15 ms·

Men are not doing as well as women in school. If you look in the wrong places on the internet, media, or daily life, all you see is negativity towards masculin

Men are not doing as well as women in school. If you look in the wrong places on the internet, media, or daily life, all you see is negativity towards masculinity. In addition, there doesn't appear to be any broad social system that is geared towards supporting men. The fact that men don't tend to be a socially adept doesn't help. This all feels like the perfect storm and there are plenty of people who act like "men have had it coming and deserve any ensuing suffering". I don't know how to fix this but I am sure glad I am no longer a young man.

soucy 5y ago
Bullshit. There are problems but it's not because of some "war on masculinity". The real issues are economic.
- ratsmack 5y ago
  It is mostly economic, but there is also a constant attack on masculinity in young boys.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - XorNot 5y ago
    Such as?
    - twh270 5y ago
      Are you kidding?? I've had numerous conversations about this with my son, starting when he told me he didn't want to grow up to be a "man". Because of what he had absorbed from culture/society. Today, men are told that we are disposable; Neanderthals; a legacy of the last century and the cause of everything that's wrong in the country/world; that we're patriarchal oppressors; that we're unnecessary and obsolete. The word "masculine" is at best a negative connotation, and usually meant as an attack. So, yeah, I have first-hand experience with this. On the flip side, from talking with a couple of my son's female friends, they feel the pressure of being told that they can do and be everything. All at the same time. That's not great either. The best response is to disengage from media and just be yourself. Easier said than done sometimes, for sure, but that's the longterm win.
      - lifeformed 5y ago
        So the internet is confusing and your son has some questions. It seems like a big jump to explain why men aren't getting jobs. Do men want to live with their parents simply because they don't feel as manly? Or is it because rent growth outpaces wages?
        deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
        vitus 5y ago
        > Or is it because rent growth outpaces wages? I think this is incomplete by itself. Taking a couple of points from the article: - Women are less likely than men to live at home with their parents. - The increase in men living at home with their parents is primarily driven by those without college degrees (15->25% among those without college degrees over the last 25 years, 10->13% among those with college degrees). Per [0], in 2019, there was a 8 point gender gap among young adults (25-29) for college degrees (associate's and above). [0] https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/pdf/coe_caa.pdf https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/pdf/coe_caa.pdf A guess at a fuller explanation might then be that wage growth for jobs that don't require a college degree haven't kept up with rent growth, and the gender gap here is driven by the gender gap in educational attainment. One other thing that I observed: If you look at the labor force participation graph in the article, it slowly trended downwards from the 60s, and then suddenly jumped down around 2008-2011, and since then stayed mostly flat until last year. Meanwhile, the fraction of young men living at home rose steadily from the 60s until the mid-90s, dropped for a few years, and then resumed climbing after 2000 (with no such jumps around 2009 or 2020). On one hand, we have these economic shocks (Great Recession, pandemic) that force a bunch of men out of the labor market, but at the same time, more men are living at home even as labor force participation remained largely constant throughout most of the 2010s. That reads to me like it refutes the article's central claim of correlation between these two variables.
- dillondoyle 5y ago
  I agree 100% on the dramatic economic problems we are facing. But I also can't help but feel commenters are conflating 'attack on masculinity' !== 'attack on toxic masculinity.' There is not some organized movement trying to make young boys 'less of a man.' I'm guessing a very large % of HN is male so would be nice to amplify any female voices who want to chime in.
  - throoooway 5y ago
    There is non stop end to end societal cheerleading of everyone who is not a white man, with the implications being that white men are bad.
    - dillondoyle 5y ago
      Trying to lift up those who have been oppressed, or at least lived centuries on unequal footing compared to white men, != all white men are bad.
    - ksrm 5y ago
      What a strange implication to make.
- Buldak 5y ago
  Yeah, I can appreciate certain complaints about the way men are portrayed in media and popular discourse, but it seems like a leap from there to phenomenon in question. We criticize men for telling women to smile, or whatever ... and somehow the end result is that they give up on their career ambitions? I think you're right that the real issues are economic. In fact I'd say that this is part of a larger, more general tendency to use cultural conflict to distract from class conflict.
- throoooway 5y ago
  The education system has turned into the equivalent of those kindergarten karate classes where if you show up and do the fake moves and pay the money; they give you an ever increasing number of belts (degrees). For whatever reason, women will go into debt or be allowed to go into debt to get useless degrees and there is no countervailing force to say: “uh marine biology is cool but…$500,000?” This has lead to a situation where women have gotten 13 million more colleges degrees than men over the last few decades. Meanwhile I think a lot of men go: “eh; yeah no.”
- hajile 5y ago
  If it is economic, then why does it only affect men?
ayngg 5y ago
I think it starts early and the little things compound throughout most domains in childhood development which leads to these men feeling completely lost and unable to navigate the current society that doesn't really care about them unless they are the antagonist to some narrative. Outside of family, nobody really cares when they are falling through the cracks, and nobody really cares to try and pick them up afterwards. Just look at the behaviors of people who are participating in society, why are they on average getting married less, later in life, having less kids, and buying homes later if ever, when these are all supposed to be important stepping stones of adulthood. The incentives that used to be there are harder to reach for people that actually have it together, and getting further out of reach for average people. When life sucks, might as well drop out.
twh270 5y ago
