[throwanem]

It disregards the fact that, as long as most men and women remain heterosexual, there's no divorcing social pressures on one from social pressures on the other, because these will at some point become indistinguishable from the same thing.

Feminism has trod this ground before, with political lesbianism and lesbian separatism. The results of these experiments are not such as to suggest they are worth repeating, which hasn't stopped that from happening in the form of last decade's unsurprisingly abortive "MGTOW" movement.

[n4r9]

I'm really struggling to parse your first sentence as it's too convoluted. Are you predicting that men and women will have the same social pressures in future? How does this challenge the idea that feminism may overlap with men's issues today?

Perhaps it would help if I gave a tangible example of how e.g. the patriarchy links to male emotional troubles. Patriarchal norms include the stereotype of the male as a strong, unemotional provider type. As a consequence, parents discourage boys from showing emotion. Thus, boys do not learn to accept, validate and maturely process their emotions.

[throwanem]

I'm agreeing with the claim that there can be no serious distinction drawn such that the concerns addressed by feminism are disjoint from those which should be addressed by a masculist movement constituted on grounds of actually addressing men's problems rather than nucleating around a festering contempt for women, and supporting that claim on the grounds that so long as most men and most women remain heterosexual their concerns are necessarily and intimately intermingled - what affects men affects women and vice versa, by virtue of women and men spending their lives together. The implicit conclusion is that it is therefore absurd to imagine that a men's movement which constitutes itself in opposition to feminism can ever be capable of materially improving the condition of men overall.

[n4r9]

Thanks. That was still pretty convoluted but I think I'm with you. I agree on a conceptual level but only partly agree on a practical level.

On a conceptual level, the fundamental problem is harmful gender norms. Both movements must challenge that.

On a practical level, the way these norms manifest is very different. Women face more sexual and domestic violence and expectations around care-giving. Men face more emotional suppression and expectations around career.

There are some policies which I believe would dramatically benefit both genders. Equalising maternity and paternity leave, for example. It's absolutely bonkers that men may only be able to take a week or two, given that they might want to spend more time bonding with and caring for their newborn, and their partner might have had a C-section and be house-bound for weeks to come.

There are other policies which target one gender more than another, but I believe are still needed. Women-ony refugees, or workshops for building boys' emotional intelligence, for example. I think I would have benefited as a teenager from messaging that it's ok to accept and explore my emotions. I didn't really get that from home.