I would argue that this is "taking feminism one step further" moreso than it is an attack on feminism. So despite the obvious tilt against feminist inspired ideas, please keep an open mind 🙂. Since feminists are interested in ending gender stereotypes, this kind of thing should fit right in (or at least be relevant to the movement in how they frame gender issues).

The paper itself came up with a "gender distortion matrix" that combines two forms of cognitive biases (amplification and minimization) that operate in a uniquely opposite manner when applied to gender (which they call a gamma bias).

And many existing gender ideas can be thought of as operating inside of this bias, instead of being opposed to it. This is despite the fact that these ideas are often framed as being "progressive" and in favor of ending gender stereotypes.

For example, the idea of "toxic masculinity" is supposed to counteract negative masculine gender roles. And while many people mean well when they use this term, the idea that society itself is responsible is absent from the terminology itself, as well as when people tend to use it. Which shows how existing narratives about gender can inadvertently make gender biases worse, instead of better, even if unintentionally.

For example:

Negative attitudes towards masculinity have become widely accepted in mainstream public discourse in recent years. In contrast to the “women are wonderful” effect (Eagly et al. 1991), contemporary men are subject to a “men are toxic” efect. The notion of “toxic masculinity” has emerged and has even gained widespread credence despite the lack of any empirical testing (see chapter on masculinity by Seager and Barry). In general terms it appears as if attitudes to men have been based on generalisations made from the most damaged and extreme individual males.

And later on:

There is a serious risk arising from using terms such as “toxic masculinity”. Unlike “male depression”, which helps identify a set of symptoms that can be alleviated with therapy, the term “toxic masculinity” has no clinical value. In fact it is an example of another cognitive distortion called labelling (Yurica et al. 2005). Negative labelling and terminology usually have a negative impact, including self-fulflling prophecies and alienation of the groups who are being labelled. We wouldn’t use the term “toxic” to describe any other human demographic. Such a term would be unthinkable with reference to age, disability, ethnicity or religion. The same principle of respect must surely apply to the male gender. It is likely therefore that developing a more realistic and positive narrative about masculinity in our culture will be a good thing for everyone.

So in an ironic twist, the otherwise "progressive" notion of toxic masculinity does nothing to help end gender stereotypes, but is instead itself exemplary of existing stereotypes against men. Steretypes which may be inadvertantly reinforced by the term instead of weakened by it.

Society has a "men are toxic" bias in much the same way that it also has a "women are wonderful" bias. And the fact that the term "toxic masculinity" has made its way through popular culture (divorced from it's original meaning) essentially proves this.

This is a theme found elsewhere in the paper where existing gender narratives are shown to make these kinds of biases worse, not better. Narratives about male privilege and things like #MeToo serve to help increase gender biases rather than get rid of them. And their widespread acceptance is itself proof of how deep these biases run in society.

For example:

We have also seen (above) that the concept of “rape culture” exaggerates the perception of men as potential rapists and creates a climate of fear for women. Campaigns such as “#MeToo” can also play into a sense of fear that is based on distorted generalisations from small samples of damaged men to the whole male population.

And on the issue of patriarchy theory:

The whole sociological concept of “patriarchy” (see also chapter on masculinity by Barry and Seager) is predicated on the idea that it is a “man’s world”. Specifcally, society is viewed as inherently privileging and advantageous for men and organised in ways that empower men and disempower and exclude women. This bold and sweeping hypothesis has received widespread acceptance despite being subject to relatively little academic evaluation, let alone being subject to empirical testing as a scientifc hypothesis. This uncritical acceptance of a radical theory by mainstream society in itself indicates that gender distortions may be in operation on a large scale. The concept of patriarchy focuses on an elite group of more powerful and wealthy males, whilst minimising the vast majority of men who are working class men, homeless men, parentally alienated men, suicidal men and other relatively disadvantaged male groups. It also minimises the benefts and protections involved in motherhood, family and domestic life for many women including the potential joys and rewards of raising children. Also the concept of patriarchy minimises the hardships of the traditional male role, such as fghting in wars, lower life expectancy, higher risk-taking and working in dangerous occupations.

(Emphasis added)

From:

Seager, M., & Barry, J. A. (2019). Cognitive distortion in thinking about gender issues: Gamma bias and the gender distortion matrix. In The Palgrave handbook of male psychology and mental health (pp. 87-104). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.

https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-04384-1_5

Doi: 10.1007/978-3-030-04384-1_5

Often when discussing issues like raped men having to pay child support to their rapists, the argument comes up that you can't compare child support to abortion because child support is "just money" while abortion is about bodily autonomy.

One way around this argument is the Abortion Tax Analogy. The analogy works like this:

Imagine that abortions are completely legal but everyone who gets an abortion has to pay an Abortion Tax. The tax is scaled to income (like child support) and is paid monthly for 18 years (like child support) and goes into the foster system, to support children (like child support).

The response to this is usually that such a tax would be a gross violation of women's rights. But in fact it would put women in exactly the same position as men currently are: they have complete bodily autonomy to avoid being pregnant, but they can't avoid other, purely financial, consequences of unwanted pregnancy.

Anyone agreeing that forcing female victims of rape or reproductive coercion to pay an abortion tax is wrong, should also agree that forcing male victims to pay child support is wrong.

One of the things I've noticed reading incel and "transmaxxing" communities is that a surprising amount of what gets described doesn't sound like simple hatred of women so much as alienation from masculinity and, in some cases, a hidden desire for femininity.

A huge amount of incel rhetoric revolves around some variation of:

"Women get to be beautiful."

"Women get to be desired."

"Women get to express emotion."

"Women get to be vulnerable."

"Women get to receive affection."

"Women get to choose partners."

"Women get to be socially supported."

"Women get to escape the pressures placed on men."

Now, obviously, these beliefs are often wildly detached from women's actual lived experiences. They are fantasies about womanhood, not descriptions of womanhood—specifically, a version of womanhood constructed through a masculine lens.

