Is feminism unfairly demonising boys/men?

[Axolotlquestions]

I'm seeing a lot of pushback at feminism in 'gender critical' circles because it's being lumped in with critical social justice. That is, the mentality that says all white people carry the guilt of centuries of racism is also applied to the concept of sexism, with all men being blamed for patriarchy. I'm trying to get my head around my position on this.

Could the wise feminist minds of Mumsnet take a look at this and give me your thoughts?
genspect.org/girls-are-better-than-boys/

To be fair I don't think most black people would want white supremacists "fixing their problems" or providing advice to them anyway. Indeed I think such a scheme would be fraught with difficulties. So I don't think you have anything to worry about.

And if you want to carry on implying that people of a particular race have 20x higher crime rates than people of other races, and that this higher crime rate is caused by differences in physiology in the way that the male crime rate is… well, you can walk on down that slippery slope by yourself.

Stop making up figures and putting words into my mouth. It's childish and predictable.

If you think I'm wrong then perhaps you could piece together a coherent reason why you feel this way.

I'm just personally not into generalisations and class analysis as I think it massively lacks nuance most of the time.

@TruckerBarbie maybe read the serenity prayer:
God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.

I witnessed a car accident a few months ago (pedestrian hit by car). I did not laugh a scornful feminist laugh and walk on by because the injured party was male. I am trained in first aid so stayed with them until an ambulance came. Because that was a situation I could help with. I also volunteer for some organisations that help girls and boys. And I care about my own family members and sons. I cannot however do much to help sad, lonely or angry men on the interwebs who desperately need male friends and/or a metaphorical kick up the arse. I also cannot wave a magic wand and stop all males hurting men or all males hurting women or all males hurting themselves. If I could believe me I would. Neither can anyone on here. Furthermore we are allowed to care about women and to centre women's needs sometimes. If you have practical ideas for what women can do to help men then maybe start your own thread on a more suitable part of mumsnet? I am sure many mothers of boys/wives etc would be interested. If you cannot think of anything then I suggest employing the wisdom/serenity suggested by the prayer and stop shadow boxing with straw men.

But going back to male violence, most women are against it. Until somebody needs to act on a perceived injustice - maybe the treatment of women in Iran/Afghanistan/Ukraine.

Then suddenly we see the cries of 'we need to do something about this' (which I've seen plenty of on this forum alone). What this almost always means is that men need to do something about it, usually through the use of force or the threat of force.

Of course it would be better if we didn't need to do anything in the first place but we're still a long way from the stage in evolution where humans have moved away from physical violence and military conflict - we're only a few hundred years past battleaxes and swords after many millennia of resolving conflict in this manner. Really, military power still rules supreme but primarily through threat and the use of technological weapons (missiles etc).

I think it's naive to expect that men would suddenly stop being violent after many millennia of fulfilling this role. I'm not sure whether they became physically stronger through performing this role, or whether it was the other way around (performing this role due to natural aptitude) but they've been doing it for a very long time.

People tend to assume that we never encouraged it but I'm not so certain when I think of how enthusiastically we adopted the white feather movement, for example. It's easy to be a pacifist when you no longer have to worry about the next tribe sticking your head on a spear and throwing your kids in the river, or your grandchildren being raised as Nazis.

Either way there seems to be a lot of science to suggest that humans are innately more violent than other mammals, and males are already more violent in most mammalian species. I think you'd have to be a bit daft to think its been the patriarchy for the last few hundred thousand years tbh.

I don't think people like you are the problem...

I'm not in any way justifying male violence though. I just don't think reality can be nearly curated by political correctness. I guess it's similar to how the average well adjusted dog shouldn't bite people but we know for sure that a dog with psychological issues will quite possibly do so.

'neatly' not 'nearly'

Either way there seems to be a lot of science to suggest that humans are innately more violent than other mammals, and males are already more violent in most mammalian species.
But then I'm confused what your problem is with what Dark days was saying, because you also seem to agree that men commit more crimes than women. That is the very thing that is described as manhating/demonising men - the topic of this thread. Maybe its just a miscommunication though. And if women should be doing more to solve the problem then the question remains... what? I certainly don't think we should be excusing male violence (not saying you are suggesting that), that would make it worse not better. So other than calling it out/having high expectations...

