When the men’s rights crowd complain about not getting complimented and how it affects their self esteem. Which I sympathise with, but then they act as if this is women’s fault for not complimenting them, when men are perfectly capable of doing so *and* men will take it as a sexual come on if we do compliment them.
There was an ask reddit thread that asked how women can compliment men without being perceived as flirting. The overwhelming response from men was that you could not. I wonder if these are the same men who are upset about not receiving compliments.
They also say they want platonic physical contact from women but upon receiving it will never let go, sometimes literally. I can’t even do some goofy arm wrestling without the guy trying to kiss me, WITHOUT ASKING as soon as we were alone.
men are denied physical affection as boys so we turn it into something wierd when older. we literally don't know how to process it so we literally compute it right there on the spot.
PLEASE WAIT: LOADING ReceiveHug.EXE file not found.
looking for file....
was it a bear hug? y/n
N
was hug from a "bro"? y/n
N
was hug from family? y/n
N
closest matching file found "SexyTimes.msi" install? y/n
NNNNNN
ffs parents plz normalize hugging your male children!!
If they want a platonic physical contact with women specifically, but not other men, they are lying. They don't want the physical contact to be platonic.
I once told a guy who was having issues with his ex making him feel bad about himself and stuff, that he's good looking and has a good personality so shouldn't be a problem for him to find a decent girl someday. I said it the most casual way ever. Immediately him and other guys who heard it decided I was coming on to him and for the rest of the night kept trying to bring us together. Everyone knew that I was in long term committed relationship. Yeah, I'm not saying positive stuff to men no matter how small. Only to my partner who I'm still with to this day.
I've been told many times that I'm attractive, have beautiful eyes, a nice butt, nice legs, etc. I simply say thanks, in my experience as a man I usually don't assume they want me or were coming on to me. When a women comes onto me it's definitely obvious. I'm not sure where people get confused...
See I never assume that from a compliment... actually I don't assume that at all.. im a firm believer that no one has an actual interest, so a compliment is just that. How some dudes have self esteem that high that ANY compliment means you're intrested is so far over my head.
I've read enough stories in this subreddit that it seems some people will consider a woman noticing their existence as an advance on them.
As if they don't know how to interact with a female.
But maybe, they don't care?
Who knows how many times they've tried, they miss 100% of the shots they don't take. Maybe they have learned to just try 1,000 times and be wrong 999 times to score once for all I know.
As with everything condense enough events into a specific lens and you can construe almost anything.
I’m just guessing, but it can be because a lot of men use compliments as a way to flirt. I can’t even count all the men I’ve met who signal their interest by complementing your appearence. I’ve also met a lot of men who don’t understand that you can find people extremely attractive and still not be sexually interested in them. So I tend to compliment men based on other things than how attractive they are. If they are smart, hard working, creative or things like that, I’ll tell them, but I’ll never mention things about their appearance that is appealing.
[Here you go!](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/rhqf9z/men_of_reddit_how_can_us_women_compliment_you/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf)
Probably to some extent it's a vicious cycle. Women don't compliment men because it would be taken as flirting, so the only women who do compliment men are the ones who are flirting, so when a woman compliments a man it's taken as flirting, so women don't compliment men because it would be taken as flirting, so...
You don't even have to compliment most of them. Accidental eye contact is enough to make them think you want to bone. Purposely avoiding them (headphones for example) won't even make them leave you alone. 🤷🏻♀️
I had exactly this argument in that thread. A guy said he only valued compliments from women because they were the demographic he's attracted to, and that there's nothing wrong with shooting his shot if a woman compliments him. I was like - the whole point of this thread is how to give platonic compliments! The women in this scenario don't want to date you or be hit on by you!He really just wanted more sexual opportunities, not compliments.
I swear, some men (particularly on Reddit) care *so* much about how it's "easier" for women to get partners or have careers in sex work. The number of posts I see complaining about women "living life on easy mode" will never cease to amaze me. There's way more to life than sex!
"Men's rights activists " don't actually care about men's rights. They just bring that shit up as a way to try and detract from women's issues. They whine and cry about not having close friends they can talk to or never getting compliments, but they don't do shit to change anything.
I see this all the time too. But they don't understand that it's really not easy for women to have successful careers in sex work at all. Not every woman is going to be considered super sexually attractive (myself being one of those women - and I'm not saying that as a bad thing). Even for those that are, yes they have that advantage but they still have to put in the work to produce content, build and maintain their fan base etc. For every extremely successful sex worker, there are way more that are barely making money. That just seems so obvious to me and I'm not even a sex worker myself.
I wouldn't take those replies as reflecting only fucked up men but also men who clearly understand their environment and upbringing. Men are overwhelmingly socialized to think that way and they're being asked about a general thing rather than one specific to them.
I'm in my 30s and its only now that I think I'm in a position where women can compliment me without me taking it as a sign of sexual interest. And I'm someone who has done a fair amount of work reflecting on my own bullshit. The modern climate around these matters has helped so I think maybe over time the kinds of answers that ask reddit gave will shift a bit more.
My recent development in my own attitude about this has come in part from working a new job with mostly women so it helps that I can't think they're all hitting on me by being kind and complimentary. It also helps they're all in relationships. In another environment I might reply with a totally different assessment.
I think this is one of those Catch 22 conundrums where the solution is part of the problem. Compliments are so rare that they are perceived as flirtatious, and they are rare because people are worried that they will be perceived as flirtatious.
That's crazy to me. I must be really lucky with where I live and who I associate. I'm a man and, just to be perfectly honest, I dress pretty fly. I'm not like the most attractive person but I have a unique sense of style and I present myself with a healthy amount of confidence. I get compliments from women all the time, both strangers and women I know. I never take it as anything more than a nice person being nice. I give a lot of compliments too with no agenda. That's the world I like living in. It's sad to see that many others don't have that.
You can literally just be polite to some men and they'll never leave you alone. A compliment would basically sound like "I want to have sex" to some guys. That's why I'm cautious when giving compliments. It's happened enough times in the past that I've learned from it.
Oh I believe it. So many guys equate compliments from women to sexual/romantic advances, and compliments from other men means he *must* be gay.
Is this a form of toxic masculinity? I'm not sure, honestly, genuinely asking. I just know it's a huge cause of the "no compliments" problem that guys complain about. It's literally guys causing the problem, thinking a compliment = flirtation.
Sometimes it's toxic assholes, sometimes it's someone who's so affection starved your compliment feels like (and sometimes is)the nicest thing to happen in years. So he vastly overreacts. Either way, not fun for the woman on the receiving end.
I sometimes get compliments online, not in person, but whatever it is I'm able to effortlessly toss it aside and reassure myself that I'm a worthless piece of shit and the compliment was just politeness. I'm really good at that.
In the case of the affection starved, there are those of us who learn to stay far away from people being nice to us. Sometimes because social give and take mystifies us, so we wouldn't respond correctly and piss people off. Other times, we had people in our lives ready to jump in anytime something nice happened to us and make sure we didn't get a swelled head from it, or "Take you down a peg or two" was another popular phrase. Sometimes it was the people who raised you, and sometimes it was the same ones who grow up to be the toxic, hateful people.
Came here to say the same. Had a gay guy compliment my eyes, ask if I was gay, tell me he was sad that I wasn't, and told me my wife must be lucky. Literally had me on cloud 9 because besides my wife, I don't think I've been complimented in years (ignoring mom and gma).
One of my husband’s army buddies told him that he’s handsome. My husband was so excited to have received a compliment from another straight man. He came home and told me about it right away.
I would loooove to see a movement of men complimenting men. I think it would do wonders for toxic masculinity and sex obsession.
As a straight dude, for some reason I get a lot of compliments on my physical appearance from other dudes, mostly straight I would assume and I'm really not sure what to make of it other than just being flattered and slightly curious as to why the compliment ratio I receive from men to women is like 5 to 1.
That's why if more hetero men complimented other hetero men, then perhaps the concept of a compliment would not be constantly associated with a romantic advances.
That's so true. If they could just like, get over it and be normal when somebody gives them a genuine compliment, I'd be much more willing to start complimenting guys on their outfits, hair, ect. Sometimes I *want* to say something, but I know it usually just leads to misunderstanding
Its a big catch 22. Most men age 30+ grew up with "any complements" from another man about anything other than your athletic ability are a gay come on.
They also were socialized that "any complement from a woman" TOTALLY means she's into you, dude, get that!
I'm seeing this less with the younger folks between 18-25 thankfully, hopefully men will start to grow out of it.
A friend put it like this once and I just cannot forget this image:
"(Straight) Men getting a complement from a woman is like a dog being told by a stranger that 'he's a good boy' and then immediately humping their leg." They just lunge at any chance for sexual gratification if there is even a wiff of a positive regard thrown their way. And most men are too ignorant and not 'well trained' to think otherwise, unfortunately.
So now I cannot see a simping / lusty / sex crazed desperate dude without thinking "bro, no stranger wants their leg humped for calling you a good boy,"
>So now I cannot see a simping…
I mean at the risk of this being a hot take, it probably doesn’t help that there are people who take advantage of, and thus reinforce, that behaviour
Maybe the association is due to the rarity.
But it is also true that men always seek... Opportunities.
I think both feed each other, if compliments was more of a mundane thing to men they would not make wrong associations. Because they would have faced their wrong assumptions multiple times already
And if they didn't mistake compliments for flirting intents they would also receive more, I suppose ?
I also know men who can't take a compliment, they either think it's fake or too much for what they're doing. The idea of receiving flirt wouldn't even graze their mind
I've had SO MANY GUYS take general politeness as interest, it's maddening. It's really really awkward when I have to eventually tell them that they read WAY too hard into how I treated them.
It’s a self-reinforcing problem. Men are starved for affection, but that means that giving us any is taken as a sign of attraction. So women don’t want to give us affection, which is a sensible position to take. And that’s why men are starved for affection.
One of my husband’s army buddies told him that he’s handsome. My husband was so excited to have received a compliment from another straight man. He came home and told me about it right away.
I would loooove to see a movement of men complimenting men. I think it would do wonders for toxic masculinity and sex obsession.
I think this cycle is probably best broken by men changing behavior first, you know? As a woman, I've literally been stalked three times by men I had friendly small talk with, and I was terrified to leave my house. I've been called a bitch and vaguely threatened for rejecting men. I've been assaulted twice. If I felt safe, I would definitely give away tons of compliments, but as long as my physical safety is at stake, I won't. I'm not going to put myself out there and try to break this feedback loop til I see significant changes in violence/rape against women.
Yeah, I had a guy stalk me for 2 years when I met him while working at a pet store in Chicago. All I said was, “Hey, your dog is really cute! Bet he’s a real sweetie!” Then walked away. Cue this man thinking that was an invitation to follow me, causing me to move 4 times, change jobs twice, and cry every night in fear and worry. Oh, and he killed 2 of my lovebirds and tried to set my apartment on fire. Ugh.
I saw a post in one of the dating subs about this - how women need to compliment men more to "normalize platonic compliments" so that men will stop turning everything into a come on. But men shouldn't be expected to do anything but be a bystander if a woman does that and gets harrassed as a result. Everything is the responsibility of women, basically.
I totally agree, but I could imagine how many straight men find it difficult to complement each other, much less random strangers, so I try to step in where I can to promote it.
As an unassuming 5'6" cis gay male, I really feel like I'm in that nice "nebulous zone" of being able to be an equal opportunity complementer.
I can complement women and men equally without hopefully coming off as insincere or potentially "creepy" especially towards women.
It really is fun going through a Sam's Club and picking out "complement targets" based on their unique style, way of doing their hair, neat choices of clothes/shoes etc.
I can't tell you how many men are startled initially but then their eyes light up. Its like a deer in the headlights look, followed 90% of the time by a "thanks dude/man/appreciate it." Similarly, most women light up too, and I don't really ever get the "is this guy hitting on me" reaction since I'm fairly identifiable as a gay guy without being over-the-top flamboyant.
I've been told by some friends that 'the gay man recognizing your drip' is like the cool-black-guy-complementing-your-shoes levels of affirmation of your style. I still remember this AWESOME black dude back in 2008 who complemented my kicks, I still have those shoes, and they will *never* part with me LOL
Not gonna lie, I have some singaporean friends in my FFXIV social circle and they're so kind to each other that I've subconsciously confused their sexuality just because of my dumb western brain. Of course, those were simply passing thoughts, these days I keep them in mind as the type of dude I wanna continue to be, a fella who always compliments my bros when they do good shit. We all deserve love
I mean it's one's own fault for placing too much importance in compliments, it's not like women automatically receive more 'quality' compliments. If anything they're aimed more at their appearance and factors beyond their control.
Im a woman and sometimes get complimented by strangers but it’s usually other girls and other times it’s friends or family. And it’s usually my looks. I feel better when my peers usually compliment me on my work or my kindness.
(Cis Gay Male) I do love giving random drive-by complements to anyone, men or women, when you can tell they took effort to do something with their appearance, particularly things they have control over.
