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This comment will probably be lost but hey maybe someone will read it: We inherited a world where for many generations, men were hostile to women. It was unfai

This comment will probably be lost but hey maybe someone will read it: We inherited a world where for many generations, men were hostile to women. It was unfair and needed rectifying. But increasingly, we fixed it by normalizing hostility to men. Overemphasis on "toxic masculinity", hyper focus on promoting outcomes for girls while doing nothing of the sort for boys. Plenty of various "Women in X" supporting each other, but try to sed s/women/men/ and you're a toxic macho. I think the outcome is unsurprising. Just to be clear, a lot of the initiatives for promoting women's success are good and necessary. But to me the emphasis should have been on promoting equality, not bashing men for the benefit of women.

dumdumchan 3y ago
[flagged]
boringuser2 3y ago
[flagged]
- rich_sasha 3y ago
  Well, this I think is hard to argue against. Historically, women had much fewer options in life. Basically, marry someone they don't pick, give them babies and look after the house. Poorer women had to work super hard, wealthier women less so, but were subordinate to the husbands whims, physically if nothing else. Where voting was a thing, they couldn't vote. They were often not in control of their finances. They were cut off from education, office, "manly" hobbies. Then a very real glass ceiling - certainly a thing in 20th century. This is focusing on the negatives of course but it would be hard to argue they had equal rights.
  - listless 3y ago
    Historically yes, but that was quite a while ago - none of that has been the case for quite a while. The real push against men started maybe ~10 years ago? Or at least that’s when I noticed women I worked with being openly hostile to “men” online. Said to say, they have had equal rights for a while now, but the rhetoric keeps amping up anyway.
  - boringuser2 3y ago
    You are suborning your current values to an historical assessment. Did medieval peasants have "freedom"? Did they care? Men had short, brutal lives historically. Women were highly valuable. I think part of the problem of modernity is that men have to adjust to not having short, brutal lives. Lots get left behind. Humans still have the cognitive machinery to assign more value to women than men. Fundamental differences in reproductive output (i.e. men are "disposable" in a reproductive sense) make this immutable, even outside of millions of years of psychological evolution.
  - jlawson 3y ago
    The original comment said, "hostile" to women. What you're describing isn't being 'hostile', otherwise one would have to say society is 'hostile' to children or old people. The goal posts have moved to 'equal rights'. But of course by that measure nobody had equal rights. A man couldn't do things that were just for women, and vice versa. The argument you need to make is that women had it worse overall than men at the time. (Not worse than women now, or worse than men now.) This is not obvious, given the brutal ways men lived and died in those eras. Being disallowed from e.g. fighting in a war doesn't sound so bad when fighting in a war means getting conscripted to be stabbed to death on a muddy field. Being disallowed from industry jobs doesn't sound so bad when industry jobs means choking to death on coal dust to earn enough food to eat for yourself and family. History was brutal for everyone.
    - benlivengood 3y ago
      I think there's ample reason for 'not equal rights' to be treated as hostility. The biggest reason is direct or implied hostile opposition to obtaining equality. There was significant rejection by men for centuries of suffrage and other equal rights for women; this is hostility toward women's historical desires and wishes to be treated as equals. Where it might be argued that individual men were only following cultural, religious, or other beliefs in denying equality to women then those cultures, religions, and other forces were hostile to women and their interests.
      - boringuser2 3y ago
        This is a, for lack of better terminology, a disgustingly bourgeoise view. You must step outside yourself if you want to CURIOUSLY interrogate history.
- escapedmoose 3y ago
  Historically, women have been barred from pursuing education, from voting, from making their own medical decisions, from holding political/academic/religious/scientific positions of power, from controlling their own finances, and from participating in the majority of careers, among many many other examples. Lack of access to these things necessarily constrains one’s autonomy. And some of these restrictions persist even today, to varying degrees in different parts of the world.
  - globular-toast 3y ago
    [flagged]
    - brailsafe 3y ago
      https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypatia https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypatia
    - escapedmoose 3y ago