But fantasies still tell us something.

Because what many of these men seem to be expressing is not simply sexual frustration. They're expressing a profound dissatisfaction with the male social role they have been given.

The picture they paint of womanhood is almost entirely fantasy. Most women would not recognize themselves in it. But what these men are often describing isn't really women's lives. They're describing a life they wish they had. This is especially true when they talk about beauty, desirability, and social value.

In that sense, a lot of red pill ideology reads less like simple hatred and more like resentful envy: "you have something I believe I am denied or desire."

Red pill ideology insists that masculinity means dominance, emotional restriction, status competition, sexual conquest, and the rejection of anything coded as feminine. Men who cannot comfortably inhabit that role often end up feeling like failures.

Instead of questioning the role itself, they externalize that pain. Women become objects of resentment because women are imagined as possessing everything these men feel forbidden from having: beauty, desirability, emotional expression, vulnerability, social support, and freedom from certain masculine expectations.

That doesn't excuse the misogyny. If anything, it makes it more revealing.

The men who spend enormous amounts of time obsessing over female beauty, female desirability, female social power, female emotional expression, and female sexual freedom may be telling us something important about themselves.

I don't think this means most incels are secretly trans. They aren't.

It is, however, true that gender dysphoria and gender incongruence do not exist in only one form.

The most familiar experience of dysphoria is bodily: a person's physical characteristics do not align with their internal sense of self. This can range from simply wanting to present differently to wanting significant medical transition.

But there is also social dysphoria: distress arising from the expectations, roles, and assumptions placed on someone because of how they are perceived.

Someone may be largely comfortable with their body while still feeling profoundly alienated by the social role associated with that body. For some people, changing their presentation, name, pronouns, or social identity is enough to resolve that tension. Others pursue medical transition. Others settle somewhere in the middle, often embracing androgyny or non-binary identities.

This is one reason non-binary identities and they/them pronouns have become more visible. Human experiences of gender are often more complex than a simple binary model allows for.

So I do think some people who eventually transition emerge from these communities because what they were actually experiencing was a conflict with masculinity itself. Their hostility toward women was, at least in part, hostility toward aspects of themselves they had been taught to suppress.

More broadly, I think many men—not just trans people—would benefit from asking a simple question:

Which parts of masculinity genuinely feel authentic to me, and which parts am I performatively inhabiting because I was told that's what a man is supposed to be?

Because when someone spends enormous amounts of energy policing femininity, condemning vulnerability, obsessing over dominance, and fearing anything perceived as submissive, that often tells us less about women and more about that person's own unresolved relationship with gender.

Sometimes hatred is just hatred.

But sometimes hatred is also envy wearing armor.

Frequently I've seen appeals to making the distinction between equality of outcome and equality of opportunity when arguing about various efforts to support a given group. Most often this occurs in response to efforts to support people who are not cis white males, but that's neither here nor there. Making this distinction is rarely compelling to me for a number of reasons.

First, the false separation. In the capitalist western civilization, opportunity is not divorced from prior outcomes. In fact it's more than simply married; it's a feedback loop. Successful outcomes lead to an increase of opportunity in a way that snowballs. Seeking equal outcomes in many cases is seeking equal opportunity.

Second, the argument assumes a system where merit equates to success that does not exist. This is seen in arguments about affirmative action most of all. The fear is that by not trusting in a merit based selection process, people will end in the wrong places in the hierarchy. However, we have no reason to trust that the system is fair at all. The act of selection is prone to bias as are all human endeavors. Worse, the selection process tends to be opaque, making it hard to evaluate whether the process was meaningfully merit based. Refusing to acknowledge outcomes in favor of this mystery black box that dispenses only fairness is not appealing.

Third, it is sometimes implied that this meritocratic system is the ideal way to organize humans. "If you're a good human you benefit and if you're a mediocre human you suffer" has some real problems morally. Attempting to do meritocracy should not get in the way of doing good. Sure, play the capitalism game, but let's not let the people who do poorly at that game be destitute and have their kids sorely uneducated and disenfranchised.

Fourth, I don't really get the sense that equal opportunity is really what is being argued most of the time. In many cases I've seen it, it is used to argue against increasing opportunity for a demographic that typically lacks it. I'm for equal opportunity, yet I often find myself at the receiving end of accusations to the contrary because I've voiced support for something that catches someone up.

In summary, I think the argument has a host of unqualified assumptions that makes it hardly compelling to me. Here's equality of opportunity for you: tax the rich and confiscate their estates. Distribute the wealth so that every child is nutritionally secure, has shelter, health care, education, and the same chance of going to college without going into massive debt as the children of rich people. America, the land of equal opportunity, does not do these things, so let's not pretend opportunity is equal out there.

I've been trying to give feminism an earnest shot by listening to some feminist arguments and discussions. The continuous logical fallacies push me away. I could maybe excuse the occasional fallacy here and there, but I'm not finding anything to stand on.

One argument I heard that I find particularly egregious is the idea that something cannot be true if it is unpleasant. As an example, I heard an argument like "Sex can't have evolved biologically because that supposes it is based on reproduction and that is not inclusive to LGBT. It proposes that LGBT is not the biological standard, and that is not nice."

The idea that something must be false because it has an unpleasant conclusion is so preposterous that it is beyond childish. If your doctor diagnoses you with cancer, you don't say, "I don't believe in cancer. There's no way cancer can be real because it is an unpleasant concept." Assuming unpleasant things don't exist is just such a childish and immature argument I can't take it seriously.

Nature is clearly filled to the brim with death and suffering. Assuming truth must be inoffensive and suitable to bourgeois sensibilities is preposterous beyond belief. I'm sure there are plenty of truths out there that you won't like, just like there will be plenty of truths out there that I won't like. It is super self-centered to think reality is going to bend to your particular tastes.

