Teachers describe a deterioration in behaviour and attitudes that has proved to be fertile terrain for misogynistic influencers
“As soon as I mention feminism, you can feel the shift in the room; they’re shuffling in their seats.” Mike Nicholson holds workshops with teenage boys about the challenges of impending manhood. Standing up for the sisterhood, it seems, is the last thing on their minds.
When Nicholson says he is a feminist himself, “I can see them look at me, like, ‘I used to like you.’”
Once Nicholson, whose programme is called Progressive Masculinity, unpacks the fact that feminism means equal rights and opportunities for women, many of the boys with whom he works are won over.
“A lot of it is bred from misunderstanding and how the word is smeared,” he says.
But he is battling against what he calls a “dominance-based model” of masculinity. “These old-fashioned, regressive ideas are having a renaissance, through your masculinity influencers – your grifters, like Andrew Tate.”
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If men and boys are finding current models of masculinity to be difficult - which is what Tate et al prey on - perhaps they have more in common with feminists. The patriarchy harms everyone.
It’s actually not all that difficult to respect women. Which will work well in 99% of scenarios.
The other 1% are interactions on the internet which has a tendency to magnify the weirdos. The “you gotta do this and this and this to even go on a date with me” types are internet weirdos. Most women aren’t actually like that. But it’s the internet, so a woman saying “just respect me as a person, and we’re cool” isn’t going to gain traction in the algorithms.
So guys like Andrew Tate are weirdos that gain traction as a reaction to the the other weirdos.
Go outside, touch grass, respect women as people, and everything will be alright.
It’s not difficult for sane people to respect women.
These aren’t sane people.
These are people who long for the days when women were property.
Some are, but I would bet a large amount of people who believe/follow that similar ideology could be able to see how destructive it is.
Avoid tribalism
The people who most need to hear your message are the ones least likely to see it as an advantage. Tribalism is a core tenet of conservatism, where the majority of misogyny comes from.
You’re right, I just see a lot of liberal/left leaning people who fall into the same trap and demonize everyone of the “other team”, I have talked several people out of their preconceived religious/conservative notions by specifically not demonizing them for their views, but instead trying to understand the underlying reasons for their belief and then showing data/evidence to the contrary and producing alternative viewpoints.
For example, HRC’s “Deplorables” comment, yeah there are a lot of shitty people that voted for Trump, but there’s also a lot of people who were duped into believing or did it on a whim just as “something different”.
There was another thread recently about my fellow idiots in Texas calling to succeed, and a lot of people in the thread basically saying things like, “Good, fuck em” all the way to “Yeah let’s go in with the military and take them out” like jfc, the people calling for that are a vocal minority. I am actively working to get out of this state because of the fucked up legislature, but I know so many good people who live here and are just trying to make it through the day like the rest of us.
Sorry, anyone who voted trump twice deserves to lose their citizenship rights. Period.
Don’t even, it will not work on me because I lived in a deep red state most of my life and can speak of the personal opinions of well over a thousand conservative sons of the soil and I GUARAN-FUCKING-TEE that I can count on the hands of a clumsy shop teacher how many of them are legit oldschool conservatives.
Now tell me if the same can be said of blue states and hard lefties? No? Why not?
Because there ARE NO hard left politicians in any position of meaningful power in the united states.
Don’t even come at me with a shadow of a ‘both sides’ argument because I will froth at the mouth for hours with sincere joy to explain to you why the republican party is a legit threat to the stability of our nation and HAS BEEN for more than 4 decades.
Not even a SHADOW
The republican party is definitely a threat, but that doesn’t mean every republican citizen is also a threat for the same reason, they’re basically brainwashed, some of them can be talked out of their incorrect beliefs.
I agree though as well that there are basically no hard left govt officials in any meaningful sense.
Yeah
I think the difficulty stems from the growing disparity in wealth. As it continues to grow, fewer women are available for most men. They just gravitate towards the top.
It’s why we have people like Andrew Tate having sex with literally thousands of women while regular men kill themselves.
In that respect (“this is a problem”) yes, we have commonality with feminists.
But then, feminists will say “you men need to sort your own shit out”, which is not at all helpful. We need help. And if you’re refusing to help us, while also ridiculing us for needing help, well is it any wonder men don’t identify as feminists?
The patriarchy harms everyone.
A patriarchy has been around for as long as civilization has, and its most harmful effects have clearly diminished over the past 100 years. This does not explain the issues that young people deal with that their parents and grandparents didn’t.
Dang bro almost got it
What does this have to do with anything?
Instead of emancipating from dehumanising and rigid gender norms for men, it seems like these Tate fans and red pillers and sigma, alpha men are trying to turn back the clock.
You want to tell them: “Stop, you are running into the wrong direction!”
It’s the same misunderstanding about ‘alpha wolves’, they believe that a powerful self-actualized person is one who acts like wolves driven to mental illness by captivity.
So much of our media glorifies the ‘hypercompetent power broker’ image, the ‘great man’ concept of Napoleon’s image that in many circles if you do NOT idolize that radioactive image as a goal for self-transformation, you are considered irrelevant and weak.
It’s all regressive, it’s all a response to stress and shrinking opportunity.
Humankind only got to where we are now by cooperation, almost zero humans today are truly self-sufficient, yet these chucklefucks think the only worthy person is one who takes advantage of everyone around them to their own self-benefit.
It is literally the polar opposite of what has lifted man out of naked apes in the savanna.
‘return to monke’ is a really terrifying meme if you understood the emotion it harnessed and the direction it flings it.
I agree with most of what you’re saying but would mention return to monke also refers to the system of capitalism most live under being a crushing weight that we wish we didn’t have to deal with anymore, it is somewhat alluring to return to a time where you just have to survive, rather then waves hands around whatever it is we do now.
I don’t particularly agree with the sentiment, as I understand how much better off we are, even if capitalism is a soul crushing machine.
you may not accept it but ‘return to monke’ was stared by the Boogaloo Boys and if you know who they are you know why this is a problem.
Do you have any source for that? It sounds just like people who think pepe is a hate symbol…
When in reality, it was just co-opted by the racists and the MSM decided it was then only a hate symbol.
That depends how comfortable you are with searching the darkweb. Some of their forums are still up.
shitler co-opted a certain now worldwide hated symbol too, the hard right loves taking innocent things and staining them with blood.
OK, so some “dark web” source that you insist is definitely proof that they created return to monke, as opposed to the alternative on know your meme cataloging the first example?
There’s sill a ton of ‘rugged individualism’ propaganda to dismantle before they are comfortable enough with their masculinity to admit that everyone is at least a little bit gay. I mean I personally know of at least two redneck ‘good ol boys’ that ended their own life than face the fact that sometimes boys can be cute too.
And that’s not even mentioning the fact that some states still accept the ‘gay panic’ defense.
Hypermasculinity has never been a natural aspect of human nature but to the patriarchy it is the ideal man. To become that you must mutilate yourself in a way that erodes empathy and trust in others.
And many, many men have actively taken that psychic self-mutilation. So many to the point that they are proud of their bleeding wounds.
contemporary feminism (and the wave immediately before) have done a lot more for me than how men have told me I ‘ought’ to act. fine, I’m not as manly or a man as far as some are concerned. what is really annoying is the apathy and close-mindedness of most of these men who interacted with me negatively.
asking a few questions is enough to make them emotional (which is fine when they do it and not ok when others do it in a way unlike their own) and more intensely emotional than nearly all women i’ve interacted with. that too is fine, it becomes a pain when i’m taken to be some kind of enemy or other by standards it seems like they cannot apply to themselves.
i want to say they are gaslighting, only, i really don’t think it’s intentional. there’s a genuine misunderstanding and that’s annoying as heck.
All I see is a whole lot of pandering toward people who don’t like feminism because they don’t want to admit men are largely responsible for a lot of problems in the world.
And I’m sure some of you dumbasses will prove my point by trying to argue with me about it in the comments. I’m not gonna capitulate to the same people who largely ruined life for everyone for thr existence of our species just so women can get the rights they were entitled to in the first place, nor will I give you the fight that you.
Yes, you probably did find the feminazi they’re denigrating. I don’t care. Those feminazis are right.
Woah there megalia 🤏, calm down.
Dumbass #1 proving me right ☝️
See how he only responds with an insult hoping to goad me into a shit fight? This is what men do when anyone tells them the truth about how they really are. Because men are the problem and they know it.
Watch him continue down here 👇
Cis white man reporting for duty. Let me explain for OP since you’ll actually believe me.
Lemmy user… you are a fraud. You espouse phony progressive bullshit. You can’t give a fuck about black people, gays, trans kids, Gaza or any other oppressed people, while you turn a blind eye to the oppression of others.
Women are oppressed. They always have been.
If you can understand black communities are still living under the inequality in capitalism created by slavery, then cut the shit. Women too make less than the majority class. Women too are generations of wealth behind the majority class. Women too are still fighting for real equality in the courtroom while their freedoms backslip to our capitalist overlords, as I see you call them on here daily.
“I don’t say the n word, care who you marry etc” but I get defensive at hearing men are responsible for the status quo.
Man y’all are dumb as fuck. Explain to me which decision for the last 5000 years were made by women. Which started wars? Which stripped rights from minorities?
