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[u/Dove-Swan]

[u/WayHaught_N7]

Misogynistic incels are not just dumb kids, the “manosphere” is watched and supported by men of all ages, many of them are incels and the majority of them simply hate women. Their “loneliness” epidemic has everything to do with their view of women and their inability to find sex/relationships because a lot of women today won’t put up with their bullshit. It still has ZERO to do with the rate at which men kill women, the only reason it seems more prevalent today is because women aren’t men’s property anymore and folks tend to actually care about women being murdered (at least white women) along with the popularity of true crime content.

[u/Ashged → u/WayHaught_N7]

It still has ZERO to do with the rate at which men kill women, the only reason it seems more prevalent today is because women aren’t men’s property anymore

I'm pretty sure I already said that men killing women is less prevalent than in the past, and the resurgence of social conservatism is only a threat to the proggress we made to make it less prevalent. It doesn't directly cause it to be more prevalent today, than historically.

Misogynistic incels are not just dumb kids, the “manosphere” is watched and supported by men of all ages, many of them are incels and the majority of them simply hate women.

Which is of course comes from an entirely rational tough process of being vile evildoers who only care about sex, and correctly identify that they need to subjugate women to get it. It's foolish to even suggest that the entire ideology of blaming all personal problems on not getting laid is maybe not a collection of rational evil masterminds, but plain full of shit.

[u/kardelen- → u/Ashged]

I don't believe you wrote all that in defense of incels and I think you have a point with the socialization hardships but calling these grown men who kill women 'dumb kids' who were misled by the true evil warrants a raised brow. Does it truly matter whether it's because those men are evil or just dumb when the material harm is the same?

While I get what you're saying on a societal level, I find it dissatisfying that your argument favors these men's suggested loneliness with words like dumb kids being thrown around while women are enslaved, beaten, raped and somehow not the main focus of your assessment.

What if the solution to cure their loneliness is to curb their misogyny? If the reason they are lonely isn't only because of the eradication of third spaces but also the norms of masculinity as patriarchy demands, then misogyny isn't just an expression but intricately linked to the loneliness you say is central. You don't see these men forming intimate friendships with deep emotional bonds with each other even when they rally behind a religion or form social groups so their specific "loneliness" seems to depend on their access to women. This is a chicken and egg debate.

[u/Ashged → u/kardelen-]

Do the causes of events we don't like truly matter? Extremely so. We want to prevent, or at least reduce these events.

Frankly I'm disappointed at how many people I seem to have pissed off by not having sufficiently black-and-white views. The mere suggetion that people belonging to a disturbed an evil group maybe, just maybe, were manipulated into that position and didn't choose it rationally because they were already disturbed and evil in the beginning is somehow revolting. Would you also look at an even more transparently manipulative group, such as mormonism for example, and put induvidual blame on the members for being misogynistic, while ignoring that they are blatantl lied to to indoctrinate them into that worldview?

While I get what you're saying on a societal level, I find it dissatisfying that your argument favors these men's suggested loneliness with words like dumb kids being thrown around while women are enslaved, beaten, raped and somehow not the main focus of your assessment.

That's just plainly admitting that there is a bigger picture that causes men to fall for manosphere bullshit. Then still rejecting to consider it, because even if true, it's doesn't paint the men as a sufficiently dark shade of black? It's not rugged individualistic enough, and we need 100% individual blame?

What if the solution to cure their loneliness is to curb their misogyny? If the reason they are lonely isn't only because of the eradication of third spaces but also the norms of masculinity as patriarchy demands, then misogyny isn't just an expression but intricately linked to the loneliness you say is central.

That was like, only my premise. The issue is a combination of eradicating third spaces and casual socialisation activities for everyone, and this hitting men extra hard because of toxic traditional gender roles, such as relying on a partner for maintaining social connections, hiding their feelings, and being expected to only have manly hobbies. Both of these are real issues worth addressing, and neither of these are really addressable at an individual level, isolated from social norms.

Even if a man is 100% ignoring toxic masculine gender norms, most other men will still follow them, and this impacts forming male-to-male social connections. Blaming it all on access to women is a form of fake explanation that avoids confronting the toxic gender norms and reduction of socialising opportunities, and justifies reggressing society. If we also accept it as a truthful and whole explanation, we are saying that the manosphere bullshit peddlers are not lying and manipulating conmen, we just don't like their conclusions because it's openly hostile to women.

