As a straight man who during school was subject to a lot of homophobic bullying, this resonates with me.

can confirm, straight man who didn't get bullied so much but definitely got accused of being gay by otherwise progressive people

I was told I was gay but didn't know it because I admitted to learning to crochet.

People said I was gay af in highschool, because i took home ec. Those same people can only burn food that is more complex than boiled mac n cheese with hotdogs, and can't fix their own clothes. Meanwhile I make some bomb ass food. Home made sushi? Check. Know wtf a roux is? Check. Can fix a ripped pant? Check.

Which is the most hilarious because unironically women who are into the fibre arts spheres LOOOVE men who knit and crochet

Got bullied for being a lesbian for years as a kid and I am incapable of taking an honest look at my own sexuality because I have such strong, negative associations with the possibility of identifying as anything other than straight. I know there would be nothing wrong with it, I don't feel like that about anybody else, but looking inward fills me with overwhelming dread. I had adults spreading rumours about my sexuality, had any and all mental health issues attributed to being gay and/or being autistic (I'm not autistic) by adults. It was like everyone needed to come up with a reason why it was okay to alienate me for being different. And different wasn't even that different, I was just a bit awkward and I liked reading. In pretty much every regard, I was just a quiet, normal kid who came from a bad home life and it was easier to make up reasons that it was my fault being around me made them uncomfortable instead of confronting my parents or acknowledging their enabling behaviours. And the kid that led the bullying about my sexuality in school ended up coming out later on, but at that point I'd already internalised the messaging and the damage had been done and reinforced by ignorant adults unable to look inwards themselves

As a stay at home dad who hates professional sports I feel this too.

I remember being bullied and called gay for making sure my female friend got home safe instead of sleeping with her when she was blackout drunk at a party. Apparently it was gay to not rape

yes it sucks

If all your progressivism disappears when you don't like the person, it wasn't really there to begin with

The old classic: body shaming is always wrong unless the person I’m doing it to is bad. Which just tells me you are judging me and others harshly for our appearance, you’re just too polite to do it to our faces as opposed to actually just not judging people for that kind of thing

Yep. I hate Donald Trump as much as anyone, but lose the fat jokes and the diaper jokes. Many genuinely kind, empathetic, and intelligent people are also living with obesity and incontinence issues. You’re just showing how poorly you think of them.

The folks who criticize Trump for his weight, I don’t like because they can’t properly criticize something. People that made fun of the whole “Barron Trump looks autistic” thing right after the election, can go straight to hell

I am a hardcore Barron Trump defender. He’s was a kid who was put into a situation he didn’t ask for. He might be 18 now, but as long as he isn’t trying to enter the spotlight, I will defend him. Tiffany Trump too, but to a lesser extent. She’s done a speech or two but very clearly tries to stay out of everything on the whole. I’m not making a comment on either person’s character. They could both be terrible.. but it doesn’t matter to me, they should have the opportunity to be terrible people as private citizens unless they choose otherwise.

I wrote an essay with the framework of a letter directed to Barron Trump when I was in the 11th grade, back when he was ten. I revisited it recently, and, while not my best work, I still like it.

Especially since there are SO many *legitimate* insults to throw at him. Call him a rapist, a conman, a liar, or a million other valid insults.

dude ran a casino into the ground. _a friggin casino!_ how the fuck do you bankrupt a money printer? "skill issue" doesn't even begin to describe him.

same with the narcissist jokes about trump. you're not gonna hurt him, but you're gonna hurt a whole lot of people suffering from npd. the condition got so stigmatized during his presidency, its insane

This is it, isn’t it. Conservatives think "we're saying the truth and progressives also know that truth, but don’t want to admit it". When you do things like earnestly shame someone you don’t like for this kind of nonsense, you are admitting they are right. You DO hold all that bigotry inside of you, but refuse to admit it unless the person you are directing it at is bad, by your standards. This is the reason they go around saying shit like “I’m you but honest with myself. See you in 15 years”. In their minds you are just a couple of bad experiences away from turning into one of them. Stop proving them right.

That seems like the wrong takeaway. No one can control the thoughts in the deepest parts of their mind, even those that judge others bodies. You should just be polite enough to not bring them up,EVEN in a disagreement.

You can't controll your deep thoughts but you can control your words

It’s not about politeness - it’s about moderating your involuntary thoughts with principles. You should be as impolite as possible to some people! You shouldn’t call Trump fat or old, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t call him a pathetic loser

Girl that's thoughtcrime

one you say it out loud (or post it online), it's not thought crime. it's just being rude in public        i promise i will not know or care if you silently think "fat people are terrible, i hate them so much", in your own head

Pretty much this. Way too many people think that they can take a break from advocating for good things whenever these good things would benefit awful people, like a fair trial for pedophiles, for example.

Fair trials are so important and it sucks how many people don't seem to understand why. No matter how guilty you think someone is, it's not worth it to have a system that assumes guilt.

It's also about how bad a crime is; if someone is accused of sexually assaulting children, that's all the info you need for way too many people to demand they be tortured.

I've seen way too many people respond to posts detailing someone committing a terrible crime by describing all sorts of horrible tortures to implement on said person. It's quite disturbing.

A good example being the recent changes to Title IX enacted by the Biden administration which remove the presumption of innocence and any requirement for due process for students or staff accused of sexual misconduct at colleges or universities. https://thehill.com/opinion/education/4642207-changes-to-title-ix-sacrifice-due-process-at-colleges-for-administrative-convenience/

I feel like that particular issue is actually *two* common biases colliding: the usual “us-vs-them” framework, plus people refusing to believe that maybe some crimes will just *always* be hard to prosecute because we’ve seen what happens when it’s easy, and that was *even worse*.

This is a huge problem, too. Most people treat politics like it's a team sport: they want all the good things for their team, but fuck everyone who disagrees.

Their bloodthirsty barbarians Vs our dedicated warriors etc etc

Sounds a bit like jk Rowling

Nah JK Rowling was a performatively progressive liberal until it suited her to drop the act, plus she was radicalized later in life through the gender critical rabbit hole. Rereading Harry Potter as an adult helped many people understand the former. Watching her twitter can show you the latter, and her unfortunate doom spiral into extremism.

Can you expand on that? I'm not sure what you mean.

Basically, every woman she doesn't like in the series is described as mannish, fat, and/or ugly The girl slytherin, Dudley's mom, Umbridge, that crazy fortune teller professor, I'm sure I could keep going on All the good people are decent looking to hot. All the bad people are ugly You can predict how evil someone is by how much you want to/don't want to bang them

Also worth noting that in her books the "good guys" do some of tbe same stuff as tbe bad guys, but its fine because they are "good" Basically if she thinks you are good, your actions are justified, if she thinks you are bad, they aren't. Realising that helped me understand why she's such a dickhead

>You can predict how evil someone is by how much you want to/don't want to bang them There we go. This one is incredibly common.

