Steve QJ
3 min readJun 25, 2023

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What??! I asked you for this very clearly! You just didn't answer.

"Please, could you give me a set of actionable steps that I can take to dismantle the patriarchy? Are you and all the women you know (even just the self-described feminists) taking these steps?"

You also said you don't care what men go through:

"I don't really fucking care if being told to actually stand up and be a man by cleaning up your shit makes men resentful. To me, that's just weak."

But again, judging by this conversation, and I honestly mean no disrespect by this, you have enormous blind spots regarding the life experiences of the average man and even moreso, the average teenage boy. The average man is already challenging the masculine norms that "demand domination of others and control of women as core aspects of what it means to be a "real man." I mean, good God, this is just sooo far from a description of what the average guy is like or what he thinks.

Yes, I am honestly telling you that I have never bonded with a guy by talking trash about women. I like women. Most of my friends are women. And a guy (or anybody) who thinks talking trash about any group of people is fun is not somebody I would bond with. This isn't even some high-horse moral stance. People like that are just dumb and boring.

I have talked about women's bodies before though. Guilty as charged. Are you telling me you've never talked about men's bodies before? Because if you haven't, I think you're in the minority. Talking about the bodies of the sex you find attractive seems perfectly normal to me. Is talking about a woman's/man's body and your physical attraction to women/men synonymous with disrespect in your view?

Jock culture is not male culture. Wall Street and Hollywood are where a tiny percentage of the world's most powerful and usually sociopathic people hang out. I have literally never in my entire life heard an actual human male unironically say "bros before hos."

All of this stuff is caricature. It's in the same vein as the "red-pillers" who claim that women only want men for their money, or that women want to control men with sex, or that they'll dump their man as soon as a taller, richer "Chad" with a bigger dick comes along.

Women like these do exist. The red-pillers haven't pulled them out of thin air, they're just nothing like the proportion of women they make them out to be. But they find bitter, resentful, usually not very bright men, and convince them that all women are like this. And their job is made easier because they can point to the women attacking men for the crime of being born male. And blaming them for societal norms that existed long before they were born and which those who don't end up on Wall Street or Hollywood or as jocks don't even begin to profit from.

Also, this is a sidenote, but these largely invisible men also see women dating these jocks and accepting being mistreated by them because of their status, and think that's what they need to do to be attractive. This is all far more complex and nuanced than you seem to want to admit. Because admitting the nuances prevents you from just saying that men need to "do the work." The slightly pathetic truth is that most male behaviour is geared around how to be attractive to women. Especially in young males. So when they see the incontrovertible fact that many women are attracted to rich, dominant, occasionally arrogant men, some take that as the blueprint.

As you seem to now be saying, men and women need to do their part here. Again, they both need to do a much better job of listening to and empathising with each other. Blaming the state of society exclusively on men (and especially boys) is a cop out to doing this.

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Steve QJ
Steve QJ

Written by Steve QJ

Race. Politics. Culture. Sometimes other things. Almost always polite. Find more at https://steveqj.substack.com

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