This is no way to argue. It’s only pointing with fingers while victimizing yourself.
You are the man in the comic
Not at all. People are more complex. What’s the idea here, everyone who disagrees with this meme is mysoginist (evil)? This is MAGA level of grouping.
My sis had a phase with this style of “discussing” while growing up. That’s why i react to it.
And yeah, the boys argument is dumb too.
You are the man in the comic
Bad bot
Cope
People like her would be the reason I’m against the current wave of feminism.
How come? It’s not sexism to want equal rights.
It’s sexism to have gained equal rights, but still believe there isn’t equality. So, “focusing on the inequality of women” translates to “we want special treatment”.
Unfortunately for those kinds of people, equality is a bitch and means nobody is entitled.
When it comes to special treatment and not equality, I’m actually okay with some of it. Like women’s abuse shelters, pregnancy support, workplace harassment prevention, reproductive health care access, and domestic violence protections aren’t really bad in my opinion. Is there one you want to get rid of?
Having them around isn’t a problem. But let’s put something into perspective; an abuse victim from… I think Canada… Tried seeking help, but nobody took him seriously because he was a guy, and he said his wife abused him.
He ended up setting up a shelter for abused men, which was a major uphill battle for him because… Well, men just don’t get abused by women. Women are always the victim.
He eventually ended up committing suicide.
The shelter he set up in Canada still exists, thankfully.
But the problem still exists to this day. Women don’t abuse men. Women don’t rape men. Just look at the statistics! Except the statistics rely on reporting, and the reporting only works if reports are actually taken seriously.
So, do I want womens shelters to disappear? No of course not. Domestic abuse is a very real thing and everyone deserves to be sheltered from that. But the key word here is everyone. No special treatment that makes it almost impossible for male shelters to exist.
So I’m OK with none of it. I wonder how many males will come forward about abuses when society opens up to actually listen. How many young boys inappropriately treated by their female teachers. How many teenage boys that got exploited during a party.
This may certainly help turning young men away from the so-called “manosphere”. Radicalisation helps nobody.
I feel like this is a good argument for meninism, but it’s not really a good reason to be against feminism. I don’t think you can house women and men together in the same shelter because of trauma from their abuser. If the man can just enter the same shelter that the woman went to to try to get away from him it defeats the purpose of the women’s shelter in the first place.
In other words, instead of being against women wanting special treatment like domestic abuse shelters, wouldn’t it be better to be in support of additional shelters, inclusive of men, instead? Saying women don’t deserve “special treatment” is saying that special treatment should be eliminated, not extended to more genders.
Edit: Like I don’t think true equity should be the goal for cases like domestic abuse, just because it’s a numbers game. Domestic abuse happens a lot more often to women than to men. The goal should be to help anyone who needs it, even it isn’t equal between genders.
Imagine if we had a group that funded shelters for men and women. Nothing says they have to be in the same facilities - women aren’t all lumped into one facility, either, so this shouldn’t be inconceivable. Also, would it not be equality if all abuse victims, both women and men, got the help they need?
I don’t want “meninism”. And I don’t want equity, not before we have equality. And equality only exists as an absolute (no, this doesn’t mean housing everyone in the same facilities. Why woukd you get that impression?)
Where is the narrative that women can’t abuse or rape men rooted? Who says that? Is it generally women who say that? Where does this issue start?
Edit: Downvote all you want, not liking the answer doesn’t invalidate it as the answer. Maybe answer the question.
You want the answer to be some sort of side. But in actuality it’s everyone. Everyone benefits from having an easy scapegoat. It skirts responsibility.
Is that what you tell yourself to deny that being a man doesn’t protect you from the persecution of patriarchy and “masculine” men?
Do you know who is fighting for male sexual abuses to be taken seriously? Feminists.
Haha hahahaha haha haha ha!
Boy aren’t you funny.
Ragebait art by someone who wants to seek rage from both sides. Mastered art.
‘Both sides’? No, I assure you only one side would rage over this and if you felt rage, you should work on that.
The only thing the guy said was wrong was that it’s reverse sexism. If he said “so your main concern is improving things for women? That’s not egalitarian unless you believe women have it much worse than men today.” It’s someone misinformed being told he’s an enemy. Ragebait
Women do have it much worse than men today. And I say this as a man, we hold so much privilege compared to any one else it’s not funny.
