Rule 3. Be the men’s issues conversation you want to see in the world. Here is some context to what you quoted.

I feel that there is some degree of unnecessary gate keeping here. I think your pride in never engaging in conversation in female spaces is misplaced. To me, that speaks more to a lack of interest in opening up a dialogue about women’s issues.

What’s worrying about this community is how much self-blame is in some conversations. Some people have a tendency to conflate the patriarchy with men, systemic with individual issues, awareness with taking on fault, fault with responsibility, temperament with social conditioning, etc. I often see people fault ‘men’ and by extension, themselves, for something that is not any one man’s fault.

For example, in the comment thread that you quoted, the general sentiment was that many women are choosing to remain single because it’s men’s fault for not being good enough. I don’t entirely agree that the phenomenon of women becoming increasingly single is purely due to men’s behavior, because I think that it is primarily the product of feminism attributing women with personhood and being happily single. Feminism has yet to do that for effectively for men. Hence what I meant by “Feminism has taught many women, but not enough men, how to live a fulfilling life beyond patriarchal norms.”

In the comment above in this post men were said to have ‘put the burden of contraceptives on women’, but there is more nuance to that because of the nature of medication risk analysis makes it much harder to justify birth control side effects for men.

Sometimes, rebuttals like these are dismissed as ‘anti-feminist’ because it seems to be taboo around here for men to say ‘it’s not men’s fault’ to systemic inequalities. There is a lack of separation between fault and responsibility here that I’m hoping that I can sort out by saying ‘it’s not men’s fault’.

Also, I want to clear misconceptions around topics like female birth control because I’ve had bad experiences with it and I’m pretty sensitive about it when it’s deemed as something easy.

Above all, I want to understand men’s issues because I find that to be lacking in many feminist spaces. My partner and several friends are all facing mental health issues, but don’t often talk about it. I don’t want to push them, so I’ll try and learn what I can from this community and try to understand and empathize when they feel ready.