7 ms·

I think we're starting to hit a critical moment with this. As men we have an unbelievable amount of expectation on our reactions, communication, behavior, past

by monksy 7y ago

I think we're starting to hit a critical moment with this. As men we have an unbelievable amount of expectation on our reactions, communication, behavior, past behavior, and others behavior. (Their friends and their partners) On top of all of this: Men spaces have been mostly eliminated.

txsoftwaredev 7y ago
"Men spaces have been mostly eliminated." An organization that was once called "Boy Scouts" is no longer catered only to young boys. And yet the Girl Scouts remain female only.
- lonelappde 7y ago
  The Boy Scouts still are mostly single gender dens. I hope you are merely misinformed and not intentionally deceiving people with misleading comments. https://www.scouting.org/about/membership-policy/ https://www.scouting.org/about/membership-policy/
  - dang 7y ago
    That second sentence breaks the HN guidelines badly. Would you please stop doing that and follow them instead? I don't want to have to ban you. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- dleslie 7y ago
  That's mostly it being a victim of its own success; here in Canada, Scouts long held a better reputation than Guides. Something fundamentally different about how the organizations and parental leadership approached the kids, I suspect.
- taneq 7y ago
  Same goes for virtually any space that used to be male-only. It's become socially unacceptable (and often illegal) to exclude females from anything, while it's still perfectly OK to exclude males.
  - erikpukinskis 7y ago
    What’s an example of a male-excluding space you’ve seen that couldn’t have a female-excluding counterpart?
    - jazzyk 7y ago
      1. Women-only workout areas in gyms - quite common, never seen one for men 2. All-female colleges (many), there is perhaps one or two all-male, if they even still exist
    - kortilla 7y ago
      Boy Scouts
    - trhway 7y ago
      Just google something like "women business network".
      - monksy 7y ago
        Also the "WIN" network.
- hindsightbias 7y ago
  Scouts are not integrated. Troops are separated by sex. They are safe in their spaces.
jalgos_eminator 7y ago
What were the men's spaces before? Legitimate question as I may be too young to have known them.
- monksy 7y ago
  Gentlemen clubs, country clubs, bars (although I don't think it should have been single gender), other than this.. I can't name many of the other ones. They were mostly gone by the time I became an adult. Anyways, I have heard of discrimination that men have faced when trying to create "safe"/support groups that were men only.
  - ghettoimp 7y ago
    I don't think I understand the desire or the concern here. Look around the BBQ in the back yard at any party anywhere in 'merica and you'll find the guys hanging out and chatting away from their wives. Look at sports teams in your high schools, colleges, and local clubs and you'll find men hanging out together. Look at Men's bible study groups or similar if that's your thing. Go to the local men's barber shop and find a bunch of guys getting haircuts. Invite your buddies to your place to watch the game...
    - monksy 7y ago
      > Look around the BBQ in the back yard at any party anywhere in 'merica and you'll find the guys hanging out and chatting away from their wives. I don't know about your experience. But my experience: BBQs are typically a party situation with your household and others. If it's just the guys that's a friends thing. > Look at sports teams in your high schools, colleges, and local clubs and you'll find men hanging out together. I haven't heard of such of a clubs. > Look at Men's bible study groups or similar if that's your thing. I'll agree with you on this. That qualifies for what I was suggesting. It's a social thing and gets people to talk. > Go to the local men's barber shop and find a bunch of guys getting haircuts. Is that an environment that guys would open up? Most of these places tend to be "mind your own business and lets not talk that much" kinds of places.
adamsea 7y ago
Not sure how open those men's spaces of the past. would have been to more emotional openness. Could see it going either way.
throwaway_98554 7y ago
That's not really surprising, is it? Any minimally functional group eventually lead to opportunities. The outgroup (women in this case) want to access those opportunities. Any push back against that will be labeled as misogynistic or ridiculed. Men have no other choices than to open up the group and let it become just another open space for everyone. What is surprising is how some groups: 1) just lay down and accept this unilateral loss... 2) even when it is never reciprocated.
- dang 7y ago
  I understand the feeling but I think this is too zero-sum. You know who has the most positive reactions by far to men doing healing work in men-only circles? Their wives/girlfriends. Not because the men somehow become more 'feminine' or lose power, but usually because they get something that they badly needed and were stuck about for a long time.
  - FakeComments 7y ago
    This is using anecdata to dismiss another poster, and isn’t the kind of comment you’d tolerate from others in a sensitive topic. It’s wonderful that’s been your experience of women, but don’t invalidate what others experience — particularly with a citation free comment. For those wondering why my comment is flagged: dang engages in political censorship, and flagged my account because of my views. I look forward to the upcoming rules on social media censorship, and the accountability that will bring to dang’s actions.
    - dang 7y ago
      We banned you for breaking HN's guidelines (with multiple accounts) and ignoring our requests to stop. Someone breaking the site guidelines to promote opposite views would get banned just the same. There's nothing wrong with anecdotes on HN. On the contrary, the threads here are supposed to be conversation, and anecdotes are the life blood of good conversation. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20conversation%20anecdote&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
swiley 7y ago
>Men spaces have been mostly eliminated. I mean sure it's illegal to exclude women but there are plenty of things they're just not going to show up to. Want to be around only men? Go to a BSD meet up. (or join most channels on freenode.) (note I'm not saying any of this is good, but there are plenty of places that are pretty exclusively attended by bales.)
- WesternStar 7y ago
  Its not illegal to have a private club with membership rules that exclude women. There are still several golf clubs that do so. In fact in the US its not even illegal to openly discriminate in hiring as long as the business has less 14 employees. In California that number goes down to 5 employees and local laws may be stricter still.
dromen 7y ago
However, MAN spaces are everywhere, Japan especially is having great success creating spaces that are exclusively occupied by a single man for weeks, and sometimes years at a time.

