https://twitter.com/LGBTglitterati/status/1547205786601930752
Constantly telling men they are slavering sexual predators with no control over themselves is probably good for society
Some day I need to sit down and sort out my feelings about gender and myself thoroughly. I can definitely say that there are some scars from being told that my sexuality, once it developed, would hurt women. That once I hit puberty, I would want to abuse and manipulate women, and all my morality and kindness would fade. There was some time I related to gay characters and I thought I might be gay. In hindsight, I just wasn't homophobic and also saw them as the only ones in non-predatory relationships. I very often am just freaking out inside my own head about my feelings towards people I am attracted to. So yeah, I don't think is a good thing at all.
men can be loving and caring, men can be nurturing, men have just as many instincts around children as women do, men can be gentle and kind, all soft and sweet traits appear in men just as much as women, men are not what society says we are. Children do well with good male role models. being a man does not mean being a monster. being a man can be beautiful and elegant. there is nothing wrong or evil about being a man.
don't drop your crown, king.
I often tell folks that I don't know what 'being a man' even means for this reason. Everything that they mention as being something only men do, I've seen women do, and vice versa. I'm not even convinced that 'men' and 'women' exist outside cultural roles, which vary across human experience to render the distinction pointless. We're all just people, some of us have pipes that go in, some that go out. We also sometimes have different hair colors, eye colors, skin tones, etc. As ridiculous as it is to think that skin tone has anything to do with someone's behavior, maybe it's also true that it's silly to denote behavior to one's piping?
I suppose trans folks have a better understanding here so I'd be glad to fill in any knowledge gaps with book recommendations. Trans Liberation was pretty good but it was written for an earlier time, I feel (the struggle carries on though). I suspect Judith Butler's writings might have some nuggets of knowledge but I haven't read anything yet.
That’s a very good point. It made me think that a better question rather than what is a man or a woman, is what makes a good person. If the traits one considers manly/womanly are not in line with being a good and happy person, then why are they traits to strive towards at all?
Takes like this are pretty common from TERFs in my experience yeah.
Yeah TERFs also almost always seem to be biological determinists, so they think Y chromosomes are just inherently corrupt
It is really sad we have people arguing online which chromosome is superior.
Yeah, liberal feminism in general relies on the demonization of masculinity as inherently patriarchal, which is extremely alienating to trans men and other AFAB masculine people in particular, as well as anti-patriarchal men in general.
While it’s true that most benefit from patriarchy, it’s in the sense that they’ve learned how to minimize the abuse of other patriarchal men: by remaining stoic and avoiding femininity at all costs. It’s portrayed as dominance because the most dominant men act the same way, but for the vast majority of men it’s a pretty miserable position which makes them easy to manipulate and keep in line.
So much of undoing patriarchal programming for me has just been to not give a shit about how I might be judged for so many things in my life. I would instinctually recoil back and then realize upon further inspection that the thing I was avoiding doing wasn’t harmful in any way. And it’s put me in touch with aspects of my masculinity that I’ve never had a conscious relationship with. Things which are traditionally considered feminine are part of my masculinity because the act of refusing to ground my identity in othering people is part of the masculine ideal I strive towards
Some of second wave feminism involves treating gender as a class, with women existing only as a contrast to men, and that women would therefore become class conscious and lead the gender revolution. There's some genuinely interesting stuff, but TERFs frequently spin this into things like "lesbianism" being a political choice, men being evil as a rule, and of course all the horrible anti-trans stuff.
Former teacher here.
Another former teacher friend of mine is a 300 pound 6”3 teddy bear of a guy, his co teacher had this weird jealously based hatred of him that cumulated with her accusing the poor dude of abusing kids. And, despite there not being a SCRAP of evidence and everyone knowing it was BS, the head of special edd decided to investigate him based souly on “how he looks”
Last I heard guy took a settlement and has gone completely off the grid. It sucks tho he was a great teacher and his students always adored him.
God that's literally my greatest fear right there. Thats horrifying.
ETA: Genuinely wondering if I should even go back into childcare at this point. Its like, the only thing that makes me happy, but if this is the type of shit I'd have to deal with...
Nah dude, I work in education. If you want to do it, you should
Do you deal with suspicion and bad assumptions? there were some in my last job. I work primarily with young kids, or I try to. My new boss at my old job took me away from them and... its al ong story I might post about it sometime.
The experience in education depends so much on where you teach. The unfortunate answer is that you have to find a school with good admin that don't promote a fucked up work environment like that
Yeah, my problems in my old job were 90% from authority figures lol. So that tracks.
These are niche cases and internet cranks. So long as you aren't making tiktoks or something, you should be fine.
A family member of mine is a professor and he left high school education after a woman began following him around town in her car and stalking him in places like the mall and movie theater - this was in the late 1980's in SoCal. At first he thought the woman was trying to express interest in him, but he was shy. One night in front of a bar with his teacher friends he saw she was driving down the street. So he stepped off the curb to wave at her to invite her to drink with them and instead she tried to run him down with her car. She missed him, hit the curb, and then proceeded to drive down the street into the back of an empty parked car. She was arrested and charged.
Long story short: She became convinced that he was dating her daughter because she found a love letter her daughter had written to him but not actually sent to him. Instead of doing the rational thing like talking to the principal she spent months seething with anger and hatred to the point it formed her intent to murder a man she had never even spoken to.
some real "lynch a Black guy because your daughter expressed interest in him" vibes
As if I don't have enough trauma around my last childcare job, despite working with children being the main thing that makes me happy and motivated in life, now this?
Joanne please stop mixing pills and sangria challenge (impossible)
My nephews were molested by a woman, really loathe the insinuation only men can be predators.
When I was 14 I fell asleep on a couch backstage at a theater where my mom was performing and I woke up to an 18 year old girl who did stuff there feeling my arm and with her face about 2 inches from mine. Same girl would make weird comments and stare at me, both before and after that happened.
Obviously that’s really minor but it was really fucking uncomfortable and could’ve easily been much worse.
Gender critical people arguing for gender essentialism is pretty funny.
These billionaires could literally just sit in a vat of cocaine all day, indulge in non stop relaxation or hedonism, or just live their life enjoying every pastime they could ever think of without ever experiencing stress or a negative experience in the remainder of their lives.
Instead they spend their time arguing with peasants on twitter dot com. These people are sick.
They are empty. They are disassociated evil husks looking for constant affirmation.
This is the kind of shit that makes right wing propaganda against feminism more credible. Obviously the answer to terfs is not to become a nazi and instead embrace intersectionality, but someone who hears "feminists just hate men" and then sees this kind of shit is a lot more likely to believe it. Anyway, fuck gender roles and toxic masculinity.
:meow-cactus:
Damn majority of abuse comes from the relatives
I agree, fuck male teachers
:what:This is so fucking weird and dumb that it took me a minute to figure out what she was even arguing.