Shut the fuck up you whiney bitches. (B word is sexist, but I’m a toxic masculine Xennial doing his best.) If you don’t want to hear it, kill yourself, because it’s reality. Men have ruled the world. It’s difficult to give away your power and privilege to the oppressed. Tough shit. Women have it fucking hard. I don’t worry that any man around me can and may rape and kill me. That statistically my partner or friend will be the one to do it.
I hate you Lemmy. You talk shit about Tate and these shit eaters, but you downvote when you find your own reflection in the harsh truth of the world.
I notice I was downvoted but you were not for saying literally exactly what I said. 🤔
Sexism is very, very real.
Is feminism so fundamental that it’s news when a bunch of incels turn against it?
“A lot of it is bred from misunderstanding and how the word is smeared,”
The same could be said about “communism” and “socialism”. The words have been turned dirty, such that people shy away from what is objectively a good thing when done honestly and to the letter of the principle.
give it 50 years and the arms race of language will have its own sub arms race
you’ll coin a politically charged term, someone will coin an antonym, the original will shift to change the subject, the antonym will change to match the new, someone will point out the process and both sides will deny its happening
Every one of these words was boogeymanned as a deliberate political move
Double plus ungood.
So much strife comes from bickering over the definitions of words.
It would be helpful if people knew the definitions and context of words. Maybe some type of education could help.
To be fair, the term “feminist” was highjacked by the radical feminist movement. They very much do not believe in equality, their motto is “kill all men”
I think it’s easy to see why that would turn people away. Hence why I describe myself as an equalizer, not a feminist.
do you think it makes sense to distinguish between the kind of radical feminism you’re talking about, and the dry academic stuff that’s also called radical feminism by the people who are engaged in it at least?
it’s tricky, i can’t deny there aren’t spaces which are predominantly women where a bunch of unfair or negative stuff about men is said.
thing is, radical, which in math is another term for getting the ‘root’ of something, like a square root, and also means like ‘fundamental’ does have more than one meaning. when you use it, that’s one use of the word which makes sense, another which is the one i first learned and the places i go to use to describe themselves is rather dry academic, philosophical, and artsy (artsy in the way which is confusing as heck to me) and they are also radical.
so often i am confused because it’s not as though when you use the word you’re making anything up. other commenters will likely treat you like you invented that use of the word, people always police language. it’d be way nicer if we could understand each other better i really think you and i and the commenters which probably gave you a downvote all have way more in common than not.
TBH I’ve never heard of any other type of radical feminism, I’m not sure I understand. Are you saying radical feminists were the original feminists?
no i don’t think they were “the original”, where i see it now, they are in academic institutions (like the philosophy dept at my school, a few in women’s studies) and publications (here’s one from radical philosophy, she wrote for the london review of books which i really like and i thought the title was interesting, i thought it was a good piece that i’ll have to revisit at some point.
you’ll note there isn’t really any provocative language. you mentioned female dating strategy, that’s not a pleasant place to be. i browsed it a bit then noped out when all the acronyms started to come out, i checked the sidebar and thought yeah this is not a place which wants me…
Radical feminism is 4th or 5th wave feminism.
So much misinformation.
comments like this are what’s hijacking it.
Fuckin lmao, you are so full of shit. You know damn well you’ve seen so many Tumblr posts, tshirts, and other bullshit that says the same things. “Kill all men” “All men are evil” “Low value men”
I guarantee you’ve seen all of that, it’s not at all uncommon. You choose to ignore it because you don’t like it. But that’s not how the world works. Other people, surprise surprise, don’t want to be associated with a movement calling for their death.
Enjoy your narrative, but welcome to the real world
i did see the low value men used; tbh i see men are trash more but that might be because of the places i stick around online
I haven’t. And now I believe you even less and think you are intentionally spreading rumors or lies because you have an agenda.
I think again that was one that was actually hijacked by the right wing. There is far more fearmongering about hardcore feminists than there are hardcore feminists.
While your second statement is true, there are still far too many extremists. I find it very difficult to believe that all the hatred I viewed from feminists on Tumblr and r/FemaleDatingStrategy and many other sources(like my ex who fell into that stuff) were right wingers. Just like one incel is too many(and you don’t hear people claiming incels don’t exist), one person calling for the death or enslavement of half the planet is too many.
Fwiw, I haven’t met a single real person who espouses the viewpoint you described. I’m not saying they don’t exist. I’m saying that until evidence is presented otherwise I doubt there are as many as you think there are.
Assuming you are male, it makes sense that you wouldn’t have met many, as they presumably take steps to avoid interacting with men. The only person like that I’ve talked to IRL would be one of my exes, and her friend group. She went off the rails after we broke up.
This is most likely an effect of recency bias for you which is unfortunate.
Somebody’s mad they can’t get laid whenever they want.
Kind of like Critical Race Theory. If properly understood and applied, people would benefit from the knowledge and empathy.
Pretty much exactly the same, except CRT got knocked down before it even had established itself as a positive thing.
It was already established. It’s just a theoretical framework in various social studies. It was deliberately bastardized by the right as they were seeking something to hate. It wasn’t even in the public consciousness, just something academics used and that get taught in some higher ed classes. It’s a very useful framework but it’s not something that you’d actually teach a kid.
It was an academic term for a relatively short period, it was never established in common language - not in the same way that socialism and communism were.
Yes, unsurprisingly, a term that’s been around for 20 or 30 years is less pervasive than a couple that have been around for over 100.
I know very little about CRT beyond some very general idea so idk if there’s a point to call it that specifically, but the naming choice is so bad that the first time I read it I assumed it’s some nazi thing and had 0 doubt about it.
I bought the actual book because it was on sale and because I thought it would be hilarious to put out on my coffee table for when my conservative dad came to visit my house. I also figured I’d try to read it, because I should be informed about what it is so that I can argue for it, right?
Holy shit, it’s a lot of dense legal theory. I knew it was graduate material, but the book is a collection some of the most complex ideas, studies, and legal theory that I’ve ever read. I’m not going to lie that I won’t even make it a third of the way through it.
Anyone who argues that CRT is being taught in elementary schools and is being used to brainwash children hasn’t seen how high-level the material actually is and has no idea what they’re talking about.
In reality, the material is not that controversial. What I have read of it has been quite unbiased.
We need to stop teaching the children nuclear physics.
Funnily, Capitalism could work too but I don’t expect billionaires to be honest or have any principles apart from hoarding for themselves.
I mean you could also say that Capitalism is a dirty word in some circles. And yet, it addresses many of the aspects of trade, which are needed through all societal systems.
Trade existed before capitalism.
You’re proposing Mercantilism or Feudalism as alternatives?
My remedy to the poisoning of those words is to refer to then as “economic democracy,” and just state communist/socialist policy without the buzz words.
Depends, I was chatting with someone without using any charged terminology, then he blurted out “but that’s socialism!!”
Those who aren’t ignorant about actual socialist policies that can feasibly and easily be implemented in a modern society and yet still loathe them truly bewilder me. And I’m not talking about rich folks or power brokers, just normal, working class people. The indoctrination over the last century has been quite effective.
Yeah I was a little bit speechless with that, it was one of those situations where all the right things to say came much later.
Communism kind-of smeared itself. Everywhere where communism has been tried on a national scale, it has become authoritarianism.
Maybe it would be a good thing if done to the letter of the principle, but just like Libertarianism or Anarchism, it seems to be incompatible with human nature, at least so far.
But, socialism isn’t even a foreign idea. A lot of US institutions are socialist. The mail delivery is done by an arm of the government. Streets are paved by the government. Firefighters are government employees. The water delivered to your house is almost certainly by a government-run entity. People retiring without having saved enough are taken care of by the government. There’s medicare and medicaid.
A full capitalist system would have nothing done by the government that could be done by a business. No FDA, Pinkertons instead of Police, most army functions handed over to private contractors, every road privately owned and maintained, etc.
Granted, Lemmy is a relatively safe place to do it, but bold move, walking out into public and describing Communism as “objectively good”.
It is a wonderfully good idea. Except for one tiny, insignificant variable. Humans. Humans ruin it every time.
Communism is a very decent idea. It’s the transition to it that always tends to be spoiled by incumbant powers. Writers of Communist theory recognised this somewhat, and their solution was to have a violent revolution that would hopefully come end with the new system they devised. Now, however, the word is basically lost - there are/have been too many “Communist” countries that don’t really operate in that manner, with too many people that have suffered under that name.
Socialism doesn’t have quite the same level of stigma, but still a good deal. However, when you think about it, a significant portion of any government is “Socialist” - we pay taxes, our taxes fund roads, schools and various other social services. Socialism, or more specifically socialist policy, is that which benefits society as a whole rather than any specific group. When you see it like that, it’s hard to paint it as a bad thing, not without being completely selfish that you or your group aren’t getting an exclusive benefit.
People refuse to look at things with their core and correct definitions. They always bring their baggage along. Or, they twist it into their own framing for their own point of view.
It’s such a bummer.
I would say lemmygrad is the only safe place to do this
From my experience, men who follow feminism get pats on the back while men who ignore feminism get laid.
The issue isn’t the men. It’s what women value. Men just do what they think will get them laid.
Wow, from my experience men get laid for being feminists. If you still truly belive that the patriarchy and the status quo are fine, women can tell and see right through you. If you believe the patriarchy is good for you as a man, you are wrong. What women really want is a person who understands and can have healthy relationships with not only their female partners but all relationships they have with other people. The patriarchy discourages these healthy relationships.