Yup. I've had many conversations about this topic with my son (and on occasion some of his friends -- both male and female), since he was in middle school (a decade ago). They're well aware of how men are portrayed versus women. We've transitioned from "A women's place is in the home (barefoot, pregnant, and cooking a delicious meal for her husband)" to "A woman's place is whatever she wants, and men are the reason for everything that's wrong with the world today". Whether it's world war or a bad relationship or choosing the right car. It's not a binary decision, people. We don't need to decide which gender/sex is "better" or "more right".
- fb13 5y ago
  It's the chicken egg problem. Woman birthed man. Who's to blame? In all seriousness, if we are to succeed as a society, then ignorantly maintaining what are mostly over generalizations and stereotypes related to gender is a failing proposition. And that involves anything that existed pre-the-whole-world-is-now-connected. That means > It's not a binary decision, people. We don't need to decide which gender/sex is "better" or "more right". But, for most of our parents it was binary and decision was obvious. People fantasize about going back to that. Even the young kids, Gen Z, which is most concerning. Something alarming is that this comes from a feeling of helplessness. That and similar feelings explains the increase in massacres, hatred, and even why terrorists traditionally came from countries in turmoil. The kids need to be feeling hopeful not helpless.
  - tonyedgecombe 5y ago
    That and similar feelings explains the increase in massacres, hatred, ... Violence has been falling substantially in the US: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/11/20/facts-about-crime-in-the-u-s/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/11/20/facts-about...
    - xyzzyz 5y ago
      The time series in your link end in 2019, when the trend of falling violence has ended. There has been a huge, unprecedented spike in violence in 2020, and this new normal has wiped decade or two of previous gains.
gnatman 5y ago
>>There doesn't appear to be any broad social system that is geared towards supporting men Other than the current one, you mean?
TrispusAttucks 5y ago
At a recent scholarship awards ceremony I attended the woman gathered much more scholarships than the men. Of course they probably very well deserved it. However there were many women-only scholarships that I am assuming were setup to increase college admissions of women. Which is of course also perfectly okay. However, there is a huge growing gender gap [1] in college admissions that favors women. If an equality program is so successful that it creates an equality imbalance in the other direction what do we do? We could cancel the programs and call it's goal completed, but this seems wrong. We could create new programs that target raising admissions of men, but that also seems wrong, at least in the current climate. Maybe it's just the case that men don't prefer college as much or perhaps it's too expensive when you can't get scholarships because your not the right identity. [1] https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/prediction-no-graduation-speaker-will-mention-the-29-gender-college-degree-gap-for-the-class-of-2018/ https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/prediction-no-graduation-spea...
- premium-komodo 5y ago
  > If an equality program is so successful that it creates an equality imbalance in the other direction what do we do? Equality of outcome is not possible or even desirable. That is the problem. The more people try to force some completely unnatural result, the more terrible things they'll have to do (e.g., discrimination on the basis of body attributes, as if there is some good way to do it) and the worse things will get.
- LoveMortuus 5y ago
  Aren't women-only projects and things inherently discriminatory, since it disallows participation or use based on gender? I know that whenever I've seen women only projects I did feel a sting in my heart, because what if I wanted to participate? The only way to be able to participate would be to abandon manhood and transition into womanhood... Where as there are no 'men-only' projects and things. Not that there should be. We all should have the freedom to whatever we desire (as long as it's not hurting others of course). Having doors closed to me just because of the factors over which I have no control is very painful and maybe I've been exposed to that more due to having stunted growth and being born with cleft lip. Luckily I can speak without any troubles which is quite uncommon. But because my mustache does grow around where the stitching is, it's still somewhat noticeable and due to the nose also being affected I've also received my share of beating and being called a goblin in schools. I've been without a goal for most of my life, and have thus tried to take my life multiple times, but after reading about finance I've decided to work and invest as much as I can, so that I can reach a point where I can live from the passive income so that I'll finally have peace (and in a way be able to reduce my interactions with the society to the bare minimum). ((Please don't tell me that my goal isn't achievable because I already get enough of that from my father and pretty much anyone I talk to about finances, and it's really disheartening...)) Interestingly enough, elder people were always the most kind to me, maybe because they judge less by the looks or because many mistook me for a woman. (Or maybe they just don't see as well and thought that I was a kid)
cjohnson318 5y ago
> In addition, there doesn't appear to be any broad social system that is geared towards supporting men. What planet are you on? The whole social system is geared towards supporting men. 70% of the U.S. government is men. Most companies are owned by men. Most of the C-suite of most companies are men. Most engineers, doctors, lawyers, investors, and all other desirable, high-paying jobs are dominated by men. Just look around.
- nooyurrsdey 5y ago
  I'm betting OP is talking about supporting men emotionally, or generally supporting mens' well being. Everything you listed is correct, but I think both of your statements can be true. Men aren't in need of societal advantages, but they are in need of some societal support. And that doesn't have to compete with very real things women require either.
  - cjohnson318 5y ago
    If OP is talking about a broad social system to support men emotionally, then no, that doesn't exist in America. Nor does it exist for women, or minorities, or anyone else.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- horns4lyfe 5y ago
  That’s not a social system, that’s a rat race of men fiercely competing against each other. There’s opportunity there, but not much psychological support.
okaram 5y ago
Can you point to any examples of negativity towards masculinity instead of towards toxic masculinity?
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- chriswalz 5y ago
  I think it’s easy to conflate the two since news articles tend to not make a clear distinction unfortunately. Try searching “men buzzfeed” and then “women buzzfeed”. Go to news section on Google. One search will result in positive/uplifting for one gender and quite the opposite for the other
