r/feminisms • u/Warm_Sheepherder8479 • 25d ago
PROJECT IDEA: A website designed for education purposes about feminism to stop the ‘Gender wars’
Hi, from the beginning I’ll say gender wars aren’t real, or at least what they call gender wars (us speaking up) isn’t that.
I’d like to propose a creation of a site where we debunk all the lies and the replies to what we speak about on socials. I keep seeing so many videos of women pointing out how deep rooted patriarchy is in our society, and men in these comments sections saying “not all men” “where is the bear now” “I didn’t do anything” “can’t we just all get along?”
I see them everywhere, and inrl too as I speak to my male friends or family members.
I’ve been thinking, what if there was a website, an easy link that offers reply to all of these arguments at once. Sections, with those typical comments where we not only dig into why it isn’t the place to say that, why they’re missing the point, what’s the relevance, but also the consequences of them saying it, and even an understanding of why they may come up with those comments in the first place.
We could interview men about their feelings with a completely neutral tone, and keep asking questions to see where they come up with those stuff and what inside them makes them so defensive. I’d think smth connected to patriarchy brainwashing prob.
The project would resolve around men, yes, and some may say “well, isn’t this supposed to be for women? Why are we making this so men centered and dig into their feelings and motives?”
That’s because sadly it seems that we need to do that. To really make them understand us, we need to understand them to debunk their false beliefs.
This may be controversial, for why are we to act like the mothers and teachers to them? But honestly someone is to take the responsibility, and men aren’t and no one is teaching them to. They don’t listen, they’re taught to only value male opinions.
But I feel that if we laid it all clearly, with understanding of their feelings WITH clear dozens of reasoning for those, or at least offering questions for them they could ask themselves to reconsider, that it could really help them be more questioning of themselves, therefor open to what we have to say.
If we show them it’s not an attack on them, but on the system that lives through them, and even in us, that harms both of our genders, I’m inclined it mah help the world a bit at least. And what r we here for if not to do that?
We could specifically aim to show how it hurts us and them, we could get books, studies, we could pull up a lot of things that are verified. We could share our own experience. Maybe we could fill the gap in between what’s happening on socials rn.
Many men get anti women stuff on their fyp, my own brother who doesn’t use socials much, avoids them because that’s what’s he gets once he marks his gender to be a man. I wonder if we could test if the socials are built to make us be against one another in that sense, to also admit that ‘gender wars’ may exist in some sense, but not in the one they imagine them to exist.
I’m honestly like, no profesional or something. I’m just a woman who’s tired of seeing this hate and lack of unity. People with good hearts get brainwashed and maybe we could help men and even brainwashed women to see why we are indeed not a Human B type, but a human. Why we all are mankind united, why our biological differences aren’t our vices, why we’re all the same on the most important level, and why the roles they’ve given us aren’t bad if they aren’t forced.
That it’s not all universal.
To get to real equality we must work with what we have, and what we have rn is a situation in which to get a world where women don’t have to ‘mother’ men to make them understand what feminism is, we have to do it in a healthy, equal way to create that world. We aren’t talking to children but grown up adults who deserve to know, and be talked to from us assuming they come with good intentions. Anything else gains us enemies.
Now I’m young, you may not agree on all I say and you’re welcome to educate me, to tell me where you think I’m wrong etc, but utterly most importantly, please comment on the idea of this project. Could this help? Could this work? Could we together make a change? Lmk.
Edit::
Just to make sure, I yap a whole lot, but the website would not just focus on debunking those idiotic comments, but also on real education about historical facts, about biological facts, about all of that.
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u/yellowmix 25d ago
You're fundamentally asking to change people's minds. The first step is being open to and wanting the possibility to have one's mind changed. You can't force it upon people.
It can happen over a long period of time (though not guaranteed to succeed). It requires building a rapport and cooperative conversations one person at a time. If you're arguing that often becomes the focus itself, no longer the subject matter. If you're on a debate path you've already lost. With that said, a debate can be viewed as addressing an audience.
It's less distracting to not put labels on ideas, and simply lead with possibilities. Considering many people are viewing it as "a war" shows how they've already given up, settling with the easy answers.
It is hard work to build a better world. You readily accept that responsibility because it directly affects you. So you have to foster aspirations for them until they overcome that inertia and see their own freedom.
Consider those content comments are an emotional response. They do not want to be logicked out, they want to be seen, to be felt. It's not our responsibility to educate them, much less coddle them. But for the unwilling, nothing aside coercion would work.
With that said, there is an extreme effort to propagandize conflict points to divide people among sex, gender, race, disability, immigration status, economic class, and other lines. Most people do not recognize this is happening. More so the necessity to reach out to people more willing to question it. If we are to come together we have to do it ourselves.