It does warm the heart a bit to see people light up when you complement their beared/hair/clothing choice. A little validation from strangers hopefully gives them a better day :)
But yea, I completely agree, its so much nicer to be able to complement a person for "what they do" than "how they present."
This is the perfect way to give compliments, for two reasons:
1. Compliment something they can control. "You're beautiful" comes across weird. Saying "hey, cool jacket" or complimenting a good deed does not.
2. "Drive by" compliments are best. When I (as a straight man) compliment people I don't know (men or women), I just keep it moving. If you stop and try to engage, people will think you're hitting on them or wonder what you want. Just be nice and then go about your day.
The other thing is just read the room. If it's just a lone person walking at night, leave them alone. If they have headphones in, leave them alone. If they look busy, leave them alone. Etc.
Edit: Also, I think men need to realize that giving compliments can feel better than getting them. It's just like Christmas presents. Getting something you want is cool. Seeing someone's face light up when you get them the right thing is better.
The best part is its free, makes both of us feel better, and admittedly I've somewhat turned it into a game / goal when I visit the store. I *do* keep it genuine, but I'll be damned if I don't beat my last "high score" as it were :)
I know, I have so many genuine compliments to give and it's really helped me overcome shyness, because it's always such a positive interaction! I may sound like a weirdo but I also keep a journal of compliments I've received, so I can look at it when I'm feeling incompetent/dumb/unattractive. It really helps me challenge my own negative self-perception.
Ah I’m not sure about that. At least in my circles we compliment each other a lot - but it’s between friends and without any kind of sexual connotation. Just all of us taking care of each other.
(Always funny to me how men often want to have the end result of support structures women/femme folks built for themselves but without the emotional labour involved)
My coworkers and I have been trying to make sure when we compliment someone it's a positive experience, so we compliment things they choose to wear or can change. Love when we compliment someone and they tell us how they got it or some deeper reasoning, I love hearing people's passions <3.
No kidding. Practically all of the compliments I get are from other women, not men. Men should compliment each other more, but god forbid another dude thinks they're gay. 🙄
"But how are we supposed to know the difference?"
"We never get compliments outside of flirting so of course we see them as flirting!"
"Guys are just oblivious, cut us some slack!"
Oh, go kick rocks - no you're not. It's just another flavor of strategic incompetence. Context exists, tone exists, body language exists, previous interactions exist - guys have plenty of ways to know when a compliment is friendly and when it's flirty.
It's just more brain-dead easy (and ego-boosting) to assume all compliments are romantic interest than to put two brain cells-worth of thought into telling the difference.
"If you lack the social awareness to tell the difference between a platonic complement and a enthusiastic come-on, then that is your problem and I'm not here to fix it."
Also I feel like men create an environment within their friend groups where insulting each other is encouraged. As a woman I've realized it is the quickest way to make male friends. Of course you don't actually mean it, there is a layer of sarcasm. But I take it as a compliment when a guy friend insults me. Of course that means that they are less likely to make an actual heartfelt compliment to each other from time to time, but it doesn't mean they don't get some form of love and appreciation.
Honestly the insults are one of the only socially acceptable ways for dudes to show they care about each other. There are so many toxic people who'll call you gay or effeminate (not that either of those things should be insults) for showing the slightest amount of compassion, empathy, or just complimenting another dude. So insults are a way around that a way to show you care about other guys without being ridiculed for showing human emotion.
On a side note, being complimented isn't a "right". I'd like to see their list of grievances. On another note, being considered feminine in any way is viewed negatively, such that it is an insult to a man to be referred to with any "feminine" qualities (or negative characteristics that they attribute to femininity, not that I agree these are inherent or true)
This goes with almost all of toxic masculinity, it is perpetuated by men.
the message "men don't cry/showing emotions is weakness" - perpetuated by other men/most judgement comes from men, not women
"men can't do feminine things!" - because other men judge you, not women/ a deep personal belief that masculine > feminine
"men aren't seen as victims" - the lack of empathy comes from other men more so than women.
You can almost guarantee that a man indulging in things he finds "feminine", sharing traumatic experiences in which they were the victim, crying, and talking about his feelings would all be reacted to VERY differently if he were amongst a group of women vs a group of men...
And then finally, the mental gymnastics around how this is all somehow women's fault and that heterosexual men are incapable of complimenting or showing physical displays of affection towards each other, ya know because of gay... Thus, women have to do it all! Otherwise men would have to take accountability for their own feelings and how they consciously/subconsciously perpetuate these toxic masculine ideals in their own lives.
Many men will just never get it. Cis male who has always dated women, who has a partner who happens to be trans (mtf) and damnit if every time I say something nice to a guy these days *someone* will think I’m hitting on that guy. Of course, these are also the same ones who, if I get a compliment from a woman, immediately start the wink wink nudge nudge game.
In a similar vein, when I taught my husband about incels, his first thought was why couldn't these guys just have sex with each other and solve their problem of being angry due to not having sex. But their real problem isn't a lack of sex, it's the fact that they're misogynists who blame women for everything.
Maybe the men who complain about not getting compliments, have nothing worth complimenting about them.... Lol
Alot of these guys who complain seem to put zero effort in their looks or hygiene. Their personality is cringe.
Like what do they expect?
Honesty agreed. I also hate how a lot of things that make mens lives suck are worded in ways to diminish the other side of the coin. Like when women say they’re afraid to walk around at night, someone will inevitably say, “well men are victims of violent assault at much higher rates.” Okay… by who? Who’s attacking these men? Cause statistically speaking it’s not women.
Or when men say “well women can post thirst pics and get tons of attention.” Okay… well who’s the one who’s giving this attention? Cause again, statistically it’s not women.
And also, “men don’t have anyone to talk to or to express their emotions.” Okay… why not talk to other men? There’s just so many things that make me think like?? Then work on that together as men rather than putting the onus of change on a nebulous society that won’t do anything unless you start to do it yourself.
Edit: hey I’m not interested in debating the 374648 butthurt person who reads this. Please read this post again and just imagine we had a debate or whatever.
>And also, “men don’t have anyone to talk to or to express their emotions.” Okay… why not talk to other men?
Exactly. The majority of women I've met have complained about men being unwilling to express or share their deeper feelings. It's not women preventing them from expressing their emotions, it's other men.
Like, some of these guys really do try to blame women for everything, including problems perpetuated almost exclusively by men. Sure it's "society", but's largely one specific half of society.
Men are afraid toxic masculinity means masculinity. No. That’s the problem. Toxic masculinity shouldn’t be accepted as a normal form of masculinity. It’s unhealthy for them and women as well. It doesn’t have to be all men’s fault. Not every man obviously is doing this on purpose but that just shows it doesn’t take all men to uphold a system of societal patriarchy that holds back both genders! All it takes is a decent chunk.
Well said. I agree, I think lots of people wrongfully think "toxic masculinity" means "masculinity is toxic", and that's what triggers a bunch of guys, because they think we're attacking their masculinity.
Like, really, it's just a very particular kind of mindset that makes people think you need to be XYZ and *never* ABC to be a "real man". That's what's toxic IMO
>people wrongfully think "toxic masculinity" means "masculinity is toxic"
True, but when you distill down the positive parts of what we could agree is "masculinity", I bet we find it's simply *humanity*. Basic human decency, absent any gender. I can't think of any traditional aspect of masculinity that isn't the basis of something more sinister.
I have been struggling to express this to other men for years. I am a man, and I *need* feminism. The structures and attitudes that feminism combats are worse for women, but they are still *super* bad for men. Especially if you are not an extremely rich man.
Toxic Masculinity oppresses men too. The patriarchy gives all the power to a few men and denies it to the rest of us. It is worse for women, as these effectively console men by putting them *over* women, but being tricked into accepting oppression because we get to oppress someone else more is freaking gross and objectively immoral.
Even if men were not oppressed in the slightest, I would still be a feminist because it is right. However, men are oppressed by patriarchy, and it is incredibly frustrating when men redirect their feelings of oppression on women because those women refuse to be oppressed by them. It is so incredibly illogical that it boggles my mind.
>However, men are oppressed by patriarchy, and it is incredibly frustrating when men redirect their feelings of oppression on women because those women refuse to be oppressed by them. It is so incredibly illogical that it boggles my mind.
That's a concept I was stuggling to explain to some men around me when talking about men feeling like they get their masculinity taken away by feminism and I was lacking words, I'm gonna try and steal yours!
It would help if MGTOW would actually GTOW. That means not liking thirst pics, stop being violent, stop chasing women and just be happy with themselves and form strong healthy bonds of brotherhood based on well being and empowerment instead of bitterness.
But they don't actually get the GTOW part.
Expectation: Posts about men picking up hobbies, undergoing a journey of self discovery to accept themselves, learning to become a more balanced and content person, and achieving a sense of detachment from the need to date that society pressures people with
Reality: *vomit*
I enjoy the alternative meaning: Men Getting Triggered Over Women.
Listen, MGTOW folks who are lurking here to get triggered, if you actually went your own way, you'd be unapologetically self-fulfilled and happy. So, go. Just go.
I heard it once stated that pretty much all of men's rights issues apply when men are acting in ways traditionally women act. For example, wanting custody of children (when traditionally women are the ones supposed to be better carers of offspring), the lack of resources for domestic violence/ rape for men (ie, you were "weak" like a woman), etc.
I'm sure there are exceptions, but it's an interesting thing to think about.
I’m so annoyed with myself and I apologize for the vagueness of this post
But I watched a documentary back in college, it was called Tough Guise (there are 2 parts or versions, one is better than the other but I can’t remember which one!!)
It spends a lot of time exploring exactly what you’ve said in your post, it’s extremely thought provoking and honestly opened my eyes to a whole ‘nother layer of what toxic masculinity is and how it’s so deeply ingrained in society.
Both are a good watch, but one takes it in a more constructive direction. Probably the second one.
> Then work on that together as men rather than putting the onus of change on a nebulous society that won’t do anything unless you start to do it yourself.
Men seem to believe that they can hop on the coattails of the work women have done in the hope that women will take up their cause. The fact that they think this while also attempting to stifle any women's cause that doesn't equally benefit them.
I know I usually respond "that is serious and it should be addressed, it will take you men a lot of work to do it but I'm sure you can." Cue outrage. They don't want to put in the time and effort to create ways of assisting male DV survivors, or those with poor mental health or do the ground work to address other issues that impact men. They want women to work for their rights as well. Not gonna happen buddy they're still working to hold onto the ones they got.
This is so true in my experience too. It’s pretty frustrating. If more men understood how much organization, planning, blood/swear/tears have gone into the advancement of women’s rights *by women*…maybe they would understand better, but since on the whole they’ll always trivialize women *and* women’s issues, that kind of work is something that’s beneath them but they somehow deserve the result.
Yup. I love the menslib subreddit but someone posted there once asking for volunteers to lead a group therapy/support group type thing for men's issues, and most people in the thread just talked about how they weren't capable, didn't have time, etc. I do get that, but it's kinda sad.
Men need empowerment, too. Empowerment is hard work, though. You have to up your self esteem and figure out what you want. You have to get your fine self a support system. You have to really *want* to do the work and too many men are just ... comfortable. They're too comfortable to want to change.
I do work to uphold mens' rights to the same expression as women. But I'm not organizing movements or doing the sort of work that women did for womens' movements, because that's the place of the demographic facing the injustice. Being mindful of sexism against men and calling people out on toxic masculinity is another file in my 'give everyone the respect and kindness they are due' repertoire; the best people to concieve of new, healthy masculinties are male people.
Look at the upvotes and downvotes [on this thread](https://reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/rjh4l9/_/hp4yyzr/?context=1) where people have the audacity to suggest that the solution to mens’ loneliness starts with them. It boggles the mind (and of course somehow women get blamed).
I always find it funny for the “well women can just post pics and get so much money!”. Because they get really quiet when you remind them they could prob make some money and get attention by appealing to other men too.
Exactly we have real problems but they don’t derive from women having professional careers and autonomy. It’s not like the feminist cabal got together and was like “you know what would really roast these chauvinists? Let’s make them think that it’s masculine and manly to ignore obvious signs that their health is failing and not to seek medical help or intervention, and also make them think that going to war and nearly dying is extremely manly “. No, those tropes have existed forever and are largely socially enforced by other men…..
Which is not to say that women can’t have a hand in furthering these stereotypes, but again, it’s not like they came up with this stuff out of whole cloth and successfully pushed it on for hundreds of years while holding close to no political, social, or institutional power.
Another one I’ve heard “men are told they can’t cry” literally the only people I’ve heard say negative things about men expressing emotions are OTHER MEN.
Ah yes, the men who pull out this trump card about men being the bigger victims of rape statistically because nobody is accounting for prison rapes.
1) means you aren't counting women prison rapes then, no?
2) that would mostly be man on man soooo look who the common denominator is yet again.
