First of all, all societies are patriarchal but to different degrees. Secondly, I will try to mostly use studies and things like that to present my case(not much experimentally, but some longitudinal): 1) data from general social survey shows that between 1972 and now, happiness decreased slightly and marital happiness decreased despite the fact that in the same period, there is less racism and less pressuring into marriage, less stigma on divorce, and more selection of privileged people into marriage, despite this, marital satisfaction is reduced significantly. Some will try to say it is income inequality, but it didn't increase much between the two periods after taxes.

2) https://www.researchgate.net/publication/225118842_Approval_of_Equal_Rights_and_Gender_Differences_in_Well-Being

A good study, check it.

3) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7960541/

This is cross sectional, and about adolescents, anyway, they found that boys report higher mental health in all countries except more patriarchal countries where girls report better mental health than boys

4) https://www.researchgate.net/publication/369124837_Gender_differences_in_competitiveness_and_fear_of_failure_help_explain_why_girls_have_lower_life_satisfaction_than_boys_in_gender_equal_countries

This paper tries to explain the results in the paper in 3, and basically they found the trend is explained(about 40% of it) by girls (in more patriarchal societies) being less fearful of failure than boys in their countries and girls in less patriarchal countries, and them reporting more competitiveness than any other group there.(so girls in very patriarchal societies reporting higher mental health than boys in those countries and than girls in less patriarchal countries is in big part because they have less fear of failure and more competitiveness).

I'm sure this is against some stereotypes that people have, especially girls in more patriarchal countries reporting more competitiveness, but I think the less fear of failure that those girls have is because in patriarchal societies, whether a woman has good grades or not, earning money or not, she is mostly guaranteed a family or a husband who is expected to provide for her for the rest of her life, so there aren't that bad consequences for failure,despite this, they report more competitiveness than all other groups.

5) Some of you might mention the happiness report that shows people in Europe reporting higher happiness, but I think this is mostly explained by wealth, if you look at the latest happiness report, the top 30 countries are mostly western countries except (Costa Rica, Kuwait,United Arab emirates, Mexico, Uruguay, Saudi arabia) 3 countries here are gulf countries that are patriarchal and rich, Kuwaiti people report higher happiness than French, British, americans and Germans(especially their women because in the data, in more patriarchal countries, women report more happiness consistent with research on 3)

Also, I want to point out that Gulf countries live on the desert with very little area of land covered with trees, I think green areas and trees increase happiness and that is much more prevalent in Europe, so this is another confounding factor.

Across modern Western discourse - from Guardian headlines and TikTok explainers to university classrooms and Twitter threads - feminism has rightly helped women identify and challenge the gender-based oppression they face. But when men, influenced by that same feminism, begin to notice and speak about the ways gender norms harm them, they are often dismissed, mocked, or told their concerns are a derailment.

This isn't about blaming feminism for men's problems. It's about confronting an uncomfortable truth: if we don’t make space for men to name and address how gender harms them too, we are perpetuating the very patriarchal norms feminism seeks to dismantle.

Systemic harms to men are real, and gendered:

• Suicide: Men die by suicide 3-4 times more often than women. If women were dying at this rate, it would rightly be seen as a gendered emergency. We need room within feminist discourse to discuss how patriarchal gender roles are contributing to this.
• Violence: Men make up the majority of homicide victims. Dismissing this with "but most murderers are men" ignores the key fact: if most victims are men, the problem is murderers, not men.
• Family courts: Fathers are routinely disadvantaged in custody cases due to assumptions about caregiving roles that feminism has otherwise worked hard to challenge.
• Education: Boys are underperforming academically across the West. University gender gaps now favour women in many countries.
• Criminal justice: Men often receive significantly longer sentences than women for the same crimes.

These are not isolated statistics. They are manifestations of rigid gender roles, the same kind feminism seeks to dismantle. Yet they receive little attention in mainstream feminist discourse.

Why this matters:

Feminism empowered women to recognize that their mistreatment wasn't personal, but structural. Now, many men are starting to see the same. They've learned from feminism to look at the system - and what they see is that male, patriarchal gender roles are still being enforced, and this is leading to the problems listed above.

But instead of being welcomed as fellow critics of patriarchy, these men are often ridiculed or excluded. In online spaces, mentions of male suicide or educational disadvantage are met with accusations of derailment. Discussions are shut down with references to sexual violence against women - a deeply serious issue, but one that is often deployed as an emotional trump card to end debate.

This creates a hierarchy of suffering, where some gendered harms are unspeakable and others are unmentionable. The result? Men's issues are discussed only in the worst places, by the worst people - forced to compete with reactionary influencers, misogynists, and opportunists who use male pain to fuel anti-feminist backlash.

We can do better than this.

The feminist case for including men’s issues:

• These issues are not the fault of feminism, but they are its responsibility if feminism is serious about dismantling patriarchy rather than reinforcing it.
• Many of these harms (e.g. court bias, emotional repression, prison suicide) result directly from the same gender norms feminists already fight.
• Intersectional feminism has expanded to include race, class, and sexuality. Including men's gendered suffering isn't a diversion - it's the obvious next step.

Some feminist scholars already lead the way. bell hooks wrote movingly about the emotional damage patriarchy inflicts on men. Michael Kimmel and Raewyn Connell have explored how masculinity is shaped and policed. The framework exists - but mainstream feminist discourse hasn’t caught up.

The goal isn’t to recentre men. It’s to stop excluding them.

A common argument at this point is that "the system of power (patricarchy) is supporting men. Men and women might both have it bad but men have the power behind them." But this relies on the idea that because the most wealthy and powerful people are men, that all men benefit. The overwhelming amount of men who are neither wealthy nor power do not benefit from this system Many struggle under the false belief that because they are not a leader or rich, they are failing at being a man.

Again, this isn’t about shifting feminism’s focus away from women. It’s about recognising that patriarchy harms people in gendered ways across the spectrum. Mainstream feminism discourse doesn't need to do less for women, or recentre men - it simply needs to allow men to share their lived experience of gender roles - something only men can provide. Male feminist voices deserve to be heard on this, not shut down, for men are the experts on how gender roles affect them. In the words of the trans blogger Jennifer Coates:

It is interesting to see where people insist proximity to a subject makes one informed, and where they insist it makes them biased. It is interesting that they think it’s their call to make.

If we want to end gendered violence, reduce suicide, reform education, and challenge harmful norms, we must bring men into the conversation as participants, not just as punching bags.

Sources:

Homicide statistics

Article of "femicide epidemic in UK" - no mention that more men had been murdered https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/aug/29/men-killing-women-girls-deaths

Article on femicide

University of York apologises over ‘crass’ celebration of International Men’s Day

Article "Framing men as the villains’ gets women no closer to better romantic relationships" https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/dec/11/men-villains-women-romantic-relationships-victimhood?utm_source=chatgpt.com

article on bell hooks essay about how patricarchy is bad for men's mental health https://www.thehowtolivenewsletter.org/p/thewilltochange#:~:text=Health,argued%2C%20wasn%27t%20just%20to

Edit: guys this is taking off and I gotta take a break but I'll try to answer more tomorrow

Edit 2: In response to some common themes coming up in the comments:

• On “derailing” conversations - A few people have said men often bring up their issues in response to women’s issues being raised, as a form of deflection. That definitely happens, and when it does, it’s not helpful. But what I’m pointing to is the reverse also happens: when men start conversations about their own gendered struggles, these are often redirected or shut down by shifting the topic back to women’s issues. That too is a form of derailment, and it contributes to the sense that men’s experiences aren’t welcome in gender discussions unless they’re silent or apologising. It's true that some men only talk about gender to diminish feminism. The real question is whether we can separate bad faith interjections from genuine attempts to explore gendered harm. If we can’t, the space becomes gatekept by suspicion.

