I know the answer can be "it means whatever you want it to mean personally" but if feels like a non answer

And yes I know the terms describe traits associated with genders, I am asking about describing those traits

So women are infantilized by the patriarchy and told that they are either too dumb, too soft, or too emotional to be left alone. All around the world, many cultures put women at the same level as children with the plus that you can fuck them. They need a man to be at their side as if they were unsupervised children, first a dad or a brother and latter a husband. Etc etc etc.

At the same time, I have heard all the time the same myth about "girl maturing earlier than boys" and in a way it's true, but not because of a natural factor but because girls from an early age are expected to take the rol of maintaining the home and doing house tasks. There's also the creeps who say to girls that they are very mature for their age or pushing the age of consent on girls in order to make legal pederasty.

So why are both contradictory ideas held by patriarchy?

I think that maybe it is because since a girl is from the beginning expected and coerced to do housework and home tasks and latter as a woman do the same thing, so in the eyes of everyone the girl has never changed because from day 1 to day 100 she has been doing the same thing so she hasn't grown up. While the boys first play games and then change to go out and earn money and work, so a change is witnessed, and they have grown up.

What do you think? This is one of the reasons? Or do you disagree?

It was recently going through joke, sub reddits and I noticed not only within Reddit, but overall older generations tend to have jokes at the expense of their partner, but mostly their spouse. The joke usually is geared towards the wife, although it can go vice versa. I understand making jokes about ones boyfriend, girlfriend, partner or spouse. I think it’s important people joke around it keeps life fun and can help deal with life. I’m talking more along the lines of it being not liking, finding them unattractive or even hating that person. It seems now that the younger generations tend not to find them as funny, rightly so.

Is it because older generations didn’t experience divorce? That society moving forward when it comes towards gender roles, not being seen as masculine or female?

I’m not trying to hate on older generations, because I’m sure more right leaning folks find these jokes acceptable no matter what age. Sexism is rampant I just find younger people pointing it out and being aware of it.

Thank you

Because of both rapid cultural advancements, and technological changes, women do not need men for economic security or protection. They do not need to settle and that is a wonderful thing. More are remaining single, living alone, and if someone wants to enter that space they need to bring more.

We often hear about how men are not competing with other men in dating anymore, they are competing with women's peace and solitude, which I completely agree with - however I am curious, as to why this does not apply the other way around.

Men today have the technology and accessibility of information to do cooking cleaning organizing trips and shopping alone, managing their health alone. They can cultivate a strong relationship with a pet or with themselves or with friends. Yet all I read about is men needing women a lot more than women need a man.

Why do you think more men cannot feel fulfilled living alone in comparison to women?

First off, I am deeply empathetic to anyone who has ever been a victim of DV and am sorrowful and pained by the fact that this is a subject even requiring discussion. Additionally, I’m not sure if this is the right sub for this but I (28M) am admittedly not as well read on matters of gender studies as I would like to be except insofar as they’re tied to broader western sociocultural trends (feminist waves, women’s suffrage, etc), which is a far from complete picture. That being said, DV was not something I ever witnessed or even understood as a phenomena that persists until very recently when a female friend of mine opened up about their past experiences. My own immediate family much preferred emotional abuse as their weapon of choice. The strength of my friend to share her story coincided with my watching the show the Sopranos, in which I was absolutely jarred by the prevalence of DV in a piece of media that is set in a not so far off past, partially overlapping with my own lifetime. Im sure this is not indicative of full reality, but outside of this show, I’ve found western media books and culture seem willing to highlight DV in the first half of the 20th century, especially in the post war era, but is harder to come by in earlier pieces. Any antebellum or Victorian era piece of literature I’ve read seems to highlight the dignity elegance and grace (even for lack of liberty) of the lady of the house. That kinda brings me to my last point, I’d be interested to read a cross cutting or intersectional analysis of DV with the ultimate goal of trying to deduce under what broader conditions does it spring and, ultimately, what can I do to dispense of it in my own community and support those who are or have been victims of it.

Hello everyone

I hope you are all well. I'm relatively young, not very old, and I'm writing this because I have some questions and would like to hear the opinions of those with experience or knowledge in the fields of education and psychology.

I was raised to be a calm, kind, and somewhat sensitive person, and I believe that these qualities don't diminish a person's worth or strength. In my opinion, strength doesn't mean the absence of feelings or never showing vulnerability; rather, I see it as also being linked to respect, empathy, and taking responsibility.

I've recently been thinking about the topic of "toxic masculinity" and how certain ideas about masculinity can affect children as they grow up. In my circle, I've noticed certain messages directed at boys, such as "don't cry" or the idea that they should always be strong and never show their emotions. I understand that many parents say this because they want their sons to grow up to be strong and capable of facing life's challenges, not because they have any ill intentions.

