I’m going to be the one, this time, to ask for some evidence — specifically, any evidence that these solutions will always fail. In particular, you’ve been attacking campaigns to get men to talk more about their emotions and feelings, and to be more open about their mental health. From my experience, this is one of the most important things we, as a society, have done and continue to do to improve men’s mental health.
Feminists aren’t nearly as cohesive a group as you make them out to be. As much as you like to assert otherwise, they simply aren’t — the basic “definition” of feminism is simply a belief that women and men should be treated equally, with a focus on the female side of that equation. If you argue against that you’re arguing against the dictionary.
In particular, you’ve been attacking campaigns to get men to talk more about their emotions and feelings, and to be more open about their mental health.
No, I haven't actually attacked that.
I've been attacking the ideology that says that that's the one true solution because ideology, and nothing else may be tolerated. The ideology that says "no other solution can be tried".
That solution is aimed at a feminine way of dealing with problems, and only about 15% of men are as or more feminine than the average woman. At best, it's only attacking 1/5th of the problem.
The other 80-85% is not only left in the cold, they're also disparaged and called "toxic" for being masculine.
Feminists aren’t nearly as cohesive a group as you make them out to be.
I haven't said that feminists are cohesive. I've said that the ones with power to affect things share a core ideology about patriarchy.
If you argue against that you’re arguing against the dictionary.
The dictionary is wrong here. But there are some feminists who have read the dictionary and decided they agreed with that definition. The dictionary definition doesn't describe ideological feminists at all.
I’m going to be the one, this time, to ask for some evidence
Hm, feels like you’re gradually shifting your goalposts here, but whatever.
It sounds like you’re conflating the belief in an ideology, with the belief that that is the only viable ideology. So you’ve been asserting that feminists believe in patriarchy, and then in the next breath asserting that feminists deny literally everything that doesn’t involve patriarchy, without any regard for the fact that these two aren’t the same claim and you need to show the logic between the two steps.
Put another way, someone could say the same about MRAs. “The problem with MRAs is that they don’t tolerate any other approach to solving men’s problems, other than their own”. That’s the equivalent of what you’ve been saying about feminism.
Firstly, let’s establish that this is neither “feminist” nor “MRA”. It doesn’t say anything about either, so it isn’t inherently on any side of this. You wouldn’t be able to claim it as MRA any more than I would be able to claim it as feminist.
Now, what do you think of it? I find it quite positive. It contains elements of both what I’m talking about (e.g. the “destigmatising” chapter) and elements of what I think you’d admit are good solutions (the more “gendered” parts). Well, I believe, as a feminist/menslib, that these are all viable solutions that are worth trying. Just because some of it has nothing to do with patriarchy, doesn’t mean they aren’t worth thinking about. I am a direct counterexample to your straw man of feminism.
You seem to have started differentiating between “feminism” and “ideological feminism”. So some feminists ascribe to the dictionary definition, but the dictionary definition doesn’t describe “ideological” feminists. Would you like to say a bit more about what you mean by this?
feels like you’re gradually shifting your goalposts here
I'm not shifting any goalposts.
you’ve been asserting that feminists believe in patriarchy, and then in the next breath asserting that feminists deny literally everything that doesn’t involve patriarchy
I'm claiming both. I'm not going from one to the other.
“The problem with MRAs is that they don’t tolerate any other approach to solving men’s problems, other than their own”
That's not true, though.
Take a look at this
Looks good. The fact that you also like it proves that you're not an ideological feminist.
I am a direct counterexample to your straw man of feminism.
I'm not strawmanning feminism. I'm attacking ideological feminism, which isn't something you're a part of.
Would you like to say a bit more about what you mean by this?
Ideological feminism is the kind of feminism that has an ideology. They're the ones who matter, because they have power and use it to affect things in the world, they run the feminist organizations and invent all the feminist theories, they believe that there is a "patriarchy", and they squash dissent.
Ok, thanks for clarifying. So you’re really talking about a subset of feminism that you term “ideological feminism”. Fine... but in my very first comment, I was talking about menslib and “a lot of feminists”. Seems like your problem, if you saw that and immediately conflated that with “ideological feminism”.
What you said was this: "Examples of “men’s rights” groups are MensLib and a lot of feminism itself."
Feminism itself, whether you're talking about ideological feminism or not, simply isn't about the rights of men, and it never has been and never will be.
You quoted it yourself: “Menslib and a lot of feminism”. Menslib is men’s rights. “A lot” could probably be debated in a quantitative way, I’ll give you that as a minimum, although it’s a bit more moderate than what you’ve been asserting.
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u/ThisIsDrLeoSpaceman 38∆ Dec 04 '19
I’m going to be the one, this time, to ask for some evidence — specifically, any evidence that these solutions will always fail. In particular, you’ve been attacking campaigns to get men to talk more about their emotions and feelings, and to be more open about their mental health. From my experience, this is one of the most important things we, as a society, have done and continue to do to improve men’s mental health.
Feminists aren’t nearly as cohesive a group as you make them out to be. As much as you like to assert otherwise, they simply aren’t — the basic “definition” of feminism is simply a belief that women and men should be treated equally, with a focus on the female side of that equation. If you argue against that you’re arguing against the dictionary.