- horns4lyfe 5y ago
  Toxic masculinity in the media has now come to encompass any quality in a person they don’t like. A weight lifter is an asshole? It’s because of a toxic masculinity problem in weight lifting. Positive traits in men as a broad population are regularly cast to toxic masculinity in individuals by lazy writers.
ksec 5y ago
Yes. And there were comments [1] in this thread [2] where some parents shared similar concern. There were at least two other threads on the subject in the past two years. ( Which I should have bookmarked but as usual bookmarks in general is quite useless and I cant find it ) This view isn't even mainstream yet. We are already seeing lots of parents worrying much more about their son than their daughters. It will likely take another 10 years until everything is seriously fucked up before it hit mainstream media and widespread concern, another 10 years for some ( or not ) discussions, then another 10 years before something is done. Basically a whole generation of Male. And I will probably get downvoted for mentioning it, but I do think Jordan Peterson has a point about young male lacking motivation in modern Society. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26047795 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26047795 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26047444 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26047444
- throoooway 5y ago
  I am extremely worried about my sons. Very; very worried. I feel they are being set up to fail by society. First, the education system has been designed to discriminate against independence and curiosity, personal initiative. These were my traits in school and they were used against me. Second, I know many professional women. With college degrees. They have literally been taught to despise men. Not a joke. They literally hate them. It’s all caused by our media and politicians. Third, I interpret most of the “faux diversity” efforts by Facebook, Microsoft, Amazon, higher education as being primarily designed to create a pipeline from India and China directly to America that allows all of the above to systematically exploit and underpay people from the emerging world whose education is much cheaper. If you haven’t been paying attention, half of Silicon Valley’s ceos are now from India. Something more is going on there than “Zomg can’t find talent.” It’s systematic. I believe our countries institutions are collaborating to avoid paying specifically white males a living wage while pretending there is a talent shortage and diversity problem. Add it all together: It is bleak and outcomes are awful.
- xwolfi 5y ago
  Interestingly I have a daughter and I really have 0 fear: she'll be raised like a boy as far as we make choices, at best she'll have a meaningful empowering career at worst she'll have a husband and kids and we'll help her if she needs. I'd be weirdly worried about a boy feeling like crap without a big career or needing our help. I know a daughter would be much less humiliated at the prospect.
buildingmateri 5y ago
Especially a problem because for almost all men a career and supporting family (maybe the hardest thing to figure out in life) is non optional, whereas half the female friends I have from college have abandoned careers to saddle up to a breadwinner ... I mean I kind of want that option but men don't really have it. Does anyone ever really discuss this social reality that makes it different for men v women in real world?
- cjohnson318 5y ago
  > Especially a problem because for almost all men a career and supporting family (maybe the hardest thing to figure out in life) is non optional... What do you mean? Of course those are optional. If you don't want a career, you're not going to have one. If you don't want to get married and support a family, then you don't have to. I mean, "saddle up to a breadwinner" is an extremely demeaning thing to say about a whole class of people. The reality is that men dominate all desirable, successful professions, so the probability of a man "saddling up" to a woman that makes significantly more than him is very small.
  - exporectomy 5y ago
    Without a career or at least some sort of good job, most men are extremely unattractive as long term partners for women. They can't just find a wife to support them while they look after the kids. So they'll end up without a career and without a family, which can be a very sad existence. For women, families are easier to come by regardless of career status.
    - throw737858 5y ago
      Imagine some people retire in peace at 50. What a sad, sad, pathetic existence :)
      - exporectomy 5y ago
        Retirement is often sad and pathetic.
acituan 5y ago
> Men are not doing as well as women in school. Schools are not performing as well for men as they do for women. I'm not just playing with words; it is really important to frame the share of responsibility correctly. It is the school's job to educate the kid, not kid's job to compensate for the dysfunctions of an education system. I'll generalize because I don't have any detailed data; anyone from the front-line educator to the curriculum designer to the budget maker is potentially responsible for this failure. On this particular issue, they are the ones not doing well, not the kids.
- cjohnson318 5y ago
  Men run most governments. Men own most companies. Men dominate the higher levels of corporations. Most engineers, doctors, lawyers, investors, and other highly paid professionals are men. Men simply own more capital than women, by a huge margin. It looks like schools are performing better for men than women.
  - s1artibartfast 5y ago
    You are looking at metrics with a lag period of 50 years, and also assuming a 50 50 split is the natural state
  - zizee 5y ago
    > Most ... doctors, lawyers ... are men. Today there are more women graduating medical and law school than men. Given the trends the current imbalance (of sheer numbers) will be a thing of the past in a decade or two. > It looks like schools are performing better for men than women. Or school isn't the only factor? Schools could be failing boys, and society could be failing women in other ways.
  - acituan 5y ago
    Allow me to correct the two logical distortions in your proposition. Distortion 1) You can't take the outliers of a flatter distribution and generalize that to the entire population. You can't even compare the averages of two separate distributions without qualifiers. It is true, most of the people who run governments are men. Most of the people who own companies are men. Most of the people who dominate C levels are men. Most highly paid professionals are mostly held by men. Most of the top outliers of capital ownership are men. But it is also true most men don't run governments. Most men are not even remotely close to running companies. Most men are not C level execs. Most men don't have high paying jobs. Most men don't have any capital (if not negative). Distortion 2) Even if it was true that it was exclusively powerful men's fault that boys are failing, it is completely irrelevant to bring it up when talking about men as victims, unless one would also suggest that boys somehow deserve to suffer educational disadvantages because of those men have a lot of capital, or there is some hidden variable that connects the two events.