      There’s a lot to unpack here, but just to touch on a few issues with this premise: 1) If men were simply trying to protect women from unpleasantness, there would be no need to ban women from additive things like education, property ownership, spiritual leadership, medical autonomy, etc. 2) Women have been performing difficult, uncomfortable work (think agriculture and factories) alongside men this whole time; the occupations women were prevented to hold tended to be the cushier ones in law, fine art, medicine, engineering, finance, etc. 3. Based on demographic voting patterns, the effects of democracy that you seem to dislike are more significantly attributed to men. 4. When men “don’t include” women in a realm in the ways you’ve described, the best case scenario is that women have no legal recourse when they’re denied entry to it (like when women were turned away from college entrance or bank account ownership). In worse scenarios, the consequence could be imprisonment. 5. To act as an autonomous, self-directed, free person is nigh impossible without access to education, property ownership, self-governance, and personal financial resources. Try to imagine how many life decisions would be unavailable to you without these basic rights. To broaden your worldview, I would recommend picking a topic that interests you historically and digging into the history of women’s relationship to it. You might be surprised by some of the nonsensical ways in which women have been prevented from participating in the most fulfilling realms of human experience.
prepend 3y ago
I have a similar sentiment. I remember growing up with jocks and bullies and really not identifying with the whole “group showers and snapping towels at asses” masculinity not pleasant and spent a lot of time getting beaten up or avoiding being beaten up. So at first I liked the pushback against toxic masculinity as I didn’t like jerk men. But then the concept expanded to everything. “Mansplaining” isn’t something unique to men, but it’s ok to point out “mansplaining” but not non-men explaining stuff. “Manspreading” is used quite a bit, but there’s a reason why men sit with their legs open so there’s a polite about of space that’s ok for comfort. Etc etc. I hope this is overcompensating for a long time of jerks being jerks but I fear that the bullying resulting from “strength = power” and jocks has now changed to “money = power” and people other than jocks have power. I go to an esports bar quite a bit and an esports team was there. And they were totally bullying people and it was weird because it was multiple genders and races being total jerks to people. But the bully’s were strong, tall, handsome jocks. They were esports-types. So the jerk dynamic was still there. I don’t think it’s progress if we end up with the same number of “toxic” jerks.
- commandlinefan 3y ago
  > not identifying with the whole “group showers and snapping towels at asses” masculinity Me, neither. And, in fact, I've never met anybody who did. Have you ever noticed how many of the movies we grew up watching were about a "shy, sensitive boy" who "wasn't like the jocks" who ended up getting the girl in the end? Ever notice how that trope appealed to almost everybody? That's because that's how everybody remembers their teenage years, too - even the guys who actually were on the football team taking group showers.
  - jncfhnb 3y ago
    The high school jocks in the showers is a generational thing as well as a regional thing. It may not match your experience, but it is/was real. Your belief that everybody felt like the shy sensitive kid is wildly out of touch.
  - isk517 3y ago
    When remembering my past I also try to remember that there were times that I was the villain of somebody else story. One of the reasons why there are always 'jerks' and 'bullies' is because most jerks and bullies don't view themselves as such.
bigie35 3y ago
I dont have data to support this, but I can't help but feel that increasingly America has a habit of "pendulum" swinging around societal issues. That is, we severely overcorrect (often time a little too late) that also has the nasty effect of leading to unintended casualties. On equality, I find it highly disturbing the current policies have amounted to a zero sum game.
- Jommi 3y ago
  This is probably just a human nature thing more than America
WarOnPrivacy 3y ago
> We inherited a world where for many generations, men were hostile to women. It was unfair and needed rectifying. > hyper focus on promoting outcomes for girls while doing nothing of the sort for boys. I feel this bit of your context inspires some really useful analysis. My perspective is that we have finished the easy part, having made progress on the most obvious harms. The work that remains is dealing with more deeply embedded issues - and that they are far more subtle and complex. We can see evidence of those issues manifested, when and where there is hostility toward women and for our systems that effectively safeguard them from historical risks. And as ever, the group with the best insight to puzzle out how to proceed is the group that suffered. I believe this is true, even if they're still working it out (because it is immensely complicated). They will work it out, if we give them enough room and trust to do so. As far there is an imbalance in fulfilling the needs of children, the most worthwhile solutions should be ones that are loving, inclusive and sow a unanimity that uplifts everyone toward their individual potentials. If girls are in a better place, then bringing boys into into that place seems like what we should try next.