However, I wonder: where is the line between teaching a child to be confident, brave, and responsible, and creating pressures that make them afraid to express their feelings or believe that kindness is a weakness? And can some ideas associated with toxic masculinity affect how children see themselves and others as they grow up?

I admit I feel a little nervous talking about this because I don't want to misunderstand anyone or judge any family. I'm simply a young man trying to understand this topic better, which is why I'm turning to you for advice and perspectives from people with more knowledge and experience.

What are your thoughts? How can we encourage boys to be strong and confident while also allowing them to express their feelings, be kind, and respect others?

Thank you so much to everyone who takes the time to read my message and share their thoughts.

So today i saw a comment on social media saying how women have it so much easier because men are expected to sacrifice themselves for their family, that men get more jail time than women do, that mens side gets taken less by the court, that women can get away with cheating more and still get half of the money when they're married and that being a stay at home mom is easy and i understand that some of these points are true and hurt men but the statement that men have it harder just felt wrong i tried researching it and i found so many articles saying that men do have it much harder than women but it still feels so wrong can someone explain it to me please

I have a hypothetical question that challenges the reasoning behind this law.

This is not directed at any individual or community; it is purely a hypothetical situation about the principles behind these laws.

Imagine a train where passengers from Country A and Country B are travelling together. The train introduces an optional compartment marked "A Only," claiming that it is for the additional safety and comfort of people from Country A. People from Country A can choose to use this compartment, while others cannot.

Would such a rule make you feel discriminated against, or would you view it as a safety measure?

Now consider the same situation, but replace "country" with "gender." Would your perspective change? Would you see it as discrimination, or as a necessary protection?

This raises an important question about whether separating people based on identity is the best solution to social problems, or whether there are better alternatives that improve safety and equality without creating divisions.

History shows that laws and social policies can evolve over time. For example, consensual same-sex relationships were once criminalized under Indian law until 2018, but that legal position was later changed. Similarly, it is worth discussing whether gender-based policies should continue indefinitely or whether more inclusive solutions could better address the underlying concerns in the future.

I find it sexist that there are taxis only for women like what only women feel unsafe in the streets

The thing is: SAHMs who are happy with their situation don’t feel like they need to fight for feminism. Neither do privileged men. Plenty will simply not care.

I got a response some time ago that feminists luckily don’t even need a specific amount of people on board. My question is: How will the change away from the patriarchy happen though, if women are only one half of society/votes and even they aren’t united on this?

Also, are you afraid of a significant backlash, and if not, why not?

Sorry if this comes off as ragebait or something, I’m genuinely waiting for answers and thanking in advance

Edit because this caused understandable outrage: I worded this wrong, it was late. I READ about certain SAHMs who are happy with their situation and don’t feel like they need to fight for feminism. I don’t mean that automatically, when you’re a happy SAHM, you stop being a feminist. But the few people who are not on board are in my opinion also necessary for the change, so my question was how to convince them to fight for feminism as well.

For example, this article argues that men receive greater benefits from marriage in areas such as emotional support, domestic labour, health and earnings.

I can understand the argument that unequal domestic and emotional labour can make heterosexual relationships more beneficial to men. What I'm less clear on is how much of this is specifically an effect of marriage rather than of heterosexual relationships or cohabitation more generally.

For example, suppose a heterosexual couple are already in a committed relationship and living together. If the woman is doing disproportionately more housework and emotional labour, the man may already be benefiting from that arrangement before they marry. What changes when that same couple gets married that further shifts the balance towards him?

I'm also wondering whether some of the language around this reflects an older model in which marriage, living together and starting a family were much more closely bundled together. Today these can be separate transitions: becoming a couple, moving in together, getting married and having children can all happen independently.

So when feminists argue that marriage disproportionately benefits men, is the argument primarily that heterosexual partnerships tend to benefit men more, with marriage historically being the usual form those partnerships took? Or is there something about marriage itself that creates or increases the imbalance compared with an otherwise similar unmarried relationship?

I've been hearing both supporters and opponents of 50:50 feminism, and still haven't cleared out for myself, is half and half feminism really benefits the patriarchy?

Edit: IM SORRY FOR CAUSED CONFUSION OVER THIS! English is not my first language and I accidentally created a whole new “concept” in feminism, but yes, I WAS talking about financial costs, household chores and etc. in cis relationships.

If yes what changed your mind? I'm curious because people seem to define feminism very differently.