brnt 5y ago
> If you look in the wrong places on the internet, media, or daily life, all you see is negativity towards masculinity. This line surprised me, because I find it _far_ easier to stumble over mysogyny, casual or not. In the latter case, comitted by some of the men discussed here. Ultimately, I think a lot of this is, on both 'sides', is people mistaking their toxic little corner of the internet for the real world. It is important not to be dragged into their worldview, because it is utterly incorrect. (Men are not any less supported than women, also, men do not have anything coming. In fact, men are not a singular group! So stop identifying with 'men', where we imagine some lucky billionaire as exemplar of men.)
antiterra 5y ago
Masculinity can create its own suffering. Men and boys have been brutally mocked for showing emotion or wearing pink. Men have an insecurity about buying products or services that are too femininely branded, so an asthetic procedure is called a detail or an oil change or some garbage. My dad would only give me manly hugs with a forceful pat because kissing your son goodnight on the head just isn’t right. I’ve found forum threads where men agonize about wearing a women’s sized version of their favorite running shoe, and even the ones willing to do so may only do it if the colorway exactly matches the men’s version. I know women who have little choice but to say they have a boyfriend when they want to turn someone down at a bar, because saying ‘sorry no thanks’ gets them insulted, harassed, covered in beer or assaulted. Women that turn a guy down on a dating app will be called names and told they were actually unattractive the whole time. Yes, women are not immune to being violent, petty, deceitful and cruel, but men are terrifying on an entirely different level. If you consider yourself a nice guy, you might be somewhat oblivious to how pervasive it is.
el_oni 5y ago
>Men are not doing as well as women in school. When I've spoken to people about this i get a "that's because they dont try as hard" (anecdote not data). Which has always struck me as odd. When women didn't do well it was because the institutions weren't designed to accommodate them or their educational needs. I think for young people in school a solution could be some evaluation on how that student learns and put them into a class that caters to that style. One size fits all education doesn't work. It didn't work for young women in the past and it doesnt work young men today.
MyHypatia 5y ago
I do agree that there are a lot of internet and media headlines that portray men in a negative light. Yes, writers generate Internet/media content with provocative headlines declaring "The End of Men". But in real life I see plenty of men getting good jobs, having families, winning awards, changing the world. Everywhere I look there are positive examples of men killing it: in business, sports, politics. So I feel like you would have to ignore all of the male political leaders, sports super stars, highly regarded thinkers and scientists, business leaders, entrepreneurs, religious clergy, and just focus only on stupid things people on the internet said to feel like the world is bleak for men. Yes, women are getting higher grades in school and graduating in higher numbers than men. I don't think that one metric by itself spells a doom and gloom future for men. Men don't have to be better than women in every metric to have a bright future.
spoonjim 5y ago
Men do 90% of everything. Start world wars, end world wars, save people’s lives, murder people, invent lifesaving technologies, invent murderous technologies. Women seem to want a world where they are 50% of the CEOs but not 50% of the prisoners and that’s not how “maleness” works.
faeriechangling 5y ago
>"men have had it coming and deserve any ensuing suffering" I find the irony to all this is the sons are getting punished for the sins of the father. Every "equity" program I can name, every single one primarily punishes the young while leaving the old, who presumably would have been the ones who setup a rigged game, alone. People lose their chances to enter the labour market, they don't lose their existing jobs. I mostly see the innocent getting punished because they were born guilty. Regarding school, men mature more slowly than women and do worse in certain intellectual enterprises like memory and seem to get a third of a grade point lower grades when their tests are scored unblinded. If you really wanted to make men and women score equally you could by blinding tests and tilting them more to skills men tend to do better on and not expecting equality between their age cohorts until they hit at least their late teens. There is simply no interest in doing such a thing and instead I hear outrage that men are the majority in any academic discipline even if on the aggregate they're behind.
atoav 5y ago
> If you look in the wrong places on the internet, media, or daily life, all you see is negativity towards masculinity. In my eyes it is just that masculinity that often is the problem. The problem is not that kids live in an environment that doesn't like it if they e.g. resort to violent and/or foreceful behaviour to assure themselves of their masculinity — the problem is, that the kids think their worth as a human being depends on fulfilling these outdated male ideals. And who can blame them? It is all a matter of having the right role models in your life. Having worked with teens from troubled social backgrounds I can assure you that the behaviour and expectations of the parents feed into this in a powerful (and often very destructive!) way. Your task as a parent is to prepare your kids for the world they will live in. If the world changed and males are expected to be more empathetic, less aggressive, etc. then don't scold your boy for crying, playing with puppets or other things you perceive as "unmanly". Be critical about the way you as a parent deal with your own feelings of sadness, anger, etc in front of your kids. I had the luck to have had a very caring father, and I never had the feeling that my masculinity was endangered. If anything I felt sorry for all the guys in my surrounding who tried so hard to hide their feelings that they started to forget they had any. So in short: the problem with masculinity is that many boys learn from their surroundings that the self worth of a man is connected how masculine he acts and can be reduced if he acts feminine. This is utter bullshit. Your kid should be allwoed to explore their feelings without constant judgment about them.

