5 ms·

Establishment: let's attack men for decades, undermine their position in society and the structures they value Also establishment: why are men so angry?

Nursie 7y ago
Has society attacked men, undermined their position in society and the structures they value? Or has it just moved on and empowered everyone else to expect the same freedoms and responsibilities as men? From where I'm sitting (white male, in an office, working a tech job) it looks very much like the removal of the systemic disadvantages on other groups is misinterpreted by some as an attack on them. Removing laws that keep others down is not an attack on you.
- buboard 7y ago
  > and the structures they value? I don't know about the rest but about this, e.g. most male spaces have been actively dissolved or forcefully turned gender neutral.
  - igorkraw 7y ago
    what is a "male space"?
    - 9HZZRfNlpR 7y ago
      Boy scouts would be a good example.
      - deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
      - cbm-vic-20 7y ago
        For those unaware, the Boy Scouts of America changed their policy a couple of years ago to allow girls into more parts of their program, since they realized a lot of boys had their sisters tag along, in part because the Girl Scouts program has little emphasis in hiking and camping. Even with the new policy, at the troop level (~30 kids), which is where most BSA activity is focused, they will still be gender-segregated: there will be boy troops and girl troops. They will interact at district and council levels, but that's it. Cub Scouts (for younger kids age 7-11) will optionally have mixed units. There's still plenty of "male space" in the BSA. And learning how to interact respectfully with other genders at that age is a good thing.
        neuland 7y ago
        This is a good summary of the official policy. But, it has not been my experience in practice. In my district there are 2 girl troops and neither is following the official policy. They meet in the same place at the same time as their corresponding boy troop. They do all troop activities together as well. The official policy is not enforced because no one wants to be called a sexist. But it does have an effect on the boys. They behave differently around girls. And what was once their only male space is now gone. So my experience is totally anecdotal. And maybe everyone else is following the program. But it is really heartbreaking to see in person.
        anglachel 7y ago
        Having taken my son to cub scouts lately, what happened when a girl enters what is normally a boy only space is pretty telling. The boys act different when a girl is around, and the girl plays social games with the boys that make it clear one boy was lessor and should be ostracized. (like she made it clear 1 or 2 kids were cool enough to be around her and everyone else wasn't) And addressing this behavior by the girls was never addressed because they didnt want to be perceived as being against girls in scouts. When the boys decided to ocstracize one of the others, it was addressed, but it was from my observation never followed with the girl scouts. Further it lessened the amount of resources the boys got. Girls have to get their own den leader. So packs that had no girls had double the amount of adults attending to their needs, while others had an adult running activities for a single girl scout. The idea that trying to teach young boys stuff like brotherhood is disrupted by adding a girl in the mix shouldn't be controversial, but here we are.
      - Nursie 7y ago
        Having been to a male-only school, I tend to see the gender segregation of children as a terrible idea.
        leetcrew 7y ago
        having gone to the same kind of school, I'm inclined to agree. years of deferred socialization... that said, some people seem to feel very strongly about having at least some same-gendered spaces for children to be in. I'm not entirely sure how to reconcile that with the growing understanding that not everyone is straight, fits into a binary gender, etc., but to leave at least a couple "boy spaces" and "girl spaces" doesn't seem too harmful.
- megous 7y ago
  > From where I'm sitting (white male, in an office, working a tech job) That's not a majority of men.
kristiandupont 7y ago
Speaking as a man, I can state for myself that I don’t feel attacked by “the establishment”, whatever that is.
- growlist 7y ago
  Give it time.
youareostriches 7y ago
Incredibly, you seem to consider the process of granting equal rights to women “undermining the position [of men] in society”. If this isn’t what you intended to imply, then the only other reading of your statement suggests that you think men have not historically held almost all positions of power in society—which, demonstrably and obviously, they have. https://www.theatlantic.com/sexes/archive/2012/11/america-is-still-a-patriarchy/265428/ https://www.theatlantic.com/sexes/archive/2012/11/america-is...
- J-dawg 7y ago
  This is has always seemed to be one of the biggest fallacies at the heart of feminism. How does a few men holding a lot of power have any effect at all on the amount of power held by the average man? We've ended up with the situation where men are continually berated for their "privilege", while any "privilege" they might have held is systematically removed. Feminists will continue to justify the targeting of weaker and poorer men because "men hold all the power". Where does it end?
  - krastanov 7y ago
    But most traditional/historic family dynamics in the west involve the woman/mother being subservient to the man/father. Am I missing something here? (And no, I do not see how being the breadwinner vs the homemaker makes this right.)
    - luckylion 7y ago
      > Am I missing something here? "Women and children first" is pretty universal. The history of roles is a bit more complex than "men rule over women".
- christophilus 7y ago
  That’s an uncharitable interpretation. There are plenty of other plausible interpretations of the op’s statement: the Homer Simpsonization of male characters in TV comes to mind (dumb husband paired with super smart, capable wife describes a whole lot of sitcoms, or see all male characters in the recent Star Wars flicks), the undermining of works of literature simply due to the author being white and male, etc. It’s subtle, but it’s out there. I suspect that there is plenty of subtle and not so subtle bias all over the place against all sorts of people. We should be working to eliminate all such biases. Often the gender role issue is treated as zero-sum, which it isn’t. A strong male role model doesn’t detract from a strong female role model.
SmellyGeekBoy 7y ago
Is "undermine their position in society and the structures they value" some sort of euphemism for allowing women the same rights and opportunities that we have? Because as a man I genuinely see this as a good thing.
- dsfyu404ed 7y ago
  We've gone from a single decent income being enough to provide for one's family to two incomes now being all but required can sure make it look that way. Before the 1970s/90s (depending on where you live) a man was "the" income. That was his role and it gave him something to optimize for. Now he's only bringing in half and that's assuming When everyone else around you gets a promotion it feels like you've been demoted even if you haven't. So what do you do to find meaning? Therein lies the rise of extremist movements, nobody ever made their mark on the world by being rabidly centrist. Edit: Am I being downvoted for being wrong, wrongthink or because my opinion makes people uncomfortable?
  - krastanov 7y ago
    > When everyone else around you gets a promotion it feels like you've been demoted even if you haven't. I think a more descriptive / honest version of that statement is: When you’re accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression.
    - ancarda 7y ago
      Interesting take. Do you have any ideas how should society address that feeling of oppression? Edit: fix typo
      - krastanov 7y ago
        That is a fair question. Frustratingly, I think an important part of the solution is actually pampering and providing disproportionate help to the "historically privileged that think the recent equality is oppression against them". After all, empathy is the most important thing, even if the person you are giving it to is particularly bad at showing empathy back (and refuse to acknowledge the structural privileges they have had).

