I get what internet (often borderline or overt rad)feminists are trying to say with shit about how men never have to deal with x, but sooo many of the examples get shot to shit when you apply any other Man to the example than a cishet rich thin white guy.
“When have men ever had to worry about being killed for something they wore?” Black men. Gay men. Trans men.
“When have men ever been body shamed?” Fat men, balding men, disabled men.
“When have men ever had to worry about walking home at night?” Black men, gay men.
People reinvent “if men could get pregnant” over and over and when someone says “oh they do actually” it’s always viewed as hostile and not a potential intersection.
Like no, you do not have to coddle men, but men saying “hey I do know what it’s like actually” are not outright our enemy trying to center themselves, they are often extending a hand saying “hey I do get it too.”
You get “men shouldn’t be part of feminist conversations” which, hm, and then you get “they should sort this out amongst themselves” but if it’s just men talking about feminism on their own then it’s an insulated boys club being misogynists so they couldn’t ever come to feminist conclusions, but if the group is led by a woman then she’s spending her emotional labor teaching them when the men should just learn it themselves but if they go do it themselves then they’re talking over women (who are not present, curious. MRAs much?) so they should have women present but don’t talk in the conversations because it doesn’t actually involve you and you could never relate to this, so frankly why are you even here? You should go talk to your boys about this by yourselves.
Like, if you think the most bland ass version of Men are so wholly irredeemable and inherently evil by virtue of either birth or identity, why are we even bothering with theory? The fight is over then! There is no hope for change, and things will always be bad forever!
How is this a revolutionary viewpoint?
Forget men of marginalized identities having overlap, the most privileged ass man is going to overlap with the rest of us, and it is as much in his interest to reject patriarchy as much as the rest of us, because unfortunately solidarity means “our struggles are connected” not “in order to be morally pure you must support my cause”, and so any man who sees his struggle as being linked with mine and strives to fight oppressive structures IS my ally because yes the fight involves him too
This has me thinking about Paulo Freire (& by extension, bell hooks) again. If you’ve (anyone) never heard of or perhaps heard of & just not read Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed, I recommend reading at least chapter 1. It’s free online! It can get a little complicated if you’re not used to reading this kind of text, but his most important points are often spelled out rather plainly.
Here’s the excerpt I’m reminded of—
Dehumanization, which marks not only those whose humanity has been stolen, but also (though in a different way) those who have stolen it, is a distortion of the vocation of becoming more fully human.
Obliterate the idea that oppressors are not themselves dehumanized under systems of oppression. Freire makes this point over and over again.
(Another point he makes over and over again is that the oppressed, in addition to being oppressed, have also internalized the image of the oppressor in themselves, and see the image of their oppressor in their oppressed comrades. This causes both deep self-hatred and lateral aggression & violence.)
So yeah. We absolutely need to get the least oppressed people on our sides & in these conversations because they need us in order for them to be liberated and we need them in order for us to be liberated.
they need to come up with more words like necrosis and miasma and mausoleum and cadaver and morose and decrepit and stuff like that just so metal bands can expand their vocabulary
You attempt to woo your fan by turning it on.