So then he is misinformed, which many people are. I don’t put someone into the “enemy” box for being misinformed or stubborn, that’s pretty much the default state of most humans.
When you combine ignorance with combativeness you are a roadblock that needs to go.
If he was simply uninformed and sough to learn, he wouldn’t trying to make himself to be a victim to ‘win’ an argument in his head. This is reactionary behaviour, and reactionaries are the enemy.
Yeah, it’s definitely not a bad thing to focus on raising women to the same level in society as men.
The problem is, like with any group, the radicals who use the movement to spread hate and tarnish the reputation of everyone involved. Religion has the same issue.
In this case, it’s the ones who think equality means swapping positions of power so men are the ones who are oppressed. They give the whole movement a bad name and lead to associations like this.
Honestly, the well might be so poisoned at this point that rebranding with an umbrella term might not be a terrible choice, although it’s terrible that it’s not a terrible choice. It shouldn’t be this way, but humans suck.
Who are you referencing when you reference, “the ones who think equality means swapping positions of power so men are the ones who are oppressed?” I’m curious to see what an example or two of that would look like.
I’ve have an example of this that happen recently. It was on a post about Spain (iirc, might have been Italy) making killing women because of their gender a hate crime.
People were arguing that men should receive harsher punishments for killing women because of their gender than women killing men because of their gender.
Which isn’t equality since criminal prosecution should be on a case by case basis. It should be a hate crime to kill anyone because of the way they were born. The fact that women are more often victims just means that more men will be prosecuted than women, but the sentences should be the same.
There’s also the crazies who think that any time a woman has sex with a man, the woman is being raped.
What they refer to is for example women using accusations of inappropriate behavior to ruin reputations and promotion chances of men to get ahead.
One that also pops up is how divorce is used as a way to strip mine the wealth of men because “the system” will advantage women always.
That’s some talking points you usually see.
Such people represent such a minority of a minority that their opinion is entirely irrelevant.
As long as men continue to have a kneejerk reaction to the word feminism, I think it holds educational value in agitation.
Their opinion isn’t irrelevant, though, as shown by the comic. It only takes a vocal minority to taint the public image.
It only took 19 Muslims to make people associate them with terrorists.
Yeah, it’s definitely not a bad thing to focus on raising women to the same level in society as men.
The problem is, Strawman Strawman Strawman
In this case, Strawman Strawman
Where are these hoards of feminists committing “reverse sexism” and oppressing men other than a random tumblr or twitter comment? Where is there institutional power and how are men structurally oppressed in a way not obviously connected to the patriarchy?
I never said hoards. All it takes is a vocal minority.
It didn’t take hoards of Muslims to make people associate them with terrorists.
And the girl is the reason why feminists have such a bad reputation
Just don’t be a dick and treat everyone equal and with respect and we’ll be fine.
Now watch the down votes come in because I said that everyone should be treated equal and with respect and that the girl was wrong.
because I said that everyone should be treated equal and with respect
You’re either delusional or making an incredibly bad faith argument.
You had all the pieces in front of you, labeled and sorted, and you still put them together wrong. Huh.
He had a point but he kinda fucked it up in the third panel.
Tbh I think the term is kind of unfortunate exactly because of this confusion and rebuttal. We would spend less time discussing this if it was actually called egalitarianism or whatever, I feel. People use the “fem” in feminism to make the movement seem unequal. I think the term is just kind of unnecessarily confusing and egalitarianism would be less ambiguous.
But I don’t really care that much, the ideas behind are obviously more important than the word we use - but words are also important.
People use the “fem” in feminism to make the movement seem unequal.
Do the money that feminist organizations also go towards problems that affect men, like shelters for abused men, helping men with legal fees to retain access to children or similar causes?
Or does it (obviously) go towards bettering women’s lives (which is the obvious stated purpose of feminism)?
There isn’t much wrong with establishing necessary things for women. Pretending those organizations are going to spend their efforts on male specific gender egalitarian issues is unrealistic.
On top of that, there are multiple incentives to help women and girls go into male dominated fields. This is good. I have yet to see incentives to help men and boys go into female dominated fields. There has been a feminist social change on how male nurses and such are seen, which is a good thing, but, organisations as such are not out there setting up drives to get more boys and men in those industries.
