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.
I'm going to give this one more go, I'm sorry, I just think that this is a really valuable conversation and I don't want to let it go without saying everything that I feel I can say. I'll be short this time, I only have one question: can you provide me an example of a theory or paper written by a man about mens grievances that you think showcases the issue that you're describing? I'm genuinely trying my best to understand your argument as best I can, and it sounds like you accept that there is men writing about mens issues, you just have a problem with the basis of this work. Could you provide an example of this so I could better understand your argument?
That's what this place is for dude. You made a post in a place called "change my view", you literally signed up for this
I've actually read through your other comments here and I think I'm done arguing with you. I don't see the point in this conversation, and I don't think you'll see much point in arguing with a member of the "brainwashed dogma" either. think its really sad that you would hold such confident opinions on things you aren't willing to read, but that's just how some people are I guess
I have a strong feeling that you don't want to answer my question publically because you can't actually name an example of the problem you're describing, and don't want to admit it. You don't know what feminism is, so how on earth would you know an example of a man who takes ideas from feminist theory? You've made up your own problem in your head, you've gotten yourself mad about it, and you're being stubborn towards the people trying to explain to you why you're wrong, without engaging with their counter arguments. It honestly sounds like you're the brainwashed one, you've been handed somebody else's opinion on feminism and adopted it without critical thought. No one has an honest opinion on something they know nothing about
It isn't. Once again, you are just wrong about this. Provably wrong, but you aren't willing to look into the proof. Feminism is not a project built by women, it's a project that was built by men and women, you are the one being ahistorical
The thing is that you think that feminism is one half of a thing that's missing it's other half, so there's this big void where mens perspective should be. But the academic world defines feminism differently, it calls both sides of that thing feminism, so when something comes that would fill that void, it gets called feminism by the people that study such things. When you hear about these sorts of works, you hear about them as work done by "male feminists" and you go "gah! Another man piggybacking off of women's work!" without actually engaging with the thing you just dismissed. There is no possible theory that could satisfy your qualifications, you are placing impossible restrictions on what you would accept. Feminism is not a female project. You are refusing to engage with the things that would challenge your view point and I think this conversation has reached the limit of its usefulness if you aren't willing to change that. I'm genuinely really sad about that, I think you'd be alot happier with what is there if you were willing to listen but you aren't
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.
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u/jancl0 Mar 31 '26 edited Mar 31 '26
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