8 ms·

Men at work

103 points by kawera 11y ago

facepalm 11y ago
Men don't work because that is their "image of masculinity" yadda yadda yadda. They work to put food on the table for their families. There also is no "morality tale" for what women supposedly owe their husbands. But it hurts to find you are only valued for your money - is that really wrong, misguided, whatever? Are people not allowed to have feelings in relationships? I bet some wives are also hurt when they get older and find they were only valued for their pretty body. (Not saying either fate is inevitable, but it happens). Low income is the best predictor for divorce, so there really is pressure on men to perform. And contrary to the feminist narrative it is not men who can't cope with their wives outearning them filing for divorce, it is women who tend to file for divorce.
vlehto 11y ago
>The grief and antagonism that erupt after every school shooting focus on either a prevailing gun culture or mental health problems, but masculinity is surely an indispensable component. You say you do school shooting and 4chan will tell you "Do it faggot". If you actually do it 4chan will scream "ABSOLUTE MADMAN!". Male violence happens probably partially because of testosterone. But cultural factors is significant too. Nobody questions your masculinity after such horrid act, probably out of respect to the victims. It seems somehow disgraceful to be killed by a boy. But that denial probably perpetuates the problem. You can often hear from women something like "You can't have your manhood enforced by violence or job. Be better human instead." But that's not how identities work. Either you find a way to be a man or accept not being a man. The latter is whole new can of worms. Transgender people suffer from whopping rates of suicide, depression, loneliness and generally feeling insecure. It's unfair comparison. But it's not really surprising, that men with less of same identity problems are showing similar symptoms to lesser extent. >some scholars think that, just like the black church seems to do for black men, unions could remind more white working-class men to prize not just ‘hard work’ but also solidarity and other values. Here in Nordic countries unions have lately turned into relatively feminine thing. So this is kind of reformulating the idea "be more feminine". Which is exactly what most men are trying to avoid in the first place. Theoretically some kind of men-only workers union might be cool. But such "patriarchal" constructs are quite demonized these days.
- throwaway999888 11y ago
  > Male violence happens probably partially because of testosterone. But cultural factors is significant too. Nobody questions your masculinity after such horrid act, probably out of respect to the victims. It seems somehow disgraceful to be killed by a boy. They don't question your masculinity because it's not applicable. They say that you are evil instead, because it's bad thing to do. Questioning your masculinity happens if you do something effeminate, and gunning down people is not that. I guess what you're trying to say is that killing people should be considered emasculating. I think it's more damning to be called an evil scum-bag than to be called a "faggot", though. Masculinity[1] has both positive and negative traits associated with it. We aren't taught to be masculine even in destructive ways. That's also why we don't emasculate people who are masculine in destructive ways -- because it's still masculine, but not in a commendable way. You see the difference? "Masculinity" does not mean, and is not taught to be, synonymous with "good". At least not these days. Our concepts of what is good and bad, commendable and terrible, is not one-dimensional and solely attributed to things like gender conformance. Calling someone through-and-through evil and despicable is more isolating and condemning than calling them a pansy. You won't appreciably reduce mass shootings by verbally stripping mass murderers of their manhood, rather than just calling them evil. Sorry. [1] In the sense of traits and actions which are associated more with men.
  - vlehto 11y ago
    Killing unarmed people with a firearm should be emasculating. Just like in western flicks. If you have accepted for some reason that you are evil scumbag, then that's it. Now you choose whether you are man scumbag or boy scumbag. School shooters are usually already somewhat isolated and they usually end up dead. They don't care getting isolated. They seem to care about posthumous fame. I don't mind if masculine is not good. What I'm trying to say is that seemingly only surefire way to get the status of a man is violence. Inventing some other certain and positive way to get the status of a man would be great. But in the meantime it would seem like a good idea to make the "madman" status less certain. >You won't appreciably reduce mass shootings by verbally stripping mass murderers of their manhood, rather than just calling them evil. Sorry. You can't back that claim in any way. Sorry.
jonesb6 11y ago
Thoughtful piece by Allison J Pugh. I think it's important to work to understand all genders, and I feel that if we continue to focus on only certain genders as we attempt to reform our society we will only reproduce the same historical imbalance just with different winners and losers. Also the web developer in me has to point out that was a very clean and usable site (at least with my ad blocker and ghostery).
jacquesm 11y ago
> We know they watch more television and do less childcare than working-class women, and are less likely than more affluent men to work long hours. I love the implied slur against working class men not working 'long hours' or doing their share of the childcare. You can only write a sentence like that if you've never been physically tired from exertion after doing a days work. There simply isn't any more energy to do anything. And putting in 'more hours' is going to be counterproductive since you're expected to perform another act at 6 am the next morning. I know quite a few of these 'working class men' and none of them seem to live all that long past the age of 65, their bodies a shell of what they were when they started working. And with the recent increase of the age at which the pension system kicks in it's become more common that they don't reach the pensionable age at all. Not all work-hours are equally taxing.
