7 ms·

There’s a lot of validity to the social struggles of men in a lot of online discourse, but to say “society“ punishes us for not being women flies in the face of

There’s a lot of validity to the social struggles of men in a lot of online discourse, but to say “society“ punishes us for not being women flies in the face of almost every useful metric of socioeconomic success. Women did not create the society that is hurting men emotionally and economically. Buying into that victim complex is a distraction from your own self-development and healing.

username90 5y ago
Most kids spends their first 15 years mostly surrounded by women. Their doctors, their kinder garden teachers, their school teachers etc. Almost every authority figure is a woman there. If those boys have problem I feel it is ok to say that it is mostly those grownups fault, and they happen to be mostly women.
- acdha 5y ago
  This is a weirdly sexist take: to give yourself license to blame women, you’re erasing all of the men in those kids’ lives. For example, most of them have fathers and uncles, and while there’s a gender skew teaching in younger grades it’s not absolute and you’re leaving out the skew in the other direction for administrators and older grades - and if you’re talking authority figures you should be talking about principals and deans, not to mention cops.
  - username90 5y ago
    Kids spends their whole days getting bossed around by teachers. Kids usually doesn't even know who the dean or administrators are, those aren't authority figures to kids. And I choose 15 years as the cut-off since that is roughly when you start seeing male teachers.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - hunter-gatherer 5y ago
      You've managed to identify a few of the consequential problems from collective, societal child rearing, and deduced that these problems are the result of a dominant female influence from the years of 0-15. Sexism aside, that is a gross and lazy thought process. I'm curious how else you came to those conclusions?
      - hajile 5y ago
        Nature vs nurture If every person of race X who is taught by teacher Y fails, does that mean that race X is the problem or that teacher Y is the problem? Either male children are born bad or were raised incorrectly. If you accept the first option, what is your evidence? If you accept the second option and there are only women raising the child, how can men be the problem? According to the US Census, 20% of asian, 34% of white, 42% of hispanic, and 66% of black families are single-mother homes. In 1980, 30% of teachers were men. Today, it's around 15% (a mere 3-6% male for grades K-6). When you remove sports and PE teachers, it's the low single digits overall. The reason for this shift is rather obvious. Society assumes that men are predators. When a single false accusation will ruin not just your career, but your entire life, why take that risk? That same risk applies to other male role models as well. A 2 year old drowned in England a few years ago (irresponsible daycare let them into the street IIRC). It was noticed that a van was nearby when the child was walking down the road. The driver was found and asked about what happened. They said they saw the child, but a man in a white panel van stopping to help a kid would face accusations of kidnapping. The man had his own family and did't want to put them at risk if anything should happen to him. The child was a victim of society's demonization of men (I'd add that studies of female predators are almost non-existent and what little research has been conducted indicates that there are tons of female predators who society simply refuses to look into). Children raised by single mothers are much more likely to have learning issues, bad grades, be in trouble at school, not graduate, and have mental health problems. Single mothers are also much more likely to have mental health and anxiety issues. This is just as true for the 20% of asians and the 66% of blacks, so the inverse proposal of the mothers passing these issues on to their children is not likely (if it were true, then the claims of racists would also be true). These rates also track upward over time. Remember that only around 25% of black mothers were single parents in the 1960s (before the civil rights act). It's even notable that the single mother rates under slavery didn't come close to the rates today. The most notable and undeniable single mother statistic is crime. Somewhere around 85% of all people in prison had no significant father figure. Incarceration rates per capita per race track single mother rates closely (as a surprisingly large fraction of those homes). Here's the surprise -- this is NOT true for single father households. Is this because fathers are better parents? I think not. Instead, I'd put forward that female role models are everywhere and women are willing to get close to kids while male role models are very scarce and men are forced by society to remain aloof. I haven't seen studies, but I'd be interested to know if societies where the pedo scare didn't happen have the same issues.
- fb13 5y ago
  How is that women's fault that your dad was obviously not around and you that's why you hold this asinine view? As a fellow man, grow a pair of fucking balls and ask what you can do for your country and stop blaming women. Real men used to protect women. Grow the fuck up. I bet you want to be coddled because "it's so tough for man." Give me a break... If this is really the mainstream thought process of men these days then we're screwed. Want to "be a man?" Solve hard problems. "Men being so manly and not fitting in because of it" is a perfect place to start. Prove your manliness by solving it.
- MSM 5y ago
  The only way that you can be surrounded by women for your entire upbringing is if you don't engage in sports. Sports are typically hours per day. Coaches are absolute authority figures, and there are very few female coaches. I can't think of any men that never played sports but are somehow punished for being "so masculine"
  - username90 5y ago
    As far as I know boys playing sports do far better than those who don't, so this you'd conclude that adding grown men to their lives helps them and that "toxic-masculinity" isn't really the main issue boys have.
    - MSM 5y ago
