• Candelestine@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      Liberal, as in, believing in liberty. Freedom. How many mens spaces do you know of, where a man is completely free to open up, with full liberty and freedom from immediate consequences, about feelings they may have inside of them?

      There’s actually not a lot. It’s a reflection of masculine indoctrination, where men in many places are made to feel like they almost need to be ready to become a soldier at any moment. Guarded, careful. It’s no good, unless your country is actually at war.

      • ski11erboi@lemm.ee
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        10 months ago

        Are you implying liberal spaces deal with more toxic masculinity? Because that’s sounds more like conservative spaces to me. In my experience men are much more welcome to be vulnerable and talk about their feelings in liberal spaces. If you can’t find liberal spaces “where a man is completely free to open up, with full liberty and freedom from immediate consequences” I can’t help but wonder if perhaps you and your options are the intolerant ones. Tolerance can not support intolerance and liberal spaces can and should reject intolerance.

        • vzq@lemm.ee
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          10 months ago

          I’ve certainly seen my share of crappy behavior (up and including sexual assault unfortunately) in supposedly liberal and leftist spaces.

          I don’t compare because I don’t hang out with conservatives , but every instance is one too many.

        • Candelestine@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          No, it is specifically illiberal spaces that encourage more toxic masculinity, in a bit of a cycle. While the space itself may be extremely liberal and rules-free, a local culture can take over and enforce those same toxic norms in place of any set of rules. And frequently does. While the space may be ostensibly liberal, in effect it is not, due to the behavior of its community.

          This is the majority of mens spaces, unfortunately. Online anyway.

      • NegativeInf@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        Only place I feel that way is at a gay bar. But I’m gay and live in Texas. I don’t think I’m the reason for the spike.

        • Candelestine@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          Lemmy is pretty good, for the most part. Depends which community of course, decentralized and only loosely controlled and all.

            • Candelestine@lemmy.world
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              10 months ago

              Lemmy is a big place. You think anywhere online is going to be perfect like your picture of heaven or something? Get real.

            • ltxrtquq
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              10 months ago

              I read through some of your comment history and found this comment chain which I think is what you’re referring to here.

              Women love psychological manipulation and think they are the hot shit, until they start going “good guy”-less by their 30s and the “beauty” starts to subside. Too much high school teen garbage, and most have not mentally grown out of it.

              Even if you say you don’t hate women, it’s pretty clear you don’t like a certain kind of women, and don’t make much of a distinction between them and everyone else.

              True masculinity (said by certain kind of people to be toxic) is about resilience, emotional control, inner strength, confidence and the ability to withstand life’s hardships without resorting to insecurity (dissing manhood) or abusive behaviours (psychological manipulation).

              We are getting tired of hearing we are toxic, disposable and physical tools for others. And I must tell you this – the devolving and rotting feminist movement is exactly what is causing the explosion of the other extreme end, redpillers. A lot of people are starting to disapprove of these extremes.

              Men are not “toxic” because they are not as emotionally charged or like vulnerability. Men are simply hardwired to be more resilient, calm, less hysterical, and protect their emotional sanctity the exact way women protect their physical sanctity.

              Wouldn’t it be the truly masculine thing to do if you just didn’t take all of the accusations of toxic masculinity to heart? Shouldn’t be be using your calm, resilient, less hysterical intellect to try to understand just why so many people seem to have a problem with what you’re saying or how you’re saying it? Don’t you want to have the ability to withstand life’s hardships without resorting to insecurity (worrying about perceived threats to men’s rights) or abusive behaviours (assigning traits to a group for the actions of individuals)? I don’t want to imply men aren’t allowed to complain or have problems, but it seems you’re either betraying your ideals for what a man should be, or are trying to hold all men to an unrealistic standard.

              Lemmy (and leftist instances) as a leftist space is fine with ostracizing men’s rights because feminists maliciously club it with redpillers/incels.

