Feminism is the school of thought dedicated to ensuring equity between men and women. Without feminism and feminists, women’s rights across the west as we know them today would not be established. This is due to the tremendous sacrifices, hard work and dedication given by those who were feminist activists across time and history. These women were fighting against sexism and patriarchy. Across racial lines, women of the global majority would also fight against the system of racism – with an acute understanding of how their racial struggle and gender strugle were interlinked.

The patriarchy is a social institution in which men are given disproportionate levels of power and women are exluded from positions of power. It’s via this institution that men are enabled to enact their misogyny within society. However, the patriarchy is not some abstract thing, it shapes the attitudes and outlook of people all across society, most notably effecting us arguably from before we’re even born. This is because of the way gender roles are enforced, assigned and expected of us from the moment we’re conceptualised and are given a gender identity by the social insitutions and loved ones around us.

Patriarchy re-inforces to men the idea that if they are strong, powerful, dominant, financially secure, or intelligent, they are a cut above the rest and deserve something, especially from women. Whether this expresses itself in the form of sexual gratification or status, men are conditioned to expect something at least.
This creates a cycle of non-gratitude and violence, because these misogynistic men still build up resentment due to their inability to acheive fulfilment, all the whilst needing to threaten their violent capabilities to maintain their social standing.

To paraphrase bell hooks, boys are taught to emotionally castrate themselves to perform as men under the system of patriarchy. But what about boys/men who want to dismantle the patriarchy? They face another battle entirely, their battle against shame. What does this mean? Well, where women learn about the system of patriarchy, it becomes a step toward their ideological liberation first and foremost. They can begin to see how their role as a woman has been defined by those with social power – and can begin to dismantle that version of their identity. Whilst this is a very difficult process, women who undertake the journey to unlearn their internalised misogyny and combat the patriarchy work to liberate themselves. This journey is made easier by proximity to privilege, such as education. This is not the same process for men.

For men, when we begin to unlearn the lies and deception fed to us by this system, it roots itself very deeply into shame. This cycle of shame stems from the fact that we recognise not only how we still derive a benefit from this system, but also how we uphold this same institution that has harmed us during our youth, as well as harming women all around us. Combine this feeling with the fact that young boys are often abandoned by society, are surrounded by toxicity, and oftentimes make spaces to discuss gender issues “less safe”, men cling to their feelings of shame to the point they get stuck and cannot fight further against misogyny. This culminates itself in causing further harm – whether that harm is purely verbal or gets physical is dependent on the person and circumstances they find themselves in. Regardless, its a social issue we must combat.

We combat this issue by discussing what feminism is. For many men, and many women of colour across the globe, the term ‘feminism’ has unfortunately been co-opted by white liberal movements and as a result, people have understandably critiqued those movements and removed themselves from the proximity of feminist thought. This is a great shame as feminist theory is the exact same way we begin to remedy this gap that men are finding themselves in when it comes to discussing misogyny. We need more men to wholeheartedly identify as feminists and embody the values of a feminist – with an understanding that as men we occupy a very specific space and have a lot to do and learn. We can provide much to this conversation – as benefactors of the patriarchy, there are patriarchal conditions, thought patterns, language, etc, that as men we have a unique insight into which we can tell the world about for us all to learn from. We as men uphold the patriarchy, and masculinity can often be a performance we do for other men’s approval. As a result, we must do the labour (that many of us expect women to do (only for us not to listen anyway)) ourselves, men amongst men. Whilst doing that, we must discuss with the women alongside us so the feminist women in our community understand the dialogues we’re having. This way, we all develop in tandem.

This is pertinent for the field of computer science. Being a field in the ‘manosphere’, we have many misogynists within our field who wouldn’t even consider themselves misogynistic. Speaking from a Gen-Z perspective, many of the young boys who grew up interested in computing often had high-levels of internet access, video games, online forums and pornography. These spaces primed young men into internalising not-so-nice values. This could range from developing bio-essentialist view points and applying them in their day-to-day lives, through to becoming violent incels. The young children of today have even more access to technologies at the same time period their parents have even less technological literacy to be able to deal with it all. This is all whilst the parents are dealing with a worsened economic crisis, their own lives, and their own lack of education.

The above points highlight the necessity for feminism to combat the patriarchy, and our role as men to become active feminists to help combat what is occurring in our socities.

