4 ms·
I'm a feminist and I think it's harder to be a man than a woman
- bibinmohan 2y agoAre you a woman or a man?
- sshine 2y agoI'm going to do something anti-woke and assume that Celeste with the blog Matriarchal Blessing whose profile picture is this: https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fb5cbb2a8-38c1-4432-8bd1-88cca2a16e7e_1170x1170.jpeg https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_pr... -- is a woman.
- karamanolev 2y ago> Women read books by men, but men don’t read books by women. WHAT?
- sickofparadox 2y agoThis may be true, but only insofar as men don't read many books, period.
- bloak 2y agoIt's an exaggeration but there might be some truth in it. For example, J. K. Rowling was advised by her publisher/agent to use those initials rather than a first name because a feminine name would have discouraged boys from reading her books. On the other hand, I read somewhere that a lot of romantic novels (Mills & Boon, etc.) are written by men using a feminine pseudonym so probably someone should check the stats to see if there really is an asymmetry here.
- lynx23 2y ago[flagged]
- willcipriano 2y agoI believe this is the first time in history that the 'oppressed' class has better average material conditions (measured in things like life expectancy, serious workplace injury and death, imprisonment, suicide rates, outcomes in courts, genital mutilation, educational attainment) than the 'oppressor' class. I feel like that should give more pause to people to check priors. I'm not sure aliens landing on earth today would come to the same conclusion that most people have as to who is oppressed here.
- lynx23 2y agoYeah, we're living on some strange version of Angel One.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- _tk_ 2y agoWhile there are certainly areas, where boys and young men are now in a disadvantage (college degrees, high school grades) - something that we should try to mitigate - in other social contexts, women are still heavily discriminated against. Asserting that one group has it “harder” than the other, speaks to poor methodology and understanding of the situation.
- XMasFOl 2y agoTell me even one metric women are doing worse than men or boys regarding life? - Most suicides, men - Most homeless, men - Most with out partners, men - Most with out child (even though they would wanted one), men - Most dying at work, men - Most getting divorced, men - Most with out college or other degrees, men - Most died by violence, men and so on...
- foogazi 2y ago- most Firearms possessed - most paid sports employment - most elected office positions - most leadership position in private companies - most physical strength records - most Chess grandmasters - most Nobel prizes
- XMasFOl 2y agoYes you are pointing the top 1% of the most skilled people in the world and you do know most men don't own firearms unless you are talking about US which seems to be the "whole world" for you people.
- foogazi 2y agois the distribution at other groups beyond the 1% different ? Does the Physical strength ratio flip at some point ? Firearms: all the worlds militaries, police departments, paramilitaries, criminal gangs, habitual hunters, etc that at some point in the day possess a firearm
- xigoi 2y ago
- femmedang 2y agonews you can use
- komali2 2y ago> Men suffer under patriarchy because patriarchy is a system set up by a few men over everyone else- including most men. It is a system that allows for the most greedy, aggressive and selfish to rise to the top and dominate over everyone else. This is essentially what anarchists have been saying about patriarchy and other -archies for a century or so, hence the name (an... archy). The conflation of patriarchy with "men" is an example of those in power trying to identity-amalgate and shift the blame. By that I mean: the patriarchy is the hand of a few powerful men that oppresses many (men and women), and in order to protect themselves, these men lie and say "actually, all men, you are the patriarchy, the patriarchy benefits you, the patriarchy is not evil, and an attack on the patriarchy is an attack on all of you." I could take this sentence and plop it into so many ideologies. White supremacy, heterophilia, Zionism, Han Chauvinism, all ideologies that seek to uplift a very few powerful people, oppress all others, and then pick an identifying attribute to create a moat of proletariat around them to duke it out in culture wars. Billionaires claiming the union is an attack on hardworking individuals. Reactionary white supremacists claiming Black Lives Matter is an attack on all white people. Fascist Israeli leaders claiming opposition to their slaughter of Palestinians is an attack on global Jews. The CPC claiming criticism of them is actually racism against all Han people. But billionaires and their hardworking employees aren't the same at all. White supremacist leaders are the only ones under attack by Black Lives Matter, not random white people in suburbs. A criticism of the terrorist-funding fascist Netanyahu and his government (who is happy to send his police to beat Orthodox Jews) has nothing to do with Jewish people around the world. A criticism of the CPC has nothing to do with Han around the world (and on that note, it's becoming such that anyone with Asianic heritage is becoming "Han" by the CPC's encroaching standards). Yet each of these smaller groups claim to speak for / be one with these larger groups. I'm sad when see fellow leftists fall into the trap of attacking class allies, but to be fair it's very hard to sit down and convince every single person scared of the big Black Lives Matter protest that we probably actually share a cause and common enemy. I have no solutions other than personally always trying to remember who really is the source of so much suffering in the world and avoiding lashing out against class allies. This article is a great example that I feel follows the same strategy.
- sshine 2y agoThank you for bringing clarity to the conversation. As a fellow anarchist, I tend to forget to ask simple questions like: Who stands to benefit? Probably not poor, misogynist men.
