I used to approach feminism as "Well, there's nothing in it for me as a man, but it's important for women so I should support it." This liberal way of thinking about feminism is harmful, too, because it doesn't connect us. It keeps us apart and waters down what feminism and other stuff like that can be - revolutionary! ✊
Unions, people. Labor AND tenant unions. Get in one a.s.a.p. because we can only be crushed when we are tiny and alone. Stop paying the billionaires bills.
Cue “Know your Enemy” by Green Day. I’ve had that song on repeat lately. But seriously, this essay is a really helpful reminder that working class people of all genders and backgrounds will always have more in common with each other than with the CEOs of the companies they work for. And intersectional feminism is for everyone. I want to do better at reaching across the aisle to the other “regular people” in my community (mostly conservative or apolitical young men) who seem to think the enemy is feminism rather than organized special interest groups.
Thank you for writing this. I feel like I’ve been trying for a long time to get people to find the courage to at least direct their rightful anger in the correct direction, completely detached from considerations of feminism. But we now live in a social media environment where this message probably means much more coming from other men.
Thank you for writing this. I shared it with my boyfriend. We are both really inspired in this moment to get involved in our local communities, helping build it up so that we have the strength and confidence to stand up for change. Thank you SO much.
I really appreciate this perspective. Right now, I am mad, furious even, at white males, save the few like my husband who can see through the BS. I am mad at white women for carrying the water. It's disgusting. But your perspective, at least, shows how we got here. I am isolating from people I care about because they are ignorant to what's going on. How do we punch up?
This is a good reminder for angry liberals right now too. Are we going to go scream at our conservative neighbors, relatives, FB friends? Or set our sights on the real targets 👀
Thank you Jeremy for this manifesto for “the little guy/woman” to gain true and lasting power. Not a bugle call for the cavalry. Rather, a string quartet in the square.
To the extent patriarchy means anything in almost-2025, it means “men having too much power.” You can't get rid of “men having too much power” without taking power away from men. How can you brush that off as a myth?
The myth is that men are turning antifeminist because we want Gilead. That's what feminists believe—but they also believe we’re all addicted to ever more violent and misogynistically faceless rape-porn, rather than directly paying our favorite giantess femdom MILF to issue our JOI and rate our sissy dicks on a brutally honest 1–10 scale. We're objectifying and degrading OURSELVES.
IOW, feminists know jack shit about men. But what they THINK they know tells them not to trust us, so they never ask the questions we alone can meaningfully answer. And God knows they don't want us VOLUNTEERING any information, because then we'd be mansplaining men to them, and in the confusion they might accidentally “center” us, and God knows what we’d do to them then. “Boys will be boys,” eh me Droog?
So no, we do NOT need a feminism for the 99%. We don't need feminism at all, in fact, because feminism has long since devolved from a empowerment movement to a victimization cult. All that decades-stale patriarchy bullshit only serves to divide and distract us from the real systemic oppression that makes us ALL its handmaidens.
Feminism is like 50 different things, only some of which are a problem for you.
Also what power do you think women are trying to take from you? If it's things like the power to get away with raping them and everyone to just shrug and say "boys will be boys" then sure, they probably near universally want to take that from you, but I bet that's not what you actually want right?
I'm married and the gender wars go on in my home from time to time. Actually we're coming to the conclusion that the gender wars are a distraction from the real war - against the children! They've been playing us off against one another, we're here squabbling over who should tidy up after THEM but wait WHO MADE THE MESS. Damn kids! Tidy your own damn mess kids!
Most of the struggle (more seriously) is we're both tired and overworked and lack social supports to help with the children, that's actually not a men vs women issue, it can often feel like it - but it's an issue that could be dealt with in a way that harms neither side. The destruction of third spaces, the fact that creche's don't seem to exist anymore (only long term childcare contracts that cost exorbinant amounts, no like casual drop in childcare for when you just need to go take a walk in the park in blessed peace), the fact that the expectations heaped on parents are increasingly onerous and the fact that working hours seem to be getting longer and longer (might just be for our family) and everyone else is busy too so who's going to help?
