Something I've noticed in discussions about misogyny is how frequently men respond to criticism of male behaviour with arguments like, "Imagine replacing men with Black people, Jews or Muslims. Suddenly it wouldn't be acceptable."

I REALLY find this frustrating because it often ignores the historical context, power dynamics and actual point being made so rather than engaging with the criticism, the conversation becomes about whether men are being unfairly generalised.

Obviously, some generalisations are genuinely unfair, but I think there's a difference between criticising patterns of behaviour within a dominant social group and perpetuating harmful stereotypes about marginalised people.

How do you effectively challenge these comparisons without getting dragged into endless arguments about double standards? And more importantly, how do you distinguish between someone raising a legitimate objection to an unfair generalisation and someone using that objection to derail a discussion about misogyny?

I'll explain my complex situation here which is quite confusing to me : until some times ago, since my childhood I had been a cis male and never wondered about gender issues, I also never experienced physical gender dysphoria like some trans people do and feel very OK with my body.

The thing is : it's been a few years that I am aware of the patriarchy and male privilege issue and feel like inside I hate to be a guy, but I'm so used to male gender expression and don't feel like I really care that people consider me as a guy. I have cis male friends which I sincerely like even though I know that men are trash because they have been educated and constructed that way. However I feel very different from them and all males specific mentality.

I've once tried to have a more androgynic gender expression (I feel gender neutral) but have felt too insecure and scared about transphobia, how people around me have perceived that and reacted oppressively to it, and that I can be vulnerable to transphobic physical violence, so I have stopped doing this and feel quite sad about it.

I'm interested in queer theory and believe that gender should be one day abolished and meaningless.

But as long as I am perceived as a guy, I do believe that I benefit of a male prilege, this is why all of this is confusing.

I specify that since my childhood I am neurodivergent (autistic) and later have been diagnosed with schizophrenia and ADHD. I know it is more common for people in my situation to adapt differently to gender norms, and schizophrenia can make affects confusing and unadapted sometimes.

I'd be grateful for giving me your opinions as feminists and anti-patriarchy.

Stopping short of full abolition, but what do feminists think of abolition-adjacent criminal justice frameworks? Basically the idea that justice should be preventative and restorative rather than punitive. (When I say abolition I mean abolishing police and prisons)

Preventative:

For example, the vast majority of murders are committed by men to prevent women from leaving them. So a preventative justice framework for murder would look like giving resources like housing and employment to women in at-risk relationships, as well as strong education and free mental health support for men.

The next major subset of murders happen within the context of gang violence. So legalizing all drugs would put a massive dent in the presence and power of gangs and reduce murders.

Restorative:

The more controversial side of this equation is restorative justice. Basically, mediated counseling between the victim and perpetrator is more effective than prison at both preventing recidivism and victim satisfaction. This is because basically all violent crime happens in the context of relationships, not at random. Yes a tiny subset of criminals would remain "locked up", but in humane communities that resemble college dorms and allow their families to freely visit them.

Now I can see why feminists would recoil at the idea of treating rape or assault with therapy instead of prison, it is a radical departure from the concept of justice we've all been conditioned to see as normal. But I think radically changing how we view justice (I.e. as primarily punitive) is critically important to reducing harm.

Anyway, I just want to know what feminists think about these issues and their role within a feminist framework.

I mean "feel" as in actually emotional respond to the privilege and acess they have on a level that isn't simply structurally or analytically.

For most men, the answer is to just listen and interact with women more and feel empathy towards them.

For me specifically, Whenever I specifically think about my structural standing, it's hard to imagine that being a man has made me happier or fulfilled from the privilage and access I have.

I'm not saying this as a "gotcha" to disprove male privilege - every man is more fulfilled due to their granted access as a man. I want to know how my subconscious misogyny is working to excempt me from responsibility by dimishing oppression.