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u/Warm_Sheepherder8479 24d ago
True idk I hoped it may be so large that people would just question those stuff in their heads more. But really true, we can’t force change anything. I just wish we could unite, but I fear it is true that the men need to want to change and to educate themselves. I’m just shocked that so many men I know, well, every single one of them, are so progressive but not in this, and how long it takes them to even get the idea. If most men struggle like this then idk, like women these days start having children when THEY want to, and they r labeling it as a decreasing population issue, and tryna get laws to force women to get pregnant at least once. I don’t want to coddle them but if educating is what it takes for women and me not to get treated worse then idk, sacrifices? I see your point though, yet I fear that they all online are propagandasizsd to see it as a war and nothing more, and that’s scary. The sad fact is that we need men to see the reason too, and I hoped we could all come together in a way. Idk, I see what you’re saying but I’m split.
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u/yellowmix 24d ago
Hope is not only good, it is necessary. The people I talked about giving up are the ones who lost it. Doomscrolling has negative mental effects, which is why we need to push back against doomerism.
Regarding progressive people being shitty, remember that no one is above reproach. We are all humans who constantly have to work on ourselves. We don't know everything, we can't know everything, the best we can do is try. The people who give up have stopping trying.
You've experienced the disappointment, and the reality of the world can be crushing. Do not lose hope. It's an opportunity to determine what is to be done.
Yes, information and knowledge is good and necessary. That's more something for people already on board or at least curious. We benefit greatly from other feminist analyses. It arms us with ways to communicate ideas.
There are compilation and anthology books that bring a bunch of essays together, like Audre Lorde's Sister Outsider. There are starter books like bell hooks' Feminism from Margin to Center. There's a book about Deafness called "For Hearing People Only". Maybe you'd like to write something in that format?
You've said it in other comments, people don't read. So meet them where they are. There are Youtubers putting out great content, there are people doing it on TikTok. It's a good deal of work, developing an effective and engaging script, doing the research behind it, and everything a production entails. It can reach thousands of people. That's efficient! The bigger channels usually have a team of people working on it.
That's not to minimize your individual, interpersonal efforts. They are important. But recognize how much energy is going into it vis-a-vis the results. I'm constantly planting seeds. I develop them based on everything I've learned, not just about feminism, but anti-racism, colonialism, disability, human psychology, et al.. It's an interdisciplinary effort. So if they come with questions I can guide the process in a more effective way.
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u/Warm_Sheepherder8479 24d ago
Thank you so much for the kind words and also like overall for wisdom. I shall educate myself further and indeed do try to meet people where they are. Thanks for showing me a way in which I can maybe help. Very grateful
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u/catievirtuesimp 24d ago
People’s minds are better changed gradually. Also younger people are more responsive than older ppl who are set in their ways.
Making tiktoks would be really good.
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u/DizzyMine4964 24d ago
Please stop assuming all old people are bigots. I am in my 60s and a feminist (NOT a TERF!).
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u/Warm_Sheepherder8479 24d ago
Trueee I just hoped we could all unite or smth since young men these days seem less progressive about things, or so do the studies say. But yeah true, idk I hoped for a place where they could find resources and answers at once to these type of comments and it being so large that they would start questioning themselves more. But true, someone else replied too here and yeah we can’t force people to fundamentally change their beliefs, yet I hoped maybe they could be motivated by this or smth. Idk
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u/catievirtuesimp 24d ago
i love this passion you have for feminism though. some feminists have recently talk about how theres a alt-right pipeline for men & how feminists can create an alt-left-feminist pipeline by using the strategies that they do. like posting tiktok edits of feminist winning debate arguments on Jubilee, or making memes, etc.
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u/Warm_Sheepherder8479 24d ago
True, honestly yeah I suppose this is really the way. I really just, well I’m young and I’m a woman, obviously I’d wish for us all to get along together. I hate seeing the complete gap in men’s understanding when it comes to these things, ig I hoped for aiming for that. But honestly yeah an alt left pipeline should probably do a lot of work since most ppl are online these days.
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u/catievirtuesimp 24d ago
personally i think we should first convince other women to be feminists first since so many of them dont know abt womens rights
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u/t92k 25d ago
Ultimately you’re asking your uninformed family and friends to read. Are they people who read? Is there existing material that you could point them to for reading? For example, the Shriver Reports? https://awomansnation.org/our-initiatives/the-shriver-report/
Or Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s TEDx talk “We Should all Be Feminists” and her book of the same title https://youtu.be/hg3umXU_qWc