#ExtremelyOnline — Masculinity on the Internet’s Front Page
This is part two of an interview with Mens Lib moderators. Read the first part here. #ExtremelyOnline was originally featured in the Future of Masculinity zine. Get a print or digital copy here.
Reddit is an online message board and news aggregator where users from around the world have discussions in forums, or ‘subreddits,’ dedicated to subjects ranging from meal prep tips to racial justice. Reddit is one of the most visited sites in the world, earning it the moniker: “The front page of the internet.”
Unlike other social media websites, Reddit users talk online with pseudonyms instead of their real identities and is moderated by a collection of community volunteers who help curate and maintain their specific spaces.
Today I sat down with a collection of Reddit moderators for the subreddit /r/MensLib, which stands for Men’s Liberation.
What do you think is the most important issue facing boys and men today?
IP: Loneliness and suicide. The social contract is always being reinvented and I don’t think there’s been another time in recent memory where men and masculinity have received such close scrutiny and attention. Right now, male suicide is regarded as a silent epidemic, boys and men are not getting the mental health resources they need while eschewing social safety nets that keep people, regardless of gender, in a healthy place. Unfortunately, the violence doesn’t end there either, we’ve seen a rise in misogynistic violence by individuals in the incel movement and other message boards online.
FCI: Lack of diverse perspective. We, in this sub, and in society in general, talk a lot about the value of diversity. For me, the biggest thing I get from being a part of diverse communities is the diversity in life experience and perspective. I want my kids to get a piece of that as early in their upbringing as possible, so the perspectives I get from MensLib and other diverse communities are then passed on to them in how we talk about things and how I act around them.
ND: Poverty and wealth inequality. While the issue itself isn’t gendered, the way that wealth inequality affects men is definitely worth considering in a gendered context. Expectations that men become breadwinners and financially support their families can lead to an extra dose of shame and feelings of inadequacy, in addition to all the normal stresses and hardships that poverty can bring. Wealth inequality also intersects with other issues such as sexuality and race, with marginalized people mostly at the bottom of the capitalist pyramid.
We need to provide robust social safety nets so that everyone has their needs met. Additionally, we need to change the messaging we send to men about their worth being tied to their ability to provide.
Men are worthy of respect, love, and fulfillment regardless of the labor they do or the financial gains they can make.
MT: The absence of a healthy, mainstream notion of empowered masculinity. A lot of spaces for men spend a lot of time talking about how much they hate the phrase ‘toxic masculinity.’ I don’t want to talk much here about that phrase, but I do think that part of why this phrase gets such attention is that the concept of ‘toxic’ masculinity is often torn down, but there is no clearly agreed-upon model of what ‘positive’ masculinity might look like. The most serious side effect of this, I feel, is that while our culture has grown to celebrate Girl Power and seriously engage with the idea of what it means to be an empowered woman, the rhetoric surrounding boys and young men and their gender tends to focus primarily on their problematic or harmful behaviors. Feminism found the means to help young girls feel comfortable and empowered in their femininity; it is critical that male feminists and the men’s liberation movement find a way to do the same for boys.
UQ: Mental health and lack of social accountability/resources. Unfortunately, mental health has long been one of humanity’s most stigmatized social issues. The irony is frustrating, given that anything and everything can arguably be, at its core, considered mental health issue(s). A minor toothache neglected today can turn into a life-threatening problem tomorrow. Our brain is one of the most vital organs in our body, yet we don’t treat it with nearly as much care as every other part. Since COVID has stopped the world in its tracks—disproportionately affecting men because of their chosen behaviours—it has highlighted the vitality of our need for human connection, both physical and emotional. But the men of today also lack social accountability. Many often feel lonely, isolated, and unsupported for many of their issues—consequences of poor mental health support and social stigma. In my efforts to curate resources for our international community (particularly those in non-anglophone countries), I’ve learned that there are major disparities according to socioeconomic status, sexuality, and issues addressed, etc.
What issue is not getting talked about enough?
IP: In a word? Heteropessimism. As defined a year ago in an article by Indiana Seresin, the term describes, “performative disaffiliations with heterosexuality, usually expressed in the form of regret, embarrassment, or hopelessness about straight experience that are rarely accompanied by the actual abandonment of heterosexuality.”
