Something I’ve always wondered is what kind of women were in the lives of incel men when they were young. Did they have a bad relationship with their mother? Did they lack sisters or other female family members? Or is their family situation irrelevant? Maybe some particular situation in their early years caused them to develop a complex around women?
Oh goody gumdrops I’m about to become very unpopular again. Maybe this time someone will help me change my POV if I am wrong instead of just getting angry and resorting to name calling.
Here goes: feminism left young men behind and as much as one might want to say “don’t blame women” the feminist movement has given power to women over the years and that power comes with responsibilities. One of those responsibilities is to collaboratively carve out a space for men as we strive for an egalitarian society.
You know that if you say what what I just said you’re blaming women again, while if you ask how men can take part in feminism you’re making women’s struggles all about men, again.
Can’t win.
How can we have an equitable society if one side is never to blame for anything and the other is ‘whining or attention’ when they ask to be included in the changes?
The simple fact is that feminism has been an incredible source for good but it has focused solely on women. That has been a mistake because as one side changes, the other too just reshape itself.
I’m middle aged and I know so many men who my age and even some younger who thrash about daily trying to make sense of society with no role models and no standards to aspire to. No wonder some become angry.
Imagine being the youngest in generations of men who have been raised according to macho ideals. Be the breadwinner, protect women and children. Hunt. Gather. Kill or be killed… and now act with kindness and empathy to a changing world. I’m not defending or apologising for incels but it is time for young boys and young men to be considered and included in feminism. I’m a dad to two girls and a feminist, and I don’t want my daughters partners to be a couple of ornery jackasses.
There. I said it.
BTW: this is one of the ideas being addressed on the brilliant Barbie movie. “Maybe every night didn’t have to be a girls night.”
You misunderstood the Barbie movie… And everything else. Your entire post proves that when you’re accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression.
Help me understand it then? I’m not here saying: “nothing will change my opinion” I’m literally asking for help to do that.
If the film is not about the realisation that Barbieland is a game and that the real world doesn’t need to be ‘Kens vs Barbies’ then what is the massage please?
“You misunderstand a movie, and everything else.” Are you living up to your responsibilities here or just expecting change without any effort?
Where you’re wrong is that this would be a critique of feminism. Feminists never demanded every night be girls night. They never asked for a world of Kens vs Barbies. Society is still very unequal in favor of men and it’s insane to me to claim feminism has left men behind somehow.
Well, are boys and young men exposed to feminist role models or are they not? I say no, not to any meaningful degree, and they should be.
? Sorry, I can’t decipher your autocorrect
Yikes! Fixed it. Thank you!
Have an upvote, but I don’t really agree with you. Here in the Netherlands about the time my two boys entered elementary school the government took a look at the stats and realized that boys over the last decade had poorer outcomes post secondary education than girls. So, they (to decidedly mixed success) added some more and more frequent physical activity including something that translates to rock and water, which is kinda hard to explain, but is a way to use physical exercise to teach boundaries. You can see similar stats regarding differences in outcomes for men and women in university graduation rates in America and the UK.
The point I’m trying to make is that something in our systems changed, and to some it appears to be a kind of zero sum game (which I do not believe it is or has to be). I mean sure there is a chance that producing better outcomes for girls, which is great, has had some negative effect on boys; the problem is we cannot tell if the two are related, outside of some inherent gross physical differences in size, strength etc. Thus, the incels immediately jumped to the conclusion that its “teh Femmminizzzz.”
And I do agree with the OP of this sub-thread that it is a very difficult process to realize your privilege, to see beyond it and then through someone else’s eyes. Unless you are lucky and either hit just the right place to start researching or have friends who can help, if you didn’t internalize your privilege at an early age, it’s a long ass road. Took me a good decade, and most weeks I come across something I still hadn’t learned.
I’ve brought both my boys up to understand exactly how privileged they are to have been born white, with a dick, straight, and in a wealthy W European country. I see many fathers and mothers here in NL have done the same. The kids these days really are all right. So I have real hope the Zoomers by and large and the incel subculture notwithstanding will simply never internalize the hateful points of view we Xers had to brute force our way out of.
