I made this new blog 2025 when I was 27 but I've been on tumblr since 2012.
Warning: 18+
I don't usually tag things.
Do not ask for donations, I don't have money.
like bell hooks basically sums up the issues i've noticed wrt feminism & the idea that "feminism has always said the patriarchy hurts men!" yet that idea not materializing into feminists investing in men's liberation:
It was difficult for women committed to feminist change to face the reality that the problem did not lie just with men. Facing that reality required more complex theorizing; it required acknowledging the role women play in maintaining and perpetuating patriarchy and sexism. As more women moved away from destructive relationships with men, it was easier to see the whole picture. It was easier to see that even if individual men divested themselves of patriarchal privilege, the system of patriarchy, sexism, and male domination would still remain intact, and women would still be exploited and oppressed. Despite this change in feminist agendas, visionary feminist thinkers who had never been antimale did not and do not receive mass media attention. As a consequence the popular notion that feminists hate men continues to prevail.
The vast majority of feminist women I encounter do not hate men. They feel sorry for men because they see how patriarchy wounds them and yet men remain wedded to patriarchal culture. While visionary thinkers have called attention to the way patriarchy hurts men, there has never been an ongoing effort made to address male pain. To this day I hear individual feminist women express their concern for the plight of men within patriarchy, even as they share that they are unwilling to give their energy to help educate and change men. Feminist writer Minnie Bruce Pratt states the position clearly: “How are men going to change? The meeting between two people, where one opposes the other, is the point of change. But I don’t want the personal contact. I don’t want to do it…. When people talk about not giving men our energies, I agree with that…. They have to deliver themselves.” These attitudes, coupled with the negative attitudes of most men toward feminist thinking, meant that there was never a collective, affirming call for boys and men to join feminist movement so that they would be liberated from patriarchy.
Reformist feminist women could not make this call because they were the group of women (mostly white women with class privilege) who had pushed the idea that all men were powerful in the first place. These were the women for whom feminist liberation was more about getting their piece of the power pie and less about freeing masses of women or less powerful men from sexist oppression. They were not mad at their powerful daddies and husbands who kept poor men exploited and oppressed; they were mad that they were not being giving equal access to power. Now that many of those women have gained power, and especially economic parity with the men of their class, they have pretty much lost interest in feminism.
As interest in feminist thinking and practice has waned, there has been even less focus on the plight of men than in the heyday of feminist movement. This lack of interest does not change the fact that only a feminist vision that embraces feminist masculinity, that loves boys and men and demands on their behalf every right that we desire for girls and women, can renew men in our society. Feminist thinking teaches us all, males especially, how to love justice and freedom in ways that foster and affirm life. Clearly we need new strategies, new theories, guides that will show us how to create a world where feminist masculinity thrives.
^^ that last part is why anti-transmasculinity theory is so important. what is the goal but new strategies and theories that guide a new understanding of feminist masculinity (more of the quote under the cut, read the book here)
Sadly there is no body of recent feminist writing addressing men that is accessible, clear, and concise. There is little work done from a feminist standpoint concentrating on boyhood. No significant body of feminist writing addresses boys directly, letting them know how they can construct an identity that is not rooted in sexism. There is no body of feminist children’s literature that can serve as an alternative to patriarchal perspectives, which abound in the world of children’s books. The gender equality that many of us take for granted in our adult lives, particularly those of us who have class privilege and elite education, is simply not present in the world of children’s books or in the world of public and private education. Teachers of children see gender equality mostly in terms of ensuring that girls get to have the same privileges and rights as boys within the existing social structure; they do not see it in terms of granting boys the same rights as girls—for instance, the right to choose not to engage in aggressive or violent play, the right to play with dolls, to play dress up, to wear costumes of either gender, the right to choose.
Just as it was misguided for reformist feminist thinkers to see freedom as simply women having the right to be like powerful patriarchal men (feminist women with class privilege never suggested that they wanted their lot to be like that of poor and working-class men), so was it simplistic to imagine that the liberated man would simply become a woman in drag. Yet this was the model of freedom offered men by mainstream feminist thought. Men were expected to hold on to the ideas about strength and providing for others that were a part of patriarchal thought, while dropping their investment in domination and adding an investment in emotional growth. This vision of feminist masculinity was so fraught with contradictions, it was impossible to realize. No wonder then that men who cared, who were open to change, often just gave up, falling back on the patriarchal masculinity they found so problematic. The individual men who did take on the mantle of a feminist notion of male liberation did so only to find that few women respected this shift.