Sure, but its exactly because words are important that its called feminism. When you’re talking about “egalitarianism” the goal is so vague that everyone can be on it. That’s why you have names like “feminism”, because that movement is focused on how we live in a patriarchal society and how women have been historically treated unjustly under it. Or “black lives matter”, which, although I’m sure would also agree that “all lives matter”, are focused on why historically, black lives specifically haven’t as much. Same thing for trans rights.
When you combine that all into one, all the nuance of the different groups gets lost and the average becomes “yeah but human rights are so much better than 50 years ago” to shut down discussion.
Wish I had more than one upvote to give. Movements and groups name themselves after their targeted focus, yet you never see someone going up to the teacher’s union rep and saying “but shouldn’t you also care about the other jobs?”
Say what you will about PETA (I’m sure I could say a lot), but you never see someone criticising them for their “narrow minded focus solely on the welfare of animals, without regard for the ethical treatment of humans, plants and fungi”
You’ll never catch someone criticising a homeless shelter for not doing enough to shine light on the prevalence of gun violence.
So why does anyone treat these bad-faith criticisms as anything more or less than attempts to silence the already-marginalised groups for which these movements are advocating?
yet you never see someone going up to the teacher’s union rep and saying “but shouldn’t you also care about the other jobs?”
For ducks sakes that’s literally how unions are SUPPOSED TO WORK. No wonder the US worker’s rights are so weak if that’s what you think, and based off your comment you’re on the side of the workers!
Here in Finland when one union goes on strike for a cause other unions join in! Airline union going on strike? Guess what, so I’d the railway, buses, logistics, grocery workers, and so on, with more joining in if it’s for a really good reason, even teacher unions.
What you’re effectively saying is, “We’re specifically not focused on equality, only on where women have it worse than men.” And that’s fine, but then don’t also say, “If you support equality you support feminism,” because both of those things can’t be true at the same time. “We want to achieve equality between the sexes and for the most part women are disadvantaged, so we will focus on the inequality that is impacting women until they are at least on the same level where inequality is impacting men,” would be more appropriate in my opinion, but certainly isn’t going to be a winning slogan.
You have just perfectly stated my point: a teacher’s union rep CLEARLY cares about other workers, but that’s not the POINT of a Teacher’s Union. I’m saying that you don’t see anyone complaining that there’s a union to protect those specific labourers, because such a complaint would be patently ridiculous. It is similarly ridiculous to assume that a Feminist opposes the rights of non-women just because their movement is focused on women. That is my point.
And my point is that it’s self defeating to call yourself a feminist if you’re egalitarian unless there’s a reason for it. Otherwise, just call yourself egalitarian to show you’re about equality to the general population, therefore you can recruit others to the cause more easily.
My wife doesn’t call herself a “teacher’s unionist” if asked, she just calls herself a unionist, because the rights of all workers supercedes those of only teachers. Unless talking specifically to other teachers, parent students, etc, she champions the rights of unions themselves, and supports and encourages people to join a union, and union.
The issue with many feminist groups is that they insist on being feminists first and foremost rather than egalitarians. This is what has lead in part to the existence of TERFs - by hyper focusing on women’s rights instead of just agreeing “yeah, and I’m also an egalitarian”, you open the door to exclusionary groups. Because while egalitarianism is open to all who are inclusive, feminism is not by definition of focus.
It’s not the only group afflicted by this, and it’s part of the reason why the right wing has managed to gain so much power over the years - because while they all might be different flavors of hate and contempt, they are at least united globally behind hate and contempt.
Meanwhile we have those who rally behind compassion and equality arguing we shouldn’t all be considered compassionate and pro equality because there’s “specializations” and that uniting under one banner weakens the cause somehow 🙄
Every. Single. Time.
Y’all really don’t get why subdividing makes movements weaker.
Here, I’ll give you an easy way to see the flaw I your argument. Apply it to this flag:
According to your logic, this flag shouldn’t be used, because it’s more vague than just the lesbian or trans flag for example.
Yet, the reason this flag is used is because unity is more powerful than division. All those groups are more powerful in fighting for their rights together than they are separate.
And that’s the flaw behind modern feminism - the issues feminism was created to tackle have been greatly delt with. While some certainly do still exist, they are now also caused by things other than a patriarchy, such as oligarchy. And thus tackling the issues that affect women too in modern times needs the involvement of other groups as well, such as unions and even anarchists, to effectively combat.