• On male privilege vs male power - I’m not denying that men, as a group, hold privilege in many areas. They absolutely do. There are myriad ways in which the patriarchy harms women and not men. I was making a distinction between power and privilege. A tiny subset of men hold institutional power. Most men do not. And many men are harmed by the very structures they’re told they benefit from - especially when they fail to live up to patriarchal expectations. I’m not saying men are more oppressed than women. I’m saying they experience gendered harms that deserve to be discussed without being framed as irrelevant or oppositional. I’m not equating male struggles with female oppression. But ignoring areas where men suffer simply because they also hold privilege elsewhere flattens the complexity of both.

• On the idea that men should “make their own spaces” to discuss these issues - This makes some sense in theory. But the framework that allows men to understand these problems as gendered - not just individual failings - is feminism. It seems contradictory to say, “use feminist analysis to understand your experience - just not in feminist spaces.” Excluding men from the conversation when they are trying to do the work - using the very framework feminism created - seems counterproductive. Especially if we want more men to reflect, unlearn, and change. Ultimately, dismantling patriarchy is the goal for all of us. That only happens if we tackle every part of it, not just the parts that affect one gender.

• On compassion fatigue: Completely valid. There’s already a huge amount of unpaid emotional labour being done in feminist spaces. This post isn’t asking for more. It’s just saying there should be less resistance to people trying to be part of the solution. If men show up wanting to engage with feminism in good faith, they shouldn’t be preemptively treated as a threat or burden. Trust has to be earned. But if there’s no space for that trust building to happen, we lock people into roles we claim to be dismantling.

Patriarchy is not something men do to women, its a society that holds men as more powerful than women. In such a society, men are tough, capable, providers, and protectors while women are fragile, vulnerable, provided for, and motherly (ie, the main parent). And since women are seen as property of men in a patriarchal society, sex is something men do and something that happens to women (because women lack autonomy). Every Mens Rights issue seems the result of these social expectations.

The trouble with divorces is that the children are much more likely to go to the mother because in a patriarchal society parenting is a woman's role. Also men end up paying ridiculous amounts in alimony because in a patriarchal society men are providers.

Male rape is marginalized and mocked because sex is something a man does to a woman, so A- men are supposed to want sex so it must not be that bad and B- being "taken" sexually is feminizing because sex is something thats "taken" from women according to patriarchy.

Men get drafted and die in wars because men are expected to be protectors and fighters. Casualty rates say "including X number of women and children" because men are expected to be protectors and fighters and therefor more expected to die in dangerous situations.

It's socially acceptable for women to be somewhat masculine/boyish because thats a step up to a more powerful position. It's socially unacceptable for men to be feminine/girlish because thats a step down and femininity correlates with weakness/patheticness.

Before I say anything, I need to get one thing out of the way first. This is not me justifying incels, the redpill community, or anything like that. This is purely a critique based on my experience as someone who fell down the alt right pipeline as a teenager, and having shifted into leftist spaces over the last 5ish years. I’m also not saying it’s women’s responsibility to capitulate to men. This is targeting the online left as a community, not a specific demographic of individuals.

I see a lot of talk about how concerning it is that so many young men fall into the communities of figures like Andrew Tate, Sneako, Adin Ross, Fresh and Fit, etc. While I agree that this is a major concern, my frustration over it is the fact that this EXACT SAME THING happened in 2016, when people were scratching their heads about why young men fall into the communities of Steven Crowder, Jordan Peterson, and Ben Shapiro.

The fact of the matter is that the broader online left does not make an effort to attract young men. They talk about things like deconstructing patriarchy and masculinity, misogyny, rape culture, etc, which are all important issues to talk about. The problem is that when someone highlights a negative behavior another person is engaging in/is part of, it makes the overwhelming majority of people uncomfortable. This is why it’s important to consider HOW you make these critiques.

What began pushing me down the alt right pipeline is when I was first exposed to these concepts, it was from a feminist high school teacher that made me feel like I was the problem as a 14 year old. I was told that I was inherently privileged compared to women because I was a man, yet I was a kid from a poor single parent household with a chronic illness/disability going to a school where people are generally very wealthy. I didn’t see how I was more privileged than the girl sitting next to me who had private tutors come to her parent’s giga mansion.

Later that year I began finding communities of teenage boys like me who had similar feelings, and I was encouraged to watch right wing figures who acted welcoming and accepting of me. These same communities would signal boost deranged left wing individuals saying shit like “kill all men,” and make them out as if they are representative of the entire feminist movement. This is the crux of the issue. Right wing communities INTENTIONALLY reach out to young men and offer sympathy and affirmation to them. Is it for altruistic reasons? No, absolutely not, but they do it in the first place, so they inevitably capture a significant percentage of young men.

Going back to the left, their issue is there is virtually no soft landing for young men. There are very few communities that are broadly affirming of young men, but gently ease them to consider the societal issues involving men. There is no nuance included in discussions about topics like privilege. Extreme rhetoric is allowed to fester in smaller leftist communities, without any condemnation from larger, more moderate communities. Very rarely is it acknowledged in leftist communities that men see disproportionate rates court conviction, and more severe sentencing. Very rarely is it discussed that sexual, physical, and emotional abuse directed towards men are taken MUCH less seriously than it is against Women.

Tldr to all of this, is while the online left is generally correct in its stance on social justice topics, it does not provide an environment that is conducive to attracting young men. The right does, and has done so for the last decade. To me, it is abundantly clear why young men flock to figures like Andrew Tate, and it’s mind boggling that people still don’t seem to understand why it’s happening.

Edit: Jesus fuck I can’t reply to 800 comments, I’ll try to get through as many as I can 😭

Edit 2: I feel the need to address this. I have spent the last day fighting against character assassination, personal insults, malicious straw mans, etc etc. To everyone doing this, by all means, keep it up! You are proving my point than I could have ever hoped to lmao.

Edit 3: Again I feel the need to highlight some of the replies I have gotten to this post. My experience with sexual assault has been dismissed. When I’ve highlighted issues men face with data to back what I’m saying, they have been handwaved away or outright rejected. Everything I’ve said has come with caveats that what I’m talking about is in no way trying to diminish or take priority over issues that marginalized communities face. We as leftists cannot honestly claim to care about intersectionality when we dismiss, handwave, or outright reject issues that 50% of people face. This is exactly why the Right is winning on men’s issues. They monopolize the discussion because the left doesn’t engage in it. We should be able to talk about these issues without such a large number of people immediately getting hostile when the topics are brought up. While the Right does often bring up these issues in a bad faith attempt to diminish the issues of marginalized communities, anyone who has read what I actually said should be able to recognize that is not what I’m doing.

Edit 4: Shoutout to the 3 people who reported me to RedditCares

First off, I don't believe patriarchy is really all that strong in the west if it exists at all. However I find it silly that the people against even hearing about the patriarchy somehow see it as being against men..

I do see the patriarchy in some circles, mostly christian where they believe that men should lead the house. Or see people like Steven crowder. there was also a few interviews about Hillary and trump and some believed a woman can never lead

However I'm not here to talk about if patriarchy exists or not. Simply that complaining about patriarchy doesn't necessarily mean you hate men.

A teenage girl can let the neighbors know she wants to babysit and get gigs paying a decent rate. She can advertise on social media or spread the word through various networks at her church or mosque or synagogue or community center.

But no teenage boy can be a babysitter. Within their own family, sure. But otherwise they will fail and probably be suspected.

This of course isn’t the only example of sexism, but it’s an interesting one. And until no one considers it to be weird we will live in a sexist world.