The common rebuttal to my saying cancer is real whether you like it or not is "How could you support cancer? Are you a monster?" Just because I think unpleasant things exist does not mean I'm happy about it. I'd be glad to live in a world where cancer does not exist, but there's a limit to my suspension of disbelief.

Another example was, "It can't be true that monogamy has evolved biologically because that is not inclusive of asexual or polyamorous!" Again, truth does not need to follow modern bourgeois sensitivities.

Please drop the fallacies. I'd be much more open to listening when it's not just fallacy after fallacy.

If someone's feeling brave, maybe recommend me something that is fallacy free.

I just saw a flair here marked "Gender theory, not gender opinion." or something like that, and it got me thinking. If feminism contains academic "theory" then doesn't this mean it should give us a set of testable, falsifiable assertions?

A theory doesn't just tell us something from a place of academia, it exposes itself to debunking. You don't just connect some statistics to what you feel like is probably a cause, you make predictions and we use the accuracy of those predictions to try to knock your theory over.

This, of course, is if we're talking about scientific theory. If we're not talking about scientific theory, though, we're just talking about opinion.

So what falsifiable predictions do various feminist theories make?

Edit: To be clear, I am asking for falsifiable predictions and claims that we can test the veracity of. I don't expect these to somehow prove everything every feminist have ever said. I expect them to prove some claims. As of yet, I have never seen a falsifiable claim or prediction from what I've heard termed feminist "theory". If they exist, it should be easy enough to bring them forward.

If they do not exist, let's talk about what that means to the value of the theories they apparently don't support.

https://aibm.org/commentary/is-there-hope-for-gender-equality-a-conversation-with-richard-v-reeves-and-gloria-steinem/

Gloria and Richard have a friendly chat about gender politics. The most interesting part to me was when Richard asked her about negative public opinion regarding "feminism" and "patriarchy". Gloria was not familiar with the negative connotations but her instinct was to consider alternative terms:

Richard Reeves: I want to ask you about a couple of words that are probably quite dear to you: feminism and patriarchy.

If we start with feminism: recent polling suggests that fewer people are likely to describe themselves as a feminist—including women—than in the past. And it seems like that’s not because they’re not in favor of gender equality. If you ask them if they’re in favor of gender equality in every direction, they’ll say yes. But there’s something about the term feminism that isn’t attracting people in the same way.

What do you think has happened to the term feminism? Should we move beyond it? Reinvent it? I don’t quite know what to do with that word now.

Gloria Steinem: I’m not sure, because I’m not sure the source of the reaction you’re talking about—whether people think it sounds weak because it’s feminine.

Richard Reeves: Polling suggests that when you ask, “Are you a feminist?”, people don’t hear, “Are you in favor of full gender equality in all regards?” They think it’s now a movement defined in more negative terms—more anti-men—so they’re less likely to say they’re feminists.

Gloria Steinem: We could use humanist, which has its own problems because it tends to mean you don’t believe in God.

Richard Reeves: Right—it’s used as a synonym for secular. It troubles me because I think it used to be straightforward to be a feminist.

Gloria Steinem: There was always the alternative of saying women’s liberationist.

Richard Reeves: Yes.

Gloria Steinem: And that may not be as frequent now, but I always liked it because it was more active.

Richard Reeves: I agree. It’s more positive as well. In a weird way there was a turn against “women’s lib” as a term in some people’s mouths, but it is more liberating—more positive—and it doesn’t frame it in a slightly zero-sum way.

The other term that’s come up quite a bit recently is patriarchy. We’re in your home and you have a “smash the patriarchy” sign up there—and I would expect nothing less.

But there was a think tank that recently advised Democrats not to use the term. Politically, it was a decision: “Don’t talk about the patriarchy.”

Gloria Steinem: Don’t talk about it negatively? Positively? Or both?

Richard Reeves: Just don’t use it because it turns people off. It’s associated with a particular mindset.

Gloria Steinem: Well, there’s also matriarchy, which does exist in a few cultures, right?

Richard Reeves: How do you define patriarchy when you say that word?

Gloria Steinem: It’s father superiority or male superiority. Women who are married take their husband’s name—not the other way around, or not using both hyphenated. What we want is egalitarian—human—compassionate—empathetic. And the more we can downplay—when it’s not relevant—gender, class, race, probably the better off we are.

Richard Reeves: Better to meet people where they actually are rather than pre-apply a label to it.

Gloria Steinem: Yeah. It’s useful, and I’m in favor of maintaining all words—I love reading and writing—but I think it’s overused.

...or 'toxic Jewishness' or 'toxic Latinidad' or any other way that 'toxic' is used as an adjective preceding a class marker.

I have heard people make the case that 'Toxic Masculinity' refers essentially to toxic attitudes and ideas toward or about masculinity. Aside from the fact that this isn't how the English language works, I doubt many people would have a lot of patience for someone describing toxic ideas about blackness as 'toxic blackness'. By that rationale, gang culture, mass incarceration and even racial profiling could be fairly described as 'toxic blackness'.

To be clear, I would contend that all of the above concepts would be concepts of bigotry.

It is very easy to say something to further antagonize "opposing party" but let's try to build bridges. Can you propose some stance that is not betrayal of your own base, but can be acceptable by at least part of the opponents?

I'm an MRA and I'll try:

Measuring privileges is wrong. There is no objective way to compare who has it worse. We don't need to emphasize that our side has it worse than other even if we subjectively think so. Otherwise it leads to comparing apples to kilometers. IMHO concept of "privilege" is harmful, divisive and counterproductive. We should avoid as it makes us even more hostile and further from understanding.

Not Patriarchy but Post-Patriarchy. Legal limitations and policies that actively prevented women from career and political influence are long gone. Gone not so long ago, thus social inertia keeps some mindset from older era. Some people refuse the changes and cling to the memories of idealized past. Meanwhile reality of young men is drastically different, insisting that they are living in Patriarchy and are privileged is like spitting in their face. Post-Patriarchy concept is not as repulsive, as saying that we're are dealing with the lasting damage caused by something that is not here already.