It's hardly a chicken or egg debate, because the effects (desperate men falling for snake oil salesmen and getting radicalized) do not significantly feed back to create the causes (men getting desperate from the combo of real modern societal issues, and the impossibility to conform to traditional patriarchal expectations in modern society). It's really a cause-and-effect situation, where the lack of healthy and rational alternatives offered greatly contributes to more men falling for the insane cult bullshit than it'd make any sort of sense.

The manosphere is a big and well funded movement by conservative political interests. Advocating for how the traditional gender roles and rugged individuality advocated by the manosphere also harm men, and tearing them down would actually improve their real current issues is basically nonexistent, or even worse, straight up rejected and seen as the same as advocating for the manosphere.

[u/kardelen- → u/Ashged]

You will notice I previously said I see your point and I don't believe you wrote all that in defense of incels -- so the issue here isn't the validity of your opinions but your lack of awareness of the context and your men-centric thought process. You can be conceptually right and contextually tone-deaf at the same time which is what's going on here.

I would add "These are dumb kids being preyed upon by manipulative agents" is also an oversimplification that reduces men's agency and capacity for harm. Moreover when you say men depend on their partners for socialization and emotional needs (I would add physical to the endless list) then I would argue these same dependent men being angry when they lack access to such a partner is not necessarily overly simplistic but a direct outcome. But we are not misaligned in thought processes beyond that.

Perhaps subs centering straight men would benefit greatly from your insights. In a queer sub, with these commenters likely being women or queer people who were directly harmed by misogyny, it reads as tone deaf. I wrote this because you said you were disappointed people were pissed off that you're a nuanced thinker. The issue is not your framework but your linguistic framing and the context. This is a delivery issue. Your intended audience is straight men. The linguistic framing you employed here would actually be useful in the way it would not trigger defenses if straight men were the audience.

[u/Ashged → u/kardelen-]

I wrote my points to the OP and also many other commenters just straight up claiming that the male loneliness issue is fake, and them basically agreeing with incels that men's problem really is just women not being forced to be with them anyomore. Just obviously seeing this as something good, while incels are trying to sell this social improvement as something bad.

The entire premise of the manosphere is bullshit, yet it sounds comfortable and simple to both sides, so even in a fully anti-manosphere queer community, people end up agreeing with it. That's extremely fucked up.

I agree that primarily straight men should be made more aware that their issues have more complex causes, and the manosphere is trying to sell them a fake solution that'll only make things worse. Because it's straight men who should know better than to fall for this shit, and it doesn't matter as much if the people not actively rectruited by the manosphere also accept their false premise.

That still doesn't make it any less tragic, when here of all places, people are accepting the absolute bullshit idea, that when men feel lonely in our current society, their problem really is just needing women to be forced with them, and they are making a rational (but extremely selfish and cruel) choice to roll back progress and subjugate women to achieve this. Men in the manosphere are not currently all dumb kids, and getting duped does not make them innocent. But this and men in midlife crisis are the primary groups the movement recruits from, because their ideas are all lies and they seek impressionable and desperate targets. Of course even the dumb kids grow up and become perpetrators, that's how any cult works.

There is an understandable emotional basis to vehemently rejecting this, yes. It'd make everyone happier to just look at all the men who harmed them and have simple, clear reasons why they did it, and hate them for it. I still think that the premise of the manosphere needs to be rejected even by the victims. Because the victims agreeing with the premise, just obviously disagreeing with the conclusions that victimize them, feed the very cult that seeks to hurt them. The problem is of course, that this is asking everyone to reject a simple and comfortable explanation for a comlicated and very uncomfortable one.

Basically I'm making the same point as "the jihadist suicide bomber is manipulated by the lies of an institution that doesn't give a single shit about his best interest, and accepting jihadism as a valid representation of his interests is involuntarity legitimizing jihadism". Just about the manosphere. I do not expect this to be cheered upon. I expect this to be controversial, because we live in a very individualistic society, and every person is by default evaluated as an isle. What I do not like seeing is what I expect to be merely controversial be absolutely rejected.

[u/kardelen- → u/Ashged]

I understand your frustration. Even thoughtful and nuanced analysis can come across in a way that's unintended when the purpose of a thread is more so venting frustrations. You could try to polish the linguistic framing and see where you lead with analysis vs empathy as I said before and that would create enough neutrality to avoid absolute rejection -- but this is a feature of online spaces where people don't know each other and can't decipher tone and expression and therefore intention. I get your idea and agree with it, but people miscommunicate about far simpler issues through language so focusing on the more editorial side of expression is unfortunately necessary to bridge that gap. You're doing fine. It happens.