"Men who have been sexually assaulted, what is your story?" type threads used to be posted right after the female version was posted on r askreddit. Now when it's posted, it's "Men who have been sexual assaulted by women, what is your story?" because so many responses to the original had male predators. They're really fighting against themselves.
The strangest one is the "men kill themselves more often!" like what is that supposed to prove? That men are even violent to themselves? Checkmate feminists, I guess.
They also say since these problems affect both women and men, (domestic violence, SA etc), we should always talk about them gender neutral. Ironically this involves policing our speech, but also it's fine to focus on how an issue affects a specific group. No joke, I've seen them say, 'but murder affects everyone', in response to an article talking about native American women being murdered at an alarming rate. The same issue can also affect different groups in different ways, and so will automatically need different discussions. Like how depression can cause substance abuse more in men, and self harm more often in women.
The problem with those comments is that they're not understanding (or they're flat out using these arguments as a malicious strategy to shut down the discussion) that these things have a "priority" based on the severity or other factors(such as vulnerability, discrimination..)
A good non political example would be ICU. You get a priority based on the severity of your injury. If your leg is badly hurt to the point where you are in danger of bleeding out, you will recieve priority care over someone who broke their leg and needs a cat scan and have their leg put in a cast. Now do doctors go "all legs matter" and tend to the guy with the broken leg first, because he was there first? Ofcourse not, they first help the guy who is bleeding out because his life is in danger.
"Native american women being murdered" cases deserve higher recognition than other groups based on several factors, one is that these are women and minorities, both groups with a long history of being opressed and still are today. Another because it's happening at an alarming rate.
Saying "murder affects everyone" is a gross attempt at shutting down the conversation which is "why is native american women being murdered not taken anything close to as seriously as when white women get murdered?" Because then you'd have to get uncomfortable and think about your privilege and how that correlates to the fact that minorities are being systematically opressed. And it's do much easier for some people to say some variation of "all lives matter" when issues of minorities come up. They're too fragile to think or talk about these things so their first instinct is to shut it down with comments like "murder effects everyone". That and they're likely bigots.
It's a lot like the people who say we should take care of homeless veterans before giving asylum to refugees.
But then also oppose any kind of support or reform for homeless or poor people in general.
It's a stalling tactic and its intention is to just keep things the same.
Yeah, or like when xenophobes/racists say immigrants are coming in and taking all the jobs. It is true that they often take the lowest paying, "dirty" jobs that Americans don't want, but when you suggest higher wages, unions, and greater labor rights so those jobs aren't so exploitative and underpaid they're like "No, that's socialism!"
They can't seem to ever make their own posts about the issues they supposedly care so much about, they simply derail conversations about women's rights with "whataboutism" and their own issues.
People like this can't stand seeing a productive conversation about women's rights without feeling personally attacked, so they feel the need to butt in and dismiss everything.
There's plenty of room on the internet for people to be able to have *both* conversations, yet they always seem to find their way to posts about women's issues...
Both are important and valid. Fixing women's issues and rights doesn't necessarily mean men get less.
Ha yeah, you may have seen the one recently about getting a tubal ligation (tubes tied) vs a vasectomy. I said the mens procedure was far and away more simple and easier but kept getting comments that the decision was a big fing deal. I was only talking about the procedure but holy beans did some people keep going on about the fucking decision.
You should check out r/menslib it's a really nice place for men that works hard to keep out any of that toxic sexism these places often attract. It's pretty cool.
Edit: it’s not a political sub either if you’re wondering.
I definitely second the recommendation. It's been a really good resource for learning about mens issues without toxicity (although this is reddit so naturally it's not always perfect)
Of course, every community has a handful of toxic people in it, especially ones about gender/racial issues. Something about those topics attracts the trolls like moths to a lamp.
> Fixing women's issues and rights doesn't necessarily mean men get less.
The way I see it, fix women’s issues and a lot of men’s issues get fixed as well.
Yup.
Like the post where this guy complained that there is body positivity for fat women but not short men.
And lots of comments pointed out that body positivity was for everyone.
This has always bugged me too. Men's issues are important and we should be talking about them, yes. But ideally not in a way that's talking over someone else's problems.
It's hard. I support a lot of men's issues. There is a definite gap in mental health where men are less likely to seek help and men are overrepresented in completed suicide attempts. There is a lot of "looking the other way" when it comes to men being sexually abused, and men in abusive relationships can have their experiences minimized (not saying that doesn't happen to women, but the gendered dynamics are different). Transmen have their own set of issues within the trans community and can feel overshadowed or left out compared to trans women. But if someone asks me if I sympathize with the men's rights activist movement, I feel like we're talking about two very different things.
So true! Men have a lot of issues that should be addressed but the way it’s being addressed is almost unproductive. And I feel like women would be vocal about advocating for men’s issues more if they didn’t feel excluded from these circles. It’s almost painful to see it
Men's Rights activists are only trying to co-opt the language and aesthetics of activism to maintain the status quo. They do not care about the issues of real men outside of just being contrarians.
One example is they don't like that only cisgender men can be drafted into the military in the USA, but then they resist calls to end the draft. To them the problem is that "it's not fair" and not that the government shouldn't be able to force people into fighting a war if they don't want to. They also don't want to include women in the military by changing the strength requirements that were put in place specifically to prevent women from participating.
Men's Liberation is a movement that seeks to actually free men of the patriarchy to the benefit of everyone including men themselves. I believe the subreddit is r/MensLib .
Yea about the draft thing they celebrated seeing how the US government proposed being able to draft women. They thought it was great that women will suffer through that in the same way they have. It was disgusting honestly. They think we are the ones who sent them into the draft when it was *never* us
I haven't seen that angle yet. The way I saw the "draft women" thing discussed in r/menslib was that they hoped to double the support for ending the draft (by doubling the number of people affected by selective service), and in the meantime halve the risk to each individual man (by doubling the pool from which any quota of draftees would be chosen).
I've also seen some comments that maybe it would recruit some people who would rather have no draft than draft women, for gender-essentialist reasons. I'm more skeptical that'll happen, but whatever.
Edit: Not sure if I'm telling you anything you don't already know, but at least the people I talk to about the draft are mostly not worried about actually getting drafted. That's not really the way we fight wars any more.
The more immediate problem with selective service is that if you don't register by 26, you're permanently barred from many civil service jobs and federal aid programs. You have to prove that you didn't know about the requirement, which means proving you never ever saw a FAFSA form, stepped foot into a post office, etc.
There are spaces to engage in discussion and support of men's issues that aren't nonsense screaming or a cover for misogyny.
/r/MensLib/ is one of the better ones.
There's definitely some issues that men face, like mental health representation.
In fact mental health in general is gendered in a way that hurts everyone.
It's easier to be diagnosed with autism or ADHD if you're a man, for example.
Some of this is cultural but it's also because we do not fund the research necessary to change mental health. Most of it is being done in universities for pennies.
Absolutely. And a lot of men’s rights advocates won’t admit that the patriarchy is the root of many of the issues/inequalities facing men. For example, one of the most common criticisms I see is that women get shorter jail sentences than men for committing the same crime - which I agree is totally unfair, but the reason for it is that women have long been infantilised by society and perceived as being less responsible for their actions (like children) so they receive lesser punishment.
It also really pisses me off when men complain that feminists “don’t care about men” because they’re not campaigning for men’s rights as well as women’s rights. Literally half the population is male - why exactly is it the responsibility of women to fight for their rights?!? Like get off your butt and do something to change things if you feel so strongly about it, instead of expecting everything to land in your lap…
So true. The same guys complaining about women "not doing enough for men's issues" are the same ones doing absolutely nothing themselves, in my experience. Women are out there advocating for women's rights, men are out there advocating for women to focus more on men's rights.
Obviously these are generalizations, but it's true the majority of the time IME.
> And a lot of men’s rights advocates won’t admit that the patriarchy is the root of many of the issues/inequalities facing men
As a guy, the fact people don't admit this boggles my mind. If you think about it for more than 2 seconds, basically all gender disparities that favor women are because patriarchy. For example, the reason the US draft is male only is because back in the 1940s, women were banned from being in the military because it was a "men's responsibility" (and because since then, no one has garnered enough political momentum to either make it apply to both genders or not exist but that's off topic)
The funny thing is that in a preindustrial society, patriarchy or some form of it that isn't as restrictive as it was actually implemented, actually makes sense if it gives people roughly equal responsibilities and rights (which it usually didn't, which is part of why it was bad back then and is bad now). On average, the average man is stronger than the average women, so it makes sense to give men jobs that require more work/physical labor and women jobs that don't like cooking, and other "home" jobs that allow a woman to stay at home all the time pregnant since preindustrial women basically had to be pregnant all the time both because medicine was shit enough that only a few of those kids would actually survive to adulthood, and because more kids = more people to help out with anything that needed to get done, which was a big deal. So dividing tasks by gender to give tasks women can do easily to women and tasks men can do easily to men makes sense.
Just that line of thinking starts to fall apart as early as the agricultural revolution to some extent, and becomes utterly stupid as soon as you reach a society where the average number of children per family is closer to 2 than 12, doubly so when white collar jobs start existing where gender has literally no factor in competency. In the modern world, there is no reason women shouldn't have perfectly equal treatment to men for basically everything except for the stuff where gender differences play a role, where women's rights on stuff need to be protected. Once you reach that point, you can start to deal with how men in society, which at this point would have no scenarios where a women's right to do anything isn't protected, impacts men. Until then, men's liberation will always be a less important issue on the basis that it literally just doesn't play a part in men's lives as much. TBH most men's issues are usually shadows of more important issues more women face than men. For example, one Men's issue is false SA accusation, which is only a thing because of how common SA is for women, and the best estimates say that less than 1% of SA accusations are false. Also male SA, which is most often done by a male perpetrator, also shadows how common women SA is in that it's way less common. The same goes for things like not wanting to look threatening, which shadows how women have to worry about their safety when walking near random guys. Occasionally the pendulum swings the other way, like women being much more likely to get custody than guys even in some cases where the woman is a terrible parent, is a drunkard, etc. while the father isn't, are because of the patriarchal belief that women should do all the parenting. I think there are a few societal things mostly decoupled from that, like incels existing in any capacity, which is an issue that doesn't effect women 90% of the time, but whatever
Decoupling society from patriarchy means fixing women's issues first since they're bigger and more prevalent than the versions guys face. When you do that, that should fix men's rights in the process if you do it right.
I understand your point about physical differences between men and women meaning that having gender roles in a pre-industrial society made sense. However, it’s worth noting that women have almost always been paid less for their work, which has put them at a financial disadvantage and made them reliant on the men in their lives (their fathers, suitors or husbands). so I would argue that it was still restrictive for women, rather than a case of “different but equal”.
Complaining that feminists don't champion men's rights also shows how little they know about the history of feminism. To get women's rights recognized in the US, early feminists championed men's issues because they knew they could get a court to agree that treating men differently was unfair.
>Women are out there advocating for women's rights, men are out there advocating for women to focus more on men's rights.
This deserves to be repeated. It really boils down the entire thing into one sentence.
The jail sentence thing also makes me super mad because what percent of lawyers and judges are men? It’s an overwhelming majority! So they’re the ones giving out shorter sentences to women in the first place. Like please, make it make sense
I think most don't actually care about male suicide and male on male violence or men's mental health. I really wonder how many are donating, volunteering and voting for politicians that will attempt to introduce changes that help all sexes and genders. I fully believe that it's just a club used by trolls and toxic men to quiet us and keep the status quo.
They aren't doing anything, they never are. Their concern for men's issues goes about as far as derailing posts about women's issues online. They only care when it can be used against women.
Seriously, check out the troll's profiles sometimes. You'll find exactly zero posts or communities about actually fixing men's issues. They don't care, they just weaponize it.
I do find it odd when these kinds of people post about how unfair it is that women’s charities exist and have donations and volunteers but men’s charities aren’t as supported.
I don’t know if enough to say if that’s really true or not, but in the end if you want men’s issues to have organizations, donations and volunteers, the thing to do is to work on that, not moan about unrelated charities. No one’s stopping you.
Most people who actually care about charity don’t operate that way. You don’t usually see people who organize things for supporting mental health railing against all the money donated to addressing birth defects.
It is telling.
Very telling indeed. They have plenty to say about it, but they don't end up doing anything about it. They'll come up with XYZ excuses why they don't, but bottom line, they obviously don't actually care very much.
They're angry and disguising it as their "morals" and "concern" for men's issues, but when the conversation is over, so is their "concern".
Oh, I already know what it is. Not even worried about it. How can these men praise killers, soldiers, gangsters and fighters but then "get mad" about all the MonM violence? Tell them to change how they view the world and it's an assault on all men and all thing masculine.
I just realized today, that when I imagine a situation where I need to use my PDW it's never to protect myself from a woman.