I think you’ve got a point, but it still holds that a critique of (neo)feminism can only really be seen as oppositional misogyny when it’s spoken from the position of a man, until feminists themselves start calling out girl boss feminists and other forms of phallocratic appropriation of the so called patriarchy for their own apprenticeships in power, it’s not really the place of white men to be coming in and suddenly championing the cause of universal suffrage when we’ve largely been the beneficiaries of universal subjugation for most of history.
I think the point made in the article about the PERCEPTION that suddenly feminists are banding together to punch down on men speaks a lot to this problem. While there certainly is a brand of “feminist” that seeks to leverage power over men I don’t think it is as pervasive as alt right media would suggest, and who is to say that this isn’t in itself reactionary towards the very real rise in misogynistic influence on young men, is it not to be expected that under capitalism if Andrew Tate builds an empire on marketing misogyny to men that there would be equally potent markets of women to sell the same self driven entrepreneurial delusions to?
Capitalism will find ways to sell the same ideas in different packaging to different demographics without them being aware of it, until people move beyond identifying with the categories of power (male/female, whiteness) afforded to them by capitalism they will inevitably reproduce a fascist punching down on anyone who resists their identity of power, neofeminists will refuse to see that their girl boss identity is just a reproduction of the patriarchy they evoke as a battering ram against critique, just as the bombastic misogyny of the alt right will never recognise itself as the rising insecurity of their internalised privilege being challenged.
I agree we don’t need feminism for the 99%, as feminism doesn’t really prove a site for meaningful change anymore that it has been integrated into capitalism under the girl boss, affirmative action, gender pay gap style arguments that present the market as a site for social equality. The idea of “becoming-woman” was seen in critical theory circles as a pathway towards a less oedipalised identity, but now woman has become man this concept has proven inept in providing alternatives to identities of domination, we have to start thinking about becoming “something else” beyond the binary divisions created to fuel market competition, an identity that defies marketisation and commodification, a “becoming free” of sorts, but I’m pretty sure that whatever that identity is it can’t be engendered by force or bullying people into recognising their oppression as that would be in itself a pretty crude reproduction of patriarchal power, and your femdom MILF seems to be doing pretty well out of self objectification herself so how can we expect her to be critical of objectifying male sexuality if she still hasn’t gotten past translating empowerment as entrepreneurship for herself? She needs women’s voices speaking to her experience, not incels paying her to be abused, how many employees at McDonald’s have an epiphany because some vegan throws a bucket of blood on them and calls them a murderer? But then they might listen to a fellow employee or union rep, maybe even that guy that made that documentary all those years back, but the vegan if anything only makes them double down on their belief and loyalty to the clown
Why are you going from demagogue to mob rule? They are both authoritarian and hierarchical.
Real change is when we the people protect and empower each and every one of us to have autonomy and what we need. The very idea of class, hierarchy or being better/entitled to more than anyone else being eradicated and opposed, lifting from the ground up and only taking what we need. Not depleting the earth to feed endless arrogant growth or taking to be ahead of others, destabilizing the boat by triggering cornered animal reflex and vain idea of being #1.
More study need to be on discerning what is the driver of ego.
It’s a primitive reflex. People need to raise their consciousness and stop calling it intelligent.
Trolling CENTCOM, the MIC, Mossad, Zionists, Anthony Blinken, et al on Twitter is actually pretty powerful stuff🤣 Hence I will be staying there😈 I'm probably on a watch list🤣 Got a live one on Facebook trying to equate anti Zionism with antisemitism. I've called him to the carpet🤣 I see people leaving Twitter when they should be using the enemy's tool against them🤦♀️
I used to approach feminism as "Well, there's nothing in it for me as a man, but it's important for women so I should support it." This liberal way of thinking about feminism is harmful, too, because it doesn't connect us. It keeps us apart and waters down what feminism and other stuff like that can be - revolutionary! ✊
“We are cooked chat” as kids these days say 💀💀💀
As a kid these days, we also say "It's not over 'till it's over" for a reason 😝
Unions, people. Labor AND tenant unions. Get in one a.s.a.p. because we can only be crushed when we are tiny and alone. Stop paying the billionaires bills.