Might be an over simplification, LMAO 😂 But I do think you’re right to an extent. Some of the loudest ‘feminists’ can be pretty negative towards men. While I’ve found most real feminist to be good people fighting for equality, they often don’t seem to want to stand up to these women. I don’t know if they fear they will be perceived as antifeminist or what. But it ends up with conversations of gender sometimes entering the ‘take your lumps’ territory if you’re a man. Like, “Thanks for taming the rapist inside you, but us ladies have it covered.” Where as being around women with strong traditional values, it can be really sad that they don’t respect themselves, but at least they respect you. In moments of selfishness it can feel so good to bask in that respect, even if it’s not deserved.
I think pretty much any political movement has the magnetism to attract people who hate the other side. But when the other side agrees, you win. So maybe make your cause hospitable for anyone who wants to further it.
It’s statistically true that (and yes this is a bit different but still relevant) women are generally not willing to be in relationships with Conservatives so idk
This comment is somehow both extremely misogynistic and misandrist at the same time.
Men and women deserve respect. Men and women are responsible for their own actions. These two statements should not be controversial
Literally nothing about my comment said or implied that men or women do not deserve respect or that either aren’t responsible for their actions.
so you’re saying the motivation behind the male population’s acts and their believe system is based on their hormone system?
I doubt that…
Every single day I see a new reason why I am glad I pulled my daughter out of the hell that is public middle school and put her into online school.
She told me yesterday that boys got into fights in the hallways almost every week. There were definitely fights between kids my middle school, but usually not on school grounds, almost never during the school day, and not constantly for sure. This isn’t some low income, underfunded urban school, we’re in a small city in Indiana.
On top of that, the couple of friends my daughter had in that school vaped and smoked weed. They’re between 12 and 13. Sure, I tried a cigarette at 13, but one cigarette. I didn’t smoke weed until I was a junior in high school.
What the fuck is happening in our schools?
I just wish more parents, especially of girls, had the option to do what we did. We’re lucky that we can survive (just barely) on a single income.
You had less drastic options than to pull your kid out of school, such as girls only school. I think you jumped the gun on this one.
First of all, there is no girls-only school in this town. The only private school is a Catholic school. My daughter is an atheist with Jewish heritage.
Secondly, my daughter was so severely bullied that she actually had developed anxiety to the point that she had trouble going to a lunch party at the house of an old high school friend of mine with about 20 people in it. She was starting to get suicidal. She broke down one day and told us she literally could not go to school one more day because she was so bullied that even the bullied kids bullied her.
Thirdly, you have no fucking idea what we have gone through to try to help our daughter make it through school and not end up severely scarred without the school doing a thing.
Fourthly, I sincerely hope you never are in the position we’ve been in with a suicidal 13-year-old.
But sure, judge me for doing what’s best for my daughter, especially since she’s so mentally healthy now that she was able to tell some girls from her old school that were harassing her at the roller skating rink to fuck off. She has never had that much self-esteem. She’s also never had as many friends as she has now.
She’s in a state-funded program with really good teachers and she’s getting a great education. I must be the most abusive parent ever.
Oh with added context your decisions make sense. I feel like you shouldn’t be angry that some online stranger has no idea.
I didn’t consider that your situation involved dealing with someone suicidal. I hope it’s not hyperbole on your part.
My own position was the kid would lose out on valuable years of social development and engaging with other kids of her own age. I thought it was bullying but something that the kid was kind of dealing with in their own way but able to manage.
Since you have said that your kid has got back her courage to flip the bird on her bullies and also gotten a lot of friend, Congratulations on the win! Don’t let me or anybody tell you otherwise.
Forgive me for saying “you jumped the gun” as it was judgemental. I only said it because i did not have the info you just posted.
“homeschooling” triggered concern from my end because of some horror stories i hear about kids who are at college graduation age but stunted because of a common denominator that they were homeschooled.
I appreciate it and I apologize for snapping at you. Like two days ago someone called me abusive for the “crime” of letting my daughter be a girl scout and I’m still a little touchy.
Also, to clarify, homeschooling and online schooling are very different. Homeschooling is where the parent is the teacher. I help her learn, mostly by keeping her focused and explaining things to her when she has trouble understanding, but I am not her teacher. She has live video classes with licensed teachers every day and her assignments are graded by those same teachers who also make themselves available to kids when class is not in session. And because it’s a state school (although contracted out to a private company), it has to adhere to state education standards and there is no religious bullshit.
She does have friends who are homeschooled because she is part of a social group for kids who are not being traditionally schooled, but I think that’s usually a terrible idea. Unless you have a teaching degree, you really don’t know anything about pedagogy. It’s too early to tell how those children will do once they’re adults, but considering I have heard the same stories, I have the same concerns.
What’s really bad here in Indiana is that you don’t have to tell the state you’re taking your kid out of school or prove that your kid is getting legitimately schooled. My daughter had a friend (he recently moved away) whose parents just left him at the library all day to fend for himself and had him use Khan Academy and called it his school. I felt so sorry for that kid. At least everyone who worked at the library knew him and looked out for him.
Had a friend with a kid getting bullied badly before the start of covid. They said going online was the best thing for him, emotionally and grade-wise. Gave him a chance to break the anxiety cycle and room to breathe. I hope yours has found their way to thrive!
Hey downvoters, the world doesn’t always allow for convient or conventional solutions. Anything is better than a kid that calls it a day. Anything. Anything. Say it with me. Anything. I know of families that tried to pretend their kid’s mental health was a phase to buckle down and push through. Want to guess the end to that story?
Thank you, she is definitely thriving now.
I think part of the issue here is something I just clarified to someone else- homeschooling and online schooling are not the same. Homeschooling is where the parent acts as teacher. Online schooling is where the child works with real licensed teachers and has real graded assignments by those teachers using the same textbooks public schools use and live videoconference lessons every day.
I’m glad your friend got their kid out too. I just wish more parents could, but it usually requires some parental supervision to keep the kid on track (unless you want your kid to fail), which means one parent has to stay home and that’s not realistic for probably the vast majority of people in the U.S. My wife has a pretty good job and the cost of living here is low, so we’re able to manage it as long as we generally do without luxuries.
Every person I know who was home schooled is socially incompatible and I hope you reconsider your decision for your daughter’s sake. Public school is hell but so is the rest of life after it, you can’t shelter her forever.
And boys fight, it’s part of growing up. I don’t know how you went to a public school and fighting wasn’t common.
Again, online schooling is not the same as homeschooling and she has more friends now than when she was in public school.
Why the fuck would I reconsider my decision to help stop her from being suicidal?
Well that context is kind of important
The context of her mental health may be important, but people not knowing the difference between homeschooling and online schooling is not my fault. Homeschooling is where the parent is the teacher. Online schooling is taught by real licensed teachers. She has classes every day via live video meetings. She has the same textbooks kids in public schools have because they all have Pierson textbooks due to Pierson’s monopoly. It is a state school, not a private school so there is no tuition and it has to adhere to state education standards.
None of that is true about homeschooling.
And I’m sorry, but I am not going to admit culpability for people not knowing the difference between the two and just assuming they’re the same.
Still not developing real social skills in online classes. Social skills is by far the most important thing kids learn during their time in school, the curriculum being good is a bonus.
I know what online school is and you’re still at home. Homeschooling.
As I have already said at least twice now, she has more friends now than she did when she was in public school. She has more self-esteem now that she is no longer in public school. She is asking to go to things like events at the teen room at the library and make friends when she wasn’t even willing to join afterschool clubs about things that interested her.
Maybe read some of my other comments? I go into great detail about this.
You do not know my daughter. You do not know her situation. You do not know what you are talking about. I can see you’re trying to castigate me for being an abusive parent, so just come out and say it.
You’re very dramatic.
Just be careful that you don’t “over protect” your daughter, and she ends up going off to college, and now with vastly more freedom and a spectrum of influence needs to “keep it on the rails”. I have seen home school kids lose their shit when that time comes, as they never had to negotiate the gradual increase in both that level of freedom and influences on the way. I think of it much like the Amish Rumspringa (“rite of passage”), in that they go from a sheltered version of the world, to a much wider open one.
She has always been given a large amount of freedom and we have accepted her for whatever she wants as long as she is happy and healthy while she is in our care. We have never forced her to do anything she didn’t want to do unless it was necessary (getting a vaccine for example). The only restrictions we have on her is that she has to get up for school on time, she has to finish all of her school work, and she has to do at least one extracurricular activity of her choice. Initially that was girl scouts, then she chose drum lessons, and now, after a couple of years, she just started drawing lessons.
And in terms of social things, we have also been very open with her. When she was younger, we made sure she knew about birth control and STDs pretty much as soon as she asked where babies came from. It turned out to be less of an issue since she’s only interested in girls, but we want her to know she can choose to have sex if she does it safely. We’ve also been extremely honest with her about drugs, about how there are addictive kinds like heroin and non-addictive kinds like weed and that the drug war is bullshit and that she is hearing a lot of propaganda. In fact, now that I can oversee her health classes (and social studies classes) I can directly say, “this is not true. They are lying to you.” That’s also a great asset when it comes to social studies. She’s covering modern conflict in the middle east right now and I have been able to talk about things like American imperialism and Israeli apartheid (and now genocide) when the texts have been lacking- although they have been surprisingly good overall, if a little dated. And I doubt she would have even been covering that topic at all in her public middle school.