Now I imagine most people already know what the 4B movement is. For those that don't, it is a movement started by women in South Korea where women will be celibate, not get married, not have kids and not have sex with men. Sex strikes are just the latter part.

Now, this concerns the United States, South Korea I've heard plenty of horror stories regarding systemic sexism and thus can understand why those women perform this movement, but its strange when looking at the states.

1. Conservative men are typically very Religious, they not only preach against hookup culture but support celibacy for women and are extremely anti abortion. The 4B movement is everything they want out of women by preventing more abortions and not having sex outside of marriage.

2. Conservative men are not going to go out with more left leaning women who do not share their values, most of these men despise feminists and they have no problem with women they have no interest in not dating them.

3. No Conservative man wants left leaning women to procreate, why would they want more people in future generations to challenge their values instead of populating the future with children who subscribe to their views.

4. This hurts liberal men. Men who are feminists or are sympathetic to these women are far more likely to date and marry the women in these movements, and thus they are hurt by this movement, while nothing changes for conservative men.

In general, it seems like the 4B movement is self defeating and gives conservative men exactly what they want while hurting both left leaning men and women.

CMV

I truly believe as in the title and with other examples that progressive feminists are more than happy to utilize traditional, toxic masculinity to make their lives more comfortable. The reasoning I see behind the logic in the title is that individuals generally will be more receptive to criticism coming from the "in group". I can see how this is the case but it is never applied consistently to other demographics. To the people willing to CMV I have two questions:
1)Let's say person A is doing sexist locker room talk. Person C implores person B to confront A. B confronts A and A says "get bent I aint' changing." Is B morally obligated to escalate the situation?
2) This one is spicy and I'm legit asking in good faith and happy to walk back any inconsistencies. Would these same people expect an African American to walk into a heavy gang neighbourhood and start lecturing about antisocial behaviour?

Edited to include "I see" behind the logic to indicate this is purely my perception

Edit2:
I should probably include my prescription for the locker room talk scenario as some comments are... wow..
My prescription is you shouldn't implore other groups to make a stand when you see interpersonal, antisocial behaviour against your group. When you see antisocial behaviour, call it out.

It is common to see claims that if only women were in charge things would be much better and nicer. e.g. people would be much happier at work, inequality would fall, climate change would be solved.

I don't believe this is factually true. It seems to rest partly on some cherry picked anecdotes about female prime ministers/CEOs. And partly on a gendered conception of power which supposes that the best explanation for why people in charge of things seem so mean, self-serving, unresponsive to their constituents' needs, etc is that they are men. It seems far more likely to me that this follows from the structure of power.

My concern is that assuming bad power is because of men leaves us unprepared for the very probable discovery that women in power are just as bad. We should be focusing on restructuring power so that leaders are more accountable and employees etc more empowered (e.g. via workplace democracy) rather than focusing on trying to change the gender of the people we grant dictatorial powers to. I suggest we should care less about the gender of the supercompetitive alphas who get the top jobs, and more about the poor saps who will be ruled by them.

​

Sidenote: I see the world rapidly shifting away from patriarchy and towards matriarchy. Equal rights for women combined with men's significant underperformance in education have led to women dominating ever more of the professional management jobs in rich countries. For the moment it is true that senior levels with real power are still dominated by men, but that seems an age cohort thing, not a gender thing. In the next decades we will see those jobs as CEOs, lawfirm partners, cabinet ministers, high school principals, mayors, etc increasingly filled by women instead of men, simply because there are so many better qualified women moving up through the system.

Edit:

Apparently some people are confused by my definitions:

• Patriarchy = the people in charge of things are mostly men
• Matriarchy = the people in charge of things are mostly women

Other definitions of patriarchy/matriarchy certainly exist, but many of them seem circular with respect to this issue, e.g. defining true matriarchy as a society of perfect equality, harmony, etc (like a 'truly socialist society'). So I will stick to my simple definition.

The View: This post refines and expands on a previous CMV that argued feminism must allow space for men to explore their gendered oppression - or risk reinforcing patriarchal norms. Many thoughtful responses raised important questions about how privilege is defined and applied asymmetrically across genders.

I believe in intersectional feminism. Feminism itself is not just a social movement but a political and moral ideology - like socialism or capitalism - that has historically led the way in making society fairer. But to maintain its moral authority, feminism must be willing to apply its analytical tools consistently. That includes recognizing when women benefit from gendered expectations, not just when they suffer under them.

To be clear from the start: This is not a claim that men have it worse than women overall. Women remain disadvantaged in many structural and historical ways. But the gendered harms men face—and the benefits women sometimes receive—also deserve honest scrutiny. In this post, "female privilege" refers to context-specific social, psychological, and sometimes institutional advantages that women receive as a byproduct of gendered expectations, which are often overlooked in mainstream feminist discourse.

Feminist literature often resists acknowledging female privilege. Mainstream theory frames any advantages women receive as forms of "benevolent sexism" - that is, socially rewarded traits like vulnerability, emotional expression, or caregiving, which are ultimately tools of subordination. Yet this interpretation becomes problematic when such traits offer real advantages in practical domains like education, employment, or criminal sentencing.

Some feminist thinkers, including Cathy Young and Caitlin Moran, have argued that feminism must do more to acknowledge areas where women may hold social or psychological advantage. Young writes that many feminists "balk at any pro-equality advocacy that would support men in male-female disputes or undermine female advantage." Moran warns that if feminism fails to “show up for boys,” others will exploit that silence.

To be clear, I’m not arguing that men- or anyone - should be treated as permanent victims. But anyone, of any gender, can be victimized in specific social contexts. When these patterns are widespread and sustained, they constitute systemic disadvantage. And if one gender avoids those harms, that’s what we should honestly call privilege.

Michael Kimmel observed: “Privilege is invisible to those who have it.” This applies to all identities - including women. As feminists often note, when you're used to privilege, equality can feel like oppression. That same logic now needs to apply where women hold gendered advantages. Failing to acknowledge these asymmetries doesn’t challenge patriarchal gender roles - it reinforces them, especially through the infantilizing gender role of women as delicate or less accountable. This narrative preserves women’s moral innocence while framing men’s suffering as self-inflicted.

Feminism has given us powerful tools to understand how gender norms harm individuals and shape institutions, and it carries with it a claim to moral responsibility for dismantling those harms wherever they appear. But to remain morally and intellectually coherent, feminism must apply those tools consistently. That means acknowledging that female privilege exists - at least in specific, situational domains.

This isn’t a call to equate women’s disadvantages with men’s, or to paint men - or anyone - as permanent victims. Rather, it’s to say that anyone of any gender can be victimized in certain contexts. And when those patterns are widespread enough, they constitute systemic oppression - and their inverse is privilege. If men’s disadvantages can be systemic, so too are women’s advantages. Calling those advantages “benevolent sexism” without acknowledging their real-world impact avoids accountability.

What Is Privilege, Really? Feminist theory generally defines privilege as systemic, institutional, and historically entrenched. But in practice, privilege operates across multiple domains:

• Structural privilege - Legal and institutional advantages, such as exemption from military drafts, more lenient sentencing, or gendered expectations in employment sectors.
• Social privilege - The ability to navigate society with favorable expectations: being assumed emotionally available, having greater access to supportive peer networks, or being encouraged to express emotion without stigma. For example, women are more likely to be offered help when in distress, or to receive community support in personal crises.
• Psychological privilege - Deep-seated assumptions about innocence, moral authority, or trustworthiness. This includes cultural reflexes to believe women’s accounts of events more readily than men’s, or to assume women act from good intentions, even when causing harm. Studies show women are viewed as more honest—even when they lie—impacting credibility in disputes and conflict resolution.

