People Twitter

I think most of my sarcasm didn't translate well here. I should know better, this being the internet/text and all. I'll try to be more clear about my stance because I don't think we fundamentally disagree, but I suspect there may be a point or two we may want to make more granular.

As a response to your first paragraph(sorry, on mobile), yes, I legitimately have met many people irl who use this rhetoric, though, as you point out, it's not an epidemic, nor do I think there are many "true believers", so-to-speak, as much as it's casual, unthinking discrimination. Admittedly, they skew young and college age and will typically correct course if explicitly addressed. Those that double down are usually the youngest and/or self-described assholes.

As for the patriarchy, yeah, that's the primary problem. My point is to primarily focus on the system(the patriarchy) as the problem, rather than people (men). After all, many women will perpetuate and even sometimes benefit from the patriarchy. Hence my contention with the term "mansplaining", as I attempted to point out this takes the focus away from the problem of the optics of women's competence and focuses on men specifically looking down on women. It's a crude and unhelpful pop-philosophy term that admittedly was deliberately used precisely because it's an emotionally defended term of pop-feminist philosophy and is a good illustration of the gulf between pop-philosophy and where actual academic philosophy stands. The problem isn't that a man is doubting someone else as the term would imply, but that a woman is seen as incapable of competence. The goal of women's liberation is co-opted by pointing the finger at men. I think the nefarious reason this term is so sticky is because it is indeed rooted in real life examples of the most common optical occurrence of perpetuating doubt about women's competence. And as the primary point of my rant illustrates, liberal rhetoric has crept into blaming/attacking men at the expense of the goal of gender liberation.

Now, I should be very clear about what my focus on the system rather than the people is/isn't doing; focus on the patriarchy as the problem rather than on men as the problem will indeed still call out the actions of men more often. However, what this primarily accomplishes as a direct criticism of pop-philosophy is separate the action from the actor to more accurately describe why the action is wrong as opposed to who is doing the wrong. Rather than trying to root out problematic groups of people, now we more accurately root out problematic behavior amongst all of us. Pop-philosophy would rather you just lazily say "ugh, men, amirite?"

The allegory of man vs bear in the woods isn't lost on me. I think my sarcasm got a bit too thick in the characterization of liberals missing the point with it. I think it's a great illustration of demonstrating reality that even when recognizing the problem is indeed patriarchy and not men, women would still be wise to pick the bear over the random man in the woods due to how the patriarchy manifests itself in social power dynamics. Most men probably are relatively safe, but the unsafe men pose enough of a risk that it's impossible to ignore. This is definitely a perspective all men should do their best to come to understand about the very real experiences of women. However, my point in bringing this particular allegory up was to show the unhinged nature of the careless use of inaccurate language by liberals and pop-philosophy in saying it's all men when confronted by those who didn't understand the point. In looking at my post, I see now that it was very unclear I moved on from the allegory completely at the end of that sentence.

My point at the end there was to illustrate how dumb the rhetoric of attacking men is when considering the assumed premise of the rhetoric is pro-feminist = anti-men. Now everyone is miserable in discrimination because of their gender and women's liberation dies in great irony. When in reality feminism does indeed include men's liberation from patriarchy. While men are the primary beneficiaries of patriarchy, they also face discrimination because of patriarchy as well, obviously to a much lesser degree than women.

So, to sum up my rant: the anti-men rhetoric becoming casually included in pop-philosophy is problematic because:

1. It is fundamentally anti-feminist to be anti-men.
2. Being anti-men once again distracts from the actual goal of gender liberation.
3. Pushes away men who would otherwise be allies and even personally benefit from feminism.

And to reiterate the points you brought up that I do agree warrant emphasis that I originally failed to mention:

1. This isn't an epidemic, nor are there really that many "true believers" in anti-men rhetoric. Loud online assholes are usually the larger offending demographic.
2. While I have indeed heard this rhetoric unironically irl fairly often, the perpetrators were usually young, immature, and not usually full of conviction. I suspect most have/will grow out of it.
3. Much of this rhetoric comes from Hollywood, the democratic party, and online trolls. I think naming these sources speaks enough about how much of this problem is real versus manufactured.
4. And, admittedly, I think this is probably the point to come after me about: the problem is more manifest in how the rhetoric is currently creeping into casual conversation and unspoken premises rather than an actual intentional belief system. The problem is more rhetorical drift than ideological.