Just a piece of advice: try to take a step back and listen more carefully to the complaints you're hearing. When people talk about dismantling the patriarchy, or about racial privilege, they are not actually talking about any one particular person. You are fully able to be white, male, privileged, and still be an ally to those who do not benefit as much from the power structures in our society.
Instead of feeling personally attacked when you hear these issues discussed, try to remember we are all on the same team, fighting to tackle problems that are bigger than just one individual.
Take for example a comment from this very thread: "Feminism has brought about a lot of changes, but I don't think we can lay this one at the feet of women trying to escape their compulsory reliance on unreliable, selfish, and inconsiderate men."
How should we take a step back and listen more carefully to this? How are we to interpret that other than as an attack on all men?
Pay attention to the syntax, it's not an attack on all men. It's quite specifically an attack on "unreliable, selfish, and inconsiderate men."
These men do exist, and these men have historically used societal norms to trap women in marriages or work that was unfair. It's great that we are working toward a society which recognizes that this is harmful and allows these women to seek better opportunity for themselves!
The syntax looks like just wailed hatred, just like all other wailed hatred.
People are not against immigrants, just the illegal ones that murder, rape and steal. People are also not against Muslims, just the extremists.
If we follow syntax there are no racists in the world and we can simply accuse people of not paying attention. I think that is wrong way to view it. If we talk about "unreliable, selfish, and inconsiderate immigrants" then what people will read is that all immigrants are bad. That just how that kind of language get interpreted, and the assumption is that the speaker is aware of it and thus intended it.
I have a simple test. When in doubt I do a word for word replacement and replace the word "men" with "immigrants" and "women" with "natively born". If that make a sentence or article sound like a racist, then it is wailed hate. If it sounds perfectly fine regardless who is targeted then it is not.
But in this case the original author proposed that the liberation of women and feminism was contributing to loneliness and that was the reply. So i.e. feminism makes women less dependent on unreliable, selfish, and inconsiderate men so that is not the cause of loneliness.
Let us say someone would say that the increased loneliness instead came from the rise of online gaming/porn/communities and that men in larger degree become less interested in meeting women and making an effort.
If someone then answered that "Men avoiding unreliable, selfish, and inconsiderate women by online gaming is not a problem" you would probably see that statement as misogynistic. Even if that description does match some women.
(I fully agree with the liberation of women (and men) from many of the traditional gender roles.)
I can kind of understand people having such a knee-jerk reaction to the original article. The first part reads like someone like Jordan Peterson preaching the return to a family lifestyle according to "Judeo-Christian values" while ignoring all the reasons society changed. I nearly dropped the article there as well. The remaining part got a lot better, though it still feels like only describing problems and leaving the task of imagining solutions up to the reader, with an implied direction.
Agreed about the beginning of the article. It started to feel like the author’s value judgements were slipped in there, but later when they acknowledged “some might not see this as all bad” I felt a little better about it.
I'm with you on the syntax and I'll point out (as people may forget) that the "compulsory reliance" part is the real stickler. It's only in 1974 that the US passed the Equal Credit Opportunity Act; before that, a man was required to cosign for any loan or credit a woman applied for (if you were unmarried for any reason, including widowed, you'd have to find a guy somewhere). Before the 1960s, in the US women could be required to have a male attached to any bank account they opened, or could be denied the opportunity to open a bank account.
It's not that men are terrible. It's that if you have to find a man to avoid homelessness, sometimes you are stuck with terrible men, as polygamy is illegal.
> before that, a man was required to cosign for any loan or credit a woman applied for (if you were unmarried for any reason, including widowed, you'd have to find a guy somewhere
Guess what, there was a reason for that (sort of): namely, back then it was the women who were commonly - indeed, almost universally - stereotyped as "unreliable, selfish and inconsiderate", and thus as bad credit risks. Again, it just goes to prove that character smears are wrong in the first place. It's not a convincing defense of parent's attitude, at all.