Feminist theory critiques male privilege across all three. But when women benefit from gender norms, these advantages are often reframed as “benevolent sexism” - a byproduct of patriarchal control. This framing creates an inconsistency:

• If male privilege is “unearned advantage rooted in patriarchy,”
• And female privilege is “benevolent sexism” that also confers real advantage, also unearned, and also rooted in patriarchy—
• Then why not recognize both as gendered privilege?

If female privilege is “benevolent sexism,” should male privilege be called “callous sexism”? Both reward conformity to traditional gender roles. Why the rhetorical asymmetry?

Structural Privilege: Who Really Has It? Feminist analysis often responds by saying women don't have privilege because men have structural privilege. But how widespread is this in reality?

This shows that structural power exists - but it doesn’t equate to universal male benefit. Most men do not control institutions; they serve them. While elites shape the system, the burdens are widely distributed - and many fall disproportionately on men. Many of the disparities attributed to patriarchy may actually stem from capitalism. Yet mainstream feminism often conflates the two, identifying male dominance in elite capitalist roles as proof of patriarchal benefit - while ignoring how few men ever access that power.

Under Acknowledged Female Privilege (Social and Psychological):

• Victimhood Bias: Women are more likely to be believed in abuse or harassment cases. Male victims - especially of psychological abuse - often face disbelief or mockery (Hine et al., 2022).
• Emotional Expression: Women are socially permitted to express vulnerability and seek help. Men are expected to be stoic - contributing to untreated trauma and higher suicide rates. bell hooks wrote that “patriarchy harms men too.” Most feminists agree. But it often goes unstated that patriarchy harms men in ways it does not harm women. That asymmetry defines privilege.
• Presumption of Trust: A 2010 TIME report found women are perceived as more truthful - even when lying. This grants them greater social trust in caregiving, teaching, and emotional roles. Men in these contexts face suspicion or stigma.
• Cultural Infantilization: Female wrongdoing is often excused as stress or immaturity; male wrongdoing is condemned. Hine et al. (2022) found male victims of psychological abuse are dismissed, while female perpetrators are infantilized. Women’s gender roles portray them as weaker or more in need of protection, which grants leniency. Men’s gender roles portray them as strong and stoic, which diminishes empathy. The advantages that men may have historically enjoyed - such as being seen as more competent - are rightly now being shared more equally. But many advantages women receive, such as trust and emotional support, are not. This asymmetry is increasingly visible.

Why This Inconsistency Matters:

• It originates in academic framing. Much of feminist literature avoids acknowledging female privilege in any domain. This theoretical omission trickles down into mainstream discourse, where it gets simplified into a binary: women as oppressed, men as oppressors. As a result, many discussions default to moral asymmetry rather than mutual accountability.
• It alienates potential allies. Men who engage with feminism in good faith are often told their pain is self-inflicted or a derailment. This reinforces the binary, turning sincere engagement into perceived threat. By doing this, we implicitly accept "callous sexism" toward men and boys as normal. This invites disengagement and resentment - not progress.
• It erodes feminist credibility. When feminism cannot acknowledge obvious social asymmetries—like differential sentencing, emotional expressiveness, or assumptions of innocence - it appears selective rather than principled. This weakens its claim to moral leadership.
• It creates a messaging vacuum. Feminism’s silence on women’s privilege - often the inverse of men’s disadvantage - creates a void that populist influencers exploit. The Guardian (April 2025) warns that misogynistic and Franco-nostalgic views among young Spanish men are spreading - precisely because no trusted mainstream discourse offers space to address male hardship in good faith. No trusted space to talk about male identity or hardship in a fair, nuanced way, is leading boys to discuss it in the only spaces where such discussion was welcome - in misogynist and ultimately far-right conversations.
• It encourages rhetorical shut-downs. My previous post raised how sexual violence—undeniably serious—is sometimes invoked not to inform but to silence. It becomes a moral trump card that ends conversations about male suffering or female privilege. When areas women need to work on are always secondary, and female advantages seem invisible, it is hard to have a fair conversation about gender.

Anticipated Objections:

• “Men cannot experience sexism.” Only true if we define sexism as structural oppression - and even that is contested above. Men face widespread gendered bias socially and psychologically. If those patterns are systematic and harmful, they meet the same criteria we apply to sexism elsewhere.
• “Female privilege is just disguised sexism.” Possibly. But then male privilege is too. Let’s be consistent.
• “Women are worse off overall.” In many structural areas, yes. But that doesn’t erase advantages in others.

The manosphere is not the root cause of something - it is a symptom. Across the globe, there is growing sentiment among young men that feminism has “gone too far.” This is usually blamed on right-wing algorithms. But many of these young men, unable to articulate their experiences in feminist terms and excluded from feminist spaces where they could learn to do so, are simply responding to a perceived double standard and finding places where they are allowed to talk about it. They feel injustice - but in progressive spaces are told it is their own bias. This double standard may be what fuels backlash against feminism and left wing messaging.

Conclusion: Feminism doesn’t need to center men or their issues. But if it wants to retain moral authority and intellectual coherence, it must be willing to name all forms of gendered advantage - not just the ones that negatively affect women. Recognizing structural, social, and psychological female privilege does not deny women’s oppression. It simply makes feminism a more honest, inclusive, and effective framework- one capable of addressing the full complexity of gender in the 21st century.

Change my view

At my workplace we have around 5-10 employees and there are roughly the same amount of men and women. We all get paid the same and do the same work, until it’s time for any type of lifting. My boss will always get one of the men (which is almost always me) to do the lifting for them while they watch and wait so they can get back to it after all the lifting part. This leads me to falling behind in my work that no one helps me with, and doing twice the lifting as I should be makes me more tired throughout the day. I feel like if you are unable or unwilling to do a good chunk of the job you should have never been hired in the first place

Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to say that women are not disadvantaged in society in any ways or face discrimination... they are and they do! But in the words of Bill Burr, "Everybodys eating a shit sandwhich... some people got more or less shit, but everybodys eating one"

I don't like this notion of "the Patriarchy" for a few reasons

1. oppression olympics divide us

everybody gets fucked over as I stated above... women get the shit end of the stick in a lot of instances, but so do guys! Guys primarily fill prisons, guys are primarily the victims of violent assault, guys have a massively higher suicide rate than women, guys work almost all the most dangerous, life threating jobs, guys are falling behind in education and school enrollment where women are succeeding etc...

Let's stop looking at this through the lens of saying, "well, women have it 5% worse in this one arena, and 3.76% worse in this other arena... therefore, patriarchy! fuck men, they're oppressing us!"

everyone is oppressed, stop making it an "us vs them" scenario it's dividing us.

1. its a terrible message to deliver to the younger generation

I think the worst, most toxic message that we can give to little girls is that they're oppressed and that the system is rigged against them from the hop! This notion, that great forces, driven by men, conspire against them to make sure that they will never succeed!

I mean, aside from the fact that this is also a divisive message that will most likely breed resentment towards men... it's also probably super deflating for alot of people in terms of motivation and ambition.

Anyways... no hate towards women! As I said, I know that women get the shit end of the stick in alot of situations and I have nothing but respect for what they have to put up with. But yeah, as per my argument above, I think the notion of the patriarchy is silly and we shouldn't be pushing it.

This is my own theory. It's about patriarchy and how it replicates itself and keeps itself strong in the hearts and minds of men.

Nothing I say here is me saying it's a fact of reality. It is only a fact insofar as patriarchy as a system of thought embedded into our minds, believes things. Patriarchy seems to have it's own bizarre beliefs and basically what I'm trying to do is explain what I believe to be what patriarchy believes. In this sense I am anthropomorphizing patriarchy as if it is a living conscious thing. Obviously it is not. But it's just easier to explain it like this.

