Critique of Women's Liberation Movement, Redpill, and Manosphere Spaces
By Wiggle
There was no comparably successful men’s liberation movement when put beside the women’s liberation movements with their numerous waves.
Many individuals tied to the women’s liberation movements feel unmotivated in terms of fighting for ending the patriarchal standards placed on men, which makes perfect sense. It would be strange for a dominated group that does their best recruitment by targeting individuals most impacted to then significantly toe in fighting for a perceived dominated group WITHIN the dominant “class”. This is exacerbated by liberal ideology that emphasizes individualistic thinking and is further reified by the underlying economic substructure, capitalism. Which normalizes and trains these behaviors and reproduces them, even if they are anti-social.
There are many women who do not think from a primary lens of male vs female. They incorporate multiple perspectives. And there are a significant amount that, from my perspective, put workers/employees vs capital owners/employers as a stronger hegemonic frame with sex, race, etc. being important but underneath that lens. For simple fact that these other very important (negative) relations will reproduce in society as long as that overarching relationship remains as it is.
Prejudice being okay or not okay is too black and white. Everything is multifaceted. We can learn from even the most perceived “evil” individuals a great deal. People who are prejudiced against men (for simply being male alone) may have an “incorrect” position but that is not helpful to people’s progress. What is helpful is understanding why and what produces that phenomenon so that it can be better understood and addressed. There are particular circumstances that always arise which are understandably more clear than others and demand condemnation. In the example you bring, it is a teaching moment but I do not believe it is worthy of condemning the men and women who discount it and being done with it. In the end they are more open-minded and caring individuals than most if they attach to the women’s liberation movement. So they are more likely to be helpful as people, in changing our overall society for the better on a myriad of issues than those who are not. Their focuses at this point are just not aligned with yours at this point in time, not forever.
The patriarchy produces unrealistic demands on men but rewards them with particular realized expectations. A live-able job, roof over your head, a submissive wife, capacity to have and afford multiple children, etc. This was realized by the wealthier men in society historically. And under capitalism there were particular groups of men racialized out of this and even religiously discriminated out of this. However, all the same this underlying partriarchal structure and the relations it reproduces are wrong. The relations with women are at the crux of this. Society produced science, technology, theory, etc. for example all without a proper holistic contribution from women. Which then in turn reproduced misconceptions and patriarchy. Etc etc. this obviously occurred for “lower class” and impoverished men (as in who was deemed “man” by society and not property) but not to the same degree as women and the different among them.
As capitalism has continued to fail, the patriarchy has become less and less enticing as those unrealistic demands become more unrealistic due to the economic substructure of capitalism. “Men” work longer, no longer get family wages, the marketplace is more competitive due to the inclusion of more previously excluded men and then women, cost of living has increased, housing has become far more difficult to obtain, etc.
At this same point, women as a collective group and not individuals, are in an odd spot. There is more political representation than perhaps in the 80s to 2000s. There are better jobs available for them. There is a level of reproductive control they can, depending on where they live, exercise that is life-changing. There are more women producing theory, research, products, etc. that results in a completely different relationship they have with the same nation they have lived in for generations. Many are aware of the false allures of “girlboss” neoliberalism and the excess demands of capitalism in this stage on their body and their mental health etc. however, collectively, not individually, some of those demands were already present due to the patriarchy, to an extent. However, now, they may appreciate more of the fruits of this system.
Personally, I would focus on the red-pill and manosphere spaces. Yes, there are contradictions present in the current iteration of the women’s liberation movement but from my perspective that movement needs time to once again plateau. Then the members within that space will likely self-report and address said contradictions and evolve once again. It is overall, a net progressive movement that condemning at this current stage is quite reactionary imo.
The reason I personally would focus on the red-pill and manosphere spaces is because these spaces are quite fascistic. They receive large sums of capital and investment from the wealthiest in our society and have a slew of wealthy thought leaders who are enriching themselves…at a time where male workers are at a significant time in capitalism’s decline and there is a viable (watered down) socialist alternative in social democratic and democratic socialist governance that would offer job guarantees, better housing access, healthcare guarantees, lower cost of living, etc. This redpill movement and now the manosphere has existed, but now is in full force to destroy this socialist alternative and offer a false alternative which just reifies the existing problem. They dismiss socialism and its perceived benefits and push listeners to embrace the crushing demands of neoliberal capitalism. If there are winners and losers, they push you to focus on being a winner and assure you that there are enough “lazy, unproductive men” that can be the losers for you if you just work hard enough. Essentially fascist rhetoric on labor. Except fascism has the ability to historically tie itself to a state apparatus. So you are reduced to being a cog in a nation state that is perceived to be superior and bountiful. Redpill and manosphere spaces cannot offer that easily so they focus on the sex dynamic. We are all men, men are superior and we aid our own (sometimes). So align as men and discard your transgressions with other men, however justified, and you will be better off. That’s some of the logic.
Those movements work to uphold capitalism, maintain the patriarchy albeit them criticizing it and its unrealistic demands (in order to recruit), and make the systemic into something outside the individual to fix. “Yes, x is unfair but that is unfortunately the reality we live in. So as long as that is the case, we are here to help you individually use x to your benefit”.
To me it is no coincidence how the redpill and manosphere spaces do not embrace leftist politics and instead were anti-party or skeptics who then embraced more and more far right ideology. And by leftist I do not mean liberals or like the Democratic Party. It would be no surprise to me that if the US became more far right, the redpill and manosphere spaces would intensify their political support and be brought in more to our society at large. Even though the economy would likely be thrown into austerity with even more unrealistic patriarchal demands on men and even worse conditions. Redpill and manosphere advice is often just austerity politics coinciding with dating advice and relationship advice. The male self help offered is often just more labor/work with the premise of it being more efficient or smarter labor which they deem will produce better results. The major contradiction is you are trained to view men as a class of peers that net uplift each other but then you are tasked with vigorously working to outcompete said men worsening the underlying relations between men of different groups and classes.