commandlinefan 3y ago
> men were hostile to women Were they really though? I mean, yes there always were and always will be some abusive men, but men _as a group_ have been more associated with protecting and caring for women than being hostile to them. Until very recently in human history, women actually couldn't physically survive without men - it's only been in the past few generations that the nature of work has changed to where women could actually perform it.
- KptMarchewa 3y ago
  > I mean, yes there always were and always will be some abusive men, but men _as a group_ have been more associated with protecting and caring for women than being hostile to them. As much a slaveowner has been "protecting and caring" for his slaves.
  - swagasaurus-rex 3y ago
    You could easily equate that statement to a “mother protecting and caring for her children” It’s pretty trite and meaningless to boil every dependent relationship into one of slavery. In the past, most women had to pick between marriage with an established man so she can have many kids starting young, versus working for herself and having no or few kids. It’s no surprise many women chose marriage.
    - jfengel 3y ago
      Comparing it to children is not better. If anything, it's worse. Women are not children. They don't want to be protected, especially when they've chosen not to be. Women don't want to lose agency in the name of being cared for. Children don't have that option, because they're not adults. Adult women want to be treated as adults, and very much resent the implication that they need protection. Especially when that comes with losing control over their own bodies.
      - swagasaurus-rex 3y ago
        As an adult you should understand the financial realities of a stay at home parent. If the breadwinner (man or woman) needs to make enough to support the kids and family. If they don't, the marriage and kids suffer. The stay at home parent (man or woman) also has duties to the kids and family and home. Otherwise the kids suffer. If either party wants to divorce for any reason, the kids suffer. That's the reality of parenthood. Protection is antiquated but it's foolhardy to think a healthy man would suppress his instinct to protect his pregnant wife. You're right though women don't need protecting all the time.
space_fountain 3y ago
Imo I think this comment would have had more weight behind it for me before recent political events and before Roe vs Wade was overturned. I don’t believe in easy answers and I don’t claim to be able to experience life from the other gender, but cat calling is still common in the US. Women still get payed significantly less than men. Women still have much higher risks of sexual assault. We just decided to roll back constitutional protections for abortion something that imo is critical for women’s ability to exist as equal citizens. I don’t think we’ve pendulum swung somehow past equality. Obviously something has gone wrong for men in the US. Stats around education, depression, and suicide make that hard to dispute, but it remained the fact that a boy born today can expect to have more power than his sister. I do think this can be true while there can also be elements of society that push the other way. Culture is made up of many micro cultures and the kid born in SF will have a different experience than the one born in Mississippi, but we do have bigger issues than people on the internet making fun of mansplaining or something. It’s just too easy to have one’s perception of reality distorted by your perception.
- haswell 3y ago
  This is not a zero sum game. We can acknowledge that there has been regression or no change in some areas without any bearing on the negative outcomes of over corrective attitudes towards men. Food for thought: the types of men who are likely to rely on macho masculinity and the abuse of power dynamics are the least likely to be phased by an undercurrent of anti-male sentiment. Sensitive men, the men who are not propagating these patterns are the men who take such sentiment seriously, and are more likely to be harmed/held back by it. The issue is not “men”. The issue is bad behavior. But as long as the framing is men vs. women, people who are not exhibiting the targeted behavior get caught up in the broader backlash, leading to a very hostile situation that does little to address the real issues in a sustainable way. It may be that the pendulum swing was necessary for a time, and indeed there have been times in our history where this was obvious, e.g. the women’s suffrage movement. And there are still clear wage gaps and the issue of bodily autonomy among others that remain critical to solve. But those can be addressed without perpetuating a culture that demonizes boys for being born male. This is a shift in thinking that we must make.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