      "Most" boys play some kind of sport. I have to assume it's the vast majority. My argument is that in those kids' lives, I would wager many of the authority figures that they spend significant time with and respect the most are men. Blaming women as a whole makes no sense to me.
      - username90 5y ago
        Most kids doesn't even get the recommended level of physical activity, I doubt they spend that much time playing organized sports. An hour a week isn't really a significant amount of time compared to how much time school takes. And to add, if you go to less privileged neighbourhoods you'll see sports participation drop significantly, most don't do any sports at all. And the problems are much worse there. It might have been even worse if they did more sports, who knows, but I doubt it. > According to the National Survey of Children’s Health, only 24% of youth ages 6 to 17 engage in at least 60 minutes of physical activity per day, down from 30% a decade earlier. B https://www.aspeninstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/2019_SOP_National_Final.pdf https://www.aspeninstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/20...
        developer93 5y ago
        So having more working mothers and stay at home fathers makes tons of sense in this case, would you agree?
- lurker2093 5y ago
  majority of serial killers are raised by single mothers
- throoooway 5y ago
  Male teachers who are not retirees have been removed from the teaching pool. Why? Schools do not pay enough to build a career or family. You cannot afford to have male teachers who are not retired and doing it for fun.
- mutedpossibly 5y ago
  The absence of men in these fields is part of the problem, as you say! However, the absence of men in these fields are by choice. To place the blame on only those that are present in raising everyones children and ignore the fact that most men choose not to be part in this hugely important societal task is (imo) wrong.
  - LunaSea 5y ago
    And I'm sure that you would also agree that women not being CEO is also a choice right? After all, they could simply have created their own company.
  - rdtwo 5y ago
    It’s because incentives and liabilities stack significantly against men in early childhood education. It’s like all the barriers that women face in tech without any of the support programs or big payday in the end
fb13 5y ago
Well put. I had a much less constructive take on this comment, since deleted, because it wreaks of insecurity that's causing so much of this problem. My dad was great, but through divorce, I had other great male role models, none of which you'd consider "feminine." However, it helped me understand the plurality of what it means to be a man. There are many ways to embrace your "natural" manhood that are beneficial to society. Animals rape each other, but we're not animals. Don't fall for the naturalistic fallacies.
epicureanideal 5y ago
> flies in the face of almost every useful metric of socioeconomic success. Earnings isn't necessarily the best measure of socioeconomic success. https://girlpowermarketing.com/statistics-purchasing-power-women/ https://girlpowermarketing.com/statistics-purchasing-power-w... Women control or influence 85% of spending, for example. I would say the amount of goods and services you actually purchase and consume would be a better indicator of socioeconomic success, compared with earnings that may be enjoyed by someone else. Working really hard to the point of destroying your health in order to provide a good life to your family would show up as "highly successful" by the earnings metric, but I would say the family benefits more than the one who is destroyed.
- developer93 5y ago
  Assuming a traditional household here with a working dad and stay at home mum, if the woman is mostly responsible for childcare, that's also a huge load. Just because the mother here isn't bringing in money doesn't mean she isn't working. Personally I'd take the employment (and have).
  - rdtwo 5y ago
    But the wife of a c suite executive is actually the biggest winner. She gets all the benifits and the au-pair to do the child care not none of the 80 hour weeks and late night phone calls.
    - developer93 5y ago
      That's kind of an edge case though isn't it?
  - ericmay 5y ago
    Quality of work too. Like one person may be going to a soul-crushing office job while another is doing something undoubtedly meaningful and enjoyable, if not also stressful.
    - 5y ago
grammarnazzzi 5y ago
> Women did not create the society that is hurting men emotionally and economically The extreme elements of 3rd wave feminism has influcenced society in ways that unfairly and negatively impact boys. Specifically the concept of "toxic masculinity". Toxic people are toxic. Toxic behaviors are toxic. Toxic people should be shamed and toxic behaviors should be discouraged. Boys should not be shamed for being masculine, and masuclinity should not be discouraged.
- fb13 5y ago
  I've never encountered "toxic masculinity" in my entire life. Conservatives will be conservatives, aka creating a straw man so their base can feel just and continue in their camaraderie-through-bullying strategy. Like the abolishment of "critical race theory" which was taught exactly zero places in the US before the calling for it's ban.
  - exporectomy 5y ago
    I've encountered a lot of it before it had that name. It appears as bullying, talking over people, arrogance, aggression, threats of violence, violence, condescension, etc. Generally, efforts gain dominance over others in ways that harm them rather than being genuinely better at dominating constructively. I think it's fine to call it toxic masculinity as long as people don't get it confused with healthy masculinity (not the same as femininity) or forget that toxic femininity exists or assume all men have toxic masculinity, or all the other misunderstandings that come with simplistic judgements of popular issues.
- okaram 5y ago
  The problem is that some behaviors traditionally associated with masculinity (mostly violence) are toxic, hence toxic masculinity.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - hajile 5y ago

username90 5y ago

Most kids spends their first 15 years mostly surrounded by women. Their doctors, their kinder garden teachers, their school teachers etc. Almost every authority figure is a woman there. If those boys have problem I feel it is ok to say that it is mostly those grownups fault, and they happen to be mostly women.

