How college campuses, not necessarily education, explain why men with degrees are more immune to far right radicalism on gender.

Trying to understand why I had these opinions, I recalled how much different being a man felt at 18 versus 28. I had no money which I presumed meant I had no value to the opposite sex. I wanted the company of women and girls, but I also resented them because I lacked experience in dating and my few experiences were rocky. A lot of magazines and headlines focused on the shortcomings of men and boys in the early 2010s, and it was easy for me to get negatively polarized into thinking it was a personal attack. Academic feminism did and does a much better job explaining patriarchy better than blogs and news sites which boiled down systems of sexism to individual behaviors.

My experience as a resentful teen boy wasn’t unique. It’s the same experience that millions of boys are going through, which they’d ordinarily grow out of by the time they hit their twenties. In my case, it was happening during a period of social revolution on gender and during an evolution in mass communications. Many of these early communities on Atheism, which captured me for their sensibility and anti-orthodoxy, evolved into anti-progressivism and eventually evolved into the Redpill and Manosphere which is how millions of young boys today engage with their gender. At least my period in this mindset was short lived: about two years. By the time 2016 rolled around, I had clearly lost interest in online gender wars as tyranny seemed a greater threat. I was now 24 and actively attending college; I had plenty of friendships and dating experiences with women, and that teenage resentment was forgotten.

The big crisis we’re dealing with today is that the resentment is not only not expiring when men get into their twenties, but it’s being weaponized globally by parties against men’s material interests. What young boys like me didn’t realize when we were being lectured about patriarchy and the problems of men, is that being a man is an extremely privileged position over women, we’re just not old enough to benefit from it yet. This presents a problem on how we teach oppression and discrimination to young people who have little autonomy of their own and feel bad when you imply your immutable characteristics harm people you seek validation from.

  • millie@beehaw.orgEnglish
    8·
    5 days ago

    Honestly, this may be one of the concepts that it would be better to bring to people once they’ve already found some kind of leftist solidarity. If you take someone steeped in right-wing rhetoric and the first hurdle you put in front of them is expecting humility and understanding before you even give them a reason to want to understand? I don’t think that’s a terribly effective approach.

    If the first thing I say to a cis person is that they have privilege that I lack because I’m trans, I’m doing a few things right out the gate that probably aren’t going to get them to listen. First, I’m highlighting the separate categories that we’re in rather than the unified categories that we’re in. Second, I’m asking them to defer to my experience of the world and to show sympathy and understanding before I even attempt to win them over. Third, I’m asking them to start from a place of humility before I’ve shown that I can be trusted with the very vulnerability that I’m requesting.

    I find it’s much easier to look for common ground first and foremost. Find the ways that they have to struggle and recognize that struggle. Show them that I have some of the same exact struggles that they do. Often this comes down to health, finances, or other experiences that are more universal. It doesn’t even necessarily have to be a shared struggle, it can be a shared interest. But whatever it is, the first step has to be highlighting affinity. There’s a reason people talk about the weather, because we’re all in it together. Rain falls on everyone.

    Once they see that we’re not so different, they tend to be much more willing to hear the stuff that’s outside their experience. You might even be able to highlight patterns like the interplay of intersectional privilege. But if you try to start from there? Good luck.

    Complain about traffic. Complain about the price of eggs. Hit enough of those universals and they won’t be so skeptical when you bring something that requires them to stretch a bit to the table.

    Our problem, I think, is that we’ve largely got the cart entirely before the horse.