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
view the rest of the comments
This kind of thinking is why MRAs succeed where Mens Lib fail. Mens Lib is all about men's rights through a feminist lens, but feminism does not give a single shit about men. Even just having a space for mens issue leads to posts like this, which downplay and even try to silence men who try to talk about their issues.
And no, it is not harmful to talk about mens issues. We can have many different places all focusing on different things. Like a cat sub focusing on cats, and a dog sub focusing on dogs. A dog sub existing does not mean the cat sub is any less valid, it's just a place about dogs.
Edit:
And for the record, MRAs and Mens Lib are fighting for the same things. It's a good goal. The only real difference is men's lib burdens themselves with a feminist perspective, which does not help, and as this post shows, hurts.
At risk of getting out of context, I (cis male) did not become aware of the systems that were damaging me until I started studying feminism. Whatever a "men's liberation movement" looks like, it is so young and inexperienced that it would be well served to examine and learn from feminist ideologies and perspectives.
Many of the power structures that feminists have identified as being damaging to women in general are also damaging to men in general.
Many of the power structures that favour men in general are damaging to women in general. As we grow and develop, we should be striving to tear down those structures that are harmful to others, rather than further entrench them as if in battle or in a zero sum game.
I'm not aware of any modern feminist ideologies or initiatives that present a danger to men, but if there are any, they should be called out by both feminists and "masculinists" in the same way that both feminists and masculinists should be calling out any masculinist ideologies and initiatives that present a danger to women.
Modern intersectional feminism has grappled with the inclusion of women who have been "othered". We should be trying to learn from that and avoid making the same mistakes.
In the end, we all have to figure out our place in the world, and that cannot be done without considering our relationships to the power structures and each other. At present, that looks like it's necessary to have feminism and masculinism as separate movements, not as enemies, but as collaborators and intersectional movements. Biology, including the fact that sex and gender are spectra with bimodal distributions, may always mean that they remain at least somewhat separate even as shared goals are achieved.