              As far as I can tell, this paragraph is about all the actual men’s rights issues you’re talking about:

              All I have seen is double standards whenever men’s issues need to be talked about versus women’s issues. Mental health issues, women pedophiles/predators versus men pedophiles/predators, or male SA versus female SA, military recruitments, physical risk jobs like ones at construction sites, women publicly allowed to get away with sexual harassment or roadside flirting, or men being called creeps for being nice to children but women are “inclusive” and never creepy, et al. And any debate is intentionally and dishonestly avoided by women and feminists on these things by clustering men’s rights with redpill manosphere movement.

              which is mostly about double standards, unless you just really want to interact with children, flirt with women in public, and not feel pressured to take certain jobs. Unless your idea of a leftist is someone like Bill Maher, I’m pretty sure most leftists would be pro-(mental) healthcare, pro- equality under the law, pro-union/workplace safety, anti-pedophilia, and generally anti-war.

                • ltxrtquq
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                  10 months ago

                  No, masculinity being about resilience does not mean you just sit silently while people run towards you with axe and hammer. You can absolutely defend yourself and when cornered, attack when necessary. Masculine resilience does not mean you become this statue that remains so even if birds come and poop in the mouth. Eventually you will grab one bird by the neck.

                  Grabbing the bird by the neck would probably count as an abusive behavior, the second half of your definition of masculinity. You’re very quick to compare whatever treatment you’ve received (I haven’t really seen anything) to physical violence, which probably feeds into why a lot of people you interact with come off as so hostile to you and your beliefs.

                  Women have always been privileged in different ways than men have. It just so happens men focused on money (key form of capital) and ended up as being more advantageous. Men also have biological advantages that favour them over women.

                  It wasn’t all that long ago that women gained the right to vote, so it should be pretty obvious that women had fewer privileges than men just 100 years ago. Time marches on, and things are more equal now, but there’s still a measurable difference in pay by gender just for an example.

                  I was even being labelled (Jordan) Petersonian by some person despite insisting I have never pushed his conservative talking points or wanted to.

                  I try not to listen to Jordan Peterson, but if you’re saying things in line with his general philosophy, it doesn’t really matter whether or not you want to be pushing his talking points or if you even know you’re doing it. I can’t say for sure you are, but I would generally associate this kind of “women are actually more privileged then men” talk as at least similar.

                  I have encountered radical feminists wanting genocide of men, men being called male (animal implication), hand signs for dick size, feminists saying “all men bad/die” and “men are not our responsibility”, feminists faking boys locker room chats to gain online attention and harass men, and so on, so I have zero faith in anyone, leftists or rightists.

                  You meet people that say dumb and hurtful things all the time. My own grandfather once told me that immigrants dying while trying to cross the border was a good thing because it would send a message to others that they aren’t welcome and they shouldn’t try to come. But that doesn’t mean you always need to take them seriously and apply the absolute worst things you’ve heard to a larger group of (mostly unrelated) people. But also, are these “locker room chats” the harmless kind, or the fantasizing/reminiscing about sexual assault kind?

      • Neato@ttrpg.network
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        10 months ago

        That has nothing to do with spaces. It’s toxic masculinity. And you combat that by being the change you want to see.

        Even if there was a space like that, toxic masculinity would ruin it if it wasn’t addressed. But you might just be looking for group therapy.

        • Candelestine@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          So, spaces that encourage toxic masculinity do exist, and they are fully aware of their ruination. See: 4chan.org.

          edit: I see some of the confusion here, since 4chan is seemingly liberal, due to having no formal rules. However, that is an illusion. A man is not actually free to say anything they like without consequences there. It’s just that the norms will be enforced by the community, instead of any kind of authority. This is not actual liberty and freedom, simply indoctrination cloaked in an illusion of freedom.

          Real freedom would allow a man to express something like sympathy, or being against gamergate, and express that opinion in peace. The reality of such spaces does not actually permit this.

          It seems liberal and free, but in effect it is not. This is similar to how Trump seems to be strong sometimes, but in reality is weak and cowardly. Toxic masculinity loves its illusions.

      • BuddyTheBeefaloOP
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        10 months ago

        where men in many places are made to feel like they almost need to be ready to become a soldier at any moment.

        sounds more like what would happen at a conservative place to me.

      • vzq@lemm.ee
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        10 months ago

        I feel you man, I know people that grew up in environments like that, and if you are not temperamentally suited for them they will chew you up.

        I found it got a lot better when I moved out on my own and could choose who I spent time and who I did not. But not everyone can do that when they need the most.

      • Wanderer@lemm.ee
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        10 months ago

        The only places I have been close to that are “toxic” male places. All boys clubs, drinking clubs, rugby clubs.