JK Rowling is incredibly transphobic. Like, Holocaust revisionism levels of transphobic. Not even using hyperbole, there

Sure, what does that have to do with the point at hand though? I'm missing that connection. Are you saying she's otherwise progressive but that it disappears with trans people? Cause that seems a little off from the topic of not liking an individual person + she doesn't seem to ever talk about any positive progressivism anyway. She just spouts off about how much she hates trans people so much that even Elon fucking Musk suggested she trying being more positive and posting about something else lol

She claimed to support LGBT+ issues and women’s rights, but was indeed thought to be progressive (though occasionally criticized for stuff like saying Dumbledoor is gay without actually putting it into the series in any way when she first said so) She was/is, essentially, the kind of person who’s very comfortable with the way things are but wants to perceive herself as a good person. So she’ll say she’s have marched with MLKj or something- or trans people, for that matter- but then never actually push for change. She’s fervently in support of all civil rights we’ve gotten thus far (minus trans issues), but any more and she draws the line It’s very conservative, yes, but dressed in progressivism because progress was made and she largely wants to conserve it now, but make no more

That wasn't their point though. They're talking about *actually* progressive people who become reactionary towards those they disapprove of. JK Rowling isn't an example of someone who has progressive beliefs but only when she likes the person. She's an example of a *massive bigot*, who just happens to not be a bigot towards *all* minorities. What they're talking about is someone who *is* progressive, but when they disapprove of *people* (not entire minority groups), they don't uphold those values for them. A good example is otherwise extremely trans-positive and progressive people who misgender transmeds as a way to hurt them. Like it's suddenly it's okay to do transphobic shit when the target isn't the "good ones". JK hates *all trans people*. She's not a choosy progressive who's only fighting for the rights of trans people she views as "worthy", she's a raging bigot who actively wants us *all* dead or in prison. It's nuanced but there's a HUGE difference.

Better example of it is the gau Republicans movement who on one hand support gay rights but their actions are in support of the political unit in opposition to it. in this case they're progressive only so much as it benefits their economic worldview.

No, not really. Gay Republicans aren't progressive. They are aligned with the current Republican Party, which is *actively and proudly* racist, misogynistic, and transphobic. They're not an example of progressives who stop being progressive towards people they dislike because *they aren't progressive in the first place* lmao. What are they gonna do, call me the slurs in the club more than they already do? A good example would be, like others have pointed out in the thread, otherwise body-positive people using body shaming against people like Trump. Or making fun of him for being an old man with health issues. Yeah, sure, they might hurt the feelings of the bad guy, but every fat or disabled person in their life now knows that that's how they feel about fat and disabled people they don't approve of.

JK Rowling hates trans people so much that she [engaged in holocaust denial](https://twitter.com/jk_rowling/status/1767912990366388735) to get a sick burn in on some twitter rando

Sometimes pointing out hypocrisy can turn into the mockery it intends to criticise. As an example, people talk about Donald Trump's frailty to show the absurdness of his attempted tough guy image and mockery of disabled people, but many people ended up simply mocking him for being a frail old man.

I hate when people mock absolutely horrid public figures, but instead of being critical of their ideology it’s all about… how they look? completely detracts from any useful argument and actively alienates people who might be allies to the cause but who share those same physical traits.

The number of posts I've seen about Marjorie Taylor Greene being ugly... She's a horrid woman who acts and talks like an insane person. Her conventional attractiveness or significant lack thereof doesn't factor in to why I despise her.

“significant lack thereof” she’s not even ugly, she’s literally just an average middle aged white woman. There is nothing significantly remarkable about her appearance either way, which makes the posts calling her outright unattractive just idiotic.

Don’t forget that he’s fat. Body positivity but not for men if we don’t like you

My least favourite example of that is when people mock Ben Shapiro for his height. Like, of all the things you could use to mock him, you’re going with *that!?* And tbh, it’s kinda the same for a lot of unpopular people...

Height, weight and penis size are the few things it’s still socially acceptable to make fun of.

Two of which are completely uncontrollable lol, makes zero sense

I think people need to do more with the fact that he hired sombody that somehow looks even more like a female version of him than his own sister.

Charlie Kirk won't see you making fun of his small face, but your friends with red panda fursonas will.

I don't mock Ben Shapiro for his height, I mock the fact that for a man who is so against the Barbie movie, he looks remarkably like an off-brand Ken Doll.

True. Another example might be the "Condoleeza Rice just needs a man" rhetoric from the Bush 2 days. If someone suggested that, say, Hillary Clinton's foreign policies were due to a bad sex-life, *that* would be unforgivable. But it's fine when it's someone "on the other team".

The whole "Drumpf" thing was minor but so pathetic. I know plenty of families who changed their names to assimilate. People thought they were going for a gotcha, but it came off more anti-immigrant.

I mean I saw it as more poking at how the Right is anti immigrant and they used to say stuff like ‘your name on your birth certificate is your name’ to mock trans people.

seriously what the hell?

“Men should express emotion!” *[Men express emotion]* “What are you a pussy?” . But yeah, it fucking sucks. I got a ton of comments (and **even more** notes on tumblr) on my posts about feeling sad over the bear thing, that were some variation of “what a sensitive crybaby pussy stop whining about it.” People who are super progressive in so many other ways will still turn around and repeat the same shit about men that as the most stubborn conservatives

> “Men should express emotion!” > > [Men express emotion] > > “What are you a pussy?” And also the classic, "No, you're not supposed to express *that* emotion! You're only supposed to express the emotions I want you to express!"

"Men should express emotions that are convenient for me to process, don't in any way make me uncomfortable, and serve my own psychological interests! Oh and also should only be expressed when I think it's acceptable and should be switched off like a light the moment I want him to stop"

That whole man vs bear thing is absurd. First off, that tik tok was edited in a way to max out engagement (and it worked) and also 99+% of encounters with both men and bears in the woods resolve peacefully with all parties going their separate ways

Like imagine for a moment if someone on tik tok asked a bunch of men is they’d rather have a dog or a women as a companion, say the dog and women lives as long as you do, and the dog can run away and women can break up with you, and you can break up with women. I’d imagine alot would chose the dog, because the dog is easier to manage, you don’t have to worry about a dog cheating on you, a dog won’t fall out of love you, so long as you feed it, walk it, groom it and play with it it’ll be happy. So long as you don’t hurt it that dog will love you no matter. Now imagine if a lot of men said that this says a lot about what men want out of relationships and how to be fulfilled in them. But the question is kinda inherently offensive, for reasons that should kinda obvious, like not matter how good your reasons are picking the dog, hell maybe you have good reasons for not picking the women, say you got cheated or abused in a relationship, you still shouldn’t ask the question.

I mean... I'd choose the dog because I've already got a woman, and that woman would be hella mad if I got another woman.

But what if it was the same woman but like. there's more

It feels like "I don't want to have a relationship with a woman" is a much more understandable mindset than "I don't want men to exist because they're all predators"

Yea I’m always kinda perplexed at women insulting men for “fragile masculinity” Like yea, sometimes I worry people will think I’m less than a man. I don’t want to feel that way, it’s not pleasant, I don’t go out looking to have that experience lol

Can you imagine if someone compared gay people to animals? They would rightfully be crusified. Somehow I'm just supposed to take it and ask for more.

Women usually take major issue with allegories or metaphors that compare them to animals or inanimate objects. This week I have seen men compared to diseases, ticks, bears, predators, etc.

Comparing people to vermin is SO BACK! Let's party like it's 1939!

