this post was submitted on 22 Jun 2023
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men

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KBIN is not implementing promised improvements in moderation, federation, and fighting spam. I have given up on this platform, and I can't recommend anyone to put any effort into it any longer.

founded 2 years ago
 

I just stepped down as moderator from all five of the subreddits I used to moderate over on Reddit. I just can't ethically justify continued activity on Reddit, and especially free volunteer labour for an openly greedy company that is engaged in scummy behaviour, forcing mods to open protesting communities or be demoted.

So my online activism for boys and men is now focused here and on Mastodon. And I am welcoming everyone coming over from Reddit, especially from LeftWingMaleAdvocates, the sub I put in the majority of my time and effort as a mod.

Let's build something good here, as we did previously on Reddit. It appears we have a wider reach here, so let's debate in good faith and with civil manners.

Here, in this magazine (i.e. community or subreddit in Kbin-speak) we wish to discuss and spread awareness of various issues that disproportionately affect males.

We believe men are not being well-served by either side of the mainstream political spectrum. We oppose the right wing's exploitation of men's issues as a wedge to recruit men to inegalitarian traditional values. But we also oppose feminist attempts to deny male issues, or shoehorn them into a biased ideology that blames "male privilege" and guilt-trips men.

We have no objection to the genuinely egalitarian aspects of feminism, but we will criticize feminist ideology wherever it is inegalitarian and/or untruthful, especially now that it holds institutional power. Too often feminism has promoted a one-sided "equality", dismantling male advantages while exploiting, reinforcing, preserving, and downplaying female advantages - particularly in cases involving alleged abuse.

In practice this means that most of us are politically homeless. The natural home for male advocacy should be the left wing, which professes to be explicitly egalitarian. But in modern practice, men's issues are habitually ignored, denied, or even opposed.

We seek to address male issues without falling into the traps of an impossible return to the past or a disastrous sexism. Men and women have equal value, and we need to work together for a better future.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Would it be in bad taste to repost some of the archived posts from leftwingmaleadvocates?

Even though they're old I think they still hold a lot of relevance for this community and hold a lot of insight to start interesting conversarions.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 years ago

I think that's fine, as long as you give credit. I've already reposted some.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 years ago (2 children)

How do you / did your community feel about the MensLib community?

[–] [email protected] 14 points 2 years ago (9 children)

They hosted an AMA with a guy who minimizes/denies that men can be victims of women aggressors. They tried to walk back some of the stuff he said, but didn’t outright apologize. They censor/minimize/deny a lot of other men’s issues. They are counterfeit, perhaps even a calculated disinformation campaign to co-opt the men’s movement.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I appreciate that they try to highlight some male issues. But they subjugate them to feminist ideology, which I think is the wrong approach. They control the conversation very tightly and do not allow general criticism of feminism (especially the widespread misandry), nor specific topics such as legal paternal surrender. For that reason I consider the MensLib sub "controlled opposition". Even tho many members may have the heart in the right place, there is a high degree of self-censorship going on. Or you find yourself, as I did, quietly shadowbanned.

See also https://www.reddit.com/r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates/wiki/missionstatement#wiki_how_do_we_differ_from_feminist_men.2019s_lib.3F

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 years ago (3 children)

Thank you for sharing your viewpoints (side note, this is my first time really reading reddit in a while and it's crazy how many accounts have been overwritten or [deleted]). I was active in the early redpill community, years ago, and watched in horror as it got taken over by right-wing protofascists. So I'm a little gun shy when it comes to men's spaces. I think, getting meta for a moment, there's something to be said for policing your own community a little over-zealously to keep out the misogynists...but then again, there's also something to be said for being honest in your beliefs, even if that means alienating an ally (like feminists).

