Men's Liberation
This community is first and foremost a feminist community for men and masc people, but it is also a place to talk about men’s issues with a particular focus on intersectionality.
Rules
Everybody is welcome, but this is primarily a space for men and masc people
Non-masculine perspectives are incredibly important in making sure that the lived experiences of others are present in discussions on masculinity, but please remember that this is a space to discuss issues pertaining to men and masc individuals. Be kind, open-minded, and take care that you aren't talking over men expressing their own lived experiences.
Be productive
Be proactive in forming a productive discussion. Constructive criticism of our community is fine, but if you mainly criticize feminism or other people's efforts to solve gender issues, your post/comment will be removed.
Keep the following guidelines in mind when posting:
- Build upon the OP
- Discuss concepts rather than semantics
- No low effort comments
- No personal attacks
Assume good faith
Do not call other submitters' personal experiences into question.
No bigotry
Slurs, hate speech, and negative stereotyping towards marginalized groups will not be tolerated.
No brigading
Do not participate if you have been linked to this discussion from elsewhere. Similarly, links to elsewhere on the threadiverse must promote constructive discussion of men’s issues.
Recommended Reading
- The Will To Change: Men, Masculinity, And Love by bell hooks
- Politics of Masculinities: Men in Movements by Michael Messner
Related Communities
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The “the word implies women superiority” argument has to be the proverbial dead horse that gets beaten with a stick, when it comes to feminism, at this point…
Then, you should probably be able to respond to it easily instead of dismissing it.
I don’t see a point to me doing it yet again, when it has already been many times over, in better words than I could, in this one thread and beyond. The men’s lib movement this community is about is by definition, if not outright feminist, very feminist adjacent and aligns on many views. This is not the “men’s rights” movement.
For what it’s worth, if you are actually asking for my take and not an info dump, IMHO, the semantic argument is rarely very strong. In practice, tons of the societal issues women face align with men’s, for example on their very opposition on traditional roles.
I like "feminist adjacent community for men". I'm a fan of that.
I don't like "feminist community for men".
95% of the time, anyone concerned with men's struggles should agree with feminist takes.
I just don't want us to be beholden to the 5%.
My point was pretty much that I don’t feel like semantics are really beholding anything. There’s just no end to following that logic. The other commenter accused me of being ashamed of defending men’s interests because of my position. Isn’t this literally being ashamed of calling myself feminist cause I disagree with the extremist minority? If you’re 95% of a feminist, you’re pretty much a feminist. There’s disagreement even internally to pretty much every movement out there. Not everyone agrees on everything.
That "pretty much" is huge imo. It gives us wiggle room to disagree without also attempting to win the rest of feminism over to our side.
I’m genuinely confused as to why one would need “wiggle room” for anything, who we need to “win over”, and what is that “side” you’re referring to.
Movements as large as feminism have plenty of internal disagreement. There’s no party line, no code of conduct, it’s a bunch of people fighting over similar principles. Do you agree with literally everything from every movement or political allegiance you associate with?
I don't want to be part of the feminist movement because I vehemently disagree with some of the things feminists do. I don't want us to be called to task for those things, or have to explain them or implicitly support them. I don't want to have to say "we" when talking about feminist theories or actions.
I still genuinely don’t understand how this is any different than basically any other ideological affiliation.
Which is why you should choose your affiliations carefully, especially for a fledgling movement that is still finding its ideological footing. I think men's lib is something that should be seen as closely aligned with, but distinct from, feminism.
The men’s liberation movement ranges back from the 60s, developing pretty much at the same time as second-wave feminism. The movement as an official legal entity isn’t a thing now, but it used to be openly pro-feminist. The men’s right movement literally rose from a chunk of the liberation movement that left because of exactly this.
And then we abandoned it to the Andrew Tates of the world. Because it threatened feminist moral supremacy.
If semantics isn't a real problem, why do you oppose the changing of semantics so desperately to the point of insulting/diminishing those that discuss it?
You're literally part of a "men's right group" while simultaneously using the literal phrase for it as an insult because of Toxic Feminism.
The first step of an inclusive society that listens to each others issues is already being failed by your ideology that is asking it of others. The feminist movement that inherently shits on men's rights are in no way representative of an inclusive group of left minded people. Recently, these groups are being labeled as the new right wing online pipeline for women.
It seems like you want to have and eat cake here.
If it is such a common problem, why is there no common inclusive response?
Re-read my last comment, follow the link, read some definitions. You either missed or skipped the point I made on my previous comment that we are not on a “men’s rights group”. You’re kind of illustrating my point for me here. Feel free to point out at the “insult” I made, I’ll gladly retract if there is genuinely one. I can’t find it.
You're misreading my response. The "men's rights group" is the insult I'm talking about.
You are ashamed to participate in advocating for men because of Toxic feminist perspectives I'm addressing.
I’m sorry, but I think it’s the other way around. As I mentioned in my previous comments, “men’s liberation” and “men’s rights” just both happen to be names referring to specific movements that both advocate for men’s interests, but largely disagree on the causes.
If you still genuinely think I’m somehow ashamed of advocating for men just cause I don’t agree with the ideas of the MRM in particular, this idea that feminism as a whole is somehow either obsoleted by the existence its extremist elements, rather than just being a parallel fight, then… what are we arguing over, exactly?
I feel like I wrote what I intended to say very specifically and then clarified when there was confusion about our disagreement.
Feel free to address my point about how the phrase "men's rights" became such a toxic branded phrase due to an ideology that hated men having any form of organized action addressing the harms men face.
It was a label created outside pointed inwards. By definition, this is a "men's rights movement" space, and an outside force is equally capable of branding it under the same title for the exact same reasons.
The disagreement here was your unity with said toxic viewpoints.
I feel like all of this has now been written out 3 times, so I will wait for you to respond to it before engaging further.
"Men's rights" has literally always had a toxic connotation.