You can read through the thread yourself, there was a massive comment chain already here when I made my initial comment. I'm not going to read and summarize it for you lol.
I think I've already more than explained how women's body image issues are attached to systemic institutional issues that exist across society in my other comments. Feel free to debate against any points I've made, but I'm not going to continue reiterating myself.
I came here to respond to anti feminist takes in the thread and to provide a counter to them.
You're talking like you have some kind of group authority or like this is specifically an anti feminist space that I'm disrupting. I'm allowed to comment here and will if I want to.
It's not an anti-feminist space that you're disrupting. It's also not a feminist space where the topic of discussion is women's problems. It's a neutral space that happened to talk about men's issues right now and y'all came in here with the "BUT WOMEN!!!!" stuff and that really bothers me. Men really don't have any safe spaces to talk about our issues, and as you can see it's also difficult to even bring them up in neutral spaces without being shut down by people like you.
I never shut anyone down. You can talk about men's issues. This is not a space exclusively for men. This is an open forum, and I am allowed to counter misinformation I read here. I'm an equal member of this board, and misinformation about women here affects me. I have every single right to say something here when I come upon such things. You are free to make a community excluding the voices of women if you so choose, this is not your community and how it works here is not up to you.
Men do not experience body policing in even remotely similar ways to women.
This is you, coming into a thread, belittling and shutting down conversation about men's issues.
You claim you're here to refute certain other posts but I don't see any posts claiming what you say, and even if they do exist you absolutely failed to even acknowledge that men do have similar problems here.
Not "I understand, I just want to contextualize this"
Not "I sympathize, because this is how women feel"
Just "fuck your problems, women have it worse"
So yeah, you have the right to say bullshit, and I have the right to call you out on it.
You've been aggressive towards me from your first comment to me. I have only ever responded to you fairly and bluntly. To say that I'm coming here and saying "f*** your problems" is rich given all the rest of the things you've said to me. I have never once denied that men have problems, I have stated several times my belief that body positivity and better representation for diverse body types in media would go a long way to helping men and boys with body issues. You haven't even mentioned one thing you think could help men and boys with body issues.
Acknowledging the reality of misogyny does not diminish the suffering of any individual man. Trying to equate them is wrong however, and its misinformation about the nature of misogyny. All women I know have suffered from misogyny. It makes me very uncomfortable seeing misinformation be spread about women, and I'm not going to stay silent when I see it.
Acknowledging the reality of misogyny does not diminish the suffering of any individual man.
Theoretically yeah, but if you go to every single place where any men talk about any issues they have and start "acknowledging" all over the place it drowns out the original male problems. Especially if you don't even preface your comment with an acknowledgement of the issues men face, of the "lived experience" of men, to borrow a feminist term. You just go straight into "fuck everything y'all are saying, let's talk about women".
It's endemic in the greater social discussion, that's why I'm being so aggressive with pushing back against you. Men don't even have safe spaces to talk about this stuff because they get taken over by alt right misogynists. And whenever we're in a neutral space you people show up like moths to a light. The effect is to silence us.
I have stated several times my belief that body positivity and better representation for diverse body types in media would go a long way to helping men and boys with body issues
Yeah, as a fucking qualifier. As a footnote. It does not sound sincere, and even if it is it's a severe afterthought. And it's still drowned out by the bulk of your message: How Bad Women Have It.
I'm going to respond in short terms because we're reiterating a lot.
I did not start the discussion surrounding women's experiences here, other commenters were already talking about it when I first viewed the thread.
I sincerely believe body positivity and better representation in media will be greatly beneficial to body image for men and boys. That goes along with greater tolerance of femininity in men, combating social stigma against men, and addressing power structures like heteronormativity and racism that affect queer men and black men. You have never responded to my proposed solutions, when I am responding to you I have been responding to what you say.
I was responding to misinformation. I have no obligation to counter these narratives with "i know your lives are hard too but can you stop spreading misinformation about women". I came to this thread, I saw misinformation, I replied to that misinformation. That's all.
This space is equally for me as it is for you. This is not a men's space. I am imposing on nobody by being here and commenting.
It's not a men's space but it's a men's topic. So yes, you're imposing.
And the problem is, it's not just you with a one off comment. Most discussions, that's perfectly fine. Come in, refute misinfo, leave. Great. No harm done.
When men in neutral spaces bring up any problems they have, there are HORDES of people coming in wanting to talk about How Bad Women Have It. It downs out the initial conversation. And often there's some of those people who go so far as saying men don't have it bad at all, ever.
And again, I can't emphasize this enough: we don't have safe spaces. This is the only type of place where we can actually talk about this kind of stuff.
So, if you want to not be an asshole, you should take some time to acknowledge the central issue here. Just a couple of sentences. BEFORE being called out about it.