I extend this concept extends to all privileged orthodoxy. Over this year I’ve taken to noticing an increasing trend online with phrases like ‘are the straights okay,’ ‘whites are at it again,’ and even ‘men are trash.’ They all adhere to the traditions of ‘punching up’ with regards to power and privilege and do identify some truth in the way that various cultural markers are identified as problematic (including misogyny and homophobia). I think most people look the other way when confronted with this language because the status of these groups shield them from these attacks, and stops them from penetrating in any meaningful societal way.
But they are just as harmful to the individuals who internalize these beliefs. They signal to people who struggle with self-esteem that there are attributes which they have little to no control over that makes them less desirable. The other side of that coin has (mostly) straight white men preemptively apologizing for other men on their behalf, perpetuating the notion that we can be judged on identity and not by individual actions performed by individual people informed by culture. I think we need to do a better job at identifying flaws in our systems and collective thinking over blaming groups instead of actions by individuals. I’m seeing more and more people celebrate the notions of being queer, while at the same time diminishing ‘normative’ (hegemonic) lifestyles and identities as antiquated to the point that even within corners of the LGBTQ community you can find hostility, and I think we’ve got to do better—we have to do better—if we really believe in the liberation of people to be who they are and feel good about expressing themselves.
ND: Male survivors of rape and sexual assault. Much of the focus when discussing issues of consent and sexual assault is on female survivors, leaving male survivors out of the conversation. As a result, men searching for support and resources after a sexual assault often don’t know what’s available for them or even if there are resources for them at all. Furthermore, efforts to reduce sexual assault will be ineffective if they ignore such a significant portion of survivors.
MT: The burden that cultural expectation places on the mental wellbeing of men. Patriarchal expectations of behaviour, which are reinforced not only by the job market but also by schools, parents, friends, and romantic partners, place men in the role of emotionless provider and sacrificer. I see the impact that a lifetime of fulfilling this expectation has had on my father. He has always worked so hard to provide for my mom and his children, and he has done so successfully, but there is a largely unacknowledged personal cost that has accompanied that: a cost which I can tell he feels acutely, even if he can’t put his finger on why he hurts. I worry for myself, as I see myself mirror my father’s negative behaviours, and for my friends in my peer group as I see them embrace repressive stoicism. Stoicism is useful inasmuch as it can improve one’s sense of wellbeing and resilience when faced with trying situations, but it seems to me that many men embrace it in an attempt to ignore their feelings, and it likewise leads to a distorted view regarding what aspects of your life you can control versus which you cannot.
CA: The role capitalism has played in so many of the issues men are facing. The rigid gender roles that force men to destroy their bodies and minds as cogs in a workforce, the crises of mental health and substance abuse and homelessness, the spiritual alienation from friends and family and community that lead down those dark roads—all of these things have their roots in the capitalist tendency to tie a man’s value to what he can produce for a boss or a shareholder.
UQ: How to be a model of positive masculinity. The dominant narrative has long been focused on highlighting and critiquing notions of toxic, negative masculinity. While people easily cite examples of popular figures in mass media, what does positive masculinity actually look like in the real world, and how can we encourage the men in our lives to strive to be better? How can we practice it in our own lives?
What do you think gets talked about too much?
IP: Blaming everything on Toxic Masculinity. The word came out of the Mythopoetic Men’s Moving in the 90s, and then we readopted by feminist scholars and then slowly made it’s way into daily discourse starting in the mid 2010s. Like most scholarly terms it becomes a much more watered down tool that has a lot of people misunderstanding and using it incorrectly or as a lazy moniker to describe how men are bad™. I think as a tool to identify outcomes of how traditional masculinity tells us to repress emotions, to deny help, and to take dangerous risks it can be incredibly useful, but in order to keep the tool sharp we need to use the right tool for the job and I think a lot of people are skipping over how the roles of race and class inform our social dynamics too.