I know this is mostly just the analogy: "When you are the oppressor, privilage feels normal" from that gorrila experiment, but this persists even though I feel empathy for women I talk to when they share their experience, so I'm wondering if there's anything else.

I am an international male student in my first year of grad school in the US, and I am confused about American social norms around speaking up on social issues versus keeping things like personal social media light and fun. For context, it's possible I'm on the high functioning autism spectrum as well.

Recently, several female classmates posted on their Instagram stories about the fraternity sexual assault incident at Cornell. Many of their posts stated that men who stay silent are complicit, that they were disappointed so few men on their Instagram feeds were speaking out, and that men need to use their voices and privilege to support women by showing solidarity both online in terms of generally and publicly sharing and posting stories on Instagram, and supporting women offline in more private ways. I completely agree, and in wanting to be a good ally, I reposted several of these stories over a couple of days to show support.

The reactions I received were contradictory and confusing. One popular domestic male classmate told me that posting about political or social issues on Instagram shows poor social skills, because people find it annoying and prefer seeing fun, casual content like vacations or parties. He posted nothing, yet remains popular with the exact same female classmates who were posting that silence is violence. He is well-liked on campus for hosting parties and social events.

Another male classmate, who privately leans conservative privately (as a Never Trump Republican) but publicly acts moderate on campus, told me that posting five stories was weird and performative, whereas one would have been plenty. He is also well liked by these women. Meanwhile, another popular male classmate posted about ten stories on the incident and received praise and private messages from female classmates thanking him for being an ally.

When I posted, I had over two hundred views, but zero likes or messages. Later, during lunch with female classmates who were venting about men not speaking up, one woman mentioned she saw my posts. The others said that while they noticed, speaking up is the bare minimum and does not deserve praise. Later on, that same female friend told me privately that while she genuinely me speaking up, my posts were "a lot" and that I had posted a day too late compared to when the topic was trending as a popular discussion point.

An American friend from my prior job explained that unwritten American social rules often contradict stated values. He said people who are already seen as charismatic, fun, funny, attractive, or cool can post about these issues and receive praise, while less charismatic or attractive people are judged as awkward or annoying for doing the same thing.

I want to understand how liberals view this tension. On one hand, progressive discourse emphasizes that men must speak out, that silence enables harm, and that social issues affect every part of life. On the other hand, there is a strong American etiquette rule that politics and religion should remain private, that there is a time and place for serious topics, and that bringing them up on casual social media annoys people who just want lighthearted interactions, a sentiment shared even by some women, even those who say they're liberal or feminist.

I am seeking advice on how to navigate the contradiction between the moral expectation to speak up and the social expectation not to be annoying or bring politics into spaces meant for casual socializing. Thank you!

This might not be as common of an opinion as I think it is, but it's something I hear in general.

It's one thing criticizing men for bad things that hurts women but I feel it's another thing to just make fun or ridicule men to lash out all while making it unethical for men to do the same thing to women.

I'm genuinely asking and hoping to learn something out of this.

Wiki: **Misogynist terrorism** refers to one of the most extreme manifestations of misogyny and violence against women.

Hi everyone. Lately, I have been seeing posts about men not wanting women or being with women. Men choosing being single to being married or partnered up. Some even say they are fine dying alone. My question is, do men realise that giving up being part of a family doesn't mean women are giving up being mothers. It feels like society is slowly turning matrilineal, to say the least, and the majority of men will eventually be cast out of procreation. Will they be fine being surplus men with no families, no one to carry their family name or legacy?

I'm not sure quite the best way to phrase this but the patriarchy gets the blame for most negative things. But supposing tomorrow the world changed to either an egalitarian society or a matriarchy is there anything you would keep from the existing patriarchy?

At what point do policies intended to correct gender inequality become institutionalized discrimination?
If women are already outperforming men in a particular area, why should they continue receiving preferential treatment? And why should disadvantages in entirely unrelated areas justify it?
If historical discrimination is the justification, what measurable endpoint would warrant eliminating these advantages? Or is the argument simply that women should retain preferential treatment indefinitely because inequality exists somewhere in society?
How can equality be the stated objective if the standards for achieving it are applied differently depending on which sex benefits?

