Masculinity isn't toxic. It becomes toxic when it blames women for its problems.
Feminism is all for men talking about their issues. It practically begs them to. It is absolutely, positively not feminist to tell men that you're not enough if you can't get a woman.
That doesn't, however, pose an obligation on any woman to listen to you. It doesn't matter whose fault it is that you can't get a woman; it does matter that it's no woman's job to make sure you get one. Exactly what that will require is up to a billion different factors -- but "blames women" is going to be an enormous red flag.
Your suffering is real. You absolutely don't have to just suck it up. Go talk about it. If you don't have a friend you trust, try a therapist -- they're paid to do that. But be prepared for the fact that if your plan is to blame feminism, a good therapist is going to ask you to reconsider your underlying assumptions. And if your friends are just there to affirm for you that the reason you don't have a woman is the fault of the women -- there's a reason the word "toxic" came to be applied.
The issue is when people conflate "there's no obligation on any woman to listen to you" with "expression of frustration in a public forum is a character flaw worthy of criticism," or when people conflate "blames women for its problems" with "criticizes toxic gender norms enforced on men."
Imagine a woman who is frustrated because her partner doesn't do any chores or give any indication he respects her. She complains about it online, attributing it to sexist gender norms. Someone says the same thing to her as you say here: men are not obligated to listen to you, your suffering may be real, but please keep it to close friends. If your friends affirm that the reason your relationship is the fault of patriarchy, it's an example of toxicity. It probably makes the most sense to talk to a therapist: they can help you figure out why your way of thinking is flawed and how you can convince your partner to treat you well or, barring that, find a new partner.
That'd be a pretty terrible comment, right?
Toxic gender norms hurt both men and women, but we're only willing to consider toxic gender norms that hurt women as a politicized issue.
Toxic gender norms hurt both men and women, but we're only willing to consider toxic gender norms that hurt women as a politicized issue.
"Patriarchy hurts men" is a feminist slogan. It gets hundreds of thousands of hits on Google. The front page is full of lefty think-pieces saying that we need to consider toxic gender norms hurt men.
The fact that it needs to be said means that not everybody knows it yet. But it means that the ones who are listening to it are the feminists. Feminism is an ally in trying to fix the problems of toxicity towards men, and these threads always bring out lots of men who blame feminism for their problems. If I've accidentally confused you for one of them, I apologize.
The issue is that the slogan "patriarchy hurts men" is nearly always used in a way that still puts the onus on men to stop policing gender norms on other men. The reality is that women have every bit as much agency and power in upholding patriarchy that men do, but few women (feminist or not) are willing to acknowledge the extent they enforce toxic gender norms, or even that women enforce toxic gender norms at all.
Women absolutely, positively enforce toxic gender norms. Women are part of the patriarchy. In fact, for many women, the best strategy for them is to embrace the patriarchy as hard as they can. That sets them up for rewards from the dominant paradigm.
Ending patriarchy requires both men and women to reject it. But the ones calling for for an end to patriarchy are the feminists -- which includes both women and men. Feminists absolutely, positively call out women who are guilty of entrenching the patriarchy.
That's not few women. It's lots and lots of women. And lots of men, too.
I agree with you that feminists don't enforce gender roles more than average, so attributing the shitty state of gender relations to feminism is silly.
I disagree that they are particularly willing to call out instances of women entrenching the patriarchy. I think this probably has to do with a root disagreement about the scope of what is considered policing gender roles.
It's true, for instance, that feminists are more likely to criticize a mother who tells her son not to play with dolls, which is good and something I agree with. It's just not the primary mechanism by which women enforce gender roles, which is partner choice. That's not to say that women shouldn't have the right to choose their partner--of course they should--but the patterns of how women choose partners enforce toxic gender norms, and many of the most toxic aspects of gendered male behavior arise from men navigating that landscape.