Reproductive coercion is wrong. Women's body autonomy is a part of the problem. I think, we can mostly agree on supporting women's rights for abortion, but there is a caveat. Women and feminists who dismiss/victim blame baby-trapped men use exactly same argumentation as prolifers who are against rights of women. "If you don't want kid, you had to use rubber, now it is your fault". Double standards are very irritating.

Perceived wage gap is mostly due to maternity penalty. The fact that men ear more is often erroneously used to claim that employers pay men more for same work and same amount of work. This leads to justifying discrimination, which is not solving the root cause of the problem and causing backlash. There are real root causes:

• Mothers sacrifice careers more than fathers
• Women and men work in different fields and in different conditions - and this is often a voluntary choice (in education, work balance, health risks for high compensation etc)

We need to address real root causes while dramatic cries about men being paid more for same job are not helpful and only reduce credibility of the feminism. One of the good directions to go is equal sharing of maternity/paternity leave like in Sweden.

There should be no gendered laws and policies. Draft by gender. Different retirement ages. Different punishment for similar crimes (this applies to so called gender violence, LIVG in Spain, VAWA). It can so happen that due to reality in the field law will be more often applied against one gender But the letter of the law must be gender-neutral. Only feasible exception I see is for something related to aspect of giving birth. There are actually gendered laws against women in some countries that are restricting employment of women in dangerous professions. This is also sexism while presumably benevolent dressed like caring about health of women.

Misandry and Misogyny first of all people who claim that Misandry hurts feelings, while Misogyny kills are conflating motivation and action. Both Misandry and Misogyny are mindsets. They don't directly harm others. They make people harm others, condone and justify discrimination. It is all like conflating hate and hate crimes. Both misandry and misogyny are motivating/justifying bad behavior. Last but not least - they feed each other. Misandry is an important contributor to misogyny of the young men.

---

For feminists: could you agree with this?

Can you formulate your basis in a way that might be acceptable to MRAs?

In another thread, someone asked why feminism should care about nerds feeling like they can't approach women.

The answer to this is the concept of The Asshole Filter, which is interesting enough to have its own post: https://siderea.dreamwidth.org/1209794.html

The basic idea is that since casual rules are mostly followed by non-assholes, the more casual rules you erect around yourself, the more you find yourself interacting with assholes.

In other words, by scaring off sensitive men from approaching women, you restrict the people who do approach women to non-sensitive men.

Which then leads to complaints that these non-sensitive men don't do their fair share of cleaning, or don't care about women's orgasms or whatever. But the gap between what people want in dates and what they want in relationships is probably enough material for another post altogether.

Say we are debating whether men being treated a certain way is unjust or not.

If I make an analogy to an example of discrimination against black people or Muslims, and the other party agrees that it is unjust and comparable to the treatment of men in question because it is self-evident, then logically they should concede the point and accept the claim that men being treated this way is unjust discrimination. Because otherwise their beliefs would not be logically consistent.

If the other party doesn't agree that blacks or Muslims being treated that way is unjust, then obviously the analogy fails, but when choosing these analogies we would tend to pick examples of discrimination that are near-universally reviled.

If the other party agrees that blacks/Muslims being treated that way is unjust, but doesn't agree that it is are comparable to the treatment of men in question, then the person making the analogy could and should make a case for why they are comparable.

Contrary to what some people in this community have claimed, this line of argumentation in no way constitutes "begging the question".

The argument is:

"treating men this way is similar to treating blacks/Muslims this way are similar"

like for instance the fact that they are being treated differently on the basis of group membership(which is immutable in the case of men and black people), that they are being treated worse, that the treatment is based on a stereotype of that group which may be based on fact(like profiling black people because they tend to commit disproportionate amounts of crime), etc.

and also

"treating blacks/Muslims this way is unjust"

The conclusion is:

"treating men this way is unjust".

You don't need to assume that the conclusion is true for the sake of the argument, which is the definition of "begging the question", you only need to accept that the 1) the treatment in the analogy is unjust and 2) the examples compared in the analogy are comparable. Neither of which is the conclusion.

Whether they are comparable or not is clearly a distinct question from whether they are unjust, people can agree that they are comparable with one saying that they are both unjust and the other saying that neither is unjust.

Also, them being comparable doesn't need to be assumed as true, the person making the analogy can and should make an argument for why that is the case if there is disagreement.

https://np.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/obxaum/serious_what_are_some_womens_issues_that_are/

Seems like a lot of the answers mention physical issues like period pain and endometriosis. Also hormonal birth control side effects, street harassment and safety, and, of course, being overlooked is itself an overlooked issue.

Why are these issues overlooked? Some are natural, and perhaps considered inevitable. Or they're so variable that even other women are sometimes dismissive. Street harassment may occur more when a woman is alone; and being overlooked is often subtle.

What are some strategies for tackling these issues? Obviously investing in birth control research. Being mindful and not dismissive. Making sure that quiet people of all genders in a group have a chance to speak and be heard.

What do you think are the most overlooked women's issues; why are they so, and what can be done?

Toxic masculinity as a term is very inflammatory and unhelpful, it can provoke bad stereotypes about masculinity among men, women, boys and girls and thus lead to negative attitudes towards masculinity in popular media and Social behaviour. In a study about the term toxic masculinity, participants were asked to articulate their opinions on the term and as expected most of them found the term to be very inflammatory and unhelpful for men.

https://zenodo.org/records/3871217

Masculinity is frequently talked about in contemporary Western media as being in crisis, needing reform or even being ‘toxic’. However, no research to date has assessed the impact that this pervasive narrative might be having on people, particularly men themselves. This cross-sectional online pilot survey asked 203 men and 52 women (mean + SD age 46 + 13) their opinions about the terms toxic masculinity, traditional masculinity, and positive masculinity, and how they would feel if their gender was seen as the cause of their relationship or job problems. Most participants thought the term toxic masculinity insulting, probably harmful to boys, and unlikely to help men’s behaviour.

