I just recently found this sub. I'm male, in my 30s, and my brain is still reeling from the fact this place exists. I never thought I'd see such a thing. I've always been a lefty and I've always been pro-male and critical of feminism due to its abuse of males. Consequently I've also been pretty alone in those positions, and subject to a lot of mockery and hate. As the right has reached out more and more to men (regardless of whether the right genuinely cares or not), I've felt a longing for some recognition and care from my own side of the political aisle that was never there.

Finding this sub has been a breath of fresh air and I feel a small sense of validation that I wasn't the only leftist who saw men's identity and issues as real and worthy of the same intense level of respect and protection we as leftists are expected to extend to every other group of people.

I joined the Discord too, and saw in the polls that the age range for the users here seems to skew toward teens and twenties. I'm trying to get my bearings. Is Gen Z more aware/sympathetic to men's issues? Is the left generally waking up to the idea that it has a problem with men? If so, is that realization spreading fairly evenly among men and women on the left, or is there a divide forming between the sexes on the left?

A big thanks to everyone who started this sub and those who've occupied it and made it grow. This has made me feel recognized and valued.

TL;DR [worth reading to understand the points; apologies for length] There is a strongman/weakwoman gendered dynamic that structures, at least in part, the current politic, and is explanatory as to why men leave the left, and women leave the right. A strongman requires a weakwoman to be the victim that the strongman saves. Addressing key mens issues that are practical and attainable to do is a good way to undercut that dynamic, as it undermines the weakwoman aspect of the dynamic. Absent a weakwoman in victim pose, there is no fuel for the strongman to rise. There are some additional points regarding how to build and maintain broad coalitions, coalitions aimed more at defeating fascism and authoritarianism rather than ‘the right’ per se, hence they are applicable across the political spectrum, save for the fascistically and authoritarian aimed politics.  

Body Of The Post

There are numerous and somewhat long standing concerns as to why women lean left and men lean right. While that attitude has been persistent for a long time, stretching back certainly into the 1950s, it has grown far more pronounced in the last few decades. At least according to all the data and talking points i’ve seen. Note that in the current it isnt just that men lean right in larger numbers, but also that the right is more extreme, but super importantly, it is also the case that women lean left in larger numbers and the left has gotten more extreme. Think of all the points regarding Patriarchal Realism, and sexual violence that have been brought up for what i mean by ‘extreme’ on the left. Not, socialism good, that isnt an extreme leftist position, it is a moderate leftist position. 

This has made men a significant target group for democratic and left leaning political leaders, as there isn’t much room for them to grow with women. Conversely women are a significant target group for republican and right leaning political leaders for the same reasons. 

It used to be theorized back in the before times (before the 90s), that the reason for this had to do with specific gendered phenomena, such as women being more nurturing, caring, empathetic, etc… and men being more independent minded, work oriented, interested in competition, etc…. In other words, a basic bag of gender stereotypes that were grafted onto the broad categories of politics. 

Sadly, we still hear that to this day.

The split has grown quite significantly since the 90s, and tracks well with something else that blew up; stupid claims of patriarchy that thoughtlessly blame men while attempting to absolve women of all responsibility for even their own actions. In other words, Patriarchal Realism, as i harp on about like a harping harpy here.

I suspect that this is the entirety of the problem as to why men leave the left, and it is a problem, and why women leave the right. Tho given the groups focus here, going to focus more on men leaving the left. Still, it is important to keep in mind as women leaving the right is also a problem in terms of polarization; more women in the left means more focus on women’s issues, means more men leave the left, and so on.   

Patriarchal Realism supports claims that ‘men just be like that’ or that ‘women just be like that’ as explanations for the division are both sexist and insipid in that they are merely, once again, tossing a bag of gender stereotypes atop the political parties. They dont really explain why that division has grown as much as it has, nor does it really critically analyze the situation so much as take silly assumptions about sex and gender at face value.   

Whereas the rise of stupid claims of patriarchy that thoughtlessly blame men while attempting to absolve women of all responsibility for even their own actions certainly sounds like a reasonable reason for dudes being like ‘fuck that shit’ and chicks being like ‘im in for that’.

Imagine willfully or gleefully joining up with a group of people that consistently make ridiculous claims about you as a class of person. Worse yet, imagine not understanding that that is why men aren’t exactly flocking to your cause. Like, imagine being a woman just ranting about men, #killallmen, #metoo, #takebackthenight, the AWDTSG groups, hosting outright hate groups dedicated to trashing men for sport, and then wondering ‘why men no like?’

It’s like wondering why black or queer folks don’t flock to the republican party. Come on now, we all know why. But to spell it out; there is a fairly horrible trade off that one has to pay, the outright racism and bigotry. They may overcome that in their spaces, maybe their little group of republicans aren’t like that, or maybe they just put up with it because they believe in other aspects of the republican party, like small government or whatever. 

In the democratic party it's misandry. 

The outright, open, entirely unchecked misandry that is just casually expressed with thoughtless and stupid claims about how the patriarchy and men are the cause of the world’s problems, and women are passive victims and saviors. In other words, again, Patriarchal Realism.

Men might move away from the left due to reactionariness, as in, just in reaction to such silly claims they move away. They might also however do so for reasonable reasons, as in, recognizing how utterly stupid those claims are. I dont want to be associated with that level of sheer stupidity. 

They might also do so for reasons of recognizing the absolute horrors involved on the left. I don’t necessarily mean the authoritarian bents there, tho they are related, i mean the ridiculous unthinking worshiping of femininity, and unabashed debasing of masculinity.

Folks therein remain cucks and simps to women, its about the most pathetic thing one can watch. I legit oft feel sorry for dudes, watching them grovel to women, acting like subservient dogs just to be accepted within the group. Being tasked with self harm, self loathing, and self hatred of who they are as a litmus test to be admitted to their hateful misandristic groups.  

The only way to stop that bleeding of men is to stop the bullshit around patriarchy, the lies, the deceptions, and the fake ass pretense of victim posing that women do. 

The Strongman And The Weakwoman, A.K.A. Fascism And Authoritarianism 

Folks on the left somehow recognize that the right is a ‘strongman catastrophe’ but they consistently fail to recognize that the left is that victim posed woman to whom the strongman is supposed to protect. 

There are no strongmen without a victim, and the left keeps presenting itself, women, as victims. 

The broader dialoging about this sort of stuff, specifically the dispositions i’ve outlined regarding Patriarchal Realism is causally connected to the manifestations of the strongman, fascistic, and authoritarian bullshit.

Too many people on the left; 

‘Women have been oppressed since the dawn of time, i make a principled choice to being eaten alive by a bear lest i be exposed to the sheer horror of seeing a man exist in the woods….’ 

Also the left; 

‘Why is there a rise of a desire for a strongman to protect women from delusional threats? Me no understand….’ 

Tho note well that the exact same strategy is deployed by the right, with only minor variations as to which men they are targeting, and the verbiage used to describe women. In Truth and all irony, the left believes that it is all men, the right just believes that it is some men. But it definitely men that need be targeted for execution, prison, torment, social ridicule, sexual violence, etc…

There are also differences in how they want to go about it. The left prefers vigilante groups to roam the streets invoking terror and mayhem in all ‘creepy men’ in a self-righteous quest. The right prefers police officers to do the same.  

The proper strategy for folks on the left is to actually start addressing men’s issues, as that would break the woman victim in need of a strongman dynamic. 

Its the victima perpetua of women, and the abusus perpetuus of men; just another silly gendered trope, one that is used by folks to manipulate and control people. 

There are specific problems that can be pointed to that are feeding this dynamic. 

Specifically, as i harp on and on about, liquidate the bullshit rhetoric around sexual violence. The stats are lies, they are blatant lies, they stem from a puritanical disposition about sex and sexuality, they define women as victims and they define men as perps regardless of the circumstances. They are by design meant to ramp up feelings of rage around sexuality and sexual violence, they are by design meant to inflate the numbers, and they are by design meant to try and reframe sexual violence and by extension sexuality in total in a puritanical light. 

Family law. Fix family law so that men are not excluded from being parents or in the decision making as to if to have a family. Reproductive and familial rights for men. The family law is a reflection of the gender tropes, and they reinforce them by placing women at the center as victima perpetua in domestic situations, including domestic violence, child abuse, but also divorce, workload, etc… and they place men as abusus perpetuus in all the same domestic situations.

Importantly, these are all highly flawed ways of understanding these domestic situations, they are deeply and stupidly gendered, they harm children and men especially, and they are wildly unfair.

Fixing these issues would actually be something for men to vote for, and perhaps more importantly, they mitigate or eliminate the key elements of the strongman/weakwoman dynamic, which undercuts the broader issues with authoritarianism we are facing. I mean to say, part of that narrative is exactly the victimhood of women in domestic relations. The bending over backwards that people go through to try and present women as weak and victims in need of help in their domestic life. Be that due to issues of domestic violence, child abuse, or in terms of divorce, workloads, and suppositions of power distributions.    

There is no strongman, without a weakwoman to ‘save’. Hence, there is no fascism. These things are dynamically linked, and that can be broken.

