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Hot take, I know, and sorry in advance. But I'll go so far as to say that what you're saying here is in part caused by technology, the internet and social media

Hot take, I know, and sorry in advance. But I'll go so far as to say that what you're saying here is in part caused by technology, the internet and social media. Most reasonable people, and reasonable feminists (which most feminists I've met are) do sympathise with men and their issues as well. I think social media amplifies the extreme minorities voices that state that they don't care about male problems, that men are incels and far-right terrorists and other unsavory takes. I don't think most people label males as such. But I do think social media is extremely good at bringing up these takes - because they create a lot of engagement (particularly from the opposing side). I think social media affects 30 year old males in the exact same way as teenage girls get body image problems from looking at "perfect" lives on Instagram. Men get served toxic and outrage based content that shows the extreme outliers - multiple times a week, for multiple years in a row. I think most people are reasonable. I think most people care about male problems. I think a minority label men as incels or terrorists. I think the internet exaggerates this position greatly, and it's at least partly overblown.

revelio 3y ago
Reasonableness is hard to determine ahead of time, or even to define. Here's something I've seen happen. A couple of women in a corporate Slack channel says, hey CEO, what are you going to do to celebrate International Women's Day? Some dudes respond and say, cool, good idea but if we do something for that can we also celebrate International Men's Day? The women reply with angry face and eyeroll emojis before saying: no we should not, because "every day is international men's day". This is the type of casual misandry and anti-male sentiment that is an everyday experience when dealing with feminists. Were these women the "reasonable" type? They weren't literally tweeting #KillAllMen but when it came to the crunch they wanted special privileges for women and justified this sexism with shallow, untrue meme-based kneejerks. So the OPs point is accurate. Nobody cares about men being depressed or angry, especially not in government, academia or the media. Phrase it in terms of teen girls and the floodgates of tax money open. Let that affect strategy or don't, but that's how it is.
- kmarc 3y ago
  this is the hardest of all. When it comes to men's day, indeed all day is celebration of 20% higher salaries that men receive in average. OTOH, introducing men's day sounds fair as then everyone is treated equally (in this aspect) I really don't know which side of this particular debate we should support more. What I'm sure is that the topic is more delicate and complicated than having a one-sentence answer to it.
  - revelio 3y ago
    See, this is exactly what we're talking about. Firstly, every day is clearly not a celebration of men. This is exactly the same lie that the feminists pushed in the Slack channel. A "celebration" has lots of very specific aspects to it, for example they wanted the company doing public announcements, praising female employees (for existing, more or less), talking about how important it is to hire more women and so on. Secondly, men don't receive higher salaries when controlling for the work done and age. When you control for those things women now earn higher salaries, reflecting feminist biases in hiring. This insistence that work and motherhood should be ignored is also a feminist meme that's been repeatedly debunked since the 1980s. It never goes away because if feminists were to accept this, they'd have to also concede that different choices lead to different outcomes, that men and women make different choices, and therefore that disparate outcomes is not oppression. And that would undermine the whole premise of feminist ideology. So feminists can never be honest about salaries, if they were, they'd no longer be feminists.
  - whstl 3y ago
    There is a "Men's day" where I live and it's not really controversial at all among the vast majority. In fact, it's a very practical holiday that encourages male bonding and keeping long-term friendships, something lacking these days, so it's not just symbolic. Other initiatives such as November 19 and Movember also have a lot of practical stuff, related to health. I really don't see what's the controversy.
- dotandgtfo 3y ago
  Not celebrating international mens day isn't a problem (although I bet some may disagree with me). It's kind of a political take in the same vein as "Black Lives Matter" vs. the counter "White Lives Matter". Jumping into these "reactionary" mens rights positions as a counter to feminist issues is the wrong way to do it and understandably makes people a bit angry. Just as in if real life someone is telling you about an issue - countering with a "buuut, group Y has it bad too..." would probably make someone double take a bit. It's unproductive, but normal on social media because it's engaging and creates a hot comment section. In my opinion some major male problems are related to: * Mental health, suicide and the lack of services and support for men. * How the education system works better for females than males. * How platonic relationships with males have been systemetically decreasing. * How in rural societies women are more likely to move to the cities and get an education leading to men having way less romantic options. If you bring these topics up with women they'll probably sympathise and maybe also agree that these are issues that our society should be assisting with solving. How it should be "solved" may be up for debate. But framing it as a counter position to the feminist movement isn't the right way to do it. But very normalised online, which feeds into my point of the internet exaggerating issues as most debates you see online is controversial by design of the algorithms and content creators trying to get engagement. Disclaimer: I'm from Norway, which gives some context. But I think these issues are pretty common across the westernized world.

