Reposting my comment here for visibility:

Before you take everyone’s word about the nasal cycle, check if you have dust mite allergies. Turns out I did and my nose was far stuffier and itchier than what should be normal.

I switched out my pillowcase to an allergy pillowcase and started taking some allergy meds. It cleared up my nose a lot and now I can actually feel one nostril only being slightly more closed due to the nasal cycle instead of having it almost all blocked.

I think you are conflating men with the patriarchy. These two things are different. Men are people, and people are diverse with unique thoughts and feelings. The patriarchy is a system that causes men and women to behave in gender conforming ways that are harmful to both.

This comic isn’t criticizing men as a whole, it’s criticizing the social conditioning that many men go through that make them unaware of how certain speech and actions impact women.

When comics like this are asking men to be mindful of benevolent sexism, it’s not saying ‘men are sexist’, it’s asking men to be aware of this phenomenon and take steps to stop themselves and others from perpetuating it.

You might not express benevolent sexism, but your friends, family, and colleagues might, and you can be an ally when by pointing it out when you see it.

Too often when women face subtle forms of sexism, they are prohibited from speaking up due to the downplay and backlash they get. Subtle forms of sexism are very hard to point out without being labeled as bitchy or oversensitive.

I know it may not feel like it but this is what healthy masculinity means in this day and age. There is nothing more respectable than men speaking up to other men and holding each other to higher standards. It’s incredibly powerful for men to speak up and support women in this because men who perpetuate benevolent sexism generally tend to listen to other men.

I think there are a good amount of people who are on the fence who would be persuaded by the detailed argument in this comic. The thing that the author is trying to convince people of is subtle and invisible to most people.

How do you tell people that this invisible thing exists and that they might be the one perpetuating it without putting them off?

It’s like asking your well meaning friends not to use ‘retarded’ as an insult. Sure, they aren’t saying this to hurt disabled people, but they are unaware that it does. The best way to change their minds isn’t by saying ‘you’re offensive’ and decry their character. It’s by slowly and gently telling them that you know they don’t mean to, but this thing that they say hurts people.

I’m not saying that we need to walk on eggshells around every offensive person, I’m saying that slow drawn out explanations without directly criticizing people is what works.

I think you overestimate how open minded the average person is. People are quick to reject an argument when it doesn’t conform to their world views. This comic is long because it tries to address most doubts about it. It’s slow to get to the point to avoid triggering the visceral reaction some people have to feminist theories.

Although I agree that a tldr would be nice.

Girl boring guy quirky.

Having to spend an extra 33% the cost of each pair of pants is hardly cheap.

You say that as if altering clothing isn’t something that takes time to learn, time to do, risks of ruining your clothes, affect it’s durability, and difficult to do well. If it were so easy no one would pay for it to be done. Go to your local tailor and ask how much it is to hem a pair of pants or take the waist in.

Imagine everytine you buy a pair of pants you have to mentally prepare yourself to put the time and effort into sewing your own pants, something that most guys don’t have to do.

Women’s pants don’t have pockets because it’s a way to force them to buy purses.

Every person ever who has said that this is purely due to women’s choice needs to go shop for pants once. It’s a miracle to be able to find a single pair of pants that either isn’t 6 inches too long or 3 inches too wide at the waist. Women don’t have luxury of choosing pockets when most pants are either so long they drag through every puddle or too wide to the point of showing the whole ass crack when sitting down.

I feel that asking 1 person to use photoshop from each of the 19 counties is not a good sample size.

This speaks more to the opinions of the individual and their photoshop skills rather than what beauty standards are like from that country.

If we averaged out the opinions of many more people, I think the resulting pictures would be much more critical about fitness.

Rule 3. Be the men’s issues conversation you want to see in the world. Here is some context to what you quoted.

I feel that there is some degree of unnecessary gate keeping here. I think your pride in never engaging in conversation in female spaces is misplaced. To me, that speaks more to a lack of interest in opening up a dialogue about women’s issues.

What’s worrying about this community is how much self-blame is in some conversations. Some people have a tendency to conflate the patriarchy with men, systemic with individual issues, awareness with taking on fault, fault with responsibility, temperament with social conditioning, etc. I often see people fault ‘men’ and by extension, themselves, for something that is not any one man’s fault.

For example, in the comment thread that you quoted, the general sentiment was that many women are choosing to remain single because it’s men’s fault for not being good enough. I don’t entirely agree that the phenomenon of women becoming increasingly single is purely due to men’s behavior, because I think that it is primarily the product of feminism attributing women with personhood and being happily single. Feminism has yet to do that for effectively for men. Hence what I meant by “Feminism has taught many women, but not enough men, how to live a fulfilling life beyond patriarchal norms.”

