(no subject)

[nerdflighter]

I've seen a lot of bad discourse lately, from people I generally respect and admire, about how misandry isn't a real thing and doesn't affect people's lives and so on. This is especially frustrating because we were speaking about a trans man, and I am just...so tired. And so depressed by the way feminism is so resistant to the idea that it can and does cause harm, and that the harm feminism causes in its own name is not justified no matter how, I don't know. Worthy our goals are. It makes me feel bad about calling myself a feminist (queerist, post-feminist). It makes me feel bad about everything. 

I have a tag for talking about the "privileges" trans men have. What I desperately need is validation and people - men and women and NBs - talking about their experiences with misandry. If you have links to such things, or would like to share your own, I would love to hear it. 

Comments

[fred_mouse]

This is going to come out rambling, because I'm tired and hand-wavy.

I work with a number of people who hold to much more conservative binary gender roles than I'm comfortable hearing discussed, especially when it is cis het women dissing their husbands. Too often I hear these and other women making sweeping statements about men, about their social competence, their emotional range, their laziness. So often, the response to me talking about a particular behaviour from a male coded offspring is 'well, he's a boy, isn't he'. As if that excuses it. As if it is normal for boys to be slap-dash, half-arsed, late. It isn't, and I can point to a lot of counter examples (possible more examples).

And I'm guilty of it. I make nasty comments about 'old white men in academia'. I have a strong unwillingness to engage in certain events because of the number or proportion of men is going to be too high. I will avoid groups of young males being loud in public. More so if they are well dressed white males. Because I'm middle class, middle aged, and white. And thus if I'm hassled, it is almost always by white males with behaviour that codes them as ex private school cockwombles.

And oh, the weird responses when male coded offspring decided to dress as Alice in Wonderland. And as Death of the Endless. But more so the first, because I bought them a dress. Which reminds me of a particularly weird experience - at a party, a group were discussing frocks. And I don't remember how we got to it, but one bloke said something (possibly about one of the women wearing a dress?), to which I said 'well everyone needs a nice frock, just in case'. There was a bit of derision then directed at one or more of the blokes at the idea that they might have a dress, until one of the other blokes quite pointedly mentioned that he has a nice skirt. I get so frustrated that men are still policing each other in this way. Which, now I've got through this, I'm trying to work out whether I'm describing misandry or misogyny or both. At the time, it definitely felt anti-men.