This is very true, no amount of suffering is worth committing yourself to injustice, even if the suffering they experience could even be as bad as they seem to think it is. I think it is also important to specify that they enjoy the power patriarchy affords them while still understanding that they aren’t satisfied with this system. Many men resort to anti-feminist, conservative talking points merely out of recognition that their only vectors to a (potentially) more fulfilling way of life is to either implement substantial and fundamental changes to society, or capitalize on preexisting inequities and wrestle away what little is afforded to those beneath them in the hierarchy. They’re not lying when they say that this is miserable, trans women certainly know that the way we raise men is brutal and dehumanizing, even if they access privilege through the process.

The existence of transness also tells us that privilege is indeed not an insurmountable barrier to self-reflection and change, which means the men who choose to be disatisfied and take it out on those whom they know are more vulnerable really are just pieces of shit who could simply not do what they do. God knows they’d suffer less for defying patriarchy than trans women do, and even that is too much of a cost for many of them.

I don’t know if we need to reconstruct it from scratch, even if just because I don’t think we should have a cultural understanding of masculinity that doesn’t remember the harm that came from the social and material relations that the current hegemonic masculinity emerged from. Whatever comes next will always exist with a relationality to this patriarchal system which has caused monumental degrees of harm to human life, and all life on this planet. I also don’t know if I’d call this form of patriarchy a continuity from what preexisted capitalism and European settler-colonialism, since so much of hegemonic masculinity is defined by white supremacy, commodification of nature, property, and so on.

It really is a uniquely – pathologically – violent way of life. I think that is reflected in how obvious it is that men would rather have something different, and simply call misandry because they resent the fact that they don’t have the power to do that while still getting to be disgustingly fixated on dominating others.