The cure for male loneliness is feminism. Seriously.

[u/futuredebris]

https://makemenemotionalagain.substack.com/p/the-cure-for-male-loneliness-is-feminism

Curious your thoughts! I wrote about how the answer to male loneliness is caring, and how caring is really, really hard. Especially for those of us who’ve been socialized as men. We’ve been told that anything outside of going to work or optimizing ourselves by lifting weights, sitting in ice baths, and pounding creatine isn’t worth much. That caring for others isn’t a “productive” or “efficient” use of our time. That someone else will always end up doing it. That we’re not supposed to do it because women are naturally, biologically designed for it and we’re not (which is untrue). That if we do it, we’re less valuable, like a woman, less of a man. But showing up and caring is both good for other people and us. We have to do more of it.

[u/AGoodFaceForRadio]

Yes, we all need more time and resources to be able to care more without burning out. Yes, we need government policies that actually supports families and communities—and the redistribution of wealth and power needed to pass those policies.

Redistribution of wealth and power from the capital class to the working class. You're preaching from the gospel of socialism, and I am definitely here for that.

Just text a friend who’s struggling. Just help clean up after friend’s party. Just do more housework and parenting. Just offer to watch your friend’s kids. Just show up to community meetings in your neighborhood. Just volunteer at your kid’s school. Just join a political organization like the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) and pitch in to all the back-end planning stuff that such an organization requires. Just organize a few neighbors to clean up trash on your street.

I don't understand how feminism is necessary for me to do any of these things. Do they align with feminism? Sure, they do. They also align very nicely with catholicism (and joining a church congregation gives you instant access to an actual community) but I don't think you'd suggest that in order to cure male loneliness we should all run out and get baptised.

Your premise is that we should just care. You're absolutely right in that. But while I'd argue that you have to care in order to be feminist, I don't think you have be feminist in order to care.

[u/Cualkiera67 → u/AGoodFaceForRadio]

Redistribution of wealth and power from the capital class to the working class. You're preaching from the gospel of socialism, and I am definitely here for that.

Does anyone see the analogy the social sphere? In capitalism nobody owes you shit. There's no safety net. No matter how hard you work, you can still be poor.

The social sphere is capitalist. Nobody owes you friendship or love. No matter how nice or caring you are, you can still be rejected.

But nobody ever argues about redistributing popularity and love.

[u/AGoodFaceForRadio → u/Cualkiera67]

I don't think I understand capitalism the way you do.

You seem to perceive capitalism as individualistic in every way. Nobody owes you shit, but also you get what you work for. But it's not that straightforward. Let's say that I am a labourer (we might say working class) and you are a business owner (we might say capital class). In capitalism, you don't owe me shit, but I do owe you; you get what you work for but you also get what I work for and I get what you decide to give me. That's capitalism in a nutshell.

I am having a difficult time mapping philosophies like capitalism and socialism - which, at their root, are economic models - onto the social sphere. I can do it, but it feels really forced to me. It doesn't feel like a good fit.

[u/udcvr → u/AGoodFaceForRadio]

He's specifically challenging the way in which men should learn to care through a feminist lens. Those are just some digestible examples, I imagine, even though they apply in a very general way. In the context of the rest of the article, I can see how feminism is involved in those actions.