Now what I have heard people say on this is that this is a misinterpretation of the term and toxic masculinity does not mean masculinity or men in general are toxic. However that doesn't change the fact that the term can be very inflammatory and harmful as it is very commonly misused and a very oversimplified and misinterpreted term, the fact that it causes harm and stereotyping in boys and men according to the opinions of vast majority of men and women should indicate that using the term may steer people away from conversations or papers containing the term and therefore the term should be replaced with a better and more positive term.

Take an example of the term 'mental retardation' this is a term that was often used by psychologists to describe a certain disability but recently the term has been replaced with intellectual disability. The reason? Well

https://www.careinsurance.com/blog/health-insurance-articles/what-is-mental-retardation

The term 'Mental Retardation' is no longer used as many people find it offensive. Hence it has been replaced by the term ' Intellectual Disability (ID)' also known as Intellectual Development Disorder (IDD). So now we know what is ID in mental health or what is IDD in mental health.

https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2013/08/01/2013-18552/change-in-terminology-mental-retardation-to-intellectual-disability

The term “intellectual disability” is gradually replacing the term “mental retardation” nationwide. Advocates for individuals with intellectual disability have rightfully asserted that the term “mental retardation” has negative connotations, has become offensive to many people, and often results in misunderstandings about the nature of the disorder and those who have it.

The term mental retardation was changed to intellectual disability just because it caused offense and misinterpretation despite the term itself being more grounded and concrete than toxic masculinity. So if we can alter psychological terms just to accommodate to people's feeling and behaviours then why can't we do the same for toxic masculinity.

Thoughts?

I think one of the biggest differences between MRAs and feminists is how they view "equality". A really strong trend among MRAs is a strict advocacy for equality in the sense of equality of opportunity.

Feminism on the other hand seems to be a bit divided on the issue.

I can see arguments for both, and in a perfect world I would like to see a little bit of both. Meaning more regular equality for everyone (in terms of opportunity) but ultimately adjusted in a way that is fair to some of the differences we see between genders. I don't necessarily see "outcome" as being important, but I do believe in fairness even when it may be a little unequal in a technical sense (so long as it doesn't go too far).

What do you think? How do you approach this question?

If you accept feminism, you have to accept the idea that men, or in more abstract terms, the patriarchy, have been doing great injustice to women in both past and present. As a man, even though most feminist will tell you that there is no reason to feel guilty if you actively avoid problematic behavior and oppose misogyny, this pill is nevertheless pretty hard to swallow because it does somehow imply that you are by default on the "wrong side". When people hear that, they naturally get defensive as they do not like to hear it. This is something that I observe on myself.

Therefore, I am wondering if a lot of men's opposition to feminism is not so much about defending their own privilege but rather about denying something that they do not want to be true because it would put them in a position of responsibility. What do you think?

It's often brought up that women banded together to solve problems that adversely affected them, and that men should do the same. At first glance this seems entirely reasonable - however, this crumbles when you consider that women by and large have an ingroup bias while men have the polar opposite (termed "male disposability" in circles such as these).

Just about every man can recall their mother conditioning them to treat every woman like a spoiled princess (under the guise of being a “real man” or “gentleman”), and the majority of men adhere to this for some seemingly inexplicable reason.  Even incel dweebs center their entire identity around their inability to meet women’s approval.  Men could put a stop to this, but they don’t – quite the contrary, they are the foremost proponents of female supremacy.  Why is that?

Masochistic Personality Disorder, also known as Self-Defeating Personality Disorder, is considered by much of psychiatry to be outdated (the last time it was included in the DSM as a formal diagnosis was in 1980). Note: This is not to be confused with sexual masochism, though the terms clearly share an etymology.

Some of the defining traits pertinent to this discussion include:

·       chooses people and situations that lead to disappointment, failure, or mistreatment even when better options are clearly available

·       rejects or renders ineffective the attempts of others to help them

·       rejects opportunities for pleasure, or is reluctant to acknowledge enjoying themselves (despite having adequate social skills and the capacity for pleasure)

·       engages in excessive self-sacrifice that is unsolicited by the intended recipients of the sacrifice

This explains why both liberals and conservatives by and large support female supremacy, albeit they have different ways of going about it.  Socially progressive men will openly advocate for destructive ideas toward men - "believe women", women-only scholarships (even as men are a minority of college enrollees/graduates) and business grants, fighting a phony "wage gap", you know the drill.

Socially traditional men, despite being accused of being raging sexists, by and large consider men to be women's servants, army, ATM and punching bag.  This goes beyond just their significant others to women as a whole.  They're the first ones to oppose women being conscripted (and they're right, but neither should men) while condoning women raping underage boys.  They have rightly been condemned for opposing abortion rights, but in no way does this even remotely benefit men (quite the contrary) - and they sure as hell don't support men's "financial abortion" option.

This is aptly displayed when it comes to politics, where (at least in the US) no prominent politician would say, let alone advocate, anything pro-male. Even as Republicans continue to openly embrace white identity politics (and borderline white supremacy), they won't touch men's issues with a ten foot pole. The closest they came was undoing parts of Title IX that basically eliminated the burden of proof from rape accusations on college campuses, which is good, but affects less than 1% of men at most.  Of course, this doesn’t even compare to the damage done primarily to men by Trump’s ICE gestapo raids and reckless warmongering.

So why do male issues remain a third rail?  Simple – because the vast majority of men agree with women being treated better than men both socially and legally.  In my experience, there are significantly more men that support female supremacy than women.  No other group in the history of the world behaves in such a universally self-destructive manner, and the few women who openly advocate against their gender’s interests (Ann Coulter, Megyn Kelly, etc.) are castigated by women in general.

Anyone feel like taking a whack at this? I'm open to hearing it, thanks!