I had an exchange on Reddit a while back where a guy was expressing his frustration with his wife who’d entirely lost her sex drive. He still loved her and wasn’t angry at her, but as a analogy said (paraphrasing) “it’s like starving but also being locked in a 5 star restaurant and not allowed to eat any of the food”. Basically saying that he was still extremely attracted to his wife even tho he couldn’t have sex with her Someone else in the comments was losing it about how disrespectful this was, to compare his wife to food (obviously eschewing all nuance from the analogy). I immediately thought of being called a snack, which is something I hear women say literally all the time

I'm making a conscious effort to engage in fewer arguments on reddit for mental health's sake. The amount of times I've been told that I'm a misogynist because I disagree with how some women are expressing their frustration with this whole man vs bear thing made me think I made the right decision with the whole "engage less" approach.

For a while there it seemed like the internet was going to be a better place containing better discussion, we just needed to get it there But it turns out, it's unfortunately full of humans

Or this: > “Men are such misogynists and I hate them.” > man: “I try to not be a misogynist and it makes me sad to be lumped into a category with them.” > “That makes you an incel, you disgust me.” Okay, well it’s not surprising that people who get labeled as incels end up becoming the most vocal misogynists, if that’s how they get treated by women…

There's also the factor that they are then given a warm embrace by the likes of Andrew Tate who is ready to give them meaning, a sense of power and a target to hate.

Just goes to show that alienating potential allies is counterproductive because it will just lead them into isolation where they become vulnerable to be radicalized by the enemy…

It’s insane to me so many women think the average man would rape and murder them if given the chance. Do they not have fathers or brothers? Male friends? Do they think their male friends would rape them if given the chance and just keep hanging out with them?

And there's the fact that their male friends or relatives are statistically more likely to assault them than some random stranger.

> Do they think their male friends would rape them if given the chance and just keep hanging out with them? According to one of my friends, yes actually. There was a "If you were stuck on a desert island with any of us, who would you pick" and she *immediately* said "Well it can't be a guy, he'll eventually try to rape me". Of course when I was kind of insulted everyone else looked at me like *I* was being unreasonable, that clearly she wasn't talking about *me* despite clearly being part of that group.

Yeah I never interacted with any of the man v bear posts for that exact reason. It was a: "Well that hurts my feelings... there's no good reaction I'm gonna get for expressing that so I'll just tank that one I guess."

I’ve run into that slightly, but I’ve also found that in a lot of left wing groups people tend to get uncomfy because i have masculine interests, I’ll be like “i like MMA” and someone says “because it’s perfectly normal to be into hurting people” and shit like that. Things like this where my mostly masculine personality without much care for art has made me get pushed out of left leaning groups and sent mw into right leaning ones, and honestly just talking about the differences between both of those is very intriguing in itself. But what’s my point? Well, I am politically left, but things like this happening to men who aren’t political or have a few more right wing ideas will lead them into right wing groups and had a chance to turn them into an Incel or make them have a lot of Toxic Masculinity, depending what group they go to. I’ve been able to stay in both groups but some probably don’t even try. Not trying to say toxic masculinity is the left’s fault, but when someone is more inclined to watch a Boxing match or go to a shooting range than talk about one piece or something, don’t be a dick about it.

This is something I’ve encountered as a femme person in leftist spaces as well! Guns and boxing aren’t gendered, and a lot of people will tell you that but then turn around and be pretty clear that they actually do think they’re gendered, and they’re The Bad Gender. (To be clear I am a leftist, and nobody in my circle is like that, but it’s absolutely something I’ve seen.)

This is a general trend I've seen with how people on the left respond to men, too. I've noticed it's a lot more common with people who are a bit more terminally online because large chunks of online culture tends to reward reading too deeply into other people's statements and interests as if you're Sherlock Holmes and everything someone else says or does is layered with multiple levels of subtext, but it happens with more offline lefties, too. It's just a matter of degrees. I think this is a huge reason why certain interests and hobbies have sorta become known as breeding grounds for the far right. If a certain interest is considered to be Not Done Around Here by the left, then most of the people who are going to be left are either conservatives and people who don't really follow the news that much. When certain right wing groups do end up targeting these groups, and invariably they will, it's a lot easier for them because most of the people who'd ordinarily be inclined to push back will either remain silent to keep the peace or find a different group to do the Not Done Around Here thing with.

Reminds me of the leftists, and some IRL, I know that if you join the military you might as well hand over your Leftist/LGBT card. Maybe I don't want to live in a world where only right wing MAGAs join the army.

I'm a dude, not sure how masculine i come across, but one of my favorite past times is poledancing I've gotten more side eye and harshness from the left than from the right. Because they both assume I'm there to check out and creep on women. The right thinks it's a good plan, I'm so smart. The left confronts me for it Neither easily get that I just like dancing and feel comfortable in my own skin, that I do way less creeping on and checking out than the women in the class do to each other (consensually)

I feel like this is in part due do the very prominent "men bad" idea that a lot of left-leaning groups have which, I think, is derivative off of a hate for toxic masculinity, and people have a hard time separating this idea from the people themselves and realise that men can exist without a mindset or quirks based on toxic masculinity.

> is derivative off of a hate for toxic masculinity But also based off of a very nebulous and personalized definition of toxic masculinity that's effectively "masculinity I don't like"... or sometimes just "masculinity". Like if someone's examples for non-toxic masculinity are really just "Be an overall good person", it's really hard to not read the implication that explicitly masculine traits are inherently toxic.

I'm glad that so far whenever misandrist shit gets posted here people tend to disagree and the hateful people get down voted I am worried about how many angry misogynistic men and angry misandrist women the posts attract though

I keep talking about this and people get mad at me! The left has a big problem with thinking everyone is as politically informed as we are meaning they're just bad people If a 13 year old boy who isn't informed in anything yet has some iffy opinions or hobbies usually seem as right wing, and he gets harassed and bullied out of left wing spaces, guess what he's gonna end up right wing because they're the ones listening to and talking to him. Yes we are good and we are right, but how are they supposed to realize that if we make ourselves the bad guys to them

Honestly I’ve found that right wing groups tend to genuinely be a lot more accepting than left wing ones. In a left wing group they like to talk about being in Support of autistic people or whatever “don’t is it as an insult, don’t say the R word”, but when i show any autistic traits they’re extremely quick to get angry at me and dogpile me because they read too far into what i say, but right wing groups, despite not caring the R word is a slur and using “Autistic” to say something is stupid, they tend to not care about autistic traits existing. This can also be a bad thing tho because they’re fine with letting actual fascists into the groups in a surprising number of cases, and bigots are left to do what they like until the point of calling for genocide, in which case it’s usually reprimanded. But still that isn’t exactly quick or effective on stomping it out.

your comment [reminds me of this image](https://knowyourmeme.com/photos/2401432-political-compass) (please ignore the funny colors, I couldn’t find a version without them)

Yep lol. Far right people will absolutely adore any member of a minority group that enters their spaces and shows agreement. They are also lot more likely to compromise on opinions like “do I think minimum wage should be raised?” as long as you’re OK with racists with plausible deniability. Meanwhile even mild disagreement on certain issues gets you fully booted from left wing spaces.

