Men can’t be feminists; the bioessentialist perception

Medium | 31.12.2025 07:25

Men can’t be feminists; the bioessentialist perception

Hope phillips

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Bio essentialism or gender-essentialism Is the belief that human behavioural traits like personality or intelligence are determined by chromosomes and hormones as opposed to the environment the individual grew up in, or experiences that shaped their persona. It is the perception that a person’s gender determines their conduct. Bio essentialism has no biological backing, it is a social construct and not a biologically proven fact.

The belief that men can’t be feminists is bioessentialist propaganda, it is completely false. The environment a man grows up in can determine his stance on gender roles and feminism, not his biological state. Pushing the idea that a man can’t be a feminist because he isn’t “biologically wired to” only validates the nasty and misogynistic behaviours most men portray. When a lion kills a prey, no one calls the lion a villain because that’s its natural instinct. So when people say things like “men are naturally evil” “boys will be boys” – it only excuses their horrible conduct, because if it is in their natural instinct to be male supremacists and commit evil acts, when they do misogynistic things can we really blame them? Since it’s a natural instinct they can’t control.

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If Men cannot be feminists then women can’t be leaders. If you genuinely believe that a person’s conduct is tied to their biology, then the bigoted men who try to push the idea that women are too weak or emotional to be leaders would have a valid point.

Feminism and bioessentialism cannot co-exist. Feminism pushes for deconstruction of the patriarchy and bioessentialism validates the horrible behaviour of male supremacists. It also reinforces the propaganda that women are naturally weak and aren’t suitable for leadership positions. Upholding bioessentialist propaganda and claiming you’re a feminist is cognitive dissonance.

If bioessentialism was a biologically proven fact, then the fight for feminism would be useless. If men are hardwired to uphold patriarchy and it’s a natural instinct for them to want to dominate a woman, feminism wouldn’t be able to grow, because they’d never give women equal opportunities as them if they were programmed to feel superior to women.

When you say men are naturally violent, you’re validating domestic abuse. When you say – “he’s a boy, he doesn’t know how to do that” you’re promoting weaponised incompetence.

Islam pushes bioessentialism propaganda. Women have to cover their entire body, and even thier hair – the least sensual part of the body anyone could think of, to “protect” them from perverted men. Rather than teaching these men basic morals, women have to pay the price for their horrible upbringing. Instead of teaching men self control, women are made to cover every inch of their skin, sometimes even their faces. Normal people do not get aroused at the sight of a person’s hair! This practice shifts the accountability away from perverted men and makes them think their actions are okay and a woman who isn’t covered up deserves whatever they do to her. They make it seem like men are naturally wired to be that way so the women have to cover up to protect themselves from them. False, because even people were fully covered have been sexually assaulted by men. These men should be brought up not to sexualise everything about a woman rather than making the woman cover up to “protect” herself.

Nearly every single person is raised in a patriarchal society. Both men and women are groomed to uphold patriarchy. The reason the women who are raised in patriarchal societies tend revolt against this barbaric system and snap out of the societal conditioning more than the men is because the bigotry directly affects women. The men are less likely to deconstruct patriarchal beliefs because they benefit from this system, not because it is their natural instinct is to be patriarchal. if a boy is brought up in a home with no gender roles and grows up to be a raging misogynist who consumes red pill content, it’s because of societal conditioning and media influence, not because he returned back to his “roots”.

Men are not inherently evil and women aren’t inherently virtuous. Women are capable of committing terrible acts and men are capable of doing good deeds. Men can be victims and women can be perpetrators. A person’s behaviour can be tied to different external experiences, but not their biological state.