ND: How to reach out to and reform men in the alt-right. While I don’t necessarily think anyone is beyond reforming, people pour a lot of time and energy into reaching out to these straight, cis, white men who embrace bigoted and violent movements. LGBT men, men of color, and other men who belong to marginal- ized groups also need compassion and consideration. Too often I get the impression that the typical cis straight white man has more compassion for other cis straight white men, regardless of how hatefully they behave, than he has for men who fall outside any of those categories.
How do you apply what you discuss online to your practical lives?
FCI: From my perspective as a parent the ideas of misogyny, gender roles, and the patriarchy are really important. They have been around for centuries, even if not by name but breaking away from those old ideas can be difficult—even as some—one who was raised in a very progressive household. It is especially difficult as a father with young kids trying to break away from these ideas in how I raise them. Kids learn from the actions of their parents, so how I treat other people, the language I use, and even the simple choices my wife and I make influence how they see and move through the world.
One of the harder things to do as a parent is to recognize when kids are acting out because they are uncomfortable with a situation or conversation. Kids, especially young kids, just don’t have the words to explain that they are feeling really complex emotions and don’t know how to deal with them. An example: recently, my family got into a conversation about the Black Lives Matter movement. One of my boy’s best friends is Black, so when he made some comments that seemed disconnected and insensitive, we attempted to correct that so that he wouldn’t alienate his friend. This escalated quickly and he was sent to his room.
Through my experience in communities like MensLib (whose members tend to trend younger than me), I realized that as a kid, he was really feeling this but couldn’t vocalize it. I followed him to his room and got down to his level and helped him express these complex fears and emotions. It may seem like a father bragging, but I know I would not have been able to make this connection without the diverse community I am part of and value each member. As a parent, there are no words for how valuable this is for me and my family.
ND: In numerous tiny ways, such as adjusting the language I use to avoid using phrases that reinforce gender stereotypes or to be less ableist etc. In larger ways by, say, taking ideas from online discussions and applying them to the way I interact with my nephews to be as nurturing and supportive to them as I can. And I definitely feel better informed by my online discussions so that I can provide better insights when having discussions in person. This last point works the other way around, too, because I can bring insights from in-person discussions back with me when I return to the discussions online.
UQ: One of my personal mottos is, “Be the person you needed when you were younger.” Be it through word or action, as an empath, I always try to imagine myself as the person on the receiving end. Is the language I am using considerate of others (e.g. gender-neutral)? Would I respond differently if the person is of a different gender, race, etc than me? Ultimately, life is a learning process. We’re all on a journey and we all have a responsibility to figure out the good and bad of what to learn and unlearn. But thankfully, there’s help along the way. In the words of Audre Lorde, “Without community, there is no liberation.”
What single piece of advice can you give to men?
IP: Re-learn how to play. As in a spontaneous state of being. Without a goal, just exploration, discovery, and fun for its own sake. I feel there’s a hyper-rationalist streak with men that when combined with stoicism that tells us there’s no point (read: reward) for being emotional or performing a task without purpose. At the same time men will learn not to take themselves so seriously and have more self confidence in themselves. We all need to have more time to unwind and have leisure, and if your free time is still constrained by thoughts about work or family drama then it isn’t actually free.
CA: Truly liberating yourself is a leap of faith, and it’s not always easy. Being more aware of and communicative about your emotions, for instance, requires a great deal of trust both in yourself and the people you’re reaching out to. And sometimes there’s backlash or negative fallout from that, and I doubt any of us would pretend otherwise. But trying and failing, and giving yourself credit for the attempt and being kind to yourself about
the failure is part of that process. And if you do try, I think that on average you’ll be pleasantly surprised at your results.
ND: There’s no one piece of advice that will be the right thing for all men no matter where they are in their lives, but I think this applies to most men: Accept that who you are is an okay person, and always strive to be better.
MT: Your feelings will be felt. You can acknowledge them and engage them with intentionality and try to do something healthy and constructive with them, or you can try to ignore them. But ignored feelings will find a way to be felt and expressed—they will not just go away.
UQ: Be vulnerable. It’s OK to not be OK. Life is tough and its hardships do not discriminate. You’re only human. You need not struggle alone. There is comfort in knowing that we are not alone in our struggles. You are valid.
Interview by Chris Ringeisen, NGM friend and r/MensLiberation moderator.