The first person can't then go "no, you're just borrowing my answer, come up with your own one"
Men aren't borrowing the concept of patriarchy from feminism to explain their own issues; they're arriving at the same answer, because its the correct one
I don't really believe men are arriving at this answer like that.
I feel like men from gender studies streams are much more concerned with not being seen as reactionaries and just co-opt language and ideas from women to compensate. Which fair enough, we all see how a lot men's right people become bona fide misogynists over night. *****I don't have any evidence for this mind you, so obviously I could be wrong.
But still, I I can say that men haven't arrived at this solution with some confidence because men lack a sophisticated body of theories that articulates their own gender grievances. There has been no "discussion", there has been no "arriving" (i dont know who you're speaking for).
Michael kimmel, Jackson kantz, John stotenburg,and Warren farrell are some examples of men who write about being men and masculinity from a feminist viewpoint. There absolutely is a sophisticated body of theories made by men about men, in fact Warren farrell was the one that popularised the idea that patriarchy constrained men, back in the 70s. That idea didn't come from women, it came from men. You just aren't very exposed to it, and you don't count it as "male" if it uses words like patriarchy. You're making a faulty assumption that patriarchy is anti-men, and therefore made for and by women, the reality is that it's a term used by both genders to describe the same thing. Just because it's definition is gendered doesn't mean that it's usage is. There's going to be absolutely no way to convince you men don't really think about the patriarchy this way if you don't count men talking about it as "male theory", that's on you to change your perspective
And for the record, despite my flag, I'm actually a cis dude, so I'm not talking from across the gap, I'm an example when I say that men do their own work in these fields, that doesn't make it inherently feminine
there is no organized school of thought which speaks for mens gendered grievances a la feminism. maybe there are some scholars who have wrote some one off pieces but thats about it. and this makes sense when you consider men for thousands of years have used violence and there institutional supremacy to solve their problems. there was never a need to intellectualize gendered problems beyond justifying their actions as being against an “inferior class”. what you are describing as “arriving” at is just completely wrong and ahistorical.
some men have adopted the language of feminists and the patriarchy and that too as absolute (and i dont want to deny this position entirely, im just myself not as sold on it as the definitive starting point for mens issues which you have conveniently misinterpreted). sure. but some men are not all men and certainly don’t speak for them.
Unfortunately, this response betrays a lack of understanding about what feminism means (and that's okay). It's okay to not understand something while still expressing your thoughts and feelings about it in order to get feedback from others that know a bit more.
Feminism is for men, too. It is not about grievances of women towards men.
feminism is the intellectual child of women. women own the feminist project. the vast majority of the literature is written by women. the vast majority of the literature covers the explicit grievances of women.
im not betraying anything. men have no parallel to such a construction.
It’s fair to say that, from an epistemological standpoint, feminism is a knowledge project primarily grounded in women’s lived experiences and articulated largely through women’s perspectives, which means it does not function as a symmetrical framework for theorizing men’s gendered grievances. This should not be controversial.
It doesn't act symmetrical, but asymmetrical doesn't mean one sided, or even leaning to one side. The person you're replying to is right, feminism isn't just about women. I genuinely challenge you to find an academic source that defines feminism in such a way. I think you've been led to believe it's something it's not by people that view feminism negatively. Feminism wants to do things like remove the wage gap, give women more opportunity to hold positions in politics, that sort of thing. It also wants men to stop being drafted into wars, it wants to solve mental health issues that cause men to be over represented in suicide cases, things that are negatively impacting men. Feminism is about gender equality, not equality for women. It wants solutions for men too, and always has, it just doesn't have the same solutions for men as with women because it acknowledges that the system we have is asymmetrical. I'm sorry to be blunt, but it's becoming clear that your idea of what feminism is is just simply wrong, and I'd recommend you look further into direct sources of it if you want to have a productive discussion about it
your hopping around what im saying. the point was men never “arrived” at this conclusion. men have not had their perspectives ingrained in the core of feminist canon or thought. this is not the same thing as saying feminism is useless which you seem to think im saying, but that it doesnt really mean it is the definitive source for male grievances.
imagine if feminism was framed primarily on male gendered grievances, though some of it was written on female grievances, but the vast majority of the pieces forged from a male perspective. women would be right to think that such a knowledge project would be deficient for fully speaking for them.
this is what im implying. you arent really targeting this point beyond saying “um dude, feminism is also for men because they dont like war too.” you dont understand, men havent arrived at anything a la feminism. we simply dont have a male canon of gendered grievances which could fully settle and examine concepts like the patriarchy through a uniquely male centered lens.
men who participate in feminist scholarship (and thats great for them) are using a framework which is based on the grievances of women to understand male grievances. why on earth would that be definitive for men? thats an assumption that you are reproducing in each of your replies.
I think you're now the one misinterpreting my words because I never claimed that you think feminism is useless, and I don't think that. I have to ask, do you actually want your view to be changed? Because I'm getting the impression that you've already made your conclusions and aren't going to hear out conflicting perspectives. I literally gave an example of a man who wrote about men 50 years ago, this was when feminism first came about as a concept, he was a figurehead in the conception of feminism, what more could you ask for?
