Particular Content to be analysed:

The text is a meme, most likely made by a woman, sourced from a pro
feminist social media page.

#activismanalysis #intersectionality #intertextuality

The text contains language that explicitly refers to men, and typically
toxically masculine language "his boys". There is an implicit intertextuality
here between this meme and the social relations between young men and
how through institutions like sporting clubs, gaming groups and other male
dominated spaces they utilise a conception of "boys clubs" which function
analogously to private men's clubs historically which have been a
mechanism of marginalizing and ostracizing women from crucial tools for
autonomy as women's role in relations to such clubs where only ever as
dutiful servants or arm candy.

The function of this meme however is to present how women's experience

of their performative role as caretakers is projected onto them by their
partners, this is an expression of toxic masculinity and how the privation of
emotional hardship causes masculine anxiety which manifests in fragility.
This is but a small part of the unacknowledged emotional labour women are
expected to undertake, and by the absence of any direct condemnation of
this function within romantic relationships between men and women via the
language used in the meme we can interpret a minimum of neutrality by the
author toward their attitude to this caretaker function, and from this
neutrality we can highlight that there is not a condemnation or element of
ridicule within the text of the men who experience this privation of anxiety.

The visual representation in the image of a typical modern western

heterosexual couple in an inverse of positions with the woman assuming
the masculine pose in the photo and the man in her arms we see a visual
function of the inversion of the relationship and the implications of
emotional responsibility having an element of temporary power imbalance.
But as we can understand the man in the woman's typical function which in
this genre of image is as an object of desire there is an implicit fetishist
valuation of male emotional discomfort and by highlighting this we see a
reaffirmation of woman's emotional dispositions outside a caretaker role
side-lined. The humour of this meme comes from this fetishization of the
man's emotional insecurity and its juxtaposition against the only
patriarchally affirmed and endorse mode of female emotions, that of
caretaker. The humour also comes from the previously mentions
temporality, it is short lived this power imbalance and it is precisely the
power imbalance which causes men to attempt to hide this element of their
relationship from their "boys" as their is a social stigma and shame that is
loaded on to not only healthy sharing of emotional distress but also
unhealthy one sided sharing of emotional distress where the woman is
completely marginalized. When even the toxic function is considered
shameful this simply affirms the primary point of criticism for the meme,
"the boys", and how they coerce each other and themselves into
performing the marginalization of the woman they proport to love.

Jackie's position:

1. The advocacy of women's rights on the basis of the equality of the

sexes.
 2. why is there a meme making fun of men in a section about equality for
all.
3. This meme doesn't raise awareness
4. This is a safe space, and the meme should not be posted
5. The meme is mocking men

Critique of Jackie's Position:

1. This is a narrow understanding of feminism and is a type of elimination

of the radical strands of feminism and marginalizes some of the most
important contributions to feminism. Furthermore this in its worst form
can be a type of interpassivity, a performance of activism which does
not actually further the goals of feminism. This accusation of
interpassivity can be justified on the basis of adhering to only
hegemonically accepted modes of feminism and eliminating the radical
modes that challenge the systems of oppression in a meaningful way.
2. The reasons for this being an invalid criticism follow from point one.
But there is a further issue of claiming the meme is "making fun of
men", this would require a narrow reading of the text and there is a
high likelihood of an endorsement of toxic masculinity, as being the
compulsion of women into caretaker roles as being a good thing, and
the function of the text highlighting this function of relationships in a
neutral way as a mocking attack.
3. This claim is an unfounded empiric claim, through exposure alone on
social media it objectively to a degree raises awareness.
4. Safe spaces cannot be safe for everyone, to assert so would be a
tolerance paradox.
5. This meme is mocking men's relation to "their boys", in a specific way
that explores the toxic masculinity of men's social relations.

Issues with Mini in Feminism (disparaging Alexa, providing low quality

sources/not reading them, narrow readings of other peoples content,
toxically accusing women of overt sexism) #interpassivityexample
#interpassivity
 1. Feminism is preaching for the equality of all sexes it just started as
something for women since they were (and are) the most suppressed
sex.
2. the whole fact that meme is to target sensitive men I feel the
masculinity side may be more harmful than the care taker pov
3. It’s not about the woman in this case
4. If you put the man in a man’s arms it would read the same
5. It’s about men tho…it says so in the caption
6. That is entirely a man writing about a man’s masculinity
7. If I was to take your POV it’s still pushing a negative value
8. It’s still a negative value, either it be fragile masculinity or women being
care takers
9. But when you posted that meme you gave no explanation to the
negative till called out
10. you’re only trying to justify a meme you found funny rather than
actually educate.
11. That seems like a great way to educate people, purposely triggering
them to respond to a sexist post.
12. Alone with the text of it saying a man, I confirmed to heteronormativity.
13. you literally just said being a caregiver is AFAB based
14. It pushes heteronormativity and fragile masculinity
15. Give solid evidence that “how men want to be treated when the boys
aren’t around” is educational rather than targeting a specific group of
“sensitive” men?
16. how the meme, when broken down, targets men more than women? Or
will you switch to the fact I’m using heteronormativity again?

