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this post was submitted on 28 Oct 2024
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Men's Liberation
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“Kill all men” - Lauded, celebrated, even encouraged.
“Kill all women” - Misogyny and hatred of the highest order.
In a fair and equitable society, you cannot have both. Either both are lauded and celebrated, or both are examples of gender bigotry and hate that should be widely repulsive and actively shamed.
The fact that the two above exist in society, exactly as I have characterized them, demonstrates the massive, pervasive, cancerous, and corrosive anti-male gender bigotry that has already infested our society at all levels.
Sure, a tiny percentage of men are still “at the top”. Whoop-de-doo. Are we to judge and persecute the lower 98% by the status of the top 2%?
And sure, a tiny percentage of men still behave badly. Again: whoop-de-doo. Are we to judge and persecute the vast majority of well-behaving men, and treat them as if THEY were behaving in the exact same way, based on that vocal minority?
This is how you push men away, to isolate and to alienate them.
You cannot treat all men as a monolith of evil, responsible for everything and anything that ills not just women, but society as a whole. You cannot punish men for every perceived benefit of “teh patriarchy”, especially when those men (most under 40) no longer receive any benefit whatsoever from said patriarchal structures. You cannot provide benefits and help and services to exclusively women, locking out male sufferers of those same systems, especially when women are no longer the majority of sufferers under those structures. You cannot give lopsided advantages to women, artificially raising them above men, in systems that are supposed to be merit-based or performance-based.
Otherwise, why call it “equality”, when it clearly isn’t in any way, shape, or form?
Look at both sides in the same light, with each as deserving the same rights and protections and responsibilities as the other, and the rightward-shift of men becomes blatantly reasonable and obviously expectant. Because the alt-right is the only group which is “giving” men anything to hope for, even though it is nothing more than empty promises and snake-oil salesmanship; a bait-and-switch meant to use men as pawns in a class war (Parasite Class vs working class) that will ultimately hurt them far more than help.
Final note: I have absolutely no problem with the vast majority of the things female supremacists are demanding. My problem is that they are wanting only women to benefit from these things, and are doing their best to deny men the same benefits at every turn. Which is why I take deep offense at anyone calling me a “feminist” -- to me, that is a slur, an anti-male pejorative. I am an egalitarianist, first and foremost. Equality of outcome and equality of opportunities is the foundation of where I stand. And I will call out hypocrisies and inequalities where and when I see them.
Do you have an example of this? Because as someone whose suggested death would be celebrated, I've not seen those reactions myself.
Sigh. Defending OP I can't believe I'm doing this ... It's "handwaves" everywhere.
College enrollments of men are dropping. High school attendance is dropping. Schools are not designed for boys. Society has grown to empower women which is good, but in some ways it's been at the expense of boys.
Now that in itself is not a problem if these boys were represented by healthy role models but in the erosion of traditional families many boy are raised with no, or poor representation which is exacerbating the issue. I'm not just talking about single parent homes. I'm talking about toxic adults that have dug into the battle of the sexes.
My boys will be alright because I'm a great dad and I love women and want to be the rising tide that lifts all ships be they women, lgbt, poc, etc.
I know men my age however who have lost the plot and are more toxic today than they were 20 years ago. These men have kids... Shit is generational.
Good parents raise good kids as a generalization.
I fully agree with what you are saying, but are you sure you responded to the intended comment? I was asking for examples of calls to kill all men being lauded, celebrated and/or encouraged.
It was a whole thing on Twitter apparently. #killallwhitemen was a story some time ago.
I don't have any details about it, but it's likely where that comment came from.
Is anyone surprised when women say they want bears over men, and other stuff? I understand the meaning of that whole thing too, but c'mon, don't act too surprised.
When I did a Google search of #killallwhitemen, I found plenty of articles about how controversial it was, not celebrations and encouragements.
And there is a giant leap between a thought exercise about how women feel unsafe around men, and encouraging calls to kill all men.
I understand why you feel uncomfortable with the word "feminist". I personally don't believe that feminism is inherently anti-male, but I also can't ignore the people whose behaviour doesn't fit inside my definition of that term; to do otherwise would be doing the "No True Scotsman" fallacy. For me, identifying as a feminist means having to contend with that — that is to say that if I want feminism to account for the ways that men are fucked over by the patriarchy, then it's important that I challenge hateful rhetoric in supposedly progressive spaces.
I also call myself an egalitarian for the reason that I believe all people are created equal, and deserve equal rights and opportunities.
I was in high school when things like making boys take anti-rape pledges and saying “not all men” would get you in trouble. It really felt like I was reduced by my gender to a rapist and an abuser by default.
There were also men’s rights groups that got massively shutdown and harassed, which upset me as a man who has issues. It felt like there wasn’t and still isn’t a place to discuss things like men’s mental health, suicide rates, declining male education rates, societal double standards, and how family law can be biased and where it can be improved. Specifically issues like how men get punished for taking parental leave to a much higher degree than women, or that my single-father brother wasn’t able to take his son to curricular activities because they were run by “mommy groups”, and being a single dad isn’t being a mom (sure there’s a place for mom focused groups, but they were the default).
The people pushing the “kill all men” aren’t feminists, they’re just sexists/supremacists. If they were in the position of men for the last X hundred years they’d be exactly like the patriarchy.
I do think you have a point that encountering a lot of anti-male sentiment will alienate some men and drive them towards alt-right anti-female groups.
The same mechanism can probably explain why encountering a lot of anti-female sentiment will alienate some women and drive them towards anti-male groups
Both these things are understandable but bad. If you're actually in favour of equality, you should probably call out both these extremes. Don't excuse men OR women for having extreme and destructive views.