- sambe 11y ago
  As other people have said, the author is not criticising them herself. However, I think your statement is strange. Firstly, she states that "working class" generally means "without college degree" - that doesn't mean physical work. Secondly, knowledge workers also get diminishing returns from longer hours, potentially with even more dramatic effect. Thirdly, many common non-physical working conditions are also extremely tiring mentally and damaging physically in the long-run. Finally, you're implying that child-care is not physically exhausting. My impression of your response is that it has more slurs than the article, to be honest - just re-inforcing the primacy of manual labour. I have the impression you know what it's like to work long hours in a stressful non-physical environment, so I find that odd.
  - jacquesm 11y ago
    > Firstly, she states that "working class" generally means "without college degree" - that doesn't mean physical work. No, but it in general greatly increases the likelihood. > Secondly, knowledge workers also get diminishing returns from longer hours, potentially with even more dramatic effect. To their bodies? Or to the work they do? Because that's the difference, your body only takes that much abuse and then needs to re-charge. Go work a jackhammer for a couple of hours and let's talk about diminishing returns. > Thirdly, many common non-physical working conditions are also extremely tiring mentally and damaging physically in the long-run. Sure. Let's talk after you've been hauling garbage for a day, been bent over under an engine hood or any other physically taxing workday. There is nothing that quite compares to being able to sit in a chair and think all day long and push a few buttons to wreck your ligaments, muscles and joints. > Finally, you're implying that child-care is not physically exhausting. I think you made that up, I did not imply that at all. As a father of 3 I'm more than aware of how physically exhausting child care is. > My impression of your response is that it has more slurs than the article, to be honest - just re-inforcing the primacy of manual labour. I have the impression you know what it's like to work long hours in a stressful non-physical environment, so I find that odd. An my impression of your response is that you would like all of the above to be true, however and for the record: I've done both. I've had a number of very physically intensive jobs when I started my career and to this day I'm grateful every bloody day that my life took a turn for the better and that I don't have to work until I can't stand up straight anymore. Being not the most physically strong person I realize that if I had continued down that path I would have been a physical wreck by now. Have some respect for the people that do the heavy lifting. And if you're unconvinced: go take a manual labor job for a year or so and re-read your comment here.
georgeoliver 11y ago
There's a fourth option to encourage longer-term employment which this article doesn't mention (and which seems to get little notice in the USA at least) -- worker-owned cooperatives.
- WBrentWilliams 11y ago
  Historically, worker-owned cooperatives did get much mention. The ideal of early labor organization was that the workers should own the means of production. This was exactly why early labor disputes were so bloody: the owners of the factories and mills saw the organized labor movement as theft. That is, organized labor was threatening to "steal" what they "built". Yes, the quotes are mine, because my own viewpoint is one of symbiosis. The biggest problem is not that a worker-owned coop doesn't work. They do. The problem is one of primate social hierarchy. That is, "someone has to be the boss".
  - hueving 11y ago
    Ownership and who is in charge are orthogonal in this regard. Even if everyone has equal shares in a factory, they are going to vote for what's best for the factory and it's going to piss the workers off that have the worst jobs.
    - WBrentWilliams 11y ago
      That precisely illustrates my point. See also, Agile as it is currently practiced in many companies. Politics, in any form, is a very rough game.
      - MawNicker 11y ago
        It's nasty because everyone is sublimating the frustration of their autonomy. Their accumulated resentment inspires an "I'll get my turn" narrative. Eventually it's up or out. If it's up then their narrative crystalizes around an identity which is responsible for the output of their unit. They go into fearless commander mode. AKA: narcissism. Ownership sees them as obsequiously adaptable. Fuck the details. They have the best people. Trust them. Then they extract the costs from those beneath them. They just have to work 1% harder than their unit. Meanwhile work-ethic is attributed to character and not compensation. Thus, under-compensated workers can be shamed into over-working. This completes the cycle with another wave of narcissists and (d)ejected losers. Ownership promotes this because they've decided that labor is otherwise fundamentally unmotivated. They don't care about the externalities.
throwaway999888 11y ago
I'm sometimes intrigued that working class men have the time and energy to worry about abstract concepts like "what it means to be a man". Things relating to gender sometimes seems like something academics would care more about. Or people with more comfortable jobs and more time on their hands. But really people from all spheres of life have strong, weak, but at least some opinion about stuff like that. _That_ is even weirder. That we can't just express ourselves how we are, but have to doubt and second-guess things within some identity framework.
- facepalm 11y ago
  It's only a feminist narrative that men worry about "what it means to be a man". Usually men just do the things men have to do. It is not just a fantasy that they have to do them. Simple example: somebody has to earn money for food and rent.
- exstudent2 11y ago
  I think they're confronted with the question of "what it means to be a man" when their wife leaves them. Gary in the article is more upset about his wife(s) leaving him than his loss of a job. At that point I think it's natural to wonder if/why you're no longer able to keep a relationship with the opposite sex.
- wpietri 11y ago
