Allero

Let me rephrase it - feminism is, in its entirety, about women. What it solves for men it only does to make it work for women. It's a movement about women's rights, after all. It has never been about men, and blindly following feminism as men is like trying to make a pencil using a blueprint for a hammer.

From my experiences, I don't face much questioning around men's issues in the feminist communities, as long as it's not something directly concerning women, and even then little consideration is given to considering why men act a certain way and what conditions should be changed to prevent it - it most commonly takes a directive approach instead.

Feminists were not the ones who made it impossible to live on one salary - capitalists simply used the fact both people in the family are now working to be able to pay less and extract more profits. But feminists speak little about the fact most of that financial burden still lies on men, or that there is a common expectation for a man to earn more than a woman. For them, it's commonly a non-issue.

What is beyond me at the end of the day is why people took the movement that is about women, always claims to be about women and historically never been about anyone but women and suddenly pretended it's about everyone, while it didn't change the slightest in that regard. Women lead feminism, and men have little input in its development. Women see feminism as a movement about themselves. But when the time comes for someone to point this out, everyone suddenly pretends feminism is about everyone. This community is openly feminist, so, ultimately, it is not for or about men, it's about what women want men to be.

I, too, have an egalitarian and antisexist background. I have to point that out clearly, because antisexism, while including feminism, is not limited by it, despite what many would make others believe. I am, however, socially pressured to be a provider, and instead do my best to be - exactly - a partner. An equal, not only in joys but in duties as well. And this is surprisingly hard.

It is, yet it's not quite what this place offers. It just trades one model for the other, while squeezing men between two of them, both of which they should seemingly follow simultaneously.

Male (and female) voices are different.

If you go in line with the patriarchal system and keep your mouth shut about genuine issues you might have, you'll face no shortage of attention.

The second you go against this formula, you'll likely find yourself severely ostracised. Try talking about how cool it is to be a househusband, or how knitting is actually good, and try to find an audience. Tell people around that you pursue passion over money, and good luck building a family. Tell anyone about things in which men are genuinely disadvantaged - and then not be claimed as a whiny hypocritical bitch.

As a woman, go full tradwife and you'll be praised. Talk about the joy of maternity and people will translate it. Go gentle, don't contest the positions of power, and you'll get your attention very briefly.

It's not a male vs female thing. It's about men and women for/against patriarchy, and while women have managed to overcome a significant share of gender stereotypes, men have not, and it's not that feminism is there to help.

What's so "Men Liberating" in it, then?

This is not "Feminism for Men 101".

I think focusing on feminism as the sole antisexist movement is inherently extremely imbalanced, as feminism was not made with men in mind to begin with, and the best you can hope for is being a secondary supporter in what's written by the women for the women.

There was a good wave around a decade ago of feminists and masculists uniting to combat all forms of antisexism, in all directions. Men got more educated in womens' issues, women got more educated in mens', and people were genuinely attempting to resolve the complex issues that form on both sides while supporting each other.

But then loud and proud feminism (as opposed to reasonable and equality-oriented one) came back again to destroy it. Whether it's more contentious and thereby boosted by the algorithms of social media on which most of us feeds, or there was some genuine shift that initiated it, or both - but peace has yet again lost its place to a dictate, and the dictate caused a reaction - so now instead of feminists and masculists working together we have feminists trying to impose their view on men (of which I suspect this place as well), and radicalized young men saying "fuck it, we're not heard and we'll make ourselves heard", which roughly translates into "we ignore what harms patriarchy does us and are set for revenge through it, not realizing we're just diving deeper into the mud pile".

The optics of feminism are women-focused, it is about women first and foremost and therefore may not be applied to (or rather imposed on?) men unconditionally.

How come?

One of the outcomes of patriarchy is that men are more commonly promoted to higher positions, especially in the top levels, yes. But the other side of this is that men are expected to be providers, to carry the main financial burden, to pay for everything, leaving less to themselves. Feminism mostly covers only one side of this - income inequality - but barely tackles the societal issues that lead to the inequality in expenditures and financial expectations put on men. As such, men are squeezed between the rock and a hard place, and what most ultimately chooses in building a career, even if it doesn't align with their best personal interest. As a result, even if we eliminate all the glass ceilings that women may face, men will still take higher positions on average because that's what their conditions dictate. We need to address mens' input and engage with it if we want to have all elements that would allow us to resolve it. And feminism doesn't do that.

Men can and should absolutely support feminists while also combating their own discrimination - here we can agree. But naming a place "Men's Liberation" comes with the expectation that it's about the males' issues through the males' optics, or otherwise it is as liberating as a hostile army.

