Texas Democrat and U.S. Senate candidate James Talarico fired back at his opponent, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) on Friday after the two Republicans echoed MAGA insults about his masculinity.
“I’ve said before, and I will keep saying that real men serve others; weak men serve themselves,” Talarico told MS NOW’s “The Briefing” host Jen Psaki. “And so I welcome this debate about what it means to be a man, and I don’t think Ken Paxton or Ted Cruz are in a position to tell anybody what a real man is.”
I know this is unpopular but people who claim to be for things like feminism shouldn’t be using “weak men” and “strong men” as categories no matter how you are defining those categories. This rhetoric should be thrown out completely.
I disagree. As a feminist there’s nothing wrong with calling some men weak or strong, just as there’s nothing wrong with calling some women weak or strong. Fascism and authoritarianism are ideologies of the weak. Weak women hide behind men demanding they make decisions for them rather than being strong and accepting the burdens of freedom. Weak men hide behind authoritarian leaders and strive to make women weak so that they can control us. Toxic masculinity is the domain of weak men insecure in their weaknesses trying to make up for absence of inner strength with machismo.
Strong men want women to be strong so we can all stand together as free equals. They don’t fear the choices we might make or the choices they might make, because they’re strong enough to endure unpleasantness, rejection, insecurity, etc.
This opinion should be thrown out completely. Dude’s trying to win in Texas.
Okay sorry I forget toxic masculinity and reinforcing the patriarchy are okay if you are a Texas politician.
False dichotomy. What next? All men are toxic because of their masculinity?
It takes strength to empower others. Men are strong when they empower others (including women). That’s literally all that Talarico is saying. How is that incompatible with feminism?
You’ve just repeated the kind of rhetoric that gives rise to _anti-feminism; your definition of “feminism” is less about empowering women than it is about suppressing men, and I don’t like it one bit.