  It's not of course that they have spare time. It's that they're forced to spend time on it because society demands continuous performance of gender and rewards highly people who do it well. It's not abstract; it's practical.
- petercooper 11y ago
  One of the major roles of academics is to put words and define concepts around things that already exist but that lay people do not consciously think about. The idea of pondering the role of masculinity comes from the feelings and actions men feel and take, it doesn't define them the other way around.
  - 11y ago
danharaj 11y ago
Here's some related reading about men, masculinity, and the pathological expressions of masculinity under a neoliberalism that can no longer espouse flagrant male supremacy like the prevailing social ideas of, say, the 50's. Why are men so helplessly adrift in modern society? In particular, why do some men end up committing acts of mass violence as the ultimate expression of a poisonous masculinity that betrays them from the day they are born? The answer may be that modern ideology provides men no alternative self-actualization than to be a successful and very lonely individual competitor. http://www.vice.com/en_uk/read/berardi-interview http://www.vice.com/en_uk/read/berardi-interview "Franco 'Bifo' Berardi is an Italian Marxist academic and theorist who has written extensively on the topic. In the introduction to his study of mass murder, Heroes, he says, "I saw the agony of capitalism and dismantling of social civilisation from a very peculiar point of view: crime and suicide". For Berardi, the mass murderer is not an aberration or a monster, but a character directly produced by a system which coerces us all to be constantly productive and competitive." "I'm curious: if mass murder is a symptom of neoliberalism, which all of us live under, then why are all of these lone killers men? Yes, it's true. In the beginning of my book I say that I will be talking about young and old, white and black, Christians and Muslims – but only men. I don't think that a single woman has ever committed these kind of acts. Why so? The crucial point in the narrative is our culture of competition. I know that many women are indeed very competitive, but I believe that competitiveness as a trait is essentially a male problem: first at the sexual level, and then also at an economic level. Feminism, as far as I can see, is essentially about abandoning and overcoming this imposed sense of competitiveness. This is why mass killers are men and only men." The book Heroes is a chilling read. The forcible casting of men into these toxic roles that provide only insecurity, loneliness and frustration is a form of biopolitics. The man who is convinced he is alone and must fight and struggle against society to be himself is more useful to that society than a man who is rooted in his community, who endeavors towards his self-actulization collectively, in cooperation with his fellow man and woman. A new masculine paradigm may end up looking quite old: A rejection of neoliberal competitive individualism and a rekindling of the communal man.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- 11y ago
marincounty 11y ago
O.K.--Times have changed. Jobs have changed. There's been role reversals in families. (By the way, the guys I knew who stayed at home and raised the kids; did a stellar job.) Society has changed a lot. Good Blue collar jobs are hard to come by. Even white collar jobs are not what they used to be. It's basically a mess. Consider yourself luckey if you have a job you don't hate? That said, when certain people become unemployed--they fall to pieces. I know it a blow. I know there's a risk of homeless. I know he might leave you. (If he leaves you, or "makes you pay for being unemployed" you probally picked the wrong mate?) What I'm trying to say is don't beat yourself up too much. I have seen way to many people define themself's by what they do. "I'm a blah, blah, blah." You are a person first? With a lot of interests? I know it's difficult. The first question out of every Bobble Head is "What do you do?". I saw my sister pretty much destroy her marriage. She was making a very good living. He was an Actor, and a great father to their boys. Because he wasn't the guy on t.v.--literally, or figuratively she emasculated him to the point he cheated. He married a person who didn't judge him as a success, or failure. He is now happy. His depression went away. I wonder why? My sister still watches the television fantasy world where the man is a "man". He's a successful something. He the protector. He's the hard working something? Usually he's an Architect, or Doctor on T.V.? (By the way in real life. If you can make a living as an Architect--you are lucky.) My sister has been through a lot of men, and never found one that had the qualities of her first husband. She now knows she should not have let the media, and the village; determine what's desirable in a mate. She says pushing away her first husband was her biggest regret. I have no advice. I just see some men/women go to any lengths in order to get "the paper". Yes, a lot of it is hormones, but don't kill yourself trying to be what this society is constantly thrusting upon us. My father was a "working man's hero". He was misserable too. He died way to soon.
reitanqild 11y ago
Upvoted for the discussion. jaquesm has some very interesting critique here.
alistproducer2 11y ago
Imagine this article entitled "Women at work" and written by a man. As someone astutely wrote below, this is the female version of "manspaining."
joliematt 11y ago
I have this same problem. My husband and I were the perfect couple at first. We clicked right away and the chemistry was just crazy. But reality kicked in real soon and we started arguing a lot. Until now get into heavy arguments, where none of us is really listening and always out talk each other, until one day my husband left me it was like a dream, i beg and apologize for everything, he refuse for 1 year and 3 month, until i meet a man call doctor ebolo online who is a great spell caster he cast a spell for me and told me that my husband will come back in 48 hours to beg me to come home, to my greatest surprise my husband come after 2 days of the spell and told me he is sorry, am so happy that i meet doctor ebolo, if you need his help contact him on ebolospelltemple@gmail.com
cafard 11y ago
Are they really looking for heroic masculinity, alternative or not?

