The issue is that the slogan "patriarchy hurts men" is nearly always used in a way that still puts the onus on men to stop policing gender norms on other men. The reality is that women have every bit as much agency and power in upholding patriarchy that men do, but few women (feminist or not) are willing to acknowledge the extent they enforce toxic gender norms, or even that women enforce toxic gender norms at all.

Women absolutely, positively enforce toxic gender norms. Women are part of the patriarchy. In fact, for many women, the best strategy for them is to embrace the patriarchy as hard as they can. That sets them up for rewards from the dominant paradigm.

Ending patriarchy requires both men and women to reject it. But the ones calling for for an end to patriarchy are the feminists -- which includes both women and men. Feminists absolutely, positively call out women who are guilty of entrenching the patriarchy.

That's not few women. It's lots and lots of women. And lots of men, too.

I agree with you that feminists don't enforce gender roles more than average, so attributing the shitty state of gender relations to feminism is silly.

I disagree that they are particularly willing to call out instances of women entrenching the patriarchy. I think this probably has to do with a root disagreement about the scope of what is considered policing gender roles.

It's true, for instance, that feminists are more likely to criticize a mother who tells her son not to play with dolls, which is good and something I agree with. It's just not the primary mechanism by which women enforce gender roles, which is partner choice. That's not to say that women shouldn't have the right to choose their partner--of course they should--but the patterns of how women choose partners enforce toxic gender norms, and many of the most toxic aspects of gendered male behavior arise from men navigating that landscape.

As a concrete example, consider bisexuality. The majority of women dislike the idea of choosing a bisexual guy as a partner: he's considered less masculine, or dirtied, or some kind of perversion of masculinity. This is their right, but it's also shitty. The problematic aspects I want to call out are that 1) the majority viewpoint among women about bisexual men is still very prevalent among feminist-identifying women, and 2) when someone expresses frustration at these collective choices, feminist-identifying women are far more likely to criticize the frustrated party instead of the toxic gender norms. The net result of this is men being terrified of homosocial affection and remaining closeted so as not to scare off potential partners, both behaviors most people would consider expressions of toxic masculinity.

This pattern repeats itself across a lot of different forms of gendered policing. But many feminists refuse to acknowledge it, because they don't acknowledge that partner choice can be a mechanism for gender role enforcement.

I have no idea what feminists you're dealing with, or under what circumstances, so I'm not going to apologize for them. But I can tell you that you've come across as hostile in this conversation, and it comes as no surprise to me that others have responded to you in a negative way.

I'm honestly confused enough that you read that comment as hostile that I'm wondering if you're confusing me with someone else.

Regardless, I do hope everyone will call out policing of gender norms whenever we see them. Best wishes.

The vast majority of "patriarchy hurts men" discussions I've seen, including the Buzzfeed and Washington Post articles I spot checked at the top of this search, have been about how the men reading the article need to fix their bad behavior. Buzzfeed calls for me to learn "specific strategies to end gender violence" so that I won't "engage in everyday sexist behaviours"; Wapo suggests "Giving up a small slice of privilege in exchange for a longer (and happier) life".