Feminism and the blind spot

Let’s talk about the blind spot.
The blind spot is a cultural phenomenon, one spanning all of Western society. The blind spot is filled with ignored human pain and suffering caused by inhumanity and indifference. The blind spot can be observed in our governments, our courts, our institutions of higher education, and over society at large. When people get stuck in the blind spot, they are unlikely to have their feelings heard or validated. In contemporary Western society, the people stuck in the blind spot are largely men. To be sure, the male himself is visible, but the physical manifestation of the human male is not what exists inside the blind spot. What can be found in the blind spot are his problems and his fears; his emotions, his insecurities, his pain, his suffering, and his outrage at injustices committed against him. The blind spot isn’t new, but the blind spot has been greatly expanded due to feminism and in particular patriarchy theory.
To understand how we’ve arrived in a situation where our society has largely turned a blind eye to our humanity as men, we must first understand the fact that neither men nor women have ever truly been singularly oppressed as a sex. Men and women took on roles that facilitated the continued survival of the human species. For females, these roles were based in domestic tasks, and for males these roles were based in provision and protection. Making a living over the centuries has often entailed difficult, dangerous, and physically taxing work. It thus made sense to divide labor in this way and create roles that facilitated this division.
Thus, instead of using the word oppression, it would be more accurate to say that both women and men have been repressed by their sexual roles. The female who wished to explore her humanity uninhibited was repressed from doing so by socially imposed gender roles which would have been very difficult to surmount. Similarly, the male who wished to explore his humanity uninhibited faced repression from his own socially imposed gender roles. A man, for example, was someone who would protect and provide for his family without question. A rock of unyielding strength. Someone who had no fears, no insecurities, and no pain. Someone who worked to denounce injustices committed against others without considering himself. A pillar of support for his woman, he was a man who was willing to de-prioritize his own safety to defend her for any reason. In fact, he was someone who would defend any woman, and indeed would de-prioritize his own humanity to defend an entire society at war.
A revolution to free both sexes from their socially imposed gender roles was necessary as soon as the industrial revolution allowed women to begin joining the workforce en masse.
The women’s liberation came first, and developed into the contemporary feminist movement recognizable today. Predictably, men prioritized women’s humanity and for the most part supported their movement. Unfortunately, feminism perpetrated one of the most subtle and unnecessary betrayals ever committed upon humanity. Feminism utterly ignored the repressive forces acting upon males, and instead prioritized the repression of women. This blindness to the other half of the story led feminists to consider their repression as oppression, and led them to conclude that males were their oppressors. In doing so, feminism created a theoretical framework that utterly precluded any possibility of male repression by casting men as universally privileged patriarchal villains that needed to be taken down a peg. And as for the repressive roles men traditionally suffered? An enormous societal blind spot began growing around them.
This blind spot has been expanding ever since. The most repressive of utilitarian male gender roles go utterly ignored, and indeed they have become culturally enshrined as our duties and even our privileges. Instead of working to break down the traditional male-female “gender” dynamic, feminism worked only to break down female-repressive roles under the patriarchy-inspired assumption that this was conducive to equality. At the same time, it worked to defend female-benefiting roles, and worked to legally enshrine utilitarian male-repressive roles while demonizing masculinity.
Did men suffering their own repressive gender roles have a voice in this process? Perhaps, but having been cast aside as oppressors, their feelings were easily ignored and marginalized as the blind spot continued to expand.
Sex came to be viewed through the suffocating lens of patriarchal oppression, and became viewed as an act of dominance, an act of rape. Men were denounced as rapists, a mentality which has given rise to the trite notion that we live in a rape culture, a notion often used as a pretext to enact an insidious expansion of the definition of rape and ensuring legislation. As the blind spot expanded, of course, the male perspective on sex and rape went completely ignored. As it expanded further, it became perfectly acceptable to call a man a misogynist or a rape apologist.
How could a man so casually be accused of hating women or supporting rape? Simply, because his feelings had become buried in the cultural blind spot and were no longer of any importance. The blind spot has even proliferated to the point where many women now fear their own sons as potential future oppressors and rapists. How much value do a boy’s experiences have as a male when by age 6 he is a potential future rapist in his mother’s eyes? Will his fears and his pain as a male be validated, or will they be invisible?
Marriage came to be viewed through the same patriarchal lens, and a subsequent unopposed feminist campaign of politicized hypergamy to “free” women has broken the institution and the courts beyond any realistic hope of repair. This too went unopposed, as the repressive, damaging male role of provision and protection fell into the blind spot. Unsurprisingly, men are now opting out of marriage by the thousands, and, humorously, because men’s feelings are stuck in the blind spot, so too are their motivations for abandoning marriage.
As a result, a comical campaign of utter indifference to men’s feelings and motivations has society asking if it raised a generation of weak men. Further, society has begun fabricating ridiculous concepts like Peter Pan syndrome to shame men back into compliance. Since the blind spot has engulfed all male perspective on the matter, fixing the institution of marriage will not be a priority. Predictably, the priority has been instead to force men back into their “proper” role, and repression be damned.
How can a society obsessed with breaking down gender roles be totally oblivious to repressive male gender roles? How can a society obsessed with stopping domestic violence be totally oblivious to male victims of this type of violence? How can a society obsessed with reproductive rights utterly ignore the obvious fact that men have no such rights and can be reduced to slavery? Simply, because having been cast as privileged oppressors under patriarchy theory, men’s feelings, their pain, their anguish, and their experiences are irrelevant. It’s not that society doesn’t see men, but rather that it has somehow constructed a barren, compassionless, blind spot where a man’s humanity and his feelings are stuck.
The most interesting part about all of this are the myriad of men who pop up like Hugo Schwyzer, a man who recently penned a bewildering piece at Jezebel advocating female sodomy of men to promote equality and combat misogyny. Schwyzer is obviously an extremely feelings-oriented person who evidently realizes, perhaps subconsciously, that the only way to escape the blind spot he is stuck in as a man and have his feelings culturally validated is to pander to feminists in a socially destructive and dehumanizing Olympics of female supplication.
As for we men who stand up and assert our humanity, there will be no reasoning our way out of this situation, but not because our opponents are incapable of reason, simply because our suffering and our feelings are in a blind spot where they are not recognized. We will be ignored and silenced and told to check our privilege. We’ll be called whiners and misogynists. They’ll stagger us with the incredible inhumanity of their indifference to our issues.
But we will not stop and we will not shut up. The FTSU train is still only boarding, but once it gains enough momentum nothing will stop it. So get your FTSU ticket stamped and climb on board. It’s going to be a sweet ride.