Men's Liberation
This community is first and foremost a feminist community for men and masc people, but it is also a place to talk about men’s issues with a particular focus on intersectionality.
Rules
Everybody is welcome, but this is primarily a space for men and masc people
Non-masculine perspectives are incredibly important in making sure that the lived experiences of others are present in discussions on masculinity, but please remember that this is a space to discuss issues pertaining to men and masc individuals. Be kind, open-minded, and take care that you aren't talking over men expressing their own lived experiences.
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Be proactive in forming a productive discussion. Constructive criticism of our community is fine, but if you mainly criticize feminism or other people's efforts to solve gender issues, your post/comment will be removed.
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Do not participate if you have been linked to this discussion from elsewhere. Similarly, links to elsewhere on the threadiverse must promote constructive discussion of men’s issues.
Recommended Reading
- The Will To Change: Men, Masculinity, And Love by bell hooks
- Politics of Masculinities: Men in Movements by Michael Messner
Related Communities
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There is a problem that creates a hostility towards feminism as it stands now and minorities.
Look at how positive discrimination has progressed.
The goal is roughly 50/50 representation. But to get there from where we were we have positively discriminated in favour of girls and women.
Desirable entry level jobs do not end up in a 50/50 hire pattern because the starting point was skewed to begin with. Hiring over represents women.
Leadership and management often needs a correction from 100% male to 50%.
That means promotions favour women.
But it goes further back. Educational programs, university places etc. As well as other areas of life. Sport funding, healthcare interventions.
All these areas we're correcting for social injustice against women and we aren't impacting those who are already at the top of the ladder.
Instead we're disproportionately helping women up the ladder to eventually get to equality.
That's justifiable looking at society as a whole. I'm not generally against positive discrimination.
But add on to that the same mechanisms to help minorities and you do have a weight of advantages that can lead to an overcorrection or at the very least feel like one.
Then take it another step.
In the UK there was a program which targeted additional funding for disadvantaged children in education. It recognised girls and helped them, it recognised minorities and helped them.
The program was designed to be agnostic and look at demographics and attainment to determine where funding would go.
At the point at which the metrics used to determine funding pointed to white working class boys, after the pendulum had swung, the Conservatives cut funding for it.
There is privilege. There are reasons to correct for privilege and ways to do that to make a more equal society.
But the way we've chosen to get there as quickly as possible has reversed privilege in small, key areas, rather than eliminating it.
In a world where we have a generation that has spent their entire political lives pulling up the ladder. That right wing generation has found support amongst the young in promising to pull up the ladders only put back down for the select few.
The most desirable jobs and areas for social mobility have been targeted for positive discrimination. To try and create representation of the unrepresented as the first step.
There is increasing inequality overall.
There are those who cannot get onto the ladder seeing the left help people not like them. Just because they aren't women and aren't a minority themselves.
The left has fundamentally failed to target root causes of inequality and lack of social mobility.
Who are you going to vote for. The side taking away your privilege while doing nothing for you?
Or the side who promises not to take that privilege from you?
If the left wants young men's votes it needs to tackle inequality and social mobility directly. Otherwise it may be the correct, albeit distasteful, conclusion, that a culture war benefits young white men. After that it's only a matter of cognitive dissonance to justify the harm to society as a whole for personal benefit and young men vote right wing.
What are you talking about? The left has found and implemented solutions to those problems (not perfect but better than nothing) in places where the left had power - northern Europe for example.
I'm speaking from an anglocene perspective I admit.
The "left" in the UK and US has had power. But they didn't contradict right wing economic policy from the 80s when they had the chance.
We'll see what they do next time they get a chance but looking at the UK we haven't had a left wing government that would help since the 70s and it's hard to start a conversation about who to vote for by talking about things that happened before someone was born.
The track record of Labour in the UK and the Democrats in the US is not good enough in the living memory of the voters they want to turn out for them.
So how are they left if they don't actually enable core leftist ideas?
Democrats in the USA would be a rather conservative (when it comes to economics ) party in most social market economy countries. Which is my point - it's not that the left does not have solutions for social inequality problems. It's just that there are no politicians in power (in the USA and UK) who are interested in bringing those to life.
They're "left" because we live in a 2 party system and they did spend money on healthcare and education.
I get what you're saying. Essentially I'm saying the same thing,the left aren't left enough to ensure their policies help everyone instead of a select few.
But they are the left under FPTP voting where most votes get disenfranchised.
So you kind of identified the problem in the political system as of itself but still you are blaming the left?
You're identifying "the left" how exactly.
I'm saying if the left in those countries wants to win votes they have to gain voters by offering them something. That's what moves the Overton window, a party trying to appeal to a broad base.
We don't have a system which encourages a left, right, and centre leading to coalition governments.
We have a FPTP system which encourages 2 major parties to try and form coalitions within themselves to win an absolute majority in government. With outsiders getting disenfranchised.
Which coalition will the young male voter join? The one offering them something.
In a FPTP system what you seem to identify as "the left" are not the left. They are outsiders, detached and not pulling the government one way or the other.
They are involuntarily neutral voters except when they vote for one of the major 2 parties.
I disagree with the disenfranchisement in the system. I identify it as an additional problem. But the core problem is a lack of appeal to that demographic.
People who try to put leftist idea into work?
So again, you clearly see that the US-American political system is absolutely broken and bonkers, but blame the left for it. Which in USA (at least economical left) did not have any power to beginn with.
Maybe I'm not getting your message.
The right have what they want. Often with a minority of the voters.
Who else to blame for the failing of the left but the left.
They're disadvantaged by the system but don't make changes to fix it.
Given the system in place the left do not unite. While the only way to win is a party of a broad coalition.