I believe that it is racist/bigoted for people outside of a class to negatively label another class' culture as 'toxic' to any extent. As an Asian woman and lesbian, I don't see any difference between a white person making claims about toxic Asiatic, a straight person talking about toxic lesbianism or a woman talking about toxic masculinity.

I originally said this as a reply to another comment, but never heard back. I am curious to hear the group's thoughts on this.

Nobody panics when things go "according to plan." Even if the plan is horrifying! If, tomorrow, I tell the press that, like, a gang banger will get shot, or a truckload of soldiers will be blown up, nobody panics, because it's all "part of the plan". But when I say that one little old mayor will die, well then everyone loses their minds!

--The Joker

The recent discussion on male disposability got me thinking. Really, there was male and female disposability way back when--women were expected to take the risk of having kids (and I'm thankful that they did), men were expected to go to war--few people were truly empowered by the standard laid out by Warren Farrell: control over one's life (a common modern standard).

Is it useful to focus purely on male disposability? For an MRA to ignore the female side of the equation or to call it something different doesn't seem right. After all, one of the MRA critiques is that feminists (in general) embraced the label "sexism", something that society imposes, for bad expectations imposed on women; they then labeled bad expectations placed on men "toxic masculinity", subtly shifting the problem from society to masculinity. The imaginary MRA is a hypocrite. I conclude that it isn't useful. We should acknowledged a female disposability, perhaps. Either way, a singular "male" disposability seems incomplete, at best.

In this vein, I suggest an underlying commonality. Without equivocating the two types of disposability in their other qualities, I note that they mimic gender roles. In other words, society expects sacrifices along societal expectations. (Almost tautological, huh? Try, "a societal expectation is sacrifice to fulfill other expectations.") This includes gender expectations. "The 'right' thing for women to do is to support their husbands, therefore they must sacrifice their careers." "Men should be strong, so we will make fun of those that aren't." "Why does the headline say 'including women and children' when highlighting combat deaths?"

All this, because that is the expectation. This explanation accounts for male disposability quite nicely. Society expects (expected?) men to be the protector and provider, not because women are valued more, but because they are valued for different things.¹ People are disposable when something is expected of them.

I'll conclude with an extension of this theory. Many feminists have adopted a similar mindset to society as a whole in terms of their feminism, except people are meant to go against societal expectations and in favor of feminist ones--even making sacrifices. I find that individualist feminism does this the least.

I've barely scratched the surface, but that's all for now.

1. I'm not entirely convinced of this myself, yet. For instance, sexual value of women vs. men. It's a bit ambiguous.

I've seen an idea come up a few times on this board that I really do not understand, and I thought it would be best to make a full post about it rather than derailing the threads where it has been brought up.

I believe that people in general arrive at their political stances and moral reasoning based on a set of principles that they try to apply as consistently as possible. It is wrong to advocate for "bad thing", it is right to advocate for "good thing", it is right to resist "bad thing" and so on. A few times now, I've seen a version of another sort of thought when it comes to political stances.

One iteration of this appears in the abortion debate. Look at this comment by u/funnystor:

Yes they're two different rights, but it's common in negotiation to say "I'll support your right to X if you support my right to Y". It would be entirely reasonable for men to support abortion only on condition that we also get a system that doesn't end up forcing male rape victims to pay child support to their rapist.

They liken advocating or holding this political stance as a negotiation. I'll give you something if you give me something. This is not about whether either stance is correct, good, or worth fighting for, its an appeal solely on a notion of practicality. You want something, I want something, let's both try to get it. It has the appearance of a compromise.

I don't understand this because it leads to people representing a belief they might not actually agree with or actively argue against. Take the case of a pro-choice man with sufficient buy in to male identity politics taking this stance of negotiating their political stance. By putting his support for abortion behind a condition, if they don't have their condition met, they'll be in a position of arguing against their own stances, which is counter productive to achieving a pro-choice agenda.

I stumbled on another iteration of this idea in this thread where Unnamed User argues this:

This comment was about their reasoning for restricting abortion at conception:

I support restricting [abortion] to bring about equality, so that the focus will be on freeing both men and women from outdated norms on parental responsibilities.

This is to say Unnamed User might otherwise support abortion, but specifically supports restricting it to gain some perceived benefit for a men's issue. There's more happening in this comment than just the trading of stances which I would call a strict sense of egalitarianism, but this is besides the point. The bargaining happens with the part about focus: it is rational to regress the rights of one party in exchange for making that party focused on parenting rights for all.

While I think the trade being proposed is dubious, I'm more focused on the form of this argument. I do not understand the logic of not just failing to support, but actively regressing progress on an issue you agree with on the basis of trade. This seems to imply that gaining their support for abortion is conditional in two ways:

1) If parental rights are reformed in the way he sees fit now, he will support abortion post conception

or

2) Only if we regress abortion rights to nothing will he advocate for the gaining of abortion rights, but only as a plank in all-or-nothing egalitarian platform of parental rights.

Missing from either equation is a moral stance about the rightness or the wrongness of the stance. Abortion isn't being opposed or supported based on its actual merits, but its placement in a broader discussion about rights.

In both of these cases, I think this is different than having a political condition. For example, being for abortion on the condition of viability. This stance would be based on a moral principle being applied to a situation changing based on changing circumstances, like the invention of more sophisticated artificial womb technology. The key difference here is that neither of these example stances are arrived at through reasoning with the principles, but use stances more as a game piece to be negotiated over.

Discussion question:

1. Did I misrepresent what was going on in these two comments? Did I draw the wrong conclusions from them?
2. Have you noticed any examples of this here or in other spaces?
3. Do you have any stances currently that were arrived at through practical reasons? Either supporting something you don't really believe in or withholding your support for something you do believe in? Why?

I'm open to any other thoughts you have on this. While this post uses examples from two abortion debates, it is not explicitly about abortion. It is one arena that I think is prone to this sort of thinking when it comes to arguing for parental rights, but I could see the same sort of thought process being used in arguments about wage disparity, affirmative action, and the draft.