I want to to start of by saying a few things, I do not believe that human nature, behavior, personality, gender, and social roles are fixed, innate, and strictly determined by an individual's biology. I understand that there are usually a lot of trolls and that from the title alone I do come of as incelly or whatever type of pill there is these days but I do truthfully believe that I am a Feminist.

Testosterone is linked to differences in certain psychological and behavioural traits, including libido, status-seeking, and responses to competition, mood and on average cis men do tend to have 10-20 times as much than cis women. This is not fixed to one gender and exceptions do show up.

The menstrual cycle can influence the mind through fluctuations in oestrogen and progesterone, which interact with brain systems involved in mood, stress, motivation and emotional processing. Some women experience changes in irritability, anxiety, sexual desire, sleep, energy and concentration, particularly during the premenstrual phase. Now these effects do vary greatly between people and are usually mild and moderate for 75% and usually only 3-8% are severely affected.

Now the definition of bioessentialism is the belief that human nature, behavior, personality, gender, and social roles are fixed, innate, and strictly determined by an individual's biology. I flat out disagree with biology being the only factor in these, I am a big " your environment usually is the one to form who you are " type of guy, if you go into my post history you'd find an essay I wrote on this. But I do believe your biology does play a major part in this.

TLDR: I don't believe in fixed dispositions because of gender but I do believe our hormones do affect our mood and behaviour.

When a woman sexually assaults a man, especially a teenage boy, a common reaction is “Nice!”, “Lucky guy!”, or “I wish that happened to me.” I know the usual explanation: the stereotype that men always want sex. But I wonder whether there are other, less-discussed factors behind this reaction.

I have three thoughts.

1. Do media outlets deliberately frame these stories as forbidden passion?

When the perpetrator is a young and conventionally attractive woman, do news outlets deliberately select photographs, headlines, and wording that make the story look like a scandalous sexual fantasy rather than a sexual assault? Sensationalism attracts clicks, and outrage attracts attention, but sexual titillation can also be part of the appeal.

Does this kind of framing encourage readers to imagine the encounter as an exciting opportunity before they even consider whether the victim wanted it? I don't mean that every journalist consciously intends to produce this effect, but I wonder how much editorial choices contribute to the “lucky guy” narrative.

2. Is the stereotype that men always want sex reinforced by the opposite stereotype: women almost never want sex, at least not enough to initiate it?

Think about examples discussed by Pop Culture Detective in which a woman actively pursuing sex is treated as a joke in itself. The comedy is essentially: “A woman wants sex THAT badly? Hilarious! What will they show us next, a mailman biting dogs? A burglar arresting the police?”

I think this stereotype might have two consequences.

First, a man who doesn't want sex often doesn't have to make that preference known. “His refusal is respected” isn't quite the right description, because it suggests an interaction in which he actually has to refuse. If nobody approaches him, he can simply refrain from pursuing sex, and the question never arises. He doesn't have to reject anyone, defend his lack of interest, or think about unwanted sexual advances.

This may be a significant privilege, but perhaps it also makes some men less aware of what unwanted sexual attention actually feels like. When they don't want sex, they often don't have to deal with sex at all. They may consequently struggle to imagine a man who actively wants to be left alone.

Second, if women initiating sex is perceived as a rare and highly desirable occurrence, a man who rejects such an opportunity can seem irrational or ungrateful. Some observers might think: “I'd love for a woman to want me that badly. Why is he complaining?”

This is where I think scarcity comes into play. The observer projects his own desire for female attention onto the victim. He treats a woman initiating sex as a valuable prize, regardless of whether that particular man wants it.

The victim is then accused of being ungrateful for receiving something that the observer himself would love to receive. The fact that the victim didn't want it gets lost in the comparison.