        But women see them as toxic and label then like that. But if you talk to them you get more toxic than from these clubs they aren’t a part of that tell you how horrible they are.

        • Candelestine@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          So, I’m not a woman, nor am I overly feminine, and I still call out toxic bullshit when I see it. If you want to say the problem is women/feminists though, fine whatever, if we cleaned up our own shit first, we might be able to make that stick. But when we’re bastards and they’re removed, and we complain, we’re kinda the fucked up ones, y’know? Since we were supposed to be strong in the first place.

          Unless you just think life is shit and everyone should get used to it. Then, just move to Russia or something, for everyone’s sake.

      • ParsnipWitch@feddit.de
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        10 months ago

        Can you give a few examples of what men can’t say or do completely freely in liberal places?

        • Candelestine@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          Sure. Go over into 4chan and try any behavior they would describe as “white knighting” or “simping”. You will rapidly experience some social consequences intended to dissuade that behavior.

          • ParsnipWitch@feddit.de
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            10 months ago

            Experiencing social consequences for saying something people disagree with is not infringing on your freedom. Unless they band together and try to go further than simply not liking what you have to say, how is that stopping men from saying their opinion on 4chan?

            Independently, I wouldn’t call 4chan a liberal place. As far as I know, 4chan started and participated in activities in the past that go far beyond simply not liking an opinion. They doxxed, harassed and threatened people, among other things. And with support from many people on that platform.

            • Candelestine@lemmy.world
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              10 months ago

              Liberal in the traditional sense, as in, believing in liberty, I’m being technical. Not meaning “leftist” the way the word has been rebranded by right-leaners. So, their adoption of “no rules” is ultra-liberal, or libertarian perhaps.

              And all social consequences are social. Drawing a distinction between legal and social is arbitrary. Suffering is suffering, and employing it to control dissenting voices is fundamentally illiberal. If you can prevent certain messages from appearing on your platform, you have successfully executed a form of control.

              Thus, their ultra-liberty is an illusion. It’s not real.

    • MataVatnik@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      Liberal narratives paint men as aggressive rapists at worst, and toxic manipulative sociopath at best. Liberal narratives onstantly evoke “tHe pATriArcHy” and “tOxic mAsCuLinity” hiding misandry behind pseudointellectualism

      • Dasnap@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        ‘Toxic masculinity’ is referring specifically to masculinity that is toxic. It’s not referring to masculinity as a whole as toxic.

        • MataVatnik@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          Pushes in glasses “uuum ackshually that’s not what it means”

          Yeah no shit, tell that to the people on social media where the majority of popular discord takes place. And pretending that the meaning of the two isn’t obfuscated is disingenuous. At the end of the day it’s all antipositivists theory garbage that reads more like a political treatise than academic study.

          • hakase@lemm.ee
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            10 months ago

            Exactly. Feminist terminology like “toxic masculinity” and “patriarchy” has been very carefully chosen to be misandrist enough to result in the intended widespread popular demonization of men that we’ve seen over the past few decades, while also giving feminists enough deniability to gaslight with “that’s not what the terms ackchually mean though”.

            The misandry is a feature, not a bug.

      • Ashyr@sh.itjust.works
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        10 months ago

        Brosif, calling a discussion of the patriarchy misandry makes it clear you don’t know what the patriarchy even is. It hurts everyone.

        • MataVatnik@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          This is the pseudointellectualism I’m talking about. “You don’t actually understand what it ACTUALLY means” while the meanings are clearly obfuscated for the layperson.

        • hakase@lemm.ee
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          10 months ago

          Brosef, the term “patriarchy” itself is (and has always been) intentionally misleading and inherently misandrist, and has played a huge role in the modern demonization of men as a result. The “academic definition” of the term is irrelevant, as the (fully intended) real world negative consequences of the term for men in the cultural zeitgeist have been systemic and pervasive, as we can see all over this thread.

      • kitb@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        While those are some examples of “liberal narratives”, there’s also a very real “men are harmed by the patriarchy too” narrative.

        I see the problem you see and I agree with you about it, it’s just the narratives you’ve described aren’t the only liberal narratives.

        • MataVatnik@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          That whole men are hurt by the patriarcy too is a cop-out when people get called out on their bullshit ideology