eg “not all men” weirdos
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Edit: to further clarify the example above since it set off some brainworms, this can be seen when people respond to discussions about patriarchy and the way it shapes toxic masculinity with defensive “not all men” statements.
When we discuss systems, we are aware that not everyone who has privilege within them internalizes it the same way.
Men are not somehow evil. Masculinity is not somehow evil. Feminism is about liberation of everyone from patriarchy. The issue is that you can wind up needing to “protect” or cater to very fragile expectations of individuals and that can sometimes wind up recentering discussion on purely men and their feelings about patriarchy.
That is an important aspect of the discussion, but it cannot be the only one. Given that one of the patriarchal behaviors that many men are taught is to talk over anyone who is not a man, space must be intentionally created for others.
Anyway, this would be better covered in a dedicated effort post on feminism and positive masculinity.
This is however a meme featuring Josie and the pussy cats with a comments section that proves the meme is accurate lol
A huge part of the prevailing liberal ideology is the fetichising of personal responsibility as an explanation for social phenomena. Good things happen because good individuals choose to be good, bad things happen because bad individual choose to be bad.
When liberals hear about things like white supremacy, patriarchy or the exploitation of labour they lack the ability to contextualise these things as general social trends. When they hear you talk about an injustice they automatically assume that someone is to blame on an individual level. When they then hear that they are being privileged by said injustice, their minds jumps to the conclusion that you think they are the bad guys who are to blame for this.
The liberal mind immediately distorts any talk of privilege and oppression into personal accusations directed against them.