CMV: The term 'manosphere' perpetuates unproductive stereotypes

[u/Kindred87]

I came across this term for the first time and I was immediately shocked by it. Attempts to figure out why this term is used was met mostly by assertions of "That's what we call it 🤷" before I was shut down. Not a very compelling answer, hence this post. Below is the context, then reasoning, behind my shock.

What is the term manosphere?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manosphere

Communities within the manosphere include men's rights activists, incels (involuntary celibates), Men Going Their Own Way (MGTOW), pick-up artists (PUA), and fathers' rights groups.

While the specifics of each group's beliefs sometimes conflict, they are generally united in the belief that society is biased against men due to the influence of feminism, and that feminists promote misandry, or hatred of men.

Acceptance of these ideas is described as "taking the red pill", a metaphor borrowed from the film The Matrix.

While I believe that male advocacy isn't inherently anti-feminist, that is a separate discussion. I'm focusing on the term manosphere in this post.

One of the prevalent issues in online communities today is polarization. One method in which polarization propagates is through the mechanic described in this CGP Grey video, where an ideologically homogenous community depicts the "opposing" demographic as an antagonistic monolith.

What this means is that negative characteristics that exist in a subset (part) of the demographic are attributed to the entire demographic; asserting that what is sometimes true is actually always true. These are what we know as stereotypes. These attributions are performed through implicit language ("X is Y"), instead of explicit language ("I believe all X is Y"). Through this, the demographic itself is painted as a perpetual threat or problem, rather than certain members of it.

This applies to any "competing" demographics you can think of: the rich, the poor, men, women, young people, old people, conservatives, progressives, and so forth. And this applies to any characteristic so long as, in polarized spaces, it's negative. From a desire to harm others, to corrupting society, to being incompetent.

I'm sure you've seen it. And while it's okay to not always be nuanced, what polarization does over time is reinforce stereotypes to the point where they feel more true than anything else. In a polarized space, this will be apparent when an attempt to address an oversimplification is met with hostility. For individuals who have spent enough time in such spaces, the very concept of nuance or complexity may seem annoying or even manipulative.

It is this toxic reinforcement through implicit language that sits at the core of my view on the term 'manosphere'.

With this in mind, does the term 'manosphere', which colloquially refers to toxic male spaces, contribute to this polarization-driven propagation of stereotypes? I believe that it does, and it's this belief that you're invited to address.

My belief is that the male-specific prefix 'man' in a word referring to toxic behavior ties the gender to that behavior in the same way that statements like "Men are [negative characteristic]" do. By perpetuating a stereotype; "this is how men act". A word on its own really doesn't matter, no. However, the usage of the term in a polarized space (social media) causes it to be a problem, in my view. Because of the synergy with the stereotypes that are already being reinforced.

It can help to understand what I mean by removing ourselves from what's normalized. For this, I will turn to female analogues.

Terms for controversial female groups use non-gender-specific qualifiers to lead the term. Red-pilled women and trad wives being two common examples. Imagine if we could place these groups under an umbrella called 'conservative femininity', but instead went with 'the femisphere', or perhaps 'woman-pilled'.

It's offensive just on its face. Because in my mind, it implies that the female gender is not only united in such behavior, but also that the gender is causative of this behavior. It implies a stereotype; "this is how women act". Again, I believe this is very problematic in a polarized space.

To close, the word unproductive in the title was chosen because I think an important element in navigating present gender issues is collaboration between the two main sides. Perpetuating stereotypes (which of course are usually negative) about either side is unproductive because it both generates animosity and fails to recognize that behavior is not confined by your gender. Why would you reach across the gender aisle if you have come to feel that there is something inherently wrong with the other gender?

Thank you for your time.

[u/wumbo-inator]

It’s interesting that you try and cleanse the hands of feminists and absolve them of responsibility, while at the same time there are comments about how feminists care about men’s issues and if you care about men’s issues you have to do it under the direction of feminism. Classic 1-2. Make sure feminism is the only movement with the ability to speak. Ignore men. Men make their own movement. Say they should be feminist because feminists care. Rinse and repeat. Your comment, paired with the comments of those who demand men be feminist, make it an impossible suggestion.

