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What’s the Matter with Men?
- ihsw 4y ago[dead]
- decremental 4y ago[flagged]
- karaterobot 4y agoNope, you're way off base. The article is about something different.
- elil17 4y agoNo it doesn't. It does talk about how black men are heavily incarcerated. It also talks about how white men are now experiencing wage stagnation similar to that which impacted black men post-WWII.
- draw_down 4y ago[dead]
- rambambram 4y agoYeah, what's the matter with four billion human beings?
- recuter 4y agoMen are increasingly dropping out of work during their prime working years, overdosing, drinking themselves to death, and generally dying earlier, including by suicide. ..And men are powering the new brand of reactionary Republican politics. ..Yet, for all the strides that women have made since gaining the right to vote, the highest echelons of power remain lopsidedly male. The detoxification of masculinity, progressives say, is a messy and necessary process; sore losers of undeserved privilege don’t merit much sympathy. -- I mean, wow. This is like some Chinese cultural revolution shit.
- mcphage 4y ago> The detoxification of masculinity, progressives say, is a messy and necessary process; sore losers of undeserved privilege don’t merit much sympathy. That's a really aggressively nasty take on progressives.
- winReInstall 4y agoAt the bitter bottles bottom waits the truths for those who seek. Socrates the greek. All situation stakeholders involved want to escalate, thinking themselves the winner ones the smoke clears. Romantic narratives replace situational awareness, as the generation who experienced a similar escalation leaves the stage.
- elil17 4y agoTo be clear, the article isn't endorsing the statement that "sore losers of undeserved privilege don't merit much sympathy." It takes seriously the idea that men are facing real problems.
- kevinmrose 4y agoIt sounds like the author is getting exactly what she wants, not sure why she's complaining.
- shrimp_emoji 4y agoFor lack of pronouns, the author is a man: https://twitter.com/imkahloon https://twitter.com/imkahloon
- AndrewPGameDev 4y agoI do not understand why you think this, why do you think the author wants the downfall of men?
- kevinmrose 4y ago"The detoxification of masculinity, progressives say, is a messy and necessary process; sore losers of undeserved privilege don’t merit much sympathy."
- bearmode 4y agoEducation designed around sitting quietly in classrooms, which is the opposite of how you get boys to excel (in general), but which is good for girls is a big problem. And there have been some efforts to begin addressing this, in some schools, but we need systemic changes in that area. Obviously a lot more wrong, but fixing that would go a huge way on its own.
- yamtaddle 4y agoI would seriously love to see what happened to boys' school achievement if all we did was double active, outdoor time scheduled in each school day. And add some for higher grades that often have entire days with none of that at all.
- kneebonian 4y agoI also have to wonder how much the move from a production economy to a services economy has shifted things. Producing real goods for people tends to favor physical prowess, whereas a service dominant economy would tend to favor those who are more agreeable/able to make people feel good. Can this partially explain the change?
- kazinator 4y agoPeople who are unfit for academics having to go through higher education just to stay ahead of everyone else doing the same is going to take a toll also. University or college isn't easy even for the nerdiest of us. I don't know how it's now but it used to be that straight-A students out of high school could easily turn into C average, all-nighter-pulling neurotics by fourth year university. Now you have the C students pressured into post-secondary study.
- krapp 4y agoExcept that exact model of schooling worked fine with boys for generations.
- yamtaddle 4y agoWe've monkeyed with the details a lot. Multi-grade schoolrooms are all but completely gone now (at least in public schools). Recess time has varied, and took a nose-dive after NCLB (schools were desperate to increase test scores and reckoned more instruction time would help). Recess and free time in general seems more structured and regulated now than it used to be. Fewer kids walk or bike (or ride a horse) to school—the small "neighborhood" school has fallen out of favor for big mega-schools, plus the rise of the 'burbs. At home, I can just about guarantee active outdoor time has plummeted in the last 3ish decades, and kids come to school in whatever state home's left them. I'd further bet less work happens around the house than in earlier decades, outside of actual paid WFH stuff (which is mostly screen shit)—working on cars, mending clothes, caring for chickens or other livestock, that sort of thing, so kids are exposed to and participate in less of it. I dunno if any of those are contributing to this, but it's not like we've held everything the same and just watched boys' achievement fall in isolation.
