The Male Gaze

[Jalopes]

Can I just fucking establish for at least the second time: YES. PATRIARCHAL SOCIETY DOES BAD SHIT TO MEN TOO. EVEN STRAIGHT WHITE MEN, SOMETIMES.
That doesn't somehow mean we're magically on an even footing, and it doesn't stop it from being really shitty to derail and talk about men in a discussion about sexism.

I do think it's important to discuss how gender roles affect men, too, but to turn it into an argument of men vs women is short-sighted and disrespectful. While feminism focuses on women's issues, it is not to the detriment of men; if men were to start speaking out against shitty gender stereotyping too, even that which affected men, they'd be fighting the same cause. That doesn't, however, mean that their causes shouldn't be distinct.

If we were discussing racism against people from the middle east, would you all be swanning in demanding to know what we're all doing about racism against african americans? Of course not. While broadly they are the same cause - abolishing racism - it's fairly well understood that different groups have distinct causes with differing needs. Why do people not accept this as the case for gender?

Probably because men and women are more closely intertwined than any two random ethnic groups. I mean the term "Male Gaze" immediately references males, so it's really no wonder (not saying this view is necessarily correct, but it makes sense why people would do this)

Being a big muscly manwhore is totally okay, but being a woman who's slept with more than one person in a short period is "disgusting." Why is it okay when we, as men, do such things, but when women do it, it's "morally wrong?"

I'm pretty sure this is morally wrong for men, too. Maybe idiots will think that for some reason doing a lot of girls is totally awesome, but those are just idiots. Even the media makes an effort to show that meaningful relationships are better than one-night stands. In fact, when this isn't the case, it's usually played up as comical because they know that such behavior wouldn't be tolerated in the real world (for example shows like Seinfeld, or Tony Stark in Iron Man). And a real world example of it not being tolerated I guess would be people like Charlie Sheen? People laugh at him because of how fucked up he is, they don't applaud him for it.