In such, movements and groups like these would more be much more effective in modern society reforming under an umbrella one such as egalitarianism, much like the LGBTQ+ ones have.
Multiple causes together are more powerful than a single ones divided. Continuing this insistence is literally missing the forest for the trees.
Actually, I don’t really like the progress flag and think it contributes to division. The original rainbow flag is perfect: sexuality and gender expression are a broad spectrum, the stripes don’t represent individual groups, the whole rainbow represents all groups.
The progress flag adds symbols for specific groups which were already included in the rainbow. Once you start singling groups out piecemeal, you enter an endless spiral of having to individually acknowledge every group, and there’s always another subdivision being left out.
I also like the reclamation of the word “queer” and think it’s a far more unifying label than LGBTQIA+, for the same reason.
It’s fine to have focused actions, but unified movements are better.
I dont see how they were arguing for subdivisions. There are in fact many problems to solve, and we should unite to solve them. But if we are talking about a specific problem, we should use specific language. This shouldnt prevent us from seeing that there are common roots to all these problems.
Because they are arguing against the “egalitarian” label rather than supporting both it and feminism.
Today’s specific problems tend to be rooted in a more broader affecting cause. The Waltons and Sacklers for example are not all men, but women too. The issue that affects women the most today are no longer about simply just the patriarchy but instead of the wealthy versus the rest.
After all, the right wing usually doesn’t have issues with abortion itself - only with abortion of minorities and the poor. Of the others, not of themselves.
Its the “LGBTQ+ movement” not the “everyone movement” because it’s calling out how queer people have been historically marginalized and persecuted and not everyone. Cisgender, heterosexual people are the norm, that’s why this subcommunity exists. It just so happens that there are a lot of subgroups within this small community that share very similar idealogies and so it becomes (more or less) one bigger movement.
Moreover, the flag you sent came to be to specifically to call out all the different groups in the umbrella movement, to not let them get drowned out by the vagueness of the combined movement.
All these groups are fighting for different but not necessarily opposing things. Fighting simply for a “better life for all”, while noble, is really naive. You need to get specific about the things you want to tackle.
It’s not like these groups fight alone, you can be a feminist, anti-fascist, queer person of color and support multiple things you believe in.
Fighting simply for a “better life for all”, while noble, is really naive. You need to get specific about the things you want to tackle.
Egalitarianism isn’t just “better life for all” without a plan, just like Feminism isn’t “Equality for Women” without a plan.
Uniting under the banner of Egalitarianism as a group, rather than stating you’re not that but are instead a feminist, would be like saying “I’m not in the LGBTQ+ movement, I’m a Trans Rights activist”.
Everytime people like you insist (even if coming from a place with good intentions) we shouldn’t consider ourselves egalitarian, you weaken all groups that would benefit from standing united under it. There’s a reason right wing propaganda networks constantly argue against the term “Egalitarian” and try to keep groups like Feminists isolated from others - because it would hurt them if it actually gained in popularity.
There are indeed many people who would not qualify as egalitarian. Libertarians, Republicans, Musk - all of them hate it, because “equality for all” is in fact not as broad as you would hope, unfortunately.
I completely agree with what you’re saying. However, on the other hand, “black lives matter” and “feminism” are equally exposed to the “all lives matter” and “equality” rebuttals from people that want to shut them down.
I think some progress could be made if those championing equality made a concerted effort to gain ownership of the “all lives matter” and “equality” slogans/campaigns, and then used that ownership to point out the problems (all lives matter, and black lives are currently being stepped on, etc.)
The problem with that is that people who use egalitarianism or all lives matter don’t actually want equality, they want oppressed people to shut up
We really need a way to publicly name and shame these people.
It’s two different arguments. Individually there are many people who see women having it better then themselves and of course they will be upset when society is saying they don’t. Empathy here is understanding both sides have some valid points. Men do have a lot of problems in society. An entire generation left behind because many social programs focused only on boosting women while forgetting men. Telling those men to suck it up or that they’re wrong isn’t the answer. It’s only going to radicalize sides. Both sides should be addressed.
An entire generation left behind
Where is the source for this?
Garbage article confusing classism with sexism. Ultimately DEI only helped a small percentage of women access jobs they would not be considered for in the past. It is called competition, but this guy wants to try and create a narrative that doesn’t exist except in his head.
