Men's Liberation

Every movement has a canon: the core principles behind it, a mythology about its history, and the textbook statement of its objectives.

Every movement also has a reality. Thousands or millions of people with their own ideosynchratic beliefs forming a complex social web. Within this web, a vibrant biosphere of memes [0] develop, spread and evolve on this social web. A movement is simply a name we give to a cluster of memes within this complex web. It is not any of the myths we tell about it; those are merely particular memes holding the cluster together.

The author of this article is a self described liberal feminist. She identifies a change that occurred within her bubble of feminism, where it became increasingly anti-man.

To be clear, that is not all the author says. Once she gets to the "Let's talk about how the patriarchy harms men and boys" section, she stops the meta conversation about the movement itself, and spends the rest of the article discussing mens issues directly.

However, to your comment, and the first part of the article, maybe we need to stop hiding behind the mythology we tell ourselves about feminist; and start recognizing that the "feminist" portions of the social web are still susceptible to anti-feminist memes.

[0] in its original sense; as a direct analog to the genes of biology.

assumed feminism is for women

It's because of the name and history of fighting for women. The movement should have gone for "egalitarianism" if they didn't want people to think of women first/exclusively.

It's why I've vehemently rejected the label of feminist even when I'm in feminist spaces with feminist friends: I'm here for everyone, there's a word for that, use it.

The problem is that the "Kill all men" extremists are often the loudest which causes many to think that feminism in general is like that.

It probably is. Not everyone has a robust education, misinformation is rampant, and there is always a new generation still learning the world. At a glance the word "feminism" appears as a movement just for women, so occasionally having headlines like this can help the misinformed or still learning to reevaulate their understanding.

Some people are surprised to learn it is not just about women.

If feminism wasn’t women centric, it wouldn’t be called feminism, it would be called humanism or just equality.

How can a movement centred around women empowerment also empower men?

Some people read the above and see it possible, some, like me, see it as an oxymoron.

If it’s just a label, then just rebrand it…

I have actually never felt entitled to these things. What I mostly feel is a responsibility. If something breaks I'm supposed to know how to fix it. Because of this I have become good at fixing things. If we are lost I'm supposed to find where we are, so I study maps before I go somewhere new. If a decision needs to be made, again, eyes turn to me, so I need to know a little about everything, and never look indecisive. If an unexpected expense comes up, I need to have money saved away for this purpose. The punishment for failing things like this is not disapproval from other men or feeling less masculine. The punishment is that I'm viewed as less by my girlfriend. This is how I think things go hand in hand. By helping women get empowered, we can share responsibilities. By women helping us feel valued for ourselves, worthy of love, desired as we are, we don't need to constantly fear being seen as less... then, I don't know. Maybe it would also lead to men feeling safer to be better human beings. The impossible dilemma now, for me, is that I'm still expected to be successful in the traditionally masculine things, while at the same time not being successful in the traditionally masculine things. No way to win.

The best way I've heard it put is that society values women for what they are, and values men for what they do. This is bad for everyone, of course, but it's how things have worked.

I’m not sure I agree with that. Society values women for all the wrong reasons (sexual objects, something to be controlled, etc). Men are valued for the wrong reasons too (physical prowess, etc).

The former :)

Men’s liberation is a far cry from MRAs, which is probably what you’re thinking of

Is this phrasing helpful or hurtful.

Its making it sound like patriarchy isnt a nebulous web of consequences.

If its giving people the idea that the patriarchy is something akin to a politcal party or movement then we should probably stop unintentionally giving people the wrong target to hit.

Its a thing of a billion selfish decisions and consequences going back thousands of years.

You cant just name it and scare it away, you have to understand how it still exists and set the path for self correction when decisions are made that affect and effect people broadly.

It cant be fixed by making gender based corrective rules or legislation, its by adopting good practices when making policies for people you wont ever see or hear from because they arent born yet. Hilariously to me, im kind of saying wont we just think about the children.

Like climate change and pollution its not the world today we can fix, its fixing today so the world can be fixed later

And thats why its so hard, everyone is arguing about what is first thing we should already be doing but arent

We need to just start making choices now whenever we find the opportunity, that we wont have to revisit tomorrow.

And that means finding common ground so we can start agreeing on somethings and making some decisions like that today.

And im not smart enough acheive that, and it looks like around the world we are all having a hard time finding choices that arent getting unmade by the next people who get to make decisions