- XMasFOl 2y ago[flagged]
- komali2 2y ago> its not because of patriarchy but because of HUGE HUGE empathy gap towards men and boys I recommend you continue reading the article, this is addressed as a fundamental aspect of the patriarchy and is basically what the entire article is about - the author writes that the patriarchy makes having empathy towards boys and men "gay" and highlights specifically a trans man who at first experienced all the benefits of the patriarchy, such as people finally listening to him when he spoke, and then discovering this exact downside that you listed when his mother died and nobody would comfort him. Nobody had empathy for him. > women are put on a pedestal and protected from all harm This is an odd thing to say considering for example women face more sexual violence than men, whereas men face more of other kinds of violence. It seems our society is simply harming people in different ways. > Let's change the legislation to be gender neutral. The same rights and obligations regarding gender must be guaranteed for everyone. I agree with this, however it's worth noting that because of biological differences, this necessitates for example that States aren't allowed to legislate different kinds of bodily autonomy based on someone's anatomy. Basically, abortion must be legal in this world you envision. > 2. Declare zero tolerance for all violence, regardless of the gender of the perpetrator or victim. So far as I know, in most nations that you as an HN poster are statistically likely to live in, striking someone is assault and is prosecuted. This includes instances of women striking men, if you're operating under the misguided belief that this isn't the case. > 3. Let's invest in men's healthcare as much as women's. I'll do you one better - let's just make it free for everyone :) > Let's tailor the safety net of welfare services to be more suitable for men and accessible to men I love the idea of expanding social services and welfare, I agree, we should do this! > Let's secure the child's right to their parents and treat fathers and mothers as equal parents. This sounds wonderful as well, however I wonder if you'll like how this looks in practice, such as for example in France where paternity tests are often banned since the result of a paternity test can cause great harm to the child (when the non-biological father abandons the kid or whatever). Do you still like this idea? > Let's make the school more suitable for boys, and make education motivating, supportive and encouraging for boys. Is it not already? Well, more funding for education, and an education system that's more motivating, supportive, and encouraging for people sounds wonderful, so agreed, we should do that. > Let men and boys be just beginning, as he himself arranges to be. They are not pressured, let alone forced, into any mold. Including if he wants to be a drag queen, a poet, a stripper, an effeminate model, or androgynous k-pop star, right? If so, we're in full agreement, in that we both agree that we should dismantle the patriarchy. > Declare paper abortion as human right. This doesn't quite make sense since an abortion is entirely a discussion about a woman's bodily autonomy, whereas child support is not a question of men's bodily autonomy. An unfortunate side effect of biology but quite concrete.
- la64710 2y agoThis is also a cultural thing. Eastern cultures gives more leniency to what men should and should not act like.
- deafpolygon 2y agoCould you detail that some more? Because my understanding is anything but. Especially Korean, Japanese and Indian culture.
- cogman10 2y agoGender performance is very much a cultural thing. I could see some seeing these cultures as being both more and less forgiving depending on the performance in question. Crying would probably be an example. US culture has a pretty strong demand that men never show tears (or most emotions in general). That's not really true of a lot of other cultures.
- rich_sasha 2y ago[flagged]
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- M95D 2y ago[flagged]
- jemmyw 2y agoIt's just not true. For a start, pink men's clothes have been around for a good while now. Also if you thought your clothing colour choice was affecting your ability to date just wear another colour, talk about an easy change. I've never been a "strong" man, physically or behaviourally. Bit of a joker sometimes, but mostly quiet, somewhat emotional. It never caused an issue. Of course, some women won't be attracted to that personality type, but then that'll be true in all directions. I don't know, maybe it's the men and women who use the dating apps? Or maybe the problem is something else that you're doing?
- M95D 2y agoI'm married now, but I remember very well what girls/women were looking for 15-20 years ago.
- komali2 2y agoRight, and like the article says, that's at least partially a patriarchal society drilling into them what "a real man" should look like and also that they should only date such men. But even 40 years ago counter cultural hippies were doing fine. Maybe there was a dry spell of that in the 90s but certainly modern women are open to "nontraditional" men, especially once you look outside the west. E.g. what a westerner would consider "effeminate" is usually considered attractive in men in South Korea. In the west there's certainly a large portion of women that find "nontraditional" men attractive.
- defrost 2y agoBarry Humphries, who famously wore fabulous pink dresses as Dame Edna Everage, was married for 33 years to Elizabeth Spender (played the wife of Michael Palin's career torturer in Terry Gilliam's Brazil) Point being, you've claimed as "absolute" something that is very clearly and absolutely not true.
- hi-v-rocknroll 2y agoThis belongs to a category of rabbit holes of the human condition that are entirely pointless to argue or worry about.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- benterix 2y agoWhile I agree to some extent, it's good to have a discussion on this from time to time as it's an important social topic. Especially when young girls became acquainted with history of women's rights and so on, they immediately tend to become convinced that men are the source of all evil. Some spit it out explicitly, some just hide that feeling in their hearts and go through lives like this. For this reason, it's worth remembering that the source of these problems for women and men is the same, even though effects differ. (1) For individual asault cases, these are violent people, almost always men, who choose men and women as their victims. (2) For systemic issues, it is the law. (3) For cultural issues (e.g expectations that men should "take care of the family" while women should take care of children/older family problems) this is the society with its prejudices. And while we can't do much about (1), there is a lot to be done for (2) and (3), and an honest and civilized discussion rather than flagging all posts on the subject is a part of it.
- hi-v-rocknroll 2y agoWorrying about dying by meteor impact is a waste of life because you can't do anything about it, and so is this. Internal locus of control has boundaries of what is and is not worth worrying about. And this clearly isn't except for other people tend to be fixated on victimhood/oppression Olympics, tend to be unreasonable, and disinterested in accomplishing anything of positive social change.