Teachers describe a deterioration in behaviour and attitudes that has proved to be fertile terrain for misogynistic influencers
“As soon as I mention feminism, you can feel the shift in the room; they’re shuffling in their seats.” Mike Nicholson holds workshops with teenage boys about the challenges of impending manhood. Standing up for the sisterhood, it seems, is the last thing on their minds.
When Nicholson says he is a feminist himself, “I can see them look at me, like, ‘I used to like you.’”
Once Nicholson, whose programme is called Progressive Masculinity, unpacks the fact that feminism means equal rights and opportunities for women, many of the boys with whom he works are won over.
“A lot of it is bred from misunderstanding and how the word is smeared,” he says.
But he is battling against what he calls a “dominance-based model” of masculinity. “These old-fashioned, regressive ideas are having a renaissance, through your masculinity influencers – your grifters, like Andrew Tate.”
Feminism isn’t women asking men to fix their problems. It’s asking men to simply treat them the same so they can fix their own problems. And it’s not even fully just men, but the patriarchy which if you don’t know the difference then you need to figure that out before you start making broad sweeping generalizations of feminism.
Except feminism is also about fixing male problems. Every single problem men face would be fixed if we got equal rights. For example one of those most prevelant problems that men face is discrimination in family court. Men almost always get screwed when it comes to parental rights. This stems from the old patriarchal view that men should be working and women taking care of the children. When divorce was first legalized courts gave the women custody of the children so men could be free to be men with out the burden of children. Now, men have grown and are starting to realize they want to be fathers. They want families. But due to old patriarchal ideals and ingrained ‘traditions’, often not even conscious decisions, men get screwed when it comes to parenting rights.
This reaches across all feminist ideals. Men just dont want to hear it.
This…isn’t accurate. When divorce was first legalized, the courts tended to give custody to whoever held the most wealth (usually the father), as they would be best able to materially take care of children. What you might describe as early proto-feminists pushed to flip that around which led to the tender years doctrine (essentially that a child needs it’s mother) and the idea that it didn’t matter who could best materially take care of a child, we can simply transfer wealth from the other parent on pain of jail if needed. Decades later, that idea in turn became part of “patriarchy” when women having careers became more normal, leading to the current scenario in most places in the US where the policy is to go with whatever biases the judge in question has (which tends to lean closer to tender years than the opposite due to social inertia).
There have been moves to make starting from a position of equal custody and moving from there if there’s a good reason to a thing, but this often gets protested, usually by feminists (see Kentucky).
Sorry, I’m not buying it. It’s a cute saying but it’s utter horseshit. Feminists give lip service to male problems. Let’s take your own example of family court. Where’s the big feminist push to fix it? Because feminists are supposedly so concerned with equality.
“I don’t know off the top of my head of any feminist court reform attempts so obviously there are none.”
Get over yourself
Okay, results of an ecosia search for “feminists family court”:
National Organization for Women: “There is a national crisis for women and their children in the family law courts of this country.” Clicking through the related links mentions men only as abusers.
Medium article: “Why Did Feminists Erase Motherhood in Family Court?” an article explicitly attacking feminist “equality theory” for not granting preferential treatment to women in custody hearings, and actually recommending that women pretend to be victims to get preferential custody, as is their god-given right.
Everydayfeminism: “The Truth About Father Bias in Family Courts”. An article that I think must be written by an algorithm…one of the first sentences is “It’s true that mothers are more likely to receive custody of their children in a divorce. But the source of the bias is not in the courts – it’s in the marriage.”. Then the first section is what men’s rights activists get wrong about custody statistics. Then, in a total non sequitur, the author says “So if the bias against fathers is not coming from the court system, where is it coming from?” despite never actually showing that the bias is not coming from the court system what the hell.
r/askfeminists: "What Do Feminists Think of the Statement “Family courts should not favor women in custody disputes.”? Tagged as “low-effort/antagonistic”, hilariously enough. Top responses: 1. It’s a myth. 2. Also, why don’t men demand paternity leave? 3. It’s a myth.
momsforsharedparenting: “How Feminists Divorce”. Article encouraging split parenting, and only accepting alimony/child support temporarily until you can get back on your feet. Explicitly calls out existing prevalent attitudes about divorce and child custody as a “sexist mess”.
alternet: “How Family Courts are Skewed Against Women”. Starts again with the “it’s a myth” thing, then veers off into talking about abuse. Doesn’t explicitly say that all men are abusers, but that’s the tone.
Quick note about the “it’s a myth” thing: a lot of feminists are saying “the majority of custody cases are decided out of court” and using that as evidence that a) the courts aren’t biased, and b) if women mostly have custody it must be because that’s what men want, since it was decided out of court. They miss the glaring obviousness of a man facing massive legal expenses just to have a family court tell him he can’t get full custody, or even worse, risking having no custody. Most lawyers will advise men to settle out of court. In other words, this is a convenient statistic to dodge the inherent bias in the courts, which is the cause of the statistic.
Anyway, to sum up: two articles deflecting into talking about abusers, one article that completely ignores men except as abusers, one article supporting equality, and one forum full of responses dismissing or belittling the issue. And one article that argues against feminism and in favor of some kind of right wing tradwife insanity.
Sure doesn’t look like any real reform efforts? Ya got 1 out of 6 there.
I’m sorry one Google search didn’t bring up populist topics you where looking for. Just because family law isn’t on the forefront of the general feminist agenda doesn’t mean there isn’t attempts at reform or, has been in the past. It’s very obvious your entire concept of feminism is rooted in ignorance at best, a misinformation at worse.
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3194962
Here’s a paper explaining how feminism has changed family. Giving many modern (1960 onward)examples.
The paper you linked seems to imply otherwise
and
I suppose it’s fair to say that my issue is overwhelmingly with 3rd or 4th wave feminism, rather than the older generations. And to get even more specific, “popular” feminism, aside from the theorists that no one listens to anymore. 3rd wave feminism marked a massive decentralization of the feminist movement, and now what ordinary women think matters a lot more than it used to. Yes, second-wave feminism made great strides towards equality and egalitarianism, but that just doesn’t seem to be anywhere on the radar for modern feminists. At least not when it comes to areas that men are disadvantaged.
I’ll concede that yes, in the past feminists have done great things for men and women alike.
Yes the paper is examples of both, I specifically choose it so you couldn’t claim it was biased.
You think the people second-wave feminists had to fight against for equality sat around arguing, “Well, the first wave feminist made great strides but these new ones just want to ruin men”?
You can keep pushing the goal posts. First it’s all feminism and now it’s “oh okay just the new ones”. All feminists want equality. 2nd wave, 3rd wave, and the current 4th wave.
Being a man who has had to do the inner work to break through my own toxicity I understand that feeling that comes with being surrounded by feminist anger. It seems isolating because men have issues too. Men hurt. We suffer the most homelessness. We suffer from the most suicide rates. Male disposability is a huge problem that often gets overlooked. But shitting on feminism isn’t the answer. A marginalized group struggling for equality isn’t your enemy. The patriarchy is the reason for all those problems. Infact, after digging through my own shit and starting to understand other people’s plights has just made me feel closer to everyone and made me realize the isolating feeling wasn’t coming from feminism but from my own views. If you want to discuss feminism further I’ll gladly in private, but I think I’m done with the back and forth on here. Take care, friend.
No, it’s not. It won’t help men. We need a strong, positive, male movement. But we do need feminism to get out of the way and stop pretending to care. Either that or start actually being egalitarian.
Fair point, I’ve never looked specifically for that, let me do some googling.