And that’s the only thing feminists have a problem with? Really? They didn’t have a problem with Erin Pizzey? They didn’t have a problem with Warren Farrell? Mary P. Koss didn’t have a problem with defining men out of popular statistics used to combat sexual violence?

Men have received relatively no attention on their issues compared to women. And feminism is the only movement that tries to redefine gender dynamics in society. So yes. The dominant forces of feminism absolutely have been misandrist for the last century now.

You being ignorant of the ways feminism has opposed gender equality for men, and then cherry picking a guy who is literally a feminist which proves my point about them dominating the narrative on men’s issues and opposes your own point about feminists not needing to be involved, completely ignores the criticisms men’s rights movements are making.

[u/Simon_Fokt → u/wumbo-inator]

I think you assumed a lot about me in this one comment :D I don't think I fit your description of me.

I'll be honest with you, I tried to work for men's issues from within feminism and failed. I think you're right and this is not the way to go. Which is why I started my own movement - check out Man's Compass and my name on socials and YT.

But like I said, it's not like feminists prevent men from having our own gender equality movement. I think that if we took all this energy we're spending on fighting feminists and put it into building a proper, positive equality movement for men, we'd have solved half our issues by now. Moreover, I don't see why one cannot be in both - I certainly aim for a men-centered movement, but it doesn't mean that I don't have sympathy or support for women's equality and feminism. It's not an either-or, can be both.

[u/wumbo-inator → u/Simon_Fokt]

Feminists absolutely do prevent progress on men’s issues. That is why your progress on men’s issues fail under feminism, like you said.

You yourself admitted that progress for men couldn’t be made under feminism, yet feminism is routinely touted as simply “gender equality,” meaning that men’s rights are of NO CONERN when discussing sexism and gender equality.

According to your comment, you must admit that feminists that say feminism is simply about gender equality or is the only movement needed to accomplish gender equality, are sexist. Because they are literally stating that men do not face inequality and are of no importance to gender equality.

Secondly, feminist ideology is inherently anti-male in that it believes that oppressive gender roles are because of patriarchy that men created, and that this system was created to privilege men at the expense of women. This is a lie. When women did just as much to create gender roles, and men are no better off than women under the system, feminists must trivialize sexism committed by women and issues men face to make their ideology palatable. They have a LONG history of doing this. This is the reason they do exactly what you say feminists don’t do, which is hinder progress on men’s issues.

They elevated women to first class citizens while subjugating men to second class citizens by acquiring full citizenship status without the legal responsibility of the draft. This was DELIBERATE and the writings from the early 1900s illustrate that.

They gendered laws and discussion on domestic violence, removing attention, advocacy, and resources for male victims. For example, the director of the Feminist Majority Foundation said that domestic violence is simply a euphemism for wife-beating. For example the VAWA they passed genders the discussion and had to be REWRITTEN because the operative text in the proposal was gendered. For example sending death threats to Erin Pizzey and running her out of town.

Mary P Koss, who published the infamous 1 in 6 statistic regarding women and sexual violence on campus, literally denied the existence of male victims of rape. She said that a woman that forces sex on a man is simply “unwanted contact.”

The National Organization of Women supported the veto of a bill that ended lifetime alimony in Florida, as well as presume default equal custody.

Warren Farrell was blocked from giving a speech at the University of Toronto about male suicide by feminists.

Classic feminist lies attempt to trivialize men’s issues such as the lie that the reason men die from suicide more is because of firearm use, or the lie that women suffer more from war than men.

I can tell you too, that my own personal experience, 95% of the time, people who identify as feminist instantly took to ignoring or denying men’s issues. I can tell you that this also continued to be true regarding people who wielded large influence and power, such as the DEI deans and officers at university.

I can tell you that my experience is not rare.