In the comment above in this post men were said to have ‘put the burden of contraceptives on women’, but there is more nuance to that because of the nature of medication risk analysis makes it much harder to justify birth control side effects for men.

Sometimes, rebuttals like these are dismissed as ‘anti-feminist’ because it seems to be taboo around here for men to say ‘it’s not men’s fault’ to systemic inequalities. There is a lack of separation between fault and responsibility here that I’m hoping that I can sort out by saying ‘it’s not men’s fault’.

Also, I want to clear misconceptions around topics like female birth control because I’ve had bad experiences with it and I’m pretty sensitive about it when it’s deemed as something easy.

Above all, I want to understand men’s issues because I find that to be lacking in many feminist spaces. My partner and several friends are all facing mental health issues, but don’t often talk about it. I don’t want to push them, so I’ll try and learn what I can from this community and try to understand and empathize when they feel ready.

That’s a valid choice to make. But I just want to highlight the misconception that female birth control is labeled as ‘safe’ in a vacuum. Relative to the risk of pregnancy, which can lead to death and other permanent conditions, anything but getting pregnant would be considered safe in this context. This is part of why male birth control hasn’t been developed yet, because there is no counterpoint, from a medical perspective, to being an infertile man since biological men don’t get pregnant.

Some severe side effects of oral birth control are the increased risk of blood clots (deep vein thrombosis), high blood pressure, heart attack and stroke, liver disorders. Women who take oral birth control are often not well informed about this. And among the ‘less severe’ side effects are migraines, headaches, nausea, bloating, mood swings, and breast pain. Just imagine yourself living with these ‘acceptable side effects’. That is the state of modern medicine for women.

If your partner decides to take on the burden of birth control, just know that it’s not a walk in the park. There are real life changing consequences to taking birth control for many women.

I just want to add to the conversation that part of the reason why male contraceptives haven’t been approved yet isn’t all because men are shying away from the burden of side effects from contraceptives. It’s because of how risk evaluations for medications in development work. The risk of pregnancy is severe pain, permanent scarring, death, and a myriad of post partum conditions that can become chronic. When women take contraceptives, they are averting themselves of this risk. When men take contraceptives, they are generally not averting themselves of any direct health risks (not including the consequences of fatherhood). It’s also easier to prevent the release of one egg with certainty than stopping millions of sperm.

This is not to say that it’s a good reason to let women suffer from side effects alone and deny men the option to take on the burden. This is just one of many systemic barriers in modern medicine that have been detrimental to women.

Bruh you talk like you’re 14 and just discovered philosophy but haven’t gotten over your ‘women belong in the kitchen’ phase yet.

It’s both. I have PCOS which causes insulin resistance which leads to obesity. Separately from that, I also experience bloating as a result.

As someone who has PCOS belly the opposite is true. High waisted jeans are a nightmare to wear with the bloating and extra abdominal fat.

Misogyny: exists

People like you: THIS IS A HARMLESS MEME

Leave it to Lemmy’s 77% male userbase to decide what is and isn’t misogyny.

You all ever tried saying ‘excuse me’?

Adding this to the long list of things women aren’t allowed to enjoy while hurting absolutely no one (uggs, Starbucks, rose, candles, just anything branded feminine)

Edit: for the tone deaf people in the back who say this isn’t about women, look again. The whole package of ‘OMG’, exclamation marks, ‘annoying kids’, two moms, some annoying trait, is all dog-whistle for people who like to trivialize things women do. This isn’t a unique phenomenon in memes. See how men elevate, and women ruin the foods they love.

Before you comment, think about the relevance of your own experiences. Lemmy’s userbase is 77% men and sometimes it shows.

It’s not as simple as portraying them as stupid. It’s portraying these men as victims of the patriarchy. Often times they are overconfident to their own detriment due to the circumstances they grew up in. It’s not about how ‘men are stupid’, it’s about how men in power were conditioned to dismiss women at their own expense. The movie shows how by taking a moment to learn and empathize with women’s struggles, they come to learn that healthy masculinity isn’t defined by how they are views by women’s it’s by how they view themselves. This is what Ken does at the end. He escapes the kencel pit and learns to value himself for who he is and his own interest instead of relying on female attention to define his worth.

None of this is something that the men did because they are ‘stupid’. It’s because of patriarchal conditioning, something that all of us are subjected to in this day and age.

No one is testing it on their partner every week.

Some men in the dating world will do anything to get a date, including claiming to be a feminist because being treated like a person appeals to women these days. An actual feminist will watch the movie and understand it’s themes of how the patriarchy hurts everyone, including Ken. Someone who is misogynist in feminist clothing will watch it and say the movie is just bashing men.

Watching the movie together will out these people.

Putting Monster Hunter World out there for any guys who have yet to experience the joys of playing dress up with some fabulous clothes