Whether it is another male or a well qualified woman it doesn’t change you were not in the right spot at the right time. Blaming a competitive employment space on DEI is just stupid. There are hundreds if not thousands of candidates that all want that job.
The statistics don’t lie as well ~45 percent low level managers are women. So men still have an advantage, but it gets worse with seniors management only about ~35 percent. Even worse CEO ~10 percent. Doesn’t look like DEI was an advantage after all.
Absolutely top tier failure to read the article.
I read all the way through it to the end, a sappy father son epic of victim blaming. Garbage.
Feminism isn’t just about women.
Toxic masculinity isn’t caused just by men.
Black Lives Matter isn’t just about black lives.
“Believe women” isn’t about blindly believing what women say. “Christian charity” is the least charitable thing in the world.
“Defund the police” and “abolish the police” aren’t about eliminating police forces and letting crime run rampant.
AI is anything but intelligent.
“Global Warming” sounds tame for what’s actually happening: “climate disruption” and “climate catastrophe”. A bunch of countries with “communist” or “democratic” in their names are anything but.Words are stupid. Slogans are lazy. People lie.
Which is why I like the lyrics of ‘Enjoy the Silence’ so much.
Every single line item in your comment became ammunition for foreign agents to get into our culture over the last 20 years and just escalate the FUCK out of both sides of each idea there.
It was directly from the KGB handbook written over 50 years ago, that if you infiltrate a nation’s culture and just amplify the most radical takes of both sides of every issue, it will create so much chaos and completely destabilize a culture so that people tune out and stop trusting each other or any news story they read. This has the effect of making the population just default to whatever state media they see and stop caring about social issues entirely. It’s been shocking seeing how effectively it’s played out in the US.
I watched it happen, I was on the frontlines, managing a few social sites and moderating a huge subreddit about relationships. It was a creeping infection at first, but eventually it was like Helm’s Deep, but instead of orcs outside, it was astroturfers, crybullies, sea lions, and the entire goddamn ZOO of bad-actors and subversive chuds. For every horrible, shit-mouthed incel ranting about how women need to be put in cages, there was also some delusional, insane “feminist” screaming about how all men are rapists and men should never be left alone with children.
I gave up the fight, reddit banned me for being an involved human, but it continues to this day, getting worse by the day.
I hate the Kremlin so much. I hope the whole russia will crumble and disappear.
Genocide isn’t the answer either
What are you even talking about?
The KREMLIN and Russia as a country should be no more. Who talked about a genocide?
No walking it back now. The destruction of a nation frequently leads to the slaughter of it people, look to the Middle East for plenty of examples.
Yes but what to do with imperial russia then? They are killing its own people too already.
They got their chance in the nineties, the west poured billions into russia, helped with tech and so on.
My suggestion is NOT GENOCIDE is that clear enough? How stupid do I have to make it.l before you understand the obliteration of a people and culture are wrong, evil actions?
So apparently being an egalitarian does not include women’s rights to the OP.
Okay, yikes… If you’re gonna ragebait, at least be smart about it. Acting like a Low-IQ monkey will only embarass you even more.
Answer the question Mr.“News flash, women have it faaaaaaaaar better than men.” - Do you think #AllLivesMatter?
The question should be asked to YOU, not me.
Okay Mr.Racist & Sexist, whatever you tell yourself.
“Oh this is great, keep going. Keep taking that mask off.” - [email protected]
What mask ??
- Ukraine’s Women
and ChildrenFlee as Men Must Stay to Fight - Men being KIDNAPPED in Ukraine for the war grind
Very excited to see how you will weasel out of this ? (I wonder how long until you use “muh patriarchy affects men too”)
UPDATE: You disliked it instantly. Good. I guess we can safely call you a fascist.
https://www.hrw.org/topic/womens-rights/women-and-armed-conflict
Please, please, pleeeeease post all your shit takes on CMV or something. It’d be really good for you to air this out even more in the public, let everyone know how you feel.
Don’t worry have patience. BTW what’s CMV ?
UPDATE: thank you for the patience, I was lucky enough to stumble onto these videos:
This has a lot of sources, which anyone who is interested will find it well… alarming.