103 points by kawera 11y ago

Men don't work because that is their "image of masculinity" yadda yadda yadda. They work to put food on the table for their families. There also is no "morality tale" for what women supposedly owe their husbands. But it hurts to find you are only valued for your money - is that really wrong, misguided, whatever? Are people not allowed to have feelings in relationships? I bet some wives are also hurt when they get older and find they were only valued for their pretty body. (Not saying either fate is inevitable, but it happens). Low income is the best predictor for divorce, so there really is pressure on men to perform. And contrary to the feminist narrative it is not men who can't cope with their wives outearning them filing for divorce, it is women who tend to file for divorce.

vlehto 11y ago

>The grief and antagonism that erupt after every school shooting focus on either a prevailing gun culture or mental health problems, but masculinity is surely an indispensable component. You say you do school shooting and 4chan will tell you "Do it faggot". If you actually do it 4chan will scream "ABSOLUTE MADMAN!". Male violence happens probably partially because of testosterone. But cultural factors is significant too. Nobody questions your masculinity after such horrid act, probably out of respect to the victims. It seems somehow disgraceful to be killed by a boy. But that denial probably perpetuates the problem. You can often hear from women something like "You can't have your manhood enforced by violence or job. Be better human instead." But that's not how identities work. Either you find a way to be a man or accept not being a man. The latter is whole new can of worms. Transgender people suffer from whopping rates of suicide, depression, loneliness and generally feeling insecure. It's unfair comparison. But it's not really surprising, that men with less of same identity problems are showing similar symptoms to lesser extent. >some scholars think that, just like the black church seems to do for black men, unions could remind more white working-class men to prize not just ‘hard work’ but also solidarity and other values. Here in Nordic countries unions have lately turned into relatively feminine thing. So this is kind of reformulating the idea "be more feminine". Which is exactly what most men are trying to avoid in the first place. Theoretically some kind of men-only workers union might be cool. But such "patriarchal" constructs are quite demonized these days.

