposite about women that was said just 5 years ago by the very same people.

In general, emotional writing is a wrong thing to do in journalism, there should be just facts, but we have what we have. Similar situation now with transwomen - when transwomen are victims, they are said to be transwomen, when they are agressors - they are named as women. Most ridiculous article was when two transwomen fight each other and one killed another, and most news outlets wrote "woman killed transwoman", that was eye rolling.

1.2

Again, male on male violence is not a feminism problem, feminism is not a movement to help everyone and solve everything, feminism is a movement, centering on human females, on women's issues. So obviously that feminism will be focusing on men harming women issues, on domestic violence caused by men to women, on abortion rights for women, and so on. If movement focus is too broad - there is no focus at all, and nothing can be solved like this.

It is men's duty to solve male on male violence, not women's. Heck - we can't even solve male on female violence, how are we supposed to solve male on male violence? Why responsibility for it is laying on us? Why the blame of male on male violence is on females? It just makes no sense.

I understand that feminism can do some harm to men and even women (mostly outside of west, and mostly because of conservative societies, tho), but named issues by you are neither caused by feminism, nor issues that are considered by feminism at all. SJW and Woke movements are not feminism, in most cases they are anti-feminism and pretty misogynistic.

And there are some weird branches of feminism, which I would not call feminism at all - as they are not focusing women at all. For example, "vegan feminism" is calling women same as cattle and calling that we should sacrifice women to liberate animals from abuse and that "it will help everyone in the end"; or "feminist political lesbianism" - which is very harmful to lesbians and that "feminism" is solely focused on men, as all ideas there and all actions are dictated from hate to men, and not from love to women; or there is "liberal feminism" - which is just "humanism" and focused on helping everyone and everything, and is not focusing on any female issues at all, it is just humanism (and in last few years it is transgender's rights movement and sex work movement, as they only focusing those issues); or "choice feminism" - where it is believed that every single woman must fight for herself, and this movement is complete and utter victim blaming movement, as if in Iran woman was walking too slow so random man on street will throw an acid into her face (it angers me that they even having bottles with acid with them "just in case woman will disobey") - they are saying it is fault of woman of not fighting hard enough. And so on. They are calling themselves "feminism", but they are not feminism even in slightest. Most sad part is that "liberal feminism" became so mainstream, that it is believed to be "the feminism" by a lot of people. In post-USSR media, for example, it is often blamed "feminists and gays" on most issues of the West. Like "female losing their sports is fault of feminists, because feminism is supporting men" - was said in one TV news show, or "feminists want your boy to become gay, so we should not let USA to export their feminist values here", and so on.

[–]censorshipment 1 insightful - 8 fun1 insightful - 7 fun2 insightful - 8 fun -  (7 children)

Well said. I really hate how feminists deny the impact feminism has had on men's "mental health". I literally witnessed it growing up... my own mother, a black second-waver, and my grandmother (she was a Black Panther), and my aunts severely browbeat black men during the 80s and 90s. My own father rarely spoke and was soft-spoken at home, and he worked at a prison where he needed to be a manly man, not a feeble man.

I was told my grandmother knocked out her husband's teeth. She cheated on him (part of "sexual liberation") which is why my mom had a different father than her youngest siblings (there will 11 siblings in all). Maybe white feminism was different from black feminism.

[–]VioletRemiCat, homosexual one 10 insightful - 1 fun10 insightful - 0 fun11 insightful - 1 fun -  (6 children)

Domestic abuse and violence against men is not part of women's rights or feminism, lol.

[–]censorshipment 2 insightful - 7 fun2 insightful - 6 fun3 insightful - 7 fun -  (5 children)

Self-defense is which is what I was told to believe. "Black women must defend ourselves outside and inside of our homes against white people and black men."

Black women can't have "egalitarian" relationships with black men who want to be both victims and abusers.

[–]xanditAGAB (Assigned Gay at Birth) 7 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 0 fun8 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

that's why there's a horde of men not identifying as men.

I really think theres something to that, especially with people on the left who want to be allies with some of the crazier feminists, like libfems, and the men bad crowd... that must have an effect on their male identity. So they do things like be non binary, etc

[–]censorshipment 3 insightful - 6 fun3 insightful - 5 fun4 insightful - 6 fun -  (0 children)

Yep. On boredpanda, I read a post about a dad who was called creepy and perverted by his sister for hugging his 16 year old son. Shit like that will affect the son and likely make him hate being male. And that will be both the sister's fault for being "hypervigilant" (probably homophobic), and creepy men's fault for making male affection perverted.

https://www.boredpanda.com/sister-claims-dad-son-hug-wrong/