I’m voting harris/walz, don’t get me wrong. In part because orange man bad, it is not wise to vote in the strongman, as taking out the strongman once they are in power is, well, bloody. But also in part because i havent seen harris lean into the feminista bullshit lines, which you know, good on her and her team for that. 

They gotta not only keep that up, but also start addressing mens issues. 

This is going to be a thing that has to be dealt with going forward, beyond the election, even if harris/walz wins, because there are an unfortunately large number of people who keep perpetuating the lies and misandry online, either unchecked or outright supported. As long as that is going on, the differentiations in party affiliations are going to at least persist if not grow, and the strongman threat will be upheld by the pretense of women in victim pose.

Understand the claim here isn’t about ‘therefore vote trump’ or rightwing, or authoritarian, or fascist, it is blatantly that unless these problems are dealt with, these issues are going to keep cropping up, and eventually authoritarian is going to win out, at least temporarily; again, removing a strongman is a bloody business no one wants. 

Specific Asks And Aims To Address These Issues

There are two fairly specific things that can be asked for and reasonably obtained to cut that dynamic down. I want to give a brief bit on each as i think that they well define the problems of men leaving the left, and even more broadly, with the overall divisiveness of the discourses, and politics, as each of course is purported to be a means of addressing the underpinning strongman/weakwoman dynamic. Misandry And Puritanism In Sexual Violence

The stats on sexual violence insofar as they are government funded can be changed so as to stop the lies and bullshit. Doing so would remove the perceived legitimacy of those stats, as they never had any legitimacy in academics, ethics, politics, or law. They were ridiculed from the get go, justly so too, and due to that the puritanical proponents of the positions tried to circumvent all that and get the government to try and provide legitimacy for them since they couldn’t earn it elsewhere. 

Aside from the stuff i normally say on this, there is a relevant discussion of this point to be found here in the comment section, which lays out the origins and problems of the use of those stats. Importantly note that if they were applied equally, we’d tend to see more or less equal numbers of ‘victims’ of sexual violence of either sex and any gender, as those numbers would be astronomically high, literally unbelievably high, because the underpinning theory of what constitutes a sexual violence is irredeemably flawed and has to go. They were resoundingly rejected in the academy as being puritanical and sex negative. They couldn’t pass laws to enforce their beliefs because they didnt and dont have popular backing. And the laws they try to pass are obviously unconstitutional as they attempt to regulate basic human behaviors like sexuality towards some puritanical malformed ‘ideal’ as to how sexual interactions ‘ought occur’.

This is why those positions are currently housed primarily at the CDC, meaning that they are primarily government funded lies. Sexual violence is not a health issue, understand that. It has nothing whatsoever to do with the mandates of the CDC. It was pushed into the CDC by puritanical ideologues. 

Again, the entire reason those beliefs about sexual violence are being hosted at the CDC is that they were rejected by the academy, they posit blatantly unconstitutional restrictions on basic human behavior, they are broadly unpopular when anyone bothers to actually read them, and they do not conform to virtually any laws not just in the us, but in the whole fucking world.     

Pushing to get harris/walz to nix that shit and discredit that methodology is a very attainable goal, that would have real world boons for everyone, but especially men, as men are the primary targets of that particular hate hoopla.  

Push for reliance on criminal data for the topic (that is hard data), and push for a sex positivist approach to understanding sexual violence, meaning that modes of sexual expression are not defacto criminalized, and in essence, utilizing a no means no methodology of understanding what does and does not constitute sexual violence. This would put the stats in line with the laws, ethics, reason and most of the rest of the world.

Remember folks, Those 451 Percenters openly p-hack the stats, in that they aim specifically to manipulate the questions they ask in their surveys, and the meaning of sexual violence terms to inflate the numbers, with an aim to ‘raise awareness’, hysteria, around sexual violence, and to try and institute their puritanical beliefs about sexuality onto people as a norm. That is how you commit Mass Sexual Violence With Stats.

They are not worthy of defending, they are an exceedingly gross bunch of grosslings. 

This is an important aspect as it drastically undercuts the woman as victim narrative, and hence too, the men as villain narrative, and therefore the ‘need for a strongman to defend them’. That generalize fear around sexual violence is what causes folks to react towards strongman tactics, Law and Order dispositions, anti-immigrant beliefs, racism, and even anti-poor beliefs (think, gated communities to keep the riffraff out). 

Understand that there isn’t a significant difference between folks screaming about how women are suffering sexual violence en masse (they aren’t tho, that is a wild lie) and folks screaming about mexican rapists, jewish rapists, palestinian rapists, prep boy rapists, black rapists, indigenous rapists, and so on. The one is but a generalized version of the other, and the more specified form is the output from all that generalized misandry.

See the racism there right? How the generalized misandry around sexual violence creates racism? See how the strongman appears like magic whenever the weakwoman trope is played? 

There can also be pushes to dismantle and make illegal groups like AWDTSG and so called red flag groups. These are already technically illegal, they are vigilante justice groups that regularly and purposely commit crimes, see here for a breakdown of what those crimes are. Note that those groups are demonstrably committing crimes right now, folks can do something about that right now too, by prosecuting them. Related efforts can be made to dismantle vigilante groups and movements like #metoo and #takebackthenight, each of which seek to intimidate and harm men through means other than use of the judicial systems.

Because again, the laws, ethics, philosophy, and basic human norms of behavior all disagree with these people, so they resort to extrajudicial violence to achieve their ends and aims. 

Reproductive Rights And Familial Rights

The reproductive and familial rights of men, more broadly too of parents is a trickier topic to address, but if it isn’t addressed we gonna keep going through this shit. The relation to the strongman/weakwoman dynamic isnt quite as obvious as the puritanical sexual violence claims are, but only slightly so.

In the dynamic the familial laws favor women, they define women as victims (victima perpetua) in all instances of domestic violence, and men as abusers (abusus perpetuus). It centers women in matters of familial choice while sidelining men in familial matters, ranging from adoption, childcare, domestic duties, abortion, to how monies are spent, and whose general concerns ought be tended to.  This puts women in need of a protector, the strongman; ‘women and children first’ is a trope derivative of this that really highlights how that sort of strict gendered division places women as victims in need of protection by way of centering them and excluding men from basic domestic life. 

Moreover, it places as assumed that women are the domestic while men are the providers, a gendered role that only dates back to the 1950s more or less, see also Anachronistic Analysis, but which is indicative of a strongman/weakwoman dynamic, with men being the ‘doers’ and women being the ‘ones that receive the doing’ (also related to the initiator/receiver sexual dynamic, but that is beyond the scope of this piece).    

However, reproductive rights are things that might get bipartisan support. I suspect that the trickiest part of it is that they are primarily laws that are handled on a state by state basis, so there isn’t but a leadership position that harris/walz could play on the matter.

With the possible exception of abortion.  
 

In terms of custody laws, divorce laws, adoption laws, alimony laws, child support laws, and so on (i don’t want to go over all the issues here, i am sure folks in this crowd are broadly familiar with the points), these can be pushed from a federal level by way of ‘making these things equal and fair for everyone’ and can be packaged as dealing with men’s issues as well as queer issues; as women are wildly favored in these areas, there aren’t meaningful women’s issues to be dealt with there. 

The key rhetorical point would be decentering women as the victims in the places they hold power, and raising up men and queer issues within those spaces. 

Broadening that concern, removing the gendered flair to it, and focusing on a fair distribution of justice and law predicated not upon gender but social roles is a reasonable approach. 

I think regardless that these are issues that are realistic to handle on a national level in terms of rhetoric and leadership, so as to help push the points on a state level, where the laws would likely have to actually be passed, and their likely bipartisan support would entail a good means to mend fences and refocus the country away from the strongman tact, as it would disrupt the underpinning dynamic.      

How To Build, Understand, And Maintain Broad Coalitions

i put together a piece attempting to define and explain how there are differentiations In good faith within any given group. How there are scalar differences in what folks talk about, as well as differences in concerns of aesthetical or obligatory kind, tho i mostly refer to scalar differences there as i’ve addressed the aesthetical/obligatory distinction many a time now.

See here, and here, and here if you arent aware of the aesthetical/obligatory distinction, or here if you feel up to listening to the whole original argument, which mostly discusses it as it relates to the ethics of trying to convince a flat earther that they are wrong.  Its a fun little argument imho. 

The piece is meant to handle any sort of differences of views within a coalition, such that folks can better manage to work together on issues; at least by way of properly delineating between positions they have, what they might be arguing for, where the limits of their positions might be, and where some other position might be more relevant.

Just for instance, individualist concerns compared to familial concerns, compared to community concerns, or iterative functional concerns compared to individual instantiations of a thing (systemic compared to individual instance), and as i’ve gone on about in this crowd much, the merely aesthetical ethical concerns compared to the ethically obligatory concerns.    

The notion is that folks within any given coalition are going to be coming at it from differing perspectives along those lines, and oft mistaking differing scalar concerns within a coalition for significantly differing opinions as to who might belong in a coalition, or who might be opposed to a general view.  

