Men's Liberation
This community is first and foremost a feminist community for men and masc people, but it is also a place to talk about men’s issues with a particular focus on intersectionality.
Rules
Everybody is welcome, but this is primarily a space for men and masc people
Non-masculine perspectives are incredibly important in making sure that the lived experiences of others are present in discussions on masculinity, but please remember that this is a space to discuss issues pertaining to men and masc individuals. Be kind, open-minded, and take care that you aren't talking over men expressing their own lived experiences.
Be productive
Be proactive in forming a productive discussion. Constructive criticism of our community is fine, but if you mainly criticize feminism or other people's efforts to solve gender issues, your post/comment will be removed.
Keep the following guidelines in mind when posting:
- Build upon the OP
- Discuss concepts rather than semantics
- No low effort comments
- No personal attacks
Assume good faith
Do not call other submitters' personal experiences into question.
No bigotry
Slurs, hate speech, and negative stereotyping towards marginalized groups will not be tolerated.
No brigading
Do not participate if you have been linked to this discussion from elsewhere. Similarly, links to elsewhere on the threadiverse must promote constructive discussion of men’s issues.
Recommended Reading
- The Will To Change: Men, Masculinity, And Love by bell hooks
- Politics of Masculinities: Men in Movements by Michael Messner
Related Communities
!feminism@beehaw.org
!askmen@lemmy.world
!mensmentalhealth@lemmy.world
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I'm speaking from an anglocene perspective I admit.
The "left" in the UK and US has had power. But they didn't contradict right wing economic policy from the 80s when they had the chance.
We'll see what they do next time they get a chance but looking at the UK we haven't had a left wing government that would help since the 70s and it's hard to start a conversation about who to vote for by talking about things that happened before someone was born.
The track record of Labour in the UK and the Democrats in the US is not good enough in the living memory of the voters they want to turn out for them.
When has the left ever had power in the US? Labour in the UK had a bit post war, but they've since stopped being left.
You cant just call neolibs the left and complain that the left didnt do anything.
Gatekeeping what's left and right makes no sense. There is an Ovrrton window and two parties either side of that centre.
FPTP voting is about disenfranchising voters. Ensuring they don't vote is one way of doing that.
You have to vote for the lesser of 2 evils until you get to the point of electoral reform being possible.
And you make electoral reform possible by organising and pressuring the most likely party to do it.
No. The left has a very clear political meaning, it does not simply mean “Whats less to the right”.
When leftists talk about leftist policies as solutions to issues, we dont mean “oh right wing policies but just not super right”.
Left —————| Middle |—A——B— Right
Tell me, what side of that spectrum do you think A is?
I'm afraid "the left" hasn't had a clear meaning for many decades now.
The meaning of what is left and right shifts over time and whatever method you choose to place the middle is where biases appear.
If no party to the left of A has a chance of government and no party to the left of B has a chance of government, you've placed "middle" in the wrong place.
Ignoring political reality by starting a history lesson isn't going to create changes.
It's likely to lead to voters involuntarily disenfranchising themselves and not having any effect on the duopoly the system encourages.
The left is not relative, nor has the meaning shifted in all this time.
The left is the same communists and anarchists it has been for over a hundred years world wide now.
Political party popularity does not change political ideological meaning.
And the American system doesn’t encourage duopoly, it literally enforces it. So yes, of course many leftists are going to feel disenfranchised after close to a century of being villainised and neglected by their “representatives”. The solution to that is for a party to adopt leftist ideals, but that goes against the interests of the ruling class who’s money and influence runs the game.
The left is relative. Otherwise we still believe in the solutions of 50 years ago now.
Try nationalising manufacturing and farms. See how well that works. That was left wing once. Now it's not. Even if there are still things you would nationalise.
You're trying to create absolutes to argue easily against. That's often the way political discourse goes but it's wrong.
By all means build a straw man and totem of the left and right but it's far more interesting to find the nuance and use your intelligence rather than treating the debate like a team sport to be won and lost.
We do still believe in those solutions?
Some do. Plenty on the left don't because studies and examples since have shown where public ownership falls flat on its face and where it's the only efficient way of doing things. As well as the grey area in between.
No, no leftist is for privatized ownership of the means of production.
Even market socialists, an extremely niche group barely even worth mentioning still advocate for it public ownership of most things.
Simply wrong.
Most people on the left are advocating for evidence based policies and experts in the decision making process.
Not guessing games based on ideology.