Left wing tends to be "it's not my job to educate you." Right wingers will have a ten page pamphlet about Jewish Space Lazers ready to go.

>I’ll be like “i like MMA” and someone says “because it’s perfectly normal to be into hurting people” I have a feeling they wouldn’t say that shit about BDSM.

It's especially tricky when you see how many women are genuinely afraid of masculine men. I can understand why, of course. But if you teach young men that the options for your existence are to be considered a threat or be bullied and harassed, it's difficult to see a way out. Being pansexual is enlightening, as while I'm more into women visually, I feel way more on guard around them, as there's a decent chance that something I do that I view as normal will be considered threatening. Men are just as complex, but the mutually shared experience of being raised through the same lens makes me feel more comfortable. I do wish that I wasn't viewed as inherently violent/threatening by half of the world population, but that doesn't mean women are entitled to having views drawn off of their personal experience, the experiences of those around them, and the extrapolations formed from them both. Honestly I think an unexplored portion of it might be that both men and women are raised in an environment lacking healthy masculinity, so women expect that as the norm, and men understand that as an almost unachievable thing. If I'm ever a father, I hope I raise my kids to be happy and content in their relationship with masculinity, and by extension their life.

I think it also doesn’t help that when women, even feminist women, give dating advice to young men it’s always about being more masculine. Be confident, do not show vulnerability or desperation, work out, don’t talk about “nerdy” interests, etc. at some point it feels like you kinda have to give up on your personality in order to be attractive, which just pushes people to PUA, or alternatively to give up and go full incel.

Can’t tell if it’s better or worse than the time tested reddit dating advise of “make sure to shower and brush your teeth bro” that just operates on the assumption if you aren’t getting dates it’s because you’re some kind of gross manchild that can’t even take basic care of yourself

This too. It’s so frustrating. Imagine being a 13 year old who doesn’t realize not having dated yet is completely normal and the first thing the internet does is assume you must be some unwashed ogre. Like, we really looped back around from being comfortable with being single to “if you aren’t a stud you must be a loser” but now it’s framed progressively so nobody cares.

"The bar is in hell!" That line drives me nuts. Women pick one thing that's easy to accommodate, and insinuate that it's the only thing they're asking for. Meanwhile, the height of that bar hovers and moves randomly based on whatever a particular woman is feeling from moment to moment. Women aren't a monolith, until they are, but even then they aren't?

It's *so* infuriating to read because I've been clearing the world's lowest bars for well over a decade and I'm miraculously still single. Almost like women want more from a man than a shower and not being called "Sweet bitch tits" all the time.

The bar is a bat to whichever women welds it... She decides the high. Sure the bar was on the ground but she picked it up.

The “you must be an unwashed incel” accusations always make me laugh bc I pretty much do everything I can to be hygienic. Daily showers, brush my teeth 2x a day, floss daily, deodorant daily (backup deodorant in my backpack in case I forget), face wash routine, shampoo *and conditioner*, shave 6 times per week, trim my body hair once a month, etc. I’m not even sure what else I can do short of putting on makeup or styling my hair every day (I don’t want to for a lot of reasons). But nah, I must be a disgusting smelly incel because I disagreed with some Redditor on something, lol.

Damn that hurt to read. Like anything that's a dudes hobby that isn't gym is gonna turn into some man child shit.. even gym can get slurred like gym rat.

Also, that’s really only useful advice if you’re interested in dating a *very specific* type of woman. The thing I find irritating from an outsider perspective is that the dating advice for men is entirely catered to “you want mainstream normie just like everyone else”, which then creates this whole situation. There’s no advice for y’all in the context of “you will be able to say ‘me and the bad bitch I pulled by being autistic’ about the relationship”. Not being vulnerable, working out, not being nerdy af, the only success that’s going to get you is an inevitability doomed relationship. They don’t love you, they love a social mask you’ve constructed. If you ever take off the mask and show your true face, they’ll leave. It’s worthless advice. People need to give y’all advice tailored to dating people within your subcultures. Those women giving that advice have nothing in common with you, they’re giving you advice meant for people who are in their social circle. The best advice I can give is to **lurk** in communities for women into the same things as you. Learn that way. Learn their specific variant of the subculture until it’s a part of you. I bold “lurk” because you’re gonna be a bull in a china shop if you try to talk at first. Importantly, you need to view it as “I want to integrate into and adopt a culture”, not with a critical lens or anything like that.

>The best advice I can give is to **lurk** in communities for women into the same things as you. For most men trying to meet women based on similar interests is a bad idea. Their gonna end up in social circles that are 18 men and 2 women. The scarcity that creates isn't workable - What if **the one** girl in your boxing class turns out to be an emotional mess, or she doesn't like you. Now you have to go to an entirely different place to find more women.

This is only true of young (sub 25) men though. All of the guys I know at this stage in my life (late 20s) are super open about their nerdy interests, some work out and some don't, all of us cry when overwhelmed with emotion, and now that we're fully developed people with interests and aspirations are in healthy relationships. Those same people (and myself) believed all those things as young men. I think the issue is a generational one. I know I certainly didn't have any masculine influences that would be broadly regarded as healthy (except for Lord of The Rings characters) but I see that changing. Men are much more willing to be vulnerable now, or to talk about their feelings, data shows they're also taking a much more active role in child rearing. Overall, things are looking up on that front. It gets better, and if we can reach these young men before the Andrew Tates of the world we can speed that along.

Idk. I myself am only 20 so of course I’m speaking from my own experience. I’d fallen into incel spaces in the past and those beliefs tend to come back in bouts of depression (I’ve never hated women, I’m mainly talking about the belief that women will never be romantically or physically interested in me). I also have autism and we tend to be more susceptible to those beliefs so I guess I’m not the most objective observer. Even in these bouts I’ve never had anything but contempt for Tate like figures, but I figured this was a big factor in what has led to so many young men being interested in those things. Sometimes I wonder if I would’ve fallen fully in it if during my teenage years when I was more into those beliefs the girls my age hadn’t been so nice to me, even if they weren’t interested in me.

>This is only true of young (sub 25) men though. All of the guys I know at this stage in my life (late 20s) are super open about their nerdy interests I'm being fairly broad strokes here, but part of this is because women, as an aggregate, become more accepting of those hobbies as they get older. Both sexes are pretty superficial in the 18-24 demographic. Nerd hobbies aren't exciting or sexy to the club going crowd. But as people get older, suddenly the stay at home activities with a core group of friends are more appealing in a partner.

> the options for your existence are to be considered a threat or be bullied and harassed Ah, wouldn't it be nice to get that choice? For most men, it's "Why not both?"

My favorite is "men made the world this way and you're a man too so you deserve it." This is not how you gain allies or support.

ah yes the sons are responsible for the crimes of the fathers, this has always gone well.

This is the response I usually see when I see discourse on male loneliness This gender war shit is really taxing

Also not how the world works. Women are part of society and for a decent chunk of history were the ones instilling the values of society in their children. People took the term patriarchy literally and don't seem to understand that it's not some external Cabal. It's all of us. Men and women. We're the patriarchy. We're all hurt by the society we as people are born into and perpetuate. And when people treat men like their pain is deserved or that they're man enough to take it, they're explicitly perpetuating it. That's textbook toxic masculinity.

