Men's Liberation
This community is first and foremost a feminist community for men and masc people, but it is also a place to talk about men’s issues with a particular focus on intersectionality.
Rules
Everybody is welcome, but this is primarily a space for men and masc people
Non-masculine perspectives are incredibly important in making sure that the lived experiences of others are present in discussions on masculinity, but please remember that this is a space to discuss issues pertaining to men and masc individuals. Be kind, open-minded, and take care that you aren't talking over men expressing their own lived experiences.
Be productive
Be proactive in forming a productive discussion. Constructive criticism of our community is fine, but if you mainly criticize feminism or other people's efforts to solve gender issues, your post/comment will be removed.
Keep the following guidelines in mind when posting:
- Build upon the OP
- Discuss concepts rather than semantics
- No low effort comments
- No personal attacks
Assume good faith
Do not call other submitters' personal experiences into question.
No bigotry
Slurs, hate speech, and negative stereotyping towards marginalized groups will not be tolerated.
No brigading
Do not participate if you have been linked to this discussion from elsewhere. Similarly, links to elsewhere on the threadiverse must promote constructive discussion of men’s issues.
Recommended Reading
- The Will To Change: Men, Masculinity, And Love by bell hooks
- Politics of Masculinities: Men in Movements by Michael Messner
Related Communities
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I'm just curious where feminists are in power. Maybe in some nordic countries - but than again those have rather high living standard and economical equality. Big corporations pandering to LGBT and co, does not really count.
Feminism has a lot of narrative power, and the whole middle management not just of individual companies but society as a whole is, by now, female-dominated.
If you're getting laid off chances are a women wrote the reports that the layoff was based on, and a woman is signing off on your severance package. You go to the dole office and -- yep, a woman works your case. Chances also aren't too terrible that, above the layer of the predominantly male C-suite, there's an heiress to the empire because generational capital accumulation doesn't discriminate.
So, in a nutshell: Much feminist messaging can easily come across as HR telling a male truck driver "our boss is a man, therefore, you're fired".
Whether that power base can actually be, realistically, mobilised, is another topic. I guess academia in principle serves the place for middle management that unions play among workers but it's a tough cookie no matter which side you look at. Doubly fucked in places like the US where middle management is even more prone to the temporarily embarrassed billionaire fantasy. And somehow I ended up at class analysis. Honestly, wasn't intentional.
What do you mean by female-dominated and do you assume that every women is a feminist?
Sorry it might very well be my bad English, but I don't get your point at all.
I mean that a lot of the typical jobs women take up are in some form of middle management. It's not rare to see 70% or more women working in those areas.
Separately, feminism has lots of narrative power.
My overall point here is not that feminism didn't or doesn't do what it could to fix the deal for men, too, it might not even be possible, my point is that there's a female power base that men, especially young and low-class ones, experience as being capable of doing so.
Thank you for rephrasing and clarification. I think I can see your point now. And I would even agree that there is a perception that feminist or liberal leftist ideas are dominating general spaces, since corporations we pandering pretty hard in those direction. But I think if one looks at where the actual power in society lies - it's clearly not with the liberal left and even less with feminists.
I mean DNC consultants could not have pushed the "Bernie Bro" narrative and things could look vastly different right now, but that would have contradicted their class interest. But they're also not leftist, at least not in my book.
I'm really sorry, I don't know why but again it's kind of difficult for me to get your point.
Back when Hillary Clinton, an establishment Democrat with corporate and oligarch backing, ran against Bernie Sanders, an independent challenger with decades-long pro-worker, pro-equality, pro-good-things-in-general track record, Clinton's side smeared people who supported Sanders as misogynist, abusing feminist narratives and talking points to get rid of a candidate that, very much unlike Clinton, would've won against Trump. Easily. In a landslide.
...as such that particular strain of rainbow-feminist-capitalist-oligarchy might not have the power to push their own candidate through, but they do have the power to prevent a candidate that would have been better for the people, men, women, whatever, doesn't matter, but would have hurt corporate profits. And because they managed to be so completely unlikeable, so out of touch with what the average American actually wants, they managed to get Trump elected with their interference, twice. Not that Trump would be any better but that's another topic.
Ok, one more time thank you for elaborating. I think I get your point now. But I disagree in your perception of capitalist neoliberals like Clinton as feminist. It's like corporations pandering to the LGBT.