Capitalism is not only a system of discrimination in itself, it is deeply interested in worsening existing issues to divide and conquer. Also, more controversies - more engagement - more profit! This artificially fuels the existing conflicts between people, and that's one reason it should be dismantled.

I think with a multitude of factors that form what we call "privilege", visible and invisible, known and unknown, we cannot adequately assess who is the most discriminated anymore. And when that time comes (mind you, after a century of women fighting for their rights and rightfully forcing into their seats at the table), the time comes to come together and genuinely care for the other, while not forgetting yourself.

The times of suffragettes are over. Men, women, nonbinary people all have unique circumstances and problems they face. And this is worth discussing together. I remember at one time, maybe just 5-10 years ago, it was more common to go and do exactly that, to band together under the wider antisexist banner, for men to care of women's issues and for women to care for men's. And it worked well, but was seemingly sabotaged - I assume - in the name of controversy, division and, ultimately - profit.

You mean, virtue signaling?

I agree with you in that the less avenues we have for men to speak up and be listened to, the more radical they will become, and instead of coming with constructive and useful criticisms, they will instead follow everyone who says "the other side is a problem, so now it's your time to violently state your way".

One thing though - no one should be silenced or mistreated for the acts of previous generations. Those young men hold no relation to what happened there in the past, and those young women are not its victims, either. "Reverse" discrimination is just discrimination based on arbitrary concept, and acts of other people in other times should never be seen as a supporting argument here.

Of course there is!

But that's the very issue I take. The problems around gender stereotypes, patriarchy etc. are a complex combination of factors on both sides - and the only way to untangle this is to listen to both sides. Men should absolutely scrutinize their behavior using what women can share; but so should women hear male voices to see what can be changed on their end.

We can't expect to find a common ground under the dictate of one side. Men didn't manage to solve the issue of women back in the pre-feminism era, because they thought they knew better. Now women repeat the same mistake, thinking they hold the keys to the solution and not bothering asking men on what they think about it.

Thanks, I am aware of patriarchy and the way it harms men. I don't take the issue with men going against it, and it should absolutely be dismantled as it screws pretty much everyone, women and men.

What I do take issue with is that many just adopted the feminist approach and expect women to fix it for everyone, despite the fact feminism is and always has been about women, and what it does for men is rather collateral. Men are commonly not seen by feminists as someone whose voice matters much inside the movement, and if men don't have much representation in it, we can't expect it to be fair to us.

As per intersectionality, I've always found its ties with feminism concerning, much for the same reasons. Intersectional feminists are concerned with the issues of Black women, for example, but are Black men proportionally covered? We should accept that a white disabled man and a black able woman are both disadvantaged, and do our best to help everyone who is disadvantaged by any means. Intersectionality shouldn't focus on women, or Black people, or disabled, or poor, or someone with mental issues, or anyone is particular; it should be about recognizing everything that drags people down and figuring out what can be done to shorten the divide.

Exactly!

Screw everyone who tries to put feminism as a band-aid for everything, and screw twice everyone who tries to take men's movements and turn them into yet another feminist think tank, pretending it's about men.

We need to consider both sides if we want to form any sort of balanced view, or to actually achieve anything on the grounds of gender equality.

Women are people. Men are people. Let's figure out how to coexist in a way that makes everyone happy.

I did read the description - and initially tried to write it off, because in the minds of many people feminism=gender equality movement (it is not).

The point I raise is not that giving women a seat removed it from men in itself, but that feminism tries to sit on two chairs, claiming to be for equality and at the same time doing everything to show only female voices count, because men are presumably "powerful anyway" and don't need to be heard out.

It is true that the top positions are predominantly taken by men. But does it convert the same way for the average Joe, does he actually have that much power? This place seems to recognize this is not true, yet comes with an answer that feminism (a movement that strongly boasts female voices over male, and often doesn't consider men as actual allies) will magically resolve it without active men's contributions by dismantling patriarchy. No it won't, because it doesn't work with the issue on the other end. Men are not invited to resolve issues that directly concern them; they are instead forced into the roles feminists have made for them, and this doesn't work because men have issues and considerations of their own that are not addressed.

Again, feminism (as in "let's figure out where women are disadvantaged and fix it") - cool. Masculism (as in the same but about men) - amazing. But we can't have one of them and hope for it to fix stuff for everyone. Either we go united for an actual antisexism, or we need both to be balanced. What happens here is the subversion of the men movements into yet another feminist space. We have enough of that.