For this particular crowd, although i dont go into it in the linked piece, a good example of these differing scalar concerns would be between those of women, or men, or queers, compared to those of a heteronormative dynamic with a significant queer component. The former three have concerns that may be relevant to them in particular, whereas the latter has concerns that are related to all three of the former, specifically as they relate to each other.  

To conflate any of the former, or even any subset of the former, or even a mere amalgamation of the three former with the latter is simply to misunderstand the issues on an entirely scalarly different level. In other words, it is a kind of category mistake, a categorical error, whereby things that ought be understood in one category are being mistaken as if they ought be understood in a different category. In this case the categories are by scalar.

Which folks might get a better sense as to why i push as hard as i have been for mens’ rights and issues, as doing so is something of a corrective measure against the conflating of women’s and queer’s issues as if they were indicative of the whole gender dynamic. Folks might also thereby understand a bit better as to why pushing for mens rights and to have mens issues addressed oft entails pushing back against women’s issues in particular (tho not necessarily queer’s issues); folks having conflated women’s issues with the scalarly different gender dynamic issues has entailed gross misunderstandings on the points and grave injustices in practice predicated exactly upon that conflation. 

As it relates to coalitions, folks might take someone making an argument for individual rights and misapply them to familial rights, someone else the other way around, and each might view the other as not belonging in the same coalition because there is some perceived great difference in opinion. When in point of fact each might merely be speaking of different scalars of the same sort of thing. 

Individual rights pertain themselves to individuals, and familial rights pertain themselves to families. The consternation and conflict arises whereby folks try to impose familial ethics upon individual rights, or when individual ethics are imposed upon familial rights, or when folks mistake the same as happening even if it isn’t.  

Differentiations In Good Faith is a long ass piece, video is almost two hours. I put a transcript of it up here, and the video can be found here. As with many of my other pieces there is a musical and visual accompaniment to the primary philosophical content, its operatic in form, with hopes of providing some depth and entertainment value to it beyond the relatively dry philosophical content. 

Tho for that same reason, some folks might find the transcript easier to digest as a more familiar format. 

There is a version of it here as it relates specifically to Gender And Coalitions. 

I am of the view that proper coalition building requires this kind of understanding so as to mitigate infighting and maintain durability of the coalition, but i also think that such provides a broader capacity for coalition building (meaning more folks are able to get onboard with it), and a far more effective one (meaning that it is more likely to actually do something), as it offers folks the means to more clearly delineate their own positions and others’ positions towards the good faith effort at actually understanding and accomplishing something. 

On a more basic level too, a proper understanding of the circumstances and situations enables folks to more aptly and handily accomplish aims and ends when working in good faith with each other. 

I am also of the view that such would more properly address the issues that are currently divisive among the coalitions, and to the point of this post and this group, mend fences and provide sound footing for folks to work together, such that dudes aren’t flocking away from the left.

To folks that are more right leaning, i think the same sort of things apply well there, and can be used to help deal with the crazy shite happening in y’alls crowd too. I mean, women ain’t holding their breath to join up there either. More to the point tho, as i am viewing this, i find the right to be making the same kinds of errors, just in different ways, e.g. mistaking this or that scalar of concern for some other scalar of concern. 

The strongman/weakwoman problem is also thereby handled neatly. For, by delineating between what are the proper scalars of a given concern, there is an undercutting of the capacity to victim pose, and hence no fuel for the strongman to rise. The victim posing there being for instance to claim that one’s individual rights are being trampled, when in fact they are not. 

One reason i have been coming down hard on Liberalism is exactly that tendency to claim that one’s individual rights are being trampled when in fact they are not, and indeed, when the individualists’ claims end up trampling other valid aspects of rights. Folks interested in the reasoning here can see berlin’s notion of positive and negative liberty here. Or, folks can see here where historian timothy snyder speaks about the concept in part as it relates to the current election and politic.

Gonna just quote the opening point from the first link as it sums it up better than i would:

“Negative liberty is the absence of obstacles, barriers or constraints. One has negative liberty to the extent that actions are available to one in this negative sense. Positive liberty is the possibility of acting — or the fact of acting — in such a way as to take control of one’s life and realize one’s fundamental purposes. While negative liberty is usually attributed to individual agents, positive liberty is sometimes attributed to collectivities, or to individuals considered primarily as members of given collectivities.”

It is the ‘collectivist’ notion to which i am oft enough referring to and arguing towards in my criticisms of, say Patriarchal Realism, Liberalism, and individualism. Towards a proper coalition understanding of freedoms and liberties, rather than the individualistic notion. Hence these scalar differentiations of ethics. What pertains to the community doesnt necessarily pertain to the individual, or the family, and that works the other way around too.  

See also how ive used the individual per se and individual per vos distinction towards addressing those kinds of differentiations in the various links provided in this piece.

Broader still, here is a sense by which folks can understand good governance from this perspective, which is a view that can include folks from left and right, tho it does preclude fascistic and authoritarian views. Namely, that good governance is exactly the capacity to properly delineate between these differing scalar categories as they pertain to policies, laws, and enforcement. Such good governance principles, while relevant for longer term coalition maintenance, is too tangential to the topic of mens issues to go into any depth here.  

Some poetic license: Resolution of the paradox of intolerance. I ought not join you in it, it is best for everyone that i not join folks in doing so, i mean it, but to the point; ‘prayers up, tobaccos down’. Imma thief, not a practitioner; quath the poets:

“Walkin' to the south out of Roanoke

I caught a trucker out of Philly, had a nice long toke

But he's a-headin' west from the Cumberland Gap

To Johnson City, Tennessee

And I gotta get a move on before the sun

I hear my baby callin' my name and I know that she's the only one

And if I died in Raleigh, at least I will die free”

Not sure if this counts as progress but with how vastly overlooked male victims of trafficking are, it feels like a step in the right direction that at least someone is trying to get awareness out about it. Shared this elsewhere and thought it was good to share here as well. Someone posted this on Twitter/X, a woman to boot, which is always good to see them trying to stand up for men and boys just as much as we do for them.

Not that anyone expects meaningful conversation from a platform like Twitter/X, but I felt it was worth sharing and is absolutely the truth. Too often the issue of trafficking is made solely out to only affect women and girls, while ignoring the fact numerous men and boys are also trafficked and plenty of female traffickers also exist. Trafficking is vile no matter the genders but as always, misandrists only ever focus on women being trafficked by men and completely ignore the fact the other way around also happens in high numbers. Male and female traffickers are equally reprehensible and male victims just as valid and deserving of help as female ones.

Much like rape and domestic violence/abuse, trafficking needs to stop being a gendered issue.

Sunday, October 20 - Saturday, October 26, 2024

###Top 10 Posts

###Top 10 Comments

Poland offers to help Ukraine bring back draft-age men to serve in war | Notes From Poland

Polish minister, visiting Kyiv, calls for end to benefits for Ukrainian men in Europe | Reuters

Ukraine cancels its consular services for all military-aged men living abroad : NPR

Message for U.S. Citizens: Elimination of "Residence Abroad" Exception to Dual Citizen Departure - U.S. Embassy in Ukraine

Remember how news outlet almost never include men to be the victim of war due to them only including non-combatant?

Just force every men to be combatant, there shall be no male victim, and claim female are the only victim of war, how can people accept this hypocrisy?

Full article: The patriarchy index: a comparative study of power relations across historical Europe (tandfonline.com)

Saw this over at the MRA group. Thought it deserved a full post of an analysis rather than putting it in a comment there.

TL;DR: most of these supposed indicators of patriarchy do not ‘span time or space’ well across cultures. They tend heavily towards biases of wealth and modernity which prizes ‘establishing ones own home’ towards the detriment of extended or multigenerational living arrangements. Each of which have far better explanations as to why they were thus than ‘patriarchy’. Namely, poverty, realities of farming throughout most of history in all cultures, and dispositions that centered people towards local communities that endure rather than fleeing after modern jobs, moving to cities, etc… 

Some indicators, insofar as they are indicators of anything, are ones of heteronormativity, not patriarchy. I suspect the authors conflate these as such is oft conflated in the relevant lit, e.g. argued, poorly, that heteronormativity is a manifestation of patriarchy, or that gendered norms are, etc… see here of course for the criticism that Its A Heteronormative Complex With A Significant Queer Component, Not A Patriarchy. 

There are a few indicators here that could be used, but i dont think on their own would be sufficient. Authors would need to re-examine their patriarchal hypotheses, to try and develop ones that are not culturally, temporally, and/or class biased. 

It may also be that there just isnt a good way of framing a cross cultural ‘patriarchy index’ that doesnt run afoul these kinds of problems. 

Id note how this piece ends up doing pretty serious anachronistic analysis of the past, that is, taking modern morals and transposing them upon past circumstances. A common problem in feminist analysis ive noted here.

Some key quotes to understand the context and point of the this ‘Patriarchy Index’

“The index is based on a wide range of variables pertaining to the spheres of nuptiality and age at marriage, living arrangements, post-marital residence, power relations within the domestic group, the position of the aged, and the sex of the offspring. “

“We argue that the only solution to such challenges is to design a ‘master variable’ which can be employed in cross-cultural studies of family systems by applying it to harmonized data sets covering multiple settings.”