acdha 5y ago
This is a weirdly sexist take: to give yourself license to blame women, you’re erasing all of the men in those kids’ lives. For example, most of them have fathers and uncles, and while there’s a gender skew teaching in younger grades it’s not absolute and you’re leaving out the skew in the other direction for administrators and older grades - and if you’re talking authority figures you should be talking about principals and deans, not to mention cops.
- username90 5y ago
  Kids spends their whole days getting bossed around by teachers. Kids usually doesn't even know who the dean or administrators are, those aren't authority figures to kids. And I choose 15 years as the cut-off since that is roughly when you start seeing male teachers.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - hunter-gatherer 5y ago
    You've managed to identify a few of the consequential problems from collective, societal child rearing, and deduced that these problems are the result of a dominant female influence from the years of 0-15. Sexism aside, that is a gross and lazy thought process. I'm curious how else you came to those conclusions?
    - hajile 5y ago
      Nature vs nurture If every person of race X who is taught by teacher Y fails, does that mean that race X is the problem or that teacher Y is the problem? Either male children are born bad or were raised incorrectly. If you accept the first option, what is your evidence? If you accept the second option and there are only women raising the child, how can men be the problem? According to the US Census, 20% of asian, 34% of white, 42% of hispanic, and 66% of black families are single-mother homes. In 1980, 30% of teachers were men. Today, it's around 15% (a mere 3-6% male for grades K-6). When you remove sports and PE teachers, it's the low single digits overall. The reason for this shift is rather obvious. Society assumes that men are predators. When a single false accusation will ruin not just your career, but your entire life, why take that risk? That same risk applies to other male role models as well. A 2 year old drowned in England a few years ago (irresponsible daycare let them into the street IIRC). It was noticed that a van was nearby when the child was walking down the road. The driver was found and asked about what happened. They said they saw the child, but a man in a white panel van stopping to help a kid would face accusations of kidnapping. The man had his own family and did't want to put them at risk if anything should happen to him. The child was a victim of society's demonization of men (I'd add that studies of female predators are almost non-existent and what little research has been conducted indicates that there are tons of female predators who society simply refuses to look into). Children raised by single mothers are much more likely to have learning issues, bad grades, be in trouble at school, not graduate, and have mental health problems. Single mothers are also much more likely to have mental health and anxiety issues. This is just as true for the 20% of asians and the 66% of blacks, so the inverse proposal of the mothers passing these issues on to their children is not likely (if it were true, then the claims of racists would also be true). These rates also track upward over time. Remember that only around 25% of black mothers were single parents in the 1960s (before the civil rights act). It's even notable that the single mother rates under slavery didn't come close to the rates today. The most notable and undeniable single mother statistic is crime. Somewhere around 85% of all people in prison had no significant father figure. Incarceration rates per capita per race track single mother rates closely (as a surprisingly large fraction of those homes). Here's the surprise -- this is NOT true for single father households. Is this because fathers are better parents? I think not. Instead, I'd put forward that female role models are everywhere and women are willing to get close to kids while male role models are very scarce and men are forced by society to remain aloof. I haven't seen studies, but I'd be interested to know if societies where the pedo scare didn't happen have the same issues.
fb13 5y ago
How is that women's fault that your dad was obviously not around and you that's why you hold this asinine view? As a fellow man, grow a pair of fucking balls and ask what you can do for your country and stop blaming women. Real men used to protect women. Grow the fuck up. I bet you want to be coddled because "it's so tough for man." Give me a break... If this is really the mainstream thought process of men these days then we're screwed. Want to "be a man?" Solve hard problems. "Men being so manly and not fitting in because of it" is a perfect place to start. Prove your manliness by solving it.
MSM 5y ago
The only way that you can be surrounded by women for your entire upbringing is if you don't engage in sports. Sports are typically hours per day. Coaches are absolute authority figures, and there are very few female coaches. I can't think of any men that never played sports but are somehow punished for being "so masculine"
- username90 5y ago
  As far as I know boys playing sports do far better than those who don't, so this you'd conclude that adding grown men to their lives helps them and that "toxic-masculinity" isn't really the main issue boys have.
  - MSM 5y ago
    "Most" boys play some kind of sport. I have to assume it's the vast majority. My argument is that in those kids' lives, I would wager many of the authority figures that they spend significant time with and respect the most are men. Blaming women as a whole makes no sense to me.
    - username90 5y ago
      Most kids doesn't even get the recommended level of physical activity, I doubt they spend that much time playing organized sports. An hour a week isn't really a significant amount of time compared to how much time school takes. And to add, if you go to less privileged neighbourhoods you'll see sports participation drop significantly, most don't do any sports at all. And the problems are much worse there. It might have been even worse if they did more sports, who knows, but I doubt it. > According to the National Survey of Children’s Health, only 24% of youth ages 6 to 17 engage in at least 60 minutes of physical activity per day, down from 30% a decade earlier. B https://www.aspeninstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/2019_SOP_National_Final.pdf https://www.aspeninstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/20...
      - developer93 5y ago
        So having more working mothers and stay at home fathers makes tons of sense in this case, would you agree?
lurker2093 5y ago
majority of serial killers are raised by single mothers
throoooway 5y ago
Male teachers who are not retirees have been removed from the teaching pool. Why? Schools do not pay enough to build a career or family. You cannot afford to have male teachers who are not retired and doing it for fun.
mutedpossibly 5y ago
The absence of men in these fields is part of the problem, as you say! However, the absence of men in these fields are by choice. To place the blame on only those that are present in raising everyones children and ignore the fact that most men choose not to be part in this hugely important societal task is (imo) wrong.
- LunaSea 5y ago
  And I'm sure that you would also agree that women not being CEO is also a choice right? After all, they could simply have created their own company.
- rdtwo 5y ago
  It’s because incentives and liabilities stack significantly against men in early childhood education. It’s like all the barriers that women face in tech without any of the support programs or big payday in the end

