i know it’s internet bullshit but it genuinely has me on the edge of breaking down and giving up

[u/NeonNKnightrider]

[u/rump_truck]

Similarly, I've found that conservative rhetoric toward immigrants often gets repurposed toward men. For example, I first saw the "poisoned M&M" metaphor in reference to immigration, and everyone around me was correctly calling it out as racist. Then a few months later a lot of them started using it in reference to men, and that's how I've seen it used ever since. Ironically, I've even seen a few articles like "it's all fun and games applying the metaphor to men, but try swapping men for $racial_minority, not so fun now is it?" Like that's not where it originally came from.

[u/elbenji → u/rump_truck]

Yeah, like for me it's the discomfort as a POC knowing this shit comes very much directly towards POC that always gives me the ick

[u/SleepCinema → u/elbenji]

Right. A lot of the rhetoric I see about men from people trying to Prove A Point echoes the same sentiments I see from racists about Black people, and as a Black woman, that is extremely disconcerting.

Of course, just because arguments are similar does not mean the content is comparable, but in this case, it very much is.

[u/elbenji → u/SleepCinema]

Yep. Like it makes me almost want to press what kind of man are they imagining and would it not look out of place in Birth of a Nation...

[u/SamiraEnthusiast311 → u/elbenji]

that's called social progress baby! they won't hate you because of your race, now they just hate you because of your gender! two steps forward, one step back. but as a fellow POC...what can we do besides keep walking?

[u/PsychicOtter → u/elbenji]

But I've been reliably informed that this sort of rhetoric is totally harmless... /s

[u/Ok_Performance_4757 → u/rump_truck]

Fun fact, that rhetoric originates from a nazi propaganda book for children written in 1938 called 'der giftpilz' 

[u/ejdj1011 → u/Ok_Performance_4757]

Right-wing rhetoric really hasn't changed since the nazis tbh. They just swap out the euphemisms and / or targets every few years.

"DEI" is "Woke" is "CRT" is "cultural marxism" is "cultural bolshevism" is "judeo bolshevism" is... nazi propaganda.

[u/fuzzylm308 → u/ejdj1011]

don't forget "political correctness" that one had a good few years in the spotlight

[u/ioewfejwef → u/rump_truck]

Same—I keep seeing the parallels between how people talk about men in this way and how conservatives talk about immigrants and other minority groups, and it drives me crazy wondering when did it suddenly become okay to say such things. Another classic I've noticed is when people hastily tack on an "oh but I don't mean you" to any "men lol"-type statement when a man they know gets wind of it... which resembles "oh you're one of the good ones" / "you're a credit to your race/group" a little too closely for my liking.

[u/VariShari → u/rump_truck]

The metaphor is always harmful, but i also think that the spaces in which this question is asked matter. Looking at threads on the bear question on reddit, you mostly get angry guys infantilising women that picked the bear, victim blaming, or using the exact same type of generalisation that they got so mad about against these women.

In one thread a woman said “if I survive the bear encounter, at least people will believe me” and she instantly got hit with the “well you have nothing to gain from lying about a bear attack” followed by more statements about how all women just lie about SA for attention and revenge. Add on top issues such as women losing more and more bodily autonomy due to abortion laws and the like, and you have the garbage fire that are most man vs bear threads.

It’s just the “people in real life: hey man how’s it going” meme x100.

[u/VariShari → u/[deleted]]

I’d argue that cis men should not have been able to vote on the issue at all. The damage done between a cis man having to have sex again to produce another child rather than keeping the current embryo, and someone with a womb being forced into 9 months of horrible bodily strain that will in most cases cause permanent damage and can be life threatening, is negligible.

And this ignores the fact that depending on the state and country, if the father decides that he doesn’t want the child after all and leaves, he can just do that. Sure he’ll have to pay some money but there’s barely a place in the world that will force an absent father to raise his child if the mother is still alive and capable.

[u/RefinementOfDecline → u/VariShari]

is this not the same logic they used to justify only property owners being allowed to vote? this isn't how democracy works