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Just a piece of advice: try to take a step back and listen more carefully to the complaints you're hearing. When people talk about dismantling the patriarchy, o

Just a piece of advice: try to take a step back and listen more carefully to the complaints you're hearing. When people talk about dismantling the patriarchy, or about racial privilege, they are not actually talking about any one particular person. You are fully able to be white, male, privileged, and still be an ally to those who do not benefit as much from the power structures in our society. Instead of feeling personally attacked when you hear these issues discussed, try to remember we are all on the same team, fighting to tackle problems that are bigger than just one individual.

SuddsMcDuff 7y ago
Take for example a comment from this very thread: "Feminism has brought about a lot of changes, but I don't think we can lay this one at the feet of women trying to escape their compulsory reliance on unreliable, selfish, and inconsiderate men." How should we take a step back and listen more carefully to this? How are we to interpret that other than as an attack on all men?
- CodeCube 7y ago
  Are you an unreliable, selfish, and inconsiderate man? If the answer is yes, then it's an attack on you ... if however you work to be reliable, selfless, and considerate, then it's not an attack on you. Surely, you have to acknowledge that throughout history, men have been quite terrible to women ... and yes, some of that exists still today. So that being the case, you _must_ understand that for many women out there, it's still a struggle to live their life in a way that is not negatively influenced by some men.
  - SuddsMcDuff 7y ago
    "Surely, you have to acknowledge that throughout history, men have been quite terrible to women" Yes of course but what I don't understand is why you're choosing to focus exclusively on one narrow aspect of the entire history of human cruelty. Men have been at least as terrible to other men as they have ever been to women. And women are not without the ability to be cruel either. Are you suggesting that it's OK for men to be terrible to other men but women should be a proctected group? That is already largely the case according to my understanding of western Judeo-Christian tradition. "You _must_ understand that for many women out there, it's still a struggle to live their life in a way that is not negatively influenced by some men. Again, why focus on such a narrow aspect of the problem? The vast majority of men also struggle to live their life in a way that is not negatively influenced by 'some men'.
  - cc81 7y ago
    Men have been more terrible to other men. And women have also been terrible to other women, and to men. A lot of men have lived with spouses that have made their lives incredibly shitty but it was not acceptable for them to leave either. And it is not like the traditional gender roles means "Men has it ok and women's lives are worse".
  - scarejunba 7y ago
    Well, surely being either reliable, unselfish, or considerate will suffice. Fortunately, as someone notoriously unreliable and selfish, being considerate seems to be enough.
- jonahrd 7y ago
  Pay attention to the syntax, it's not an attack on all men. It's quite specifically an attack on "unreliable, selfish, and inconsiderate men." These men do exist, and these men have historically used societal norms to trap women in marriages or work that was unfair. It's great that we are working toward a society which recognizes that this is harmful and allows these women to seek better opportunity for themselves!
  - 0815test 7y ago
    Ah, but what about "unreliable, selfish and inconsiderate" women? Are we "allowed" to attack them or is that 'sexist'? Everyone agrees that being unreliable, selfish and inconsiderate is not great, but using this as a character smear directed towards one single gender is just wrong, whether it's "men" or "women".
  - luckylion 7y ago
    > It's quite specifically an attack on "unreliable, selfish, and inconsiderate men." That's one very generous way to read it. The other is that men are unreliable, selfish and inconsiderate, which is pretty much what I've heard over the past 5 years from most people that identify as feminist.
    - kelnos 7y ago
      ... and the principal of charity suggest that, instead of automatically engaging outrage mode, you should try to interpret it in the most charitable way possible. Sure, there are certainly some women who say things like this who are also misandrists, but the majority of them are not, and just want to call out the men who are actually a problem. If you're not a problem, then you're not being called out. That's been my experience. Either you've somehow managed to speak only to the most cynical and hateful of feminists, or -- more likely -- you're getting defensive over something for no good reason. The ironic bit is that you're falling into the same trap: you're accusing "every" feminist of believing that all men are evil, based on your interactions with a few.
      - SuddsMcDuff 7y ago
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- 0xB31B1B 7y ago
  IMO complaints like this, and modern feminism aren’t about “men are bad” they’re about s lack of power that women have relative to men in the existing system, which leads to an inability to determine their futures and live free.
- evidenceoraxiom 7y ago
  > Nazism has brought about a lot of changes, but I don't think we can lay this one at the feet of Aryans trying to escape their compulsory reliance on unreliable, selfish, and inconsiderate Jews. Hmm... Sounds like hate to me.
ohboyherewego 7y ago
Them: “I hate all black people, we must solve the problem of brown-ness which is pervasive in our society .” This commenter: “You should listen closely to the complaints of these people, they have legitimate concerns and you need to become an ally to help them tackle the problems they are mentioning. They are not directing hate at you in particular so you should not be personally offended.”
- WalterGR 7y ago
