Jezebel 
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New York, 9:43 PM
Tue Nov 24
62 posts in the last 24 hours
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08:15 PM
Equality with men implies men are the standard. Fuck that bullshit. Men are the fucking oppressors! I want liberation from male oppression! Men can have equality with women if they want.
08:39 PM
But still, if you cast men as The Oppressors, you're not only playing into every feminist stereotype ever, but you're being unfair.
08:42 PM
07:58 PM
05:01 PM
That said, I feel like feminism still doesn't know enough about women to spend a whole lot of time talking about men. Let's put it this way: there are entire swaths of women that feel completely alienated from feminism, and I don't mean the Sarah Palin set. I mean radical WoC whose voices have been marginalized within the movement, transwomen who have been attacked by theoretical allies who subscribe to a highly static (and largely unfeminist) notion of sex and gender, etc. These are real problems with feminism, and real things I wish we spent more time discussing on a site like Jez. I guess I still feel annoyed when we take long timeouts to talk about men instead.
But most of the time, when this subject comes up, I see a lot of people running around desperate to tell men they don't really hate them like those "other feminists," by which they generally mean women whose work they ill understand, read a newspaper article about once, heard a college professor (mis)interpret as saying all sex is rape, etc. They are the ones being dismissed as "hateful harridans." And that worries me. That I do find distressing. I hate seeing feminism so anxious about its apparent love of men, so to speak.
/scatterbrain
05:17 PM
Totally agree with your statement "feminism still doesn't know enough about women to spend a whole lot of time talking about men". We have to understand and respect each other fully first and I can't honestly say we are there yet.
Men finally joining together and finding their best path is a good thing IMO. But it is THEIR path to walk not ours.
05:30 PM
08:05 PM
Especially about how these narratives of evil man-hating feminists are inventions of women, and how the current feminist movement hasn't done enough to reach out to the radical women who have been alienated from mainstream feminism due to class, race, or sex.
I do think it's important for places like Jez to talk about stuff like this, though--in order to talk about how while, yes, the patriarchy does hurt men, the pain the patriarchy brings down upon men is unfathomable in comparison.
Also I am basically as man-hating as a relatively mentally stable person can be. I have no problem saying that men are the problem. And guess what--my boyfriend (shock!) recently told me that the longer he dates me, the more he begins to realize how much the world really does hate women, and how much men really do suck. Once I trapped him with my feminine whiles, he was too distracted by my boobies (or sumthin) to leave, and I made him listen to my rants before I let him have sex with me. And once he got hep to it, he was like, "I knew rape was a problem, always. But it wasn't until you that I realized that Rape Culture is everywhere and once you start to look for it you see it everywhere, and you realize how dangerous and violent the world is for women." So even menfolk can be taught to see it. And even reasonable menfolk, with the right learnin', can see how fucked up male oppression is.
04:53 PM
04:45 PM
Look at all the feminist love for men and their problems! Not a single instance of "this is But What about the Menz territory"! People expressing genuine concern about how feminism affects men.
TAKE THAT AND SHOVE IT, MRAS!
04:31 PM
There's no 'should' about it, feminism is all about equality with men - but for that to happen, men have to give up some of their power, not lobby for more - duh.
I see these mens groups as nothing more than the growing pains of feminism succeeding - the men who are beginning to feel disempowered are naturally going to start complaining about it. So we should be celebrating the fact that these groups are emerging now - it's proof of progress.
05:32 PM
"Equality for males" translates to every man taking a 30% cut in salary, being catcalled on the street, judged on their BMI, advertised to in color-coding, dismissed as irrational and overly emotional, told that they suck at math, and wearing 4" inch heels as a societal expectation.
My feminism is about "equity between genders."
