u/im-the-gila

I haven't seen this mentioned before, maybe it has been, but does anyone else notice the weaponization of gender expectations in the rhetoric that feminists use? It has occurred to me that almost always when feminists discuss masculinity, they describe it with words that are the opposite of what is traditionally seen as important for masculinity. Specifically, there seems to be a discrepancy in the way they talk about men who cave to the societal pressure to adhere to gender norms, and women who do so. A lot of times feminists will use words like 'fragile', 'precarious', 'weak', and 'insecure' to describe these men or their masculinity. A woman who succumbs to gender expectations, on the other hand, is a poor victim of the patriarchy. To me this seems like a deliberate attempt to shame men for being susceptible to social pressure (i.e., shaming them for not being strong). Of course this is extended to any man who might disagree with anything they say. This is one of the ways they effectively pressure men into agreeing with them, watering down their opinions, or just not saying anything. They attack those characteristics that are most central to the traditional view of masculinity (that is, those characteristics that boys need to adopt to have a smaller chance of being socially rejected), because they know it will hurt the most.

Anyway, in my opinion this is just a small component of a much bigger problem with feminists controlling the terminology around (and thus the discussion about) masculinity. Any thoughts on this?