u/LilBudGoesBrrr

I hear this soundbite a lot, and like most feminist soundbites, it has little grounding in reality, and mostly is blown out of proportions. 

Often the argument is made that, femininity is seen as something inherently inferior, and display of emotions is seen as feminine, hence men are discouraged to be emotional. 

But in reality, it’s based on the broader expectations of men to be the provider and protector. The idea of emotions such as sadness in men being weak is a relatively new one. Even during the 18th century, closer to the peak of patriarchal oppression, men were encouraged to be deeply empathetic and cry openly at art or tragedy.

During the french and industrial revolution, the idea shifted and became that an emotional man cannot be a good soldier, or worker. The emotional suppression caused men's own subjugation and came about from the harsh and unfair realities of capitalism, not merely the rejection of femininity. To paint it as something as shallow as that, is incredibly reductive, though it does a good job of appealing to the minds of tiktok feminists. And also, as always, it perpetuates the norm that men’s issues in some way, always have to relate to women.

I vividly remember how the media focused on boys chatting with AI bots, from the lens of how it may affect women in the long term. “How will it affect women, when these boys turn into misogynist monsters, by getting their loneliness exploited?”. How “toxic masculinity" - (which really is just internalized misandry), is seen as a problem so far as it affects women - even though by far men are the primary victims of it.

Crying is not “inherently inferior”, it's human, and men are often not given the luxury to be humans. Society (both men and women) has a problem with men crying, because an emotional man doesn't cater to social expectations that are put upon them.

Tiktok feminists on the other hand, are interested in dismantling the harmful social expectations for women, while enforcing the ones that are put upon men. It’s cakeism.

Previously in this sub I posted: The response, after I posted this in a subreddit that calls out sexism and things that are needlessly gendered

I was hesitant to post this, even though I had a massive problem with the word "center", and believed an organization as large as this, could've at least done the bare minimum work. However, it was also true that, in the aftermath of such disasters women and children tend to be affected and exploited more than men. 

After some reflection and digging, the latter fact being true, didn't change my stance; on the post being plain wrong at best, and extremely misandric at worst. 

A disaster as such can be divided into two stages:

1. Extraction and acute care: For the first 3-5 days people are pulled out of the rubble and tended to their injuries.
2. Life sustaining relief: Within days or hours of the victim being pulled out are provided with survival necessities.

 

Whether men or women carry higher physical risks is completely context dependent: location, time, country and their infrastructure (men working in factories), clothes (women wearing clothes that may impede escape). 

Also, men are more likely to attempt rescues themselves and become secondary casualties.

In Venezuela the quakes struck at 6:04 PM, commuting patterns, office occupancies, and residential structures all collapsed simultaneously.

It shouldn't be a surprise, why targeting a specific demographic is inherently problematic in stage 1. However, it is true that on stage 2, women are at high risk or exploitation, and need extra protection.

Notice that the post mentions "immediate humanitarian response". So which stage does that fall under? 

Both. However, largely stage one. Which is a massive reason why it was problematic in the first place.

Also, notice that it mentions women and girls, and not women and children. When in fact, adolescent boys are arguably the most poorly served demographic in humanitarian response. Because of:

• Sexual violence, which is both significantly underreported for boys and significantly underfunded in terms of response services.
• Hazardous labor exploitation, with boys disproportionately pulled into dangerous informal work during crises when household economies collapse.
• Exclusion from protection programming, which in practice often explicitly targets women and girls, meaning adolescent boys have no equivalent dedicated services and fall back on general programming that may not address their specific risks at all. (Like the thing that very post by UN Women was encouraging)

Lastly, as some people from my last post rightfully pointed out, it was quite poorly worded if “special attention for special needs women and girls” was what they were trying to say. “Rescue efforts to help women and girls in specific ways that they need" is another example. English is not my first language, but I think they are just better sentences that are articulated more precisely. But again, this isn’t even the bigger point.

After I posted that screenshot on their sub, I slept, as it was late at night. Waking up, I realized it was bombarded with reports, and went on to wait for moderator’s approval in a sub that supposedly calls out sexism. As a consequence, I couldn't really reply to some of their claims, as I had previous experience with this - the posts simply don't get re-approved.