“In this first report, the index is applied only to historical European data. Although we hope that we shall be able to deal with non-European and contemporary data in the future, these further applications – as one of the anonymous reviewers of our work remarked – are likely to pose challenges sufficiently specific to warrant their separate discussion.”

“Our index is built only of variables which can be derived from routine historical census or census-like microdata. This implies, in the first instance, that non-observable determinants of the observable demographic and residential configurations are not accounted for in the index – for example, parental control over marriage, actual inheritance patterns, or the availability of kin for co-residence. This also necessarily confines our attention to actual behaviours and not to behavioral norms, which are not always adhered to. The challenge of comparing the results of the index to patriarchy research based on other sources, such as parental power or inheritance patterns, remains a task to be taken up in the future.”

“Theoretically, the index we are proposing should be applicable to any kind of human society, as long as some basic requirements are met (sufficient population size and the availability of microdata which cover the whole population and report each person’s sex, age, marital status and relationship to the household head).

Footnote 9 Among the challenges we face in creating such an index is that the age structures of societies may differ, and these differences could heavily affect the results of the index for the given society under investigation. There are several ways we can control for the age distribution: by restricting the analysis to one age group, age standardization, and regression (see Ruggles, Citation 2012, p. 431).”

Body of The Post

I find the studies basic methodology to be sound, e.g. the using of census data that is broadly applicable across differing socio-cultural structures. The piece looks well written, researched, and sourced.

There are a number of ways to criticize this piece, im going to focus on what i take to be the most important one, its hypotheses regarding what patriarchal structures are. These are interpretative notions as to what may or may not constitute patriarchy. Before doing so, there are inherent limitations to their methodology, as it fails to capture the behavioral aspects that the data they are using reflects. What that means is that for any and all of these categories, they can only at best, at most, be indicative of a generic possible trend, not necessarily reflective of any sort of ‘actualized’ patriarchy. So, for example, they use ‘head of household’ as a measure, setting aside for the moment (see below) any criticism of this measure, simply being ‘head of household’ doesnt necessarily entail any sort of behavior within that household that is patriarchal in actuality. Could very well be that the folks who are not head of household are actually effectively ‘in charge’. For the most part, we cant criticize this piece based on that point. What the, somewhat unspoken, claim is going to be is something like ‘on average’ or ‘on balance’ we might assume that being ‘head of household’ actually entails some kind of actualized patriarchal behavior. 

Here tho the authors are holding that ‘being head of household’ is itself an indicator of a manifestation, perhaps even if only by legacy, of patriarchal structures in the society. So, having a large proportion of men be ‘head of household’ is supposed to mean ‘hence there is some kind of valid indicator that there is a patriarchal element in that society’. 

Strictly speaking in terms of statistics and logic, this is a reasonable assumption to make, assuming of course that head of household is actually an indicator of patriarchal structures. Which is may not be. 

So we are going to critically examine each of their ‘patriarchal hypotheses’ to determine if they are really indicators of patriarchal structures or not.

“Patriarchal hypothesis: only men can be household heads.

Description: this is the proportion of all female household heads among all adult (aged 20+) household heads of family households. We use an age-standardized measure to account for different age structures in different societies at different points in time.”

There are a number of fairly odd assumptions that go into this notion. 

1. That being the nominal head of household, which is an indicator for tax or purely census data, is actually indicative of anything at all. The hypothesis is that only men can be thus, but gendered societies, whereby there are even fairly strict gendered roles, do not necessarily relate to patriarchal social structures. They at best, on their own, indicate heteronormative structures, but heteronormative structures are not patriarchal ones.

In order for a gendered structure to be patriarchal and not merely heteronormative, the structure would need to place men in particular into an undo position of power over others. Despite its name, being head of household simply doesnt do this. It is a term used purely for tax purposes. 

2. There is an argument to be made that head of household indicates the person who earns the most monies, and the person who earns the most monies is definitionally more powerful in the society. But this is pretty easy to disprove. A far better indicator would be who controls the use of those monies, perhaps even without getting into the weeds of it all, just who spends more of the monies that is not tied up in the standard bills of a household. There is no power, and arguably, i think intuitively even, if the ‘head of household’ merely spends time working to pay the bills, there not only isnt any power to be had by way of being head of household, there is actually an absence of power, a kind of servitude towards those within the household, and a kind of servitude towards society as a whole. 

3. There is a different argument that might try to claim that since whoever is head of household is the one that earns the most, it is indicative of a general disparity of earnings within the culture. But this isnt the kind of claim folks would likely think it is. It isnt indicative of a disparity in pay rates, nor even a disparity of power in the society. Most folks who work, after all, have little or no power in society by way of their work. All it shows is who tends to work more outside of the home, which again, isnt really indicative of a power differential.    

“Patriarchal hypothesis: a lower female age at marriage facilitates male domination.

Description: this is the proportion of ever-married women in the 15–19 age group. 

…..

This measure should be positively correlated with patriarchy because we assume that in strongly patriarchal areas women would be married as soon as possible. In societies in which property and other rights are transmitted through men, the production of male children is critical. Early arranged marriages of daughters reduced the household economic burdens that came with supporting females who were destined to marry and leave the home in any case, and whose children would contribute neither income nor offspring to their father’s natal group.”

This is just an odd sort of claim to make. It takes for granted that women have no role in that decision themselves. They are ‘married off’ rather than ‘choosing to marry’. It is something that ‘happens to them’ rather than something that they themselves choose to do. There is an additional oddity to this sort of claim, that will be more apparent in the next ‘patriarchal hypothesis’, namely, that there is a power differential based on age. This is fairly expressly stated, but there isnt really any good reason to suppose it to be true. 

There are a lot of gross age related suppositions involved in the claim. While there is something to the intuition, namely, that in instances of a child compared to an adult, there is a real power differential involved based on age, and in terms of gross possible position in society, an older person is at least more likely to have a more secure position in society than a younger person, but neither of these translate well to a patriarchal claim. For one, we arent speaking of children, if we do, we are merely infantilizing adult women as if they are incapable of thinking or acting for themselves as real live people. So the intuition is simply flawed.

A nineteen year old is a full on adult capable of thinking and acting for themselves in a manner that isnt really markedly different than, say, a twenty six year old, or a fifty year old for that matter. Experience may make a difference, but not that big a difference, education matters, and so forth, but overall there isnt any real power differential to be had here.

note that this study is historical, so age of consent was very different, fifteen year olds were generally considered adults.  

“Patriarchal hypothesis: the husband is always older than his wife.

Description: this is the proportion of all of the wives who are older than their husbands among all of the couples for whom the ages of both partners are known. “

This is far more clearly the case here. Younger wife may just mean women prefer older men. There is literally nothing here of note. The only way that folks come to think of this as a patriarchal point is the gross infantilization of women based on ‘youngerness’, and the supposition that men are the acting agents and women the passive ones. ‘Men want younger wives’, possibility. But just as likely women want older husbands. The former is patriarchy, the latter is matriarchy, and it just describes who is making the choice. The reality is that it is a heteronormative characteristic, that is, a characteristic of men and women in heteronormative relationships such that women tend to pick older, and men tend to pick younger. 

“Patriarchal hypothesis: a woman cannot live outside the home of her or her husband’s relatives.

Description: this is the proportion of women aged 20–34 who live as non-kin, usually as lodgers or servants. These women are not controlled by their relatives or by their husband’s relatives.”

There is a something here to the notion of patriarchy. Though it would firstly only make sense as a comparison to men doing the same, e.g. if the proportion of women doing so is markedly smaller than men. However, there is also a wealth issue and a serious cultural issue here. Poor people would tend to live in the same home as their parents for longer. Moreover, there is a serious cultural problem with this analysis, in that it assumes that living outside the parental home is an indication of ‘normalcy’ and ‘independence’.

This is not the case in many cultures, and is a somewhat peculiar and modern notion of how familial forms ought be structured. The norm throughout history has been extended families living in the same home or very near each other, and this not for patriarchal reasons, but at best, most worst, economic ones. There is simply a rather strong cultural bias here as to what would even be considered patriarchal. Tho in a society whereby such was not the norm, where, that is, the norm is exactly to live outside the parental home, such could be used as an indicator of patriarchy in a society, with the aforementioned proviso.

This means that such cannot be used as a valid cross cultural indicator, which is the author’s main aim.  

“Patriarchal hypothesis: the oldest man is always the household head.

Description: This is the proportion of elderly men (aged 65+) living in a household headed by a male of a younger generation. Only family households are considered here, and the elderly men must be relatives of the household head. We have chosen to analyze generations and not ages because we consider the generational difference to be more important than the age difference between men.”