lapcat 3y ago
> But increasingly, we fixed it by normalizing hostility to men. Overemphasis on "toxic masculinity" "Toxic masculinity" is self-criticism. We men are harming ourselves, and the article discusses this. For example, "Fathers are also more likely to sing to and soothe their toddler daughters at night when they cry." Both girls and boys have emotional needs, but we're ignoring the emotional needs of boys. We expect boys to be "manly" and "strong", to bottle up any problems and never show weakness. That's toxic masculinity. Toxic to ourselves.
- teddyh 3y ago
  That is true, and the term could reasonably be interpreted that way, but it’s often a motte-and-bailey tactic. When the term is criticized, your definition is waved, forming an easily defensible motte. But in casual use, the term is very commonly used in its most obvious meaning, i.e. “men are toxic” (forming the bailey).
  - lapcat 3y ago
    I don't think there's One True Definition of "toxic masculinity", and of course different people sometimes use it in different ways. However, I do think that defensiveness is the wrong response to the linked article, which clearly explains how men's own attitudes toward masculinity are harming young boys by ignoring their emotional needs. It's not about "bashing" men, it's about helping boys, who are in obvious need of help. I'm not seeing the level of self-reflection that the article ought to stimulate. "Criticism", for lack of a better term (maybe critical reflection?), is necessary for progress. If any criticism is interpreted as "bashing" and a defensive refusal to self-correct, then no improvement or progress will ever be possible.
    - teddyh 3y ago
      The comment about “bashing men” (not by me) was obviously not referring to the article, but to society at large.
      - 3y ago
za3faran 3y ago
> We inherited a world where for many generations, men were hostile to women. It was unfair and needed rectifying. Perhaps in an American/European centric view of the world. I would heavily challenge/reject that assumption across the globe.
- manvillej 3y ago
  Universally? No one can say that, but at large, men have been hostile to women in most cultures including most of the modern non-western societies: China, India, Korea, Japan, Middle East, South & Central America, Russia, etc. There are exceptions, but to pretend that they are relevant to current public health crisis is a red herring at best.
  - za3faran 3y ago
    As a Middle Easterner, we reject that notion.
    - anon-3988 3y ago
      How is middle-eastern not hostile to women? Can you share this perspective? AFAIK women don't even have the right to show their skin in most of middle-east.
      - za3faran 3y ago
        We don't see showing skin as a right, and that applies to both men or women, with respective differences of course. We're a conservative traditional society. We're well aware that our values don't align with the liberal and secular views, and we reject the labels they use on us. Reducing a complex topic to just showing skin or a few points that are always repeated blindly up by the adversary is overly simplistic, and frankly, naive. The picture they try to paint is that our countries are somehow completely oppressing women, making their lives miserable and unhappy, and that they are treated as cattle or something. All that is absolute nonsense.
mrguyorama 3y ago
>But increasingly, we fixed it by normalizing hostility to men What evidence do you have of this? All my friends who want healthy views of women consider me a valid human being, deserving of respect and care, even though I have a penis. Sure, lots of young men are glomming onto this absurd train of hatred, that women or "femoids" actually naturally enjoy rape and other horseshit, but they are being told this stuff by adult men, who clearly and overtly do not consider women to be equals, or deserving of anything but nonconsensual sex. How the hell do you blame the toxic masculinity problem, caused by assholes like Jordan Peterson, Andrew tate, Nick Fuentes, "Fresh and fit podcast" etc, on women asking to be treated like people. It is not women driving the hatred against women, it is morally bankrupt individuals quite literally profiting off boys who were never told that they shouldn't be trying to pressure their girlfriend into sex, or kids who have no idea how to treat women being told "here's a simple mental model" that surely explains all their problems, they just have to be fit enough or attractive enough and then they will get the sex they "deserve". Meanwhile, all these "Manosphere" influencers seem to be really against anyone being gay, or anyone being trans, and also for some reason are great friends with actual neo-nazis, and I don't remember those people being very pro-women's rights.