Sounds like you are doing a great job! Sorry my post was rather, judgy? I have just seen a good number of home school kids that either learn next to nothing useful, or worse, religious indoctrination with a splash of useless whitewashing of the world. It sounds like your daughter should turn out just fine, and I wish more people used home school as you have, to teach real topics in a way public school cannot without the Karen’s ruining everything.
No no, it didn’t seem judgy at all. I just wanted to clarify.
Trust me, compared to the guy who is claiming it’s my daughter’s fault for being bullied because “the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree,” you’re calling her a straight A student and the most popular kid in school.
Being a parent is hardest when you’re doing it right. Keep it up!
Damn, only a fight every week? They’re daily at my kids’ middle school. And not just the boys.
We had a bridge not too far away for our “real” fights. Strangely, the formality kept things more civil.
Though there was one time a kid got literally thrown over the side of it. Water underneath so he was fine, but still was kinda crazy.
If you have a designated fighting bridge, someone will get thrown off. It’s one of those universal rules of fighting bridges.
This shit stain can be both.
deleted by creator
So Andrew Tate is a human trafficker scum of the earth, and we are trying to combat his message. That’s alright, I agree, he’s not a disease but a symptom.
Tate is taking an existing problem, which is the fact that young boys feel left out by society at large with feminism being mainstream. Don’t get me wrong, go and empower women, but when boys have “a growing sense that somehow they must be mistreated and hated because they are boys and men” and “some can feel they are being stereotyped, or blamed for others’ actions”, and things like “My son is reluctant to go to school due to bullying by a group of girls, he feels that there is a big power difference in schools, where boys are always punished, not listened to, and not believed.” happen, then that’s a problem separate from the problems that feminism wants to solve.
Telling boys to help solve women’s issues in response to them telling you they have problems of their own is what’s causing this. And it’s either you listening to them, or it’s going to be people like Tate or Trump.
Don’t get me wrong, go and empower women, but when boys have “a growing sense that somehow they must be mistreated and hated because they are boys and men” and “some can feel they are being stereotyped, or blamed for others’ actions”, and things like “My son is reluctant to go to school due to bullying by a group of girls, he feels that there is a big power difference in schools, where boys are always punished, not listened to, and not believed.” happen, then that’s a problem separate from the problems that feminism wants to solve.
The Me Too movement opened a lot of eyes to just how widespread sexual violence against women is. And how women see men, justifiably, as threats until proven otherwise.
But as the person who is perceived as a threat and isn’t, that doesn’t feel good. Thinking that my gender makes me a horrible scary monster would definitely fuck a boy up.
The Me Too movement opened a lot of eyes to just how widespread sexual violence against women is. And how women see men, justifiably, as threats until proven otherwise.
But there is another truth not mentioned: Males who were victims of sexual violence and rightfully thought the MeToo movement would help bring that to light as well were instead ridiculed and thrown out. Male victims of both male and female sexual violence are still not heard, which should have been part of the movement’s focus. The recent reminder post about the man who tried to found a shelter for male victims but ended up broke and his efforts ignored and eventually disbanded should have been a strong ally for the movement, so the push for feminism rings somewhat hollow for those victims, even as they do support the message presented, but will not benefit from the movement’s successes.
I remember reading a post once that pondered on why there are so many gentle giants, why a lot of naturally tall muscular men seem so chill.
A gentle giant on the chain responded “it’s because you’re taught from a very young age that if you pop off and lose it there’s a really good chance you’re going to kill someone”
I think men need to understand they are threats, in general it’s not their fault they’re threats, in general nobody is really expecting them to go ape on anyone, but ultimately men are threats.
Bingo. Well said
I see feminism as a logical first step towards true egalitarianism. As in: the patriarchy is/was a real thing, and women are/were impacted. Modern feminism is in some ways an over correction (but as a movement is completely justified). Hopefully future societies will bring the needle closer to even/fair/just than ever, and we are currently witnessing temporary (but significant) backlashes
Not the person downvoting, but my comment was mostly about that boys and men do experience their own problems, and they are not being listened to. I am specifically saying “feminism is all good, but has nothing to do with this, and does not even aim to solve this”.
You then went, “well yeah, but first feminism before we get there”. It’s like as if there was a piece about feminism and someone went, “First we have to solve climate change, then we can talk about women’s issues!”. The problem is that men are getting left behind. Not with rights or visibility or anything like that. It’s more about having a voice, ideals and support.
The point is, this is not about feminism. Feminism is not a be all end all answer. And people keep pretending it is.
Feminism is not the end all be all is the core of my point as well.
I referred to the current backlash of boys seeking people like tate as a symptom of ongoing progress towards a more egalitarian future.
The whole thing is that this is not about feminism in any way. Viewing these boys’ problems only through a lens of “how does this relate to feminism” is the problem. These boys’ problems are not about feminism. This is not about women or women’s issues.
The reason it becomes that is that both the right, which only listens to them to exploit them, and the left, which refuses to listen to them at all, says that their problems are about women.
Men and men’s issues exist outside of the context of feminism as well.
Right! And it would be great to arrive at a societal level where we address everyone’s needs!
Due to obvious reasons, the challenges of feminism are center stage currently.
I’m talking about decades long societal progress, where we arrive at a place where everyone is getting their needs met. We aren’t advanced enough in our education or discourse or healthcare to provide that to everyone at once.
What I’m hearing from you is that men are a desirable sacrifice on the altar of equality.
You’re risking serious social stability problems by justifying the ignoring of men’s issues. There can be no equality as long as the problems of one sex are more important than the problems of the other.
Absolutely untrue. You are assuming my opinion, when I’m stating my observation.
I’m not ignoring men’s issues, or suggesting that is good to do. In fact, I’m saying/agreeing it’s absolutely true that men are currently being forgotten.
I’m saying humanity is not unified. Social respect is a system in hysteresis. A pendulum swinging. There is no eternal agenda, but hopefully a trend towards a healthy center. Previously, women and minorities were forgotten. Now, in a different way (and not surpassing the injustice.of the past, but still critically Important), men are not being discussed to a sufficient level.
I hope the future frees us of this. I am discussing decades past. And decades future
The problem isn’t new at all either. Someone on the right, just figured out how to create the incel culture and weaponize it. It’s sexism all the way down on both sides when there shouldn’t be sides at all. It’s the culmination of the social construct known as gender.
The problem is not just that someone on the right talks to men. The problem is, nobody on the “left” does. Tell me, what is the “left’s” ideal of a happy and successful man?
Freedom from work
Men would have time to make friends, cultivate hobbies, and meet girls if they weren’t working multiple jobs with odd hours or taking as much overtime as they can.
Liberals don’t want to talk about reducing the amount of work men have to do to keep up, though. They only want women to work more!
Yeah, may the almighty line keep going up.
But that’s beside the point, work is one side of it, my point is that there is no “ideal man” picture out there, nothing to aspire to. The ideal male identity is only described in context of how they treat women. Which is important sure, being kind to everyone, but still, what makes a man these days?
Kids are asking these questions, looking for role models, and all they see answering is Tate. Everyone else in the mainstream just tells them that their ideal is “not to be a rapist”.
Why don’t boys look up to their fathers? I’ll tell you! It’s because daddy is always at work.
Girls have the same problem with their mothers also working, but the schooling system has actually (partially) solved the problem. Teaching, especially pre-K, is dominated by women. Even if class sizes are too large for any one female teacher to fulfill the role of a model they still have a huge field to choose from and I think that helps a lot. We need men to become teachers if we aren’t going to liberate men from work.
Women hate it when men have anything to do with young children. Try being a dad and taking your own child to the park in this country. There’s a good chance you’ll have to prove which child is yours to a cop, because parenting while male isn’t acceptable behavior. And you want a man to accept the liability of existing near 30 children that aren’t his, possibly without one of his own around? That’s just asking to get SWATed.
No, society hates it when men have anything to do with young children and we are products of that society. Women didn’t make caring for young children into “women’s work”, society did that. Women didn’t make men having a life outside of work unacceptable, society did that.
Don’t blame women for what is a societal problem. That’s incredibly reactionary.
Although, I’m skeptical that male kindergarten teachers get SWATed all that often at school 🙄
I get your point. I am not saying I didn’t cry a bit the first time I actually listened to Cats In The Cradle’s lyrics. Or the other times.
Also, I’d rather have my kid have their own role model, not to have to share a government issued one with 30 other kids. Fuck.
In that case, men need to work less so we don’t have to use pre/elementary/middle/high schools to replace the parental figure.
Also maybe abolish the nuclear family and go back the premodern gens (i.e. extended family community) so that boys have lots of men in their family to look up to. Even if they don’t have a dad they might have an uncle, grandpa, or one of their 20 older cousins to look up to.
People hyperfocus on the 1% of crazy feminists instead of the other 99% who are actually normal and reasonable. Sadly that 1% are doing more harm to the public image of feminism than good.
We live in an age of twitter screenshot outrage and that pathetically emboldens some peoples beliefs so the root cause really is social media. Nothing more nothing less.