- kneebonian 4y agoDecades from now historians will examine and determine that one of the biggest factors that led to change was the fact that there were so many young men that were disengaged from society as one of the most powerful forces in shaping modern America.
- purple07 4y ago(((Many social scientists agree)))
- mschuster91 4y ago> His signature idea, though, is to “redshirt” boys and give them all, by default, an extra year of kindergarten. The aim is to compensate for their slower rates of adolescent brain development, particularly in the prefrontal cortex, which controls decision-making. An interesting idea, but the general problem of up to one year of an age gap between classmates still remains. IMHO, it would make more sense to lower the bucket size for classes - stagger school introduction not yearly but half-yearly.
- mensetmanusman 4y agoOne interesting phenomenon relates to family structure. About 50 years ago most kids were raised by their biological parents, today it’s about half. Boys seem to be thrive less effectively without male role models in the home for a number of reasons (many unknowns). We are starting to see the downstream effects are that are arising due to this relatively new change/experimentation in family structure.
- kneebonian 4y agoI honestly believe this is the single biggest driver today of the issues we see with young men, is the lack of positive male role models. My parents divorced when I was about 12 and one of the things that was really difficult for me to figure out as I grew up is what my life was supposed to look like as a man. I mean I had ideas about what I was supposed to do, but what was my day to day life supposed to be like. Luckily I had leaders in my church that helped step up and set me on the right course but I a huge part of the problem is young men now have no where to look to know what it means to be a man, so they just default to do what is easy and fun.
- l3uwin 4y ago[dead]
- soco 4y agoWhat if being a man means to be easy and fun?
- mensetmanusman 4y agoThe default level of male ‘responsibility/activity’ does vary by culture. In which case, this is just a new environment for ‘survival of the fittest.’ Cultures that can’t respond will just die as we see now.
- glitchc 4y agoUntil mid 20th century, the definition of a man was very clear. While there were changes to customs and fashions across generations, the foundational precepts of the man as a protector and provider, which had been established since prehistoric times, were always enshrined in all cultures. Society has since dismantled those foundational precepts, but crucially, has not offered up a replacement for them. Without a foundation, the rituals and customs become hollow. They either become a cargo cult for some or lose meaning for others. As such, the identity of what it means to be a man is now fragmenting. Many approaches have been proposed, none of the wrong in their way, and they all work for the ones proposing them. Yet none of them have been agreed upon as a commonly held definition of what makes a man. This is the crux of the problem. Please note I've phrased this explicitly around the definition of the male gender. The statements do not imply any qualities about, or imbue any attributes on, any of the other genders. Let's keep the discussion civil and focused on men.
- elil17 4y agoI think you're speaking too categorically. We do know that many matriarchal cultures exist and have existed (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matriarchy#History_and_distribution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matriarchy#History_and_distrib...). The degree to which these are truly matriarchal vs. simply egalitarian varies, but to say that male gender roles are historically universal universal is patently untrue. They are clearly culturally specific.
- glitchc 4y agoThat's a great point, but unfortunately a non-sequiter. In a matriarchy, men have less power in making decisions for the group, but are still responsible for protecting and providing. Putting it more plainly, even in a matriarchy, hunting, farming and fighting are activities predominantly relegated to men.
- elil17 4y agoI'm not sure I am going to articulate this in a way that is clear, but I think that hunting, farming, and fighting have a different cultural meaning in a patriarchal society vs. a matriarchal society. If the act of fighting is tied up with what it means to be a man, I think Englishman fighting and a Hopi man fighting can be said to be taking different actions for the purpose of what you are discussing. So even though Hopis and English people would say "men fight," they would still view that in a very different way/would not have the same definition of a man in their minds.
- loco5niner 4y agoBoys need a dad to show them how to be men. Popular entertainment (movies, music, social media) are giving boys the wrong messages.
- soco 4y agoWhat you are saying here is, boys need a dad to show them how to be men like their dads, which were told by their dads how to be men - thus to propagate the exact same models as thousand years ago. Assuming that the men of thousand years ago were "true", of course.
- loco5niner 4y agoWhen boys don't have a dad to show them the way, they get their direction from popular media, which didn't exist nearly to the extent it does today.