As a concrete example, consider bisexuality. The majority of women dislike the idea of choosing a bisexual guy as a partner: he's considered less masculine, or dirtied, or some kind of perversion of masculinity. This is their right, but it's also shitty. The problematic aspects I want to call out are that 1) the majority viewpoint among women about bisexual men is still very prevalent among feminist-identifying women, and 2) when someone expresses frustration at these collective choices, feminist-identifying women are far more likely to criticize the frustrated party instead of the toxic gender norms. The net result of this is men being terrified of homosocial affection and remaining closeted so as not to scare off potential partners, both behaviors most people would consider expressions of toxic masculinity.
This pattern repeats itself across a lot of different forms of gendered policing. But many feminists refuse to acknowledge it, because they don't acknowledge that partner choice can be a mechanism for gender role enforcement.
I have no idea what feminists you're dealing with, or under what circumstances, so I'm not going to apologize for them. But I can tell you that you've come across as hostile in this conversation, and it comes as no surprise to me that others have responded to you in a negative way.
The vast majority of "patriarchy hurts men" discussions I've seen, including the Buzzfeed and Washington Post articles I spot checked at the top of this search, have been about how the men reading the article need to fix their bad behavior. Buzzfeed calls for me to learn "specific strategies to end gender violence" so that I won't "engage in everyday sexist behaviours"; Wapo suggests "Giving up a small slice of privilege in exchange for a longer (and happier) life".
Modern feminism has actually been fairly two-faced on what it really wants. At this point, I can't tell whether feminism would prefer (given constraints only allow for one):
* Working on an issue which only helps women a bit, but doesn't help men at all
* Working on an issue which helps both women and men a lot
Considering media has a routine narrative of painting men as demons and women as angels, any claim that feminism is for anything in regards to men, might need to be backed up with some strong cases.
I don't think it's helpful to think of "feminism" as a singular movement, the way it's often portrayed in conservative editorial writing and cable news. We're talking about 50+ years of academic scholarship and grassroots activism here, and all the complications and inconsistencies that implies.
If you're looking for something in particular to make this case for you, I recommend reading the short book Feminism is for Everybody, by bell hooks, which does specifically talk about mens issues and how what she calls the patriarchal organization of society negatively affects men in different and unique ways (compared to women).
But again, editorials - especially on the right - typically pick out the most extreme or indefensible positions and try to make them appear to be normalized and widely accepted. You're doing yourself an intellectual diservice not to really deeply interrogate the motivations and biases of any piece of media that leaves you feeling like an enormous group of people (those who consider themselves feminists) is in fact wildly irrational and extreme. It should set off alarm bells when you draw such stark lines in the sand as "any claim that feminism is for anything in regards to men, might need to be backed up with some strong cases" that you're missing some nuance or complexity.
I know you don't intend to do so, but assuming that someone's conclusions about an issue must have come from talking points, and were not arrived at independently, dehumanizes them and makes it difficult to convince them of anything.
It discounts the lived experiences of people who have seen their friends and coworkers radicalized against them, of either gender. "This happened to me" cannot successfully be countered by "stop parroting X/Y/W-wing editorials." (general pattern I've seen even among family, not necessarily your phrasing)
The terminology used also doesn't help make the case for feminism among anyone not already convinced. Terms like "the patriarchy" can be seen as implying that it's okay to talk about men as a whole group who can be vilified, but it's not okay to talk about women in any negative way at all. Or "ally" could be seen as implying that the only identity someone not of group Z can have that matters is as an accessory to their cause.
The most disappointing and insulting thing a friend has ever said to me might be (paraphrasing) "I thought you wanted to be an ally." No, I wanted to be your friend, not a footsoldier who dutifully agrees with you 100% of the time no matter what my independent experiences have been.
I don't think it's helpful to think of "feminism" as a singular movement,
Sadly, even some of those who advocate for feminism (whichever branches might be considered "the good kind" for purposes of this discussion) seem to deliberately lump feminist movements together, so one can be forgiven for seeing terms like "the patriarchy" used by different groups and not knowing which group's beliefs to ascribe to the term. I don't think this can be blamed on a particular flavor of media, except maybe social media.