Once the “new man” that is the man changed by feminism was represented as a wimp, as overcooked broccoli dominated by powerful females who were secretly longing for his macho counterpart, masses of men lost interest. Reacting to this inversion of gender roles, men who were sympathetic chose to stop trying to play a role in female-led feminist movement and became involved with the men’s movement. Positively, the men’s movement emphasized the need for men to get in touch with their feelings, to talk with other men. Negatively, the men’s movement continued to promote patriarchy by a tacit insistence that in order to be fully self-actualized, men needed to separate from women. The idea that men needed to separate from women to find their true selves just seemed like the old patriarchal message dressed up in a new package.
Describing the men’s movement spearheaded by Robert Bly in her essay “Feminism and Masculinity,” Christine A. James explains:
Bly claims that women, primarily since feminism, have created a situation in which men, especially young men, feel weak, emasculated, and unsure of themselves, and that older men must lead the way back…. Bly holds up the myth of the Wild Man as an exemplar of the direction men must take and never challenges the hierarchical dualisms that are so integrally linked to the tension he perceives between men and women. Arguably, the notion of the Wild Man merely reinforces clichés about “real masculinity” instead of trying to foster a new relationship between men and women, as well as the masculine and feminine.
The men’s movement was often critical of women and feminism while making no sustained critique of patriarchy. Ultimately it did not consistently demand that men challenge patriarchy or envision liberating models of masculinity.
Many of the New Age models created by men reconfigure old sexist paradigms while making it seem as though they are offering a different script for gender relations. Often the men’s movement resisted macho patriarchal models while upholding a vision of a benevolent patriarchy, one in which the father is the ruler who rules with tenderness and kindness, but he is still in control. In the wake of feminist movement and the diverse men’s liberation movements that did not bring women and men closer together, the question of what the alternative to patriarchal masculinity might be must still be answered.
Clearly, men need new models for self-assertion that do not require the construction of an enemy “other,” be it a woman or the symbolic feminine, for them to define themselves against. Starting in early childhood, males need models of men with integrity, that is, men who are whole, who are not divided against themselves. While individual women acting as single mothers have shown that they can raise healthy, loving boys who become responsible, loving men, in every case where this model of parenting has been successful, women have chosen adult males—fathers, grandfathers, uncles, friends, and comrades—to exemplify for their sons the adult manhood they should strive to achieve.
Undoubtedly, one of the first revolutionary acts of visionary feminism must be to restore maleness and masculinity as an ethical biological category divorced from the dominator model. This is why the term patriarchal masculinity is so important, for it identifies male difference as being always and only about the superior rights of males to dominate, be their subordinates females or any group deemed weaker, by any means necessary. Rejecting this model for a feminist masculinity means that we must define maleness as a state of being rather than as performance. Male being, maleness, masculinity must stand for the essential core goodness of the self, of the human body that has a penis [note: obviously this is very cis-perisex language]. Many of the critics who have written about masculinity suggest that we need to do away with the term, that we need “an end to manhood.” Yet such a stance furthers the notion that there is something inherently evil, bad, or unworthy about maleness.
It is a stance that seems to be more a reaction to patriarchal masculinity than a creative loving response that can separate maleness and manhood from all the identifying traits patriarchy has imposed on the self that has a penis. Our work of love should be to reclaim masculinity and not allow it to be held hostage to patriarchal domination. There is a creative, life-sustaining, life-enhancing place for the masculine in a nondominator culture. And those of us committed to ending patriarchy can touch the hearts of real men where they live, not by demanding that they give up manhood or maleness, but by asking that they allow its meaning to be transformed, that they become disloyal to patriarchal masculinity in order to find a place for the masculine that does not make it synonymous with domination or the will to do violence.