Similar to the preceding point, poor people are going to tend to do this (wealth bias), and rather powerful cultural bias. If we were to take this claim seriously, we’d find that patriarchy is more prevalent in all poor areas of any given country, and in all cultures where the norm isnt to leave the parental home. Again, such isnt a useful measure across cultures. Id argue such isnt even itself a good theoretical hypothesis of patriarchy personally, as it is entirely predicated upon a reality that supposedly youngens are supposed to leave the familial home, and that somehow to not do so is to be under the rule of the elder male therein. And just none of that is really the case. It isnt why or the reality even in theory of how extended or multigenerational families living together works or has ever really worked for that matter. 

“Patriarchal hypothesis: sons cannot establish their own household on marriage.

Description: this is the proportion of ever-married household heads among ever-married men in the 20–29 age group. This measure only applies to family households and is an age-standardized measure that accounts for different age structures in different societies at different points in time.

This measure should be negatively correlated with patriarchy because it is assumed that in strictly patriarchal societies sons with living fathers are permitted to establish their own independent households only under exceptional circumstances. As Wolf (Citation 2005) has argued, in a very practical sense, ‘how young people marry, when they marry, and where they reside after marriage will reflect the extent to which their society empowers parents’ (p. 225). In domestic groups in which the ‘vigorous authority of the senior patriarch’ is enforced (Seccombe, Citation 1992, p. 42), the authority structure prevents offspring (and sons in particular) from early independence because male children (as well as grandchildren) are capital resources and, like all capital resources, they are more rather than less desirable.”

There is a continuation of the modern cultural biases going on here. Young dudes ‘gain independence’ by ‘leaving the parental home’, etc… But there is also the oddity of ‘capital resources’ being ‘more valuable’. I think this speaks a lot towards an underpinning sociopathic view of people that is inherent in the disposition of, not only this paper, but much of the discourse. That people are viewing each other as ‘resources’ and in some kind of ‘resource fight’ whereby dominance and control is whats in play, rather than, say, love, generosity, a desire to be near family, boring realities of communities, etc… 

This doesnt strike me as ‘patriarchal’ so much as sociopathic. 

“Patriarchal hypothesis: some sons tend to stay in the household even after the death of their father.

Description: this is the proportion of elderly people (aged 65+) living with at least one lateral relative in the household. Lateral relatives are defined as siblings, uncles/aunts, nephews/nieces, great-nephews/nieces, cousins and other distant relatives (including in-laws). In addition, two married relatives of the same generation form a lateral extension (this applies to lineal relatives: children, parents, grandchildren and grandparents). This measure only applies to family households.”

Same issues as the preceding two, pretty massive biases based on wealth and culture that have nothing whatsoever to do with patriarchy. 

“Patriarchal hypothesis: all sons have to stay in the household of their father.

Description: this is the proportion of elderly people (aged 65+) living with at least two married children in the same household. This measure only applies to family households.

This measure should be positively correlated with patriarchy because we assume that in truly patriarchal areas no sons will leave their parental household, either because they have internalized the idea of paternal power and joint residence or due to economic or legal restrictions. Joint-family types of living arrangements – i.e. co-residence with at least two married offspring (preferably sons) – have commonly been seen as being the locus of archetypical patriarchal relationships (Caldwell, Citation1982). “

Same biases as the preceding, wealth and culture, not really useful as a cross cultural measure.

“Patriarchal hypothesis: all daughters move into their husband’s father’s house.

Description: this is the proportion of elderly people (aged 65+) living with at least one married daughter in the same household among those elderly people who live with at least one married child in the same household. This measure only applies to family households.

This measure should be negatively correlated with patriarchy because in intensely patriarchal areas it is expected that all daughters will leave their parental household on marriage. “

This seems like something that could be related to patriarchy. Because it actually differentiates women as being tasked with something that at least in theory would indicate that women are being placed in an inherently weaker position, e.g. being placed in a home wherein they are not surrounded by relatives, and indicative of an inheritance pattern that may favor males.

Tho its worth noting that intergenerational inheritance is generally a more important measure, as in, if her children are inheriting the wealth of the house they moved into, there is good reason to argue that she is doing better off by way of moving into a different house.

Such also belies what is oft the reality, namely, that women tend to control the resources in a house, be responsible for the day to day, the monies, etc… see also the point regarding how monies are spent, rather than who is nominally ‘in charge’. that may be a better measure of such things rather than 'inheritance' as such.  

“Patriarchal hypothesis: after the birth of a daughter, parents will try to have another child.

Description: this is the proportion of boys among the last children (if the last child is one of a set of siblings of both sexes, he or she will be excluded from the analysis). So far, this measure has been restricted to the children of household heads because the analysis is much more complicated for other relatives. The analysis is restricted to the 10–14 age group because, in the younger age groups, we cannot know whether the last child really is the last child and, in the older age groups, we cannot know whether one of the children has already left the parental household through marriage or going into service. This measure only applies to family households.

This variable is also used in the Social Institutions and Gender Index, but this index takes advantage of contemporary household surveys, which make it easier to identify the last child.”

This seems like a good measure actually. If folks are tending to stop having children once they have a boy, or continue to have children if they have a girl, such can be a reasonable indicator of some kind of patriarchal element in play that favors men. 

“Patriarchal hypothesis: girls are treated worse or are considered to be of lesser importance than boys.

Description: this is the sex ratio (number of boys to 100 girls) in the youngest age group (0–4). We are investigating the youngest age group because the effects should be most marked in this age group. This measure only applies to family households.”

As per the immediately preceding point, this also seems like a reasonable indicator. I am unsure their rational for choosing the youngest age group, perhaps related to the preceding point of ‘stopping having children’? Seems to me tho that it should hold across the board regardless of age? Maybe its because dudes have a shorter life expectancy? Idk.

I know this might seem a bit of a redundant question considering that lethal police violence is more commonly used against men as a baseline, but I was curious about whether or not we had any research analysing whether being on the spectrum was identified as a risk factor, even controlling for factors like race (given the fact that black men in particular are already at such a higher level of risk for instance).

If anyone has data on that, or anything related, I’d be curious to see whatcha got.

Study: The Lancet Public Health Commission on gambling - The Lancet Public Health

In the text, but omitted from Executive Summary or "Key Facts" box:

Approximately 5·5% of women and 11·9% of men experience any risk gambling.

Also omitted from all the media reporting on the study:

• Gambling poses huge global threat to public health, experts warn | Gambling | The Guardian
• University of Glasgow - University news - UofG experts join call for urgent global action on gambling harms
• Urgent global action needed on gambling harms, international experts say - Monash University

https://youtu.be/DL5qDFDttps
It's good that someone mainstream is talking about this

Misandry: the hatred of, contempt for, or prejudice against men or boys.

According to feminists, this doesn't exist, or if it does exist it doesn't matter because it's not as bad as misogyny, or if it is really bad it certainly isn't caused by feminism. The academic literature reads as though the entire concept was invented purely for the purpose of criticizing feminism. In fact, even pointing it out is often enough to get you labeled as a misogynist, which is perhaps why feminists construct their rhetoric in this way.

A recent survey found that feminists report being prejudiced against men in roughly equal numbers to non-feminists. Many newspaper headlines and reddit thread have trumpeted this survey as scientific proof that feminism doesn't cause misandry. Frankly, it should be obvious that political activists have every motive to not associate their movement with politically unpopular ideas, and bigots are often unaware of their own prejudices. That being said, what this survey actually does prove is the fact that misandry does exist. Large numbers of people reported gender prejudice against men.

I want this thread to be a place where men can share their experiences of this prejudice. Let's try to set aside the conditioning we have been given from birth that tells us to focus on individual responsibility and not complain when faced with an obstacle. I just want to look at objective reality here.

I'll start. Myself and four other men had terrible experiences working for a particular female boss over a period of five years. Three of them were before my time so I don't know the details. Myself and the fourth man had similar experiences. Our female coworkers constantly received mentorship, and we received aggression and disrespect. We were both publicly humiliated in front of dozens of other employees multiple times by this boss, which is something that never happened to the female coworkers. We were expected to do more work and work longer hours. Whenever there was a dispute between one of us and a female coworker, it became clear that our voice would not be heard. Finally, in spite of many late nights and generally good performance, we did not receive recognition for our work. This female boss went on to get promoted and is now in charge of a much larger number of people.

A fellow female supervisor once accused someone working under my supervision of unethical behavior which was unrelated to gender. I examined the evidence and found it unconvincing. Everyone else that was involved in the event in question told me that the unethical behavior in question had not taken place. When I said that I would not punish this person, the fellow female supervisor became very upset. Both men and women can become overly emotional, and I, seeking to treat her exactly as I would treat a man, said that we should focus on logic and evidence and set aside our emotions. This upset her even further, and afterwards she began spreading false rumors about me in the workplace which made my life quite miserable for a while.

So I noticed something. In England especially working class Asian (South Asian - think Pakistani/Indian etc.) can be very macho - think gold chains, mock London accents (even when from idk Kent lol), quite mean to one another, don't really admit it when they experience racism, won't admit to dating struggles and ask anyone in England and they can tell you young Pakistani boys especially LOVE revving their cars in inner city areas. It's a cultural phenomenon for reasons unknown to me. It's actually quite annoying but anyway.

