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longwayhome -> RE: Greedy feminists clutching DV funding are ruining men’s lives (7/8/2017 4:15:02 AM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: tweakabelle
quote:
ORIGINAL: respectmen
Tweak
quote:
Why on earth should feminists help men?
Because men help feminism.
If I asked, "why on earth should men help feminism?"...what would be your answer?
Why is it that feminists expect men to help feminism but think it's wrong for men to expect feminism to help men? Why isn't it wrong too for feminists to expect men to help feminism?
Such a shame that you chose to ignore the rest of the paragraph from my post, where I outline some of the ways that feminists can help men with their gender issues. Here's the part you chose to ignore:
"This is not feminism's role, it is not a role wanted by feminism nor should feminism carry out this role. It is up to men to help themselves. Women can't do it for men. Feminists will respond favourably to requests from men for assistance, but that is all. Men certainly have legitimate gender issues but it's up to men to address those issues.
When men begin to focus on their gender issues, feminists will only be too glad to help. But you are going to have to do an awful lot better than the crude misogyny of the MRA, and it's pathetic anti-feminist agenda. Feminism is not men's enemy. It can provide part of the solution if you adapt and use feminism properly.
The pressures on men to conform to gender stereotypes are at least equal to the pressure on women IMHO. If men were to start utilising the tools available to them from feminism, they could make some headway to challenging the pressure to conform to often impossible ideals of masculinity that are imposed on them. If men were serious about gender issues, this strikes me as a good place to start rather than the inane issues - manspreading and the like - that you seem obsessed with.
Sadly I never hear anything about issues like challenging the stereotype of masculinity from you. If you are serious about challenging gender issues, then you need to understand fully what gender is, how it operates in society and how it is able to impose near impossible obligations on men and women. Know your enemy, as they say. The necessary tools and analysis are all available from feminism and can be borrowed, adapted and applied to mens issues, if you are serious.
Steve Biddulph is one Aussie mens activist who is attempting to do this but I never hear you support, quote or reference Biddulph. In fact I can't recall any evidence to show that you are aware of his body of work, his activism or even if he exists. Instead you listen to MRA loonies whose understanding of gender is abysmal, whose intellectual and political sophistication is non-existent and who crudely pander to your neuroses at the level of the lowest possible denominator without ever offering a viable solution. So it's difficult for others, not just feminists but all others, to take you seriously at the moment.
However, when you show signs of being serious in challenging the current gender order, rather than propagating absurd conspiracy theories and blaming feminism for all your problems, you might be pleasantly surprised by the support you receive from feminism and feminists. At the very least you will be taken seriously which would be a vast improvement on your current situation.
Hey rm, tweek speaks a good deal of sense.
You have actually been offered sophisticated arguments by a number of men on this site, including me, about male gender roles and the need for men to challenge the traditional roles they are sometimes squeezed into.
In this task so often the role of feminists in challenging the traditional order actually helps men to break out of the straitjacket. From that point of view I support much feminist thinking because I have no intentions of living a life where I am expected to take certain masculine roles at home, in public or in the workplace. It's just too limiting. But I can do something about that by living differently and by forming the kinds of bonds with people which allow me to actually influence them.
The problem is that you will never get anywhere in promoting different roles for men by attacking feminists and other men who want to see change. The attitudes you are fighting against (when you are not just stuck on bashing "feminazis") have far more to do with the social and political elites and the attitudes of other men. Sure you can find anti-male stuff in feminist writings but somehow that's all you see.
You also fail to see the things which are much better than 20 years ago, in the UK anyway, like the large number of joint custody orders for children, and enforceable court orders which mean that one parent cannot prevent an ex-partner from having access to their children, unless there are serious child protection concerns. It means that fathers have to do as much parenting as mothers but that is in the interests of the child (and the father). Men have to pay more reliably towards their own children's upbringing but also get proper access to a family life.
Any nuance or subtlety is lost every time you rant at everybody and accuse them of not being aware of what happens to men, especially when you claim that everything that is done to improve the lives of women automatically oppresses men.
A better more equal world for women can be a better world for men too. Seems obvious but you just have one hell of a mental block to that concept because you think that everything is about men missing out.
It doesn't have to be a competition and you don't have to be such a whiny victim.
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