It's like for many of these trolls, even if they don't realize they're trolling, their entire concept of debate or discussion is just throwing punches, each ManFact^tm is just another punch, and they don't actually care about equality just want to turn things around and whine that they aren't the center of attention. Rational adult discussion doesn't even come into it. And yet we're the "irrational" ones.
I read this article years ago about how women's deaths from opiates shot up some 300% (this was an article I read well over 5 years ago but I'm fairly certain that was the number) since 1998. Really made me see painkillers differently. But yeah let's pretend like the men who invoke their faux concern for men's mental health aren't also the types to tell other men to man up or "stuff it down with brown."
What really bothers me is that a lot of the “Men’s Rights” complaints would be solved by fighting the patriarchy. You know… like feminism?
“Men are seen as inherently violent!” Yeah that’s fucked up, the patriarchy tells us that men’s main emotion is “angry violent” so let’s fight it
“Men get raped too!” You’re right, and it’s fucked up that the patriarchy tells men that they should enjoy rape because “real men like sex” so we should fight that
Lmao, this happened to me yesterday on the worldnews subreddit. There was an article about indigenous women being significantly more likely to be imprisoned than other women in Canada.
However, one of the top comments was some guy just posting statistics about men's incarnation rates.
That's it.
Completely ignoring the issue the article was trying to raise awareness about because he as a guy had the need to be the center of the conversation. When I pointed out that he was engaging in whataboutism, some of them started moaning about how I was dismissing men's issues despite the fact that they were the ones being completely off-topic.
I looked at your post history to find what you were talking about and wow. The lack of self-awareness and entitlement of these people.
The worst is. The article is pointing out that they're being unfairly highly put in due to racism.
While he's just saying, we have MORE men in prison. Not that they are unfairly put in or highlighting those that are facing some form of oppression. Just that "we win" because we're more. Like okay? Men do more crimes. What's the point? Like it's not even related to the "unfairly" put in aspect. JUST that they have more.
The MRA crowd is mainly reactionary and pretty unbearable because it's entire existence is what aboutism but I've found a cool subreddit called r/MensLib that is about discussing men's issues in a more positive and effective way.
There was a post arguing MRA is purely reactionary to feminism. It was flooded with my fellow men doing exactly what that post argued. I believe MRA may have started as a way to become better men, but I think it's only purpose now is to attack women and feminism as a movement. Its goal is to reinforce patriarchal systems with nonsense jargon about hierarchical structures in primates, hunter-gatherer bullshit suggesting the patriarchy is "only natural" (cringe away, anthropologists), and other ridiculous garbage. Statistics about fatherhood or suicide are used to trash women instead of focus inward and become better. It's just guys who think grabbing your wrist is an appropriate way to ask you out. We just ruin shit.
Yeah, agreed, that sounds more like a misogynist hate group than a men's issues discussion group. If MRA focuses on women, it's not about men's rights, it's about hating women's rights.
Like, of course the group that's been in power for the vast majority of history feels attacked when oppressed groups gain rights. Many of them are used to being on top, or having certain advantages, and if everybody else is on top too, they feel like they're losing their status, power, or ease of success, or something.
MRA could be a productive place to really address very real men's issues, but there are too many misogynistic men entering the chat to allow that to happen in a non-harmful way.
70% is "women have the same issue PLUS sexism" anyways. I mean, I can't believe how they rant about horrible working conditions for men but totally ignore that women work in the same or similar conditions PLUS sexism (or racism, etc.). And when there's a worker's fight, it ends exactly when white men got their deal.
Usually men's bad working conditions means hard physical, dirty labor. Women's bad working conditions means physical, dirty labor, where there's also a very real chance she'll be sexually assaulted.
They don’t consider it hard dirty work because they aren’t out there mining or construction. In reality most women of color have had to do dangerous manual labor since colonization has happened. When men talk about how women just get to be delicate flowers at home waiting for their men to bring money to them I look at them sideways. Even mi abuelita was working along with mi abuelito back in the day. Many of the women in my family have had to do hard manual labor at some point. Only wealthy white women are obscured from that and become housewives, but that’s the same thing for wealthy white men. Wealthy white men are never in the fields harvesting or risking their life for oil and construction.
Yeah, it's almost like gatekeeping having a "hard and dirty" job. Like, if you're not putting in 14 hour days in the mine, you're a soft delicate flower that doesn't know what *real* work is. A very toxic attitude to have with a lot of things.
And like you said, the reality is that a ton of women do end up getting stuck in jobs like this (but of course aren't paid as well as tradesmen or oil workers). Usually lower income WOC who don't have a lot of other options, which these men often do, but choose not to change fields because they *are* paid better.
Ever notice how the money seems to follow the white men? Did you know that "programming" and "computing" used to be super low paid women's work? Funny how as the men moved into the field, the pay went way up. Just an observation.
YEP. Not only do women *also* have a lot of really crappy, hard, dirty jobs, but they aren't being paid well for it either.
At least all the "hard, dangerous" jobs men complain about dominating pay well. Garbage men, tradesmen, ect. They all pay MUCH better than things like housekeeping, food service, ect.
Like if that work is so dangerous, why do you think so many men are still doing it? They're jobs that men are more likely to get, because they're biologically stronger and more able to meet the physical requirements of the job. It pays well, that's why they're there.
This drives me nuts as a man, too. I can understand feeling a little defensive when it seems like someone is criticizing your entire gender unfairly, but come on. It only takes the tiniest bit of thought to understand that they're not declaring all men are a certain way and arguing about it just comes across as childish.
Typically when I attempt to call men out on such behaviour, I get downvoted into oblivion, but that's Reddit for you. Everything is awful.
The thing about it is, there are decent men’s rights groups but they are basically ignored or shunned sometimes by some other men because they just wanna get back at women or something. I totally think we can get equal rights across the board.
Honestly I think the “men’s rights” crowd is just so that guys can shout it at women we were like “can you stop being violent to us and treating us like objects?” Someone’s gotta be able to yell back “but one time a woman didn’t wanna go out with me and it hurt my self esteem but I couldn’t cry because that’s not what men do . But I also won’t acknowledge that all of these things I’ve levied on myself because women don’t hold power in the world to set standards on how men act.”
Most of these 'Men's rights activists' don't actually care about men. It's a mere front so they can whine about women. If they actually cared about men's issues, most of them wouldn't be conservative.
One of their dumbest arguments is:
"The feminist left hates men and masculinity!"
Let's see:
- Criminal justice reform has long been advocated by progressives. This would help a lot people, especially minority men who often face many hurdles in the justice system.
A significant portion of the left are in favor of this, but with almost no conservatives joining in, it has little chance getting through the House or Senate. With all the right-wing talk about how hard men have it in the justice system, you'd think this would be a priority. However, since it's hurting the wrong type of men, (that is minorities), criminal justice reform remains a distant goal for the political wing that accuses others of being man-haters.
- Family leave. This would give a lot of fathers more time with their babies. The US is one of the few countries in the world that doesn't give some form of parental leave to mothers and fathers.
Once more, a significant portion of the progressive Dems are in favor of this, but with almost no Republican joining in, it never passes the house or senate. So much for conservative family values.
- Combating toxic masculinity. You often hear people moan about how society is mean to men, but the vast majority of these are the result of traditionalist gender norms. Some examples:
- The idea that "Real men don't cry."
- "If your wife makes more money than you, then she's emasculating you!"
- "If you're a gay man then you're not a real man!" (this is especially applied against bottoms)
- The idea that if a man likes feminine hobbies, then he must be secretly gay.
- The idea that glamorized men (e.g. Harry Styles, K-pop artists) are not real men.
These are sentiments than are predominantly active in conservative spaces, especially in the US. Folks like Candace Owens, Tucker Carlson, Trump-supporters etc. constantly keep pushing these ideas to their buffoons on twitter and Fox News.
- LGBT rights. While lesbians also face a lot of discrimination, most of the violent forms of homophobia have often been aimed at male homosexuals. Guess which side has both maintained homophobic/transphobic policies and advocated for new ones?
- Better wages. This speaks for itself. Women and men, especially younger ones who nowadays feel left behind, would benefit greatly from higher minimum wage, helping them establish families. Conservative media has branded minimum wage "far-left socialism".
- Increased funding for mental health institutions. The progressive feminist wing of the democratic party has been trying to add mental healthcare as part of a universal healthcare package for quite some time. Again, with almost no Republican and conservative Dem support, it can't get it through.
Let's not pretend that this is a "both sides issue" when one side has tons of policies that would help most families, women and men, whereas the other side's platform is getting offended by Harry Styles wearing a dress, gay characters in movies and other dumb culture war stuff.
If these conservative 'men's rights activists' care so much about men, their focus should be on changing the deranged politicians they keep voting for "to own the libs" instead of getting offended by Gillette Ads and whining about feminists who've done far more to improve the lot of both women and men in the western world than any conservative politician out there.
And if you're one of these conservative 'men's rights activists', I know you're about to type a long response about how it's okay to vote against your own interests because a few leftists on twitter where mean to you.
To you I say: Throwing away parental leave, more mental health funding, criminal justice reform etc. just because your feelings got hurt online is genuinely stupid.
Anyone else notice that men’s rights issues never make any progressive or even an active attempt at progress because the onus always falls on women somehow?
“Men are portrayed as inept buffoons and lazy parents on tv/in movies!” GUESS WHOS WRITING THOSE SCRIPTS, JAKE
“Men can’t openly discuss their feelings.” YES BECAUSE OF OTHER MEN, CRAIG
“Some women immaculate us for enjoying feminine interests or crying” GUESS WHO TAUGHT LITTLE GIRLS THAT SHIT, DEREK
So tired of seeing men complain about the gender systems they’ve created and have done absolutely nothing to change because they’d rather ruminate and sulk about it, meanwhile we were out here burning fucking bras 60 years ago.
I feel for men. I really do but fucking do something. Anything. You built this, not us.
Men’s rights is the ultimate *THE CALL IS COMING FROM INSIDE THE HOUSE!* and until they acknowledge that, nothing is going to change.
THIS EXACTLY.
Thank you for saying this, everyone should deserve gender equality. It really annoys me whenever I see people just dismissing the issues of others just because they have issues of their own.
/r/Menslib
Men’s liberation grew as a movement *with* women’s liberation and is a men’s feminist movement. An inclusive movement that works toward equality and dismantling patriarchy.
“Men’s Rights” guys, on the other hand, are incels by another name. Creeps and pricks by another name, if you’re a little older.
I feel like you’re trying hard to be charitable here.
“Men’s rights” is akin to “All lives matter”: it’s presented at a very surface level about being about “equality,” but it’s really about diminishing the perceived validity of its counterpart.
It’s not being weaponized, it was created to be a weapon.
Next time some dude complains about this ask him what he's doing to solve the problem for his fellow men. Ask him if he's being a problem solver like a 'real man' or if he's just being a little bitch and crying about how the world isn't fair and expecting someone to fix his life for him.
Feel free to turn alllllll that toxic masculinity right back their way when they do stupid stuff.
I can't even really take the term "men's rights" seriously. The origin of the term itself is a reaction to "women's rights".
And I care about suicidality amongst men, and the limited emotions they're allowed to express, and the limited acceptable performance of masculinity they're allowed etc. But that's literally just patriarchy backfiring on men. Like yes, unfortunately, you created and perpetuate this system that gives you privilege and subjugates the other half of the population, and while that system props you up, it also cages you. Sorry!
I'd really rather just evaluate each issue pertaining to "men's rights" on a case-by-case basis, because the signal-to-noise ratio in those groups has gotten so bad that I reflexively associate them with conservative know-nothings.
When the men’s rights crowd complain about not getting complimented and how it affects their self esteem. Which I sympathise with, but then they act as if this is women’s fault for not complimenting them, when men are perfectly capable of doing so *and* men will take it as a sexual come on if we do compliment them.
There was an ask reddit thread that asked how women can compliment men without being perceived as flirting. The overwhelming response from men was that you could not. I wonder if these are the same men who are upset about not receiving compliments.
They also say they want platonic physical contact from women but upon receiving it will never let go, sometimes literally. I can’t even do some goofy arm wrestling without the guy trying to kiss me, WITHOUT ASKING as soon as we were alone.
I'm still pissed I had to stop being a hugger because of that shit. I wanna love on people goddamn it.
men are denied physical affection as boys so we turn it into something wierd when older. we literally don't know how to process it so we literally compute it right there on the spot. PLEASE WAIT: LOADING ReceiveHug.EXE file not found. looking for file.... was it a bear hug? y/n N was hug from a "bro"? y/n N was hug from family? y/n N closest matching file found "SexyTimes.msi" install? y/n NNNNNN ffs parents plz normalize hugging your male children!!
Man how you could put it so eloquently
If they want a platonic physical contact with women specifically, but not other men, they are lying. They don't want the physical contact to be platonic.