fb13 5y ago

Well put. I had a much less constructive take on this comment, since deleted, because it wreaks of insecurity that's causing so much of this problem. My dad was great, but through divorce, I had other great male role models, none of which you'd consider "feminine." However, it helped me understand the plurality of what it means to be a man. There are many ways to embrace your "natural" manhood that are beneficial to society. Animals rape each other, but we're not animals. Don't fall for the naturalistic fallacies.

epicureanideal 5y ago

> flies in the face of almost every useful metric of socioeconomic success. Earnings isn't necessarily the best measure of socioeconomic success. https://girlpowermarketing.com/statistics-purchasing-power-women/ https://girlpowermarketing.com/statistics-purchasing-power-w... Women control or influence 85% of spending, for example. I would say the amount of goods and services you actually purchase and consume would be a better indicator of socioeconomic success, compared with earnings that may be enjoyed by someone else. Working really hard to the point of destroying your health in order to provide a good life to your family would show up as "highly successful" by the earnings metric, but I would say the family benefits more than the one who is destroyed.

developer93 5y ago
Assuming a traditional household here with a working dad and stay at home mum, if the woman is mostly responsible for childcare, that's also a huge load. Just because the mother here isn't bringing in money doesn't mean she isn't working. Personally I'd take the employment (and have).
- rdtwo 5y ago
  But the wife of a c suite executive is actually the biggest winner. She gets all the benifits and the au-pair to do the child care not none of the 80 hour weeks and late night phone calls.
  - developer93 5y ago
    That's kind of an edge case though isn't it?
- ericmay 5y ago
  Quality of work too. Like one person may be going to a soul-crushing office job while another is doing something undoubtedly meaningful and enjoyable, if not also stressful.
  - 5y ago

grammarnazzzi 5y ago

> Women did not create the society that is hurting men emotionally and economically The extreme elements of 3rd wave feminism has influcenced society in ways that unfairly and negatively impact boys. Specifically the concept of "toxic masculinity". Toxic people are toxic. Toxic behaviors are toxic. Toxic people should be shamed and toxic behaviors should be discouraged. Boys should not be shamed for being masculine, and masuclinity should not be discouraged.

fb13 5y ago
I've never encountered "toxic masculinity" in my entire life. Conservatives will be conservatives, aka creating a straw man so their base can feel just and continue in their camaraderie-through-bullying strategy. Like the abolishment of "critical race theory" which was taught exactly zero places in the US before the calling for it's ban.
- exporectomy 5y ago
  I've encountered a lot of it before it had that name. It appears as bullying, talking over people, arrogance, aggression, threats of violence, violence, condescension, etc. Generally, efforts gain dominance over others in ways that harm them rather than being genuinely better at dominating constructively. I think it's fine to call it toxic masculinity as long as people don't get it confused with healthy masculinity (not the same as femininity) or forget that toxic femininity exists or assume all men have toxic masculinity, or all the other misunderstandings that come with simplistic judgements of popular issues.
okaram 5y ago
The problem is that some behaviors traditionally associated with masculinity (mostly violence) are toxic, hence toxic masculinity.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- hajile 5y ago