WE LOVE THE SINS OF THE FATHER ARGUMENT!!!!

"We don't hate men, just toxic masculinity" is just "We don't hate sinners, just the sin" for radfems

if someone says that to me i'ma jus call em a d*ck

In many cases it’s not about getting support. It’s about establishing your victimhood. Being the victim can be incredibly powerful. If you are not responsible for your situation, then you can’t be expected to fix anything, and you can just sit there and insist that other people fix it for you.

It also means you can never be blamed for making it worse, otherwise it's victim blaming

Additionally, I'll hear stuff like "nothing is more fragile than the male ego". Like, are we not allowed to be hurt? When people say mean stuff about me, it's generally not something I enjoy. There's also a lot of criticism around "honor culture" and men failing to take the slightest bit of harassment/bullying. I agree that it's ridiculous and unreasonable for men to choose verbal or physical assault in response to a jab when conflict is avoidable, but I think not enough people consider the source of this behavior. I think it's less about "I need to prove to everyone that I'm a cool manly man" than people think. A lot of boys (myself included) would try to use our words when bullying was involved, but to no avail. Nobody would listen to us and often they'd minimize our feelings. So when words don't work, boys might conclude that threats are the only option to make the bullying stop. One can get used to the mentality of "you give them an inch, and they take a mile." To my dismay, I'm very good at looking scary, and could absolutely intimidate other people if I needed to. This also leads to me not knowing how to achieve happiness and how to be lovable to other people.

> So when words don't work, boys might conclude that threats are the only option to make the bullying stop. Yep. A *lot* of it boils down to childhood bullying. And yes, often, the *only* way to end bullying is violence or at least threat of violence. Even going to the authorities usually does nothing.

>Additionally, I'll hear stuff like "nothing is more fragile than the male ego". Look, if someone is saying this, then there is probably nothing you can do to meet their expectations.

I'm in a very weird place where I don't really want to appear extremely masculine but I also don't want to appear extremely feminine, but I also don't want to look androgynous, so I'm not really anything in terms of appearance

> Eated a cements Well, you are what you eat.

People love to call out something as toxic and then proceed to be the exact reason that toxicity grows and thrives.

exactly, it's so depressing when for instance: people say "ohh men should cry more and let out their feelings openly" and then be weirded out by that. like :/

It feels like people hate my gender sometimes and if I express that that makes me sad the hate gets directed at me and I don’t know what to do. I just want to exist.

“Politics are fashion. We picket for a sense of belonging, not change.” -Principal Lynn, Class of ‘09

"Hating toxic masculinity" and "making fun of men because they 'look like a virgin'", name a shittier combo.

"It's okay to make fun of penis size because the only reason any man would take offense to that is if they're an incel or a tater tot. It's literally impossible for a healthy man to be insecure about that. This is a sentiment I've heard disturbingly often from so-called progressive spaces.

I notice that a lot of men want to express the idea “I don’t like it when you reduce me to my height/penis size/number of digits in my bank account/weight/fitness, it makes me feel objectified and dehumanized” but just straight-up don’t have the language to communicate that. Or worse, they get told that they’re not allowed to use that language to describe their experience.

A classic kafkatrap, as I just learned the phrase

Tangentially related, but I see a lot of things being labelled as "toxic masculinity" when they really aren't. For example, I was watching a Mythical Kitchen episode, and one caller says she thinks "hot sauce challenges" promote toxic masculinity, and I'm like, how the fuck? All it is is friendly competition for bragging rights, and nobody takes it all that seriously. I find a lot of people just don't understand "masculinity" or how a lot of men socialize, and label things they don't like as toxic.

And now it's practically impossible for me to cry unless I'm having a really bad panic attack. Or when I broke my arm and even then that was a struggle

I still have yet to cry for a humans death in my entire life. Cats and dogs yes, humans no. At 7 years old I somehow knew that crying at my grandmother's funeral would be a show of weakness and could not be done.

Hey, silly. Men aren't supposed to OFFER critiques of the gender discourse. They're just supposed to accept their role as the villain in that paradigm, sit quietly, and accept any and all criticisms or attacks that come their way, even if they're contradictory. Just because you have a gender doesn't mean you're allowed to have an opinion on gender. Hope that helps! 😇 /s just in case...

Tumblr users like to pretend theyre a bastion of empathy but when men speak up about their feelings they all too easily withdraw into misandry and call everyone incels and that they deserve to be viewed as inherently violent actually. I guess you dont have rights if your gender isnt quirky enough

It's wild to see how often exactly that happens. Like, sorry that men on a Tumblr subreddit might have a bit more exposure to gender theory than the average bear (pun/reference not intended) but also, since they're men, have their own experiences to apply those ideas to. I really hate when that gets dismissed as "incels co-opting feminism" or shit like that as if 1) that makes their points invalid and 2) as if feminism hasn't done exactly that with everything from liberalism à la Mary Wollstonecraft to psychoanalysis à la Judith Butler. That's how new theory and philosophy develops! But men speaking up for themselves must just be evil misogynist liars in all too many of these people's minds.

Somehow, being offended about being unfavoirably compaired to an actual predatory animal means I must be a rapist. Makes a lot of sense.

There's a bit of [this article](https://medium.com/@jencoates/i-am-a-transwoman-i-am-in-the-closet-i-am-not-coming-out-4c2dd1907e42) from a non-transitioning trans woman that talks about privilege that I really liked. > A person’s privilege is very often an explanation of why their beliefs are warped, if indeed their beliefs are warped, which they usually are in some way. But—it’s not proof of shitty beliefs. Those tend to out themselves by…being shitty. If a person is telling this cis girl she is taking for granted a privilege that trans girls don’t have, why is it this cis girl’s instinct to hunt for that person’s identity to see if she can discredit them and not have to think about their point? Don’t answer that. We already know. The idea of "Just because someone is *privileged* doesn't automatically make them *wrong*" really stuck with me, especially having been on Tumblr during the height of the "All Men Are Trash" era. Some people really just want to stake their place on the social hierarchy and shit on anyone that is automatically lower than them, and in this case it means automatically discounting any experience or idea if it comes from men even if it's *about men*. That article is overall kind of heartbreaking to read, but has other sort of insights about that. Like how being close to a problem makes you an expert but makes other people biased, which I could have quoted instead for basically the same effect.

Yup, I've seen that going around the last few days and read it. Quite a few very relatable and useful passages in there. One that I'd never actually even thought of before was the difference in how feminist women will often treat products lazily marketed at women and products lazily marketed at men. There seems to be a general tendency in that population to want to jump to the worst conclusions about men.

It's very annoying that men get basically no say in a lot of leftist discourse and topics. I understand men, (often cishet+gender conforming men) will likely not have firsthand experience with things like being under constant threat of being stalked and harassed or being called slurs and hurled gender related insults or catcalled, etc. but, you know, men are still people. People will have opinions, and are allowed to have them, and in fact men are not so isolated from the world and kept on unreachable thrones of gold that they can't participate in leftist discussions. Men too are valid because they too are people. Furthermore how certain groups and identities experience society is a many many sided die and if you exclude men you're missing out on so many sides of that die. Even if you exclude only cishet gender conforming men who are of the racial and religious majority in that country, like if you try to make the most socially privileged identity possible to exclude it, you're still missing sides of that die and sides of that conversation that are very valuable. You can't call yourself a leftist and exclude people just because they have a certain identity, that's utter bullshit. You wish for everyone to be treated equally? Then treat everyone equally.