I really dislike the way you’re portraying feminism as a brand and trying to assign responsibility onto individuals for the public perception of that brand. It’s not the responsibility of any woman to convince men that they deserve rights, that they deserve fair political power and representation. If someone is dissuaded from supporting women’s rights because someone said something they didn’t like or agree with, that person is a misogynist and unlikely to have ever actually supported women’s rights in any major capacity.
The caricature of the “crazy feminist” is also in and of itself misogynistic, and is used to silence feminist activism all the time. Not that there aren’t legitimate extremist parts to the movement, particularly in the 60s 70s and 80s when feminism had yet to make many major strides towards female liberation. Just that the label is often used to dismiss things like the pink tax, the wage gap, and discussions of rape culture and intersectionality.
Feminist and women are not synonyms. Feminism is a political movement. Every political movement needs to advocate for itself. That is the way politics works.
Feminism is a political movement in the same way the civil rights movement was/is a political movement or that the gay rights movement is a political movement. It’s a rights movement. It’s a resistance movement, resisting patriarchy and misogyny.
It is self evidently true that women deserve rights. It is not the job of women to convince you they deserve rights. Feminism organizes women against the systems that oppress them. It does not appeal to the humanity of misogynists.
I agree it is self evidently true that women deserve as many rights as men. I’'m 100% in favour of this. But words ae important and “feminism” is not called “woman rights”. Feminism is often framed as being against patriarchism, which is implied to be a male-generated problem. In reality patriarchism is enabled and often enforced by both men and women, when they pass down to their kids a particular set of toxic and limiting cultural values. I was grown up with the idea that I have some specific duties towards my family such as providing for them. My wife has a job that could never provide for all of us, but somehow that’s ok, while I have to strive to get a high paying job or feel like I’m a failure.
Ok this is going to be longer than I expected but I have things to say. I have been on both sides of interview panels. As an interviewer I always used methods as purely objective as possible to evaluate candidates, but i still ended up knterviewing 48 men and 2 women in one of the rounds. Why? Because I didn’t receive any CV from women. I mentiond this to my boss (a woman) and within three months all the management layer above me was populated with women. I can’t say I liked the solution, especially as the actual teams were still 95% male.
In personal life, maybe this is just anecdotal but my parents never taught me any housekeeping skill and they actively tried to dissuade me when I tried, whether I was trying to iron a shirt or wash some dishes. This is systemic, as the girlfried of my flatmate saw me passing the hover once and said that she would leave her boyfriend if she saw him do that.
So my position on this is actualy whataboutist and the point here is that maybe it’s not you but a considerable chunck of women is actively participating in patriarchism while others react to it in a sort of class warfare which puts men, especially ones that are younger and less experienced at navigating life, in a very difficult spot where they are shamed by both sides and end up feeling like failures. Of course they will follow whoever tells them they deserve better.
Soooo maybe I’m full of shit, I actually don’t know. I grew up in the 90s, which was a different planet, and I’m just trying to be reasonable.
i think the cool stuff the suffragettes did would be labeled way more negatively now. the civil disobedience was rad.
I really dislike the way you’re portraying feminism as a brand and trying to assign responsibility onto individuals for the public perception of that brand
Feminism is a brand in the same way civil rights are. There’s a reason why MLK succeeded where Malcolm X failed, Gandhi successfully took back India, Obama won the 2008 election, etc. This all has to do with how they’re perceived to people not part of their movement. Without a good brand none of these movements would have ever succeeded. And yes it is up to the leaders and each individual member of these movements to uphold a generally good perception. Thinking otherwise is ridiculous. You have to win over the population, always.
It’s not the responsibility of any woman to convince men that they deserve rights, that they deserve fair political power and representation. If someone is dissuaded from supporting women’s rights because someone said something they didn’t like or agree with, that person is a misogynist and unlikely to have ever actually supported women’s rights in any meaningful capacity.
In an ideal world no, but we are not in an ideal world. If someone is a mysgonist what is so wrong with sitting down with them and discussing topics like normal human beings and showing them why that’s wrong? Just completely shutting them out like how you’re describing is exactly how you embolden an opposition group. Imagine someone on twitter was actually just simple minded and based their opinions on one tweet and didn’t actually hear the other side properly? A lot of people like that exist. And if your attitude is “oh they’re misogynistic and never cared so I shouldn’t even bother” then you’re just digging your own hole.
The caricature of the “crazy feminist” is also in and of itself misogynistic, and is used to silence feminist activism all the time. Not that there aren’t legitimate extremist parts to the movement, particularly in the 60s 70s and 80s when feminism had yet to make many major strides towards female liberation. Just that the label is often used to dismiss things like the pink tax, the wage gap, and discussions of rape culture and intersectionality.
See what I, and I’m sure many others dislike is the way you derive misogyny from a simple example. A lot of people simply don’t see anything wrong with calling out the “crazies” of a group. Am I islamaphobic for calling out terrorists? No. Am I anti-christian for calling out the Westboro Baptist church? No. Am I misogynistic for making fun of clearly unhinged people on twitter? No. Extreme examples of course, but you get the picture. The instant jump to misogyny when genuinely crazy, unhinged, insane feminists get made fun of is ridiculous. Like I said, >99% of feminists are completely normal and sane. There is nothing wrong or hateful for calling out the crazy people in any group.
Studies have shown for 50 years now that trying to convince a bigot to stop being a bigot is literally not possible. You cannot force someone to stop being bigoted. You can’t convince them women should be able to divorce their husbands if they already believe that women shouldn’t be able to.
We gain nothing by even speaking with them, literally nothing. MLK didn’t just by himself win the civil rights movement, first of all. Nor did he come after Malcolm X or something. They were both a part of the same movement at the same time. The most effective tactics he employed had nothing to do with appealing to the humanity of white supremacist segregationists. The most effective tactics employed were the ones that broadcast injustice to the entire black community, promoting solidarity and resulting in widespread demonstrations, protests, and both passive and active civil unrest. MLK did not call for white saviors to come save them. He fought actively against the system that upheld white supremacy. He appealed to those who already believed that black people should have rights by broadcasting injustice that was self-evidently wrong.
Gays didn’t get rights by begging at the feet of homophobes. We got rights by throwing bricks at them. We got rights by rioting, causing unrest and disrupting the homophobic as much as possible. We wouldn’t be here if black drag queens in the 60s hadn’t punched back.
i think the notion of ‘convincing’ is the issue. it really needs to be done by men, it’s not as though what women are saying is factually incorrect or the content is off, it’s often the opposite i find. when i say what women or feminists i respect say i always seem to get a better response than if a woman said it or the original author said it.
it’s such a shame, there’s already a ton of work done by a sizeable proportion of the population and it’s ignored or misconstrued :/
Studies have shown for 50 years now that trying to convince a bigot to stop being a bigot is literally not possible. You cannot force someone to stop being bigoted.
Daryl Davis would disagree with you.
The other poster beat me to it but I was going to also cite Daryl Davis as an example. If a black person is able to get Ku Klux Klan members to change their ways then anything is possible. You having a defeatist attitude is what keeps this status quo going.
The only time I ever hear about that 1% is from the conservative propaganda machine, or MSM rebuttal. They hold zero power outside of the conservative cinematic universe.
At this point I consider it nothing more than manufactured outrage.
I wish I had your luck. It’s not rare for me to get misdandrists posts every time I open xitter to check on something, always blaming men in general and how awful we are, it’s just the same as misoginists going on about how awful women in general are.
They both write in a way that it gets a reaction and to apply that statement like if it could fit every member of the opposite sex.Both might be loud minorities, but there’s a reason they are called loud, I swear I keep blocking and reporting at least 1 or 2 accounts every time I open it (altough xitter seems to think nothing is misoginists or misdandrists).
I would not define misogyny as a minority opinion. I also do not think youre talking about the same thing. Misogynists don’t just say they hate women. Misogynists want traditional wives. They want to get away with sexual assault and domestic violence. They want women to be subservient, submissive, and have less access to society than men do. Misogynists believe women are weak (physically, emotionally, and mentally), they control women’s sexuality by policing it through the use of language like “prude” or “wh*re”. Misogynists don’t want women to have equality of pay, they don’t believe women should have equal representation in the government and many of them don’t believe that women should vote. Misogynists believe that they are owed sex from women. They believe that women who deny them are evil. Misogyny is not a dislike of women, it’s a hatred for the autonomy of women. A hatred for feminism and the progress it’s achieved.
I don’t define anything, I just go by what it’s already defined.
Either way it’s irrelevant, we are agreeing that it’s wrong and that misoginists and misandrist are loud (it’s hard if not impossible to know if it’s actually a minority or majority) to get others to believe them by anger and fear, sadly it works too well.
every time I open xitter
Well there’s your problem right there
Their enemies are shadows on the wall, shadows of their own minds.
I mean there’s TERFs, they speak for feminism, no?
People keep forgetting that until recently, TERF used to be the default position of feminism
When recently? Because if you mean 30 years ago, yeah. But by the 00s it wasn’t anymore. And before the 80s it wasn’t yet. It was a powerful force in the second wave.
YouTube Algorithms, facebook Algorithms, etc. make them all publishers responsible for their content.
People also need to be responsible in what they choose to believe though.
True, but imagine if we gave everyone an automatic weapon and told people they need to be responsible for what they choose to shoot. True, but we probably shouldn’t have given out so many weapons.