As for you Deceptichum You literally want to incite harassment just because I had empathy for the male gender & as for your post. One of them is just an opinion (because MEN also get raped during conflicts, along with getting murdered) & this is the same UN that does not have a single day of observance for men & backs a genocide. Now that I know what CMV is, I can tell you that I’m not into changing your mind, that’s for human beings
As for me, I am already in hell, so your wishes for me to suffer aren’t a new thing. I have half-a-mind to create my own instance so that my fellow progressive men can talk about their issues in peace.
- Ukraine’s Women
This is what I don’t get about the manosphere movement.
Young guys watch these influencers being abrasive macho dorks, talking exactly like this. They somehow combine that “dorky, petty semantic minutia” argument style with being aggressively condescending and being a macho jerk, all at once. I’m a pretty isolated guy, yet it’s amazing how grating it is to me.
And men watching these influencers conclude that… other people will appreciate that?
Because the other side tells you that you suck and your problems are not real.
If you are a boy and you look around one side blaming you for all of societies ills and the other simply is not what aide are you going to gravitate to?
Things are already equal. Toxic masculinity comes from toxic femininity. Toxic femininity comes from toxic masculinity. It’s been like that forever, but we raised the living standard enough so now we can argue about this with our excess spare time.
Also, it is another way of divide and conquer to make sure that we keep fighting each other and not the billionaire class who needs to be defeated if you want to have a world in 20 years from now.
The quantum head fuck Is that men and women have always been equal in a weird way and at the same time equality can never be achieved because giving birth was given to one of the two sexes and not the other.
When it comes to class warfare, equality can be achieved.
Because while intelligence and skill and talent may not be equally distributed, the right to live is.
Things are already equal
My friend, go outside.
or even pull up the news
I don’t have to, the downvote ratio tells me the divide and conquer is alive and well.
‘The news’ is kinda how they do it.
The downvote ratio tells you you’re being ignorant. That’s literally it.
Men and women will never be equal just like any animal in nature
Under that logic, no one is equal. I knew a tall, reedy guy who was a great artist. I’m more average height, a little stocky, and am great at math. Are we equal because we both happen to save similar (quite likely not identical!) genitalia? I went to the same school as a women who was about my height, weighed a little less than me, seemed to have a good handle on math, and had a programming style so similar to mine that I couldn’t tell which of us wrote it unless I actually remembered writing it. Is she more or less equal to me than the guy I knew simply because of the greater difference (again, presumably) between our genitalia?
Tbh, yes, everyone is unequal. Everyone has unequal talents and abilities, everyone has unequal chances and reducing this down only to the gender is deeply lacking in understanding.
And this leads to very weird situations like actresses complaining that it’s discrimination if they only earn a hundred million for a movie because a male actor on the same movie earned two hundred million.
There’s certainly specific gender unfairness, e.g. the distribution of chores and work, but in many cases there’s far bigger discrimination along lines we really don’t care about.
For example, a female capitalist earns as much as thousands or even millions of other women, and yet there’s little tangible shitstorms against class devices compared to the shitstorms raging against gender divides.
So while feminism is certainly important, it sadly is often abused by the wealthy and governing classes to distract from the class conflict that is more and more of an issue.
To put it more pointedly: According to the German Wikipedia, the country with the best female to male gender pay ratio is Burundi. Because if nobody earns anything, everyone earns the same. And while the male and female peasants are fighting each other, the rich get to eat everyone’s share.
So, once again, equity is the goal and pointing out how there are differences on some arbitrary line detracts from that goal. On the other hand, giving everyone equal opportunities and equal access to support regardless of those differences so they can all reach some reasonable standard for quality of life helps to achieve that equity, whereas focusing on the lack of equity for some specific demographic may not.
I honestly don’t know which way this comic is intending to go.
That’s alarming as this is very obviously in favour of feminism.
All lives matter~
Once upon a time I objected to the Black Lives Matter moniker. I didn’t disagree with the message that black people need to be counted more than they were. I have always thought that I counted black people as equals to everyone, so I just subconsciously completed the sentence by adding the word “more” in my head. Thinking to myself “oh, they have a terrible branding issue because everyone who reads the phrase Black Lives Matter will automatically just think they mean Black Lives Matter More”. But ultimately that wasn’t the problem. It wasn’t the phrase that was the issue.
What was the real problem was the inherent racism that had be ingrained into my consciousness by untold years of media and politics that continually make black people out to be lazy selfish useless people who only want a handout. (See Ronald Reagan’s speech about the “welfare queen”. Hint, he wasn’t talking about a white woman.)
