Teachers describe a deterioration in behaviour and attitudes that has proved to be fertile terrain for misogynistic influencers
“As soon as I mention feminism, you can feel the shift in the room; they’re shuffling in their seats.” Mike Nicholson holds workshops with teenage boys about the challenges of impending manhood. Standing up for the sisterhood, it seems, is the last thing on their minds.
When Nicholson says he is a feminist himself, “I can see them look at me, like, ‘I used to like you.’”
Once Nicholson, whose programme is called Progressive Masculinity, unpacks the fact that feminism means equal rights and opportunities for women, many of the boys with whom he works are won over.
“A lot of it is bred from misunderstanding and how the word is smeared,” he says.
But he is battling against what he calls a “dominance-based model” of masculinity. “These old-fashioned, regressive ideas are having a renaissance, through your masculinity influencers – your grifters, like Andrew Tate.”
It’s actually not all that difficult to respect women. Which will work well in 99% of scenarios.
The other 1% are interactions on the internet which has a tendency to magnify the weirdos. The “you gotta do this and this and this to even go on a date with me” types are internet weirdos. Most women aren’t actually like that. But it’s the internet, so a woman saying “just respect me as a person, and we’re cool” isn’t going to gain traction in the algorithms.
So guys like Andrew Tate are weirdos that gain traction as a reaction to the the other weirdos.
Go outside, touch grass, respect women as people, and everything will be alright.
It’s not difficult for sane people to respect women.
These aren’t sane people.
These are people who long for the days when women were property.
Some are, but I would bet a large amount of people who believe/follow that similar ideology could be able to see how destructive it is.
Avoid tribalism
The people who most need to hear your message are the ones least likely to see it as an advantage. Tribalism is a core tenet of conservatism, where the majority of misogyny comes from.
You’re right, I just see a lot of liberal/left leaning people who fall into the same trap and demonize everyone of the “other team”, I have talked several people out of their preconceived religious/conservative notions by specifically not demonizing them for their views, but instead trying to understand the underlying reasons for their belief and then showing data/evidence to the contrary and producing alternative viewpoints.
For example, HRC’s “Deplorables” comment, yeah there are a lot of shitty people that voted for Trump, but there’s also a lot of people who were duped into believing or did it on a whim just as “something different”.
There was another thread recently about my fellow idiots in Texas calling to succeed, and a lot of people in the thread basically saying things like, “Good, fuck em” all the way to “Yeah let’s go in with the military and take them out” like jfc, the people calling for that are a vocal minority. I am actively working to get out of this state because of the fucked up legislature, but I know so many good people who live here and are just trying to make it through the day like the rest of us.
Sorry, anyone who voted trump twice deserves to lose their citizenship rights. Period.
Don’t even, it will not work on me because I lived in a deep red state most of my life and can speak of the personal opinions of well over a thousand conservative sons of the soil and I GUARAN-FUCKING-TEE that I can count on the hands of a clumsy shop teacher how many of them are legit oldschool conservatives.
Now tell me if the same can be said of blue states and hard lefties? No? Why not?
Because there ARE NO hard left politicians in any position of meaningful power in the united states.
Don’t even come at me with a shadow of a ‘both sides’ argument because I will froth at the mouth for hours with sincere joy to explain to you why the republican party is a legit threat to the stability of our nation and HAS BEEN for more than 4 decades.
Not even a SHADOW
The republican party is definitely a threat, but that doesn’t mean every republican citizen is also a threat for the same reason, they’re basically brainwashed, some of them can be talked out of their incorrect beliefs.
I agree though as well that there are basically no hard left govt officials in any meaningful sense.
If they are brainwashed they are even more of a threat because they will lash out at anyone who challenges their assumed identity.
You seem to think that they were wholly duped into this, instead of the fact that the rot in their heart is what made them susceptible to the ravings of a madman.
Yes, it’s true, they can. I have done it. Twice.
Twice out of probably 1500 people in my life.
So yes, you aren’t wrong, but you are right in such small numbers as to make no difference.
Does it feel good to pierce a hole through their ignorance and let them see the light?
Sure.
Will it change the outcome of this election, not very likely.
So let’s spend our energy on the valid targets: fence sitters and dems that aren’t planning on voting.