soucy 5y ago

Bullshit. There are problems but it's not because of some "war on masculinity". The real issues are economic.

ratsmack 5y ago
It is mostly economic, but there is also a constant attack on masculinity in young boys.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- XorNot 5y ago
  Such as?
  - twh270 5y ago
    Are you kidding?? I've had numerous conversations about this with my son, starting when he told me he didn't want to grow up to be a "man". Because of what he had absorbed from culture/society. Today, men are told that we are disposable; Neanderthals; a legacy of the last century and the cause of everything that's wrong in the country/world; that we're patriarchal oppressors; that we're unnecessary and obsolete. The word "masculine" is at best a negative connotation, and usually meant as an attack. So, yeah, I have first-hand experience with this. On the flip side, from talking with a couple of my son's female friends, they feel the pressure of being told that they can do and be everything. All at the same time. That's not great either. The best response is to disengage from media and just be yourself. Easier said than done sometimes, for sure, but that's the longterm win.
    - lifeformed 5y ago
      So the internet is confusing and your son has some questions. It seems like a big jump to explain why men aren't getting jobs. Do men want to live with their parents simply because they don't feel as manly? Or is it because rent growth outpaces wages?
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
      - vitus 5y ago
        > Or is it because rent growth outpaces wages? I think this is incomplete by itself. Taking a couple of points from the article: - Women are less likely than men to live at home with their parents. - The increase in men living at home with their parents is primarily driven by those without college degrees (15->25% among those without college degrees over the last 25 years, 10->13% among those with college degrees). Per [0], in 2019, there was a 8 point gender gap among young adults (25-29) for college degrees (associate's and above). [0] https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/pdf/coe_caa.pdf https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/pdf/coe_caa.pdf A guess at a fuller explanation might then be that wage growth for jobs that don't require a college degree haven't kept up with rent growth, and the gender gap here is driven by the gender gap in educational attainment. One other thing that I observed: If you look at the labor force participation graph in the article, it slowly trended downwards from the 60s, and then suddenly jumped down around 2008-2011, and since then stayed mostly flat until last year. Meanwhile, the fraction of young men living at home rose steadily from the 60s until the mid-90s, dropped for a few years, and then resumed climbing after 2000 (with no such jumps around 2009 or 2020). On one hand, we have these economic shocks (Great Recession, pandemic) that force a bunch of men out of the labor market, but at the same time, more men are living at home even as labor force participation remained largely constant throughout most of the 2010s. That reads to me like it refutes the article's central claim of correlation between these two variables.
dillondoyle 5y ago
I agree 100% on the dramatic economic problems we are facing. But I also can't help but feel commenters are conflating 'attack on masculinity' !== 'attack on toxic masculinity.' There is not some organized movement trying to make young boys 'less of a man.' I'm guessing a very large % of HN is male so would be nice to amplify any female voices who want to chime in.
- throoooway 5y ago
  There is non stop end to end societal cheerleading of everyone who is not a white man, with the implications being that white men are bad.
  - dillondoyle 5y ago
    Trying to lift up those who have been oppressed, or at least lived centuries on unequal footing compared to white men, != all white men are bad.
  - ksrm 5y ago
    What a strange implication to make.
Buldak 5y ago
Yeah, I can appreciate certain complaints about the way men are portrayed in media and popular discourse, but it seems like a leap from there to phenomenon in question. We criticize men for telling women to smile, or whatever ... and somehow the end result is that they give up on their career ambitions? I think you're right that the real issues are economic. In fact I'd say that this is part of a larger, more general tendency to use cultural conflict to distract from class conflict.
throoooway 5y ago
The education system has turned into the equivalent of those kindergarten karate classes where if you show up and do the fake moves and pay the money; they give you an ever increasing number of belts (degrees). For whatever reason, women will go into debt or be allowed to go into debt to get useless degrees and there is no countervailing force to say: “uh marine biology is cool but…$500,000?” This has lead to a situation where women have gotten 13 million more colleges degrees than men over the last few decades. Meanwhile I think a lot of men go: “eh; yeah no.”
hajile 5y ago
If it is economic, then why does it only affect men?

ayngg 5y ago

I think it starts early and the little things compound throughout most domains in childhood development which leads to these men feeling completely lost and unable to navigate the current society that doesn't really care about them unless they are the antagonist to some narrative. Outside of family, nobody really cares when they are falling through the cracks, and nobody really cares to try and pick them up afterwards. Just look at the behaviors of people who are participating in society, why are they on average getting married less, later in life, having less kids, and buying homes later if ever, when these are all supposed to be important stepping stones of adulthood. The incentives that used to be there are harder to reach for people that actually have it together, and getting further out of reach for average people. When life sucks, might as well drop out.

twh270 5y ago

Yup. I've had many conversations about this topic with my son (and on occasion some of his friends -- both male and female), since he was in middle school (a decade ago). They're well aware of how men are portrayed versus women. We've transitioned from "A women's place is in the home (barefoot, pregnant, and cooking a delicious meal for her husband)" to "A woman's place is whatever she wants, and men are the reason for everything that's wrong with the world today". Whether it's world war or a bad relationship or choosing the right car. It's not a binary decision, people. We don't need to decide which gender/sex is "better" or "more right".