throwaway999888 11y ago
> Male violence happens probably partially because of testosterone. But cultural factors is significant too. Nobody questions your masculinity after such horrid act, probably out of respect to the victims. It seems somehow disgraceful to be killed by a boy. They don't question your masculinity because it's not applicable. They say that you are evil instead, because it's bad thing to do. Questioning your masculinity happens if you do something effeminate, and gunning down people is not that. I guess what you're trying to say is that killing people should be considered emasculating. I think it's more damning to be called an evil scum-bag than to be called a "faggot", though. Masculinity[1] has both positive and negative traits associated with it. We aren't taught to be masculine even in destructive ways. That's also why we don't emasculate people who are masculine in destructive ways -- because it's still masculine, but not in a commendable way. You see the difference? "Masculinity" does not mean, and is not taught to be, synonymous with "good". At least not these days. Our concepts of what is good and bad, commendable and terrible, is not one-dimensional and solely attributed to things like gender conformance. Calling someone through-and-through evil and despicable is more isolating and condemning than calling them a pansy. You won't appreciably reduce mass shootings by verbally stripping mass murderers of their manhood, rather than just calling them evil. Sorry. [1] In the sense of traits and actions which are associated more with men.
- vlehto 11y ago
  Killing unarmed people with a firearm should be emasculating. Just like in western flicks. If you have accepted for some reason that you are evil scumbag, then that's it. Now you choose whether you are man scumbag or boy scumbag. School shooters are usually already somewhat isolated and they usually end up dead. They don't care getting isolated. They seem to care about posthumous fame. I don't mind if masculine is not good. What I'm trying to say is that seemingly only surefire way to get the status of a man is violence. Inventing some other certain and positive way to get the status of a man would be great. But in the meantime it would seem like a good idea to make the "madman" status less certain. >You won't appreciably reduce mass shootings by verbally stripping mass murderers of their manhood, rather than just calling them evil. Sorry. You can't back that claim in any way. Sorry.

jonesb6 11y ago

Thoughtful piece by Allison J Pugh. I think it's important to work to understand all genders, and I feel that if we continue to focus on only certain genders as we attempt to reform our society we will only reproduce the same historical imbalance just with different winners and losers. Also the web developer in me has to point out that was a very clean and usable site (at least with my ad blocker and ghostery).

jacquesm 11y ago

> We know they watch more television and do less childcare than working-class women, and are less likely than more affluent men to work long hours. I love the implied slur against working class men not working 'long hours' or doing their share of the childcare. You can only write a sentence like that if you've never been physically tired from exertion after doing a days work. There simply isn't any more energy to do anything. And putting in 'more hours' is going to be counterproductive since you're expected to perform another act at 6 am the next morning. I know quite a few of these 'working class men' and none of them seem to live all that long past the age of 65, their bodies a shell of what they were when they started working. And with the recent increase of the age at which the pension system kicks in it's become more common that they don't reach the pensionable age at all. Not all work-hours are equally taxing.

sambe 11y ago
As other people have said, the author is not criticising them herself. However, I think your statement is strange. Firstly, she states that "working class" generally means "without college degree" - that doesn't mean physical work. Secondly, knowledge workers also get diminishing returns from longer hours, potentially with even more dramatic effect. Thirdly, many common non-physical working conditions are also extremely tiring mentally and damaging physically in the long-run. Finally, you're implying that child-care is not physically exhausting. My impression of your response is that it has more slurs than the article, to be honest - just re-inforcing the primacy of manual labour. I have the impression you know what it's like to work long hours in a stressful non-physical environment, so I find that odd.
- jacquesm 11y ago
  > Firstly, she states that "working class" generally means "without college degree" - that doesn't mean physical work. No, but it in general greatly increases the likelihood. > Secondly, knowledge workers also get diminishing returns from longer hours, potentially with even more dramatic effect. To their bodies? Or to the work they do? Because that's the difference, your body only takes that much abuse and then needs to re-charge. Go work a jackhammer for a couple of hours and let's talk about diminishing returns. > Thirdly, many common non-physical working conditions are also extremely tiring mentally and damaging physically in the long-run. Sure. Let's talk after you've been hauling garbage for a day, been bent over under an engine hood or any other physically taxing workday. There is nothing that quite compares to being able to sit in a chair and think all day long and push a few buttons to wreck your ligaments, muscles and joints. > Finally, you're implying that child-care is not physically exhausting. I think you made that up, I did not imply that at all. As a father of 3 I'm more than aware of how physically exhausting child care is. > My impression of your response is that it has more slurs than the article, to be honest - just re-inforcing the primacy of manual labour. I have the impression you know what it's like to work long hours in a stressful non-physical environment, so I find that odd. An my impression of your response is that you would like all of the above to be true, however and for the record: I've done both. I've had a number of very physically intensive jobs when I started my career and to this day I'm grateful every bloody day that my life took a turn for the better and that I don't have to work until I can't stand up straight anymore. Being not the most physically strong person I realize that if I had continued down that path I would have been a physical wreck by now. Have some respect for the people that do the heavy lifting. And if you're unconvinced: go take a manual labor job for a year or so and re-read your comment here.

