7 ms·

I’d love to read something that explores why social media affects females more than males, and also a first person perspective of the social pressures of young

I’d love to read something that explores why social media affects females more than males, and also a first person perspective of the social pressures of young females and how much wiggle room they actually have to remain socially accepted and active whilst avoiding pressures. I think a lot comes down to body image of females in society. Something as simple as the fact that females are expected to wear makeup and men do not I think can explain a lot. The vast number of activities that surround makeup create an unhealthy obsession with vanity. It’s the raw amount of time spent looking at one’s self and comparing against others. This then propagates throughout life and results in an unwinnable battle against ageing that only leads to unhappiness. A typical female social media stream contains a huge amount of beauty-related content of which a male’s does not. There are just certain interests you have to have to blend into social groups that are dramatically different for men and women. Although recently men are starting to become more vain and I hear a lot of marketing crap like “men should take more care looking after their skin/appearance” - the metrosexual thing - which I think is going down a bad path. We need less social pressures for young people...but of course there is a huge monetary incentive to get men hooked on skin care etc.

medium_burrito 6y ago
I'll paraphrase something I read a while back. Men have physical competition, women have emotional/social competition. Men play sports, fight, kill each other and video games imitate life. Social media is the women's version of video games, refined to weapons-grade purity.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- gonzo41 6y ago
  Yeah, Instagram really should be considered a WMD for self esteem.
DoreenMichele 6y ago
I’d love to read something that explores why social media affects females more than males, and also a first person perspective of the social pressures of young females and how much wiggle room they actually have to remain socially accepted and active whilst avoiding pressures. I'm a woman. I didn't bend to social pressure until I actually had children. Once you have a child, the amount of crap society hangs on women and all the social pressure comes at you as a form of blackmail where the subtext is "And you and your child can both go die in a fire if you, little girlie, don't go along to get along." Society generally treats mothers and their children as a package deal. Mothers tend to get custody. A woman can end up pregnant from a one-night stand and have her life irrevocably changed and the father may never know a child existed. Men bitch about having to pay alimony and child support and how unfair that is if they are no longer getting to sleep with the woman and have her pick up after him and getting to enjoy the company of the children and it gets glossed over that both having kids and the threat of potentially having kids undermines female income on a regular basis. If nothing else, women tend to support their husband's career at the expense of their own career development, either without thinking about it (because it is just a social norm rooted in history) or because if you are woman and not an idiot, it is always at the back of your mind that an unintended pregnancy with unexpected health impacts (or resulting in a special-needs child) can derail your career in a way that it typically doesn't do to a male career. This is an actual biological difference between cis women and cis men: cis women can potentially get pregnant and cis men cannot. It has profound impacts on many social things in ways that most people either don't readily see or don't want to admit because it's scary, I guess.
- BlargMcLarg 6y ago
  Women face plenty of challenges, but to belittle the things men face by cherrypicking what they "bitch" about does very little to gather understanding from men to women's challenges. It is incredibly dismissive to the essence of the problem from a father's perspective. Additionally, this is a very anecdotal example which doesn't explain why reports are found as early as prepubescent girls. Reports stating girls on average do indeed feel more pressure from social media than boys do.
  - deleted 6y ago
neilparikh 6y ago
> Although recently men are starting to become more vain and I hear a lot of marketing crap like “men should take more care looking after their skin/appearance” - the metrosexual thing - which I think is going down a bad path. We need less social pressures for young people...but of course there is a huge monetary incentive to get men hooked on skin care etc. I'm worried about this trend too. I saw an ad the other day that started with talking about how much time and effort women need to spend on beauty etc. My thought while watching this part was "This is horrible, we should encourage less of this." But instead of this conclusion, the ad concluded with "If women have to put this much effort in, men should step up and start putting in more effort. Here's a product we make so men can put in more effort." I found it absurd!

medium_burrito 6y ago

I'll paraphrase something I read a while back. Men have physical competition, women have emotional/social competition. Men play sports, fight, kill each other and video games imitate life. Social media is the women's version of video games, refined to weapons-grade purity.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
gonzo41 6y ago
Yeah, Instagram really should be considered a WMD for self esteem.

DoreenMichele 6y ago

I’d love to read something that explores why social media affects females more than males, and also a first person perspective of the social pressures of young females and how much wiggle room they actually have to remain socially accepted and active whilst avoiding pressures. I'm a woman. I didn't bend to social pressure until I actually had children. Once you have a child, the amount of crap society hangs on women and all the social pressure comes at you as a form of blackmail where the subtext is "And you and your child can both go die in a fire if you, little girlie, don't go along to get along." Society generally treats mothers and their children as a package deal. Mothers tend to get custody. A woman can end up pregnant from a one-night stand and have her life irrevocably changed and the father may never know a child existed. Men bitch about having to pay alimony and child support and how unfair that is if they are no longer getting to sleep with the woman and have her pick up after him and getting to enjoy the company of the children and it gets glossed over that both having kids and the threat of potentially having kids undermines female income on a regular basis. If nothing else, women tend to support their husband's career at the expense of their own career development, either without thinking about it (because it is just a social norm rooted in history) or because if you are woman and not an idiot, it is always at the back of your mind that an unintended pregnancy with unexpected health impacts (or resulting in a special-needs child) can derail your career in a way that it typically doesn't do to a male career. This is an actual biological difference between cis women and cis men: cis women can potentially get pregnant and cis men cannot. It has profound impacts on many social things in ways that most people either don't readily see or don't want to admit because it's scary, I guess.

BlargMcLarg 6y ago
Women face plenty of challenges, but to belittle the things men face by cherrypicking what they "bitch" about does very little to gather understanding from men to women's challenges. It is incredibly dismissive to the essence of the problem from a father's perspective. Additionally, this is a very anecdotal example which doesn't explain why reports are found as early as prepubescent girls. Reports stating girls on average do indeed feel more pressure from social media than boys do.
- deleted 6y ago

neilparikh 6y ago

> Although recently men are starting to become more vain and I hear a lot of marketing crap like “men should take more care looking after their skin/appearance” - the metrosexual thing - which I think is going down a bad path. We need less social pressures for young people...but of course there is a huge monetary incentive to get men hooked on skin care etc. I'm worried about this trend too. I saw an ad the other day that started with talking about how much time and effort women need to spend on beauty etc. My thought while watching this part was "This is horrible, we should encourage less of this." But instead of this conclusion, the ad concluded with "If women have to put this much effort in, men should step up and start putting in more effort. Here's a product we make so men can put in more effort." I found it absurd!