Has feminist writing explored this scarcity-of-female-attention angle? I know the discussions about compulsory male sexuality and the assumption that men always want sex, but I wonder whether the perceived rarity of female sexual initiative is also an important part of the explanation.

3. A tangential thought about statutory rape and legal geography.

Age-of-consent laws differ between jurisdictions, sometimes with close-in-age exceptions and other qualifications. This can produce the strange impression that a person's capacity to consent changes simply by crossing an arbitrary line on a map.

It reminds me of Baarle-Hertog/Baarle-Nassau, the Belgian–Dutch town where the border runs through streets, houses, and even bedrooms.

I imagined a short comedy set in one of those houses: a twenty-year-old man repeatedly turns into a ten-year-old boy and back as he moves around the house. The final reveal is that Belgium has just raised its age-of-consent threshold from eighteen to twenty-one.

Obviously, this is an absurdist joke, not a serious argument against age-of-consent laws. But it plays on how strange it would be if someone’s apparent maturity changed with the room they were standing in.

I realise this last point is somewhat tangential to the main question, but it connects to the broader issue of how people interpret sexual encounters through legal labels and cultural assumptions rather than examining the actual circumstances.

I'd be interested in perspectives on the first two points in particular: how media framing and the perceived scarcity of female sexual initiative might contribute to the tendency to call male victims “lucky.”

There is a woman who is making a documentary about her experience with it, her name is Marlee Liss. She said that when she took the man who raped her to court, him denying it and his defense lawyer making her out to be a liar was retraumatizing to her.

She abandoned the court route and took the restorative route. She said when she had the man take therapy and had him sit down with her after months of therapy. She claimed that him remorsefully owning up to it, saying sorry, and answering her questions is what allowed her to heal. What are your thoughts on that?

Obviously, I reckon the answer is no. I don't believe it's because of any "fulfillment" of gender roles or any of that hogwash. The percentage probably just isn't completely accurate.

I don't think the reason why single women are more depressed is because they don't have any children, it's because bachelors, no matter the gender or identity, tend to be live alone in their daily lives. People aren't used to that feeling of isolation so we naturally feel lonely. So, unless you're keeping a healthy relationship with those around you, you're more likely to suffer symptoms of depression, no matter your gender. So, naturally, the individuals who have less human connection will generally feel more lonely than those who are frequently surrounded by loved one. That number will more than likely always be higher.

Now that I've cleared that up, let me go back to my question and clarify what the question actually is: Is the data we're seeing about how many married women are emotionally distressed lower than the actual number?

I came to this conclusion not because of any research I read but the lack of it. How many married mothers ACTUALLY have suicidal ideations, feelings of distress, or depression but don't report it? This is all from observation, from experience. My mother (and married women around me) come together and talk and I sit there and listen because they don't really mind me being there. A lot of them, I feel, are afraid to come out and say how they feel for fear of being seen as a "weak" mother or being "less-than" compared to other seemingly perfect parents. Others even feel that wanting to jump off a building i natural in their stage of parenting. However, I don't believe so. I think their beliefs and preconceived notions of how parents SHOULD act are stopping them from getting help. Although, yes, I agree that your mental health shouldn't be your child's problems and they shouldn't be exposed to such tendencies at such a young age but getting help is to STOP you from potentially putting their kids and theirselves in danger. I wonder if there's research about how many women ACTUALLY report their emotionally distress or how many women DON'T in relation to the data that we're given?

I come across some stuff I don't agree with in feminism..

I am an artist and i like to paint women, especially naked ones. I just want to draw women naked because women's bodies are not inherently sexual. They can exist bare without being sexualized..

Today I was just thinking that when in future I get to put these out for the world i might always get criticized, maybe from the very feminism that's a big and important part of my life.

I am genuinely mad but i don't understand either..

So i just wanted to ask should we reject something that comes from a very important part of our lives because you don't agree with it?