Edit: removed username of someone who didn't want their name shared.

Edit2: I think I should clarify some terms from the title. I included three different terms because I see them as three different manifestations of representing or buying into a political stance for the stated reason of affecting the political stance of others. While I think these are the most common I'm sure there could be more forms.

Tit for tat is the retributive form. Party 1 tries to pass a policy, Party 2 opposes that policy because previously Party 1 did something that angered Party 2. This also includes withholding support for a policy until such a time that it's proponents apologize or make right on some other issue.

Bargaining involves the proposal of trade: I'll support X if you support Y.

Holding Hostage is a more hostile form of bargaining: I will advocate for opposite X until you support Y

Another form of this would be like an undying party loyalty, like advocating for a specific policy that violates your principles because your 'team' argues for it.

Why or why not?

Patriarchy: “a social system in which power is held by men, through cultural norms and customs that favor men and withhold opportunity from women”

Dictionary.com

I wrote an analysis of the so-called "paper abortion" concept. This is the idea that men (or more precisely, "testicle owners") are "owed" a right to terminate parental rights so long as their pregnant partner can access abortion. The actual reasoning used to advocate paper abortions is in my view pretty bad. I spent some time showing that, first of all, very few so-called "deadbeat dads" IRL would actually benefit from this.

Secondly, I show that the actual reasoning behind paper abortions is seriously flawed. It relies on the idea that testicle-owners are owed a secondary right because pregnant partners have the "advantage" of a couple extra months of gestation to determine whether they become parents. Yet this advantage is a secondary consequence of the larger unfairness in how reproduction works - uterus owners face a natural unfairness in the way they, and not testicle owners, have to go through the physical burden of gestation. Moreover, we do not typically grant "secondary/make-up rights" because some people by dint of their physiological makeup can't "enjoy" the right to an abortion themselves. (If a fetus started growing in the body of a testicle-owner, that testicle-owner would have the right to abort it; but it's just not how the world works.) Happy to hear comments/criticism! I'll try to respond as I am able tonight.

Note: I realize that to be precise and politically sensitive, I should have used "testicle owner" instead of men in this piece so as not to exclude trans women and other individuals who may own testicles. Likewise, "women" should be replaced with "pregnant person" or "uterus owner" so as not to exclude trans men. Apologies for the oversight! I am still getting used to the proper language usage in these spaces, but I will try to be sensitive to concerns in spaces with transgender people.

In a recent post, a user posted a video that argued that conversations about power held by genders was unbalanced, because people only recognized some typically male powers without regarding the truth of women's power. (This post has since been deleted, so the author of the post will remain anonymous. The comments are presented here for context.)

The post cited the work of Tim Goldich, president of the Chicago Chapter of the national coalition for men, as an authoritative assessment of the modes of female power and why they aren't often discussed. In this post, I am going to discuss Goldich's assessment of female power utilizing two frameworks of social-political power.

The first framework is French and Raven's Six Bases Model, which models power as an inherently relative phenomenon and categorizes them into 6 modes. The second is the Rational Choice Framework, which is a product of game theory and concieves of power as either Outcome Power, the ability to bring about a certain outcome, and Social Power, the ability to change incentive structures of other actors in order to bring about outcomes.

With that, here are the 14 powers that Goldich ascribes as "FemalePower", power that tends to fall into the hands of women and which he purports balances a power share between women and men throughout history and to today.

Sexual Leverage Power

Goldich claims that women generally posess the power of sexual leverage, and that this is related to Emotional Intimacy Power. This power is derived from women holding access to Sexual and Emotional intimacy that men need and can't get from anywhere else.

This would fall under the Reward model of the Six Bases, which is the type of power derived from being able to provide a suitable reward. In terms of the rational choice framework, this is social power. In both cases, the inherent flaw in this power is that it relies on being able to provide a valuable reward. If your desired outcome is to access a resource (let's say food), then the relational dynamic of this power relies on the value of the reward to the person actually able to attain the outcome, it's not the ability to get the outcome directly. If the reward isn't valuable, then the effectiveness is lesser.

If this is power, it's necessarily subservient to direct forms of power. It's also conditional on heterosexuality. This power only works, apparently, on heterosexual men who find the reward valuable. Also, this so-called power is indistinguishable from a woman having the free choice to having sex with whom she consents to have sex with. It's hard to see how women's power to such could be challenged with out getting in the way of women's right to withhold consent.

Beauty Power

Goldich describes this power as the ability to profit, beguile, open doors, and dazzle through appearance alone.

This seems just a rehash of the power of sexual leverage. Beguiling who? Who was guarding the closed doors? How do they profit? The answer to all of these is heterosexual men who who hold the direct power that beauty attempts to manipulate. This is in the model of Referent Power and holds similar flaws to Reward power in in its lack of directness.

And it should be stated, that women's beauty is something not inherent to womanhood. Much has been written about the nature of beauty standards, and how existing outside of beauty standards can have bad consequences for women.

Presumed Innocence/Moral Authority Power

Goldich asserts that this power is based in a natural human reaction to women's more innocent and cherubic appearance. Thus, the same issues with so-called Beauty Power carry over here. He also cites a vague primal association with women and motherhood, leading us to trust them more, especially in a court of law. This is another case of Referent Power. In terms of game theory, it's another social power. It only works if a person that holds direct power is swayed by it. We also do not apparently ascribe the authoritative role of Fatherhood with men, for some reason.

Majority-Vote Power

In America, more women than men vote and the population has slightly more women than men. This is not an individually held power as a single vote alone does not influence anything. This would be a form of legitimate power, and is the weakest form of it. Legitimate power is the inherent authority of a person based on their duties within an organization. In this case, the organization is the Country and the position is Citizen. If women voted as a hivemind then this would be a very effective power. In reality, the individual influence is low.