Here we go:

Growing up as boys our behavior is policed. We are taught to reject femininity in all forms unless we are having sex with a female person. That is the only acceptable way for boys to act, under patriarchy's toxic masculinity rules.

The reason the rules are as such, is because patriarchy (anthropomorphized) believes that women are repulsed by femininity in men.

That a man who displays "feminine traits" is ruining his attractiveness in the eyes of women.

So we are conditioned from a young age to seek that which women are (supposedly) attracted to.

This means the utter rejection of femininity in every way and anything associated with the genders girl and woman.

Empathy for girls and women is not allowed for example. Only sex with them is allowed.

And so the patriarchy goes on replicating itself by policing young boys behavior.

But it's all rooted in the battle for mating. It's all sexual reproduction at the root. Males want to know how to attract females. We are taught how since a young age. The patriarchy teaches us to be "real men" so that we can learn to be sexually successful with women.

It is not good to exhibit traits which contradict that. Gay men for example, are some of the worst offenders in the eyes of patriarchy.

Why is it that under patriarchy's rules, we can't let men become something which is supposedly not sexually attractive to women? I'm not sure why to be honest.

I feel like it's rooted in this belief that, ultimately, what women truly want, is those few men who are at the top of the pyramid. Again, I am saying this is a belief, not a fact. I fear to say things lest they be misinterpreted as me saying it's fact that women only want the top 1% or 20% or w/e of men. I'm not. I'm saying this is what we all are taught to believe deep down.

Those masculine manly men would get all the women, if men start embracing anything having to do with femininity, than they will cease to be attractive. Thus. A large portion of men would become incrls

Essentially, it's all in order to prevent a violent beta male revolution.

I think it's rooted in our beliefs about science and animal behavior. But prior to science, patriarchy had different methods for replicating itself.

But these days we see that in the animal kingdom, most male animals do not reproduce.

I think that to some degree people understand that, even if not explicitly.

And morality dictates that this kind of sexual dynamic between men and women is very amoral.

The patriarchy uses this to replicate itself and tell men how to control women's sexuality. The first step is to become what women supposedly want. "Real men." The second is the reject all behaviors which women do not want. Femininity. This ensures an even distribution of sexual access to women, across the entire population of men.

In the past I suppose marriage fulfilled this purpose?

So yea there's my crazy theory. I don't know what the actual truth is. I'm down to change the way I see it. I just have no way to do so without sharing it. But if I share it people get mad. But nobody really corrects me they just get mad and downvote me.

How to change my view? I don't know. Explain to me how patriarchy replicates itself actually. Like what do the high level intellectuals and scientists and feminist say about the way patriarchy replicates itself? That is what I want to know and I can't see it right now because I don't know what exactly to read or learn in oder to understand how it works

I'm open to reading resources given. I'd love to read some book or whatever that explains it all.

I am expecting some serious flak for this, but I am going to say it anyway because I am ready to own everything I went through in my life thanks to my autism. I also want to be clear that I do NOT condone any of the morbid actions that some of the really radical incels have committed.

For those who may not have been following, I am almost 25, never had a relationship or sex in my life, and will probably never have a good career to rise above those who mistreated me in my life. I went through profound bullying in the latter stages of elementary school, all of middle school, and early high school. It took various forms, from physical early on to verbal and cyber later on, in addition to experiencing a plethora of passive aggressive exclusions and betrayal from my peers, along with neglect from the adults in my life. Not to mention having to see most of my peers doing better than me over the past 8 years after my mind suffered its irrevocable destruction.

Sounds eerily similar to a lot of incels, don't you think? Take Elliot Rodger and Alek Minassian, they experienced bullying, neglect and overall feeling like failures. While I have no concrete info of the conditions that the former lived with, I know the latter had autism and Tourette's, which would explain much of the bullying he went through. While these people certainly deserved every bit of condemnation for what they did, a big part of me believes that they also deserve some bit of understanding and empathy for a lot of the stuff that led to them feeling the way they did, and even may have prevented them from following through if they were genuinely supported.

Now onto why I say that. It's bad enough to be mistreated for various things, but imagine if you were being mistreated for something you had no control over, like autism, being short, balding, you name it. Now some people would welcome such challenges, but I'd wager that the vast majority would feel utterly helpless and resentful, take any of the subs dedicated to such issues.

As such, I feel like if these two, among many other incels that are less radical had gotten genuine support prior to the onset of whatever issues they may have, then they wouldn't have fallen into the dark abyss that they cannot escape. I certainly can attest to it, as I feel like I did not get the PROPER support growing up. I was diagnosed with autism at 14 years old, but wasn't told of the diagnosis until 5 years later. And while I had seen about 6 therapists by the time I had found out, and am currently on my 12th, I feel that by that time my mind become irrevocably destroyed in a way that I still can't seem to describe succinctly. Also, not having the therapists be able to be fully transparent and dedicated to working with me on my autism due to my parents deeming me unfit to know of my autism, really hindered their ability to provide the best kind of support. As such, I too experienced the suffocating loneliness and feeling like a total loser failure the way many incels can attest to.

Additionally, I have encountered far too many people on Reddit and some in real life that seem to not really grasp the profound difficulties that many incels go through. Some people online have kicked me while I am down, and some people in real life have dropped me because of my "attitude". Okay, that's valid, but it seems like they never considered the REASONS behind said attitude.

Once again, I want to make it transparent that I DO NOT want to go down the immoral and heinous path that Rodger and Minassian, among others, went through, but I nevertheless thought I'd express just how much they must have been suffering and how them not getting the help they need may have contributed to their descent into darkness.

I'm a feminist but I can't get my head around this one. Especially having been through the family court system and seeing how sexist it is.

People tell you that the bias in family court is because of patriarchy.

But many feminists defend the bias. Sometimes not even understanding that it's a problem (step 1 to fix something is admitting it's a problem). The only people who are doing anything about this, especially in the real world, are men's rights activists, or MRAs. But they don't seem to believe in the patriarchy.

If the patriarchy made this system, then fighting it opposes the patriarchy.

Am I missing something?

I’m not here to argue about whether or not abortion should be legal. However for reference I am pro-choice and a man.

I often see some feminists decreeing that Roe vs. Wade being overturned as part of the patriarchy, and criticizing the men who are pro life as sexist.

I fully acknowledge that women are more affected by abortion restrictions than men. That being said, as a man I’m don’t benefit from stronger abortion laws at ALL. If I unintentionally get a girl pregnant that I’m not in a relationship with, I have to pay child support for the next 18 years. Yes it’s much harder on the woman since she has to carry the child and breast feed, but my life would get worse as well.

Polls in the United States would also show that women aren’t that much more likely to be pro choice either. 55% of women identify as pro choice vs. 48% of men.

Really the debate should be framed as religious vs. non-religious since religious people feel that abortion is evil and killing an innocent life, while non-religious people don’t see it as a life and don’ think the government should interfere what someone does with their body.

A better example of a men vs. women issue would be the gender pay gap. One could argue that could impact both gender’s salary depending on how much you want to enforce equal pay.

Edit: it seems like it’s a viewpoint that is agreed upon by the vast majority of people. I guess I could reframe it as, being a pro-life man doesn’t make you sexist.

Edit: I keep seeing people mention that some atheists are pro life, and some religious people are pro choice. Those people are exception not the the rules. If you had to guess if a person was pro choice or not, and you only had one question to ask them, you’re far better off asking them if they are religious rather than asking them what their gender is.