The last republican to win the popular vote without being an incumbent was 35 years ago. Yet given close results and chances to turn elections in their favour the left have lost multiple times and have a 6-3 loss on the supreme court.
In the UK we've not had a united left wing party since the Iraq war in government or in opposition.
We'll see what happens in the elections this year.
But yes. I blame "the left" as a disorganised majority for losing to an organised majority.
If electoral reform has been put through while the left had power I'd have more sympathy. But it wasn't. Either the left is willing to empower the majority of it isn't. It's either going to try and win democratically or win with its own minority. Disenfranchised people like the right does.
Ok, so you are making the left responsible for being not more successful in implementing their ideas and reforming the political system? Which is fair, I guess - but also seems trivial.
I think the political system and the disenfranchisement of voters has been the clear difference in the second half of the 20th century between social democracies which have succeeded in reducing inequality and those which have failed.
Ultimately the way we vote for people and the governments we end up with as a result are the least trivial aspect of politics.
Who cares about discussing issues like the economy or immigration, or equality, or any number of foreign policy decisions.
Ultimately only a third of the population are getting their choice in power at any given time under FPTP. There's a winning minority, a losing minority, and a minority with no chance of someone to vote for gaining any power.
Divide and rule by those wishing to suppress democracy. Usually for monetary gain in corruption or avoiding taxation.
Again, I don't really get what you are trying to say. I don't see any clear connection between different parts of your answer or how it's connected to our conversation at all.
Well I'm not going to try and dumb it down for you step by step.
That's up to you. If you don't care about people actually understanding what you say, I can't help. Than again why participate in a conversation in the first place?
I simply didn't think I'd have to dumb it down for you.
Politics is interconnected and complicated. You're just after a simple argument which doesn't reflect reality.
If you don't see why what I'm saying is relevant to the conversation that's on you.
One sentence answers asking for help aren't holding up your side of the conversation to make it interesting to engage in.
Fascinating, so you not only have troubles to convey your opinion but also are incapable of understanding others.
It's always the others. How convenient. Does this also happens to you in relationships?
Sorry for not being entertaining enough.
So are you like just a debate bro? Or why do you talk with people if you don't care if they get you or not?
Apology accepted. If you want to try again and actually engage with the points raised, feel free.
But you've just confirmed I was right about you. You just want a simple argument you can understand and feel righteous about.
You got me.
When has the left ever had power in the US? Labour in the UK had a bit post war, but they've since stopped being left.
You cant just call neolibs the left and complain that the left didnt do anything.
Gatekeeping what's left and right makes no sense. There is an Ovrrton window and two parties either side of that centre.
FPTP voting is about disenfranchising voters. Ensuring they don't vote is one way of doing that.
You have to vote for the lesser of 2 evils until you get to the point of electoral reform being possible.
And you make electoral reform possible by organising and pressuring the most likely party to do it.
No. The left has a very clear political meaning, it does not simply mean “Whats less to the right”.
When leftists talk about leftist policies as solutions to issues, we dont mean “oh right wing policies but just not super right”.
Left —————| Middle |—A——B— Right
Tell me, what side of that spectrum do you think A is?
I'm afraid "the left" hasn't had a clear meaning for many decades now.
The meaning of what is left and right shifts over time and whatever method you choose to place the middle is where biases appear.
If no party to the left of A has a chance of government and no party to the left of B has a chance of government, you've placed "middle" in the wrong place.
Ignoring political reality by starting a history lesson isn't going to create changes.
It's likely to lead to voters involuntarily disenfranchising themselves and not having any effect on the duopoly the system encourages.
The left is not relative, nor has the meaning shifted in all this time.
The left is the same communists and anarchists it has been for over a hundred years world wide now.
Political party popularity does not change political ideological meaning.
And the American system doesn’t encourage duopoly, it literally enforces it. So yes, of course many leftists are going to feel disenfranchised after close to a century of being villainised and neglected by their “representatives”. The solution to that is for a party to adopt leftist ideals, but that goes against the interests of the ruling class who’s money and influence runs the game.
The left is relative. Otherwise we still believe in the solutions of 50 years ago now.
Try nationalising manufacturing and farms. See how well that works. That was left wing once. Now it's not. Even if there are still things you would nationalise.
You're trying to create absolutes to argue easily against. That's often the way political discourse goes but it's wrong.
By all means build a straw man and totem of the left and right but it's far more interesting to find the nuance and use your intelligence rather than treating the debate like a team sport to be won and lost.
We do still believe in those solutions?
Some do. Plenty on the left don't because studies and examples since have shown where public ownership falls flat on its face and where it's the only efficient way of doing things. As well as the grey area in between.
No, no leftist is for privatized ownership of the means of production.
Even market socialists, an extremely niche group barely even worth mentioning still advocate for it public ownership of most things.
Simply wrong.
Most people on the left are advocating for evidence based policies and experts in the decision making process.
Not guessing games based on ideology.
it's not enough that the left has to rescue the fucking economy every time, now it's the left's job to fix everything else? ooh boo hoo won't the left help poor white men.....
Well that attitude is my point.
A workers party that isn't helping a large portion of voters is missing out on a lot of votes.
you're never going to support left causes anyway! bye felicia.
Funnily enough I almost exclusively support left causes. I actually vote too!
sure thing buddy. I believe you.
lol
sure as hell isn't going to be fixed by the right now, is it?
embody the improvement you want to see in the world.
Absolutely. I'm single handedly going to "embody" fixing systemic inequality.
Even though I'm doing alright the only way to mathematically do this is to become Robin Hood.
Will you meet me in Sherwood Forest and become a merry person?
the right is in power far more often than the left, do you ever try this shit with them? lolol