So...gendered politics sucks, and seems to inevitably devolve into tribalism, with both sides promoting their own brand of idpol while seemingly trying to undermine the other. I've known this for a while, if anything, I've never been comfortable with them. Even when I was a teenager, rather than call myself a "feminist", I would call myself an "equalist" or egalitarian. And I guess that is my stance. Still, given the loaded associations these terms often gather with one side or the other, I struggle to call myself such things either.
Here's the problem with feminism. Equal rights are fine, equal rights are good. Gender critical theory is a valid academic lens through which to view gender issues. And women, in modern society, are often oppressed. They have historically been kept out of job opportunities, face glass ceilings in job advancement, and tend to suffer a lot of problems that stop them from getting ahead.
But...despite these valid causes, feminists often end up devolving into these shrill, man hating circlejerks in which they promote their own rights, while acting like males are privileged and need to constantly shut up about everything. They end up turning into militant SJWs, acting like their group has it so bad, and the other group has it so good, and view all politics through such a lens. Just because such a lens is valid, does not mean that it is the only way to look at an issue, or that it has a monopoly on framing the issue. It quite frankly does not. And feminists, the second it comes to male issues, they tend to sweep them under the rug, not care, and if they address them at all, do so within the weird cultish SJW framework that feminists do. Despite whatever positive contributions feminism has had on humanity in the past century or so, in a modern context, they seem to be a force that makes our politics worse.
But, let's face it. The "men's rights" movement isn't any better. I've really struggled throughout the years to find a decent community for male issues, and I thought I did recently, until they turned into woman haters too. The "manosphere" as its often called is just as toxic and militant as the feminist camp, if not worse. Often it IS worse. While feminists will claim to be for equality, only to then turn around and only advocate for it on their terms while minimizing male issues, MRAs tend to be an extremely toxic bunch. At their worst, you get communities like the red pill, mgtow, or incels, who seem to long for a world long past in which women just shut the heck up, said yes to them, dated them, and got married, barefoot, and pregnant. But, putting the excesses of those guys aside, sometimes they do bring up valid issues. The acceptability of circumcision, unequal expectations in the work place and military that put a larger burden on men (see men aged 18-60 being forced to stay in Ukraine and be drafted while women can leave), inequalities with things like parental rights, child support, etc. I mean, male issues are major issues. Even Andrew Yang speaks a lot of male issues, much to the chagrin of the feminist movement. But, as I've recently found out, the MRAs still hate yang because he will also listen to the feminists, and therefore isn't pure enough for them.
And that's kind of the problem. While I have mixed views on yang's anti tribalist "enlightened centrism" at times and think it's very poor framing (he's solidly center left IMO, and not just in the american sense), on culture war issues he's totally right. Womens' issues are issues. mens' issues are issues. But feminists want to promote womens' issues while acting like mens' issues don't exist, and MRAs like to act like men are so mistreated and persecuted while women were better off back in the kitchen. It's disgusting. Both groups see the other group as a hate group toward them, and neither are totally wrong nor totally right.
The tribalism is the problem. If we could talk about these issues objectively, and with an open mind, that would be great. But instead gendered politics devolves into "my group has it so bad, the other group has it so good, blah blah blah screw the other group", when honestly, both have valid points, but both are, in my mind, incorrigibly toxic. Really, I just hate the entire drama around both sides.
I may or may not have covered this issue before, I mean, my views on this go a long way back, but after running into various communities that were supposed to be more moderate, only for them to devolve into the same other group hating tribalistic circlejerks, I really have zero faith in these politics any more outside of Andrew Yang's nonpartisan approach.
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