15 upvotes, 1 direct replies (showing 1)
it’s always quite interesting how people criticize the “lift yourselves up by your bootstraps” mentality when it is deployed against other minority groups, and claim that insisting men are the fixers of everything is “toxic masculinity” - and then turn around and tell men to shut up and lift themselves up by their bootstraps.
But minority groups literally had to "lift themselves by their bootstraps"! No "minority" group sat around doing nothing and demanded that the "majority" group fixed things for them. That's what being criticised about *some* men: they complain about something but their answer is to blame women and put the onus on them instead of organising to make things better just like every other group did.
Comment by someguynamedcole at 15/02/2025 at 20:34 UTC*
28 upvotes, 2 direct replies
“Other groups experienced adversity so you should too” is not a convincing argument.
Also the full article reports that less than half of women and roughly half of men believed that all male groups are a positive benefit for men. Other sociological research arrives to similar conclusions that, contrary to mainstream opinion that all men are part of the “boys club”, most men do not have an in-group bias. That is, most men don’t see other random men in public and have any sort of distant perception of “those are my people” the same way that many women, poc, and lgbt people do.
This makes activism even more difficult. The pre existing social affinity that many women, poc, and lgbt feel for each other was and still is a boon to political organizing in these spheres.
Additionally, I think if more people were honest with themselves, they would admit that they feel uncomfortable and unsettled at the thought of all male groups discussing social issues since there is the inherent risk these men may not be fully aligned with the preferred sociopolitical viewpoints.