I used to see a lot of liberal feminist pages on Instagram that I am now kinda suspicious of. The issues they brought up were always, exclusively, cishet issues, like luxury tax on tampons and sexism in workplaces. Not that these aren't serious issues, but there was never any mention of how queer women are affected by these things, or women of colour of neurodivergent women and so on. I don't think I ever saw a single instance of how patriarchy negatively affects men, especially marginalised men, men were only portrayed as benefitting from patriarchy. I'd see these infographics where the only men that existed were businessmen in suits, and the only women that existed were white middle class cishet women.

Such a narrow focus on elevating one group isn't liberation, it's just wanting privileges to be extended to yourselves. These people haven't done a serious examination of patriarchy, they just know how it affects themselves and think "well, I would like it to stop affecting me personally". Dismantling patriarchy is something that requires queer theory and moving past gender binaries and intersectionilism, and anyone who isn't willing to take that step shouldn't be considered a feminist.

White women do fuck up a lot of things and I think their contributions explain most of these tendencies. There is a particular strain that is all about centering their exact experience. It's almost as if they have been gifted one marginalization and are desperate to hoard or rather than dismantle it, as it maintains their status in the discourse and these organizations. In my experience such people are also so obsessed with their particular brand of liberal feminism that they end up not caring about anyone else and get pissed off when you remind them that, for examples brown people exist and face marginalization as well, including brown women, including trans brown women.

There is also a lot of overlap with Warren supporters.

I'm sorta wondering who you're reading. Non white feminists seem to have much better takes than white tenured professors. I realise that she's not perfect, but bell hooks comes across as someone that does intersectionality better.

If anyone has any more names worth reading, I'd be keen to hear it.

In fairness, a lot of foundational feminist literature was written in a time where the patriarchy was significantly more oppressive than it is now, and openly so. Male allies barely existed.

Modern feminist theory reflects the modern day, but as with most fields, the mainstream and even the academics often lag behind. I would expect intersectionality in general to become much stronger in the coming years, especially as the contradictions of modern capitalism drive increasing class consciousness as well.

To me, "can men be feminists" is such a strange thing to ask cause even the most man-hating, gender essentialist radical feminist theorist that I can think of said there could be a men's auxiliary to the movement.

And yeah essentialism is such a strategic dead-end even if we ignore all the theoretical reasons why it's wrong. If "maleness" is innate, then the only way to overthrow male supremacy is an armed revolution by oppressed genders followed by the genocide of men... Almost no one wants this. So instead gender essentialist TE"RF"s and other liberal feminists just tacitly accept eternal male supremacy.

Even if you are a cishet man, for instance, if you are emotional and sensitive, you are being put down for being that way because of patriarchy.

Yeah patriarchy enforces a lot of limitations to behavior. Of course most people would have a better time post-patriarchy. But then you have to fight for the feminist revolution, which is a lot of work for something that might not happen, so might as well appreciate the privileges the system gives you. Idk, I think there's some similarity here with the petty bourgeoisie going for fascism instead of communism when they become downwardly mobile. Also a similar thing with settlers.

on the rare one-off occasions in which we are directly brought up, intersectionality will, ironically enough, be called a "divisive distraction," and in some instances, people like me are met with mask-off bigotry.

The state of the feminist movement right now is... Not good

I see currently the inability of potential feminist subjects to struggle in any way (not just the meaningful, also the symbolic language-game way that mostly achieves headlines) for their interests together instead of shoring up their respective priviledges in the current order as you have said. While even cishet men as a group could profit from patriarchy ending, the short-term benefits are too high right now and for less oppressed but still somewhat marginal groups, assimilationism instead of revolution is a very sweet allure as they are not really inside the order, but also not totaly outside of it. Like a gay men may get harassed in public, but if he is white and got the right connections (i.e. nepo and family money), he might still think climbing the corporate latter is worth it, e.g., so why risk your temporarily embarrased millionaire life for some homeless trans woman? This translates to reformist scenarios as well. Why confront the transphobic colleagues, etc. Not saying it's all doom and gloom, just, it's what it is.

white feminism delenda est

To add to my last comment, I can half understand women wanting to distance themselves from men as we disappoint time and time again. But I agree with your analysis that it's limiting with other marginalised groups.

Good post. I really resonated with a lot of it, as it puts concise wording to how I've been thinking about feminism lately.

I've come to understand that liberation from these systems of patriarchal gender roles and hierarchies would benefit me in particular as a queer man but, many times I also find myself reflecting on the oppression that women face now and have faced historically. I can't help but sympathize in the ways you mentioned in your post, particularly because it often comes from reflecting on the challenges the women in my life have faced and trying to act as a support system for them. It just leaves me wanting a better world for them so that they can fully flourish; unfettered by these systems of oppression that I know have held them back in their lives and set them on paths they never wanted to go down.

name the ones that you believe are doing that

edit: can you name some of the writers or thinkers that are doing that so I could avoid or pay attention to that

I wonder how much of this is from people trying to have conversations about feminism or through a feminist framework when their knowledge is not all that deep?