georgeoliver 11y ago

There's a fourth option to encourage longer-term employment which this article doesn't mention (and which seems to get little notice in the USA at least) -- worker-owned cooperatives.

WBrentWilliams 11y ago
Historically, worker-owned cooperatives did get much mention. The ideal of early labor organization was that the workers should own the means of production. This was exactly why early labor disputes were so bloody: the owners of the factories and mills saw the organized labor movement as theft. That is, organized labor was threatening to "steal" what they "built". Yes, the quotes are mine, because my own viewpoint is one of symbiosis. The biggest problem is not that a worker-owned coop doesn't work. They do. The problem is one of primate social hierarchy. That is, "someone has to be the boss".
- hueving 11y ago
  Ownership and who is in charge are orthogonal in this regard. Even if everyone has equal shares in a factory, they are going to vote for what's best for the factory and it's going to piss the workers off that have the worst jobs.
  - WBrentWilliams 11y ago
    That precisely illustrates my point. See also, Agile as it is currently practiced in many companies. Politics, in any form, is a very rough game.
    - MawNicker 11y ago
      It's nasty because everyone is sublimating the frustration of their autonomy. Their accumulated resentment inspires an "I'll get my turn" narrative. Eventually it's up or out. If it's up then their narrative crystalizes around an identity which is responsible for the output of their unit. They go into fearless commander mode. AKA: narcissism. Ownership sees them as obsequiously adaptable. Fuck the details. They have the best people. Trust them. Then they extract the costs from those beneath them. They just have to work 1% harder than their unit. Meanwhile work-ethic is attributed to character and not compensation. Thus, under-compensated workers can be shamed into over-working. This completes the cycle with another wave of narcissists and (d)ejected losers. Ownership promotes this because they've decided that labor is otherwise fundamentally unmotivated. They don't care about the externalities.

throwaway999888 11y ago

I'm sometimes intrigued that working class men have the time and energy to worry about abstract concepts like "what it means to be a man". Things relating to gender sometimes seems like something academics would care more about. Or people with more comfortable jobs and more time on their hands. But really people from all spheres of life have strong, weak, but at least some opinion about stuff like that. _That_ is even weirder. That we can't just express ourselves how we are, but have to doubt and second-guess things within some identity framework.

facepalm 11y ago
It's only a feminist narrative that men worry about "what it means to be a man". Usually men just do the things men have to do. It is not just a fantasy that they have to do them. Simple example: somebody has to earn money for food and rent.
exstudent2 11y ago
I think they're confronted with the question of "what it means to be a man" when their wife leaves them. Gary in the article is more upset about his wife(s) leaving him than his loss of a job. At that point I think it's natural to wonder if/why you're no longer able to keep a relationship with the opposite sex.
wpietri 11y ago
It's not of course that they have spare time. It's that they're forced to spend time on it because society demands continuous performance of gender and rewards highly people who do it well. It's not abstract; it's practical.
petercooper 11y ago
One of the major roles of academics is to put words and define concepts around things that already exist but that lay people do not consciously think about. The idea of pondering the role of masculinity comes from the feelings and actions men feel and take, it doesn't define them the other way around.
- 11y ago