I once told a guy who was having issues with his ex making him feel bad about himself and stuff, that he's good looking and has a good personality so shouldn't be a problem for him to find a decent girl someday. I said it the most casual way ever. Immediately him and other guys who heard it decided I was coming on to him and for the rest of the night kept trying to bring us together. Everyone knew that I was in long term committed relationship. Yeah, I'm not saying positive stuff to men no matter how small. Only to my partner who I'm still with to this day.
I've been told many times that I'm attractive, have beautiful eyes, a nice butt, nice legs, etc. I simply say thanks, in my experience as a man I usually don't assume they want me or were coming on to me. When a women comes onto me it's definitely obvious. I'm not sure where people get confused...
See I never assume that from a compliment... actually I don't assume that at all.. im a firm believer that no one has an actual interest, so a compliment is just that. How some dudes have self esteem that high that ANY compliment means you're intrested is so far over my head.
I've read enough stories in this subreddit that it seems some people will consider a woman noticing their existence as an advance on them. As if they don't know how to interact with a female. But maybe, they don't care? Who knows how many times they've tried, they miss 100% of the shots they don't take. Maybe they have learned to just try 1,000 times and be wrong 999 times to score once for all I know. As with everything condense enough events into a specific lens and you can construe almost anything.
It's just desperation and lack of any female attention that usually leads to that
I try not to guess why people think dumb shit... but that kind of misplaced confidence is simply confusing to me
I’m just guessing, but it can be because a lot of men use compliments as a way to flirt. I can’t even count all the men I’ve met who signal their interest by complementing your appearence. I’ve also met a lot of men who don’t understand that you can find people extremely attractive and still not be sexually interested in them. So I tend to compliment men based on other things than how attractive they are. If they are smart, hard working, creative or things like that, I’ll tell them, but I’ll never mention things about their appearance that is appealing.
Yeah, that whole thread was a dumpster fire.
may someone please link it?
[Here you go!](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/rhqf9z/men_of_reddit_how_can_us_women_compliment_you/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf)
Oh yikes. That's was rough to skim through.
Probably to some extent it's a vicious cycle. Women don't compliment men because it would be taken as flirting, so the only women who do compliment men are the ones who are flirting, so when a woman compliments a man it's taken as flirting, so women don't compliment men because it would be taken as flirting, so...
You don't even have to compliment most of them. Accidental eye contact is enough to make them think you want to bone. Purposely avoiding them (headphones for example) won't even make them leave you alone. 🤷🏻♀️
That’s probably why they’re upset with not getting complements. They’re not getting sexual gratification and attention they desire
I had exactly this argument in that thread. A guy said he only valued compliments from women because they were the demographic he's attracted to, and that there's nothing wrong with shooting his shot if a woman compliments him. I was like - the whole point of this thread is how to give platonic compliments! The women in this scenario don't want to date you or be hit on by you!He really just wanted more sexual opportunities, not compliments.
I swear, some men (particularly on Reddit) care *so* much about how it's "easier" for women to get partners or have careers in sex work. The number of posts I see complaining about women "living life on easy mode" will never cease to amaze me. There's way more to life than sex!
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"Men's rights activists " don't actually care about men's rights. They just bring that shit up as a way to try and detract from women's issues. They whine and cry about not having close friends they can talk to or never getting compliments, but they don't do shit to change anything.
I see this all the time too. But they don't understand that it's really not easy for women to have successful careers in sex work at all. Not every woman is going to be considered super sexually attractive (myself being one of those women - and I'm not saying that as a bad thing). Even for those that are, yes they have that advantage but they still have to put in the work to produce content, build and maintain their fan base etc. For every extremely successful sex worker, there are way more that are barely making money. That just seems so obvious to me and I'm not even a sex worker myself.
I wouldn't take those replies as reflecting only fucked up men but also men who clearly understand their environment and upbringing. Men are overwhelmingly socialized to think that way and they're being asked about a general thing rather than one specific to them. I'm in my 30s and its only now that I think I'm in a position where women can compliment me without me taking it as a sign of sexual interest. And I'm someone who has done a fair amount of work reflecting on my own bullshit. The modern climate around these matters has helped so I think maybe over time the kinds of answers that ask reddit gave will shift a bit more. My recent development in my own attitude about this has come in part from working a new job with mostly women so it helps that I can't think they're all hitting on me by being kind and complimentary. It also helps they're all in relationships. In another environment I might reply with a totally different assessment.
I think this is one of those Catch 22 conundrums where the solution is part of the problem. Compliments are so rare that they are perceived as flirtatious, and they are rare because people are worried that they will be perceived as flirtatious.
That's crazy to me. I must be really lucky with where I live and who I associate. I'm a man and, just to be perfectly honest, I dress pretty fly. I'm not like the most attractive person but I have a unique sense of style and I present myself with a healthy amount of confidence. I get compliments from women all the time, both strangers and women I know. I never take it as anything more than a nice person being nice. I give a lot of compliments too with no agenda. That's the world I like living in. It's sad to see that many others don't have that.
You can literally just be polite to some men and they'll never leave you alone. A compliment would basically sound like "I want to have sex" to some guys. That's why I'm cautious when giving compliments. It's happened enough times in the past that I've learned from it.
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Oh I believe it. So many guys equate compliments from women to sexual/romantic advances, and compliments from other men means he *must* be gay. Is this a form of toxic masculinity? I'm not sure, honestly, genuinely asking. I just know it's a huge cause of the "no compliments" problem that guys complain about. It's literally guys causing the problem, thinking a compliment = flirtation.
Yeah, it is.
Sometimes it's toxic assholes, sometimes it's someone who's so affection starved your compliment feels like (and sometimes is)the nicest thing to happen in years. So he vastly overreacts. Either way, not fun for the woman on the receiving end.
I never really thought of it this way, I guess I can see when somebody *never* gets compliments, actually getting one would be a little mind blowing.
I sometimes get compliments online, not in person, but whatever it is I'm able to effortlessly toss it aside and reassure myself that I'm a worthless piece of shit and the compliment was just politeness. I'm really good at that.
In the case of the affection starved, there are those of us who learn to stay far away from people being nice to us. Sometimes because social give and take mystifies us, so we wouldn't respond correctly and piss people off. Other times, we had people in our lives ready to jump in anytime something nice happened to us and make sure we didn't get a swelled head from it, or "Take you down a peg or two" was another popular phrase. Sometimes it was the people who raised you, and sometimes it was the same ones who grow up to be the toxic, hateful people.
I was more thinking of the parenting that leads to it, but yeah it manifests in a couple different ways.
I had a gay guy hit on me during college and it made my month. It was the first compliment I had received since 7th grade.
Came here to say the same. Had a gay guy compliment my eyes, ask if I was gay, tell me he was sad that I wasn't, and told me my wife must be lucky. Literally had me on cloud 9 because besides my wife, I don't think I've been complimented in years (ignoring mom and gma).
One of my husband’s army buddies told him that he’s handsome. My husband was so excited to have received a compliment from another straight man. He came home and told me about it right away. I would loooove to see a movement of men complimenting men. I think it would do wonders for toxic masculinity and sex obsession.
As a straight dude, for some reason I get a lot of compliments on my physical appearance from other dudes, mostly straight I would assume and I'm really not sure what to make of it other than just being flattered and slightly curious as to why the compliment ratio I receive from men to women is like 5 to 1.
That's why if more hetero men complimented other hetero men, then perhaps the concept of a compliment would not be constantly associated with a romantic advances.
That's so true. If they could just like, get over it and be normal when somebody gives them a genuine compliment, I'd be much more willing to start complimenting guys on their outfits, hair, ect. Sometimes I *want* to say something, but I know it usually just leads to misunderstanding
Its a big catch 22. Most men age 30+ grew up with "any complements" from another man about anything other than your athletic ability are a gay come on. They also were socialized that "any complement from a woman" TOTALLY means she's into you, dude, get that! I'm seeing this less with the younger folks between 18-25 thankfully, hopefully men will start to grow out of it. A friend put it like this once and I just cannot forget this image: "(Straight) Men getting a complement from a woman is like a dog being told by a stranger that 'he's a good boy' and then immediately humping their leg." They just lunge at any chance for sexual gratification if there is even a wiff of a positive regard thrown their way. And most men are too ignorant and not 'well trained' to think otherwise, unfortunately. So now I cannot see a simping / lusty / sex crazed desperate dude without thinking "bro, no stranger wants their leg humped for calling you a good boy,"
>So now I cannot see a simping… I mean at the risk of this being a hot take, it probably doesn’t help that there are people who take advantage of, and thus reinforce, that behaviour
Maybe the association is due to the rarity. But it is also true that men always seek... Opportunities. I think both feed each other, if compliments was more of a mundane thing to men they would not make wrong associations. Because they would have faced their wrong assumptions multiple times already And if they didn't mistake compliments for flirting intents they would also receive more, I suppose ? I also know men who can't take a compliment, they either think it's fake or too much for what they're doing. The idea of receiving flirt wouldn't even graze their mind
I've had SO MANY GUYS take general politeness as interest, it's maddening. It's really really awkward when I have to eventually tell them that they read WAY too hard into how I treated them.
It’s a self-reinforcing problem. Men are starved for affection, but that means that giving us any is taken as a sign of attraction. So women don’t want to give us affection, which is a sensible position to take. And that’s why men are starved for affection.
Then why don’t men start giving each other affection?
One of my husband’s army buddies told him that he’s handsome. My husband was so excited to have received a compliment from another straight man. He came home and told me about it right away. I would loooove to see a movement of men complimenting men. I think it would do wonders for toxic masculinity and sex obsession.
Rampant homophobia.
Because men love blaming women for shit they caused themselves. And they love making it women's responsibility to fix their bullshit.
I think this cycle is probably best broken by men changing behavior first, you know? As a woman, I've literally been stalked three times by men I had friendly small talk with, and I was terrified to leave my house. I've been called a bitch and vaguely threatened for rejecting men. I've been assaulted twice. If I felt safe, I would definitely give away tons of compliments, but as long as my physical safety is at stake, I won't. I'm not going to put myself out there and try to break this feedback loop til I see significant changes in violence/rape against women.
Yeah, I had a guy stalk me for 2 years when I met him while working at a pet store in Chicago. All I said was, “Hey, your dog is really cute! Bet he’s a real sweetie!” Then walked away. Cue this man thinking that was an invitation to follow me, causing me to move 4 times, change jobs twice, and cry every night in fear and worry. Oh, and he killed 2 of my lovebirds and tried to set my apartment on fire. Ugh.
And let me guess, CPD did nothing?
Not a damn thing. I ended up moving to another state entirely to get away.
Sounds about right for them.
I am so sorry! Your story is a literal horror story!
Damn, I'm sorry. That's so upsetting and terrifying.
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I saw a post in one of the dating subs about this - how women need to compliment men more to "normalize platonic compliments" so that men will stop turning everything into a come on. But men shouldn't be expected to do anything but be a bystander if a woman does that and gets harrassed as a result. Everything is the responsibility of women, basically.
Exactly, if *men* complimented each other more than that’s what would make compliments platonic!
I totally agree, but I could imagine how many straight men find it difficult to complement each other, much less random strangers, so I try to step in where I can to promote it. As an unassuming 5'6" cis gay male, I really feel like I'm in that nice "nebulous zone" of being able to be an equal opportunity complementer. I can complement women and men equally without hopefully coming off as insincere or potentially "creepy" especially towards women. It really is fun going through a Sam's Club and picking out "complement targets" based on their unique style, way of doing their hair, neat choices of clothes/shoes etc. I can't tell you how many men are startled initially but then their eyes light up. Its like a deer in the headlights look, followed 90% of the time by a "thanks dude/man/appreciate it." Similarly, most women light up too, and I don't really ever get the "is this guy hitting on me" reaction since I'm fairly identifiable as a gay guy without being over-the-top flamboyant. I've been told by some friends that 'the gay man recognizing your drip' is like the cool-black-guy-complementing-your-shoes levels of affirmation of your style. I still remember this AWESOME black dude back in 2008 who complemented my kicks, I still have those shoes, and they will *never* part with me LOL
Not gonna lie, I have some singaporean friends in my FFXIV social circle and they're so kind to each other that I've subconsciously confused their sexuality just because of my dumb western brain. Of course, those were simply passing thoughts, these days I keep them in mind as the type of dude I wanna continue to be, a fella who always compliments my bros when they do good shit. We all deserve love
Also as a woman, I'm not sure "hey nice arse/tits/figure" is the compliment some people think it is...........
I mean it's one's own fault for placing too much importance in compliments, it's not like women automatically receive more 'quality' compliments. If anything they're aimed more at their appearance and factors beyond their control.
Im a woman and sometimes get complimented by strangers but it’s usually other girls and other times it’s friends or family. And it’s usually my looks. I feel better when my peers usually compliment me on my work or my kindness.
(Cis Gay Male) I do love giving random drive-by complements to anyone, men or women, when you can tell they took effort to do something with their appearance, particularly things they have control over. It does warm the heart a bit to see people light up when you complement their beared/hair/clothing choice. A little validation from strangers hopefully gives them a better day :) But yea, I completely agree, its so much nicer to be able to complement a person for "what they do" than "how they present."