No, it was not about character, it was about not having an income because women were not a large part of the formally paid labor force. It was quite legal and in fact the norm to pay women less than men, and it was in general required that women leave their jobs once they got married or once they got pregnant.
> It's quite specifically an attack on "unreliable, selfish, and inconsiderate men."
That's one very generous way to read it. The other is that men are unreliable, selfish and inconsiderate, which is pretty much what I've heard over the past 5 years from most people that identify as feminist.
... and the principal of charity suggest that, instead of automatically engaging outrage mode, you should try to interpret it in the most charitable way possible.
Sure, there are certainly some women who say things like this who are also misandrists, but the majority of them are not, and just want to call out the men who are actually a problem. If you're not a problem, then you're not being called out. That's been my experience. Either you've somehow managed to speak only to the most cynical and hateful of feminists, or -- more likely -- you're getting defensive over something for no good reason.
The ironic bit is that you're falling into the same trap: you're accusing "every" feminist of believing that all men are evil, based on your interactions with a few.
> ... and the principal of charity suggest that, instead of automatically engaging outrage mode, you should try to interpret it in the most charitable way possible.
I didn't engage "outrage mode", I pointed out that you were missing/leaving out an alternative way to parse that message, one that I consider likely to be correct.
> Sure, there are certainly some women who say things like this
Let me make that clear: I explicitly wrote feminist, not women. Sex/Gender isn't involved, it's ideology, and many of the most atrocious things I've heard came from male feminists (coincidentally, those I found very reasonable among them were exclusively women). Please don't put words into my mouth by implying I talked about women in general.
> If you're not a problem, then you're not being called out.
That sounds like "I'm with them, so I don't mind that". Sure, cool for you, I'm not. "Men are scum" doesn't sit right with me, and I don't believe that I'm overly defensive for no good reason or should just "listen more carefully to the complaints".
> you're accusing "every" feminist of believing that all men are evil
No, I'm not (again with the words). I'm stating what I've heard & read from feminists. I haven't talked to most or all feminists on the planet, obviously. But of the ones I did talk to, most went right down that path. As soon as I've gotten around to talking to those that I haven't yet, I'm going to update my comment and extend it to inform about my experiences with all feminists.
Ah, but what about "unreliable, selfish and inconsiderate" women? Are we "allowed" to attack them or is that 'sexist'? Everyone agrees that being unreliable, selfish and inconsiderate is not great, but using this as a character smear directed towards one single gender is just wrong, whether it's "men" or "women".
Are you an unreliable, selfish, and inconsiderate man? If the answer is yes, then it's an attack on you ... if however you work to be reliable, selfless, and considerate, then it's not an attack on you.
Surely, you have to acknowledge that throughout history, men have been quite terrible to women ... and yes, some of that exists still today. So that being the case, you _must_ understand that for many women out there, it's still a struggle to live their life in a way that is not negatively influenced by some men.
Men have been more terrible to other men. And women have also been terrible to other women, and to men. A lot of men have lived with spouses that have made their lives incredibly shitty but it was not acceptable for them to leave either.
And it is not like the traditional gender roles means "Men has it ok and women's lives are worse".
"Surely, you have to acknowledge that throughout history, men have been quite terrible to women"
Yes of course but what I don't understand is why you're choosing to focus exclusively on one narrow aspect of the entire history of human cruelty. Men have been at least as terrible to other men as they have ever been to women. And women are not without the ability to be cruel either. Are you suggesting that it's OK for men to be terrible to other men but women should be a proctected group? That is already largely the case according to my understanding of western Judeo-Christian tradition.
"You _must_ understand that for many women out there, it's still a struggle to live their life in a way that is not negatively influenced by some men.
Again, why focus on such a narrow aspect of the problem? The vast majority of men also struggle to live their life in a way that is not negatively influenced by 'some men'.