  It’s super interesting how many accounts there are like yours that are newly created and appear to only exist to espouse conservative viewpoints. Out of curiosity, how did you personally come to be here on Hacker News?
  - true_religion 7y ago
    I’m fairly right wing, but I would never comment on HN unless it were through an alt.
    - WalterGR 7y ago
      But nothing has changed recently in the culture of HN that would recommend using alt accounts to push conservative viewpoints. However, there’s been a big uptick of these new accounts in the past 6 months or so.
      - luckylion 7y ago
        So conservative view points have always been downvoted quickly? It may have to do with the fact that your main account may be connected to your identity, and if you work at Google for example, uttering conservative view points might get you fired.
  - Solvitieg 7y ago
    Can we not conflate "right-wing"/conservatism with opinions like this? The topic we're discussing is not related to political leaning.
0815test 7y ago
I mean, you're not even wrong as far as that goes, but you might just be missing the point. "Racial privilege" is the latest variation on "bourgeois privilege", and we all know how toxic that idea was. Maybe he doesn't want to play on the Maoist team, or be its "ally". That's okay too. No one should be forced to deal with that kind of toxic, negative messaging.
bendbro 7y ago
Thank you pastor, I feel this confessional has been powerfully beneficial to my moral soul. I didn't realize I had lost touch with Justice due to my lack of prayer. I will lower my head and continue my labors, as morality demands. How many "fuck white men"s does Justice require to purify myself of this black mark?
- dymk 7y ago
  What an absurd and aggressive response to the comment you're responding to.
  - bendbro 7y ago
    Just a piece of advice: try to take a step back and listen more carefully to the complaints you're hearing...
amvalo 7y ago
> I volunteer a tremendous amount in education, where I’m the only male I generally even see in my field, and I constantly have to listen to my coworkers gleefully talk about how excited they are at how few young boys show up to our events. I hear them blatantly express disdain when a couple do.
cc81 7y ago
But people are not agreeing about the causes of the problems or the solutions. So if you say "Yeah, but I'm not talking about all white people" you should be able to exchange that to "black" instead and still not be racist for it not to be racist for example. People are very similar. It is nice to find a common enemy and it is nice to generalize. So on 4chan people analyze and find that black people are the problem and generalize about black people and in certain groups people find that white men are the problem and tend to generalize about white men.
- Miner49er 7y ago
  This misunderstands what race even is though. Race is a made up thing (created by white people) to give white people more power. To criticize white people for that is to critisize the system itself and critisize them for creating and continuing to allow the system of racism to exist. To say negative things about black people is sort of like victim blaming and it makes things worse.
  - cc81 7y ago
    Why do you think race is created by white people? So things like this from wiki is incorrect: >For example, an historian of the 3rd century Han Dynasty in the territory of present-day China describes barbarians of blond hair and green eyes as resembling "the monkeys from which they are descended".[2] (Gossett, pp. 4). or >This theory dates back to the Babylonian Talmud, which states, "the descendants of Ham are cursed by being black, and [it] depicts Ham as a sinful man and his progeny as degenerates." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_race_concepts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_race_concepts People all over the world are tribal and have probably always been.
    - Miner49er 7y ago
      I mean that race is a social construct. Who is and isn't what race is set by society and it changes. The definition of racism I'm using isn't simply prejudice, it's a system of oppression on the basis of race. Which, as I said above, is a social construct. Modern racism and the general idea of the current races was created out of European colonialism and racialized slavery. In America it was mostly racialized slavery. The Wikipedia article you mentioned describes this. That article says the word race itself is modern and wasn't used as it currently is until the 16th century.
tathougies 7y ago
How is this different than someone saying "I think feminists are trash, and feminists who disagree with me should take time to understand what I mean." In other words, do you understand why what you are saying is victim blaming?
- Miner49er 7y ago
  Because feminists are the victim fighting for equal rights. In racism, white people are not the victim, they are the creators of racism and are the people still allowing racism to exist. They are the attacker.
  - tathougies 7y ago
    Just because one was the victim in the past, does not mean one is not the perpetrators today. This just further indicates that you should have taken the time to listen to what someone might have to say, rather than strawmanning.
    - Miner49er 7y ago
      Of course that's true that they could no longer be the victim, but that's not the case here. Woman still are treated unequally many ways in society, and white people are still privelaged over black people (for example) in society. There's plenty of facts and statistics to back both of those statements up. Look at the wage gap between men and women and the average wealth of black vs white families, for a couple of examples.
      - tathougies 7y ago
        > Look at the wage gap between men and women and the average wealth of black vs white families, for a couple of examples. These are correlations not causations. But their truth values are, ultimately, completely irrelevant to the point being made, which is that you yourself have no desire to 'listen', but rather are attempting to simply have your quasi-religious propaganda imposed on anyone who disagrees with you, under the guise of rationality.

