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
It's similar to 'Black lives matter.'
Virtually no one's saying that to mean 'only Black lives matter,' but people respond to it as though that's the implication. It could be qualified each time we say it as, 'Black lives matter the same as all lives do, but Black lives in particular are being treated as though they don't matter in accordance with our longstanding policy of white supremacism,' but that that isn't necessary. In fact, the reaction that 'Black lives matter' evokes from sensitive crackers helps to illustrate the fact that they're more concerned with their own image than they are with drawing attention to systemic oppression.
Men are predators. We're taught and encouraged at every turn to be predators, and way way too many of us are. Sure, I'm not. My friends aren't. I'd bet your friends aren't.
But then, most men I know (US deep south) are vocally fine with 'non-violent' kinds of rape. When I hear people talk about a huge, systemic problem with our concept of manhood including predation, I'm not concerned with whether or not they make sure to explicitly leave room for me in their complaint. I have all the room I need in society for my identity as a white cisman. I don't need even more of it from discussions around toxic masculinity, but those discussions need succinct messaging for reach.
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Gender is fake. "Men" as a cultural institution is a toxic concept that needs to either die or be reformed to the extent it's unrecognizeable. There is an ACAB kind of function happening here: not all men do bad things, but if you hold being a man in higher regard than being human, whether explicitly through beliefs or implicitly through the kinds of behaviors you defend, you are effectively a gender cop.
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Oh no, a lady on the internet was mean to me. I'm so oppressed. In one paragraph she upturned 500 years of white supremacy and chattel slavery, 10000 years of patriarchal violence, and completely obliterated the rape culture that results in 1 in 3 women experiencing sexual violence. How will I ever recover?????
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Okay, so in that case, why do you identify with an oppressive class of people? What do you get out it other than contradictions? This isn't me saying "be trans", btw, it's me saying "question what being a Man is." Should men be in childcare? Yes. Should masc rape victims be recognized and empathized with? Yes. Should men be allowed to break away from toxic masculinity and feel true freedom to be whatever they want? Also yes. But Men as a class of people needs to be dismantled completely for that to happen to a degree that establishes true equality. Tbh, I'm getting on board with abolishing gender in general.
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It sounds like you’re dealing with a lot of internalized dysphoria and unprocessed trauma. I’m sorry you’ve experienced those things.
I hope you’re able to work through those as it’s currently being expressed in a pretty reactive way. Masculinity and men are wonderful when decoupled from toxicity.
Patriarchy harms all of us and an important step to dismantling it is acknowledging how it harms, which is why it’s necessary to talk about things like predatory behaviors.
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I’m confused what the disagreement here is then?
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hmm? We must be talking past each other because that’s not what I described as reactive at all.
I’ll need to look back at who added the “men are predators” as an example, because that’s honestly a poor example as its liable to raise hackles.
I'm sorry that your personal situation sucks, and I hope you can figure it out. But everything else you said is just complacency.
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"I don't want to interrogate masculinity because it's hard and everyone else is doing it, so actually you're bad for wanting to change the status quo." Like, cool for you that you get to choose to ignore this sort of stuff rather than wonder if the place you live is going to turn fash and make your existence illegal.
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You are, though. You're taking the enlightened centrist stance. And while there's nothing wrong with being cis or masc in itself, the fact that you don't question your own gender even if as a thought experiment says a lot. One really interesting take I saw from a cis guy is: "You know, I realized that I've never had to question my gender and who I was in society, and that in itself feels like a kind of privilege I have over other people."
Gender, as it exists, enforces the patriarchy, and not even thinking about the fundamental questions of who you are and how your identity is propagandized, but rather going "I identify with this group to the extent I think these detractors are talking about me and need to defend myself" is supporting that gender ideology.
I also said that people respond to 'Black lives matter' as though it meant that only Black lives matter. Did I accuse all people of doing that, or did I say that people do it? You know, particularly the people who do it?
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I'm not trying to reiterate that point here, though. I'm noting that "people respond to 'Black lives matter' poorly" doesn't refer to all people any more than "men are predators" refers to all men.
'Men are predators' and 'not all men are predators' are compatible statements. The reason why I think it's about the right level of specificity - which is to say it's ambiguous - is that specifying one facet of toxic masculinity reduces the discussion to only that facet. We're taught to be predators, allowed to be, encouraged to be, incentivized to be, enabled to be... It's a much broader problem than can be laid out succinctly in any specific terms.
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