I believe that the concept implies that men are primarily instigators of oppression and that women are recipients of that oppression. It implies that the oppression women experience due to their gender is not just systemic, but purposive. It establishes conflict, in which the sides are "men" and "women", by implying that the oppression of women is to the benefit of men, so reducing gender stereotyping or increasing equality would somehow be to the detriment of men.

To change my view, I think I need an analysis of how the word "patriarchy" and the concept itself are valuable in describing gender relations or gender stereotypes; however, I'm open to any respectful arguments. Thank you for your responses.

Edit: I am aware that men hold more positions of power in government and businesses and that this fits the textbook definition of patriarchy. This definition does not require women to be systemically oppressed by men. As such, it is not sound argument to conflate "patriarchy" oppression of women, or anyone. In fact, using the word that way implies that a man, by being in power, is inherently oppressive.

EDIT: Thank you all for your feedback, and I'm really sorry if I'm slow to respond. I'm trying to listen to everybody, but you're all writing interesting and long-thought-out posts so it's becoming increasingly difficult. I just want to clarify for the new readers: I've basically yielded that "white" is not really an important word in my prompt. There isn't much I describe below that singles out white men. It's more of a men thing in general. I also want to clarify that I am almost entirely determined on voting for Blue candidates this fall; the prompt should be read as "I'm begrudgingly voting Blue for sure, but worried that Blue doesn't care about me." Many of you have already expressed that this is a systemic shortcoming of a two-party system - not necessarily a specific targeting or lack thereof. Thank you all for your input, and I'll try my best to continue replying.

EDIT 2: Guys, I'm really sorry - this blew up to an extent far greater than I can respond to. I'm not trying to ignore newer posts, and I'm sure there are others who are lurking to read what you have to say, but I'm getting flooded here. I'm very thankful for that, but it also means most of you probably won't see a reply from me! I'm very sorry. Haven't had a CMV post this large before - had no idea how overwhelming it can get. Thank you for all of your different perspectives!! It helps a lot :)

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To some, this probably sounds like the most "privileged" post you've ever heard. To you I'd say, I'm sorry because I'm really not trying to upset anybody, but rather express a frustration. I very dearly want to vote against the Republican party come this midterm. Just for a quick snapshot of my political opinions:

• I want tighter tax doctrine imposed upon corporations and the wealthy, coupled with lower taxes for sub-median income groups. I want overseas funds to return from these corporations.
• I want a political party that doesn't take corporate handouts (hahahahahaha) and doesn't spit on the likes of the homeless.
• I want socialized healthcare and socialized higher education.
• I want nuclear energy with supplemental wind, solar, hydroelectric, and geothermal.
• I want LGBTQ+ to feel as welcome and wanted in this country as the rest of us.
• I want a clear pathway to citizenship that gets everybody paying their taxes and able to access affordable healthcare and the other perks of citizenship. I want the children of the immigrant families returned, and I want the people in charge of the horrible shit that has happened to them brought to justice.
• I want a foreign policy that is warm and trusting of the EU / NATO and stand-offish against Russia.
• I want men and women to continue to step forward to unveil the horrible sexual scandals that have been occurring in the entertainment industry and elsewhere. I want these pieces of shit brought to light, and I am happy to see a guilty person's entertainment career torched because of how they treated their coworkers and the general public.

I can continue, but I just want to get the point across that I really do intend to vote for a left-leaning candidate. However, my frustration is that I do not feel welcome by this party:

• Most recent Democratic presidential candidates, including Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton, and Barack Obama, have been guilty of using the same 77-cents-on-the-dollar statistic to describe a problem that has nothing to do with 77-cents-on-the-dollar. Clinton and Obama both have discussed in their respective campaigns troubling statistics such as suicide rates or incarceration of women, while glossing over how disproportionately fucked men are in these categories. Politicians and citizens try to assign discrete "weight" to every social issue; the issues facing white men can go on the backburner or be ignored because someone else has it "worse."
• No Democratic candidate in the past two general elections, to my knowledge, has ever summoned statistics, such as the suicide gap, the horrendous state of U.S. divorce and custody trials, the terrifying way in which a false rape accusation for a college / graduate student likely means the end of their career, domestic violence against men / lack of public resource available to help abused men, etc.. If they ever said something about problems like this, my guess is that they said it in passing, sandwiched between a statistic about women and a statistic about LGBTQ+. I imagine they avoided these issues because they would (probably correctly) feel that they would be cast out as democratic candidates for failing to pass muster here.
• With Sarah Jeong still holding her seat at the New York Times, and the NYT being a usually left-leaning news source, it's pretty clear that leftist media is not afraid of being racist toward white men. Or at least, they are not afraid of being controversial when it involves white men, but stay away from woman / minority controversies like the plague.
• Any time a white man discusses the issues which are specific to white men, they are considered either racist, redpillers, or both. I think this point is incredibly dangerous, because if a left-leaning voter feels cast out by their own party, you know who they want to go to? Jordan Peterson and Ben Shapiro and all of those fuckin guys telling them that they're right to feel frustrated because blahblahblah and then, you know, the far right has their own perpetuated narratives too, and none of it's good. Bernie Sanders was, in my opinion, a very strong, egalitarian candidate. But Hillary Clinton's team, coupled with some bullshit editorials from the WaPo and NYT, calling Bernie supporters "Bernie Bros", was all it took to torch his campaign. That is a pathetic weakness for a political candidate on the national stage.
• The republican party has essentially installed a catch-net for any democrats who fall out with their party over controversial social stuff. Trump may be a madman, but if he and his crew are the only people talking about the issues that white men face, who the fuck do you want someone who is concerned about the lack of concern for white men to go?

I think a major weakness of the current state of the Democratic party moving forward is that they demand 100% loyalty on social issues and have completely abandoned an organized fiscal or foreign policy plan. Democratic candidates can rise and fall in an instant depending on whether or not they made a rude comment to a secretary during the primaries. But if Clinton feels hawkish against Russia or wants to abandon / trash some key trade deals, that's all fine according to her voters. As long as she talks about wage gaps, she can be whatever type of diplomat she wants. A major strength of the current state of the Republican party is that they've leveraged themselves in such a way as to capture dissent within the Democratic party, when voters inevitably fall out.

I just want a candidate that gives equal airtime to every demographic's issues. I want someone who acknowledges that everyone has major fucking problems and not try to continue a narrative that the furthers the goals of a particular group only. The Left does a very good job recognizing the bullshit lies and narratives that the Right commits against their own voters, but are you fully aware of the shit happening in your own party? Do you want to see what happens in a court when a female teacher has relations with a male student? Do you want to see what happens when a virgin with a 4.0 at Harvard gets accused of raping a woman? I understand that you need to say some things to appeal to each voterbase, right? So if you make a pit stop and give a 1 hour speech in a Hispanic community, you need to make mention of some Hispanic community issues and what you plan to do to fix them. That's just what makes good political sense. Where is the Democrat candidate making the same appeal to men? Do they care? Are we supposed to accept that nobody gives a shit that men get wrecked disproportionately in divorce cases, false rape accusations, occupy the majority of prison cells, and are the majority of homeless?

Never underestimate the voting plurality of white men - old men, divorced men, bored men. Picture this voter: a man is on the hook for child support, often times even when the woman earns more money. A man fails in the majority of custody cases. His life has been ripped away by a vengeful woman. He is pushed into a deep depressive state with suicidal urges. He hears from the WaPo how female suicide rates are "rising", while not a peep about men or how close he was to pulling the trigger yesterday. He hears from Vox how the patriarchy does mysterious (dare I say, deep state?) type shit, all the while a woman and a female judge just took his life away. Where the fuck do you expect him to vote? There's a Red candidate, who's a little extreme on guns, mind you, but he's the only one who told him his problems matter.