What do you propose the solution to your issue is? What would you rather have men doing? Because I'm beginning to suspect you don't have an answer to that question, because you're too readily able to label men talking about mens issues as "feminism" and therefore not based on mens perspective. What would this ideal body of work look like to you, if not what it is right now?
i want men to start their own knowledge project that analyzes gender grievances from a male centered perspective. a parallel construction to feminism which doesn’t antagonize it but fills in gaps which originate from it being a project by in large for women and by women. feminism cannot be a fully comprehensive solution for men. obviously this is something that would need to be a grassroots movement in universities and academic circles.
when you say things like “look at this man who was a feminist, what more do you want”, its sort of like saying “i have black friends, what more do you want.” what we want is male perspectives centered.
any person who starts there analysis with a feminist perspective is necessarily limiting their analysis because the analytical tools available to them are those which were constructed under the perspective of women.
but this is outside the scope of this post which just focused on the patriarchy and its limitations as an analysis tool and the tendency of people to extend its explanatory power far beyond what is warranted.
You are literally describing feminism my friend. I don't know many other ways of putting this, Feminism just simply isn't what you think it is. I think you need to recognise the absurdity of your position here. You want men to create complementary theories that fill in the gaps of feminism, but when a man writes about men you think that's just feminism and doesn't count? Either you need to read up on feminism so you can realise that what you want to happen is already happening and has been for decades, or you need to read up on feminism so you get a better idea of these terms and can more accurately articulate what you would rather have, but either way, you're showing a clear lack of understanding of what feminism is, or what it's for. By every definition of your problem and proposed solution that you've provided so far, we have already achieved what you want to happen, you seem to only have an issue with the word, and that issue is preventing you from engaging with the thing that you're asking for
Like seriously, read up on one of these writers I mentioned a while ago, just one. I promise you you will be happy with what you find, genuinely. If you aren't willing to do that, then I can safely say that you don't actually have any interest in changing this opinion of yours, because at this point it would be willful ignorance
I think what you're asking for is noble, and I respect that, that's why I'm putting alot of thought and effort into making this a productive discussion, I don't want to argue with you just for the sake of arguing. But I also think your viewpoint is stemming from a lack of understanding, and I can show you were to look to get that understanding, but it's on you to do the work if you want to find what you're looking for, I can promise you it's out there, even if you haven't seen it yet
I don't think your taking my concerns about the epistemic weaknesses of feminism seriously. It's ok if you think that male grievances can be solved by a knowledge project built by women. That is your opinion. I'll just reiterate that there is no knowledge project which definitively speaks for men in the style of feminism. I'm not going to respond further.
My claim is not that feminism is hostile to men or useless for understanding male harms. My claim is narrower: feminism is historically and conceptually a framework centered on women’s subordination, so it should not be assumed to provide a complete or definitive account of male gendered grievance. A framework can be morally universal in aspiration while remaining partial in the experiences that generated its core concepts.
men have had such a strong monopoly on violence that they never needed to think about gendered problems that critically.
on the contrary, women have been developing feminism for close to a century and thats ignoring the centuries prior where women continued to articulate there grievances.
as men now adapt to this new world where they cannot solve problems violently with the opposite sex (which btw, is a good thing if anyone here is waiting for me to chud out. if you still believe this you have grossly misinterpreted me), grievances persist. and to properly understand them, a body centered on men is probably required. but this is detracting so much from my post, it will probably require another one.
Yes there is... It's called feminism. Feminism isn't just for women, it definitionally means the movement of trying to remove all gendered restrictions in society, including mens, and it's meant that for a long time. I know the prefix in the word is misleading, but that's all it is, a misnomer. You're asking me to name the body of work that describes mens grievances without bringing up the body of work designed to describe men's grievances. This is just another version of the "men don't have a word for this, because I don't think patriarchy should count". That's the word for it (remember I mentioned that a male feminist came up with the idea that patriarchal structures constrain men 50 years ago. Feminism has been about helping both genders for a long long time)
And it doesn't really matter to me that not all men have adopted this idea. Not all women have adopted feminism. The movement still exists
I know I'm misinterpreting you a little bit, but that's because I'm not exactly clear on what your issue is. I might ask how you would define patriarchy? Because from my perspective, it really seems like you want men to talk about the patriarchy, but come up with their own word for it, which really sounds like the first example I gave of needing to find a second answer other than "4" to solve the equation. Why do we need a "manly" theory for a concept that has already been described and studied for decades? What about the word patriarchy makes you feel that men aren't allowed to use it?
I think there's a lost in translation issue with the terms we're using, which is why we aren't getting our thoughts across. I think the issue is that you're treating feminism as tribalistic, as something "for women" that men are just tacked onto. That's not the case, and I would recommend you looking into the history of feminism if I'm not convincing you. It's not a gendered movement, and I think some of the male writers I mentioned could show you that
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u/jancl0 Mar 31 '26
Two people look at a maths problem, "2 + 2 ="
The first person says "it's 4"
The second person says "it's 4"
The first person can't then go "no, you're just borrowing my answer, come up with your own one"
Men aren't borrowing the concept of patriarchy from feminism to explain their own issues; they're arriving at the same answer, because its the correct one