Cue “Know your Enemy” by Green Day. I’ve had that song on repeat lately. But seriously, this essay is a really helpful reminder that working class people of all genders and backgrounds will always have more in common with each other than with the CEOs of the companies they work for. And intersectional feminism is for everyone. I want to do better at reaching across the aisle to the other “regular people” in my community (mostly conservative or apolitical young men) who seem to think the enemy is feminism rather than organized special interest groups.
Thank you for writing this. I feel like I’ve been trying for a long time to get people to find the courage to at least direct their rightful anger in the correct direction, completely detached from considerations of feminism. But we now live in a social media environment where this message probably means much more coming from other men.
Thank you for writing this. I shared it with my boyfriend. We are both really inspired in this moment to get involved in our local communities, helping build it up so that we have the strength and confidence to stand up for change. Thank you SO much.
I really appreciate this perspective. Right now, I am mad, furious even, at white males, save the few like my husband who can see through the BS. I am mad at white women for carrying the water. It's disgusting. But your perspective, at least, shows how we got here. I am isolating from people I care about because they are ignorant to what's going on. How do we punch up?
This is a good reminder for angry liberals right now too. Are we going to go scream at our conservative neighbors, relatives, FB friends? Or set our sights on the real targets 👀
Thank you Jeremy for this manifesto for “the little guy/woman” to gain true and lasting power. Not a bugle call for the cavalry. Rather, a string quartet in the square.
"The big prize that’s dangled in lieu of real power is entrepreneurship. "
This hit me. I had applauded entrepreneurship. My mind is bending. Thanks.
To the extent patriarchy means anything in almost-2025, it means “men having too much power.” You can't get rid of “men having too much power” without taking power away from men. How can you brush that off as a myth?
The myth is that men are turning antifeminist because we want Gilead. That's what feminists believe—but they also believe we’re all addicted to ever more violent and misogynistically faceless rape-porn, rather than directly paying our favorite giantess femdom MILF to issue our JOI and rate our sissy dicks on a brutally honest 1–10 scale. We're objectifying and degrading OURSELVES.
IOW, feminists know jack shit about men. But what they THINK they know tells them not to trust us, so they never ask the questions we alone can meaningfully answer. And God knows they don't want us VOLUNTEERING any information, because then we'd be mansplaining men to them, and in the confusion they might accidentally “center” us, and God knows what we’d do to them then. “Boys will be boys,” eh me Droog?
So no, we do NOT need a feminism for the 99%. We don't need feminism at all, in fact, because feminism has long since devolved from a empowerment movement to a victimization cult. All that decades-stale patriarchy bullshit only serves to divide and distract us from the real systemic oppression that makes us ALL its handmaidens.
Feminism is like 50 different things, only some of which are a problem for you.
Also what power do you think women are trying to take from you? If it's things like the power to get away with raping them and everyone to just shrug and say "boys will be boys" then sure, they probably near universally want to take that from you, but I bet that's not what you actually want right?
I'm married and the gender wars go on in my home from time to time. Actually we're coming to the conclusion that the gender wars are a distraction from the real war - against the children! They've been playing us off against one another, we're here squabbling over who should tidy up after THEM but wait WHO MADE THE MESS. Damn kids! Tidy your own damn mess kids!
Most of the struggle (more seriously) is we're both tired and overworked and lack social supports to help with the children, that's actually not a men vs women issue, it can often feel like it - but it's an issue that could be dealt with in a way that harms neither side. The destruction of third spaces, the fact that creche's don't seem to exist anymore (only long term childcare contracts that cost exorbinant amounts, no like casual drop in childcare for when you just need to go take a walk in the park in blessed peace), the fact that the expectations heaped on parents are increasingly onerous and the fact that working hours seem to be getting longer and longer (might just be for our family) and everyone else is busy too so who's going to help?