I've subscribed and I'll keep a close eye on this community. You've got a difficult job; there's a lot of angry, misogynistic men and angry, misandrist tumblristas in the fediverse who would love to take over the discussion.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 years ago

Hopefully it will be like the subreddits he moderated. They turned out quite nicely. Unapologetically advocating for men from an egalitarian perspective while also being unapologetic about defending against the misandrist detractors, a large number of whom call themselves feminists and leverage feminist ideology.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 years ago (4 children)

Hey brother

I'm in a similar boat as you, and watched TRP go from "this is info men need to know, and soon" to religious conservative grifters, and similarly upset about it

And then watching menslib and others get setup so men could talk in "approved" ways

But all of that makes it even more important to me not to abandon other labels to grifters. It just makes it easier for them to dissipate any momentum we might accrue for social change.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 years ago (1 children)

The fediverse is the future

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 years ago (1 children)

This place on Kbin already seems to have more activity than the old r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates did. That place is basically dead now. It's a shame it fractured the community, but at least this place won't be upended in the future by a greedy and clueless corporation.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 years ago (1 children)

hopefully this community can collect many of the castaways of the reddit ones

tbh, male centric subs were targets for admin actions far too frequently, and moving away from a corp like that can only help a community like this.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Agreed. Worst case scenario if we were kicked off of here (which I don't think will happen. we're not a hate sub), we could migrate to a dedicated instance hosted by one of our own members. But I don't think that will ever be necessary.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Can't tell you how many admin responses i've gotten that said "Hate or bigotry towards men is not covered by our anti-discrimination or hate speech policies. Please read our policies before submitting a report about hate speech."

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 years ago

Yeah at some point I just have to laugh about it or I'd lose my mind. So seeing the destruction of Reddit is immensely gratifying. I hope all social media users migrate to the Fediverse eventually, and I also hope that more people will just publish content on their personal websites/blogs instead of posting exclusively on social media.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 years ago (2 children)

alright, i guess. i don't entirely disagree, though I did feel like I was reading a MGTOW post with some words swapped out.

Your phrase; "The natural home for male advocacy" [is x on the political spectrum] is a strange phrase, and familiar, and formulaic.

Try humanism, and love

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 years ago (6 children)

It is definitely not a MGTOW post. I explicitly say: "Men and women have equal value, and we need to work together for a better future."

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 years ago (5 children)

I bet you wouldn't feel the same about a "home for female advocacy". Men need safe spaces too.

Note: including safe from right-wing exploitation.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 years ago (2 children)

You seem to have an extremely specific take on men's issues, insisting you're not one of those men's rights guys but nonetheless taking a dim view of feminism except when you deem it sufficiently egalitarian and uncritical, I dunno about grabbing the whole concept/namespace of "men" and dedicating it to that. But ya did it, so good luck with it.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 years ago (1 children)

What exactly should we have done then? I only claim to speak for myself; in an ideal world I would love to work with feminists, but we're having conversations here that are not permitted in feminist spaces, so we need our own space for that. I hope you'll be open minded and do a little reading here to see what we're about.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 years ago

Any space that caters to feminists or feminist thinking is in no way a safe place for men, we should make that clear

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 years ago (1 children)

insisting you're not one of those men's rights guys

MRAs seek gender equality before the law and full human rights for men, MRAs are a branch of egalitarianism. If you think there's something wrong with that, that's your problem.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 years ago

I didn't even insist that I wasn't. I am one in the sense of your description.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Re: your stance of feminism and its role in the betterment of the lives of men.

I don't think it's unreasonable to suggest that the primary problem at the core of most issues facing men today is the narrow, unrealistic, and frankly unhealthy image of masculinity that our society expects us to strive for. And I have to imagine that the (or at least a) goal of any sensible male advocacy group would be to push back against the notion that a man who doesn't meet this single societal ideal of manliness has failed to be a man.

However, I also don't think it can be dismissed as coincidence that so many of the words used to belittle men and boys who behave in ways they're not "supposed" to imply femininity.

"Don't be such a pussy."

"That guy's a little bitch."

"Haha, he cried like a girl!"

Would you not agree that one of the most powerful ways to go about robbing these types of sentiments of their power over young boys is to help feminists destigmatise simply being a girl or a woman? Most issues facing men aren't because women are being given advantages, but because men face the disadvantage of not being allowed to adopt roles or attitudes deemed beneath us — just as women are not allowed to adopt roles and attitudes deemed beyond their place.

I firmly believe that feminism, if truly successful, will allow men the freedom to be who and what they want to be because "masculine"/"feminine" will no longer equate to "good"/"bad" or "strong"/"weak".

[–] [email protected] 13 points 2 years ago (35 children)

How could feminism in any way give men "the freedom to be who and what they want" when they portray men as the problem? Feminism is toxic to healthy masculinity and healthy gender relations.

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