Nursie 7y ago

Has society attacked men, undermined their position in society and the structures they value? Or has it just moved on and empowered everyone else to expect the same freedoms and responsibilities as men? From where I'm sitting (white male, in an office, working a tech job) it looks very much like the removal of the systemic disadvantages on other groups is misinterpreted by some as an attack on them. Removing laws that keep others down is not an attack on you.

buboard 7y ago
> and the structures they value? I don't know about the rest but about this, e.g. most male spaces have been actively dissolved or forcefully turned gender neutral.
- igorkraw 7y ago
  what is a "male space"?
  - 9HZZRfNlpR 7y ago
    Boy scouts would be a good example.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - cbm-vic-20 7y ago
      For those unaware, the Boy Scouts of America changed their policy a couple of years ago to allow girls into more parts of their program, since they realized a lot of boys had their sisters tag along, in part because the Girl Scouts program has little emphasis in hiking and camping. Even with the new policy, at the troop level (~30 kids), which is where most BSA activity is focused, they will still be gender-segregated: there will be boy troops and girl troops. They will interact at district and council levels, but that's it. Cub Scouts (for younger kids age 7-11) will optionally have mixed units. There's still plenty of "male space" in the BSA. And learning how to interact respectfully with other genders at that age is a good thing.
      - neuland 7y ago
        This is a good summary of the official policy. But, it has not been my experience in practice. In my district there are 2 girl troops and neither is following the official policy. They meet in the same place at the same time as their corresponding boy troop. They do all troop activities together as well. The official policy is not enforced because no one wants to be called a sexist. But it does have an effect on the boys. They behave differently around girls. And what was once their only male space is now gone. So my experience is totally anecdotal. And maybe everyone else is following the program. But it is really heartbreaking to see in person.
      - anglachel 7y ago
        Having taken my son to cub scouts lately, what happened when a girl enters what is normally a boy only space is pretty telling. The boys act different when a girl is around, and the girl plays social games with the boys that make it clear one boy was lessor and should be ostracized. (like she made it clear 1 or 2 kids were cool enough to be around her and everyone else wasn't) And addressing this behavior by the girls was never addressed because they didnt want to be perceived as being against girls in scouts. When the boys decided to ocstracize one of the others, it was addressed, but it was from my observation never followed with the girl scouts. Further it lessened the amount of resources the boys got. Girls have to get their own den leader. So packs that had no girls had double the amount of adults attending to their needs, while others had an adult running activities for a single girl scout. The idea that trying to teach young boys stuff like brotherhood is disrupted by adding a girl in the mix shouldn't be controversial, but here we are.
    - Nursie 7y ago
      Having been to a male-only school, I tend to see the gender segregation of children as a terrible idea.
      - leetcrew 7y ago
        having gone to the same kind of school, I'm inclined to agree. years of deferred socialization... that said, some people seem to feel very strongly about having at least some same-gendered spaces for children to be in. I'm not entirely sure how to reconcile that with the growing understanding that not everyone is straight, fits into a binary gender, etc., but to leave at least a couple "boy spaces" and "girl spaces" doesn't seem too harmful.
megous 7y ago
> From where I'm sitting (white male, in an office, working a tech job) That's not a majority of men.