>It should set off alarm bells when you draw such stark lines in the sand as "any claim that feminism is for anything in regards to men, might need to be backed up with some strong cases" that you're missing some nuance or complexity.
What should set off alarm bells is this blind acceptance of written works and words, when the actions routinely do not reflect the words feminism espouses. There are entire subreddits and blogs online showing the many cases where feminism doesn't do anything, or worse, actively intervenes at the detriment of women. Your own example shows the same problem: "what she calls the patriarchal organization of society negatively affects men in different and unique ways". Cool, you talk about it, but what are you doing about it?
What is an intellectual disservice, is how quickly you circumvent my question only to berate my manner of writing. If people truly are such huge proponents of feminism, and feminism truly claims to "be good for men", surely they can answer a question this simple and provide clear examples. Do you not realize your own behavior is indication of the problem here? How can you not see that if you can't even answer "well duh, the second issue obviously" on an ideological basis, the claim that feminism is "for all" is complete bollocks?
If I really wanted to go full-on antifeminist, I could've mentioned the many issues that feminism causes for men and women that it seems to be utterly blind to. That's part of the question as well: a clear division between not only "we want the best for women", but "it doesn't need to be at the cost of men". If I really wanted to go and write on nuances, I could write a 12-page blog page and fight against the relentless nitpicking which will ensue. I'm not asking a simple, black-white question for the sake of trivializing a complex, multi-faceted subject. I'm asking it because ideologically, if we can't even answer this part first, there's no point going any further. It means the population of feminists is filled with people joining the movement, without knowing what it actually stands for. Including its most fierce proponents carrying the torches. Surely, I do not have to tell you about the many occurrences in human history where this didn't work out well.
Because the population of Hackernews has a great overlap with the population of Silicon Valley-type software developers and Redditors, who vehemently believe feminism is the same as egalitarianism and believe the few books written by a few big figures make up for the fact feminism contradicts those words at every corner in all of its actions. And when you point that out, the first thing you get is a No True Scotsman claiming "that's not real feminism / not all feminists", despite the argument being that feminism as a whole doesn't seem to care for men beyond empty platitudes and words.
It is literally in the name. FEMinism. If it was truly "for both sexes", we could argue the naming is sexist and supremacist. We already have a better word, egalitarianism, and people still aren't willing to adopt it.
Notice people talk past my example as well. I'm explicitly asking if feminism would prefer resolving an issue which prefers women over men, over an issue which benefits women more but benefits men equally. How this simple question cannot be answered by proponents of a movement this big, is possibly the biggest red flag. Yet we see it in the media every day: some minor issue with women needs major attention, despite there being an egalitarian issue which would help anyone outside the upper class way more. If lamenting about some "pink tax" is more important than resolving a mental health epidemic caused by making people increasingly more competitive with one another, where failure is met with lasting mental trauma, surely that should tell people what feminism really is about.
The very people claiming to be proponents for men in their words alone, are the ones partially responsible for the mess. And they are too blind to see it.
Feminism is all for men talking about their issues. It practically begs them to. It is absolutely, positively not feminist to tell men that you're not enough if you can't get a woman.
That doesn't, however, pose an obligation on any woman to listen to you. It doesn't matter whose fault it is that you can't get a woman; it does matter that it's no woman's job to make sure you get one. Exactly what that will require is up to a billion different factors -- but "blames women" is going to be an enormous red flag.
Your suffering is real. You absolutely don't have to just suck it up. Go talk about it. If you don't have a friend you trust, try a therapist -- they're paid to do that. But be prepared for the fact that if your plan is to blame feminism, a good therapist is going to ask you to reconsider your underlying assumptions. And if your friends are just there to affirm for you that the reason you don't have a woman is the fault of the women -- there's a reason the word "toxic" came to be applied.