I don't *think* this behaviour really exists back in the subcontinent (could be totally wrong but I've never heard of it).

I'm a British Asian guy myself so this is not racism, this is anti racism.

I have a theory. This only really happens for the straight men. Why? Well the media desexualises us and makes us out to be effeminate, metrosexual etc.

Now for a young straight man this is a nightmare because you're a target with male bullies and, rightly or wrongly, they feel young women will be less attracted to a young man who is effeminate.

So they'll go way overboard esp in their youth to be masculine to compensate - think of revving the engine as a kind of look how tough and cool I am mating ritual almost.

So is it really their fault? I think not. But then from their behaviour the media and even Asian media (obvs the gender articles are always written by women just trashing Asian men/using feminist buzzwords and it works because white middle class journalists LOVE it when that happens and reward it) uses this as evidence of patriarchal, toxic brown men and demonises them more.

This is a theory not science ik.

Was looking at a thread on r/Natalism today regarding the state of gender relations, and what stood out to me was the insistence on it being "men's fault" so to speak, and one of the reasons cited was the high rape statistics. I saw studies cited that reported 1 in 6-1 in 3 women are raped by men, whether or not that's numbers within the US isn't clear.

And I know for a fact that some feminists have a tendency to manipulate their methodology in such a way that allows to report higher numbers of sexual assault/rape, Mary P. Koss being a prime example. My only question is, why? Do they have a financial incentive to secure more funding? Or is it an ideological one? Any answers to this would be greatly appreciated.

Edit: Here are some of the articles I've seen cited. You can read them for yourself and see if it's reliable or not:

https://www.nsvrc.org/statistics

https://www.who.int/news/item/09-03-2021-devastatingly-pervasive-1-in-3-women-globally-experience-violence

https://www.thehotline.org/stakeholders/domestic-violence-statistics/

https://rainn.org/statistics/victims-sexual-violence

“Toxic masculinity” as in the toxic expectations on men which are pushed onto men and internalised by men is a real thing. The problem is the term “toxic masculinity”. When someone thinks women need to be a certain way and play into toxic stereotypes of femininity, that’s called (internalised) misogyny. So why don’t we call it misandry instead of toxic masculinity? It’s because the term was created by feminists and because they don’t think men can be real victims in the way women are, they have to be the problem, and women the innocent victims.

We need to start calling it what it really is. In fact, terms like “toxic masculinity” is just reinforcing ideals of what masculinity is. For example, I was knitting a pink sweater the other day and a woman said “it’s great that you’re confident enough in your masculinity to do that”. I never once considered my masculinity or me being a man when I was doing that but her mentioning it is reinforcing the idea that knitting = feminine which isn’t the case.

Sunday, October 13 - Saturday, October 19, 2024

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I decided to write this up after seeing basically a barrage of content recently talking about situations in which I would consider it part of the Hyper Male Gender Role, including a commenter here talking about his experiences in what I would consider a VERY abusive relationship. This includes something I just read on X/Twitter, talking about a woman upset that her male "BFF" (I don't think this is a friendship) decided to get in a relationship with her friend, and she's upset over it. But it's something I see a fair amount on the regular, to various ends and extremes.

First, let me just say, not all women. Just like not all men, this of course is not all women. Not even close. But what I'm saying, is that there's a subculture, especially on social media pushing really unhealthy views on what's expected of men (basically everything), and the problem is we have no label or description of it to really criticize it. That's something I think we need to change. Everything from the "Sprinkle Sprinkle" stuff, to really messed up opinions about sharing household labor that are simply not realistic or healthy, or completely dismissing men's contributions as never good enough. That was another piece of content I saw yesterday, a woman complaining that her fiancé asked her to wrap a gift. That he was just weaponizing his incompetence, like she never asks him to do anything she might not be comfortable with.

And I think men are socialized in a way that makes us completely vulnerable to these ideas. "Happy Wife, Happy Life" and all that. Not to mention promoting the idea pretty broadly that men have little to no, or even negative innate self worth, and all our value is tied into what we can do for others.

Going back above, I think we need a term to criticize these ideas. I don't exactly know what a good term would be, but I think it's important. And frankly not just for men. Don't worry, I'm not playing the "let's fix this thing because it negatively impacts women" card. I think this is still an issue JUST because of how it negatively impacts men's mental health and self-image. But, I do think it does trigger an equal and opposite reaction. And I maintain that the modern Red Pill wave is the equal and opposite reaction of that particular sub-culture and ideas. And is this level of entitlement actually healthy in the long-run?

Entitlement Feminism? Yeah, that will never fly. Maybe something like the Pink Pill? Maybe. But I do think it is a promotion of entitlement front and center. There's no other way to put it. And as men are socialized to believe that wanting anything is entitlement, and this stuff tries to socialize women that they should want everything, where's the healthy middle here on either end?

Similar to the reason why men don't open up. People (particularly women) will use that against them. Despite women usually being the ones to tell men to open up more. So therefore men don't open up to women. But now people are saying this is a pride thing.

This creates another paradox or cycle shit. Where men are encouraged to do something by society, then demonize for doing that exact thing by society, and then men are still judged for doing the alternative that is less harmful to them. In this case society is encouraging men to ask for help, then demonizing men for asking for help, and then criticizing men for doing the alternative not asking for help.

I can use a lot of examples here outside men not opening up. For example, like men asking for help financially-wise. People say men are too prideful to ask for help when it comes to money. But when they do ask for help. People use being dependent on someone else against men. In the mainstream media men and music are constantly mocked for being broke or depending on their wives/girlfriend income. There is trend on social media making fun of men for being hobosexuals.

So this is not a pride thing. People even use this same argument with homeless men. Saying that homeless men are less likely to ask for help because of pride. Or men are less likely to go on welfare, because of pride. Ignoring the fact that men are shame by society for doing these things. For F*CK sakes there are even laws put in place limiting men ability to ask for help in the first place.

The same feminists that say pride is the reason male victims of DV/SA don't ask for help. Are usually the same feminists that think men are misogynistic or "whining little b*tches" for wanting male shelters in the first place.

Even with depression and high suicide rates. They say men are less likely to ask for help. When in reality men are more likely to get shame for asking for help. This all ties back to men not opening up with their emotions. How many stories do you hear about women asking men to open more, and then the man opened up, and it makes his girlfriend/wife uncomfortable (I.E. trauma dumping, emotional labor, and I'm not your personal therapist). So men aren't struggling because of their "toxic pride".

In conclusion.

They use pride as another scapegoat to automatically shut down any valid concern men have.

I've written a lot of things relevant to men's liberation over the past few years, on a variety of accounts and in a variety of subs like QueerTheory, CriticalTheory, MensLib, and here at LWMA, as well as on external blogs and forums. However, I have my quibbles with the latter two subs and the first two are only adjacent to the topic or have too broad of a focus.

While I've appreciated the discussion on this sub for a long time, I have ambitions of starting an additional community. This one is called r/RadMensLib for Radical Men's Liberation - radical because it envisions a total transformation of society. This new sub has a goal of elucidating a theory of men's oppression under patriarchy, and from there, men's liberation from it. Although there is much to complain about in other liberation movements such as feminism, and such complaints can serve as jumping off boards for further analysis, or perhaps as playbooks or lessons to be learned from, in this new subreddit a complaint as such should not be the main content of any post or reply.

It is to be taken for granted that men's liberation can only come from a movement by men and for men - as so many philosophers have said, freedom can not be given, it must be taken. So the specific stances or thoughts of people outside this milieu on this topic are of little import at this early stage, they will not and can not give us the liberation we desire. The first feminists dealt with extreme pressure and coercion - men said they were just hysterical man-haters, they're all ugly and can't get any, they just want to be men, etc. It should be expected that we will be treated likewise. Dwelling on it is not constructive. The feminists knew this, and kept their eyes on the prize. On this subreddit, I hope to do the same.

I'm an anarchist and I intend to keep moderation and rules light handed and more focused on suggestions than on bans.

A diversity of viewpoints can only strengthen the movement, so a space that has a different ideological focus than this one while sharing the same goals is one where we can strengthen each other through solidarity and learn from each other's theories, refining our critiques. I hope to see some of you there! I've seeded it with a few top tier posts and will continue to do so over the next couple of months to give an idea of what I'm imagining, but everyone is welcome to bring their own perspective.