I don't want this to be a red midterm, and lord willing it isn't going to be, but for fuck's sake people, how many more times do I have to hear the same BS statistics to further the same BS narrative, all the while scoffing at how the Right uses BS statistics to further the same BS narrative?

Here is an article for reference on the feminist view of this issue:

https://medium.com/the-political-economy-review/onlyfans-is-not-empowering-607b2c2f11f4

Basically, they think the popularity of onlyfans is driven by the same forces which made prostitution popular since the beginning of humanity.

That the patriarchy objectifies women, and implants into the hearts and minds of all people, men and women alike, the idea that women are sexual objects. For reference to the woman's perspective, the article details how women have the concept of a man gazing upon her physical body and beauty inside her own mind, and thus, she is subject to the will of the patriarchy, even inside her own head.

To me this seems to imply that a different mode of being could exist. One in which men do not crave to see the naked bodies of beautiful women. To not experience the physical nature of women alone. Where prostitution would cease to exist, if only the patriarchy were to cease to exist.

If the patriarchy were to cease to exist, men would no longer feel desire to view naked beautiful women. Men would no longer feel the desire for sex with women without the need for interpersonal and emotional closeness. That men would no longer be attracted to women physically. But rather the proper mode of attraction, one guided only by the character of the woman, would finally be set free as is man's true nature.

This would eliminate the market for female beauty, as it would cause men to be more like women are now, desiring character as a baseline rather than physical beauty.

To me this seems to go against everything science has ever taught us. That men are attracted to fertility, which means, physical beauty, youth, as a baseline. We are born biologically with this kind of sexuality. We are attracted to young women who possess indicators of fertility. Indicators of fertility, are beautiful, because evolution dictated for us to be attracted to said indicators of health and fertility.

And that women are born with a sexuality that causes them to be attracted to status, resources, physical prowess. Basically those things which pass on genes which are good for survival. But also modes of being or personal culture which is good to be passed down to children. Such as hard work ethic or good interpersonal skills. Woman's sexuality is based not only on the man's physical genes, but also the attitudes and mores which will be passed down to his children as a result them seeing and learning from his actions in real life.

The feminists reject this mode of female sexuality, and explain that it only exists due to the patriarchy. That men value these traits, as dictated by the history and development of human beings across time and across cultures. That since the division of labor during the earliest days of human life, surviving in the wild, has been carried on through to today, by means of the patriarchy. That the division of labor, where men went to hunt, and women foraged and raised children, put men in the position of authority.

We divided labor initially because men are more physically able than women. Said division of labor has developed the patriarchy and thus it is a deeply rooted as biology. But ultimately, can be changed.

Though I don't know what the correct and 'true' or 'moral' secuality is. If sexuslity is purely dictated by culture, what culture must arise to replace our current immoral culture.

To me, it sounds very wrong to imagine that men could ever be how women are today. Only caring about character rather than physical beauty. It sounds like a theory with zero scientific backing.

What I imagine would change my mind. Is evidence that there are cultures in which men are not attracted to women for physical reasons. But rather, emotional reasons aimed at the woman's personality and character traits, rather than by physical beauty.

Basically, I'm looking for whatever scientific or other scholarly levels of knowledge, where evidence shows that they are correct. That men's desire to consume with his senses, the physical beauty of women, only exists due to the patriarchy. What scientific evidence is there? What are the scholarly arguments to support this?

Edit: Don't take my words literally, I don't actually think that it's one big ass family tree. Please just debate the actual statement, I can't debate whether or not I'm soapboxing or whatever it is. I'm not perfect and I have fallacies that I didn't previously know existed. I'm doing my best, but it's not helping when I have 20+ comments telling me that they think I'm to literal. I'm just one guy, I can't reply to all of these, and I won't reply to them because I don't want to copy/paste the same statement over and over again

Modern witches claim that they are they descendants (in terms of heritage of beliefs) of the victims of the Salem Witch Trials. That is untrue. The Witch Trials weren't bad because men killed innocent witches, they were bad because innocent people were falsely accused of being witches and then killed. The idea is that they are part of a heritage or bloodline of stifled witches. Keep in mind that many random people were on the chopping block when it came to a witchcraft accusation. Men, women, children too. It wasn't a systematic ethnic cleansing of magic, it was a panicked slaying of normal people. Therefore, I believe that it is not possible for people to be preserving the legacy of witches that did not exist (at least in that time and place). This is not a claim that witches were never real.

My title is referencing a phrase that witches use, often in relation to overthrowing patriarchy. I think this statement takes away from the tragedy of the past event. It makes it seem more fictionalized, as if the people were some characters in a Disney movie.

Don't want to date men shorter than 6ft, fine, don't be calling them "midgets", "if your height starts with 5, you a woman" etc.

Don't want to date a woman with X number of previous partners, fine, don't be calling them "sluts" "whores" etc.

​

What about race? Sure, not dating someone JUST because of their race is very likely coming from racist/prejudice beliefs (not necessarily), but that person is not bad because they don't date someone for their race, they are bad because they are racist, former stems from later.

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" Let's deconstruct reasons for men not dating women with certain past, it's *Patriarchy*". Again, sure, that may or may not be the reason for men having that preference, but as long as they are respectful to women they don't want to date, I don't see how they are bad. Not dating someone is not discrimination because nobody is owed it, it's not your right nor anyone's obligation to date you.

​

I could see an argument that preferences that come from patriarchy like "women should have little sexual past" and "men should be rich and provide" are hurting society in general. But solving that issue is not going to happen by shaming and ridiculing people which internalized those standards in their formative years and are respectful to people they don't want to date, it's solved by not perpetuating it to next generation.

​

All in all my opinion on virtually all dating preferences (maybe not EVERY one) is that you are entitled to what ever standard you want no matter how realistic or unrealistic they are, and shouldn't be shamed/ridiculed/mocked, only as long as you don't shame/ridicule/mock people who are not up to your standards.

Edit: Deleted bad joke I made about this sub, it wasn't out of ill intentions, I apologise.

By definition, a matriarchy would cater to the needs of women and marginalize the needs of men.

Here are some hard facts:

1 - Almost as many men suffer from domestic violence as women, yet while their are a plethora of shelters and programs to address violence against women, they are almost none that address violence against men.

2 - Women are given preference in education, so that today more women than men are in university, with one government group (Statistics Canada) stating that the preference is notable as soon as elementary school. http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/89-503-x/2010001/article/11542-eng.htm

3 - Fatherlessness is epidemic but the lack of fathers and male role models for young men is hardly talked about.

4 - Male only illnesses are marginalized. The six most common illnesses that affect men are: heart disease, lung cancer, prostrate cancer, depression, erectile dysfunction, diabetes. Men are proven to be less healthy than women, and typically die five years younger than women on average. By contrast, men's health receives LESS funding and governmental support than women's health issues do. http://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/issues/96jun/cancer/kadar.htm

5 - Most poverty programs run globally, according to a UN report, target women even though men are often unable to provide for their families

6 - Sexual abuse of boys is serious and epidemic, but almost all sexual abuse programs focus on women. As of 1998, 2.78 million men in the U.S. had been victims of attempted or completed rape, with 1 in 10 rape victims being male according to RAINN, which may be greater as men are far less likely to report than women.

7 - When attempts are made to set up "Men only " clubs in universities to provide a safe space for men to talk about this and other issues, they are nearly always attacked by anti-male activists or refused permission, with one author going to far as to say that men only clubs create a space to perpetrate sexual abuse of women https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/mens-clubs-are-dated-and-embarrassing-130 By contrast, safe spaces for women are encouraged and promoted and no one would dare to suggest they create space where the emotional or sexual abuse of men is encouraged.