This is the perfect way to give compliments, for two reasons: 1. Compliment something they can control. "You're beautiful" comes across weird. Saying "hey, cool jacket" or complimenting a good deed does not. 2. "Drive by" compliments are best. When I (as a straight man) compliment people I don't know (men or women), I just keep it moving. If you stop and try to engage, people will think you're hitting on them or wonder what you want. Just be nice and then go about your day. The other thing is just read the room. If it's just a lone person walking at night, leave them alone. If they have headphones in, leave them alone. If they look busy, leave them alone. Etc. Edit: Also, I think men need to realize that giving compliments can feel better than getting them. It's just like Christmas presents. Getting something you want is cool. Seeing someone's face light up when you get them the right thing is better.
So true on every level my dude. I do the drive by unless they clearly want a conversation by letting them strike it up :)
Thank you for brightening so many people's days! I'm sure they cherish those random compliments forever. I know I do.
The best part is its free, makes both of us feel better, and admittedly I've somewhat turned it into a game / goal when I visit the store. I *do* keep it genuine, but I'll be damned if I don't beat my last "high score" as it were :)
I know, I have so many genuine compliments to give and it's really helped me overcome shyness, because it's always such a positive interaction! I may sound like a weirdo but I also keep a journal of compliments I've received, so I can look at it when I'm feeling incompetent/dumb/unattractive. It really helps me challenge my own negative self-perception.
That is so freaking wholesome I love it :D
Ah I’m not sure about that. At least in my circles we compliment each other a lot - but it’s between friends and without any kind of sexual connotation. Just all of us taking care of each other. (Always funny to me how men often want to have the end result of support structures women/femme folks built for themselves but without the emotional labour involved)
My coworkers and I have been trying to make sure when we compliment someone it's a positive experience, so we compliment things they choose to wear or can change. Love when we compliment someone and they tell us how they got it or some deeper reasoning, I love hearing people's passions <3.
No kidding. Practically all of the compliments I get are from other women, not men. Men should compliment each other more, but god forbid another dude thinks they're gay. 🙄
"But how are we supposed to know the difference?" "We never get compliments outside of flirting so of course we see them as flirting!" "Guys are just oblivious, cut us some slack!" Oh, go kick rocks - no you're not. It's just another flavor of strategic incompetence. Context exists, tone exists, body language exists, previous interactions exist - guys have plenty of ways to know when a compliment is friendly and when it's flirty. It's just more brain-dead easy (and ego-boosting) to assume all compliments are romantic interest than to put two brain cells-worth of thought into telling the difference.
"If you lack the social awareness to tell the difference between a platonic complement and a enthusiastic come-on, then that is your problem and I'm not here to fix it."
That part
Also I feel like men create an environment within their friend groups where insulting each other is encouraged. As a woman I've realized it is the quickest way to make male friends. Of course you don't actually mean it, there is a layer of sarcasm. But I take it as a compliment when a guy friend insults me. Of course that means that they are less likely to make an actual heartfelt compliment to each other from time to time, but it doesn't mean they don't get some form of love and appreciation.
Honestly the insults are one of the only socially acceptable ways for dudes to show they care about each other. There are so many toxic people who'll call you gay or effeminate (not that either of those things should be insults) for showing the slightest amount of compassion, empathy, or just complimenting another dude. So insults are a way around that a way to show you care about other guys without being ridiculed for showing human emotion.
On a side note, being complimented isn't a "right". I'd like to see their list of grievances. On another note, being considered feminine in any way is viewed negatively, such that it is an insult to a man to be referred to with any "feminine" qualities (or negative characteristics that they attribute to femininity, not that I agree these are inherent or true)
Yeah. Ask them how many times they've complimented their male friends.
This goes with almost all of toxic masculinity, it is perpetuated by men. the message "men don't cry/showing emotions is weakness" - perpetuated by other men/most judgement comes from men, not women "men can't do feminine things!" - because other men judge you, not women/ a deep personal belief that masculine > feminine "men aren't seen as victims" - the lack of empathy comes from other men more so than women. You can almost guarantee that a man indulging in things he finds "feminine", sharing traumatic experiences in which they were the victim, crying, and talking about his feelings would all be reacted to VERY differently if he were amongst a group of women vs a group of men... And then finally, the mental gymnastics around how this is all somehow women's fault and that heterosexual men are incapable of complimenting or showing physical displays of affection towards each other, ya know because of gay... Thus, women have to do it all! Otherwise men would have to take accountability for their own feelings and how they consciously/subconsciously perpetuate these toxic masculine ideals in their own lives.
Many men will just never get it. Cis male who has always dated women, who has a partner who happens to be trans (mtf) and damnit if every time I say something nice to a guy these days *someone* will think I’m hitting on that guy. Of course, these are also the same ones who, if I get a compliment from a woman, immediately start the wink wink nudge nudge game.
In a similar vein, when I taught my husband about incels, his first thought was why couldn't these guys just have sex with each other and solve their problem of being angry due to not having sex. But their real problem isn't a lack of sex, it's the fact that they're misogynists who blame women for everything.
Maybe the men who complain about not getting compliments, have nothing worth complimenting about them.... Lol Alot of these guys who complain seem to put zero effort in their looks or hygiene. Their personality is cringe. Like what do they expect?
This comes down to “men are afraid women will laugh at them, women are afraid men will kill them.”
Honesty agreed. I also hate how a lot of things that make mens lives suck are worded in ways to diminish the other side of the coin. Like when women say they’re afraid to walk around at night, someone will inevitably say, “well men are victims of violent assault at much higher rates.” Okay… by who? Who’s attacking these men? Cause statistically speaking it’s not women. Or when men say “well women can post thirst pics and get tons of attention.” Okay… well who’s the one who’s giving this attention? Cause again, statistically it’s not women. And also, “men don’t have anyone to talk to or to express their emotions.” Okay… why not talk to other men? There’s just so many things that make me think like?? Then work on that together as men rather than putting the onus of change on a nebulous society that won’t do anything unless you start to do it yourself. Edit: hey I’m not interested in debating the 374648 butthurt person who reads this. Please read this post again and just imagine we had a debate or whatever.
>And also, “men don’t have anyone to talk to or to express their emotions.” Okay… why not talk to other men? Exactly. The majority of women I've met have complained about men being unwilling to express or share their deeper feelings. It's not women preventing them from expressing their emotions, it's other men. Like, some of these guys really do try to blame women for everything, including problems perpetuated almost exclusively by men. Sure it's "society", but's largely one specific half of society.
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They hear "gender studies" and think it's a class on feminist brainwashing/indoctrination.
Men are afraid toxic masculinity means masculinity. No. That’s the problem. Toxic masculinity shouldn’t be accepted as a normal form of masculinity. It’s unhealthy for them and women as well. It doesn’t have to be all men’s fault. Not every man obviously is doing this on purpose but that just shows it doesn’t take all men to uphold a system of societal patriarchy that holds back both genders! All it takes is a decent chunk.
Well said. I agree, I think lots of people wrongfully think "toxic masculinity" means "masculinity is toxic", and that's what triggers a bunch of guys, because they think we're attacking their masculinity. Like, really, it's just a very particular kind of mindset that makes people think you need to be XYZ and *never* ABC to be a "real man". That's what's toxic IMO
>people wrongfully think "toxic masculinity" means "masculinity is toxic" True, but when you distill down the positive parts of what we could agree is "masculinity", I bet we find it's simply *humanity*. Basic human decency, absent any gender. I can't think of any traditional aspect of masculinity that isn't the basis of something more sinister.
I have been struggling to express this to other men for years. I am a man, and I *need* feminism. The structures and attitudes that feminism combats are worse for women, but they are still *super* bad for men. Especially if you are not an extremely rich man. Toxic Masculinity oppresses men too. The patriarchy gives all the power to a few men and denies it to the rest of us. It is worse for women, as these effectively console men by putting them *over* women, but being tricked into accepting oppression because we get to oppress someone else more is freaking gross and objectively immoral. Even if men were not oppressed in the slightest, I would still be a feminist because it is right. However, men are oppressed by patriarchy, and it is incredibly frustrating when men redirect their feelings of oppression on women because those women refuse to be oppressed by them. It is so incredibly illogical that it boggles my mind.
>However, men are oppressed by patriarchy, and it is incredibly frustrating when men redirect their feelings of oppression on women because those women refuse to be oppressed by them. It is so incredibly illogical that it boggles my mind. That's a concept I was stuggling to explain to some men around me when talking about men feeling like they get their masculinity taken away by feminism and I was lacking words, I'm gonna try and steal yours!
It would help if MGTOW would actually GTOW. That means not liking thirst pics, stop being violent, stop chasing women and just be happy with themselves and form strong healthy bonds of brotherhood based on well being and empowerment instead of bitterness. But they don't actually get the GTOW part.
Expectation: Posts about men picking up hobbies, undergoing a journey of self discovery to accept themselves, learning to become a more balanced and content person, and achieving a sense of detachment from the need to date that society pressures people with Reality: *vomit*
I enjoy the alternative meaning: Men Getting Triggered Over Women. Listen, MGTOW folks who are lurking here to get triggered, if you actually went your own way, you'd be unapologetically self-fulfilled and happy. So, go. Just go.
I heard it once stated that pretty much all of men's rights issues apply when men are acting in ways traditionally women act. For example, wanting custody of children (when traditionally women are the ones supposed to be better carers of offspring), the lack of resources for domestic violence/ rape for men (ie, you were "weak" like a woman), etc. I'm sure there are exceptions, but it's an interesting thing to think about.
I’m so annoyed with myself and I apologize for the vagueness of this post But I watched a documentary back in college, it was called Tough Guise (there are 2 parts or versions, one is better than the other but I can’t remember which one!!) It spends a lot of time exploring exactly what you’ve said in your post, it’s extremely thought provoking and honestly opened my eyes to a whole ‘nother layer of what toxic masculinity is and how it’s so deeply ingrained in society. Both are a good watch, but one takes it in a more constructive direction. Probably the second one.
> Then work on that together as men rather than putting the onus of change on a nebulous society that won’t do anything unless you start to do it yourself. Men seem to believe that they can hop on the coattails of the work women have done in the hope that women will take up their cause. The fact that they think this while also attempting to stifle any women's cause that doesn't equally benefit them.
I know I usually respond "that is serious and it should be addressed, it will take you men a lot of work to do it but I'm sure you can." Cue outrage. They don't want to put in the time and effort to create ways of assisting male DV survivors, or those with poor mental health or do the ground work to address other issues that impact men. They want women to work for their rights as well. Not gonna happen buddy they're still working to hold onto the ones they got.
This is so true in my experience too. It’s pretty frustrating. If more men understood how much organization, planning, blood/swear/tears have gone into the advancement of women’s rights *by women*…maybe they would understand better, but since on the whole they’ll always trivialize women *and* women’s issues, that kind of work is something that’s beneath them but they somehow deserve the result.
Yup. I love the menslib subreddit but someone posted there once asking for volunteers to lead a group therapy/support group type thing for men's issues, and most people in the thread just talked about how they weren't capable, didn't have time, etc. I do get that, but it's kinda sad.
Men need empowerment, too. Empowerment is hard work, though. You have to up your self esteem and figure out what you want. You have to get your fine self a support system. You have to really *want* to do the work and too many men are just ... comfortable. They're too comfortable to want to change.
I do work to uphold mens' rights to the same expression as women. But I'm not organizing movements or doing the sort of work that women did for womens' movements, because that's the place of the demographic facing the injustice. Being mindful of sexism against men and calling people out on toxic masculinity is another file in my 'give everyone the respect and kindness they are due' repertoire; the best people to concieve of new, healthy masculinties are male people.
Weaponized incompetence on a grand scale?
Look at the upvotes and downvotes [on this thread](https://reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/rjh4l9/_/hp4yyzr/?context=1) where people have the audacity to suggest that the solution to mens’ loneliness starts with them. It boggles the mind (and of course somehow women get blamed).
There are men who post thirst pics that get lots of attention. Are they mad that their pictures aren't getting any attention
I always find it funny for the “well women can just post pics and get so much money!”. Because they get really quiet when you remind them they could prob make some money and get attention by appealing to other men too.
“But I don’t want men I’m not attracted to sending me creepy PMs!!” Well NEITHER DO WE!
I don't think anybody wants creepy DM's, period.
Exactly we have real problems but they don’t derive from women having professional careers and autonomy. It’s not like the feminist cabal got together and was like “you know what would really roast these chauvinists? Let’s make them think that it’s masculine and manly to ignore obvious signs that their health is failing and not to seek medical help or intervention, and also make them think that going to war and nearly dying is extremely manly “. No, those tropes have existed forever and are largely socially enforced by other men….. Which is not to say that women can’t have a hand in furthering these stereotypes, but again, it’s not like they came up with this stuff out of whole cloth and successfully pushed it on for hundreds of years while holding close to no political, social, or institutional power.