I read a brilliant crit of genderwars in the tech sector recently, where the claim was made that more women in computer science does not mean that men will be losing ground or jobs to women--it just means that there will be more total people in the field. No threat: [infotrope.net]
06:33 PM
07:14 PM
03:58 PM
Personally, I don't have much stock in the "MRA movement," because it largely comes off as a backlash without sound philosophical or social footing. It doesn't stand on it's own as needing "advocates" in my book. Feminism, by contrast, arose out of an irrefutable need for women to be represented in government and society and be afforded the basic human rights of autonomy and agency.
Absolutely, there are concerns that the MRAs raise that need to be addressed, but I find it far more divisive and counterproductive to organize around the sex-differences than to work for the collective good - so many of the issues in question are really human issues first, and gender, ethnic, and socioeconomic issues, second; And this indeed, may be the ultimate lesson of feminism.
04:25 PM
But I disagree with their logic - that stereotype rarely comes from feminism.
I wish that they would work with feminists and try to break down gender stereotypes, instead of sectioning themselves off and bitching about how bad they've got it. It takes all kinds, and lord knows that men don't necessarily have it easy, should they fall outside the expected gendered norms (murder, sexual assault, social ostracism, etc.). But again, not the fault of feminism, which is often actively fighting the stereotypes and the logic used to come to the conclusion that it's okay to murder someone in a "gay panic".
04:59 PM
Meanwhile, I as a feminist stand up for mens' rights and humanity and the people who most often disagree with me are men, because they don't want to give up the perks---the low standards, the degree of power, etc., etc., Amongst other things, being a human being means less power and more work. A lot of guys don't want that. The rewards are kind of intangible.
05:15 PM
Earlier, it is a generalization that I make about MRAs, and perhaps it concurs with a stereotype, but I base my generalization on the observed behaviors and expressed attitudes rather than assumptions and character assassination, and for that generalization, I take sole responsibility.
I think we need to change the phrase: "One can be passionate and still objective." To: "One must be passionate and still objective."
05:54 PM
Yeah, being a decent person is less power, more work. That sucks :( I like to think it's all gonna work out and we'll all look back at this and laugh, and be like, "What were you all afraid of? We live in a magical utopia now!"
#tips
05:59 PM
It's amazing to me the lengths to which men will go to cling to the low bar for their behavior. If a guy betrays the 'bros before hos' standard, it's amazing what other guys will do, no matter how right he is. He's making them look good, they're making themselves look bad---I don't get it.
#tips
06:00 PM
I agree with that last statement. We have to care, but we can't let ourselves get so involved with the caring we stop learning.
#tips
06:20 PM
07:53 PM
But yeah, that's a strong one. It works negatively, too, if a man sides with a woman instead of his friends. Instantly, he's "pussy-whipped" or something. I wish it could be on an equal level, especially outside of a romantic relationship. Why can't my male friends side with me without the accusation that I'm sleeping with them? Can't I be right on my own account?
#tips
07:53 PM
#tips
03:48 PM
It's really, really, REALLY not that fucking hard.
03:28 PM
We sort of need just a human group, that essentially works for all humans to have the same rights.
03:27 PM
03:25 PM
The other issue is the very real injustice men -- on an individual by individual basis -- can experience in the justice system. Because the system is in some cases, and for good historical reasons, tuned to favor women, there will inevitably be outlier cases where men are slighted by the justice system. The problem is in treating these cases as pandemic rather than as individual cases where the system fails -- and the system fails everyone from time to time, not just men. But, I think it can feed back into the persecution complex I mentioned above. The trick, I think, is to recognize and not belittle the concerns men express about injustice, but also to emphasize that these injustices occur largely on a case-by-case basis, and pale in comparison to the systemic oppression and injustice committed against women and others disadvantaged by privilege.
04:14 PM
03:23 PM
Of course, as a feminist, I believe that men and women are equal. A part of this means that I do want to stop when men are oppressed in our society. Because while there is male privilege, there are men that get abused. There are also things like the high number of African American men who are imprisoned.
03:23 PM
03:18 PM
What, do they want me to fight for them then make them a sandwich?
03:17 PM
03:33 PM