Well, surely being either reliable, unselfish, or considerate will suffice. Fortunately, as someone notoriously unreliable and selfish, being considerate seems to be enough.
IMO complaints like this, and modern feminism aren’t about “men are bad” they’re about s lack of power that women have relative to men in the existing system, which leads to an inability to determine their futures and live free.
But people are not agreeing about the causes of the problems or the solutions. So if you say "Yeah, but I'm not talking about all white people" you should be able to exchange that to "black" instead and still not be racist for it not to be racist for example.
People are very similar. It is nice to find a common enemy and it is nice to generalize. So on 4chan people analyze and find that black people are the problem and generalize about black people and in certain groups people find that white men are the problem and tend to generalize about white men.
> Race is a made up thing (created by white people) to give white people more power. To criticize white people for that is to critisize the system itself and critisize them for creating and continuing to allow the system of racism to exist.
This is actually a very good description of many places in Latin America, and perhaps even of some parts of the U.S. (particularly the southern parts, where privilege hierarchies were always quite strong even in colonial times). It's not a sensible way of thinking about the U.S. as a whole, much less the wider Western world. To the extent that some people identify as "white" (however silly that might be from an 'objective' POV) it happens purely because self-identity is important to people, and shedding one's self-identity is really hard. Expecting people to "criticize the system" is just wishful thinking when one doesn't even understand what that "system" actually is, and where it applies!
I'm not sure what you mean. Are you saying that racism doesn't exist in most of America? Or that race is more then a social construct in most of America?
It is a social construct, but the point of that construct is identity, not a direct exercise of power. Race ('white' race especially) is an "easy" answer to the perceived problem of "what am I supposed to identify as" for many Americans. And renouncing one's self-identity is really, really hard so it's very likely that this social construct will be sticking around for a while, whether we like it or not. Of course, this also implies that whenever we engage in derogatory discourse about "white race", "whiteness" and the privileges thereof, we're launching a direct and sometimes vicious attack on what many millions of people see as part of their deep self-identity - which of course can be seen as rather disrespectful, and liable to generate pushback of some sort!
Race is a social construct in the same way that dog breeds are a social construct. They're fuzzy and often overlap, but they do correspond to some underlying biological reality. They're not an artificial political creation.
But why are you removing prejudice from the equation? In my experience, in Sweden, that is often used by people who really want to say what I define as racist shit but they see themselves as anti-racists so that is a problem.
Take something pretty harmless like "white men are such shitty fucking drivers". That is an example from a young very left wing politician in Sweden on twitter. She would of course never say "arab men are such shitty fucking drivers" even if they are statistically involved in more accidents in Sweden because she would see that as racist. Same as if a guy had written "women are such shitty fucking drivers" he would probably be seen as bigoted.
I think a lot of these discussions of what is racist and not and systems of oppression comes down to that it is nice to have a group of people you can generalize over. So that is why people are redefining concepts.
If a Black American hates and think Native Americans are worthless. Is he racist then? Who wins on the oppression competition?
>All these statements, are prejudiced, yes. The reason the 2nd two are seen as bigoted is because of the power dynamic there, and the systems of oppression. "white men are such shitty fucking drivers" is punching up, whereas the other two are punching down. I personally think it's fine to punch up and challenge those in power.
It was said by a pretty (yes, that matters) well educated white woman living in Stockholm. She is probably more privileged than 99% of white men in the world. I would say that the reason that the two others are seen bigoted is because it is people who wants to say bad things about white men who has defined it like that. Because they see themselves as good and racism is not good, i.e. it is not racism.
>IMO, to be racist is to support or erect the systems that continue to oppress people on the basis of race. Prejudice is probably one of the lesser ways racism happens, and even isn't always racist. Slavoj Zizek, for example, often talks about how he and others in the past have bonded by telling "racist" jokes about eachother's race. Maybe that's racist in the prejudice sense, but in the definition I'm using (and is the definition used by people that hate on white people or "whiteness") that wouldn't really be racism.