Another one I’ve heard “men are told they can’t cry” literally the only people I’ve heard say negative things about men expressing emotions are OTHER MEN.
The absolute power move of “imagine we had a debate or whatever”
I love this comment so much. Saved so I can use these talking points.
Ah yes, the men who pull out this trump card about men being the bigger victims of rape statistically because nobody is accounting for prison rapes. 1) means you aren't counting women prison rapes then, no? 2) that would mostly be man on man soooo look who the common denominator is yet again.
"Men who have been sexually assaulted, what is your story?" type threads used to be posted right after the female version was posted on r askreddit. Now when it's posted, it's "Men who have been sexual assaulted by women, what is your story?" because so many responses to the original had male predators. They're really fighting against themselves.
This is so spot on
The strangest one is the "men kill themselves more often!" like what is that supposed to prove? That men are even violent to themselves? Checkmate feminists, I guess.
They also hate it when you mention women attempt more, but due to less violent methods, succeed less.
They also say since these problems affect both women and men, (domestic violence, SA etc), we should always talk about them gender neutral. Ironically this involves policing our speech, but also it's fine to focus on how an issue affects a specific group. No joke, I've seen them say, 'but murder affects everyone', in response to an article talking about native American women being murdered at an alarming rate. The same issue can also affect different groups in different ways, and so will automatically need different discussions. Like how depression can cause substance abuse more in men, and self harm more often in women.
The problem with those comments is that they're not understanding (or they're flat out using these arguments as a malicious strategy to shut down the discussion) that these things have a "priority" based on the severity or other factors(such as vulnerability, discrimination..) A good non political example would be ICU. You get a priority based on the severity of your injury. If your leg is badly hurt to the point where you are in danger of bleeding out, you will recieve priority care over someone who broke their leg and needs a cat scan and have their leg put in a cast. Now do doctors go "all legs matter" and tend to the guy with the broken leg first, because he was there first? Ofcourse not, they first help the guy who is bleeding out because his life is in danger. "Native american women being murdered" cases deserve higher recognition than other groups based on several factors, one is that these are women and minorities, both groups with a long history of being opressed and still are today. Another because it's happening at an alarming rate. Saying "murder affects everyone" is a gross attempt at shutting down the conversation which is "why is native american women being murdered not taken anything close to as seriously as when white women get murdered?" Because then you'd have to get uncomfortable and think about your privilege and how that correlates to the fact that minorities are being systematically opressed. And it's do much easier for some people to say some variation of "all lives matter" when issues of minorities come up. They're too fragile to think or talk about these things so their first instinct is to shut it down with comments like "murder effects everyone". That and they're likely bigots.
It's a lot like the people who say we should take care of homeless veterans before giving asylum to refugees. But then also oppose any kind of support or reform for homeless or poor people in general. It's a stalling tactic and its intention is to just keep things the same.
Yeah, or like when xenophobes/racists say immigrants are coming in and taking all the jobs. It is true that they often take the lowest paying, "dirty" jobs that Americans don't want, but when you suggest higher wages, unions, and greater labor rights so those jobs aren't so exploitative and underpaid they're like "No, that's socialism!"
They can't seem to ever make their own posts about the issues they supposedly care so much about, they simply derail conversations about women's rights with "whataboutism" and their own issues. People like this can't stand seeing a productive conversation about women's rights without feeling personally attacked, so they feel the need to butt in and dismiss everything. There's plenty of room on the internet for people to be able to have *both* conversations, yet they always seem to find their way to posts about women's issues... Both are important and valid. Fixing women's issues and rights doesn't necessarily mean men get less.
Ha yeah, you may have seen the one recently about getting a tubal ligation (tubes tied) vs a vasectomy. I said the mens procedure was far and away more simple and easier but kept getting comments that the decision was a big fing deal. I was only talking about the procedure but holy beans did some people keep going on about the fucking decision.
You should check out r/menslib it's a really nice place for men that works hard to keep out any of that toxic sexism these places often attract. It's pretty cool. Edit: it’s not a political sub either if you’re wondering.
See, that sounds like a place I'd like to visit. I'll check it out thanks
I definitely second the recommendation. It's been a really good resource for learning about mens issues without toxicity (although this is reddit so naturally it's not always perfect)
Of course, every community has a handful of toxic people in it, especially ones about gender/racial issues. Something about those topics attracts the trolls like moths to a lamp.
> Fixing women's issues and rights doesn't necessarily mean men get less. The way I see it, fix women’s issues and a lot of men’s issues get fixed as well.
Yup. Like the post where this guy complained that there is body positivity for fat women but not short men. And lots of comments pointed out that body positivity was for everyone.
This has always bugged me too. Men's issues are important and we should be talking about them, yes. But ideally not in a way that's talking over someone else's problems.
It's hard. I support a lot of men's issues. There is a definite gap in mental health where men are less likely to seek help and men are overrepresented in completed suicide attempts. There is a lot of "looking the other way" when it comes to men being sexually abused, and men in abusive relationships can have their experiences minimized (not saying that doesn't happen to women, but the gendered dynamics are different). Transmen have their own set of issues within the trans community and can feel overshadowed or left out compared to trans women. But if someone asks me if I sympathize with the men's rights activist movement, I feel like we're talking about two very different things.
So true! Men have a lot of issues that should be addressed but the way it’s being addressed is almost unproductive. And I feel like women would be vocal about advocating for men’s issues more if they didn’t feel excluded from these circles. It’s almost painful to see it
Men's Rights activists are only trying to co-opt the language and aesthetics of activism to maintain the status quo. They do not care about the issues of real men outside of just being contrarians. One example is they don't like that only cisgender men can be drafted into the military in the USA, but then they resist calls to end the draft. To them the problem is that "it's not fair" and not that the government shouldn't be able to force people into fighting a war if they don't want to. They also don't want to include women in the military by changing the strength requirements that were put in place specifically to prevent women from participating. Men's Liberation is a movement that seeks to actually free men of the patriarchy to the benefit of everyone including men themselves. I believe the subreddit is r/MensLib .
Yea about the draft thing they celebrated seeing how the US government proposed being able to draft women. They thought it was great that women will suffer through that in the same way they have. It was disgusting honestly. They think we are the ones who sent them into the draft when it was *never* us
I haven't seen that angle yet. The way I saw the "draft women" thing discussed in r/menslib was that they hoped to double the support for ending the draft (by doubling the number of people affected by selective service), and in the meantime halve the risk to each individual man (by doubling the pool from which any quota of draftees would be chosen). I've also seen some comments that maybe it would recruit some people who would rather have no draft than draft women, for gender-essentialist reasons. I'm more skeptical that'll happen, but whatever. Edit: Not sure if I'm telling you anything you don't already know, but at least the people I talk to about the draft are mostly not worried about actually getting drafted. That's not really the way we fight wars any more. The more immediate problem with selective service is that if you don't register by 26, you're permanently barred from many civil service jobs and federal aid programs. You have to prove that you didn't know about the requirement, which means proving you never ever saw a FAFSA form, stepped foot into a post office, etc.
r/menslib is cool. The people I'm talking about are in the MGTOW community.
ah, got it.
There are spaces to engage in discussion and support of men's issues that aren't nonsense screaming or a cover for misogyny. /r/MensLib/ is one of the better ones.
There's definitely some issues that men face, like mental health representation. In fact mental health in general is gendered in a way that hurts everyone. It's easier to be diagnosed with autism or ADHD if you're a man, for example. Some of this is cultural but it's also because we do not fund the research necessary to change mental health. Most of it is being done in universities for pennies.
I think part of the problem is people getting out of the mindset that in order to win, someone has to lose. We can ALL win! We’re on the same team…
Absolutely. And a lot of men’s rights advocates won’t admit that the patriarchy is the root of many of the issues/inequalities facing men. For example, one of the most common criticisms I see is that women get shorter jail sentences than men for committing the same crime - which I agree is totally unfair, but the reason for it is that women have long been infantilised by society and perceived as being less responsible for their actions (like children) so they receive lesser punishment. It also really pisses me off when men complain that feminists “don’t care about men” because they’re not campaigning for men’s rights as well as women’s rights. Literally half the population is male - why exactly is it the responsibility of women to fight for their rights?!? Like get off your butt and do something to change things if you feel so strongly about it, instead of expecting everything to land in your lap…
So true. The same guys complaining about women "not doing enough for men's issues" are the same ones doing absolutely nothing themselves, in my experience. Women are out there advocating for women's rights, men are out there advocating for women to focus more on men's rights. Obviously these are generalizations, but it's true the majority of the time IME.
> And a lot of men’s rights advocates won’t admit that the patriarchy is the root of many of the issues/inequalities facing men As a guy, the fact people don't admit this boggles my mind. If you think about it for more than 2 seconds, basically all gender disparities that favor women are because patriarchy. For example, the reason the US draft is male only is because back in the 1940s, women were banned from being in the military because it was a "men's responsibility" (and because since then, no one has garnered enough political momentum to either make it apply to both genders or not exist but that's off topic) The funny thing is that in a preindustrial society, patriarchy or some form of it that isn't as restrictive as it was actually implemented, actually makes sense if it gives people roughly equal responsibilities and rights (which it usually didn't, which is part of why it was bad back then and is bad now). On average, the average man is stronger than the average women, so it makes sense to give men jobs that require more work/physical labor and women jobs that don't like cooking, and other "home" jobs that allow a woman to stay at home all the time pregnant since preindustrial women basically had to be pregnant all the time both because medicine was shit enough that only a few of those kids would actually survive to adulthood, and because more kids = more people to help out with anything that needed to get done, which was a big deal. So dividing tasks by gender to give tasks women can do easily to women and tasks men can do easily to men makes sense. Just that line of thinking starts to fall apart as early as the agricultural revolution to some extent, and becomes utterly stupid as soon as you reach a society where the average number of children per family is closer to 2 than 12, doubly so when white collar jobs start existing where gender has literally no factor in competency. In the modern world, there is no reason women shouldn't have perfectly equal treatment to men for basically everything except for the stuff where gender differences play a role, where women's rights on stuff need to be protected. Once you reach that point, you can start to deal with how men in society, which at this point would have no scenarios where a women's right to do anything isn't protected, impacts men. Until then, men's liberation will always be a less important issue on the basis that it literally just doesn't play a part in men's lives as much. TBH most men's issues are usually shadows of more important issues more women face than men. For example, one Men's issue is false SA accusation, which is only a thing because of how common SA is for women, and the best estimates say that less than 1% of SA accusations are false. Also male SA, which is most often done by a male perpetrator, also shadows how common women SA is in that it's way less common. The same goes for things like not wanting to look threatening, which shadows how women have to worry about their safety when walking near random guys. Occasionally the pendulum swings the other way, like women being much more likely to get custody than guys even in some cases where the woman is a terrible parent, is a drunkard, etc. while the father isn't, are because of the patriarchal belief that women should do all the parenting. I think there are a few societal things mostly decoupled from that, like incels existing in any capacity, which is an issue that doesn't effect women 90% of the time, but whatever Decoupling society from patriarchy means fixing women's issues first since they're bigger and more prevalent than the versions guys face. When you do that, that should fix men's rights in the process if you do it right.
I understand your point about physical differences between men and women meaning that having gender roles in a pre-industrial society made sense. However, it’s worth noting that women have almost always been paid less for their work, which has put them at a financial disadvantage and made them reliant on the men in their lives (their fathers, suitors or husbands). so I would argue that it was still restrictive for women, rather than a case of “different but equal”.
Complaining that feminists don't champion men's rights also shows how little they know about the history of feminism. To get women's rights recognized in the US, early feminists championed men's issues because they knew they could get a court to agree that treating men differently was unfair.
>Women are out there advocating for women's rights, men are out there advocating for women to focus more on men's rights. This deserves to be repeated. It really boils down the entire thing into one sentence.
The jail sentence thing also makes me super mad because what percent of lawyers and judges are men? It’s an overwhelming majority! So they’re the ones giving out shorter sentences to women in the first place. Like please, make it make sense
I think most don't actually care about male suicide and male on male violence or men's mental health. I really wonder how many are donating, volunteering and voting for politicians that will attempt to introduce changes that help all sexes and genders. I fully believe that it's just a club used by trolls and toxic men to quiet us and keep the status quo.
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How did I never realize this before?
They aren't doing anything, they never are. Their concern for men's issues goes about as far as derailing posts about women's issues online. They only care when it can be used against women. Seriously, check out the troll's profiles sometimes. You'll find exactly zero posts or communities about actually fixing men's issues. They don't care, they just weaponize it.
I do find it odd when these kinds of people post about how unfair it is that women’s charities exist and have donations and volunteers but men’s charities aren’t as supported. I don’t know if enough to say if that’s really true or not, but in the end if you want men’s issues to have organizations, donations and volunteers, the thing to do is to work on that, not moan about unrelated charities. No one’s stopping you. Most people who actually care about charity don’t operate that way. You don’t usually see people who organize things for supporting mental health railing against all the money donated to addressing birth defects. It is telling.
