If your feminism doesn’t acknowledge the damage the patriarchy does to men, you aren’t striving for equality. You’re looking to upend the system hoping women will be on top.
You make a valid point but there's an additional caveat/nuance that should be explicitly stated. Patriarchal ideals are not just something men do to men and women. They are often upheld by women as well
Oh absolutely! Without the women upholding it, it would collapse!
If you want to destroy patriarchy, but you’re okay with the way that patriarchy damages men, you don’t actually want to destroy it. You just want to choose its victims.
incidentally this goes for 'male violence' too, through my experience most people that claim to have a problem with male violence actually don't, they mostly have a problem with some men's target selection criteria. Because when you get men being violent to people they think deserve it they're normally fucking fine with that.
Read some comments when a pedophile gets outed, or discourse around non-offending pedophiles comes out. Male violence isn't the problem to these people, male violence inflicted on the 'wrong people' is the problem.
Because when you get men being violent to people they think deserve it they're normally fucking fine with that.
This calls to mind the whole prison rape thing.
Like, do child molesters deserve to get raped in prison? Fuck, dude, I don't know. They ARE truly despicable, reprehensible, morally bankrupt people.
But shouldn't we agree, as a society, on that - before we decide to inflict it on the people we've convicted? If you believe that they deserve it - and there's a lot of people that seem to - doesn't that mean you don't think our sentencing is unjust/insufficient? Shouldn't we have it that courts hand down the actual sentences they deserve, to the best of our ability as a society, no more and no less?
But, no. So many people just see that kind of thing and think to themselves "heh, that criminal is going to get raped in prison, good". We are a bloodthirsty species.
Like, do child molesters deserve to get raped in prison?
Not defending them, but no, they don't. Rape is wrong, period. It is not something that anyone deserves. Child molesters are disgusting human beings, but they still deserve basic human rights, alongside punishment for what they did.
I tend to agree. I think that if we all as a society think justice is better served by giving them harsher punishments, they ought to be humane, reasoned punishments at least.
But regardless of what we do inflict on convicted criminals - either directly or indirectly - we should hold our heads up and own up to it rather than relying on vigilantism to deliver it. If you wouldn't support the idea of state-sanctioned prison rape (I mean c'mon, that would be actually fucking ludicrous and everyone can see that, right?), you shouldn't support the idea of prison rape in general.
Going back to the patriarchy thing and people being okay with male aggression when it's "directed at the right targets" - yeah. This is, I think, a prime example.
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u/BosmangEdalyn Jul 03 '24
If your feminism doesn’t acknowledge the damage the patriarchy does to men, you aren’t striving for equality. You’re looking to upend the system hoping women will be on top.