revelio 3y ago

Reasonableness is hard to determine ahead of time, or even to define. Here's something I've seen happen. A couple of women in a corporate Slack channel says, hey CEO, what are you going to do to celebrate International Women's Day? Some dudes respond and say, cool, good idea but if we do something for that can we also celebrate International Men's Day? The women reply with angry face and eyeroll emojis before saying: no we should not, because "every day is international men's day". This is the type of casual misandry and anti-male sentiment that is an everyday experience when dealing with feminists. Were these women the "reasonable" type? They weren't literally tweeting #KillAllMen but when it came to the crunch they wanted special privileges for women and justified this sexism with shallow, untrue meme-based kneejerks. So the OPs point is accurate. Nobody cares about men being depressed or angry, especially not in government, academia or the media. Phrase it in terms of teen girls and the floodgates of tax money open. Let that affect strategy or don't, but that's how it is.

kmarc 3y ago
this is the hardest of all. When it comes to men's day, indeed all day is celebration of 20% higher salaries that men receive in average. OTOH, introducing men's day sounds fair as then everyone is treated equally (in this aspect) I really don't know which side of this particular debate we should support more. What I'm sure is that the topic is more delicate and complicated than having a one-sentence answer to it.
- revelio 3y ago
  See, this is exactly what we're talking about. Firstly, every day is clearly not a celebration of men. This is exactly the same lie that the feminists pushed in the Slack channel. A "celebration" has lots of very specific aspects to it, for example they wanted the company doing public announcements, praising female employees (for existing, more or less), talking about how important it is to hire more women and so on. Secondly, men don't receive higher salaries when controlling for the work done and age. When you control for those things women now earn higher salaries, reflecting feminist biases in hiring. This insistence that work and motherhood should be ignored is also a feminist meme that's been repeatedly debunked since the 1980s. It never goes away because if feminists were to accept this, they'd have to also concede that different choices lead to different outcomes, that men and women make different choices, and therefore that disparate outcomes is not oppression. And that would undermine the whole premise of feminist ideology. So feminists can never be honest about salaries, if they were, they'd no longer be feminists.
- whstl 3y ago
  There is a "Men's day" where I live and it's not really controversial at all among the vast majority. In fact, it's a very practical holiday that encourages male bonding and keeping long-term friendships, something lacking these days, so it's not just symbolic. Other initiatives such as November 19 and Movember also have a lot of practical stuff, related to health. I really don't see what's the controversy.
dotandgtfo 3y ago
Not celebrating international mens day isn't a problem (although I bet some may disagree with me). It's kind of a political take in the same vein as "Black Lives Matter" vs. the counter "White Lives Matter". Jumping into these "reactionary" mens rights positions as a counter to feminist issues is the wrong way to do it and understandably makes people a bit angry. Just as in if real life someone is telling you about an issue - countering with a "buuut, group Y has it bad too..." would probably make someone double take a bit. It's unproductive, but normal on social media because it's engaging and creates a hot comment section. In my opinion some major male problems are related to: * Mental health, suicide and the lack of services and support for men. * How the education system works better for females than males. * How platonic relationships with males have been systemetically decreasing. * How in rural societies women are more likely to move to the cities and get an education leading to men having way less romantic options. If you bring these topics up with women they'll probably sympathise and maybe also agree that these are issues that our society should be assisting with solving. How it should be "solved" may be up for debate. But framing it as a counter position to the feminist movement isn't the right way to do it. But very normalised online, which feeds into my point of the internet exaggerating issues as most debates you see online is controversial by design of the algorithms and content creators trying to get engagement. Disclaimer: I'm from Norway, which gives some context. But I think these issues are pretty common across the westernized world.