#intersectionality

“white men can’t be oppressed” -> gay men

“heterosexual men can’t be oppressed” -> trans men

“cis-het men can’t be oppressed” -> intersex men

“perisex men can’t be oppressed” -> disabled men

“able-bodied men can’t be oppressed” -> neurodivergent men

“cis-het perisex white able-bodied neurotypical men can’t be oppressed” -> buddy let me tell you about wealth and class and homelessness and immigrants and minority languages and cultures and being a child and being an elderly person and and and

Everyone say thank you to trans mascs for showing us a version of masculinity born from joy and desire instead of just through coercion

Everyone say thank you to all people outside of the cis gender binary for showing us a version of gender born from joy and desire instead of just through a simple frame work in which our oppressor have used to kill, erase, and censor us.

Like, I am just at a loss for words. I don't know how to explain to these people that marginalized white people and men are not oppressed or neglected on the basis of being white/men, so it's quite silly (and that's being generous) to assert that there is any type of intersection between their marginalized identity and their identity as a white person/man that makes them uniquely oppressed. In fact, in positing such notions you lend credence to fascist concepts such as "anti-white racism" or "anti-male sexism." And when I try to explain this, they will ignore me, hurl misogynistic and racist slurs at me, or most bewildering of all bring up white people and men with additional marginalized identities as a "gotcha!" of... sorts. Either you fundamentally do not understand what I'm trying to explain to you or you're being willfully obtuse, but either way you are twisting the writings of black feminists so that they can fit into your incredibly reactionary worldview and I refuse to engage with you ghouls any further on that basis.

Intersectionality states that all facets of someones identity and situation leads to the type of oppression they face, you cannot seperate one thing from another. Race, sex, gender identity, wealth, where you live, sexuality, health. None of these can be seperated when talking about challeneges and bigotry an indiviual faces. Setting bigotry against minority men as a default perpetuates and upholds patriarchal bigotry and makes room for microagressions and macroagressions to be diminished and overlooked as we've seen time and time again. This idea that "man" excludes someone from facing targeted bigotry somehow is wrong, men of color are opressed on the axis of being MEN of color, same woth disabled men and trans men and intersex men. You can't just dismiss bigotry on the basis of gender or sex.

Kimberlé Crenshaw was the Black feminist scholar who coined the term "intersectionality." You can read her initial article coining and describing the theory "Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics" (1989), her follow-up article expanding on it "Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence against Women of Color" (1991), and a (shorter and easier to read) interview with her about what she meant and what she thinks about it "Kimberlé Crenshaw on Intersectionality, More than Two Decades Later" (2017).

Adrienne Rich was the lesbian feminist scholar and poet who coined the term "compulsory heterosexuality" in her article "Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence" (1980).

Roland Barthes was a French literary critic who coined the term "death of the author" in his essay "La mort de l'auteur" (The Death of the Author") (1967). This one is 6 pages long.

Why is it “kill all men yes even the trans ones and if you say otherwise you’re an MRA” and not “let’s maybe create a world that encourages good men.” Did we forget that feminism was supposed to be good for everyone and that the patriarchy harms men and boys as well?

Like maybe we should care about male loneliness and the male suicide rate BECAUSE MAYBE WED HAVE FEWER SOCIETAL PROBLEMS if 100% of the population wasn’t traumatized by gendered expectations and not being taught decent communication skills/how to be emotionally vulnerable. And definitely we would if fucking redpill echo chambers weren’t the places most willing to accept and nurture (groom into hateful ideology) young men.