In the end the problem I had with the phrase “Black Lives Matter” wasn’t their fault for picking a bad phrase. It was, in fact, me and my own preconceived notions of what a black person is and should be. All based on how society has portrayed them my entire life.
So now I very loudly say “BLACK LIVES MATTER”. And more people need to embrace this instead of trying to logic it out of existence with the pointless platitude “well ackchually all lives matter” like some snivelling little child with an inferiority complex. Because yes all lives should matter but in our fucked up society black lives usually don’t.
I mean, the phrase wasn’t good either, hence why you also ended up thinking that.
Black Lives Also Matter would have been much better, as it alludes that there is enough prejudice that society must be reminded, and the acronym is BLAM, which could be used as onomatopoeia invoking gun shots, which directly ties to the causes original protests against the police. It also sounds more of a plea for help than it does an aggressive simple statement - which considering the movement aimed to be peaceful, is the kind of sound you’d want.
The truth is these kinds of things heavily rely on optics, and BLM was a very bad choice of slogan. People forget even the whole Rosa Parks thing was carefully orchestrated for a reason - you need good causes, good figures, and good slogans for rallying support.
BLM is so bad I wonder if the push to use it was some kind of counter psy-op to then push things like All Lives Matter to help discredit it, because I swear I heard the BLAM acronym being used as well in the beginning. I would imagine such authorities would have learned well how to discredit such movements ever since the days and success of the Civil Rights era.
I like Black Lives Matter because on its face it is a “no duh” statement (for most…)
To me, it is pointing out the absurd disconnect between what (almost) everybody believes without question and the actual state of society and policing in particular. There’s something stronger to “we matter” vs “we matter too”, but I’m struggling to put it into words. For some reason, I feel like BLAM or something similar loses some impact.
But that’s just in my head; as far as the success of a movement, you’re probably right. Also, if it was BLAM from the start, maybe I wouldn’t dislike it.
The reason why “we matter” is stronger than “we matter too” is because it doesn’t reference the other and thus is a purely one-sided thing, which can totally be read as “we matter more”.
I’m not sure though if that’s a good thing, depending on what’s the goal.
Any minority movement always has to keep in mind that it’s the majority that decides. Suffragettes did not take voting rights by force. They got voting rights because they managed to find enough allies in the male population that they were given voting rights.
Black slaves didn’t end slavery themselves. They managed to find enough allies that would be willing to fight and die in a civil war to give them their freedom.
And a group consisting of roughly 12% of a country’s population will not take the country by force and change laws by themselves.
“Black lives matter” is an incredibly polarizing statement that causes opposition (as evidenced e.g. by “Blue lives matter”, which totally has the implied “more” attached). It’s comparatively easy to say “No, the life of a black suspect does not matter more than the life of a police officer”, if you already lean in that direction. It’s a good slogan if you want to polarize and divide.
“Black lives matter too” is a statement that’s really hard to disagree with, because of course black lives matter too, unless you are a hard-core white supremacist.
So if the goal is to get the majority on your side and actually cause change, I think “Black lives matter too” would have been the better slogan.
Ugh, please be a joke.
Obviously
Sorry, I’ve had some pretty disappointing interactions with Lemmy users these past 2 days. It’s getting hard to tell.
Women have equality and a generally preferable status in Western society. I sure as hell wish I was a woman. My sexual assault would’ve been taken seriously, police would be less suspicious and hostile toward me, better education opportunities, better financial support.
Focusing on their issues is comparable to an egalitarian focusing on issues that affect white people. I’m sure everyone here would question that, right?
As a guy that was falsely accused of domestic violence and rape, I experienced firsthand the huge difference in how such accusations are viewed. I was assumed guilty, especially by law enforcement, the legal community and friends, neighbors and coworkers I wasn’t close with. It was tough, and embarrassing too.
That said, I fully understand that I was the odd case. Far more women genuinely experience sexual assuault and abuse by men and struggle to get the support they need than men that experience what I did… the difference is orders of magnitude. Just because I experienced some unequal treatment based on my gender doesn’t change the fact that women disproportionately suffer greatly at the hands of men and awareness and change is needed.
My personal experience doesn’t diminish the vastly greater numbers of women that suffer worse.
