betterbemeta:

Nearly every decent guy I have ever met has come to a sort of understanding that they don’t want to be threatened anymore. That there are these forces in our world that think using women and minorities or poor people or whatever to threaten them will keep them in line. Many of them have told me about this kind of alienation they feel when they realize that half the things they took for granted, thought were jokes, thought was just talk among friends, were just threats. Threats from other men reminding them that if they step out of line, they’ll be worthy of ridicule, mockery, or even violence. Threats from a consumer society that if they don’t work a certain amount, buy things a certain way, they degrade themselves. Threats that even lampshade threats, and promise an end to feeling threatened… if they only threaten others like a smart cool and strong person ought to. But the threats don’t come from people who are really superior all the time. Many come from people who aren’t even worth listening to, not very cool or admirable people. But the volume of threats seems to ease that? It’s constant violent messages to stay in line, play along, and not ruin anybody else’s setup they have that generates money or satisfaction or a sense of self-actualization.

And like, it’s probably uncomfortable and even painful in some ways to like… not have an explanation where emotions of feeling threatened are coming from, probably. That may be why it’s so easy to rope some guys in like, ‘the feminists are why you feel threatened’, ‘the jews are why’, ‘black people and immigrants and gays are why.’ Whatever some asshole decides. Because some kind of easy logic that gives the feelings of threat a source will always be successful. But the truth is that our modern gender roles are highly dependent on people directly and indirectly threatening one another over how to behave and how to feel. It’s a diffused form of threat that comes from our whole world, not any faction you could ever pin down and then oppose.

It’s so easy to reach men by just suggesting that maybe they don’t have to feel bullied anymore.