Some suggested topics:

• Film & media analysis
• Analysis of demands and expectations placed on men
• Analysis of patriarchy and how men are formed through education, the family, etc.
• Analysis of masculinity itself and its boundaries
• Social alienation and its intersection with patriarchal expectations
• Analysis of heteronormativity/homophobia and its role in masculinity and the process of becoming a man
• Ideas for praxis; how do you break through the psychological barriers patriarchy instilled in you? How do you talk to other men about men's liberation?
• Relevant personal experiences and insights
• What would you do, if patriarchy didn't constrict you from doing so?
• Questions and food for thought
• Favorite essays or articles relevant to men's liberation

i was an 'activist' for many years. i organized, educated, agitated, etc. never thought of myself as an activist, instead a revolutionary, but others called me activist.

now, years later, as i rebuild my capacity to speak, i am reconnecting with old friends. not from activist world, but from the other spheres of my life. i tell them parts of my story because i disappeared for years, about my experiences of abuse, and the learning i have done through mens rights resources regarding abuse.

besides the obvious discomfort i see when hearing a man describe these experiences that are considered womens problems, i sometimes get asked 'are you a mens rights activist now?'

this makes me uncomfortable for a variety of reasons, but mostly because i see so many of the same problems in female and male-advocacy worlds, the primary one being a fundamentally reactionary stance. when i talk with people about my experiences and studies, when i read or try to participate online, so much of the female/male-advocacy discourse revolves around defending the team, reacting to other instead of attempting a revolutionary orientation.

an example would be sexual abuse. after years of reading about SA, (and lots of therapy lol) there are a few things im clear about.

1 the dominant narrative regarding SA is incorrect

2 the information we have is clearly illuminating of the false narrative, can be a signpost to further research, but is equally clearly incomplete

3 the experiences of men and women, and in different cultures, are different enough that caution and attention should be the hallmarks of any advocacy regarding SA.

what i see as the common reactionary orientation revolves around the defense of the group one identifies with. so regarding SA, this means an emphasis on the experiences and needs of the specific group, men or women. understandable, and can be useful, but not revolutionary. instead, a revolutionary orientation would look more like, ’all people that have experienced SA can be suppported in healing by....having guaranteed housing, food, medical/mental health support, legal support, meaningful and low stress work, etc' this more revolutionary demand regarding SA would have the possibilty of uniting the vast majority, opposed to the reactionary position of 'my group needs xyz'.

obviously there is an educational process regarding men understanding what SA of men looks like, people understanding the more complex cycle of abuse that is closer to truth, etc. i believe still that this revolutionary orientation has more potential to address problems, in all spheres of 'activism', than the reactionary, identitarian posture.

there is also an important place for criticism as distinct from advocacy, ruthless criticism of all that exists and whatnot. this post is not about criticism in that sense, rather the self-criticism that enables people and movements to evolve.

if you made it this far, thanks. perhaps i am wrong in how i understand identitarian movements as reactionary, and the tension between reactionary and revolutionary orientations. or perhaps this is incoherent, i am writing here hoping to be questioned. i also acknowledge the hypocrisy of beginning this post with my experiences, kind of falling into the identitarian trap of 'as a man...' lol. part of that is the story speaking process of therapy, hopefully i avoided getting stuck there, and used it effectively to get to the important question of reaction v revolution. thanks again for reading, and i hope you find a laugh in an unexpected place today :-)

I've been thinking of how relations between men and women are failing, and how we've gotten to this point. Then it dawned on me that this might just be how feminists are fighting men. I came across this article that goes into the how's and why's. The last part was what I found most interesting:

"The point is that women do indeed fight, although often in a subtler manner than fighting among men. In traditional contexts and likely throughout human evolution, much of this hostility was directed toward other women and focused on gaining access to resources that could substantively influence their well-being and that of their children, as is common with female-female competition across species. In the modern world with greater integration of women into the economic and political spheres traditionally occupied by men, women’s relational aggression has blossomed to include men who are perceived as competitors. Many men miss the (at times) subtleness of this form of aggression and often don’t realize what is happening or how to respond. Some men might even withdraw from these spheres, which of course is the goal of relational aggression."

After reading this I just had an 'Aha!' moment. Like, of course that's what feminists have been doing. You can see the effects all around us. The democrat/republican gender split from men leaving. The fear mongering from things like man or bear. Basically any number of small scare tactics and other social ways to ostracize men. (Note, I'm not saying this planned. Just more of a response to a new contender, as it were.)

Personally I've always thought women (as a group) have more social/soft power while men (as a group) have more hard power. The phrase 'Men are afraid women will laugh at them, women are afraid men will kill them' springs to mind about embodying each sexes fears about the other. It seems like each sex is weak to the others way of fighting.

With internet and social media I feel as if feminism has the upper hand on the competition, in this case men. Social media also thrives on generating outrage and division, making it more likely for feminists to fight men, which have already been set up as an oppressive class.

I dunno, maybe this is so obvious it doesn't need stating or has been said before, but if so I haven't seen it. Or maybe I'm just throwing shitnat a wall trying to make sense of it all lol. But, I think it could make for some good discussion nonetheless!

It's common to see men say that society always teaches men how to treat women. But society never teaches women how to treat men. It's almost like society has no concept of how a woman should treat man.

I know people will say that's because of sexism and violence towards women be more likely. That's not true, because we all know men face sexism too. So this is just an excuse to justify poor treatment done to men. I saw a post with so many upvotes. The post was made by a woman, who talks about how much she likes men. She also says she is the type to say "men are trash" too. She says "real men" are soft and gentle with women.

There is a lot of wrong shit in that post. For starters she says she is the type to use the "men are trash" phase. And also when a woman says "real man" that's a major red flag. And then there is that social expectation to give women special treatment. There are studies about this. Where women actually think benevolent sexist men are for pro equality. While they label actual pro equality men misogynistic, since those men aren't being chivalrous (I.E. not being "real men").

Like I mentioned in the title, this goes beyond conservatives. I noticed how some Feminists like to play this weird game where they try to use tradcon women as scapegoats. Trying to make it seem like it's only a "small minority" of women that are tradcons that expect these expectations from men. You can't fool me here. Because no tradcon would be using terms like misogyny or patriarchy LMAO.

So it's not uncommon for most women to have feminist views, and still expect men to be traditional. I made a lot of posts about this. We see this all of the time. Whether it's women complaining about men not approaching or interacting with them. Or women saying how men should stand up for women or defend women. Even the woman I mentioned earlier said she uses the phrase "men are trash" despite her saying she likes "real men".

So progressive lingo is mixed with traditional masculinity. We all know the popular ones. "Positive Masculinity" is code for traditional masculinity. Standing up for women is code for men risking their lives to protect women. And Interacting with women is code for pursuing/approaching/chasing women.

Since most women expect men to be a combination of feminist values and traditional values. So men are called misogynistic for not adhering to traditional gender roles. This is super ironic and ass backwards lol. But that's the society we live in right now. Where men are considered misogynistic for not being traditional/masculine enough. And my god does that sentence sound ridiculous.

Again it's the blend of progressive values and traditional values blurring the lines. Calling men out for being misogynistic is the progressive part. While expecting male gender roles is the traditional part. Now when you combine both, you get a very unstable society that makes a lot of issues for men.

So in conclusion.

To get back to my point. This is why it is such an alien concept for someone to ask how women should treat men. Since certain treatment is exclusive to one gender. Especially when that treatment is a special treatment. Since society simultaneously views women as oppressed under the patriarchy, ( so women must be viewed as a vulnerable/protected class). But also society is very benevolently sexist towards women. Therefore this paradox creates a society where men are expected to give women special treatment.

While men are told they are too privileged and toxic to even get the bare minimum treatment, not even special treatment (forget special treatment).

I hear the constant refrain in feminist spaces that men are the beneficiaries of patriarchy and are not oppressed under it - they are the privileged class. However, I'm a gay man - rare has been the occasion where I have felt that in my personal life. The way I see it, the beneficiary of patriarchy is not men or women, but the future. It is a system designed to use oppression to force men and women into the shapes most amenable for the reproduction of society in successive generations - men into emotionally stoic workhorses, women into domestic childbearers (until the past few decades). Towards this end, patriarchy sets out normative behavioral mandates that men must meet, and if you are unable to - whether that's because you are disabled, queer, neurodivergent, effeminate, or whatever - you are made to suffer. But the oppression these populations suffer under patriarchy is not because they are the target of this oppression, no. The target of the mechanisms which produce these results are the average man, the one who is able to fulfill the mandates of patriarchal masculinity. It serves as a cage, a behavioral prison one is indoctrinated into growing up, that restricts, controls, and limits the behavior, emotions, desires of men to force them into the roles which reproduce society in successive generations. If one is unable to choose for themselves, if any real choices are taken away at the threat of social alienation, discrimination, othering, if someone's liberty to decide is taken away from them in all but name, what do you call that other than oppression?

Feminism is supposed to be the movement to end patriarchy, as well as simultaneously a movement to center women's voices in an an analysis of patriarchy - but patriarchy is a web that encompasses all of society. If we ignore the ways in which it ensnares half of the entire population, the liberation coming from any movement to abolish it will necessarily only be half-formed, stillborn. If we cannot have a theory of men's oppression under patriarchy, we cannot have a theory of men's liberation from it.

It seems to me that there is a serious case of perceiving gender liberation as a zero-sum game - instead of a collaborative effort towards liberation, a dialectic between men and women all striving to analyze and eradicate patriarchy together, we're caught up in a game where we worry that shifting any attention away from one side to make room for the other will hurt the former.

Maybe I'm completely off base here, which is why I'm asking for other's opinions.

But I notice a lot of racist remarks have a lot in common with misandrist remarks, in particular for people with darker skin. Being seen as angry, dangerous, criminals, stupid, even ugly- all things said about men as a whole. I think this is why black men get it so rough, the two discriminatory assumptions overlap.