It’s almost like things can happen independently of one another, and that it’s wrong either way. Nobody is saying “sexual assault against men doesn’t exist” when they say “1 in 3 women have experienced sexual assault”.
It’s depressing that we have to point out such basic ideas.
Yeah yeah #alllivesmatter, we get it.
Empathy gap in action. You just dismissed a SA survivor because they don’t agree with you and are male. Think on this for a bit.
So am I, yet you’re happy to dismiss me :) I also never went to the police because I knew they would never believe me. Likewise I know many women do not report it for exactly the same reason. I’m not misogynistic enough to think women have the better end of SA.
I don’t value the opinion of sexists. Just like I don’t value J.K. Rowling’s opinion despite her also being a victim of S.A.
Think on this for a bit.
Ironic that you would claim I’m saying “all lives matter” in some way.
I pointed out something that is much more a problem for men than women, then you lament about how it’s also a problem for women. That is textbook “all lives matter” rhetoric.
Or are you claiming that women DON’T get more support when it comes to SA?
I didn’t dismiss you, I pointed out the harm you did to an SA survivor. I never said men had it worse, you did that to try and discredit my point. And you should have empathy for your enemies, it helps you understand them.
The person I replied to said men had it worse. You apparently didn’t even know what I talking about when you replied to me if you didn’t know that.
And fuck no, do you empathy for Trump?
As someone who has watched family rot from the inside due to dementia, yeah. It’s a horrific fate. Not gonna cry over him but a “that sucks man” is only human.
I wish every second of his life is full of suffering before he dies.
The empathy gap was the OP assuming women don’t have the same issues, and more
Not at all. I just think women have fewer issues, or less severe ones in Western societies. Could be a “grass is greener” situation, but that’s just my opinion. I can think of very few reasons to not prefer being a woman.
This reeks of red pill incel rhetoric, honestly.
The president of the United States was involved with sex trafficker. I promise you, sexual assault against women is not being taken seriously either.
You mean the sex trafficker who went to prison for exactly that?
I wish the guy who assaulted me went to prison for it… or anything, really. Instead, when I reported it, they just took photos of my extensive bruising and lacerations on my neck from strangulation, “lost” the clothes with DNA I gave them, and did nothing to the man. They asked me multiple times if I was gay, as if they didn’t believe I wasn’t (as if that’d even matter).
I had to file a federal lawsuit myself since no lawyers care, and men don’t have the same organizational or social support. I’m alone in this, currently in the federal court of appeals retrying to reverse a summary judgment.
“But women have that problem too!” is literally an “All lives matter” take, is it not?
You mean the sex trafficker who went to prison for exactly that?
No, I mean the president who has been found liable for SA, and countless other accusations and blatantly obvious corruptions around this trafficking ring.
I wish the guy who assaulted me went to prison for it… or anything, really. Instead, when I reported it, they just took photos of my extensive bruising and lacerations on my neck from strangulation, “lost” the clothes with DNA I gave them, and did nothing to the man. They asked me multiple times if I was gay, as if they didn’t believe I wasn’t (as if that’d even matter).
I agree. It’s horrible that this happened to you. This is a huge problem, and it’s not exclusive to male victims like you seem to think.
“But women have that problem too!” is literally an “All lives matter” take, is it not?
You’re truly a lost cause here. Won’t be engaging any further with this disengenous argument.
It’s also a small demonstration that that the empathy gap, the one that prefers women to men, comes mostly from men.
Of those I’ve spoken to, most women take male SA quite seriously. Most women are fine with them making more than the man. Most women agree that young men are being left behind
It’s the guys who are the ones with the singular answer: suck it up.
Anecdotes aren’t data. Show data
Huh? I was literally making a statement that added onto your’s.
Edit: wow is this like an astroturfing account? I feel like I’ve seen many these days on Lemmy…
Nah I just don’t like sexist trash
Yup “Equalists” are just the same as all lives matter folks completely missing the point and trying to poison the well.
It’s like saying “I want everyone to be equal” and saying both men and women should be given a 10% pay raise to account for the gender pay gap.
Sure, you raised women’s wages to cover the gap… but now the gap remains because you also increased men’s by the same amount.
That’s false. If you want to make everyone equal, you close the pay gap.
To me, egalitarianism is making sure neither group is treated unfarly, so they should both receive the same pay for the same work, but also the same punishment for the same crime, etc.