fb13 5y ago
It's the chicken egg problem. Woman birthed man. Who's to blame? In all seriousness, if we are to succeed as a society, then ignorantly maintaining what are mostly over generalizations and stereotypes related to gender is a failing proposition. And that involves anything that existed pre-the-whole-world-is-now-connected. That means > It's not a binary decision, people. We don't need to decide which gender/sex is "better" or "more right". But, for most of our parents it was binary and decision was obvious. People fantasize about going back to that. Even the young kids, Gen Z, which is most concerning. Something alarming is that this comes from a feeling of helplessness. That and similar feelings explains the increase in massacres, hatred, and even why terrorists traditionally came from countries in turmoil. The kids need to be feeling hopeful not helpless.
- tonyedgecombe 5y ago
  That and similar feelings explains the increase in massacres, hatred, ... Violence has been falling substantially in the US: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/11/20/facts-about-crime-in-the-u-s/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/11/20/facts-about...
  - xyzzyz 5y ago
    The time series in your link end in 2019, when the trend of falling violence has ended. There has been a huge, unprecedented spike in violence in 2020, and this new normal has wiped decade or two of previous gains.

gnatman 5y ago

>>There doesn't appear to be any broad social system that is geared towards supporting men Other than the current one, you mean?

TrispusAttucks 5y ago

At a recent scholarship awards ceremony I attended the woman gathered much more scholarships than the men. Of course they probably very well deserved it. However there were many women-only scholarships that I am assuming were setup to increase college admissions of women. Which is of course also perfectly okay. However, there is a huge growing gender gap [1] in college admissions that favors women. If an equality program is so successful that it creates an equality imbalance in the other direction what do we do? We could cancel the programs and call it's goal completed, but this seems wrong. We could create new programs that target raising admissions of men, but that also seems wrong, at least in the current climate. Maybe it's just the case that men don't prefer college as much or perhaps it's too expensive when you can't get scholarships because your not the right identity. [1] https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/prediction-no-graduation-speaker-will-mention-the-29-gender-college-degree-gap-for-the-class-of-2018/ https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/prediction-no-graduation-spea...

premium-komodo 5y ago
> If an equality program is so successful that it creates an equality imbalance in the other direction what do we do? Equality of outcome is not possible or even desirable. That is the problem. The more people try to force some completely unnatural result, the more terrible things they'll have to do (e.g., discrimination on the basis of body attributes, as if there is some good way to do it) and the worse things will get.
LoveMortuus 5y ago
Aren't women-only projects and things inherently discriminatory, since it disallows participation or use based on gender? I know that whenever I've seen women only projects I did feel a sting in my heart, because what if I wanted to participate? The only way to be able to participate would be to abandon manhood and transition into womanhood... Where as there are no 'men-only' projects and things. Not that there should be. We all should have the freedom to whatever we desire (as long as it's not hurting others of course). Having doors closed to me just because of the factors over which I have no control is very painful and maybe I've been exposed to that more due to having stunted growth and being born with cleft lip. Luckily I can speak without any troubles which is quite uncommon. But because my mustache does grow around where the stitching is, it's still somewhat noticeable and due to the nose also being affected I've also received my share of beating and being called a goblin in schools. I've been without a goal for most of my life, and have thus tried to take my life multiple times, but after reading about finance I've decided to work and invest as much as I can, so that I can reach a point where I can live from the passive income so that I'll finally have peace (and in a way be able to reduce my interactions with the society to the bare minimum). ((Please don't tell me that my goal isn't achievable because I already get enough of that from my father and pretty much anyone I talk to about finances, and it's really disheartening...)) Interestingly enough, elder people were always the most kind to me, maybe because they judge less by the looks or because many mistook me for a woman. (Or maybe they just don't see as well and thought that I was a kid)

cjohnson318 5y ago

> In addition, there doesn't appear to be any broad social system that is geared towards supporting men. What planet are you on? The whole social system is geared towards supporting men. 70% of the U.S. government is men. Most companies are owned by men. Most of the C-suite of most companies are men. Most engineers, doctors, lawyers, investors, and all other desirable, high-paying jobs are dominated by men. Just look around.

nooyurrsdey 5y ago
I'm betting OP is talking about supporting men emotionally, or generally supporting mens' well being. Everything you listed is correct, but I think both of your statements can be true. Men aren't in need of societal advantages, but they are in need of some societal support. And that doesn't have to compete with very real things women require either.
- cjohnson318 5y ago
  If OP is talking about a broad social system to support men emotionally, then no, that doesn't exist in America. Nor does it exist for women, or minorities, or anyone else.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
horns4lyfe 5y ago
That’s not a social system, that’s a rat race of men fiercely competing against each other. There’s opportunity there, but not much psychological support.

okaram 5y ago

Can you point to any examples of negativity towards masculinity instead of towards toxic masculinity?