It’s a terrible metaphor, but there’s an intersection between personal, collective, corporate, and technological responsibility that we need to consider, and it’s hard to articulate in a few sentences. IMHO we’re all in an ouroboros of thought and action, internally and externally.
Yes but…I try ink media literacy is something that isn’t necessarily intuitive. It can and should be taught in elementary and secondary schools.
That’s true but unregulated internet access at a young age exists
Engineering controls are always the most effective way to limit contact with harmful substances.
the algorithms just rewards “shocking” content; it generates conversation.
I forget who I heard it from, but some bigger YouTuber mentioned that when talking to someone at YouTube about “the algorithm” and the person who worked at YouTube suggested rather than always thinking about it being the algorithm that drives what’s popular, that it’s the users who engage with that content. In the “line goes up” capitalist mindset, the algorithms at these companies are really just designed around engagement, and keeping people hooked. The “algorithm” is just what it thinks the audience wants.
And while I think a lot of us would like to think better of ourselves, I think we all have a strong tendency to engage with ragebait, and “shocking” content. Which wouldn’t necessarily be a bad trait in a pre-internet world. But in the world where the shareholders always need the line to go up infinitely, all of our media gets filled with the garbage that makes the line go up the most.
In the short term, we can all try more to engage less with the kind of content, showing the algorithms that we don’t actually want that content.
In the long term, we should probably de-couple our media from the infinite-growth investor-first capitalism that has formerly-respected publications writing articles about what 5 random people said on Twitter that they can ragebait people into engaging with.
Yes people like stuff that’s not good for them, violence focused “journalistic” shows were all the rage during the early millenium since they did get a big viewership, but nowadays they are mostly over with only a few left, we should demand change from those that have the power to do it.
If you do that, kiss the Fediverse goodbye.
Not necessarily. If it only applies to sites with algorithmic feeds (i.e. specifically ones that serve individualized streams to each user based on what they specifically have liked in the past), companies who are in control of what content they show are held to account and smaller platforms are safe.
Or do what the EU did with the DMA.
Write a law specifically for megacorps and only megacorps. It’s possible and it works.
If it only applies to sites with algorithmic feeds
arent up- and downvotes pretty much just that?
i think so, even if it isn’t stuff like “hot” or “active” definitely are
Not if algorithmic feeds are defined as ones that show individualized feeds to each user, like I said in my comment
I think you’d have to dig into the definition of an algorithm.
Defined in the law, doofus
Yeah, the definition in the law would have to be based on what constitutes an algorithm. That’s what I meant, doofus
I think slacktivist corporate feminism is an easy punching bag which makes it an easy case to dismiss the message.
That and with internet allowing every village idiot a voice, it is very easy for someone to say something incredibly batshit insane which becomes a punching bag for the rest of the people.
I get the basic idea of “slacktivist corporate feminism”, but can you give me some specific examples as I’m very interested in this idea.
Not OP, but:
Susan G. Komen pink on everything once a year, #girlboss, 9000 stock photos of women being women at business, bragging about a high percent of the company being women while all of the top 10% earners are men, making a Big Deal about international women’s day on social media while quietly fucking with insurance to drive up the cost of women’s healthcare, etc. etc.
I actually agree… We simply ignore the needs of men who are suffering. When was the last time you read a story about a male domestic abuse victim who WASN’T laughed at.
Toxic masculinity is the reason for that as well. Being the victim is seen as being less masculine, which is seen as worthy of ridicule.
Toxic masculinity hurts everyone.
When men do bad things: “this is toxic masculinity”
When women do bad things: “this is also toxic masculinity”
When men don’t get the support they need. Or are ridiculed for feeling emotions other than anger. And don’t feel they can cry without being judged.
Women can absolutely be abusers. That’s called shitty people and has nothing to do with masculinity, toxic or otherwise.
Most men cry in front of a woman exactly once.
That’s not toxic masculinity. It’s toxic femininity and NO ONE is addressing it in a systemic way.
In feminist theory “masculinity” and “femininity” don’t mean “what men do” and “what women do” but value systems floating through society affecting people.
So in that sense yes woman can exhibit toxic masculinity, if they reinforce those shitty norms. Likewise men can exhibit toxic femininity… say, comparatively harmless example, by discouraging a tomboy from skating.
It’s just one of those gazillions of instances where feminist terminology sucks absolutely donkeyballs because you need to read theory to understand it, which practically noone who calls themselves a feminist actually does, it’s all vibes and signals very little analysis they abuse those terms just like the rest of the population. The rest of the population at least has an excuse, they’re using the dictionary definition.
In this particular instance, “toxic (male) gender norm” would be much better.
It’s just one of those gazillions of instances where feminist terminology sucks absolutely donkeyballs
I mean, to get a little meta here, but if feminist theory essentially says “bad things are (toxic) masculinity, good things are femininity (feminism)” that betrays a deeper problem about the attitudes of feminist theorists, doesn’t it? Sure, it’s a terminology problem, but it’s also a problem that those are the terms.
Calling something women do a “toxic male gender norm” is just as problematic.
It’s called feminist studies - they’ll never say the thing they’re studying is or can be toxic. It’s always the masculine that’s bad, because the very subject name demands it.
Sure, it’s a terminology problem, but it’s also a problem that those are the terms.
I’ve talked to academic feminists about this and their reaction was pretty much “there were good reasons to chose those terms, doing it this way makes sense in the overall theoretical framework, it’s an academic term and not for general use, academic terms always get misunderstood that’s not a thing limited to feminism”. When asked whether, as an academic subject having its own political movement, and being, in the wider sense, sociologists, they shouldn’t at least study the societal implications of their terminology: Crickets.
And I can’t really blame them. The ones I talked with about this definitely have their heart in the right place, acknowledged all the issues but truth be told if one of them goes against those established terms which are oh so useful equivocations for many a catty bitch they’ll get skinned alive by exactly those catty bitches.
Or like how Google has a doodle for international women’s day but never international men’s day. Not to be dismissive or insensitive to women’s issues, but I’ve seen boys and young men talk about how little things like that give them the impression that their thoughts and feelings are not valid.
There are ofc men’s issues still like how the overwhelming majority workplaces deaths are men or how more men die from suicide than women. Men are more likely to be homeless than women etc
The sexes are supposed to compliment one another. Not compete against one another. We can acknowledge that there are issues for both sides while still being sensitive and respectful.
do you know if there is one for movember? i always felt that international mens day wasnt really popular because it wasnt ‘themed’ if you get what i mean. during movember in high school the girls would get those like moustache cutouts and wear them and it all raised awareness for men and boys and there was funding for like, i think it was prostate cancer?
I think there’s a lesson in there about teaching people that weren’t around for the formation of a movement about why targeted movements exist.
It’s not just with kids but with people that are tuned out… I think too many people fall through the cracks into white power, toxic masculinity, incel groups, etc because on the surface the questions are of course…
“well why don’t I have a support group for X? what makes that group of people special? why do they get their own day?”
Like yeah, if nobody’s ever explained what women have historically faced to you, feminism and girl power are especially strange concepts to confront.
Maybe having a more positive masculinity movement actually wouldn’t be a bad idea just to help people that are feeling a little lost and prevent them from finding “answers” in the wrong places(?)
I think the lesson here is that even if white males are “in power” on a societal level, on an individual level it still benefits everyone to have a safe space, even straight white men. We need a men’s support group. I would argue we even need a “white support group”. There are unique challenges and difficulties that come with being white. Not to the same degree as being black, for example, but they’re a totally different set of issues.
Such a good and concise comment.
There’s more to then even that. Fight Club predicted it. Mass media pushing this expectation onto young boys, but then as teenager and young adults, they have no outlet for machoism. No wood to split, no animals to kill for food, no fascists to kill(yet). Hollywood pushes the Action Hero, and neglects the Science Hero and the Guile Hero.
BTW, isn’t it sad that the stand-in for toxic masculinity in fiction is still more positive then real life toxic masculinity symbols. But fiction has to be believable.
This is the same argument as with “All Lives matter”. Why do people have to be against feminism to talk about issues men face? Because that is what I am seeing. On Lemmy or even Reddit, I didn’t see people laugh about male domestic abuse victims. But literally every discussion about it had misogynistic and anti-feminist comments.
The difference between All Lives Matter and this is that there really are gender-specific issues affecting men, and from their side, they feel as if they were All Lives Matter-ed. Think of it as not backlash to feminism, not a zero-sum game. Boys are just now getting to be against feminism because both the mainstream and idiots like Tate tell them that that’s what this is about, and they have no better ways to cope with it.
i don’t think it’s ok for people to laugh at an abuse victim. i also don’t think it is as important to work on at present compared to other issues. it’s a shame it happens, and i think there are other battles to fight first; like boys for some reason (from the evidence from research i gathered) needing more like physical activity in schools and doing much better when they aren’t tied to a desk all day. something like this is important, because testing indicates boys are getting worse especially recently in stuff like math and general literacy.