SuddsMcDuff 7y ago

Take for example a comment from this very thread: "Feminism has brought about a lot of changes, but I don't think we can lay this one at the feet of women trying to escape their compulsory reliance on unreliable, selfish, and inconsiderate men." How should we take a step back and listen more carefully to this? How are we to interpret that other than as an attack on all men?

CodeCube 7y ago
Are you an unreliable, selfish, and inconsiderate man? If the answer is yes, then it's an attack on you ... if however you work to be reliable, selfless, and considerate, then it's not an attack on you. Surely, you have to acknowledge that throughout history, men have been quite terrible to women ... and yes, some of that exists still today. So that being the case, you _must_ understand that for many women out there, it's still a struggle to live their life in a way that is not negatively influenced by some men.
- SuddsMcDuff 7y ago
  "Surely, you have to acknowledge that throughout history, men have been quite terrible to women" Yes of course but what I don't understand is why you're choosing to focus exclusively on one narrow aspect of the entire history of human cruelty. Men have been at least as terrible to other men as they have ever been to women. And women are not without the ability to be cruel either. Are you suggesting that it's OK for men to be terrible to other men but women should be a proctected group? That is already largely the case according to my understanding of western Judeo-Christian tradition. "You _must_ understand that for many women out there, it's still a struggle to live their life in a way that is not negatively influenced by some men. Again, why focus on such a narrow aspect of the problem? The vast majority of men also struggle to live their life in a way that is not negatively influenced by 'some men'.
- cc81 7y ago
  Men have been more terrible to other men. And women have also been terrible to other women, and to men. A lot of men have lived with spouses that have made their lives incredibly shitty but it was not acceptable for them to leave either. And it is not like the traditional gender roles means "Men has it ok and women's lives are worse".
- scarejunba 7y ago
  Well, surely being either reliable, unselfish, or considerate will suffice. Fortunately, as someone notoriously unreliable and selfish, being considerate seems to be enough.
jonahrd 7y ago
Pay attention to the syntax, it's not an attack on all men. It's quite specifically an attack on "unreliable, selfish, and inconsiderate men." These men do exist, and these men have historically used societal norms to trap women in marriages or work that was unfair. It's great that we are working toward a society which recognizes that this is harmful and allows these women to seek better opportunity for themselves!
- 0815test 7y ago
  Ah, but what about "unreliable, selfish and inconsiderate" women? Are we "allowed" to attack them or is that 'sexist'? Everyone agrees that being unreliable, selfish and inconsiderate is not great, but using this as a character smear directed towards one single gender is just wrong, whether it's "men" or "women".
- luckylion 7y ago
  > It's quite specifically an attack on "unreliable, selfish, and inconsiderate men." That's one very generous way to read it. The other is that men are unreliable, selfish and inconsiderate, which is pretty much what I've heard over the past 5 years from most people that identify as feminist.
  - kelnos 7y ago
    ... and the principal of charity suggest that, instead of automatically engaging outrage mode, you should try to interpret it in the most charitable way possible. Sure, there are certainly some women who say things like this who are also misandrists, but the majority of them are not, and just want to call out the men who are actually a problem. If you're not a problem, then you're not being called out. That's been my experience. Either you've somehow managed to speak only to the most cynical and hateful of feminists, or -- more likely -- you're getting defensive over something for no good reason. The ironic bit is that you're falling into the same trap: you're accusing "every" feminist of believing that all men are evil, based on your interactions with a few.
    - SuddsMcDuff 7y ago
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
0xB31B1B 7y ago
IMO complaints like this, and modern feminism aren’t about “men are bad” they’re about s lack of power that women have relative to men in the existing system, which leads to an inability to determine their futures and live free.
evidenceoraxiom 7y ago
> Nazism has brought about a lot of changes, but I don't think we can lay this one at the feet of Aryans trying to escape their compulsory reliance on unreliable, selfish, and inconsiderate Jews. Hmm... Sounds like hate to me.

ohboyherewego 7y ago

Them: “I hate all black people, we must solve the problem of brown-ness which is pervasive in our society .” This commenter: “You should listen closely to the complaints of these people, they have legitimate concerns and you need to become an ally to help them tackle the problems they are mentioning. They are not directing hate at you in particular so you should not be personally offended.”