Patriarchal culture continues to control the hearts of men precisely because it socializes males to believe that without their role as patriarchs they will have no reason for being. Dominator culture teaches all of us that the core of our identity is defined by the will to dominate and control others. We are taught that this will to dominate is more biologically hardwired in males than in females. In actuality, dominator culture teaches us that we are all natural-born killers but that males are more able to realize the predator role. In the dominator model the pursuit of external power, the ability to manipulate and control others, is what matters most. When culture is based on a dominator model, not only will it be violent but it will frame all relationships as power struggles.
btw i do in fact have to add at the end of this, that Abdullah Öcalan's paradigm of democratic modernity vs capitalist modernity not only centers women's liberation as a core element of true socialist and democratic liberation, but also i think Rojava and the Zapatistas in Chiapas are great examples of how actually intersectional revolutionary feminism can in fact lead to not just better conditions for women but true connection and solidarity between men and women.
THE ALTERNATIVE MODELS OF MANHOOD AND MASCULINITY ARE POSSIBLE!!!!! but they must be truly revolutionary, truly democratic, truly anti-capitalist, anti-racist, anti-imperialist, and radically anti-patriarchal in order to succeed. feminism has not failed men by going too far, it has failed everyone by never going far enough.
People hate trans men so much that they outright fabricate events to justify their hate. I just had someone tell me, when I asked how the "trans man was whining," tell me that his girlfriend said it. When I pressed how his girlfriend explaining the situation was him whining, I get "because she was explaining what he said to the bouncer, are you dense?" I said that the OP clearly said the bouncer never spoke to him, and she never mentioned him speaking to her. "Well I misremembered one small fact that doesn't disprove my point" that was the majority of your point... This is just TODAYS example of such fabrication
"Heyy is this the transmasc bike gang meetup? Yeah it's my first time haha um I think—I think there have been a slight misunderstanding. No yeah that's a gorgeous, sleek, burnt-sienna Ecosse ES1 Spirit motorcycle you got there. And I really like your leather vest. Quick question how do you feel about ten speeds"
"Transandrophobia truther" Why yes, i do have eyes.
You can dislike the term, but denying the transphobia trans men face is so idiotic i dunno where to begin. Like, i dunno if you (general you) noticed, but trans men are... trans. Shocker, i know.
i hate it when i see a trans person asking for life saving donations and stuff and then when i click on their blog the first thing i see in their bio is something along the lines of "transandrocunts dni"... your wish is my command i guess but i rlly would've loved to help you out yk? but whatever
the idea that people can say Oh actually you're wrong I'm not the minority you're trying to oppress and bigots will go Oh sorry about that well if you say you're not the minority we're targeting we'll go and leave you alone is ludicrous. that's not how hatecrimes work
I wish there could be a trans man villain in a horror movie where his transness isn't the main focus or not even his origin, a complex character in itself.
Trans people deserve to exist in every role and genres. A hero, detective, a witch, a space ship captain, a monster hunter, the monster, a slice for life character.
got in a tumblr hole i dont really have any clue what tma/tme is but like guys dont we have enough binaries. like i get it but also do we need to put everything into little boxes. havent we grown dont we understand that everything is nuanced and we cant keep assigning people to be things. or maybe im not woke enough but. god can we not just say that transmisogyny is disgusting and that transandrophobia is also disgusting. cant we just agree to be against hatred PLEASE we have to stand together guys im begging
It is misgendering to shoo multigender people away from spaces made for people of at least one of their genders. For instance: kicking multigender men out of MLM spaces, or kicking multigender women out of WLW spaces.
How you perceive them beyond how they identify is entirely in your ballpark, and isn't something they should have to carry the burden of, irregardless of if they present more like how you'd expect somebody of just one of their genders to present.
They also shouldn't have to carry the burden of not knowing which one gender of theirs somebody is going to laser-focus on, and worrying how that's subsequently going to determine how they're treated.
if a person of color says something is racist then it probably is
if a queer person says something is queerphobic then it probably is
if a disabled person says something is ableist then it probably is
if a jewish person says something is antisemitic then it probably is
if a muslim person says something is islamophobic then it probably is
listen to minorities instead of deciding for yourself what's bigoted
edit: to people saying there's nuance to this, you're correct, but please make your own post. this is about listening to minorities, not questioning their biases.
