As another trans woman it has been so hard for me to connect with other trans women because of this.
I’m very critical of men and the way they behave in our society, and my cis girl friends and gay male friends almost always agree.
Now every time I bring this up to trans friends they jump to defend men, girl why are you defending men when they’re literally the ones killing trans women and cis women at exponential rates and you’re telling me that men don’t have a problem??
I genuinely don’t understand that need they have to defend men…
Hating on people for their gender is bigotry, whatever gender that is. People aren’t bad just because they’re men, but berceuse of what they do. Most men aren’t bad people.
Isn’t that the same logic as the all lives matter bullshit though?
No one is born a cop.
I don’t think so, because it is inversed. “Black lives matter” focuses on a very real societal problem, but it does not actually imply that other lives do not matter. It is not discrimination, it just focuses on black lives. So people arguing against this are not arguing against discrimination, they are effectively arguing against the value of black lives, even if they try to pretend they are not.
However in the reverse, something like “men are terrible” is discriminatory. Someone arguing against this is not actually arguing against women or anyone else, they are just arguing against the discrimination.
I also think in this case discrimination is not actually what is meant, but language matters, as many other comments in this thread have already said.
And when people say stuff like “I hate white people” or “white people are the worst” ? Do you think that’s justified? I sure do. It’s about being able to vent about the dominant culture and the people who support it. If someone were to say “not all white people” it’d indicate to me that they’re not on the same page and maybe not someone to let my guard down around.
I tend to believe that it is possible to vent without resorting to racism. Especially when things like culture and ethnicity are used as distractions from the actual problems that make people’s lives worse. It is the exact same kind of distraction as “the job market is bad because Mexicans are stealing all the jobs!” -> then some people start “venting” about the “lazy job stealing Mexicans”.
If you want to vent, vent about the actual problems. Like “capitalism is the worst” or “I hate corrupt politicians”, or whatever.
Similarly with gender, the patriarchy - the oppressive system of power, is the problem, not the actual gender that the people pushing that system tend to have. It is misdirected rage.
Most of the bad things going on in the world are done by bad men, not all men but always a man
there are women CEOs and politicians, so clearly it’s not always a man
This ignores the fact that men hold systemic power over us (as well as over cis women). While individual men aren’t inherently bad people, the power they have at their disposal just by being men (and the violence that power enables) means that to be a “good” man, you have to make an active effort to not uphold that power. Not a lot of men do this (though some do). Therefore, there’s reason to be distrustful of the average man we meet.