Critique of Mini's position:

1. This is a narrow understanding of feminism and is a type of elimination

of the radical strands of feminism and marginalizes some of the most
important contributions to feminism. Furthermore this in its worst form
can be a type of interpassivity, a performance of activism which does
not actually further the goals of feminism. This accusation of
interpassivity can be justified on the basis of adhering to only
 hegemonically accepted modes of feminism and eliminating the radical
modes that challenge the systems of oppression in a meaningful way.

In addition to the above criticism which also applies to Jackie's position

there is a crucial misunderstanding of the sex gender distinction.
2. Using the word target implies that the text is implicitly hostile, akin to a
character assassination text or a piece of hate speech, this is simply
not the case. There is no rational reading of this text which can in
context construe the meaning of the text in this way.
3. Claiming focus on the man within the text demonstrates a readers
focus on masculine needs as opposed to feminine needs when
structurally the woman is at the centre of the image and the centre of
the meaning, eliminating a representation of a woman from this text
radically changes the meaning.
4. Implying a gay relation, with all else remining the same, the text would
become absurd due to the intertextuality with memes such as "kissing
the homies goodnight" and other specific elements of toxic masculinity
attempting to reterritorialize and maintain a mocking stance toward
gay men despite the giant leaps taken towards liberation in political
domains in recent years. [

](https://www.google.com/imgres?
imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.memes.com%2Fup%2F76110251623279393
%2Fi%2F1629373757724.jpg&imgrefurl=https%3A%2F%2Fmemes.com%2F
m%2Fdouble-tap-to-kiss-the-homies-goodnight-
X6RGojdqKRx&tbnid=cYy9jqgGnNr53M&vet=12ahUKEwiinLW_sYL2AhWdW
mwGHXU2B_MQMygaegUIARDRAQ..i&docid=X24M8ig0MhdIvM&w=1080&h
=801&q=kissing%20the%20homies%20goodnight&client=firefox-b-
d&ved=2ahUKEwiinLW_sYL2AhWdWmwGHXU2B_MQMygaegUIARDRAQ)

5. There is a clear distinction drawn in the caption between a given man

and "his boys" and failing to read the individual as separate from the
social phenomena that is the source of anxiety which births this toxic
masculinity demonstrates a narrow reading.
6. The likelihood of a man being an author of this is very low, and based
off contextual information (a woman posting it, in a pro-woman space)
demonstrates a biased reading,
7. Ascribing negative vale without meaningfully articulating what causes
it, who experiences the negativity, is the negative value being critiqued
or endorsed, and who the intended audience is, and then treating
communication about a negative value is not actually adequate as a
point of criticism.
8. Fragile masculinity as articulated by mini was not adequately
expressed within the wider context of toxic masculinity.
9. Prefacing this meme was not needed and there is no justification for
making claims of guilt, it just demonstrates the otherising of Piski's
position.
10. The claim of non-education is invalid, as the specific pedagogic tool
which Piski employed has been cited multiple times.
11. the accusation of deliberate triggering and assumption of the post
being sexist is unfunded, and seems divorced from the masculine
experience.
12. This seems to imply that under heteronormativity that gender is
reducible to sex, when this is not the case, performativity maintains in
the face of heteronormativity.
13. The association of a caregiver role and being AFAB is an
acknowledgement of the pervasiveness of gender performativity.
14. To say that the text affirms heteronormativity and fragile masculinity is
not the case, as the text is criticising a specific element of
heteronormativity and directly criticising toxic masculinity is
contradictory to broader more nuanced readings of the text.
15. The meme universalises the experience of this relation it makes no
commentary on which specific group of men perform this relationship,
but rather the author includes all men, thereby disqualifying any idea of
targeting sensitive men. Asserting that it target sensitive men, and not
all men implies that only some men have the capacity of sensitivity, not
all men which props up toxic masculinity.
16. The claim of deconstruction by mini is unfounded, they did not employ
any meaningful utilization of media analysis, they did not attempt to
distance themselves from their own initial lens.

Episkey's Position:

1. Based.