Are Asian Americans oppressed? Are women in Sweden oppressed? For example in the example of women in Sweden sure they are under-represented in some areas like board of directors and pay but they also don't work as much, they don't die as much at work or otherwise, they don't kill themselves as much, they do better in school, they are not as many homeless women etc.
And will they always be seen as oppressed if it turns out that fewer women wanted to put in the sacrifice at work to reach that far as a board of directors because they are more likely to value other things in life higher? How can you ever know what is oppression or just choice?
> Are Asian Americans oppressed? Are women in Sweden oppressed? For example in the example of women in Sweden sure they are under-represented in some areas like board of directors and pay but they also don't work as much, they don't die as much at work or otherwise, they don't kill themselves as much, they do better in school, they are not as many homeless women etc.
The fact is, most people are oppressed, and most in different ways. I'm against all systems of oppression. I think it's mostly pointless to compare individuals and how oppressed one person is to another. I do think it's good to attack systems of oppression, and criticize (and maybe even attack) the people that support those systems. To criticize the idea of "whiteness" is to attack racism. To criticize how a lot of men treat women is to criticize sexism, etc. I see nothing wrong with challenging power like that.
>To criticize the idea of "whiteness" is to attack racism.
Sure, if you at the same time criticize the idea of people identifying themselves as black.
>To criticize how a lot of men treat women is to criticize sexism, etc. I see nothing wrong with challenging power like that.
But how do you know that you are challenging power. Just like it is racism when people generalize about a single black man based on their perceived idea on how all black men act the same is true for a white man. If you think it is ok to give attributes to large groups of people based on skin color or sex you cannot say it is bigoted when others do it as well.
If you think it ok for you to generalize about men because you perceive that they hold a position of power then it must be equally correct for the incel community to generalize about women because they see women in a position of power. You just value different things but nothing is objectively correct.
Nazis believe the Jews contribute to a system of oppression. Does that make it ok for them to say prejudiced things about Jews?
> I volunteer a tremendous amount in education, where I’m the only male I generally even see in my field, and I constantly have to listen to my coworkers gleefully talk about how excited they are at how few young boys show up to our events. I hear them blatantly express disdain when a couple do.
How is this different than someone saying "I think feminists are trash, and feminists who disagree with me should take time to understand what I mean."
In other words, do you understand why what you are saying is victim blaming?
Just because one was the victim in the past, does not mean one is not the perpetrators today. This just further indicates that you should have taken the time to listen to what someone might have to say, rather than strawmanning.
Of course that's true that they could no longer be the victim, but that's not the case here. Woman still are treated unequally many ways in society, and white people are still privelaged over black people (for example) in society. There's plenty of facts and statistics to back both of those statements up. Look at the wage gap between men and women and the average wealth of black vs white families, for a couple of examples.
> Look at the wage gap between men and women and the average wealth of black vs white families, for a couple of examples.
These are correlations not causations. But their truth values are, ultimately, completely irrelevant to the point being made, which is that you yourself have no desire to 'listen', but rather are attempting to simply have your quasi-religious propaganda imposed on anyone who disagrees with you, under the guise of rationality.
But nothing has changed recently in the culture of HN that would recommend using alt accounts to push conservative viewpoints. However, there’s been a big uptick of these new accounts in the past 6 months or so.
So conservative view points have always been downvoted quickly?
It may have to do with the fact that your main account may be connected to your identity, and if you work at Google for example, uttering conservative view points might get you fired.
I mean, you're not even wrong as far as that goes, but you might just be missing the point. "Racial privilege" is the latest variation on "bourgeois privilege", and we all know how toxic that idea was. Maybe he doesn't want to play on the Maoist team, or be its "ally". That's okay too. No one should be forced to deal with that kind of toxic, negative messaging.
Instead of feeling personally attacked when you hear these issues discussed, try to remember we are all on the same team, fighting to tackle problems that are bigger than just one individual.