I just stepped down as moderator from all five of the subreddits I used to moderate over on Reddit. I just can’t ethically justify continued activity on Reddit, and especially free volunteer labour for an openly greedy company that is engaged in scummy behaviour, forcing mods to open protesting communities or be demoted.

So my online activism for boys and men is now focused here and on Mastodon. And I am welcoming everyone coming over from Reddit, especially from LeftWingMaleAdvocates, the sub I put in the majority of my time and effort as a mod.

Let’s build something good here, as we did previously on Reddit. It appears we have a wider reach here, so let’s debate in good faith and with civil manners.

Here, in this magazine (i.e. community or subreddit in Kbin-speak) we wish to discuss and spread awareness of various issues that disproportionately affect males.

We believe men are not being well-served by either side of the mainstream political spectrum. We oppose the right wing’s exploitation of men’s issues as a wedge to recruit men to inegalitarian traditional values. But we also oppose feminist attempts to deny male issues, or shoehorn them into a biased ideology that blames “male privilege” and guilt-trips men.

We have no objection to the genuinely egalitarian aspects of feminism, but we will criticize feminist ideology wherever it is inegalitarian and/or untruthful, especially now that it holds institutional power. Too often feminism has promoted a one-sided “equality”, dismantling male advantages while exploiting, reinforcing, preserving, and downplaying female advantages - particularly in cases involving alleged abuse.

In practice this means that most of us are politically homeless. The natural home for male advocacy should be the left wing, which professes to be explicitly egalitarian. But in modern practice, men’s issues are habitually ignored, denied, or even opposed.

We seek to address male issues without falling into the traps of an impossible return to the past or a disastrous sexism. Men and women have equal value, and we need to work together for a better future.

  • a-man-from-earth@kbin.socialOP
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    1 year ago

    I think you are conflating men as a group with men as individuals.

    I don’t, but most feminists do.

    I think when they say “men are the problem” that’s shorthand for a system

    Then they should blame society, not men as a group. Most men don’t have any more influence on the system than most women do.

    And what do you think constant negative messaging about men as a group being the problem does to the minds of boys growing up? Are you surprised many of them go down the alt-right radicalization pipeline?

    a system that generally pays men more

    I don’t know where this is true, but certainly not in Western countries, where such discrimination by gender is illegal.

    expects them to take on less domestic responsibilities

    More a question of expecting men to take on different domestic responsibilities, on top of expecting men to be the primary providers.

    allows them to vote away women’s rights

    Instead, men overwhelmingly voted for granting women equal rights.

    and all of the other longstanding injustices

    You mean injustices such as conscription, age of retirement, homelessness, etc?

    • grahamsz@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      I don’t, but most feminists do.

      Most of the feminists I know are straight and either married or partnered - they clearly don’t hate all men. Some maybe do, but I don’t think it’s the majority.

      I don’t know where this is true, but certainly not in Western countries, where such discrimination by gender is illegal.

      I’m in the US and it’s absolutely endemic. Women still make significantly less than men on average and gender discrimination is baked right into jobs. My city starts teachers at $56k and police officers at $70k - one of those jobs requires a GED and the other requires a Bachelors degree. Even with a Master’s teachers can make as little as $61k - and that’s entirely because it’s traditionally a “women’s job”. Can you name any male dominated field where most workers have a master’s degree and make that little?

      Europe’s maybe a little better, but there’s still no country where women outearn men - if there really was equality there you’d expect to see that look more like a bell curve.

      • a-man-from-earth@kbin.socialOP
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        1 year ago

        Most of the feminists I know are straight and either married or partnered - they clearly don’t hate all men.

        Most feminists collectivize men as “the patriarchy” and hold them collectively accountable for a host of societal problems. And whenever an individual man misbehaves, they often immediately link that back to the patriarchal collective.

        You may not recognize that as hate, but what is effectively the difference?

        Women still make significantly less than men on average

        Not for the same job with the same responsibilities, working the same hours. If women want to make the same or more than men, then they can step up and do the same jobs for the same hours as men.

        My city starts teachers at $56k and police officers at $70k

        Even taking school shootings into account, one of these jobs is significantly more dangerous than the other and requires shift work. And again, if women want to make more money, then they should become police officers instead of teachers… Who’s stopping them?

        there’s still no country where women outearn men

        That’s because men are still expected to be the primary providers. And unfortunately that’s not something easily changed. Most women expect that, and feel ill at ease when roles are reversed. Do you really want to force women into dangerous or strenuous high-earning jobs? Or maybe we can respect our men more who bring home the bacon, so to say?

        • RandoCalrandian@kbin.social
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          1 year ago

          I wish it was more surprising to me that this person genuinely went to “This female dominated field starts at less pay than this entirely different male dominated field, wymyn are swo oppwessed!”

      • RandoCalrandian@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        I’m also from the US and you’re full of shit

        Women in the 18-30 age bracket are out-earning their equivalent male counterparts by a significant margin at this point, across most fields

        • vlakas@kbin.social
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          1 year ago

          Exactly. Of course men in their 50s-70s will outearn women because that’s how things were in the past. The future is clearly shown by how much money 20 year olds are making. The only reason young women are making less is because they choose to stop working and have a kid (And yes, men are pressured to have kids too).

          • RandoCalrandian@kbin.social
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            1 year ago

            but men are pressured to work even harder to support that kid

            Male workers having children then becomes an economic benefit, as the man has to work harder

            Female workers having children is an economic loss, as the worker stops working entirely.

            From an financial point of view, anyways

            Another reason why i’m all pro WFH policies. It gets men back in constant contact with their children and makes all the excuses a woman might make to not have to work anymore really weak.