Men's Liberation

I think unfortunately the one theme we are missing and the one most important is solidarity.

In my experience, everyone is focussed on their community and furthering their cause. Rightly so in many cases.

One of the starkest I always felt was when talking about men, children and family courts. When I discuss this online, and even occasionally IRL with feminists. The conversation usually is one of acknowledgement of a problem followed by a cold "we'll support that when we get the things we need". It's a cold brutal unsympathetic view that doesn't help that feeling of isolation and hardens that "us vs them" division. Many feminists don't see that the division sewn is intentional, to stop us uniting and fighting for the rights of the working class. Be it trans rights, gay rights, women's rights, freedom from racial discrimination and men's rights. They are human rights. We have to stand shoulder to shoulder and make our voice heard in support. We also have to hope that folks from other groups will support us.

There is nothing more isolating than fighting in the corners of others and then when the time comes get a cold rejection when they come for you. It pushes folk to these liars and snake oil salesmen from the right. We need to remove that oxygen from the fire so those bigoted views can wither and die. Right now, we're losing that battle. DEI initiatives are being rolled back. Under the guise of fighting positive discrimination, they take more. The destroy awareness of bias, fair selection processes and opportunities for all.

I fear that the true strength of men fighting for fairness is you need to fight for others, extend the olive branch of friendship and then hope when we fight some will join us even if at times it feels like we will fight alone.

I've lost bigoted anti-trans friends who've swallowed the snake oil but to some, I'll always be seen as a part of the patriarchy, purely because of my gender. So will our sons. I hope they don't have the same experience of where they cross from innocent child to evil propagator of the patriarchy despite doing nothing wrong other than being born male and becoming an adult.

Were the MAGA shitheads to suddenly realize the real reasons why they are angry, there would be a chaotic overthrow of society. That's probably also not what we want. We want an ordered change to the system. But given that we can't do that without class solidarity, the chaotic overthrow would also be acceptable.

I do hate that it's called feminism, though

Guarantee a lot more people would believe the whole "it's about equality for BOTH sexes line" if it wasn't named for one sex already (on top of the many women I've heard say "it's called feminism, get in line for rights, men" which isn't helpful either)

I and those I associate with use egalitarian for that reason, even at feminist events. Usually goes over smoothly with one or two assholes who absolutely fit the mold chuds imagine, sadly

I think this article does a great job talking about there isn't enough examples and models of an non-toxic masculinity out there. Women are told and have examples about many different ways to be women. Thanks to work of female feminists for years being childless, a stay at home mother, working a "feminine" job, working a "masculine" job, etc. are all valid options for women and are celebrated by women.

For men there is celebration of only one kind of man. We need more examples and celebrations of the varieties of men out there. I think this is especially true for straight men. I think straight men should borrow some of these examples from both the Gay community and from women. I personally as a straight man have found a lot of acceptance and value from how Gay men value diverse bodies types of men. I find it validating to me own experience and women are starting to do the same. We as men need to start celebrating each other in the ways that women do. After doing this enough and making it safe enough for women to join in a lot of good examples can be set for young men to see there are multiple celebrated options of masculinity. I think it might be hard for straight men to understand they are not the best at this and we should follow the lead of other but it is best course of options.

The article gets so close to fully getting it but then misses the point in an attempt to identify a common enemy.

White male privilege was the bribe that was given to the group in exchange of accepting a shit deal (being a worker under capitalism) as long as that group helped enforce an even shitier deal to the rest.

Now that bribe is gone, so it’s actually a shittier deal than before (similar to what everyone else has, maybe worse cause of the stigma).

Men aren’t thinking, oh what’s the ideal solution. They are thinking, we did the right thing and agreed on equal rights, but you (feminism) didn’t fix the shit deal, so I don’t want more of your solution.

Imo, the solution to the shit deal wasn’t feminism, it was socialism (which includes equal rights for all humans).

I think this is by design, the owners knew feminism wouldn’t change their system of oppression much, so they let that one go through and crushed socialism in the process.

While there are some points worth discussing in the article, I want to raise an issue with the community itself, since it's actually fairly adjacent.

If you look through it, majority of posts in the community that calls itself "Men's Liberation" is really not about, well, men's liberation. It's about how men should adapt to the realities of modern feminism, without getting a set at the table to discuss how it affects them and what they would've done differently. It just straight up mirrors feminist talking points and rephrases them to have "men" in the name.

This is very much why feminism is often hated: not because it gives women seat at the table, but because it takes the seat away from men, while vaguely claiming they have power elsewhere (but do they?).

Don't get me wrong: feminism tackles important questions, but it always looks at issues through the women's perspective, which might miss the unique circumstances men find themselves in and their angle with the issues raised. Since the community claims to come from the men's side (it's in the name), I find it deeply disingenuous and concerning.

I think people who ask generalized questions like, "Why does group X have irrational opinion Y about subject Z?" should instead engage with individuals about why they feel a certain way on a specific subject. I think they would find that people make up a full spectrum, opinions are more diverse than the right one and the ridiculous one, and people don't personify two extreme opposing memes.