I think you’ve got a point, but it still holds that a critique of (neo)feminism can only really be seen as oppositional misogyny when it’s spoken from the position of a man, until feminists themselves start calling out girl boss feminists and other forms of phallocratic appropriation of the so called patriarchy for their own apprenticeships in power, it’s not really the place of white men to be coming in and suddenly championing the cause of universal suffrage when we’ve largely been the beneficiaries of universal subjugation for most of history.
I think the point made in the article about the PERCEPTION that suddenly feminists are banding together to punch down on men speaks a lot to this problem. While there certainly is a brand of “feminist” that seeks to leverage power over men I don’t think it is as pervasive as alt right media would suggest, and who is to say that this isn’t in itself reactionary towards the very real rise in misogynistic influence on young men, is it not to be expected that under capitalism if Andrew Tate builds an empire on marketing misogyny to men that there would be equally potent markets of women to sell the same self driven entrepreneurial delusions to?
Capitalism will find ways to sell the same ideas in different packaging to different demographics without them being aware of it, until people move beyond identifying with the categories of power (male/female, whiteness) afforded to them by capitalism they will inevitably reproduce a fascist punching down on anyone who resists their identity of power, neofeminists will refuse to see that their girl boss identity is just a reproduction of the patriarchy they evoke as a battering ram against critique, just as the bombastic misogyny of the alt right will never recognise itself as the rising insecurity of their internalised privilege being challenged.
I agree we don’t need feminism for the 99%, as feminism doesn’t really prove a site for meaningful change anymore that it has been integrated into capitalism under the girl boss, affirmative action, gender pay gap style arguments that present the market as a site for social equality. The idea of “becoming-woman” was seen in critical theory circles as a pathway towards a less oedipalised identity, but now woman has become man this concept has proven inept in providing alternatives to identities of domination, we have to start thinking about becoming “something else” beyond the binary divisions created to fuel market competition, an identity that defies marketisation and commodification, a “becoming free” of sorts, but I’m pretty sure that whatever that identity is it can’t be engendered by force or bullying people into recognising their oppression as that would be in itself a pretty crude reproduction of patriarchal power, and your femdom MILF seems to be doing pretty well out of self objectification herself so how can we expect her to be critical of objectifying male sexuality if she still hasn’t gotten past translating empowerment as entrepreneurship for herself? She needs women’s voices speaking to her experience, not incels paying her to be abused, how many employees at McDonald’s have an epiphany because some vegan throws a bucket of blood on them and calls them a murderer? But then they might listen to a fellow employee or union rep, maybe even that guy that made that documentary all those years back, but the vegan if anything only makes them double down on their belief and loyalty to the clown
Why are you going from demagogue to mob rule? They are both authoritarian and hierarchical.
Real change is when we the people protect and empower each and every one of us to have autonomy and what we need. The very idea of class, hierarchy or being better/entitled to more than anyone else being eradicated and opposed, lifting from the ground up and only taking what we need. Not depleting the earth to feed endless arrogant growth or taking to be ahead of others, destabilizing the boat by triggering cornered animal reflex and vain idea of being #1.
More study need to be on discerning what is the driver of ego.
It’s a primitive reflex. People need to raise their consciousness and stop calling it intelligent.
………………………………………………………………..
This article more than any of the many, many that I have read, explains why we now have Trump… AGAIN. Thank you for writing this.
I really, really appreciate this. Every word.
GOOD STUFF! Thanks for sharing!
Trolling CENTCOM, the MIC, Mossad, Zionists, Anthony Blinken, et al on Twitter is actually pretty powerful stuff🤣 Hence I will be staying there😈 I'm probably on a watch list🤣 Got a live one on Facebook trying to equate anti Zionism with antisemitism. I've called him to the carpet🤣 I see people leaving Twitter when they should be using the enemy's tool against them🤦♀️
If the Jew fits...