Because historically bearing rare exceptions, the Feminist Movements have largely been anti-male, anti-trans, and anti-gay (Unless it’s lesbians of course)
Seriously look into the Vagina Monologues, it’s considered THE definitive feminist piece… in it a woman and a man having consensual sex is considered this great tragedy, but an older woman turning a CHILD into a lesbian by traumatizing her with sex (I know, that’s not how that works, but it’s how the play says that works) is said to be a good thing… even including the line “If it was rape it was good rape”
The Feminist Movement simply aren’t the good guys (no pun intended), even if we do owe it for Women’s Liberation
Well, the male domestic abuse victim is probably laughed at, because he is the strong powerful man and should therefore not be able to get abused by the weak woman. The same for male rape victims: man like sex and always want sex and therefore they can’t be raped, because they like it. These stereotypes are a problem and feminism is trying to get rid of them. It will take some time to redefine the societal picture of man and woman.
These stereotypes are a problem and feminism is trying to get rid of them.
Are they though? I’ve never seen any evidence of feminists reining in their fellow feminists
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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/apr/15/gender.politicsphilosophyandsociety
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https://scholarship.law.cornell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2552&context=clr;We
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https://www.feministcurrent.com/2021/07/26/radical-feminism-has-a-humanity-problem/
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https://jacobin.com/2017/07/radical-feminism-second-wave-class
I’m not saying this is representative, mind you, only that criticism of feminists by other feminists (notably for employing damaging stereotypes) is out there if you actually look for it.
Thank you! Looking through them now.
Can you name the actual feminist(s) which you’re referring to…? You won’t really see feminists doing feminist things if you’re not going out of your way to participate in the feminist movement. I’m pretty sure most people’s entire idea of “feminism” is youtube videos from 2015 complaining about dumb misandrists with colorful hair screaming “kill all men” or something.
Feminism isn’t about “men bad, women good” or “women need to be more privileged in society”, it’s about minimizing or erasing gender norms/stereotypes, even if those perceptions sometimes benefit women. Gender/sexual equality is the point of the movement, it recognizes that women are favoured by the judicial system when it comes to cases related to violence & domestic disputes, and that society thinks that men should be big and strong and scary and that society shuns men who face problems in life or are wronged as “weak”, and that young people (especially men) are lonely, and that women are unlikely to receive as much benefit from the same labour (e.g., promotions/raises, perceived expertise) compared to men, etc. etc.
And the movement recognizes that those problems are often mostly or entirely caused by fucked up perceptions about gender that our society has built over an inconceivably large amount of time, and that we still apply to the modern day, that women are weak and beautiful and pure and dumb and dependent and subordinate to men and nurturing and need to be protected, and that men are strong and smart and do all the dirty work and independent and providing and commanding and need to protect women. That women and men are treated certain ways in some areas and get certain privileges over the other because of the way society views the concept of/separation between “man” and “woman” (and pushes against the view or “neither man or woman”) in the first place.
Too many people think, because of few reactionary misandrists being significantly more publicized than actual gender equality movements, that feminism is about “we need to make men 2nd-class citizens”, rather than “these artificially constructed and inaccurate ideas of differences between men and women are harmful to society and cause us to force certain perceptions on people, making us be biased against a certain gender in many areas or shun those of a certain gender who don’t fit into certain stereotypes”. Also some people don’t really care either way and want to be mad, but that happens with everything.
Another thing that is always spammed every time anything related to women’s struggles or just general women’s rights (even if feminism isn’t mentioned) is “but what about men?” which is ignoring the entire point… we’re in a collective struggle, we should talk about all of our issues, even gender issues, and not be out to try to 1-up each other every time one of the “other” groups have their issues talked about. And we can recognize that women often face issues men don’t face as much, and men often face issues that women don’t face as much, and we can recognize that often times the difference of magnitude of struggles based on gender is caused by the fact that society treats different genders so irrationally different in the first place.
Some want to throw away the concept of “feminism”/“gender & sexuality equality” and instead exclusively use “egalitarianism”, but I think that’s kind of just trying to detract from the issue and is as absurd as saying we shouldn’t think about “racial equality” as its own concept either, and saying “women have all the rights men have, but they’re just greedy and want more” is as dumb as saying “racial minorities have all the rights that white people have, but they’re just greedy and want more”. Also because of this exact idea the term “egalitarianism” is generally associated with libertarians which is just… eugh… no thanks.
BTW this is tangential to the topic, but when people say “toxic masculinity” or “patriarchy” the idea isn’t that it’s mens fault and everything would be so much better if they just drop their toxicity and masculinity. It’s more generally referring to how historically, in societies where men were at the “top” of the social hierarchy, created were the perceptions that men are supposed to be a certain way, and that women are supposed to be a certain other way, based entirely around the most idolized men of the times having certain characteristics/powers that dictated their place in society. These ideas still, for the most part, persist to the modern day in an altered & tamer form, and they still affect how all of us who are raised in these cultures perceive gender identity. That’s why it’s said men are victims of “patriarchy” or “toxic masculinity” too, because modern gender perceptions/issues are tightly tied to where they originated, and those societal/governmental structures are still “here” in a very warped but slightly recognizable form.
I’m pretty sure most people’s entire idea of “feminism” is youtube videos from 2015 complaining about dumb misandrists with colorful hair screaming “kill all men” or something.
But that IS part of feminism. Who is putting these women in check? Serious question. Link me to some of these good feminists please.
Too many people think, because of few reactionary misandrists being significantly more publicized than actual gender equality movements, that feminism is about “we need to make men 2nd-class citizens”
I just want to quickly clarify that’s not what I think. I don’t think feminism as a whole is about putting men down, and that’s a hilariously egocentric viewpoint to have anyway…yeah this whole giant movement that says it’s about women is actually about men…come on bro get over yourself lol.
I think feminism is about raising women up. It just doesn’t have any mechanism to (1) say “hey we did it! We achieved equality in this area!” (college admissions for example), (2) strive for equality in areas where men are at a disadvantage (dirty, dangerous, physical jobs for example), or (3) address societal problems that uniquely affect men (lack of role models, for example).
we’re in a collective struggle, we should talk about all of our issues,
This is the WHOLE POINT of “what about men?” Feminists do not care about male struggles. And I’m not talking about the ivory tower theorists that no one listens to. I don’t know what they think because it doesn’t matter. What matters is what everyday feminists think and do and say.
If feminism is about equality, then for the love of God please help men a little. We’re really fucking struggling and could use a hand here. Not asking for a lot, just a little acknowledgement and appreciation and maybe a policy initiative here and there.
But that IS part of feminism. Who is putting these women in check? Serious question. Link me to some of these good feminists please.
The entirety of the internet is putting people in check. You don’t even have to go to specific feminists to see it, any times a misandrist freak-out goes viral there’s immediately a visceral reaction to it by even the “woke” parts of the internet and a bunch of feminists being like “yea s/he’s not one of us”. Anyone can call themselves anything, and every movement has radicals, but every feminist knows that those radicals are a joke and just easy bait for anti-feminist rhetoric.
yeah this whole giant movement that says it’s about women is actually about men…come on bro get over yourself lol. I think feminism is about raising women up.
Jesus christ you really did filter out literally everything you just read didn’t you… every time “feminism” comes up it’s literally feminists telling you “it’s not just about women” but people like you just completely ignore it. What entity exactly is “this whole giant movement” that’s saying it’s about women? I explained where the gendered terms of the movement come from, the historical reasons why they’re called that, so I would hope you’re not just taking the name at face value. There is literally not a singular feminist that says “yeah this movement isn’t about men at all, we only care about women”. Many issues in this world primarily screw over women though, and those are often talked about, which I assume is where your confusion comes from.
It just doesn’t have any mechanism to (1) say “hey we did it! We achieved equality in this area!” (college admissions for example)
What is this even supposed to mean? You think feminists aren’t happy and don’t take pride in when a goal like more equal treatment in something based on gender or sexual orientation is achieved? That literally proves that you don’t actually pay attention to anything that has to do with the movement and you’re just making rage up lol.
(2) strive for equality in areas where men are at a disadvantage (dirty, dangerous, physical jobs for example)
Except they do. Literally one of the most important parts of the feminist movement is encouraging people to pursue career choices that societal perceptions discourage a specific gender from doing. Especially when it comes to dirty, dangerous, physical jobs. Do you know just how much women working trades/physical labour is talked about in various feminist groups? It is one of the primary workplace issues, generally women are completely bullied out of working such jobs and are seen as “incompetent” when it comes to professions like welders, mechanics, electricians, or any other form of physically demanding jobs. I have witnessed this firsthand, as well as my former best friend literally being a welder and constantly describing how awful women are treated by the people working these jobs, how they’re constantly sexualized/objectified and harassed, how they have to always be afraid in their own workplace because of this. This is one of the most important things feminists are actively working on, equalizing trades and making it so both men and women are treated fairly and well. Feminism is also often intertwined with worker’s rights, guarantees to employees, safety in the workplace, etc. which fits into this excelently.
address societal problems that uniquely affect men (lack of role models, for example).
What? I’m mentally facepalming right now… feminists are constantly encouraging positive role models, educators, leaders, etc. for everyone (including men), what are you on about? Additionally one of feminists’ primary concerns is access to healthcare, and especially relating to feminists’ concerns is mental healthcare, something that affects men a lot. They recognize what causes many of these problems, and they work to fix them. Feminists fight against negative influences like Jordan Peterson and Andrew Tate.
Many role models for men were/are feminists, and feminists actively are engaged in propping boys up and encouraging positive traits in them (as well as girls). I think one everyone can relate to hearing is Mr. Rogers.
This is the WHOLE POINT of “what about men?”