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
chriswalz 5y ago
I think it’s easy to conflate the two since news articles tend to not make a clear distinction unfortunately. Try searching “men buzzfeed” and then “women buzzfeed”. Go to news section on Google. One search will result in positive/uplifting for one gender and quite the opposite for the other
horns4lyfe 5y ago
Toxic masculinity in the media has now come to encompass any quality in a person they don’t like. A weight lifter is an asshole? It’s because of a toxic masculinity problem in weight lifting. Positive traits in men as a broad population are regularly cast to toxic masculinity in individuals by lazy writers.

ksec 5y ago

Yes. And there were comments [1] in this thread [2] where some parents shared similar concern. There were at least two other threads on the subject in the past two years. ( Which I should have bookmarked but as usual bookmarks in general is quite useless and I cant find it ) This view isn't even mainstream yet. We are already seeing lots of parents worrying much more about their son than their daughters. It will likely take another 10 years until everything is seriously fucked up before it hit mainstream media and widespread concern, another 10 years for some ( or not ) discussions, then another 10 years before something is done. Basically a whole generation of Male. And I will probably get downvoted for mentioning it, but I do think Jordan Peterson has a point about young male lacking motivation in modern Society. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26047795 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26047795 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26047444 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26047444

throoooway 5y ago
I am extremely worried about my sons. Very; very worried. I feel they are being set up to fail by society. First, the education system has been designed to discriminate against independence and curiosity, personal initiative. These were my traits in school and they were used against me. Second, I know many professional women. With college degrees. They have literally been taught to despise men. Not a joke. They literally hate them. It’s all caused by our media and politicians. Third, I interpret most of the “faux diversity” efforts by Facebook, Microsoft, Amazon, higher education as being primarily designed to create a pipeline from India and China directly to America that allows all of the above to systematically exploit and underpay people from the emerging world whose education is much cheaper. If you haven’t been paying attention, half of Silicon Valley’s ceos are now from India. Something more is going on there than “Zomg can’t find talent.” It’s systematic. I believe our countries institutions are collaborating to avoid paying specifically white males a living wage while pretending there is a talent shortage and diversity problem. Add it all together: It is bleak and outcomes are awful.
xwolfi 5y ago
Interestingly I have a daughter and I really have 0 fear: she'll be raised like a boy as far as we make choices, at best she'll have a meaningful empowering career at worst she'll have a husband and kids and we'll help her if she needs. I'd be weirdly worried about a boy feeling like crap without a big career or needing our help. I know a daughter would be much less humiliated at the prospect.

buildingmateri 5y ago

Especially a problem because for almost all men a career and supporting family (maybe the hardest thing to figure out in life) is non optional, whereas half the female friends I have from college have abandoned careers to saddle up to a breadwinner ... I mean I kind of want that option but men don't really have it. Does anyone ever really discuss this social reality that makes it different for men v women in real world?

cjohnson318 5y ago
> Especially a problem because for almost all men a career and supporting family (maybe the hardest thing to figure out in life) is non optional... What do you mean? Of course those are optional. If you don't want a career, you're not going to have one. If you don't want to get married and support a family, then you don't have to. I mean, "saddle up to a breadwinner" is an extremely demeaning thing to say about a whole class of people. The reality is that men dominate all desirable, successful professions, so the probability of a man "saddling up" to a woman that makes significantly more than him is very small.
- exporectomy 5y ago
  Without a career or at least some sort of good job, most men are extremely unattractive as long term partners for women. They can't just find a wife to support them while they look after the kids. So they'll end up without a career and without a family, which can be a very sad existence. For women, families are easier to come by regardless of career status.
  - throw737858 5y ago
    Imagine some people retire in peace at 50. What a sad, sad, pathetic existence :)
    - exporectomy 5y ago
      Retirement is often sad and pathetic.

acituan 5y ago

> Men are not doing as well as women in school. Schools are not performing as well for men as they do for women. I'm not just playing with words; it is really important to frame the share of responsibility correctly. It is the school's job to educate the kid, not kid's job to compensate for the dysfunctions of an education system. I'll generalize because I don't have any detailed data; anyone from the front-line educator to the curriculum designer to the budget maker is potentially responsible for this failure. On this particular issue, they are the ones not doing well, not the kids.

cjohnson318 5y ago
Men run most governments. Men own most companies. Men dominate the higher levels of corporations. Most engineers, doctors, lawyers, investors, and other highly paid professionals are men. Men simply own more capital than women, by a huge margin. It looks like schools are performing better for men than women.
- s1artibartfast 5y ago
  You are looking at metrics with a lag period of 50 years, and also assuming a 50 50 split is the natural state
- zizee 5y ago
  > Most ... doctors, lawyers ... are men. Today there are more women graduating medical and law school than men. Given the trends the current imbalance (of sheer numbers) will be a thing of the past in a decade or two. > It looks like schools are performing better for men than women. Or school isn't the only factor? Schools could be failing boys, and society could be failing women in other ways.
- acituan 5y ago
  Allow me to correct the two logical distortions in your proposition. Distortion 1) You can't take the outliers of a flatter distribution and generalize that to the entire population. You can't even compare the averages of two separate distributions without qualifiers. It is true, most of the people who run governments are men. Most of the people who own companies are men. Most of the people who dominate C levels are men. Most highly paid professionals are mostly held by men. Most of the top outliers of capital ownership are men. But it is also true most men don't run governments. Most men are not even remotely close to running companies. Most men are not C level execs. Most men don't have high paying jobs. Most men don't have any capital (if not negative). Distortion 2) Even if it was true that it was exclusively powerful men's fault that boys are failing, it is completely irrelevant to bring it up when talking about men as victims, unless one would also suggest that boys somehow deserve to suffer educational disadvantages because of those men have a lot of capital, or there is some hidden variable that connects the two events.

