Right wing men

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I know there’s been a lot of discussion about Posie Parker associating with American conservatives to achieve a shared aim, etc. This isn’t about that (I don’t really have an opinion about that) but I guess it is related.

Having watched a few GC videos on YouTube I started watching stuff like Triggernometry and agreeing with much of what they and their guests said. However recently I stumbled upon a similar channel featuring many of the same guests. The channel is run by Carl Benjamin, whose name I vaguely recognised. I watched 2 or 3 of his videos with a growing sense of unease. Though the men on these shows appear to talk a lot of sense about political issues, the way they talk about women makes me feel like they are, at heart, just misogynists. A quick Google search for Carl pretty much confirmed my suspicions. (He was the one who basically said a female MP wasn’t attractive enough to rape). I feel a bit dismayed that people who otherwise seem reasonable are willing to appear on his podcast/channel, laugh at his sexist jokes, agree with his outdated views, etc. My conclusion is that perhaps none of them really care about women, beyond our value as objects of desire, wives and mothers. I still haven’t quite worked out why I feel this way but maybe I’m not the only one. Maybe someone can articulate it better than me!

I guess I just wish that at least one of the popular male podcasters or YouTubers was GC out of a sense of fairness and equality rather than a kind of sexism and misogyny. Regrettably I’m not aware of any female ones.

I don’t even know if this makes sense so please don’t have a go at me, I’m still trying to work out my views. I hope someone can help me figure it out or at least point me towards podcasts/channels which are genuinely more supportive of women.

The Feminist Current - Meghan Murphy

She’s relatively progressive and GC.

So you think this one guy is a baddie, and therefore all the rest are as well? I don't see how you are making that leap.

I'm not sure where you get the idea that no men on the right want fairness or justice for women.

No I just struggle to understand why any of them give him the time of day when his views are so odious.

Recently I’ve felt like even the well-known ones who seem nice have revealed something about themselves when they complain or agree with complaints about women having tattoos or being fat or wearing loose, unfeminine clothes or doing things traditionally perceived as unladylike. It makes me think that if they really want the same thing as GC women, it’s probably not for the same reason. Their motives seem to be about reinforcing gender stereotypes but restricting them to biological women. I don’t know. I’m not saying I’m right, I’m just thinking out loud, trying to figure out why some of the people I watch have started to make me uncomfortable.

Carl Benjamin only supports women who fit his narrow view of what a woman should be. He has very little interest in this cause, it's just useful for him. He's like a right wing version of PN come to life. His channel is poor, the research for the reporting is lazy and any news story covered by the channel rarely deals with nuance. Whilst I think CB is a raging misogynist I think it would be dishonest to claim that he does not see or genuinely think that gender ideology disproportionately disadvantages women.

People you may approve of will appear on his channel because it increases their profile and enables them to reach a different audience. If you make a living from having a public profile then you need to maintain that profile.

Let go of the idea of finding a human you are perfectly aligned with. None of us are perfectly aligned with other people. Also let go of the idea that right wing politics = bad and left wing politics = good, it's simply not true.

Well I agree with you on that one. When I say right wing, I mean quite far to the right, which I do think = bad, just as being quite far to the left also = bad. Being in the middle or having some conservative views is OK with me.

Who is PN?

Well duh!

Their engagement with gender politics is absolutely an extension of their homophobia..
The only truly valuable people are male, outwardly heterosexual, able bodied and white!

Haven’t really engaged with his stuff, but isn’t Graham Linehan worth a look?

She will talk to anyone who knows what a woman is and can help her get her message across...

It is really that simple!

I'm wondering how old you are, OP, as you seem a bit naive.
It's not about bad guys and good guys.
If you don't like a podcast, don't listen to it.
Fwiw I think that the Right wing have many faults, but they have a firmer sense of reality than the Left, who view affairs through a filter of what things should be.
I find the opposite proposition of more interest- why are Left wingers so uninterested in this issue? Remember Alistair Campbell saying that GC women were like Golf club bores in his podcast?

I’m not sure the issue here is left wing or right wing

maybe the key word in your title is ‘men’

i increasingly feel that many (most?) men don’t see women as people. For many years I actively swerved novels by male writers because I wanted to read about women who felt real, rather than just sitting through a lascivious description of some tits

i don’t think this helps you though!

Can you please be specific about "many of the same guests."

There are regular and tedious attempts on here by the usual to persuade all of us that we're wrong because Bad People agree with us, which is dumb for so many reasons (if agreeing with Bad People is bad, why haven't they chased all the sex offenders out of their movement?)

These threads are nearly always vague and handwavey. They contain accusations of "aligning with" and sputtering gestures in the direction of random non specific "fascists." The people who post them appear to believe in guilt by six degrees of separation.

So please do be specific so we can know you're not one of those posters! Who are you pointing your finger at? Who are the GC people who've appeared on Carl Benjamin's show?

lol I just re-read it, and actually I think the poster isn't even saying that any GC people have appeared on Carl Benjamin's show. They're saying that some GC people have appeared on Triggernometry, and some guests on Triggernometry have appeared on Carl Benjamin's show... DUN DUN DUN.

(and yes, obviously, -right wing men, generally not great on supporting women. left wing men, also not great. Maybe the problem isn't the political orientation, but the misogyny?)

It makes me think that if they really want the same thing as GC women, it’s probably not for the same reason.

Well yes, that's the case for many right wing men, and many left wing men too who call themselves male feminists. The issue is that many men don't really grasp why feminism/women's rights are needed. You have left wing men who (unlike Carl Benjamin) put #Metoo in their Twitter bio for clout, but their vicious l attitude towards women they can abuse, such as right wing women, and gender critical women across the political spectrum, belies this. They are happy to have a group of women they don't need to respect.