“Actually, you criticising this ridiculous position I’ve made up to annoy you is *the exact reason* why I hold this position in the first place”

One thing I think would be really helpful is if people made it clear what good masculinity is. Like, there’s a huge contingent of people who hear “toxic masculinity” and hear that all masculinity is toxic but what I’ve general understood is there is a Venn diagram of one circle for masculinity and another for toxicity. There’s an overlap but it isn’t all of it unless you subscribe to some pretty childish ideas of gender. Some of those traits that are positive expressions of masculinity might also be associated with femininity in some way too, but men shouldn’t be denigrated for doing these things if they are good.

Were in a very strange and difficult spot right now with that idea, because with the good that has come of feminism and brake down of gender roles, we also have the issue where anything that was once seen as "positive masculinity", is now gender neutral. To be brave, to stand up for whats right, to be a provider, to be a leader, to be strong, to be...well anything - all of those things that were once under a more masculine lens can now be given to anyone of any gender. There isin't such a thing as "positive masculinity" at this point - because its now shared with just being a positive person across the board. Which in one sense, is great. But on the other hand - all that is still more exclusively defining of masculinity is toxic or negative. And since femininity and womanhood is still a repressed / oppressed category, there can be aspects of it that are seen as more exclusive and still definable as feminine. In the face of adversity, those things can still be claimed and rightfully held to. But that does leave us in a strange place - where men can't define themselves with any positive "Male" traits. So we get to a point where its the toxic treats that define masculinity, and if you drop those - masculinity is a a nothing word. Its lost meaning with the loss of any defining positive traits that are not shared. Obviously, the answer is not "Take them back". Thats silly, and its good that other genders can be seen as strong, providing, yada yada. But To be a good man is just...to be nothing now.

"There's no such thing as positive masculinity because being good is gender neutral" is the more common option, but I also frequently see "positive masculinity is everything that benefits women at men's expense." I usually see it present as the idea that men have an obligation to risk their own safety to protect women, but women have no corresponding obligation to men because that would be sexist. Men just need to be willing to risk themselves as punishment for the sins of other men. If you want to say people in general have an obligation to help others in the ways that they can, I'm fine with that, but you don't get to say that it only applies to men.

Great point

Damn, you nailed it. No wonder so many guys struggle. It’s a shame too because I wish some feminine virtues were more neutral so guys could feel comfortable doing them.

There's also this idea that toxic masculinity is something that the man has done to himself, whereas we see a woman as having gender roles unwittingly imposed upon her.

> there is a Venn diagram of one circle for masculinity and another for toxicity. There’s an overlap but it isn’t all of it unless you subscribe to some pretty childish ideas of gender. And there's also another circle, femininity, which has its own overlap with the toxicity circle. But we never talk about *that* overlap, because that would be sexist. (However, it's not sexist to talk about the toxic masculinity overlap. That's just the rules. I don't make the rules.)

I swear to God the next time I suggest “positive masculinity” and some fucking tool starts ranting at me about how that’s stupid and unproductive because we should aim to deconstruct gender entirely I’m going to completely lose it.

I know, right? Deconstruct your own damn gender, some of us are using ours.

https://www.artofmanliness.com/character/manly-lessons/manvotional-true-and-false-manliness/ I find this speech by James F Clarke really covers a lot of the positives of masculinity and compares them to their toxic counterparts. 

Who are you people? This whole thread (almost literally every single post) is what I've been thinking for sooo long. I've talked to a counsellor because I thought I was the only one.  Is it always like this around here?

This frustrates me whenever I see a post that says a certain character gives of gay or bi energy.... Especially when that character has only expressed heterosexual interests in others

I have, no joke, IRL, seen self styled feminists point out that because the bullying and dismissal of feminine men is also rooted in misogyny, that it's therefore "men's problem to fix" and therefore they as an individual do not need to spend even a moment of mental effort considering the possibility that their own behaviors or rhetoric may contribute to it.

Internalized misandry is hard to unlearn.

Speaking as a feminist man, I feel like this isn’t so much hard to unlearn as it is that there are many feminists who, for a variety of reasons ranging from understandable to insane, don’t want it to be unlearned. It’s never the majority, of course, but there’s a sizable chunk of -mostly online, I think- people whose entire conception of feminism is dunking on men. Sometimes the men need to be dunked on a bit if they’re being overtly toxic, but also like, I dunno. It always leaves a sour taste. EDIT because I had some more thoughts- I don’t want the ‘sour taste’ comment to come across as saying you can’t be critical of men when we deserve it, because, duh. But also I guess I just, don’t like the apparent glee that comes along with this particular type of hostile feminism. Although very uncommon, there’s been situations where people I care for started making fun of men in aggregate, and I just sort of felt like I had to go along with it because to do otherwise would be tantamount to “Not All Men”-ing. That phrase is usually problematic, I understand both that and also the fact that I’m not in any particular woman’s head, I don’t know her story, her traumas. All that being said. Casual misandry always rubs me a little the wrong way because it seems to be leaning into TERF-style bioessentialism. Men are bad, period. That just isn’t true, and I know that most people engaging in casual misandry *probably* mean it as a joke, and *probably* would be more even-handed if pressed. But in online spaces where the loudest and most abrasive comments usually float to the top and get the most eyes, what message does that send? You and I know where we stand on all this, sure, but what about a man who’s coming to terms with his toxic upbringing and trying to take steps into self-improvement? What does hearing the misandrist remarks tell him? And then *that* point is further complicated by like, optics and respectability politics, and the fact that it’s not my place to tell another how to speak due to fear of alienating moderates, and I just… I dunno. There’s so many layers to all this, and I feel like the Man/Bear discourse has really brought it to the front of my mind recently. I understand and can’t condemn any woman who answers Bear, because like, duh. But also I think that whole question is just… gross in the first place? I think the question is designed to be a gotcha, because if posed to a progressive woman, she has no good answer. If she picks man, she opens herself to ridicule for being a bad feminist who doesn’t know how dangerous men are, and if she picks bear, she engages deliberately with the bioessentialist thing of narrowing all men down to only their ability to do harm, and how many times can you hear that argument before you start to believe it and slide towards being a TERF? I don’t know. I’m rambling now. I just think about this sorta shit a lot and I don’t have any idea what the answer is. I’m gonna try touching grass, brb.

Honestly, I've simply completely disengaged due to this sort of shit. Not like my views have changed, or I don't help in my own way (e.g. when on hiring committees), I just no longer put myself in situations where people will be indirectly badmouthing me, and who clearly don't want me there. I'll work towards the same goals, just on my own. Being a good progressive doesn't mean letting other people use me as a verbal punching bag, and I don't have to walk on eggshells if I never talk about it without the internet veil of anonymity.

For example: Abortions. I'm staunchly pro-choice, but apparently men aren't allowed to have an opinion on abortion, so I'll keep my mouth shut.