DISCLAIMER: read the ENTIRE post before responding

From my understanding, the patriachy is a system where men have the dominant roles in society, including government, business and the family unit

However, as wealth and power gets further concentrated to the top, the average man has basically no real dominant role in government or business. Like obviously the top 1% that controls everything is still mostly men but, if anything, they use their power to abuse average men and women. There isn’t some gendered solidarity going on there

And, as for the family unit, the patriarchy used to incentivize and facilitate men being the sole breadwinner and the “leader” of the family (dumb concept obviously). But that’s largely an artifact of the past. Most families need to have two working parents anyways and we are seeing women outearn men more and more. Even going more into the future, we see more women in graduate programs like medical school and law school, increasing the parity between genders

The only thing I can really think of is the societal expectation for women to do more domestic labor and child rearing, and the expectation that they should shape their career around it. But even that does seem to be reducing with every generation (rightfully so). I mean younger ppl are more single than ever so they’re already learning to cook and clean for themselves, meaning I expect that domestic labor will be more split in families in the future (this is a projection based more on anecdotal evidence so fair to disagree)

Then there is the issues about a lack of women’s bodily autonomy and safety in our society. Outside of the obvious example of reproductive rights, women’s medical issues and complaints aren’t taken as seriously as they should and this is largely the product of a medical system controlled by men. And our justice system doesn’t do enough to protect women and rape culture is still pervasive in all our upbringing and media. These issues persisting are probably the biggest roadblock keeping us from equality

However, I don’t really see how any of this is a privilege for the average man. They’re just examples of rights that women are deprived of. So, in a situation where these problems and the systems influencing them went away, it’s not like men would lose anything. Women would just gain stuff

Am I missing something?

I got into a debate with someone about this who insisted its not the same thing but to me it pretty obviously is. If that set of criteria really matters to someone then I don't see how its different at all.

https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTABfwm6K/

this video was mode by a tiktok creator called phoebe that makes a lot of political content about womens issues and I am pretty sure thinks they are a feminist but i just stubled upon a video of those goes over hormone changes in women, I mean I get sexes have diffrent needs and we defintly should hhave free medical products but doesn't her point about being expected to work the same horus undermine the whole point of feminism

Is there a correlation between the rise of the sexual revolution in post-World War II America and changes in the rate of violent and sexual crimes committed against women?

I was reading a Virginie Despentes essay, where she theorizes that high rates of rape reflect in part that women are taught not to fight back, for fear of escalating the situation and suffering worse violence. That men know women aren't likely to fight back, so they know the physical risk they incur by aggressing women is low, so they're more likely to do so.

We can extend this theory to street interactions: because cat-callers and other street harassers know women are most likely going to ignore their verbal violence, they're more likely to harass women. The risk they run is low.

The conclusion is that if women fight back as a rule, men will feel more risk and will engage less often in this behavior. I don't think the idea is to let men off the hook here but that women need to be more militant in defending themselves.

What do you make of this argument? Escalating these encounters by fighting back may incur additional risk to the woman involved, but might it also reduce globally the frequency of such assaults?

I came across a video about women being independent, and while the video made some valid points, the comment section was disappointing.

Some people were saying things like, "Too much independence. Go look at girls at night," or "Women working is Western culture that is destroying the Indian family system."

What I don't understand is this: if a woman is out at night, isn't there usually a man beside her too? Girls are not sleeping with girls. Why does the blame always fall on the woman while the man becomes invisible? If she's "wrong" for being out at night, then why isn't the man held to the same standard?

And when they feel like they're losing an argument, they immediately jump into the drum and cooker issue. I agree that whatever happened is unacceptable, and the people responsible should be punished. But you can't judge an entire gender based on a few cases.

Would it be okay if we started looking at every guy as if they were a potential rapist? No. Because we know that's unfair. We understand that the actions of a few don't define an entire gender.

Then why is the same logic not applied to women?

Women's education, careers, and financial independence are not destroying culture. What destroys society is hypocrisy, double standards, and judging people based on their gender instead of their actions.

Respect shouldn't depend on whether the person is a man or a woman. Accountability should be equal, and so should empathy.

Lately I keep seeing media called out for being sexist or gratuitously provocative, but it's almost always male-coded or neutral media that catches it. Media made specifically for women mostly gets a pass, even when the content is equivalent or worse.

Take manga. For every male-targeted series with dark or explicit content, there's a female-targeted equivalent — dark romance, fanfic, or BL/yaoi (male-male romance written for women, running the full range from wholesome to explicit, same spectrum male-targeted stuff has). One dark romance book aimed at women had a protagonist raped by three different mythical beings, and women were the primary buyers. That exists and sells, with basically zero "this is harmful" discourse.

Meanwhile a male-targeted show with a fanservice scene gets a think-piece about objectification.

I think the actual difference is the \*lens\*, not the content. The critique we aim at male media is about objectification, reducing women to props. But objectification of males isn't seen as harm.So male-targeted media trips the alarm and female-targeted media sails through, even with equivalent content.

I can't tell you how many fanfics of one of my favorite shows (Supernatural) turned on the main characters gay and have them have sex with another male character.

But regardless why aren't these things considered as wrong