Recent studies shows that it’s concerning actually. The conservative culture makes a come back, more zealous than ever.
IMO this is because there is no alternative. Men are only told what they can’t be, yet everything works for the way they used to be, which they can’t anymore. This is a cultural problem to solve. Men and women need to build a new ideal man. Or like for women they need to accept more diversity for men, but that will not replace the lack of a proper model. In brief, we need a new kind of James bond that’s not an asshole.
Yes!! Hear hear! That’s what I’m trying to say. Inclusivity is inclusive, you share the problems too.
I love this:
Just beautifully put.
Hey if you have the time to spare, could you perhaps throw up some criticism of my OP? What am I saying wrong that people are misunderstanding me here?
I’d love to be able to express these ideas in a way that does not make people angry. I think they are important ideas to share.
It is a difficult task, especially because some feminists absolutely do not want to hear anything about men if it’s not that they are rapists or privileged. They also theorised that men (no nuance made) will fight tooth and nails to keep their privileges.
It’s not all feminists obviously. But the idea lurks that it is a similar fight between proletariat vs capitalists.
Lgbt+ movement succeeded in aggregating and allying with the feminists. It was easy because they are indeed harassed by the patriarcal model even harder than women.
The problem is for white cis male to join the movement. It would almost be a betrayal to recognize anything to them, because they are the archtypical enemy.
The problem is that by painting all white cis males as the enemy, you don’t leave them a choice than to be your enemy.
I’m only a guy on Internet so I don’t know what the solution go this will be. What I imagine is that either some white cis males will finally be recognized as a different group than the fascist actually opposed to women or any other minority rights, or the feminist themselves focalise their hatred on the people who are actually fighting them.
The root of the problem imo is the focalisation on the white cis male. It’s mistaken because there are as many conservative women as those men, and it’s unrelated to skin color. We should call them for what they are imo: the Conservative, bourgeois and fascists. This way the incels and nice guys can be themselves and helped out of the fascists claws.
Why must there be a model? An ideal, a Bond? Feminism let me be whatever, it’s only men that desparately try to define the sexes and lust after ideals. Just be people and stop obsessing about maleness and it’s need for perfection.
you may not need a model. But many people, men or women, do need one. It’s not a men things. Many women take models. And many problem of sex discrepancy in science for example, that is why there isn’t more women in science, is supposed to be due to the lack of models.
So maybe you don’t need a model, or maybe you had a model without realising it. But not everyone is like you.
I mean, “obsessing about maleness” when women magazines are what they are is quite ironic really.
Amazing, true progress. This is how society should be.
Did you ever stop to ask yourself if it’s done the same for men? Or are large parts of the male population still subject to macho stereotypes?
Hear hear.
One love.
You are an idiot and you understand nothing of the problem. This is not about privileges, this is about how you reinvent relationships between men and women when the old model is obviously as toxic as it is obsolete.
Right now there is a bad model and no alternative. That is the problem. Feel free to ignore it and hate the privileged men though, but that will not solve anything.
Feminism isn’t just about women; it’s about everybody. You mention a macho upbringing - that’s one of the many things that feminism is trying to fight. Telling boys that they have to be “strong,” be the breadwinner, can’t have emotions - these things are actively harmful to the boys. Everyone needs feminism - it’s about letting everyone be anything.
You may have heard the term “toxic masculinity” at some point. If not, I recommend doing some reading on it.
I’m not sure how you missed that this is precisely the point I’m making?
Sorry if my post was not clear enough but yes I totally agree, your post is I guess a less confusing way of saying what intended to convey.
Who the hell has been telling men to hunt, gather and kill or be killed? What society are you living in? And no, i do not have a responsibility to carve aout a space for men (between my legs perhaps?). What the fuck are you on about? If men so desparately need role models and someone to look up too that’s their problem. They could try just being good people but i guess that’s too confusing.
You’re part of the problem.
You want change without changing yourself.
It isn’t going to work and it will make you bitter and angry.
Like this post of yours right here.