Hmm, I wasn’t responding to contradict what you said so much as to add to it. Maybe there is a partial disagreement. Let me unpack it.

To put it another way, men can’t be free until women are free and vice versa. I was trying to explain the problem that men face and recognising that its root lies in the very ways and structures that privilege men and through which women are oppressed.

Here’s one contradiction. It may seem like privilege to be paid more – until that gender pay gap becomes the reason why a man must become the breadwinner in a household that is single-income by necessity, e.g. where childcare costs more than one partner’s salary. In this situation, the man has an immediate and obvious interest in demanding a higher wage. If that comes at the expense of higher wages for women, however, the problem will simply compound for man and woman. (We need to think about abstract classes, here, unless we pretend that the example mother-father couple work at the same place.)

It’s only gendered friction if the participants are dead-set on upholding gender norms. Otherwise, gender is an antagonistic relation but it is one that can be undone by different genders working together. The antagonism can be switched from that between genders to that between classes (recognising that gender is class). (I’ve partially opened up the rhetoric, here, because I want to come away from a dichotomy of man/woman – i.e. adding in scope for more genders)

What this means for our alienated gamer-boy is complex (I’ll run with that as a stand-in for men attracted to the (alt-)right). I think we’re in agreement that telling him to F-off for being/becoming reactionary isn’t a viable solution. The expletive may be needed, don’t get me wrong, but it should be delivered constructively and it should come from close friends if possible so that it’s clear to the gamer that it comes from a place of love. Otherwise, it may push them further to the right.

The fuller solution – and I think this generally accords with your comment but it wasn’t clear from mine – is to find a way to reach alienated gamers to explain that all the things they’re complaining about are (a) terrible things to complain about (e.g. respecting women) and if they are suitable things to challenge (e.g. shallow tokenism), then (b) if they want things to improve they should recognise that it will not be possible through reaction.

Improvement can only come through anti-racist, anti-imperialist, feminist socialism. Luckily, that is also the solution for giving dignity back to the alienated gamer. There may even be a way, by addressing the way that studios do ‘woke’, to influence the ideas that will encourage the masses to demand revolution.

If men want to be free they better work to dismantle the patriarchy because it does not serve their interests. The work to free everyone from patriarchy cannot fall on the shoulders of women alone.

PS: A caveat— I’ve not discussed the point at which a gamer’s rejection of a game, etc, is simply it’s lack of boobs, nor the problem that someone describable as a gamer is already too far gone. I think most people can change but some cannot and will not. Different strategies will be needed for that demographic. And I’m not really talking about how to engage with randos on the internet.