by monksy 7y ago

txsoftwaredev 7y ago

"Men spaces have been mostly eliminated." An organization that was once called "Boy Scouts" is no longer catered only to young boys. And yet the Girl Scouts remain female only.

lonelappde 7y ago
The Boy Scouts still are mostly single gender dens. I hope you are merely misinformed and not intentionally deceiving people with misleading comments. https://www.scouting.org/about/membership-policy/ https://www.scouting.org/about/membership-policy/
- dang 7y ago
  That second sentence breaks the HN guidelines badly. Would you please stop doing that and follow them instead? I don't want to have to ban you. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
dleslie 7y ago
That's mostly it being a victim of its own success; here in Canada, Scouts long held a better reputation than Guides. Something fundamentally different about how the organizations and parental leadership approached the kids, I suspect.
taneq 7y ago
Same goes for virtually any space that used to be male-only. It's become socially unacceptable (and often illegal) to exclude females from anything, while it's still perfectly OK to exclude males.
- erikpukinskis 7y ago
  What’s an example of a male-excluding space you’ve seen that couldn’t have a female-excluding counterpart?
  - jazzyk 7y ago
    1. Women-only workout areas in gyms - quite common, never seen one for men 2. All-female colleges (many), there is perhaps one or two all-male, if they even still exist
  - kortilla 7y ago
    Boy Scouts
  - trhway 7y ago
    Just google something like "women business network".
    - monksy 7y ago
      Also the "WIN" network.
hindsightbias 7y ago
Scouts are not integrated. Troops are separated by sex. They are safe in their spaces.

jalgos_eminator 7y ago

What were the men's spaces before? Legitimate question as I may be too young to have known them.

monksy 7y ago
Gentlemen clubs, country clubs, bars (although I don't think it should have been single gender), other than this.. I can't name many of the other ones. They were mostly gone by the time I became an adult. Anyways, I have heard of discrimination that men have faced when trying to create "safe"/support groups that were men only.
- ghettoimp 7y ago
  I don't think I understand the desire or the concern here. Look around the BBQ in the back yard at any party anywhere in 'merica and you'll find the guys hanging out and chatting away from their wives. Look at sports teams in your high schools, colleges, and local clubs and you'll find men hanging out together. Look at Men's bible study groups or similar if that's your thing. Go to the local men's barber shop and find a bunch of guys getting haircuts. Invite your buddies to your place to watch the game...
  - monksy 7y ago
    > Look around the BBQ in the back yard at any party anywhere in 'merica and you'll find the guys hanging out and chatting away from their wives. I don't know about your experience. But my experience: BBQs are typically a party situation with your household and others. If it's just the guys that's a friends thing. > Look at sports teams in your high schools, colleges, and local clubs and you'll find men hanging out together. I haven't heard of such of a clubs. > Look at Men's bible study groups or similar if that's your thing. I'll agree with you on this. That qualifies for what I was suggesting. It's a social thing and gets people to talk. > Go to the local men's barber shop and find a bunch of guys getting haircuts. Is that an environment that guys would open up? Most of these places tend to be "mind your own business and lets not talk that much" kinds of places.

adamsea 7y ago

Not sure how open those men's spaces of the past. would have been to more emotional openness. Could see it going either way.

throwaway_98554 7y ago

That's not really surprising, is it? Any minimally functional group eventually lead to opportunities. The outgroup (women in this case) want to access those opportunities. Any push back against that will be labeled as misogynistic or ridiculed. Men have no other choices than to open up the group and let it become just another open space for everyone. What is surprising is how some groups: 1) just lay down and accept this unilateral loss... 2) even when it is never reciprocated.

dang 7y ago
I understand the feeling but I think this is too zero-sum. You know who has the most positive reactions by far to men doing healing work in men-only circles? Their wives/girlfriends. Not because the men somehow become more 'feminine' or lose power, but usually because they get something that they badly needed and were stuck about for a long time.
- FakeComments 7y ago
  This is using anecdata to dismiss another poster, and isn’t the kind of comment you’d tolerate from others in a sensitive topic. It’s wonderful that’s been your experience of women, but don’t invalidate what others experience — particularly with a citation free comment. For those wondering why my comment is flagged: dang engages in political censorship, and flagged my account because of my views. I look forward to the upcoming rules on social media censorship, and the accountability that will bring to dang’s actions.
  - dang 7y ago
    We banned you for breaking HN's guidelines (with multiple accounts) and ignoring our requests to stop. Someone breaking the site guidelines to promote opposite views would get banned just the same. There's nothing wrong with anecdotes on HN. On the contrary, the threads here are supposed to be conversation, and anecdotes are the life blood of good conversation. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20conversation%20anecdote&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

swiley 7y ago

>Men spaces have been mostly eliminated. I mean sure it's illegal to exclude women but there are plenty of things they're just not going to show up to. Want to be around only men? Go to a BSD meet up. (or join most channels on freenode.) (note I'm not saying any of this is good, but there are plenty of places that are pretty exclusively attended by bales.)

WesternStar 7y ago
Its not illegal to have a private club with membership rules that exclude women. There are still several golf clubs that do so. In fact in the US its not even illegal to openly discriminate in hiring as long as the business has less 14 employees. In California that number goes down to 5 employees and local laws may be stricter still.

dromen 7y ago

However, MAN spaces are everywhere, Japan especially is having great success creating spaces that are exclusively occupied by a single man for weeks, and sometimes years at a time.