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  • The problem is that something is missing and it's being filled by angry reactionaries and right wing grifters who prey on the particular insecurities of young men, specifically insecurities around masculine values.

    What's missing is a foundational framework for understanding the male experience as distinct yet coequal to feminist theory. A framework that seeks to promote a balanced, respectful dialogue by articulating unique structures, values, and challenges faced by men, in order to offer a lens through which male identity, struggle, and transformation can be understood on their own terms, while upholding - acknowledging - the progress and insights of feminism.

    These men feel like they don't have purpose or identity. They need a framework, but unfortunately efforts to define and build such a framework are often hijacked by extremists that just hate women and minorities. Like we see now.

    • Do we really need to make the framework different for male and female humans? Why not use one for humans and teach tolerance to difference in general? I don't think many of the issues we face will be solved if we keep two different frameworks.

      • The framework that is built from the oppression of women, and the challenges that arise from that, does not represent the lived experiences, challenges, or values of men. All too often it diminishes these. To move forward in a spirit of mutual understanding requires a recognition of what matters to men; i.e., what provides purpose and value.

        I feel that you may be misunderstanding me. This is exactly about tolerance and acceptance - including acceptance that men and women have different lived experiences that are founded on different fundamental principles of what is important and what provides purpose. Is it really so difficult to accept that men might find purpose or value that differs from women? I don't believe there is harm in acknowledging that, and respecting a healthy understanding of that difference.

      • Chinese culture has the concept of 'eating bitterness' and it is universal. It's about being able to take the suffering, loss, pain, humiliation, and all the other bitter stuff that life can throw at you, enduring it, and building character, strength, and resilience out of it. It's a virtue. It's a universally admired trait.

        North American culture is not great at eating bitterness. The culture here is more about eating sweet, or living the good life, and when people have to eat bitterness, especially those expecting to eat sweet, it is viewed as shameful and castigating rather than normal, and it easily turns a person towards grievance and a sense of injustice that makes them bitter inside instead of resilient and optimistic.

        This is why I think men in North America, especially white men, have turned to characters like Jordan Peterson, or in worse cases, Andrew Tate. Jordan Peterson at least tries to help these men develop a sense of responsibility and strength that can be constructive and meaning- making. Guys like Tate, on the other hand, exploit their grievance to make them socially nihilistic. One is obviously much better than the other, but neither is a substitute for having a common social value place upon eating bitterness.

        The "manosphere" gives aggrieved, frustrated, disappointed, and angry men stories to help them process their emotions, but they still rely upon self-centered and egotistical tropes like the hero's journey or misogynistic worldviews. These don't address the deeper and more universal reality that none of us (male or female) are heroes from Marvel movies, that deep, painfully-bitter experience is part of the common human journey, and that eating that bitterness with humility and without expectation of any award for being special, is a virtue that helps you develop character.

      • AFAB here and I agree 100% - the issue is that by elevating that which used to acceptably be oppressed, the primary oppressor feels that they have lost station and position as they see society as a ladder - if you aren't at the top someone else is above you. That kind of thinking makes this even more difficult to solve.

    • How can right wing extremists hijack a "foundational framework" when you offer nothing. For them to hijack the conversation you would first have to offer substance that then is taken but you don't offer anything. That is why they vote against you. You are for the betterment of one sex and that doesn't include them. Why would they vote with you? If the situation were reversed you wouldn't vote with them either.

  • I vote for counter propaganda feeding them that right leaning people are all child predators or will become one. Make them demonized the same way they demonize the left.

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