dumdumchan 3y ago

[flagged]

boringuser2 3y ago

[flagged]

rich_sasha 3y ago
Well, this I think is hard to argue against. Historically, women had much fewer options in life. Basically, marry someone they don't pick, give them babies and look after the house. Poorer women had to work super hard, wealthier women less so, but were subordinate to the husbands whims, physically if nothing else. Where voting was a thing, they couldn't vote. They were often not in control of their finances. They were cut off from education, office, "manly" hobbies. Then a very real glass ceiling - certainly a thing in 20th century. This is focusing on the negatives of course but it would be hard to argue they had equal rights.
- listless 3y ago
  Historically yes, but that was quite a while ago - none of that has been the case for quite a while. The real push against men started maybe ~10 years ago? Or at least that’s when I noticed women I worked with being openly hostile to “men” online. Said to say, they have had equal rights for a while now, but the rhetoric keeps amping up anyway.
- boringuser2 3y ago
  You are suborning your current values to an historical assessment. Did medieval peasants have "freedom"? Did they care? Men had short, brutal lives historically. Women were highly valuable. I think part of the problem of modernity is that men have to adjust to not having short, brutal lives. Lots get left behind. Humans still have the cognitive machinery to assign more value to women than men. Fundamental differences in reproductive output (i.e. men are "disposable" in a reproductive sense) make this immutable, even outside of millions of years of psychological evolution.
- jlawson 3y ago
  The original comment said, "hostile" to women. What you're describing isn't being 'hostile', otherwise one would have to say society is 'hostile' to children or old people. The goal posts have moved to 'equal rights'. But of course by that measure nobody had equal rights. A man couldn't do things that were just for women, and vice versa. The argument you need to make is that women had it worse overall than men at the time. (Not worse than women now, or worse than men now.) This is not obvious, given the brutal ways men lived and died in those eras. Being disallowed from e.g. fighting in a war doesn't sound so bad when fighting in a war means getting conscripted to be stabbed to death on a muddy field. Being disallowed from industry jobs doesn't sound so bad when industry jobs means choking to death on coal dust to earn enough food to eat for yourself and family. History was brutal for everyone.
  - benlivengood 3y ago
    I think there's ample reason for 'not equal rights' to be treated as hostility. The biggest reason is direct or implied hostile opposition to obtaining equality. There was significant rejection by men for centuries of suffrage and other equal rights for women; this is hostility toward women's historical desires and wishes to be treated as equals. Where it might be argued that individual men were only following cultural, religious, or other beliefs in denying equality to women then those cultures, religions, and other forces were hostile to women and their interests.
    - boringuser2 3y ago
      This is a, for lack of better terminology, a disgustingly bourgeoise view. You must step outside yourself if you want to CURIOUSLY interrogate history.
escapedmoose 3y ago
Historically, women have been barred from pursuing education, from voting, from making their own medical decisions, from holding political/academic/religious/scientific positions of power, from controlling their own finances, and from participating in the majority of careers, among many many other examples. Lack of access to these things necessarily constrains one’s autonomy. And some of these restrictions persist even today, to varying degrees in different parts of the world.
- globular-toast 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - brailsafe 3y ago
    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypatia https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypatia
  - escapedmoose 3y ago
    There’s a lot to unpack here, but just to touch on a few issues with this premise: 1) If men were simply trying to protect women from unpleasantness, there would be no need to ban women from additive things like education, property ownership, spiritual leadership, medical autonomy, etc. 2) Women have been performing difficult, uncomfortable work (think agriculture and factories) alongside men this whole time; the occupations women were prevented to hold tended to be the cushier ones in law, fine art, medicine, engineering, finance, etc. 3. Based on demographic voting patterns, the effects of democracy that you seem to dislike are more significantly attributed to men. 4. When men “don’t include” women in a realm in the ways you’ve described, the best case scenario is that women have no legal recourse when they’re denied entry to it (like when women were turned away from college entrance or bank account ownership). In worse scenarios, the consequence could be imprisonment. 5. To act as an autonomous, self-directed, free person is nigh impossible without access to education, property ownership, self-governance, and personal financial resources. Try to imagine how many life decisions would be unavailable to you without these basic rights. To broaden your worldview, I would recommend picking a topic that interests you historically and digging into the history of women’s relationship to it. You might be surprised by some of the nonsensical ways in which women have been prevented from participating in the most fulfilling realms of human experience.

prepend 3y ago

I have a similar sentiment. I remember growing up with jocks and bullies and really not identifying with the whole “group showers and snapping towels at asses” masculinity not pleasant and spent a lot of time getting beaten up or avoiding being beaten up. So at first I liked the pushback against toxic masculinity as I didn’t like jerk men. But then the concept expanded to everything. “Mansplaining” isn’t something unique to men, but it’s ok to point out “mansplaining” but not non-men explaining stuff. “Manspreading” is used quite a bit, but there’s a reason why men sit with their legs open so there’s a polite about of space that’s ok for comfort. Etc etc. I hope this is overcompensating for a long time of jerks being jerks but I fear that the bullying resulting from “strength = power” and jocks has now changed to “money = power” and people other than jocks have power. I go to an esports bar quite a bit and an esports team was there. And they were totally bullying people and it was weird because it was multiple genders and races being total jerks to people. But the bully’s were strong, tall, handsome jocks. They were esports-types. So the jerk dynamic was still there. I don’t think it’s progress if we end up with the same number of “toxic” jerks.