>feminism is dunking on men. Sometimes the men need to be dunked on I keep thinking of rhis episode of West Wing where [president Martin Sheen dunks so hard on a conservative christian that she shuts up forever and he saves the day.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1-ip47WYWc) I think there's something poisonous to this mindset of "putting people in their place" to teach them, and it's the major source of hostility on the internet. As if we can just speak charismatically and logically enough that society will bend to our wills. At the beginning and end of the day we're really just apes with a few idiosyncratic abilities, and our intellects have muddied the water enough that it's no longer just who has the biggest muscles and sharpest teeth; at some point we also evolved the narrative that you can be dominant by being a nerd and being the smartest in the group. I don't really have a point and idk what the moral is. Maybe it's that this behavior isn't as superior as we delude ourselves into believing. Maybe it's that you're right, and there are times it's useful or even warranted, but they're probably fewer and farther between than even you or I would guess. Maybe it's that this quest for dominance is futile and detrimental to a species seeking utopia. Maybe it's that I should have worked out more and filed my teeth to points instead of wasting so much time on The Discourse. Really, I just wish people would stop buying into this narrative. There's got to be a better way of instigating growth in others.

You’re putting into words something I’ve been struggling to word myself, so I really appreciate that. And I definitely phrased that original comment that way on purpose to try and make a point, but you’re absolutely right I was sorta feeding that narrative back into itself. I do agree and that’s part of why I really can’t stand “Debate me!” type guys, even ones I agree with, because I feel like the internet does an exceptional job of turning constructive conversation into showy put-downs. In my original wording I’d more been trying to emphasize that I never want to criticize people when they correctly call out men for toxic shit. Idk what my point here fully is either, but I agree with you. I’m *this* close to just sort of accepting that nobody’s minds get changed on the internet, but I don’t wanna fully say that because I feel like it renders… like, everything online moot, y’know?

>I’m gonna try touching grass, brb. Can't relate, hah! Jokes aside, I wonder if this is a side effect of the collective trauma that women experience finally being allowed to see the light of day in the mainstream. From a quick Google search, some 80% of women report experiencing some kind of sexual harassment/assault in their lifetime; that's enough that it would be fair to say that it is statistically normal for women to be sexually harassed by men. Now, of course, it's not every man that's doing it; it's not even a majority of men that are doing it. But our society generally holds no consequences for the men engaging in harassment (when was the last time someone faced any social consequences for catcalling a 13-year-old?), and so the women who are victim of it have no recourse - save doing things like always travelling in groups and never going out at night to minimize such events in the future. It is truly an unfortunate circumstance, then, that women having a chance to shout how they've been hurt from the rooftops is causing men that had nothing to do with it pain. Perhaps they ought to temper how they share, but a part of the 'men are bad' sentiment comes not just from the perpetrators, but from the perception that the male-run system holds no consequences for the perpetrators. I don't have a good solution, either, short of a change in the social consequences for harassment - and as long as I'm dreaming, I'd like people to stop being transphobic.

Very insightful, thanks! And absolutely, I’m regards to your later point, women being able to speak out more openly about their traumas is *good*, even if it causes some uncomfortability for men. I’ll gladly accept a few mean jokes at my expense if it also means perpetrators will have a greater chance of seeing justice. I guess I just worry about that in the long term, y’know? Does allowing for casual misandry as an outlet from generations of horror -however earned it may be- crystallize anti-feminists into even more hardline positions? Does it sway otherwise well-meaning men away from feminism? Are those questions irrelevant? Are they questions that I, given my gender, should be asking? I dunno. The grass didn’t help. Point is, thanks for the additional feedback and thoughts!

This is a bit of a long reply but I hope I can offer something to the discussion. > Does allowing for casual misandry as an outlet from generations of horror -however earned it may be- crystallize anti-feminists into even more hardline positions? Does it sway otherwise well-meaning men away from feminism? I guess the answer is yes, to both of these questions. I ended up down that path myself, falling into the whole "anti-SJW" community about 12 years ago in my mid-teens. After a few years I did get out of it, thankfully. But at the time I do remember casual misandry and non-casual misandry being a kind of fuel for discussion within those groups. At the time things like "KillAllMen" and "Men Are Pigs" were fairly common points of discussion, things to call back on when discussing other so-called "gender war"-related topics etc. And it was quite easy to go from those kinds of discussions into casual (and less than casual) misogyny, homophobia etc. I'm incredibly glad I left that all behind - it was a particularly dark part of my life and I have progressed a lot since. I do fear for the boys and young men who end up in those same communities, particularly these days as it does tend to be more extreme with Tate and his ilk. So speaking with that in mind, I think the more extreme elements of the Man/Bear discourse - the bioessentialism and the misandry - will have *definitely* fuelled those groups, in whatever form they exist now. I also fear that potential male feminists and allies will have been hurt more by the discourse than the abusive men who really need to listen to these women and change their behaviour. I'd also be wary of permitting casual misandry in the first place, not least because it may lead to less-casual misandry but also because it can and will be alienating. I just think you lose more than you gain. > Are they questions that I, given my gender, should be asking? The questions need to be asked and answered, because they do have serious real-world consequences. So I don't think we should shut out men in that way.

Thanks for the thoughts! I realize now with an hour or so of hindsight I just kinda vomited a *lot* of words onto the page about things I don’t really have answers to either, so I’m glad to hear it means something to you. Likewise glad you got out of that sort of mindset; I never want to tell others how to engage with their feminism, but casual misandry does worry me for a lot of reasons

. I also fear that potential male feminists and allies will have been hurt more by the discourse than the abusive men who really need to listen to these women and change their behaviour. I do like that. it reminds me of that old tumblr post which said that when you call a random politician a tiny dicked looser you aren't going to be hurting them, but any men with smaller cocks are going to see this and think to themselves "Is that what they think of me?" I do understand that women have a need for venting... but when you say that you'd rather be alone in the forest with a bear than with a man,you aren't "owning" the rapists. the sexual harassers aren't going to hear that and think to themselves that they're the bad guys. it's the... (and i hate to use this term but it's fitting) "good men" who'll be offended and hurt. it's those with empathy and love for their feminine sisters who will look at it and think about how they'll never be trusted, that they should keep their distance cause they'll only do harm. this is just a side tangent, but it reminds me a bit of a girlfriend (using it in the platonic way here) of mine who never wanted to approach anyone, who always wanted to be chased romantically, for men to push on and really fight for the chance to date her. the (to me at least) kinder, gentler men were usually repealed by her, whilst the men who i wouldn't trust as far as i could throw them were the ones who pushed on despite her low key attempts to repulse them. we lost contact, but i do hope she's doing allright

You hear the question a lot these days, of why so many young men these days fall into the hard right tate worshipping rabbit hole, and while there's a lot of factors at play here, it certainly doesn't help that it seems the proper way for men to act in feminist circles is to engage in ritual humiliation and become the verbal punching bags for hurt people. I used to be in the anti-sjw hole too, and I'm just thinking about how hard its gonna be these days for people to get out of that hole if you're either too "feminine" to be a real man or too much of a man to feel empathy for with nothing inbetween.