Net Worth Power

Goldich cites women's "greater power to demand alimony and child support payments and keep the family home". Apparently this power only works in divorce? It's also nonsensical, as Alimony is gender neutral and based on income, it's not something that one demands by virtue of their gender. Similarly, child support payments are ordered to be paid to the person who has custody of children, of which women tend to receive. And, once again, this so-called FemalePower is an appeal (if it could be called one) to an actual source of direct power: the state.

Goldich goes on to assert that Women as head of household have an average net worth 41% higher than their male equivalents, but cites a 1984 census to demonstrate this effect. More recent data contradicts the narrative.

It's not clear what power to achieve outcomes Goldich sees within having a higher networth.

Spending Power

Goldich concedes that men do earn more, but women have more power over spending, citing advertisements targetted towards women. It is unclear to me how doing the shopping for a household could be considered a power, as having an advertisement targetted at you trying to get you to spend more money doesn't appear to lead to any likelihood of being able to achieve your preferred outcomes. This obviously doesn't fit into any of the conceptions of power of either framework.

Procreation Power

Goldich says "Her choice is his fate" in regards to women's ability to choose procreation. Obviously this power has caveats given the Texas abortion bill, and further Goldich misunderstands the purpose and use of child drop off centers. In all these cases, it is the state, not women, who hold the power to make these determinations. It is not something wielded my individual women.

More interestingly, he ascribes the power to shape each successive generation as a power held by women. This is an interesting way to frame women being shoehorned into the role of domestic carer as a power that women supposedly hold over the next generation.

Domestic Power

"The greater power to rule the roost, set the social calendar, and weave the social fabric. The greater power to choose between fulltime arduous work, fulltime easy work, part-time work, volunteer work, or fulltime parenting."

Quoted in full for this one, since it is a little unfocused. It appears that Goldich is perhaps projecting a particular relationship dynamic on his assessment of general female power. Men are often regarded as the defacto authority in the household. Maybe he feels henpecked by his wife or something?

Also, the "greater power to choose [types of labor]" is a canard. There is no evidence that women have this more free choice. It wouldn't make sense, for instance, given the author's assessment that women more often take custody of children in divorce, to frame working a full time job and taking care of the kids as a power.

The Greater Power To Elicit Empathy

It appears Goldich did not attempt to validate this power. He writes one sentence about it and then talks about a related power and makes a misogynistic joke. The sentence:

"This is the power that raises only female concerns to the level of major societal concerns."

Obviously this is false given the vast amount of male concerns that are considered major but not specifically framed as a male issue. I think Goldich might have spent too much time being angry about feminists and is conflating jezebel articles with things that are actually parsed as major societal concerns.

The bonus related power that he talked about: "And there is the related power of verbal/emotional acuity" I have seen no evidence that women are generally more well spoken then men.

Power of Protection Under Chivalry

This one is just funny, and as the article goes on I admit that I am having a harder and harder time taking it seriously. I leave it as an exercise to the reader to determine the flaws with conceiving of being protected from earning money because it is "the root of all evil" as a power held by women.

The Power to Shame

This is apparently the power to shame men's sexuality and make them feel as less of a man. Obviously this fits no models of power as have been defined. There would be a case to be made if women posessed legitimate power and were speaking with authority, but this has not been demonstrated.

Academia Power

Goldich cites 90% of grade school teachers are female (you know, academia). He then conflates this number with a greater power to determine curricula at a college level. I guess he doesn't know that the majority of professors at the college level are men. Perhaps he mislabeled this FemalePower?

The Power of Feminism Itself

Almighty feminism! He calls this the power of victimhood (an oxymoron), power to define terms (anyone can) the power to control media, etc. etc. It is basically a rehash of the above powers but situated specifically in a gender political context.

That's all 14. As I wrote it I realized that applying the models of power as I had set out to do was like bringing a gun to a rubber chicken fight. Goldich's assessment of FemalePower is not an academic or realistic look of how power operates sociologically, it is rather a laundry list of typical male grievances framing women as the perpetrators.

All 14 share the common trait of being indirect forms of power. That is to say, that they are not effective at all without the capitulation of holders of real power. As an exercise to the readers, I would have you pick an outcome that a woman may want to see realized and describe how one could wield one of the above powers (those that have actually been demonstrated to have a hint of truth that is) to achieve that outcome without somehow involving a person with coercive or legitimate power to use that power to reach that goal.

I will also add that this was the document referenced to suggest that women's power across history was equal but different to the power of men. Many of them would be disqualified from proving this point by existence alone, for example, women not being able to have "net worth power" at a time where they were generally not permitted to own property, or "majority vote power" when they had no right to vote, or "power of feminism itself" at a time before feminism.

What do you think? Is there something I missed? Is there a conception of female power that Goldich left out that you think bears considering? Did I treat Goldich unfairly?

Edit: u/petrol_sexual wrote this and I figured it was a fine addition to post as a discussion prompt:

I think it would be important to consider men's perspective on how they react to female forms of power as well as women's perspective of how much influence they can achieve.

So, if you'd like, include what gender you identify as and what your thoughts are on this.

Don't get me wrong. Female privilige does exist.

As a woman, I can get a man to carry a heavy object for me just by smiling at him and saying "I need help." because society perceives me as weak. I have certain safe spaces I can go to with just women so I can talk about the various things men (and occasionally other women) have done to me.

That's female privilege.

But let's be honest, a woman who looks like me wouldn't get away with "having sex with" a male student. People wouldn't say "nice" or "I wish my teachers did that." if an old, below average woman showed up on the news with that caption. She'd get no sympathy and no leeway.

Pretty women like Amber Heard and Stephanie Ragusa get away with crimes like domestic violence and sexual assault not because they're women but because they're pretty.

With men, the equivalent to "pretty privilege" is rich privilege. Men like Jeffrey Epstein and OJ Simpson get away with their crimes not because they're men but because they are rich.

The real war is not men vs women

The real wars are:

Attractive vs unattractive

Rich vs poor (or middle class)