It's been a while since I attempted to read a piece from Vox seriously. It appears that they're much the same as I remember.

The article subtitle is "We can invest in men’s well-being without undermining women", and this already hints at the problem with such pieces - we are supposed to accept the rhetoric that "investing in men's well-being" would have such an effect, by default. Then, the article goes on at length describing a huge list of traditional feminist complaints about the plight of women, with the occasional not-very-concrete references to men's issues, which can apparently only be safely considered in that light. (And, of course, we get a bunch of reminders about various sorts of bad things, like murder, being disproportionately done by men. People who point to analogous statistics broken down on racial lines are commonly called racist for doing so. But the same logic apparently does not apply to sexism.)

We get claims like

> Moderates and the left have struggled to construct a more palatable modern masculinity, and it’s driving many young men toward the far-right “manosphere”

and

> The left seems to fear that focusing on men will undermine women’s progress. The right, meanwhile, responded with reactionary gender politics, accusing the left of trying to destroy traditional masculinity entirely.

which are just utterly absurd. First off, there is no need to "construct" a new masculinity to solve the problem. Second, it's patronizing (pun intended) in the extreme to supposed that one could, or is entitled to, make such an artificial construction and impose it on others (this completely misunderstands what it means to identify something as a "social construct"! The entire point is that it is not under the control of any particular individual or group!). But most importantly, the gender issues that men's rights advocates are trying to identify have nothing to do with either a left-right political conflict or any imagined conflict with the rights of women. I have met MRAs who explicitly identified as socialists. For that matter, when Warren Farrell ran in the 2003 California gubernatorial recall election, it was as a Democrat.

Opposition to feminism in these circles is not rooted in any kind of objection to the rights of women. It's rooted in observations (often ones made personally by individual objectors, such as myself) of people who have taken up the mantle of feminism, acting in ways that directly and explicitly harm men - both collectively and on an individual basis. There is nothing at all "reactionary" in observing that various historically tolerated expressions of masculinity are now widely denigrated, while viable options for expressing femininity are broader than ever. Nor in complaining, for example, about being explicitly asked to share one's feelings as a man, only to be shut down as soon as it turns out that those feelings involve anger about anything at all.

> Well-established institutions have contributed to that gendered polarization. A few years ago, new research led the American Psychological Association (APA) to conclude that “traditional masculinity — marked by stoicism, competitiveness, dominance and aggression — is, on the whole, harmful,” aligning with the public discourse around gender during the Me Too movement and its critique of “toxic masculinity.” But some advocates for modern masculinity fear the APA’s insinuation that masculinity itself is the problem was an overreaction that generated a worrying backlash. As established models of masculinity were dismantled, no coherent alternatives have emerged to take their place, leaving a void open for the manosphere to fill.

Well, no. The problem is that they've been dismantling models that weren't actually problematic - because they didn't like it when other people actually take pride in stoicism, enjoy the spirit of competition, or find actual utility in dominance and aggression. It comes across that for a long time, feminists asked that women should be treated the same way as men; but then when they found out how many men naturally prefer to treat each other, they supposed that the preferences of those men had to change to accommodate them. Little wonder that people who care about men's issues are skeptical (to say the least) that feminists have their best interests in mind.

> Their vigilance is understandable: The vast majority of philanthropy is gender-neutral, with nearly a third of charitable donations going to religious organizations alone. Less than 2 percent of philanthropic giving in the United States directly benefits women and girls. While $10.2 billion out of $516.65 billion looks like a shockingly small slice of Americans’ donations, some estimates suggest that initiatives focused on men and boys receive an even smaller slice of our charitable dollars.

The underlying source (https://equitablegivinglab.org/WGI/) identifies tens of thousands of explicitly "WGI" charitable organizations. It's actually rather impressive. But notably, "religious organizations" overlap with those, and all sorts of charities will naturally disproportionately help women as long as women are overrepresented among those requiring the kind of help the charity offers. The underlying presumption that specific fractions of charitable support ought to be earmarked for gender-specific services is what I find particularly toxic here.

> Rather than condemning manhood outright, [Zac] Seidler ["global director of men’s health research" at a relevant charity] advocates for therapists to work with, rather than against, stereotypically masculine traits like stoicism, protectiveness, and problem-solving.

Notice even the difference in the very words that an advocate uses. The people at the APA denouncing "toxic masculinity" don't come across as particularly interested in elucidating any positive traits or in phrasing aspects of masculinity positively (like "protectiveness"). It's commonly claimed that the intent of the term "toxic masculinity" is to identify a subset, rather than to decry masculinity write large as "toxic". But it becomes harder to believe this, the more one goes on seeing people use that rhetoric without ever identifying anything positive about traditional masculinity - nor noting that some qualities can have both positive and negative effects. For advocates like Seidler, of course, such discourse is second nature.

And that's why such advocates are necessary, and why the existing institution of feminism cannot solve these problems.

To be fair, the rest of the article does actually appear to elucidate some of these issues. But it won't, of course, dare to imply that feminism actually causes active harm to anyone. And I'm close to two thirds of the way through the article at this point (the "how can we help?" header). Even the most supposedly sympathetic voices outside the so-called "manosphere" cannot help but take an issue that is definitionally about men and discuss it as though it were primarily about women.