It really is not. The point is to say “women’s issues don’t matter because men also have other issues”. It is a way to detract from any discussion about women’s rights, to try to take over the conversation to say “we have it worse in some different way”, to try to emphasize the idea they have that women are privileged and men are the ones that really have it bad. It is never done to add to the conversation, but to change the conversation.
Feminists do not care about male struggles. And I’m not talking about the ivory tower theorists that no one listens to. I don’t know what they think because it doesn’t matter. What matters is what everyday feminists think and do and say.
You are straight up just constructing a strawman and beating it to death. What feminist discussions have you attended? Any at all?
If feminism is about equality, then for the love of God please help men a little.
That is quite literally what we are trying to do. But people like you refuse it and try to turn it around as a way to disparage other groups and diminish discussions about women’s struggles and gender in society. And you make strawmen constructed of some 2014 internet perception of a “feminist” pretending feminists actually believe in that, meanwhile “men’s rights activists”/anti-feminists are represented by literal far-right sex traffickers (as opposed to the many positive role models who are feminists). Like can you name any popular, modern-day, prominent-among-feminist influencers that are even a small fraction of the absurdity of that? Our kids’ role model influencers are random chill people like Technoblade lmao.
Yeah I’m just gonna call you a liar. All you’re doing is saying “oh yeah we’re totally working on that” but that’s just blatant bullshit. Becaaaaause
It is never done to add to the conversation, but to change the conversation.
You fucking shut the conversation down any time it goes there. You define men’s issues as being impossible to discuss. You seriously believe that never once in the history of any of these discussions, somone saying “but what about men” has wanted to add to the conversation rather than derail it?
Show me the feminist initiatives to get women into trades. Show me the feminists working to get more male teachers. Show me the feminists funding scholarships for men. Because not only have I never seen anything like that, I’ve never even HEARD of anything like that. And I’ve gone looking.
Okay, you’re just copping out of the conversation and ignoring pretty much all the points you don’t like but I’ll give you what you want.
You fucking shut the conversation down any time it goes there. You define men’s issues as being impossible to discuss.
No, we just have the reaction anyone would have if we were talking about problems we face and someone else was like “yeah but what about these other issues I face”. You’re honestly telling me you think someone who just says “oh yeah your broken leg is bad but what about my broken arm? that’s bad, if not worse, and i’m tired of people talking about your leg when nobody is talking about my arm” is doing so in good faith? When do feminists shut down such conversations about men? Why do you insist on just making shit up about feminists saying not to discuss men’s issues?
You seriously believe that never once in the history of any of these discussions, somone saying “but what about men” has wanted to add to the conversation rather than derail it?
I don’t know every person in history who has done that, but when you respond to literally anything discussing women’s struggles with “but what about men who have X bad” it is more often then not a quite obvious attempt at diminishing the issue at hand. There are people who say “I’m not a woman but here’s my perspective as a man who’s faced similar issues”, who are adding to the conversation, and then there are people who instead take the opportunity to try to find some way to frame the problem as not as serious as men’s problems, and then often devolve it into blaming women for men’s problems and try to say “well actually women are privileged” to completely avoid the point. Feminists do not get in the way of issues affecting men and are usually the primary proponents of solving problems faced regardless of gender – most are not ones to go into discussions about how young men are facing loneliness to say “but loneliness isn’t just a men’s thing, women also face record high loneliness! and in fact women have it worse because nobody acknowledges their loneliness epidemic!” yet this is exactly the reaction you see droves of which are highly popular on social media every time women’s issues get brought up.
Show me the feminist initiatives to get women into trades.
Yeah this is how I know you’re talking out of your ass. How did you go through the entire 2000s-2010s without seeing all the initiatives to get women to work in traditionally male work places? Regardless I’ll give you what you want, talking about the issues faced with women not working in traditionally male-dominated workplaces and encouraging women in trades and many others:
“The U.S. Department of Labor’s Women’s Bureau has awarded $7.4 million in active grant funding to help recruit, train and retain more women in quality pre-apprenticeship and registered apprenticeship programs as well as nontraditional occupations.”
https://www.usaid.gov/engendering-industries/gender-equality-best-practices-framework
Show me the feminists working to get more male teachers.
Literally this entire Reddit thread is full of feminists discussing exactly that, and quite clearly having a higher amount of male educators than we currently have is pretty important to them, with the reception to the topic being overwhelmingly positive and linking many resources on the matter: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskFeminists/comments/1776kfn/what_is_the_impact_of_the_lack_of_male_teachers/
Show me the feminists funding scholarships for men.
The origin in scholarships for historically disadvantaged groups is based in the fact that they faced many significant barriers in the past to attending college, and these scholarships were crucial to getting e.g. women, black people, to attend. Your question is a bit like asking about racial minority rights movements creating scholarships for white people. That being said there are a TON of scholarships for men (and for specific groups of whites), here’s a list:
https://scholarships360.org/scholarships/scholarships-for-men/
https://www.aamn.org/scholarships
Plus you have things like this which are supported by people who think like you: https://www.forbes.com/sites/kimelsesser/2022/04/13/womens-scholarships-and-awards-eliminated-to-be-fair-to-men/?sh=519c6bd87fe2
Your point is assuming that men have disproportionately higher of a financial burden to going to college than women. Which they don’t. In fact, women have significantly more student loan debt than men and are generally less financially independent in our society so it’s the other way around. Men’s college problems are more skewed towards the various other social issues that feminists work to improve, i.e. access to mental health services (which often disproportionally affects men) and harmful gender norms, like once again causes men to be perceived as not fit for child-related activities (like teaching). The result is that, in general, scholarships are a lot more effective for women than for men, so there is more initiative for scholarships for women, while college health resources are more directed towards men.
In general feminists aren’t very pro-gender based scholarship to begin with, although there are a lot of scholarships for both women and men (for example MenTeach which is made specifically to get men teaching) which are supported by many feminists.
Also things like this are mostly just an American thing, scholarships like that are generally rare outside of the US… but in the US, Feminists are a LOT more concerned with completely reforming the broken education system that requires you to have to have scholarships to go in the first place.
Because not only have I never seen anything like that, I’ve never even HEARD of anything like that. And I’ve gone looking.
Lmao you obviously haven’t. I was able to find all of these with actual seconds of searching. You are a liar.
Feminism isn’t about “men bad, women good”
Tell Dworkin that. She might come out of the grave to fight you on that point.
so yes men do get laughed at for this kinda stuff, by men and also by women. when men do it, i noticed it doesn’t bother me as much truthfully.
i’ll say when i’m in more women-friendly, radical feminist spaces (journals, magazines, irl events) there really isn’t this negativity around. something like the scumm manifesto does say stuff that can be hurtful or seem hateful (i’d agree it is hateful; i’d also agree it’s completely justified and rational given the circumstances) and honestly so much of the tension seems to me to be due to the online nature of this stuff.
are there women-only spaces where a bunch of negative things about men are said? obviously, and i can’t for the life of me figure out why it’s held to a different standard than other groups outside of the patriarchy being the explanation.
i think treating and seeing women as equal is accepting there are women who have awful takes. women as a group will be like many other groups, they might appear homogeneous and their’s a wealth of differences between them.
i’m ok believing some men are toxic, as am i for some women, what i don’t do is share that opinion with others if the circumstances aren’t appropriate. i think that’s where “think before you act” or “think before you talk” comes in.
The leaders of the movement are publishing this shit though. It’s not fringe if it’s the leaders of the movement.
Heterosexual intercourse is the pure, formalized expression of contempt for women’s bodies.
Any man will follow any feminine looking thing down any dark alley; I’ve always wanted to see a man beaten to a shit bloody pulp with a high-heeled shoe stuffed up his mouth, sort of the pig with the apple; it would be good to put him on a serving plate but you’d need good silver.
That’s Andrea Dworkin for you. Even though she’s dead, her followers still run the show.
yeah, think my response was responding to something non-existent (like i made up a take to argue against), appreciate your comment. one needs to take the complaints and grievances seriously if they wanna understand or have a meaningful affect.
I don’t think we ignore the needs of men. They’re just sometimes overshadowed because of other pressing matters like not being able to afford a roof over your head or to feed your family, then whose more likely to get into substance abuse? Men, trying to provide for their families but the debt is mounting and school is basically unachievable. Work wages are stagnating inflation is rising because the corpos have us all by the balls. Is there a culture that tries to pigeonhole men to bottle up their emotions in America? Absolutely. I just think the greater fight is improving these lychpins of society, and we can do that and also address men’s problems, but in a lot of ways, aren’t women’s lack of equality a big part of men’s problems in the first place? If women were paid equally and treated equally by men and other women, and society as a whole, they could take care of themselves better, provide more for their families, not feel like they have to choose between a family and a career, etc etc etc. All of it is inter-related dammit. I do get what the person in the original article is trying to say. I just don’t think that they did a particularly good job of expressing it in a relatable way.
Sometimes the symptom can also be the thing exacerbating the problem and much worse of an issue than the root problem
Andrew Tate himself is absolutely a problem, that doesn’t preclude there from also being other, related, broader, problems. Usually, when you see an argument in the form of “X thing (small, defined, addressable) isn’t the problem, Y thing (large, nebulous, intractable) is the problem!” Then what is happening is someone is re-framing the debate from a cognizable issue to an unsolvable issue, to defuse any actual action. It’s a great tactic!