commandlinefan 3y ago
> not identifying with the whole “group showers and snapping towels at asses” masculinity Me, neither. And, in fact, I've never met anybody who did. Have you ever noticed how many of the movies we grew up watching were about a "shy, sensitive boy" who "wasn't like the jocks" who ended up getting the girl in the end? Ever notice how that trope appealed to almost everybody? That's because that's how everybody remembers their teenage years, too - even the guys who actually were on the football team taking group showers.
- jncfhnb 3y ago
  The high school jocks in the showers is a generational thing as well as a regional thing. It may not match your experience, but it is/was real. Your belief that everybody felt like the shy sensitive kid is wildly out of touch.
- isk517 3y ago
  When remembering my past I also try to remember that there were times that I was the villain of somebody else story. One of the reasons why there are always 'jerks' and 'bullies' is because most jerks and bullies don't view themselves as such.

bigie35 3y ago

I dont have data to support this, but I can't help but feel that increasingly America has a habit of "pendulum" swinging around societal issues. That is, we severely overcorrect (often time a little too late) that also has the nasty effect of leading to unintended casualties. On equality, I find it highly disturbing the current policies have amounted to a zero sum game.

Jommi 3y ago
This is probably just a human nature thing more than America

WarOnPrivacy 3y ago

> We inherited a world where for many generations, men were hostile to women. It was unfair and needed rectifying. > hyper focus on promoting outcomes for girls while doing nothing of the sort for boys. I feel this bit of your context inspires some really useful analysis. My perspective is that we have finished the easy part, having made progress on the most obvious harms. The work that remains is dealing with more deeply embedded issues - and that they are far more subtle and complex. We can see evidence of those issues manifested, when and where there is hostility toward women and for our systems that effectively safeguard them from historical risks. And as ever, the group with the best insight to puzzle out how to proceed is the group that suffered. I believe this is true, even if they're still working it out (because it is immensely complicated). They will work it out, if we give them enough room and trust to do so. As far there is an imbalance in fulfilling the needs of children, the most worthwhile solutions should be ones that are loving, inclusive and sow a unanimity that uplifts everyone toward their individual potentials. If girls are in a better place, then bringing boys into into that place seems like what we should try next.

commandlinefan 3y ago

> men were hostile to women Were they really though? I mean, yes there always were and always will be some abusive men, but men _as a group_ have been more associated with protecting and caring for women than being hostile to them. Until very recently in human history, women actually couldn't physically survive without men - it's only been in the past few generations that the nature of work has changed to where women could actually perform it.

KptMarchewa 3y ago
> I mean, yes there always were and always will be some abusive men, but men _as a group_ have been more associated with protecting and caring for women than being hostile to them. As much a slaveowner has been "protecting and caring" for his slaves.
- swagasaurus-rex 3y ago
  You could easily equate that statement to a “mother protecting and caring for her children” It’s pretty trite and meaningless to boil every dependent relationship into one of slavery. In the past, most women had to pick between marriage with an established man so she can have many kids starting young, versus working for herself and having no or few kids. It’s no surprise many women chose marriage.
  - jfengel 3y ago
    Comparing it to children is not better. If anything, it's worse. Women are not children. They don't want to be protected, especially when they've chosen not to be. Women don't want to lose agency in the name of being cared for. Children don't have that option, because they're not adults. Adult women want to be treated as adults, and very much resent the implication that they need protection. Especially when that comes with losing control over their own bodies.
    - swagasaurus-rex 3y ago
      As an adult you should understand the financial realities of a stay at home parent. If the breadwinner (man or woman) needs to make enough to support the kids and family. If they don't, the marriage and kids suffer. The stay at home parent (man or woman) also has duties to the kids and family and home. Otherwise the kids suffer. If either party wants to divorce for any reason, the kids suffer. That's the reality of parenthood. Protection is antiquated but it's foolhardy to think a healthy man would suppress his instinct to protect his pregnant wife. You're right though women don't need protecting all the time.

space_fountain 3y ago

Imo I think this comment would have had more weight behind it for me before recent political events and before Roe vs Wade was overturned. I don’t believe in easy answers and I don’t claim to be able to experience life from the other gender, but cat calling is still common in the US. Women still get payed significantly less than men. Women still have much higher risks of sexual assault. We just decided to roll back constitutional protections for abortion something that imo is critical for women’s ability to exist as equal citizens. I don’t think we’ve pendulum swung somehow past equality. Obviously something has gone wrong for men in the US. Stats around education, depression, and suicide make that hard to dispute, but it remained the fact that a boy born today can expect to have more power than his sister. I do think this can be true while there can also be elements of society that push the other way. Culture is made up of many micro cultures and the kid born in SF will have a different experience than the one born in Mississippi, but we do have bigger issues than people on the internet making fun of mansplaining or something. It’s just too easy to have one’s perception of reality distorted by your perception.