I've also noticed that more feminine people within racial minorities seem to get a sort of "softer" racism that mirrors misogyny. Being seen as mysterious and "exotic" in a dehumanizing way, but also considered beautiful.

Similarly, it seems that dark skin and people with darker skin are, by default, seen as more masculine (I've even heard intersectional feminists address this in how it robs black and brown women of their femininity), whereas Asian people are seen as more feminine by default, making a lot of their racism mirror misogyny.

Obviously all racism is bad and a problem and should be discussed, but there's a reason the plight of black people facing racism is brought up so much. It's just the most statistically damaging, when you look at employment, poverty, incarceration, etc. Again, not trying to downplay anti-Asian sentiment as that's also a very serious problem, but it has less impact on success in life according to the numbers.

I feel like this, too, mirrors what we see for gender. Both misandry and misogyny are real issues that really hurt people and both need to be addressed. But which is being focused on most is flipped. Rather than the more statistically damaged group getting the most focus, it's the other way around, where the group that's still struggling but with less statistical damage as a result gets the most attention.

I haven't slept all night and just randomly had this thought so I hope it's not written poorly and my intentions get across. I completely invite people with more personal experience with racism to debunk this idea if I'm totally observing something that's not there lol

TL;DR Beliefs in an overarching boogeyman that singles out a class of people causes folks to be too cruel to that group of people. 

The belief in Patriarchal Realism induces cruelty as the aim and the point. 

When you believe that there is a class of people, men broadly construed, or ‘masculinity’ who are supposedly universally oppressing you as a class of people (women) since the dawn of time, the response is to incur cruelty upon your enemies (men, patriarchy, etc…) at all costs.

I’ve pointed out repeatedly, and will continue to do so for as long as necessary, that Patriarchal Realism is simply false. It’s a bundle of lies that have been placed as a pyre upon which to burn the unwanted. The ‘bad men’ howsoever folks so choose to define ‘bad men’. Could be by race, class, gender, sexuality, or beliefs, but the point is that they are men and the aim is to burn them.

Beyond the mere and plain falseness of the belief tho, there is the pragmatic reality of such a belief in practice. If you induce people to believe that there are evil and wicked people in the world that have been oppressing ‘your people’ since the dawn of time, it isn’t particularly difficult to see how that translates into rather violent, cruel, and ill advised actions on the part of those folks. 

Now, it is important that Patriarchal Realism is false, cause i mean, if it were actually tru that would actually be a good reason to be up in arms. So it is important for folks to keep hamming on that point, Patriarchal Realism is false. 

White supremacy isn’t false, right? Like, we understand that there is and has been such a thing as white supremacy. That is a real existent thing. It isn’t all pervasive, it isn’t the source of all the ills in the world, but it is a real thing. Hence i mean there is real justification for especially black americans and maybe more broadly black folks to be up in arms over shit, for hopefully obvious reasons. 

But it is also the case that such doesn’t define people ‘since the dawn of time’. Black people’s history doesn’t begin and end with white supremacy, and nor for that matter does white people’s history. There is more to both than the race wars and white supremacy. 

I mention this just because it is a good example of an actual problem that can be reasonably well defined that folks can analogize to issues of patriarchy. 

Patriarchal Realism has none of that. For the believers of it, there is no history of people as women, men, or queers beyond the ‘struggle since the dawn of time’. Which is of course ludicrous. Crazed. Just completely bonkers. 

But imagine believing that. Wouldn’t cruelty towards your supposed oppressors be the entire aim at that point? Revenge, crusaders, jihadists, holy warriors out to wreak havoc upon the world, anything and everything to just make the horrors stop. 

I mean to strongly suggest that that emotive underpinning to the actions is what motivates the Patriarchal Realists. Terror at the idea of men, leading to cruelty to make it end. 

A sort of sadism cloaking itself in the guise of retributive justice.

Hence i mean, as noted here ‘what is bad for men is good for women’. That sort of sadistic approach to life, predicated upon a false belief that since men have been oppressing women since the dawn of time it must follow that anything good for men is at least suspect but likely bad for women and therefore, doing harm to men entails making a good for women. 

Understand that while there is a logic to it, as is noted in the link provided, there is also and more importantly an emotive to it that fuels the flames.  

This isn’t merely abstraction either; laws are purposefully designed to target men, harming them by way of government force, to control their sexuality, because controlling male sexuality harms men, and that is inherently good for women.

Thus i mean all the puritanical dispositions regarding so called sexual violence; the problem of the 451 percenters as noted here. Dispositions that nitpick at male sexuality as if male sexuality were an affront to women. ‘The male gaze’ is a travesty. Whistling at a woman is a denigration. A flirtatious touch is an assault. Literally walking behind a woman is a threat, or, for that matter, walking towards her; best to just move to the other side of the street. 

Displays of the male body are grotesque, suppressed, frowned upon and at times outlawed. Think i mean for instance the laws that structure online discourse which police when, where, and how male bodies in particular can be displayed, and the general malaise around the supposedly grotesque nature of the male body itself, as in ‘that dude is in spandex, gross, look at him’ compared to lady in same ‘hot af’.  Talking unbidden to a woman, via text, in person, etc… these are offenses you insensitive prick! One must wait for them to give you the go ahead to approach them; and the how and ways of that approach are idiosyncratic dictums of their whims; which you must simply divine by the auspices of the winds. Anything less would be uncivilized, for, you see, there is a complex web of reasons that boils down to ‘women have been oppressed since the dawn of time so you owe it to them to do this.’  

Cruelty is their aim.

Pointing out the ‘bad men’ to be targeted is just a specification of the point. Hence i mean the targeting of this or that grouping of men. Maybe its the rich, maybe its the poor, maybe its the preppies, maybe its the ghettos, maybe its the mexicans this time, maybe next time it will be the whities.

Actions and laws target these groups predicated upon the masculinity within the group. I mean to say, it isn’t ‘the rich’ that are the problem. It is the ‘rich men’. It isn’t the poor that are the problem. It is the poor men. It isnt preppy people that are the problem, it is preppy men. 

To throw it back at them, ‘its isnt all men, but it is always men’, right ladies?

Notice too how in each of these cases instead of targeting the group, if we so happen to think of that group as being a problem, we are targeting a subset of that group, thereby leaving intact the whole. I mean if we think the richies are a problem, by targeting ‘rich men’ we aren’t really targeting the oligarchy anymore now are we? We’re targeting ‘patriarchy’ or something (really just men). Hence the oligarchy persists.

In war the targets are men. It is technically soldiers, but then there are laws and long, long standing socio-cultural norms that force men to be soldiers and protect women from being soldiers now aren’t there? Who are we being directed to murder next? Under what threat of fear? Which are the bad men we gotta go after this time?

Its not all men, but its always men, right, ladies? Can i get an amen?

‘Be cruel to them over there, and perhaps we’ll spare you our cruelty.’ so too their own interests are protected, right? To quote the poets: 

‘Thirty years later its the same old tune, 

no closer to peace than the man in the moon. 

The president is still just as crazy as a loon, 

still picking fights in some foreign saloon.

Bombs are still falling out of the sky. 

Bands still playing miss american pie… 

the boys are still coming home on the shield. 

and nothing is real. 

you’re playing the game with the bravery of being out of range….

Still fucking insane with the bravery of being out of range.’ 

The poet to the point of Patriarchal Realism, it is a theory that attempts to place its primary adherents, women, out of range. They are not responsible for their own actions, patriarchy is. There is no criticisms to be had of it, for they fanatically even reject basic history to uphold their claims, as noted here. 

Moreover, they have a boogeyman to scare people with, and they use that fear to have others craft the horrors in the world they want to see. I ain’t saying that the whole deal, the whole problem, but it is a part of it. 

I do think there is an old gender dynamic here that is a big ass part of the problem, but that is for a different post.

For the Patriarchal Realist, to be cruel to men is to burn down the patriarchy; the greater the cruelty the hotter the flame, and the bigger the pyre upon which they’ve lain. 

There cannot be peace until this shit goes, as i’ve lain out here, that isn’t a threat, its just the reality of it in terms of the conceptual frameworks that folks are functionally operating in. Until that shite is jettisoned the same gender dynamic is going to keep playing out. Patriarchal Realism is one aspect of it, and an important one to curtail. You can see a rundown of what Patriarchal Realism is, and a broad alternative theory of patriarchy here.

Has anybody had a chance to analyze the "Misandry Myth" study?

The Misandry Myth: An Inaccurate Stereotype About Feminists’ Attitudes Toward Men - Aífe Hopkins...

I am no sociologist or statistician, but from my laic perspective, the methodology seems solid, and the results seem conclusive.

Why is there such a discrepancy between this study and what we experience every day? I mean, feminist leaders are not exactly shy about the fact that they hate all men: r/ToxicFeminismIsToxic

EDIT: this is the answer I was looking for:

https://www.reddit.com/r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates/comments/1dvl5h7/comment/lbudq5b/