danharaj 11y ago

Here's some related reading about men, masculinity, and the pathological expressions of masculinity under a neoliberalism that can no longer espouse flagrant male supremacy like the prevailing social ideas of, say, the 50's. Why are men so helplessly adrift in modern society? In particular, why do some men end up committing acts of mass violence as the ultimate expression of a poisonous masculinity that betrays them from the day they are born? The answer may be that modern ideology provides men no alternative self-actualization than to be a successful and very lonely individual competitor. http://www.vice.com/en_uk/read/berardi-interview http://www.vice.com/en_uk/read/berardi-interview "Franco 'Bifo' Berardi is an Italian Marxist academic and theorist who has written extensively on the topic. In the introduction to his study of mass murder, Heroes, he says, "I saw the agony of capitalism and dismantling of social civilisation from a very peculiar point of view: crime and suicide". For Berardi, the mass murderer is not an aberration or a monster, but a character directly produced by a system which coerces us all to be constantly productive and competitive." "I'm curious: if mass murder is a symptom of neoliberalism, which all of us live under, then why are all of these lone killers men? Yes, it's true. In the beginning of my book I say that I will be talking about young and old, white and black, Christians and Muslims – but only men. I don't think that a single woman has ever committed these kind of acts. Why so? The crucial point in the narrative is our culture of competition. I know that many women are indeed very competitive, but I believe that competitiveness as a trait is essentially a male problem: first at the sexual level, and then also at an economic level. Feminism, as far as I can see, is essentially about abandoning and overcoming this imposed sense of competitiveness. This is why mass killers are men and only men." The book Heroes is a chilling read. The forcible casting of men into these toxic roles that provide only insecurity, loneliness and frustration is a form of biopolitics. The man who is convinced he is alone and must fight and struggle against society to be himself is more useful to that society than a man who is rooted in his community, who endeavors towards his self-actulization collectively, in cooperation with his fellow man and woman. A new masculine paradigm may end up looking quite old: A rejection of neoliberal competitive individualism and a rekindling of the communal man.

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
11y ago

marincounty 11y ago

O.K.--Times have changed. Jobs have changed. There's been role reversals in families. (By the way, the guys I knew who stayed at home and raised the kids; did a stellar job.) Society has changed a lot. Good Blue collar jobs are hard to come by. Even white collar jobs are not what they used to be. It's basically a mess. Consider yourself luckey if you have a job you don't hate? That said, when certain people become unemployed--they fall to pieces. I know it a blow. I know there's a risk of homeless. I know he might leave you. (If he leaves you, or "makes you pay for being unemployed" you probally picked the wrong mate?) What I'm trying to say is don't beat yourself up too much. I have seen way to many people define themself's by what they do. "I'm a blah, blah, blah." You are a person first? With a lot of interests? I know it's difficult. The first question out of every Bobble Head is "What do you do?". I saw my sister pretty much destroy her marriage. She was making a very good living. He was an Actor, and a great father to their boys. Because he wasn't the guy on t.v.--literally, or figuratively she emasculated him to the point he cheated. He married a person who didn't judge him as a success, or failure. He is now happy. His depression went away. I wonder why? My sister still watches the television fantasy world where the man is a "man". He's a successful something. He the protector. He's the hard working something? Usually he's an Architect, or Doctor on T.V.? (By the way in real life. If you can make a living as an Architect--you are lucky.) My sister has been through a lot of men, and never found one that had the qualities of her first husband. She now knows she should not have let the media, and the village; determine what's desirable in a mate. She says pushing away her first husband was her biggest regret. I have no advice. I just see some men/women go to any lengths in order to get "the paper". Yes, a lot of it is hormones, but don't kill yourself trying to be what this society is constantly thrusting upon us. My father was a "working man's hero". He was misserable too. He died way to soon.

reitanqild 11y ago

Upvoted for the discussion. jaquesm has some very interesting critique here.

alistproducer2 11y ago

Imagine this article entitled "Women at work" and written by a man. As someone astutely wrote below, this is the female version of "manspaining."

joliematt 11y ago

I have this same problem. My husband and I were the perfect couple at first. We clicked right away and the chemistry was just crazy. But reality kicked in real soon and we started arguing a lot. Until now get into heavy arguments, where none of us is really listening and always out talk each other, until one day my husband left me it was like a dream, i beg and apologize for everything, he refuse for 1 year and 3 month, until i meet a man call doctor ebolo online who is a great spell caster he cast a spell for me and told me that my husband will come back in 48 hours to beg me to come home, to my greatest surprise my husband come after 2 days of the spell and told me he is sorry, am so happy that i meet doctor ebolo, if you need his help contact him on ebolospelltemple@gmail.com

cafard 11y ago

Are they really looking for heroic masculinity, alternative or not?