- randomdata 4y agoThe premise of the article is that there is something wrong with men today because they aren't living like men of the past. Within those confines, it very well may be that not having sufficient direct observation of men acting like men of the past is leading today's men to find their own path. Of course, more broadly, the universe doesn't have feelings and this new shape of man simply is what it is. There is no 'need'.
- notfromhere 4y agoIt’s showing they’re not living like men in the 50s, but I do w wonder how it compares to prior decades. The post war boom is a pretty unique environment
- thestinkywinky 4y ago[dead]
- shrimp_emoji 4y agoI never see this take expressed much; thanks. >What is strange is that more and more women actually do not like the equal trajectory of things to come. They want to live in a White Knight Syndrome Disney Fairy Tale where Mr Brawny the lumberjack takes care of all the shit they choose to not want to do. Sort of like reverse indentured servitude using emotion as currency. I've heard things that support this. We need men to be more expressive, so they can be emotionally functional and kill themselves less. But, the story goes, it turns out that people (especially women) don't really like it when men are more expressive and vulnerable, in practice. They do want a stoic rock that they can lean on. It's all so tiresome. I think we, as a species, just need to go post-human already and leave all this bullshit behind us.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- randomdata 4y ago> Men are increasingly dropping out of work during their prime working years Well, why wouldn't they? The historical social expectation of providing for the whole family is long gone. The amount of work required to sustain just one person is considerably lower than the amount of work required to sustain an entire family.
- kneebonian 4y agoNot to mention the rewards for doing so are much lesser. If you build a family and at some point your wife decides for whatever reason she no longer wants to be with you, whether that's having an affair, or just getting bored. You will have your children taken away, your wages garnished for the rest of your life, and everyone will always assume it's your fault. I guess at this point what reason do most young men have to invest in society?
- notfromhere 4y agoMen not wanting to start families because they can’t lock women into a marriage is quite a radical take.
- timellis-smith 4y agoI remember reading Malcom Gladwell describing how the time of year that you were born affected the chances of you ending up as a professional sportsmen. Yet schools never seem to take into account the different development rates of girls vs boys which massively advantages girls. Then combine it with a majority of female teachers who understand how girls learn much better; and further combine it with the relative decline of play and sports and the school becomes a very hostile place for boys very quickly. When the boy leaves the school and goes into the workplace and is confronted by all sorts of women in tech organisation but not men in tech (or the like) they immediately are made to feel that there is less space in the workplace for them. I would honestly hate to be a boy growing up today and am very glad I have a daughter rather than a son.
- inkcapmushroom 4y ago>When the boy leaves the school and goes into the workplace and is confronted by all sorts of women in tech organisation but not men in tech Even if there are more women in tech now than before, they are by no means outnumbering men, much less dominant in tech to where you can't find any men.
- recursivedoubts 4y ago> And all the time—such is the tragi-comedy of our situation—we continue to clamour for those very qualities we are rendering impossible. You can hardly open a periodical without coming across the statement that what our civilization needs is more ‘drive’, or dynamism, or self-sacrifice, or ‘creativity’. > In a sort of ghastly simplicity we remove the organ and demand the function. We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful. -- C.S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- laplan 4y agoMy current hypothesis is that although the average salary and living conditions for men and women are becoming more equal, individual conditions are still not equal. The issue is that we are not dealing with just two groups (men and women) as some may suggest, but rather three: underperforming men, overperforming men, and women. This theory makes sense mathematically and historically, and there is a lot of evidence to support it. The equalization of salaries is in the interest of the women's group, and even if the average is achieved, the overperforming men's group could still have better living conditions and higher salaries by colectively punishing underperforming men.
- dogleash 4y agoThe answer will not be known until it is too late to be useful. The trappings of status and qualification on the topic slows the introduction of new perspectives. Here's how: There are respected and established people who can investigate. They will start their investigations with the same pile of axioms that allowed a blind spot to grow into an issue in the first place. The alternate is challenging the status quo without pre-existing status to speak on the topic. Which makes it easy to shut down, or at least make sure they're ignored in the official channels.
- zozbot234 4y agoWhat's the matter with men today? Well, as a popular Internet meme puts it... Hard times make strong men, Strong men make good times, Good times make weak men, And weak men make hard times.