WalterGR 7y ago
It’s super interesting how many accounts there are like yours that are newly created and appear to only exist to espouse conservative viewpoints. Out of curiosity, how did you personally come to be here on Hacker News?
- true_religion 7y ago
  I’m fairly right wing, but I would never comment on HN unless it were through an alt.
  - WalterGR 7y ago
    But nothing has changed recently in the culture of HN that would recommend using alt accounts to push conservative viewpoints. However, there’s been a big uptick of these new accounts in the past 6 months or so.
    - luckylion 7y ago
      So conservative view points have always been downvoted quickly? It may have to do with the fact that your main account may be connected to your identity, and if you work at Google for example, uttering conservative view points might get you fired.
- Solvitieg 7y ago
  Can we not conflate "right-wing"/conservatism with opinions like this? The topic we're discussing is not related to political leaning.

0815test 7y ago

I mean, you're not even wrong as far as that goes, but you might just be missing the point. "Racial privilege" is the latest variation on "bourgeois privilege", and we all know how toxic that idea was. Maybe he doesn't want to play on the Maoist team, or be its "ally". That's okay too. No one should be forced to deal with that kind of toxic, negative messaging.

bendbro 7y ago

Thank you pastor, I feel this confessional has been powerfully beneficial to my moral soul. I didn't realize I had lost touch with Justice due to my lack of prayer. I will lower my head and continue my labors, as morality demands. How many "fuck white men"s does Justice require to purify myself of this black mark?

dymk 7y ago
What an absurd and aggressive response to the comment you're responding to.
- bendbro 7y ago
  Just a piece of advice: try to take a step back and listen more carefully to the complaints you're hearing...

amvalo 7y ago

> I volunteer a tremendous amount in education, where I’m the only male I generally even see in my field, and I constantly have to listen to my coworkers gleefully talk about how excited they are at how few young boys show up to our events. I hear them blatantly express disdain when a couple do.

cc81 7y ago

But people are not agreeing about the causes of the problems or the solutions. So if you say "Yeah, but I'm not talking about all white people" you should be able to exchange that to "black" instead and still not be racist for it not to be racist for example. People are very similar. It is nice to find a common enemy and it is nice to generalize. So on 4chan people analyze and find that black people are the problem and generalize about black people and in certain groups people find that white men are the problem and tend to generalize about white men.

Miner49er 7y ago
This misunderstands what race even is though. Race is a made up thing (created by white people) to give white people more power. To criticize white people for that is to critisize the system itself and critisize them for creating and continuing to allow the system of racism to exist. To say negative things about black people is sort of like victim blaming and it makes things worse.
- cc81 7y ago
  Why do you think race is created by white people? So things like this from wiki is incorrect: >For example, an historian of the 3rd century Han Dynasty in the territory of present-day China describes barbarians of blond hair and green eyes as resembling "the monkeys from which they are descended".[2] (Gossett, pp. 4). or >This theory dates back to the Babylonian Talmud, which states, "the descendants of Ham are cursed by being black, and [it] depicts Ham as a sinful man and his progeny as degenerates." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_race_concepts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_race_concepts People all over the world are tribal and have probably always been.
  - Miner49er 7y ago
    I mean that race is a social construct. Who is and isn't what race is set by society and it changes. The definition of racism I'm using isn't simply prejudice, it's a system of oppression on the basis of race. Which, as I said above, is a social construct. Modern racism and the general idea of the current races was created out of European colonialism and racialized slavery. In America it was mostly racialized slavery. The Wikipedia article you mentioned describes this. That article says the word race itself is modern and wasn't used as it currently is until the 16th century.

tathougies 7y ago

How is this different than someone saying "I think feminists are trash, and feminists who disagree with me should take time to understand what I mean." In other words, do you understand why what you are saying is victim blaming?

Miner49er 7y ago
Because feminists are the victim fighting for equal rights. In racism, white people are not the victim, they are the creators of racism and are the people still allowing racism to exist. They are the attacker.
- tathougies 7y ago
  Just because one was the victim in the past, does not mean one is not the perpetrators today. This just further indicates that you should have taken the time to listen to what someone might have to say, rather than strawmanning.
  - Miner49er 7y ago
    Of course that's true that they could no longer be the victim, but that's not the case here. Woman still are treated unequally many ways in society, and white people are still privelaged over black people (for example) in society. There's plenty of facts and statistics to back both of those statements up. Look at the wage gap between men and women and the average wealth of black vs white families, for a couple of examples.
    - tathougies 7y ago
      > Look at the wage gap between men and women and the average wealth of black vs white families, for a couple of examples. These are correlations not causations. But their truth values are, ultimately, completely irrelevant to the point being made, which is that you yourself have no desire to 'listen', but rather are attempting to simply have your quasi-religious propaganda imposed on anyone who disagrees with you, under the guise of rationality.