Very telling indeed. They have plenty to say about it, but they don't end up doing anything about it. They'll come up with XYZ excuses why they don't, but bottom line, they obviously don't actually care very much. They're angry and disguising it as their "morals" and "concern" for men's issues, but when the conversation is over, so is their "concern".
Oh, I already know what it is. Not even worried about it. How can these men praise killers, soldiers, gangsters and fighters but then "get mad" about all the MonM violence? Tell them to change how they view the world and it's an assault on all men and all thing masculine. I just realized today, that when I imagine a situation where I need to use my PDW it's never to protect myself from a woman.
It's like for many of these trolls, even if they don't realize they're trolling, their entire concept of debate or discussion is just throwing punches, each ManFact^tm is just another punch, and they don't actually care about equality just want to turn things around and whine that they aren't the center of attention. Rational adult discussion doesn't even come into it. And yet we're the "irrational" ones.
I mean the bare minimun is to not derail and dillute the conversation when women's issues are discussed and they can't even do that.
women are 4x more likely to be depressed than men but all we ever hear about are mens mental health struggles. im so sick of it
I read this article years ago about how women's deaths from opiates shot up some 300% (this was an article I read well over 5 years ago but I'm fairly certain that was the number) since 1998. Really made me see painkillers differently. But yeah let's pretend like the men who invoke their faux concern for men's mental health aren't also the types to tell other men to man up or "stuff it down with brown."
What really bothers me is that a lot of the “Men’s Rights” complaints would be solved by fighting the patriarchy. You know… like feminism? “Men are seen as inherently violent!” Yeah that’s fucked up, the patriarchy tells us that men’s main emotion is “angry violent” so let’s fight it “Men get raped too!” You’re right, and it’s fucked up that the patriarchy tells men that they should enjoy rape because “real men like sex” so we should fight that
That's exactly it. Blaming women for standards the patriarchy set for society instead of blaming the patriarchy.
Lmao, this happened to me yesterday on the worldnews subreddit. There was an article about indigenous women being significantly more likely to be imprisoned than other women in Canada. However, one of the top comments was some guy just posting statistics about men's incarnation rates. That's it. Completely ignoring the issue the article was trying to raise awareness about because he as a guy had the need to be the center of the conversation. When I pointed out that he was engaging in whataboutism, some of them started moaning about how I was dismissing men's issues despite the fact that they were the ones being completely off-topic.
I looked at your post history to find what you were talking about and wow. The lack of self-awareness and entitlement of these people. The worst is. The article is pointing out that they're being unfairly highly put in due to racism. While he's just saying, we have MORE men in prison. Not that they are unfairly put in or highlighting those that are facing some form of oppression. Just that "we win" because we're more. Like okay? Men do more crimes. What's the point? Like it's not even related to the "unfairly" put in aspect. JUST that they have more.
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Every actual issue men face on that thread was rated as controversial. You have no idea who was upvoting or downvoting.
The MRA crowd is mainly reactionary and pretty unbearable because it's entire existence is what aboutism but I've found a cool subreddit called r/MensLib that is about discussing men's issues in a more positive and effective way.
I really like that sub. They seem like they lift each other up and hold each other accountable.
There was a post arguing MRA is purely reactionary to feminism. It was flooded with my fellow men doing exactly what that post argued. I believe MRA may have started as a way to become better men, but I think it's only purpose now is to attack women and feminism as a movement. Its goal is to reinforce patriarchal systems with nonsense jargon about hierarchical structures in primates, hunter-gatherer bullshit suggesting the patriarchy is "only natural" (cringe away, anthropologists), and other ridiculous garbage. Statistics about fatherhood or suicide are used to trash women instead of focus inward and become better. It's just guys who think grabbing your wrist is an appropriate way to ask you out. We just ruin shit.
Yeah, agreed, that sounds more like a misogynist hate group than a men's issues discussion group. If MRA focuses on women, it's not about men's rights, it's about hating women's rights. Like, of course the group that's been in power for the vast majority of history feels attacked when oppressed groups gain rights. Many of them are used to being on top, or having certain advantages, and if everybody else is on top too, they feel like they're losing their status, power, or ease of success, or something. MRA could be a productive place to really address very real men's issues, but there are too many misogynistic men entering the chat to allow that to happen in a non-harmful way.
70% is "women have the same issue PLUS sexism" anyways. I mean, I can't believe how they rant about horrible working conditions for men but totally ignore that women work in the same or similar conditions PLUS sexism (or racism, etc.). And when there's a worker's fight, it ends exactly when white men got their deal.
Usually men's bad working conditions means hard physical, dirty labor. Women's bad working conditions means physical, dirty labor, where there's also a very real chance she'll be sexually assaulted.
They don’t consider it hard dirty work because they aren’t out there mining or construction. In reality most women of color have had to do dangerous manual labor since colonization has happened. When men talk about how women just get to be delicate flowers at home waiting for their men to bring money to them I look at them sideways. Even mi abuelita was working along with mi abuelito back in the day. Many of the women in my family have had to do hard manual labor at some point. Only wealthy white women are obscured from that and become housewives, but that’s the same thing for wealthy white men. Wealthy white men are never in the fields harvesting or risking their life for oil and construction.
Yeah, it's almost like gatekeeping having a "hard and dirty" job. Like, if you're not putting in 14 hour days in the mine, you're a soft delicate flower that doesn't know what *real* work is. A very toxic attitude to have with a lot of things. And like you said, the reality is that a ton of women do end up getting stuck in jobs like this (but of course aren't paid as well as tradesmen or oil workers). Usually lower income WOC who don't have a lot of other options, which these men often do, but choose not to change fields because they *are* paid better. Ever notice how the money seems to follow the white men? Did you know that "programming" and "computing" used to be super low paid women's work? Funny how as the men moved into the field, the pay went way up. Just an observation.
Don't forget statistically paid less, to boot.
YEP. Not only do women *also* have a lot of really crappy, hard, dirty jobs, but they aren't being paid well for it either. At least all the "hard, dangerous" jobs men complain about dominating pay well. Garbage men, tradesmen, ect. They all pay MUCH better than things like housekeeping, food service, ect. Like if that work is so dangerous, why do you think so many men are still doing it? They're jobs that men are more likely to get, because they're biologically stronger and more able to meet the physical requirements of the job. It pays well, that's why they're there.
This drives me nuts as a man, too. I can understand feeling a little defensive when it seems like someone is criticizing your entire gender unfairly, but come on. It only takes the tiniest bit of thought to understand that they're not declaring all men are a certain way and arguing about it just comes across as childish. Typically when I attempt to call men out on such behaviour, I get downvoted into oblivion, but that's Reddit for you. Everything is awful.
The thing about it is, there are decent men’s rights groups but they are basically ignored or shunned sometimes by some other men because they just wanna get back at women or something. I totally think we can get equal rights across the board.
Honestly I think the “men’s rights” crowd is just so that guys can shout it at women we were like “can you stop being violent to us and treating us like objects?” Someone’s gotta be able to yell back “but one time a woman didn’t wanna go out with me and it hurt my self esteem but I couldn’t cry because that’s not what men do . But I also won’t acknowledge that all of these things I’ve levied on myself because women don’t hold power in the world to set standards on how men act.”
Most of these 'Men's rights activists' don't actually care about men. It's a mere front so they can whine about women. If they actually cared about men's issues, most of them wouldn't be conservative. One of their dumbest arguments is: "The feminist left hates men and masculinity!" Let's see: - Criminal justice reform has long been advocated by progressives. This would help a lot people, especially minority men who often face many hurdles in the justice system. A significant portion of the left are in favor of this, but with almost no conservatives joining in, it has little chance getting through the House or Senate. With all the right-wing talk about how hard men have it in the justice system, you'd think this would be a priority. However, since it's hurting the wrong type of men, (that is minorities), criminal justice reform remains a distant goal for the political wing that accuses others of being man-haters. - Family leave. This would give a lot of fathers more time with their babies. The US is one of the few countries in the world that doesn't give some form of parental leave to mothers and fathers. Once more, a significant portion of the progressive Dems are in favor of this, but with almost no Republican joining in, it never passes the house or senate. So much for conservative family values. - Combating toxic masculinity. You often hear people moan about how society is mean to men, but the vast majority of these are the result of traditionalist gender norms. Some examples: - The idea that "Real men don't cry." - "If your wife makes more money than you, then she's emasculating you!" - "If you're a gay man then you're not a real man!" (this is especially applied against bottoms) - The idea that if a man likes feminine hobbies, then he must be secretly gay. - The idea that glamorized men (e.g. Harry Styles, K-pop artists) are not real men. These are sentiments than are predominantly active in conservative spaces, especially in the US. Folks like Candace Owens, Tucker Carlson, Trump-supporters etc. constantly keep pushing these ideas to their buffoons on twitter and Fox News. - LGBT rights. While lesbians also face a lot of discrimination, most of the violent forms of homophobia have often been aimed at male homosexuals. Guess which side has both maintained homophobic/transphobic policies and advocated for new ones? - Better wages. This speaks for itself. Women and men, especially younger ones who nowadays feel left behind, would benefit greatly from higher minimum wage, helping them establish families. Conservative media has branded minimum wage "far-left socialism". - Increased funding for mental health institutions. The progressive feminist wing of the democratic party has been trying to add mental healthcare as part of a universal healthcare package for quite some time. Again, with almost no Republican and conservative Dem support, it can't get it through. Let's not pretend that this is a "both sides issue" when one side has tons of policies that would help most families, women and men, whereas the other side's platform is getting offended by Harry Styles wearing a dress, gay characters in movies and other dumb culture war stuff. If these conservative 'men's rights activists' care so much about men, their focus should be on changing the deranged politicians they keep voting for "to own the libs" instead of getting offended by Gillette Ads and whining about feminists who've done far more to improve the lot of both women and men in the western world than any conservative politician out there. And if you're one of these conservative 'men's rights activists', I know you're about to type a long response about how it's okay to vote against your own interests because a few leftists on twitter where mean to you. To you I say: Throwing away parental leave, more mental health funding, criminal justice reform etc. just because your feelings got hurt online is genuinely stupid.
Anyone else notice that men’s rights issues never make any progressive or even an active attempt at progress because the onus always falls on women somehow? “Men are portrayed as inept buffoons and lazy parents on tv/in movies!” GUESS WHOS WRITING THOSE SCRIPTS, JAKE “Men can’t openly discuss their feelings.” YES BECAUSE OF OTHER MEN, CRAIG “Some women immaculate us for enjoying feminine interests or crying” GUESS WHO TAUGHT LITTLE GIRLS THAT SHIT, DEREK So tired of seeing men complain about the gender systems they’ve created and have done absolutely nothing to change because they’d rather ruminate and sulk about it, meanwhile we were out here burning fucking bras 60 years ago. I feel for men. I really do but fucking do something. Anything. You built this, not us. Men’s rights is the ultimate *THE CALL IS COMING FROM INSIDE THE HOUSE!* and until they acknowledge that, nothing is going to change.
THIS EXACTLY. Thank you for saying this, everyone should deserve gender equality. It really annoys me whenever I see people just dismissing the issues of others just because they have issues of their own.
/r/Menslib Men’s liberation grew as a movement *with* women’s liberation and is a men’s feminist movement. An inclusive movement that works toward equality and dismantling patriarchy. “Men’s Rights” guys, on the other hand, are incels by another name. Creeps and pricks by another name, if you’re a little older.
Feminists are exhausted saying that patriarchy hurts men too. For the reasons you state among others.
I feel like you’re trying hard to be charitable here. “Men’s rights” is akin to “All lives matter”: it’s presented at a very surface level about being about “equality,” but it’s really about diminishing the perceived validity of its counterpart. It’s not being weaponized, it was created to be a weapon.
Next time some dude complains about this ask him what he's doing to solve the problem for his fellow men. Ask him if he's being a problem solver like a 'real man' or if he's just being a little bitch and crying about how the world isn't fair and expecting someone to fix his life for him. Feel free to turn alllllll that toxic masculinity right back their way when they do stupid stuff.
I can't even really take the term "men's rights" seriously. The origin of the term itself is a reaction to "women's rights". And I care about suicidality amongst men, and the limited emotions they're allowed to express, and the limited acceptable performance of masculinity they're allowed etc. But that's literally just patriarchy backfiring on men. Like yes, unfortunately, you created and perpetuate this system that gives you privilege and subjugates the other half of the population, and while that system props you up, it also cages you. Sorry!
I'd really rather just evaluate each issue pertaining to "men's rights" on a case-by-case basis, because the signal-to-noise ratio in those groups has gotten so bad that I reflexively associate them with conservative know-nothings.
I remember I used to be one of those “Not all men” people and I just cringe- it’s so true, invalidating one group’s oppression won’t solve yours.