Feminism is the school of thought dedicated to ensuring equity between men and women. Without feminism and feminists, women’s rights across the west as we know them today would not be established. This is due to the tremendous sacrifices, hard work and dedication given by those who were feminist activists across time and history. These women were fighting against sexism and patriarchy. Across racial lines, women of the global majority would also fight against the system of racism – with an acute understanding of how their racial strugle and gender strugle were interlinked.

The patriarchy is a social institution in which men are given disproportionate levels of power and women are exluded from positions of power. It’s via this institution that men are enabled to enact their misogyny within society. However, the patriarchy is not some abstract thing, it shapes the attitudes and outlook of people all across society, most notably effecting us arguably from before we’re even born. This is because of the way gender roles are enforced, assigned and expected of us from the moment we’re conceptualised and are given a gender identity by the social insitutions and loved ones around us.

Patriarchy re-inforces to men the idea that if they are strong, powerful, dominant, financially secure, or intelligent, they are a cut above the rest and deserve something, especially from women. Whether this expresses itself in the form of sexual gratification or status, men are conditioned to expect something at least.
This creates a cycle of non-gratitude and violence, because these misogynistic men still build up resentment due to their inability to acheive fulfilment, all the whilst needing to threaten their violent capabilities to maintain their social standing.

To paraphrase bell hooks, boys are taught to emotionally castrate themselves to perform as men under the system of patriarchy. But what about boys/men who want to dismantle the patriarchy? They face another battle entirely, their battle against shame. What does this mean?Well, where women learn about the system of patriarchy, it becomes a step toward their ideological liberation first and foremost. They can begin to see how their role as a woman has been defined by those with social power – and can begin to dismantle that version of their identity. Whilst this is a very difficult process, one that is made easier by proximity to privilege, it is none-the-less only clarifying to the woman who undertakes the journey to unlearn and combat both internalised and socially accepted misogyny. This is not the case for men.

For men, when we begin to unlearn the lies and deception fed to us by this system, it roots itself very deeply into shame. This cycle of shame stems from the fact that we recognise not only how we still derive a benefit from this system, but also how we uphold this same institution that has harmed us during our youth, as well as harming women all around us. Combine this feeling with the fact that young boys are often abandoned by society, are surrounded by toxicity, and oftentimes make spaces to discuss gender issues “less safe”, men cling to their feelings of shame to the point they get stuck and cannot fight further against misogyny. This culminates itself in causing further harm – whether that harm is purely verbal or gets physical is dependent on the person and circumstances they find themselves in. Regardless, its a social issue we must combat.

We combat this issue by discussing what feminism is. For many men, and many women of colour across the globe, the term ‘feminism’ has unfortunately been co-opted by white liberal movements and as a result, people have understandably critiqued those movements and removed themselves from the proximity of feminist thought. This is a great shame as feminist theory is the exact same way we begin to remedy this gap that men are finding themselves in when it comes to discussing misogyny. We need more men to wholeheartedly identify as feminists – with an understanding that as men we occupy a very specific space and have a lot to do and learn. We can provide much to this conversation – as benefactors of the patriarchy, there are patriarchal conditions, thought patterns, language, etc, that as men we have a unique insight into which we can tell the world about for us all to learn from. We as men uphold the patriarchy, and masculinity can often be a performance we do for other men’s approval. As a result, we must do the labour (that many of us expect women to do (only for us not to listen anyway)) ourselves, men amongst men. Whilst doing that, we must discuss with the women alongside us so the feminist women in our community understand the dialogues we’re having. This way, we all develop in tandem.

This is pertinent for the field of computer science. Being a field in the ‘manosphere’, we have many misogynists within our field who wouldn’t even consider themselves misogynistic. Speaking from a Gen-Z perspective, many of the young boys who grew up interested in computing often had high-levels of internet access, video games, online forums and pornography. These spaces primed young men into internalising not-so-nice values. This could range from developing bio-essentialist view points, through to becoming violent incels. The young children of today have even more access to technologies that their parents have even less technological literacy to be able to deal with. This is all whilst the parents are dealing with a worsened economic crisis, their own lives, and their own lack of education.

The above points highlight the necessity for feminism to combat the patriarchy, and our role as men to become active feminists to help combat this system.