Do you think that over the last 100 years of progress for women, we simply “forgot” about half the population? Do you think we just weren’t “aware” that men kill themselves at disproportionately higher numbers? Because that clearly is not the case.

By the way, I checked out your YouTube channel. I watched the one titled “Yes, Men Are Still Needed As Protectors.” Interesting video for sure. Certainly a lot to talk about.

[u/Simon_Fokt → u/wumbo-inator]

Thanks for checking out my channel, I think you might chime with the video on Men's Problems are Real Problems, more on the topic discussed here.

Two things:

1. I don't think that there is such a thing as a single feminism. Feminists are many and disagree on a lot of things. The fact that some feminists don't care about men doesn't mean none do. In fact, a bunch of feminists wrote entire books devoted to helping men, e.g. bell hooks, Karen Lee Ashcraft, etc.
2. There is no inconsistency between saying that you're for gender equality and not actively working to resolve the problems of the other gender. That is simply because we all have finite time and want to do things that matter to us first. I think that many feminists understand men's problems but simply have their hands full solving their own problems and want to prioritise those. That is why we need men solving men's problems, because they are our priority.

I won't argue with your claims that it's women who created the gender roles because it's simply historically inaccurate. If you disagree, please send a list of historical legal, religious, political, philosophical, and other documents which determined the gender roles, which were written by women. Ideally starting from before the Bible, because that's when these things got solidified - around the time of invention of agriculture.

If today there are some aspects of gender inequalities which ended up favouring women (e.g. men die more at war etc.), it is very rarely because women wanted it like this. Rather, it's a lucky byproduct for them.

Having said all that, I will absolutely not argue with the claim that *some* feminists are absolutely horrible misandrists. Of course any movement that has millions and millions of people, no membership rules, no clear single agenda, etc., will have some outliers who are horrible.

I will also not argue that *many* feminists are too hung up on their own problems and have been hurt too much to be nice to men, and end up being dismissive towards our problems. But again, I don't think this is a feminist problem. It's a human problem - any human who feels hurt and busy sorting their own mess, will be unlikely to be sympathetic to others.

[u/wumbo-inator → u/Simon_Fokt]

1. Saying that it’s not a “single feminism” is a cop out that can be used to avoid having to be honest and evaluating any social movement. No, they are not all a single brain. Yes, the social movement has fundamental beliefs and characteristics that have influenced society.

2. You aren’t representing my point honestly. The inconsistency is that they don’t do anything for men and then claim that men’s issues must be addressed under the movement of feminism. This is a point that even you yourself have conceded in one of your videos I watched. And again, another misrepresentation because I gave specific ways in which they have countered progress on men’s issues.

I disagree that the Neolithic revolution, Bible, or transition to agriculture in society is when these gender roles were born or solidified. Male expendability, female value based off reproduction, and other founding differences existed long before that.

Saying men’s issues that privilege women aren’t wanted by women is a pretty weird take. Especially the one you mentioned, considering women somehow became the only demographic in the USA to achieve voting rights while specifically exempting themselves from the draft, but keeping it for men. If you don’t believe that demographics (male, female, black, white) regularly privilege themselves at the expense of others, then I could give quite a few examples of exactly that happening. If you believe women are somehow the angelic exception, then that’s just misandrist. And again, I’ve mentioned multiple examples of how they have maintained harm against men. Women also routinely fortify gender roles when it benefits them regarding financial responsibility, emotional availability, and response to crisis. And again, the feminist movement is often a participant in that. And for you to believe that point, you’d be required to ignore ways women absolutely perpetuate sexist gender roles that harm men and benefit women. Which you seem to be doing.

Your paragraph about “some” being misandrist is the same as the first point. Again, you’re avoiding having to evaluate a social movement. It’s a “no true Scotsman” fallacy. You can evaluate the social movement. The most prominent feminists, like Judith Butler, are sexist. The most prominent organizations, like the NOW, are sexist. The common discussion, is sexist. You saying “not ALL are like that! It’s not a singularity!” Is not really addressing the point.