brnt 5y ago

> If you look in the wrong places on the internet, media, or daily life, all you see is negativity towards masculinity. This line surprised me, because I find it _far_ easier to stumble over mysogyny, casual or not. In the latter case, comitted by some of the men discussed here. Ultimately, I think a lot of this is, on both 'sides', is people mistaking their toxic little corner of the internet for the real world. It is important not to be dragged into their worldview, because it is utterly incorrect. (Men are not any less supported than women, also, men do not have anything coming. In fact, men are not a singular group! So stop identifying with 'men', where we imagine some lucky billionaire as exemplar of men.)

antiterra 5y ago

Masculinity can create its own suffering. Men and boys have been brutally mocked for showing emotion or wearing pink. Men have an insecurity about buying products or services that are too femininely branded, so an asthetic procedure is called a detail or an oil change or some garbage. My dad would only give me manly hugs with a forceful pat because kissing your son goodnight on the head just isn’t right. I’ve found forum threads where men agonize about wearing a women’s sized version of their favorite running shoe, and even the ones willing to do so may only do it if the colorway exactly matches the men’s version. I know women who have little choice but to say they have a boyfriend when they want to turn someone down at a bar, because saying ‘sorry no thanks’ gets them insulted, harassed, covered in beer or assaulted. Women that turn a guy down on a dating app will be called names and told they were actually unattractive the whole time. Yes, women are not immune to being violent, petty, deceitful and cruel, but men are terrifying on an entirely different level. If you consider yourself a nice guy, you might be somewhat oblivious to how pervasive it is.

el_oni 5y ago

>Men are not doing as well as women in school. When I've spoken to people about this i get a "that's because they dont try as hard" (anecdote not data). Which has always struck me as odd. When women didn't do well it was because the institutions weren't designed to accommodate them or their educational needs. I think for young people in school a solution could be some evaluation on how that student learns and put them into a class that caters to that style. One size fits all education doesn't work. It didn't work for young women in the past and it doesnt work young men today.

MyHypatia 5y ago

I do agree that there are a lot of internet and media headlines that portray men in a negative light. Yes, writers generate Internet/media content with provocative headlines declaring "The End of Men". But in real life I see plenty of men getting good jobs, having families, winning awards, changing the world. Everywhere I look there are positive examples of men killing it: in business, sports, politics. So I feel like you would have to ignore all of the male political leaders, sports super stars, highly regarded thinkers and scientists, business leaders, entrepreneurs, religious clergy, and just focus only on stupid things people on the internet said to feel like the world is bleak for men. Yes, women are getting higher grades in school and graduating in higher numbers than men. I don't think that one metric by itself spells a doom and gloom future for men. Men don't have to be better than women in every metric to have a bright future.

spoonjim 5y ago

Men do 90% of everything. Start world wars, end world wars, save people’s lives, murder people, invent lifesaving technologies, invent murderous technologies. Women seem to want a world where they are 50% of the CEOs but not 50% of the prisoners and that’s not how “maleness” works.

faeriechangling 5y ago

>"men have had it coming and deserve any ensuing suffering" I find the irony to all this is the sons are getting punished for the sins of the father. Every "equity" program I can name, every single one primarily punishes the young while leaving the old, who presumably would have been the ones who setup a rigged game, alone. People lose their chances to enter the labour market, they don't lose their existing jobs. I mostly see the innocent getting punished because they were born guilty. Regarding school, men mature more slowly than women and do worse in certain intellectual enterprises like memory and seem to get a third of a grade point lower grades when their tests are scored unblinded. If you really wanted to make men and women score equally you could by blinding tests and tilting them more to skills men tend to do better on and not expecting equality between their age cohorts until they hit at least their late teens. There is simply no interest in doing such a thing and instead I hear outrage that men are the majority in any academic discipline even if on the aggregate they're behind.

atoav 5y ago

> If you look in the wrong places on the internet, media, or daily life, all you see is negativity towards masculinity. In my eyes it is just that masculinity that often is the problem. The problem is not that kids live in an environment that doesn't like it if they e.g. resort to violent and/or foreceful behaviour to assure themselves of their masculinity — the problem is, that the kids think their worth as a human being depends on fulfilling these outdated male ideals. And who can blame them? It is all a matter of having the right role models in your life. Having worked with teens from troubled social backgrounds I can assure you that the behaviour and expectations of the parents feed into this in a powerful (and often very destructive!) way. Your task as a parent is to prepare your kids for the world they will live in. If the world changed and males are expected to be more empathetic, less aggressive, etc. then don't scold your boy for crying, playing with puppets or other things you perceive as "unmanly". Be critical about the way you as a parent deal with your own feelings of sadness, anger, etc in front of your kids. I had the luck to have had a very caring father, and I never had the feeling that my masculinity was endangered. If anything I felt sorry for all the guys in my surrounding who tried so hard to hide their feelings that they started to forget they had any. So in short: the problem with masculinity is that many boys learn from their surroundings that the self worth of a man is connected how masculine he acts and can be reduced if he acts feminine. This is utter bullshit. Your kid should be allwoed to explore their feelings without constant judgment about them.