kristiandupont 7y ago

Speaking as a man, I can state for myself that I don’t feel attacked by “the establishment”, whatever that is.

growlist 7y ago
Give it time.

youareostriches 7y ago

Incredibly, you seem to consider the process of granting equal rights to women “undermining the position [of men] in society”. If this isn’t what you intended to imply, then the only other reading of your statement suggests that you think men have not historically held almost all positions of power in society—which, demonstrably and obviously, they have. https://www.theatlantic.com/sexes/archive/2012/11/america-is-still-a-patriarchy/265428/ https://www.theatlantic.com/sexes/archive/2012/11/america-is...

J-dawg 7y ago
This is has always seemed to be one of the biggest fallacies at the heart of feminism. How does a few men holding a lot of power have any effect at all on the amount of power held by the average man? We've ended up with the situation where men are continually berated for their "privilege", while any "privilege" they might have held is systematically removed. Feminists will continue to justify the targeting of weaker and poorer men because "men hold all the power". Where does it end?
- krastanov 7y ago
  But most traditional/historic family dynamics in the west involve the woman/mother being subservient to the man/father. Am I missing something here? (And no, I do not see how being the breadwinner vs the homemaker makes this right.)
  - luckylion 7y ago
    > Am I missing something here? "Women and children first" is pretty universal. The history of roles is a bit more complex than "men rule over women".
christophilus 7y ago
That’s an uncharitable interpretation. There are plenty of other plausible interpretations of the op’s statement: the Homer Simpsonization of male characters in TV comes to mind (dumb husband paired with super smart, capable wife describes a whole lot of sitcoms, or see all male characters in the recent Star Wars flicks), the undermining of works of literature simply due to the author being white and male, etc. It’s subtle, but it’s out there. I suspect that there is plenty of subtle and not so subtle bias all over the place against all sorts of people. We should be working to eliminate all such biases. Often the gender role issue is treated as zero-sum, which it isn’t. A strong male role model doesn’t detract from a strong female role model.

SmellyGeekBoy 7y ago

Is "undermine their position in society and the structures they value" some sort of euphemism for allowing women the same rights and opportunities that we have? Because as a man I genuinely see this as a good thing.

dsfyu404ed 7y ago
We've gone from a single decent income being enough to provide for one's family to two incomes now being all but required can sure make it look that way. Before the 1970s/90s (depending on where you live) a man was "the" income. That was his role and it gave him something to optimize for. Now he's only bringing in half and that's assuming When everyone else around you gets a promotion it feels like you've been demoted even if you haven't. So what do you do to find meaning? Therein lies the rise of extremist movements, nobody ever made their mark on the world by being rabidly centrist. Edit: Am I being downvoted for being wrong, wrongthink or because my opinion makes people uncomfortable?
- krastanov 7y ago
  > When everyone else around you gets a promotion it feels like you've been demoted even if you haven't. I think a more descriptive / honest version of that statement is: When you’re accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression.
  - ancarda 7y ago
    Interesting take. Do you have any ideas how should society address that feeling of oppression? Edit: fix typo
    - krastanov 7y ago
      That is a fair question. Frustratingly, I think an important part of the solution is actually pampering and providing disproportionate help to the "historically privileged that think the recent equality is oppression against them". After all, empathy is the most important thing, even if the person you are giving it to is particularly bad at showing empathy back (and refuse to acknowledge the structural privileges they have had).