this post was submitted on 11 Oct 2024
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menby

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A space for masculine folks to talk about living under patriarchy.

Detoxing masculinity since 1990!

You don’t get points for feminism, feminism is expected.

Guidelines:

  1. Questions over blame
  2. Humility over pride
  3. Wisdom over dogma
  4. Actions over image

Rules (expansions on the guidelines):

  1. Mistakes should be learning experiences when possible.
    • Do not attack comrades displaying vulnerability for what they acknowledge are mistakes.
    • If you see good-faith behavior that's toxic, do your best to explain why it's toxic.
    • If you don't have the energy to engage, report and move on.
    • This includes past mistakes. If you've overcome extreme reactionary behavior, we'd love to know how.
    • A widened range of acceptable discussion means a greater need for sensitivity and patience for your comrades.
    • Examples:
      • "This is reactionary. Here's why."
      • "I know that {reality}, but I feel like {toxicity}"
      • "I don't understand why this is reactionary, but it feels like it {spoilered details}"
  2. You are not entitled to the emotional labor of others.
    • Constantly info-dumping and letting us sort through your psyche is not healthy for any of us.
    • If you feel a criticism of you is unfair, do not lash out.
    • If you can't engage self-critically, delete your post.
    • If you don't know how to phrase why it's unfair, say so.
  3. No singular masculine ideal.
    • This includes promoting gender-neutral traits like "courage" or "integrity" as "manly".
    • Suggestions for an individual to replace a toxic ideal is fine.
    • Don't reinforce the idea the fulfillment requires masculinity.
    • This also includes tendency struggle-sessions.
  4. No lifestyle content.
    • Post the picture of your new grill in !food (feminine people like grills too smh my head).
    • Post the picture of the fish you caught in !sports (feminine people like fish too smdh my damn head).
    • At best, stuff like this is off-topic. At worst, it's reinforcing genders norms..
    • If you're not trying to be seen as masculine for your lifestyle content, it's irrelevant to this comm. If you are trying to be seen as masculine, let's have a discussion about why these things are seen as masculine.

Resources:

*The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love by Bell Hooks

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**Crossposter's note: I was working on a discussion post with excerpts, but this is a really good thread I don't want to split the discussion. Please just participate in the original instead. **

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/3652499

thanks to @iridaniotter@hexbear.net for telling me abt this essay! its been posted on HB before, but not in a while.

read feminist theory you libs! uphold TC69 thought!

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[–] Breath_Of_The_Snake@hexbear.net 4 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

The only comment that should be here (read the body): the essay rules. Read it (please)!

Choice quotes for anyone who doubts the value of reading it and needs a lil push:

So where does gender’s material base lie? Gender is produced primarily by the division of reproductive labor. Reproductive labor is any labor that helps to produce the next generation, including sex, birth, childcare, and homemaking, and gender is defined by how this labor is divided up, with the different genders being distinct classes which are expected to perform specific sorts of tasks regarding reproductive labor.

Since gender is an expression of these relations of production and not of biology, where does that leave sex? Some pseudomarxists claim sex forms the material base of gender, but this is a laughable understanding of historical materialism which centers biology before relations of production. Biology influences our reality, but our social systems find their basis in our material conditions.

Gender is the earliest class systems and, as a result, it precedes the state, even in its earliest most basic form. This means that, unlike capitalism, race, neuronormativity, and the various other class systems, the state is not the primary means by which gender is imposed upon people.

Sexual violence fills the role among women and queer people that police violence fills among many others.

But these are systems, not a system, and the modern gender binary has been enforced on almost the whole world. Some different gender class systems still exist, but, by and large, the advent of the liberal social order as a global social order rather than a regional one has produced a single gender system which all other systems are seen as perversions of. Other gender systems today serve as hold outs within a larger global system.

These are but a small amount of the really important bits that serve as a preface for the larger point. Trust me, trust ZL, and the trust the Hexbear that believes in you: read the whole thing. It's educational. Eat those veggies.