"I just don't think reality can be nearly curated by political correctness."

What does this mean please?

Stop making up figures and putting words into my mouth. It's childish and predictable.

I’m not making up figures, and I’m explaining to you the implications of your own words since you can’t follow through your own thoughts.

and you still haven’t explained what you mean by “discrimination” in your questions. I guess the questions are as meaningless as I presumed.

Of course, Marcus Garvey was happy to work with the KKK to further their mutual interest in racial separatism. But probably best not to go there...

Hadn't realised the turn that this thread had taken when I posted that comment...!

Where Liberia?
But if we really really hated all males we COULD team up the MGTOW boys and build our women only/men only nations. I vote women get the south of the UK because we feel the cold more. Also the MGTOWs could run wild and free in the hills of Scotland and hunt and such like free from feminine demands. We just need to make Hadrian's wall a bit higher to demarcate.
(This is a joke. Because obviously feminism is not the same as white nationalism)

I came across this article the other day and thought it was maybe appropriate here. The comments are vile and just go to show there are is a large portion of men out there that just hate women.

None of them have probably even read the article and are not likely to ever read her book.

www.msn.com/en-gb/entertainment/news/nobel-prize-winner-annie-ernaux-says-men-need-to-change-now/ar-AA150lpZ?cvid=8a4bdbba5fb94f04a1d997f3d31da5ea#comments

@TruckerBarbie , you are not as smart as you think you are.

It's about power dynamics and it's why @TruckerBarbie 's racism vs sexism argument doesn't work.

The fact that black people are disproportionately in jail for crimes etc is a huge issue.

The fact that men are disproportionately responsible for crime/sexual assault is a huge issue.

In both cases, arguably, this continues because the people with power have created systems that continue to facilitate this. The people in power being men, mostly white men.

So, in America for example, we see black criminals being consistently treated more harshly by the criminal justice system. We see black communities consistently underserviced resulting in poorer outcomes, increased poverty and, ultimately, more crime. These are systemic issues that need to be fixed.

When it comes to male violence, the issues are also systemic. We see authorities not taking sexual crimes as seriously, we see excuses for poor male behaviour and lower expectations for men. eg let's take childcare and child support in the context of separated parents. There are few mechanisms to force a man to pay or to step up and do his share of the parenting. It is perceived as "optional". Financial abuse of women is rife and too often, unless it's so blatant and egregious, there are people saying, "but he works hard and its' his money" or whatever.

All of these are systemic problems.

I don't know what you're saying though. Who is asking men to be violent on their behalf? There are only males and females in the world. If there is a cause to be fought for, yes some of those people will be men.

In Iran, school girls are being murdered for protesting. Literal girls. They're not asking men to fight for them ffs. Your point about men being used as weapons in social reform is still missing the point that the fact they have done this is still in the context of patriarchal societies.

Women protest. Women commit acts and women have been killed for suffrage and for fighting for rights. Your point makes no sense because it assumes that only men take social action, it's just not true Have men stood up and put themselves in harms way for womens' rights? No. Groups who are oppressed have always relied on themselves to take action.

I also think its worth pointing out that barbie replaced the words "men" and "feminists" with "black people" and "white supremacists" to imply there was discrimination in bellinisurges quote, but their own words:
"humans are innately more violent than other mammals, and males are already more violent in most mammalian species."
and the comparison of violent men to out of control dogs (!) sound far far worse if you play the same trick with them. My son/partner are NOT dogs by the way.

In fairness, I suspect they haven't actually read the thread* but jumped in with what they think the thread is about. E.g. I don't think anyone here would argue "the patriarchy" is some loose nebulous concept unrelated to human nature/biology or that reality doesn't matter. As said earlier on the thread - its a real time demonstration of men(?) saying mean things about themselves but putting those words in the mouths of feminists/women without actually reading/listening to what women have been saying.

*I don't blame them its a very long thread. But you can't pass judgements on what you assume people are saying.

And hard NO on sending the British army to Iran, Afghanistan or Ukraine thankyou.

I think TikTok is cancer and I really would not be surprised if the Right is correct with this conspiracy theory, that China influences the algorithm there.