I know what I'm getting with Benjamin, and I can choose to watch his stuff, knowing that, or not.

I’m not sure the issue here is left wing or right wing

maybe the key word in your title is ‘men’

i increasingly feel that many (most?) men don’t see women as people.

This.

For many years I actively swerved novels by male writers because I wanted to read about women who felt real, rather than just sitting through a lascivious description of some tits
I think your reading the wrong novels. Try some Jack Reacher novels.

I don't think you can conclude much of anything about people appearing on someone's show and talking to them like normal people.

That is basically totally normal until 5 minutes ago on the progressive left. People went on shows, did interviews, with pretty much anyone with an audience. They don't see that as endorsing anything in particular the individual says or does.

As far as not liking women with tattoos etc, or wanting more feminine styles - tbh I think that if you get a group of women together you will hear much the same. It's not about "enforcement" as if anyone is going to make people wear certain things. It's just "as a woman, I prefer men that have a somewhat masculine presentation." And even when you get a woman who likes more androgynous or gender-bending men, it's actually based on much the same premises. We are animals, most of us are not neutral about masculinity or femininity in the context of sexual signals.

Perhaps more right-on men might not say things like that, but I am doubtful that they don't feel them. I am sure women in general do - there was a thread on here once - FWR - asking how many would in real terms be interested in dating a man who wore dresses and make-up (but was not saying he was a woman.) Quite a lot said it would be a turn-off.

I watched the Amazon series, it was awesome

but I take your point. It was general impression garnered during wide reading in my teenaged years. All those weird, totally unrelatable women written by the likes of Kingsley Amis and Evelyn Waugh still spring to mind as what made me avoid male writers for a bit!

Please try the books, they're excellent, with lots of strong women.
Re Kingsley Amis, I agree with you, but his book The Old Devils is brilliant. At that stage he seems to have left his appalling sexism behind.
Having said that, both he and AW were pretty horrible about men as well. So, I think they were both misandrists, rather than misogynistic.

I prefer Joe Rogan.

His politics lean left (endorsed Bernie Sanders and is a big Tulsi Gabbard supporter - both have been on his podcast) but he has guests from all over the political spectrum, sometimes controversial ones.

He’s a stand up comic and a commentator on Mixed Martial Arts so he has a potty mouth and sometimes uses sexist pejoratives but he discusses female sporting excellence with a respect you rarely hear from male sports fanatics.

He’s had Megan Murphy on twice and was one of the first mainstream figures to object to transitioned males in female sports (due to Fallon Fox) and he interviewed Eddie Izzard with one eyebrow quizzically raised for the whole three hours.

He’s not to everyone’s taste but I like him. Weirdly, he reminds me of my late Nan (good at asking very clever people questions that make them translate from highfalutin language to words accessible to normies).

Carl Benjamin is a pompous twit but I do think Posie schooled him quite a bit re: Women’s rights and that whole Debate Bro/Post Gamergate online alternative media segment has slowly become more and more respectful of Women’s rights.

Carl Benjamin and the chaps on his Lotus Eaters Podcast often (begrudgingly) admit that ‘the terves were correct all along’.

I’m not naïve, I guess I’m just a bit annoyed with myself for giving CB’s channel any of my time. It’s a bit like meeting someone you thought seemed OK and then having the dawning realisation that they are in fact awful and feeling sorry that you ever spoke to them in the first place. (This happened to me IRL just last week - I became friendly with someone and then he started talking about his admiration for Tommy Robinson. I think he felt safe in expressing that view because we’d previously agreed how annoying Emma Watson was but of course one thing has no relation to the other).

I don’t have a problem with anybody appearing on his channel per se (though I wouldn’t do it myself if I were them) but I do feel a bit disappointed when people I previously liked agree with his more misogynistic comments/jokes.

I can understand that.

Opinions are a big Venn diagram and sometimes we overlap on one issue despite being diametrically opposed on many others.

Sometimes I listen to podcasts of people I expect to dislike just to check I do actually dislike/disagree with them and haven’t misjudged them based on second or third hand info, so I don’t think you’ve necessarily wasted your time as part of a bigger picture.

In the era of echo chambers it’s good to be exposed to opposing ideas, keeps your own arguments relevant!

What do you mean by right-wing? Being a vile misogynist and rape apologist doesn't make you right-wing. Nor does homophobia. It just means you're an arsehole. There is a tendency to label anything unpleasant and cruel as 'right-wing'. There are liberal misogynists and socialist homophobes, believe me. I've met some AWFUL left-wing men, with predatory, stone age attitudes to women. I also knew a guy who called himself a communist but disowned his gay son.

People use the phrases 'right-wing' and 'left-wing' far too casually. Some people have 'right-wing' views on the economy, but 'liberal' views on LGBTQ issues or animal rights. Others have socialist views on the economy (i.e they believe in high taxation and redistribution of wealth, etc), but backward views on women and gay people and animal cruelty and so on.

Real life isn't like a Disney movie, with goodies and baddies. If you were to line up all the MPs in the House of Commons and ask their views on everything from capital punishment to the welfare system, you might be surprised.

As an aside, I really wish people wouldn’t respond to posts like the OP’s with things like “you sound very young/immature/naive” etc. Some people are new to this debate (as OP has clearly stated she is) and come on here to engage with it further. I‘m quite new to making bread; I wouldn’t expect to go onto a baking forum asking for help with a recipe and be met with comments like “you must know very little about dough!” Well, yes, that’s why I’m asking 🙄 It’s perfectly possible to challenge someone’s view without the snide remarks (which don’t make a debate more robust, they just devalue otherwise valid points).