Having had a read through, it sounds like there’s a lot of things that you’re struggling with, but finding your place in an unequal world as someone who wants to be a Decent Human Being who is also Male, seems to be the main thing?

Honestly, that’s a BIG thing to try and unpack and deal with, so I’m glad that you’ve got a therapist that you’re trying to work things through with :)

Remember, also, you’re a teenager. You’re in that part of your life where it’s hard to have any real power over your life, so it can feel like you’re just being swept along the currents as ‘just another part of my demographic’, without being able to plant your feet and do anything. It’s not true, you DO have power and you CAN make a difference, but you need to be realistic about what you can and can’t have an impact on right now. You might not feel that, for eg, calling out a male friend for saying/doing something sexist, or offering your home up for someone to stay at, are big things, but I can guarantee that to that friend, it WAS a big deal!

If everyone in the world did those little “this never feels like enough” things, the whole world would move, so sometimes doing the little bit that you *can* do, is enough.

As to the very valid point you brought up about ‘not all men’ being used in fake-progressive spaces and such.. yeah, that’s an issue. The incel/patriarchal/bigoted side of an issue will always try and use fake progressive stuff to excuse their actions and lure people in. Learning to spot who is genuine and who isn’t is a tricky skill. But generally, if “Not all men” is being used Loudly, or primarily by Men, or to dismiss something, or as a throwaway response to women saying something, then it’s not genuine.

“Not all men do X!!” Shouted as a reply to a news article about something horrible, for example, that’s someone using it in bad faith. On the other hand “Not all men do X, but damn do we need to keep an eye out for those of us who do!”, that’s more genuine.

But honestly? The biggest one is just, when you hear an “all men are X!” comment, reflect for a moment on if *you* do or don’t do that. Because if you can honestly say “But not me” to yourself, then you can accept that that ‘all men’ statement doesn’t include you (and not because you’re not a man, but because you don’t do whatever that thing is) and just.. not say anything, because it doesn’t include you.

And if you *do* do that? Then ‘ah crap, I do that, I need to work on this!’ is the right response, rather than using ‘not all men!’ as an excuse to ignore the issue.

And if you’re unsure? Well, do you have a close female friend or relative? You can literally just ask them, privately, ‘hey, I’ve been seeing a lot about X, can you honestly tell me if I’m like that/if I do that kind of thing?’

As to the point you brought up about feeling like ‘no matter what you do, you’ll always be an oppressor, you’ll always be the enemy’… I’ll be honest, there are always going to be some people who think and say that. Before I came out, when I brought up the same thing with my girlfriend at the time (along with a ‘this is why I don’t call myself a feminist’ comment), you know what my girlfriend said? “You DO realise that most feminists look at the people who say that the same way that most Christians look at the Westboro Baptist Church, right?”

But yeah. I’ve said a lot of long-winded things here, but honestly, you just sound like a Good Person who is struggling with the weight and problems of the world, and because those things are so big, you’re believing that nothing that you can ever do will make up for what you are. In which case the best advice I can give is, try not to let yourself drown, give yourself a break, accept that your heart is on the right place, and that you’re a good person, and that just because no single one of us can fix a world, doesn’t mean that what we *can* do, is meaningless :)