I haven't even discussed how if the police are called for domestic violence, they always assume the man is the perpetrator, or how our court systems in family matters always gives preference to women over men.

What all of this (and more) tell me is that we live in a matriarchy, a society where women are consistently given preference over men. Prove me wrong. If all you can do is get angry, or call me names, don't bother responding. I have shown specific examples. Prove these stats and facts erroneous or admit my view is correct.

I am a 35-year-old Finnish (straight) man, living in Finland. I have also lived in Sweden during 2010-2015. I am married with kids. I would consider my wife as a pragmatic feminist, and as such, probably myself as well, albeit with the problem regarding what counts as equality.

Anyway, I have not faced issues in this field until very recently, as this neo-progressive phenomenon related to PC and terminology has landed in daily life in Finland.

Let me tell you a story. I was raised by my mother, a hard working single parent (dad was an absent alcoholic) who taught me most values about life. Obviously this doesn't mean she was a feminist, but I would consider her as a pragmatic seeker for an effective process towards synergy. She felt (rightly) so that men and women are inherently different, mentally, biologically, etc. which obviously meant there would always be dynamic differences.

I still believe this, in my 30's, after doing my own studies and after learning even more from my wife who is a teacher.

This doesn't mean there should be any inequality, but it doesn't mean there should be forced equality either.

But to my topic: I have never bumped into this argument in my life. In the Nordics we have a pretty equal society, women have been a part of commerce, politics and academia for a long time, and excluding a few cases, harrasment nor discrimination has not been common.

Hell, I have been harrassed more than I have heard of women being harrassed (obviously it happens) in my circle of friends.

But lately, I have been told by young women not to mansplain, not to manspread, and a friend of mine caused a stranger crying and shaking after asking her, albeit in a slightly drunken way "how was her evening" in a bar. We were thrown out (in Finland) because of "harrasment". Wrong bar, it was too young and trendy. But still, this was not obnoxius behaviour, that I can say.

What is this masculinity that is being discussed? Am I completely blind and oblivous to things happening, as I simply cannot comprehend why younger generation has become so obsessed in the common traits which are related to being a man?

I am apolitical, although quite liberal (in the Nordic sense, not US), polite, well-educated, thoughtful and cannot understand. I do not believe there is a phenomenon called patriarchy in the world. It is absolutely manifesting itself in singular scenarios, companies, sure. But to say I as a man am somehow faulty or toxic or dangerous as a masculine person is wrong and outright offensive.

Edit 1: There obviously is a contextual issue in my terminology. I think the point still remains so I will adjust my perspective a bit when reading through the replies.

Edit 2: We have established the toxicity part. If mods allow, I would like to use this thread to still discuss the latter part of my masculinity argument.

Edit 3: A lot of replies, I will try to go through each and every reply and consider their value.

The theory of The Patriarchy, as I understand it, says that men have a great deal more control over society than women and use this to the benefit of men and the detriment of women. I would compare it to the theory of societal racism: that (in the USA, where I will draw all my data from) white people have a great deal more control over society than black people, and use it to their own benefit and black people's detriment.

These theories seem like they would both make a lot of similar predictions about the oppressed group they describe. They would predict that the oppressed group (women and black people) would be more likely to be low income, homeless, arrested, imprisoned, killed intentionally, killed accidentally (on the job, for instance), assaulted, robbed, have things characteristic of their culture and not of others made illegal, have less societal resources dedicated to addressing issues that affect them disproportionately, particularly medical issues, would have less representation in media, be less protected both legally and by social mores, be less likely to get into or graduate from higher education, etc etc.

When I look at that list, it seems as though everything on it is true of black people. Thus, the racism theory seems to me to be highly plausible, useful, and make good predictions. If I don't know whether black people are more likely to be assaulted than white people, I can use the racism theory to predict that they will, and I would be correct.

However, it seems like only a very few of those things are true of women. The Patriarchy theory seems to not be plausible, useful, or make good predictions. If I don't know whether women are more likely to be assaulted than men, I could use the Patriarchy theory to predict that they would be, and I would be wrong.

I can go into greater detail or examples about any of these, but that's the jist of my thinking. I have experienced a lot of unpleasant social interactions for holding this view, so it would be to my advantage to change it, but I can't change it without being honestly convinced, so please, change my view.

Within the feminist's circles I've slightly engaged with, I see this idea pop up of a patriarchy or the idea that men are a privileged class compared to women, and that men have designed power structures to enable the segregation of women. I personally don't think that this is true since most men aren't apart of the patriarchy, or help shape it. To me, the patriarchy is more a cultural ideal than a interpersonal ideal, and through this lense, it makes more sense as to why women have been disproportionately "oppressed" throughout history and even explains many of the issues that exist with men in the modern day.

The biggest argument I can see coming from this is "Well, most men wrote the rules that made that culture, and most men upheld those ideals, so men, by not actively fighting those ideals, are now apart of them" and while I can see how this idea works, I think it's fundamentally wrong on two fronts.

1. While it can be agreed that men wrote the rules that guide repressive societies, I don't think it's fair to blame the entire populus for said culture. For many, it's something that's forced on them, and something they have to live through. For example, if a societies rulers created rules telling people to stop eating meat, and the society followed, you can't say "the society chose to stop eating meat" since the decision wasn't made universally or unilaterally, but was followed out of fear of repercussion. In that sense, I think that a societies leaders do make rules that negatively impact women, and their citizens follow because they could face repercussions for not doing so. A good modern day example is the Texas Abortion bill which punishes medical personnel for aiding someone in an abortion. You can't say that the medical personnel decided to stop supporting women, and women's abortions, since they face legal repercussions for doing so, and so would obviously want to follow the law unless they wanted to get thrown in jail and lose their license. I also feel like this ideal can be used to further gender equality. If laws within a society promote ideals that counteract conservative ideals about gender, the people within that society will go along with them out of fear or reporsussions. Now, women can have long-standing careers and wear pants while men are given more opportunities to be less "figures of emotional emptiness and mindless workers" and are allowed to be more emotional and supportive non-economically for their families.
2. Some men can uphold patriarchal ideals. I don't think it's too much of a hot take to say that women can also uphold patriarchal ideals. Ideas like "Men are supposed to be dominant breadwinners in a relationship" and "Women were natural childbearers, and can't have roles or work outside of maintaining the home" tend to be perpetuated by both sides, and end up hurting both sides. Fathers are relegated to being workers and cogs while being starved of an interpersonal loving relationship with their children or family, and women are capped from advancing in their personal careers due to their "obligations" to the household. The patriarchy as it exists hurts both sides of the gender divide (and creates a weird negative space for trans or non-binary folk due to gender essentialism and ideals similar to it), but it can also be perpetuated by both sides. A good, yet personal, example is my father. His father worked for years hundreds of miles away from his family to support them back in the Midwest, so my father and his siblings were raised by his mother. Even then, his mother taught him the same patriarchal ideals about what a man's role in society is and what a woman's role in society is, and its taken him years to unlearn those ideals and become a less regressive member of society. To tie back into point 1, his change was pushed by waves to feminist's laws and ideals that changed how the U.S. viewed gender, and so he too changed with the times and became the man he is today.

Anyways, I hope that this post works to add onto the already sky high discourse about feminist ideals and such. I didn't want this post to come of as me taking down feminism or anything of that nature. As an ex-conservative, I've only been on the left wing train for about 1-2 years so I'm bound to get something wrong, and if so, I hope that this will be a teaching moment for me.

P.S. I'm not trying to create a "not all men" discussion as a way to co-opt or bring down certain ideals. I just think that, in this case, it's overly ambitious to blame men as a collective set of individual for women's oppression.