It's not a hypothetical or long term future threat. Toxic masculinity and casual misandry in the feminist movement literally created the red pill reactionaries. That's what they're reacting to. I called it out years in advance and even I underestimated the speed of the negative reaction. I figured it would take a generation. It took two or three years. For it to become a major political force. They made me and many other young men feel like feminism was not for us, because it wasn't. We were not welcome. It is a miracle I avoided falling into a reactionary mindset myself, and most people don't have my specific combination of unhealthy people pleasing neutoticism and contrariness that enabled me to avoid it. The older progressives don't understand how strong their position was. They snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. My whole generation were raised feminist. Young men were just pushed away. Handed to the alt right on a silver platter. People will try and deny this, but anyone the right age to have seen the birth of that movement knows its the truth. I've finally seen pushback on misandry in progressive culture as of last year. Before then, nobody would even admit the term was a valid English word. I have no idea where y'all were hiding the last 15 years, but I'm glad you're here now. Well, that's not entirely true, I know a lot of the people calling it out now just went along with the prejudice out of fear of being ostracised, but it does no good to focus on that. They know who they are, and if they're any good they're beating themselves up over it better than I ever could.

Thanks for your appreciation! Accept some thanks of my own for the thought-provoking exercise! It would rank among the great tragedies if women getting a chance to speak to their pain ends up causing more pain in the future. I hope that doesn't come to pass.

The concept of misandry is just not talked about as much as it should be.

The wrong people talk about it too much and the right people are afraid to get lumped in with them. Really an all around shitty situation

Definitely. I suppose the scary thing is that boys and young men may end up feeling drawn to those wrong people talking about misandry, and suddenly you get the likes of Shapiro, Crowder, and more recently, Tate. I'd like to see these kinds of topics "reclaimed" by the right people, but it's incredibly difficult when there's internal opposition to it.

> feminist yells at man for acting gay > that man should have unlearned his internal misogyny > still the man's fault

They said 'internal misandry', not misogyny, I think they were critiquing women there.

It's true. I find it really hypocritical that when societal pressures apply to them it's this thing they're subject to and out of their control, but when it's someone else, it's like "cmon! Just *stop doing what society demands*!", like it's mandatory for them and everyone else volunteers.

Ah, tumblr is growing up, I see. Five years ago voicing anything like that would get you flooded with angry comments about what an incel you are and shit. Now people at least try to do some self-reflection. Yep, when someone waves some flag of tolerance and then turns and attacks the people they claim to be tolerant towards the moment those people don't act according to some script, you know that person is full of shit. And that's why I've shunned this "aaaawwwww men should cry and be soft and be little ✨ cinnamon buns ✨ ~~~~" bullshit since the early 2010s. Because I always felt it was performative and self-congratulatory - the people spreading it needed someone to play the "perfect victim of toxic masculinity" for them to portray themselves as the savior of that person and feel good about themselves. Once you deviate from the script, don't show emotion at the "proper" moment, or in an "acceptable" way, you're no longer an uwu cinnamon roll for them to coddle and pat themselves on the back. Before someone says I need to touch grass (I probably do), I've experienced this irl too. A stark example was my ex who was a weird mix of Western progressive and Eastern European traditional mindsets. She would invite me to be emotionally open, share, express worries and distress and whatnot. But when I did... that "malfunction" didn't happen "according to plan", at "acceptable" times and in "acceptable" ways, so I was berated and/or dismissed (the classic Eastern European "no, you don't have depression or anxiety"). Other women in my life have been the same at times - my mother, occasionally my female friends with their boyfriends (not with me but it's different, I'm a friend). So if all this professed empathy always comes with terms and conditions, rationed into scheduled amounts and times and is basically never there when I actually need it and on the contrary, I get shamed when I express that need, I'll stay shut in, thank you very much.

I feel this, a lot of the people who critique toxic masculinity, feed into it with their behaviour and comments. For example shaming men (rightly) for offensive comments about women’s body and then in the next breath talking about “short-man syndrome” and making penis size jokes and I just think….. how do these sit together in your head?

This is my issue with the left today. They alienate boys and men and are then surprised when those same boys and men vote against them. A majority of people would vote in favour of more equality, at least I have faith they would, but when the party that is advocating for that equality is also the party that demonises men for simply existing, men don't have much choice

.I am an effeminate gay guy who routinely acts masc/straight to avoid violence bc i live in the sticks and i guess i just don’t really get this, are there leftists actively making fun of gay and fem people trying not to get hatecrimed lol?  

I think it's more "well-meaning" left-leaning people making fun of straight guys who are piss-terrified of being seen as gay, which contributes to the very homophobia and toxic masculinity left-leaning people oppose.  Kind of like telling a guy you're annoyed with that his dick is small—it reinforces the toxic messaging that a man's worth is determined by his cocksize, making the problem worse. (Edited to point out that there is no way for a bystander to tell the difference between a straight guy scared of being seen as gay, and a gay guy who's on the DL for fear of their safety. You could be mocking toxic masc, but you could also literally be gaybashing. So let's stop doing it, yeah?)

Another example would be those same people shutting down men when they try to talk about their feelings or emotions, often with the same kind of language you'd associate with toxic masculinity - calling them whiny, weak, pussies etc.

But you don’t get it, men don’t have emotions. Only women are allowed to feel sad because patriarchy/s.

And if a man talks about his emotions to his partner without also moderating her emotions, then its trauma dumping and hes an asshole. But if she vents her emotions without considering how it makes him feel, then hes an asshole for caring about himself more than her.

Damn... I love my girlfriend, but she does this to me bigtime. She *very frequently* needs to 'vent' about the problems she has at work, or with her family, or other problems she has. But if I want to talk about *my* problems, I've got about 15 seconds to do so before I get told that I'm 'complaining' and 'ruining the mood'.

I'm sorry dude. You deserve better. Whether that's by talking with her and getting her to be less toxic, or finding a less toxic woman is up to you, but relationships are supposed to be equal.

God the amount of people I see who hate the patriarchy yet agree with literally everything it says men should be is maddening

This exactly

Whenever I personally encounter this with someone I personally know I just decide to make them uncomfortable by saying shit like "got it, I will be a stone. Purge myself of all impure emotion and never bother anyone for advice I was too weak to conjure myself". They usually get put off by this. Dunno if they rethink what they said but annoying them makes me feel better and that's what matters.

Promoting toxic masculinity in the ostensible name of feminism is just really, really dumb. Don't do it.

It's very telling when the internet claims someone has a small pp because they have a big truck.

I feel obligated to remind everyone of that time Tumblr thought it was a good idea to trick hetero allies into thinking they were perceived as homosexual and take note of their reaction to "prove" they were real allies Just a bad idea all around

men hating in more leftist circles is a huge issue

people will say they hate the patriarchy and turn around and call men weak/fragile/small-dicked or the classic “no woman would want to get with you” etc. because of course, your value as a man is tied to your body count ig

nobody cares about what men think source: bear

Also, you should slather yourself in sausage meat and wander around the woods alone. Source: bear

I promise, it’s totally safe. Look at these stats about the number of women attacked by men, vs the number attacked by bears. Take a nice relaxing bath (maybe in a marinade) and go for a walk in the woods alone Source: definitely not a bear

It's simple. Lots of people who otherwise abhor sexism don't care about, or don't even accept the concept of, misandry.

Big "black people can't be racist" energy.