Edit: Okay, wow. if the statement from a woman of “we owe you nothing” immediately sets you off emotionally, I would really encourage you to think through why that might be.

A more systemic phrasing could have been “we owe the patriarchy nothing”. I changed it to that for a second before realizing, again, that it was fine. A guy that has worked through internalized patriarchy around this will understand it’s not about them.

Patriarchy on the whole conditions men towards having a sense of entitlement towards women’s bodies, time, attention, labor, etc. It also conditions women that they should feel obligated to provide this without setting boundaries or expecting reciprocal solidarity.

Remember, we literally all have degrees of internalized bigotry, misogyny, racism, transphobia, etc because these are systemic issues. Our responsibility to ourselves and our comrades is to work through that. You are not a bad person for finding those brainworms in yourself, only if you refuse to do the work to address them.

    • Dawn_Beveridge [she/her, comrade/them]
      ·
      3 years ago

      Getting some real "'Defunding the police' is bad because I need to invoke some though to understand the slogan" from this thread. Like, it's okay to take a second to listen, gang.

      • HumanBehaviorByBjork [any, undecided]
        ·
        3 years ago

        no, defunding the police is unequivocally good and the slogan describes precisely what needs to happen. not really the same as misusing "emotional labor" to describe the experience of other people daring to be mentally ill near you.

      • Ideology [she/her]
        ·
        3 years ago

        Same, I'm getting "b-but I don't have white privilege!" vibes.

        Learn to do self crit, people.

        • GreenTeaRedFlag [any]
          ·
          3 years ago

          I think we're encountering the problem that men need someone to talk about their issues with, therapy is expensive and sometimes pointless, and other men often look down on you for needing help, so women end up being the only available avenue. However, the distaff side of that is that women have additional emotional labor to do with no real benefit to themselves very often, as they are expected to talk to other women about their issues, not men. So for men this kinda sounds like "screw your mental health, just be stoic" which is what they're already told by society, while the message women get is the positive "dont be an unpaid laborer for men's benefit." The counter that men should just talk to other men is a bit like telling an American to just ride the train; it's just not a realistic option for most of us. Obviously everyone's opinion here will be touched by misogyny because they live under a misogynist system, but just calling it misogyny is missing the mark I think.

          • Socialcreditscorr [they/them,she/her]
            ·
            3 years ago

            I do agree with you but this only makes more frustrating. Is this just not supposed to be brought up then? That feels like being back at square one or closer to a "deal with it until capitalism dies." Which doesn't sit right with me.

            • GreenTeaRedFlag [any]
              ·
              3 years ago

              Gonna be honest, I have no clue how to fix this one, and I'm not even gonna try to suggest something. In your personal life prioritize your mental health and physical safety over the comfort of random men, and in this discussion I guess I'm just saying be patient with your male comrades.