haswell 3y ago
This is not a zero sum game. We can acknowledge that there has been regression or no change in some areas without any bearing on the negative outcomes of over corrective attitudes towards men. Food for thought: the types of men who are likely to rely on macho masculinity and the abuse of power dynamics are the least likely to be phased by an undercurrent of anti-male sentiment. Sensitive men, the men who are not propagating these patterns are the men who take such sentiment seriously, and are more likely to be harmed/held back by it. The issue is not “men”. The issue is bad behavior. But as long as the framing is men vs. women, people who are not exhibiting the targeted behavior get caught up in the broader backlash, leading to a very hostile situation that does little to address the real issues in a sustainable way. It may be that the pendulum swing was necessary for a time, and indeed there have been times in our history where this was obvious, e.g. the women’s suffrage movement. And there are still clear wage gaps and the issue of bodily autonomy among others that remain critical to solve. But those can be addressed without perpetuating a culture that demonizes boys for being born male. This is a shift in thinking that we must make.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

lapcat 3y ago

> But increasingly, we fixed it by normalizing hostility to men. Overemphasis on "toxic masculinity" "Toxic masculinity" is self-criticism. We men are harming ourselves, and the article discusses this. For example, "Fathers are also more likely to sing to and soothe their toddler daughters at night when they cry." Both girls and boys have emotional needs, but we're ignoring the emotional needs of boys. We expect boys to be "manly" and "strong", to bottle up any problems and never show weakness. That's toxic masculinity. Toxic to ourselves.

teddyh 3y ago
That is true, and the term could reasonably be interpreted that way, but it’s often a motte-and-bailey tactic. When the term is criticized, your definition is waved, forming an easily defensible motte. But in casual use, the term is very commonly used in its most obvious meaning, i.e. “men are toxic” (forming the bailey).
- lapcat 3y ago
  I don't think there's One True Definition of "toxic masculinity", and of course different people sometimes use it in different ways. However, I do think that defensiveness is the wrong response to the linked article, which clearly explains how men's own attitudes toward masculinity are harming young boys by ignoring their emotional needs. It's not about "bashing" men, it's about helping boys, who are in obvious need of help. I'm not seeing the level of self-reflection that the article ought to stimulate. "Criticism", for lack of a better term (maybe critical reflection?), is necessary for progress. If any criticism is interpreted as "bashing" and a defensive refusal to self-correct, then no improvement or progress will ever be possible.
  - teddyh 3y ago
    The comment about “bashing men” (not by me) was obviously not referring to the article, but to society at large.
    - 3y ago

za3faran 3y ago

> We inherited a world where for many generations, men were hostile to women. It was unfair and needed rectifying. Perhaps in an American/European centric view of the world. I would heavily challenge/reject that assumption across the globe.

manvillej 3y ago
Universally? No one can say that, but at large, men have been hostile to women in most cultures including most of the modern non-western societies: China, India, Korea, Japan, Middle East, South & Central America, Russia, etc. There are exceptions, but to pretend that they are relevant to current public health crisis is a red herring at best.
- za3faran 3y ago
  As a Middle Easterner, we reject that notion.
  - anon-3988 3y ago
    How is middle-eastern not hostile to women? Can you share this perspective? AFAIK women don't even have the right to show their skin in most of middle-east.
    - za3faran 3y ago
      We don't see showing skin as a right, and that applies to both men or women, with respective differences of course. We're a conservative traditional society. We're well aware that our values don't align with the liberal and secular views, and we reject the labels they use on us. Reducing a complex topic to just showing skin or a few points that are always repeated blindly up by the adversary is overly simplistic, and frankly, naive. The picture they try to paint is that our countries are somehow completely oppressing women, making their lives miserable and unhappy, and that they are treated as cattle or something. All that is absolute nonsense.

mrguyorama 3y ago

>But increasingly, we fixed it by normalizing hostility to men What evidence do you have of this? All my friends who want healthy views of women consider me a valid human being, deserving of respect and care, even though I have a penis. Sure, lots of young men are glomming onto this absurd train of hatred, that women or "femoids" actually naturally enjoy rape and other horseshit, but they are being told this stuff by adult men, who clearly and overtly do not consider women to be equals, or deserving of anything but nonconsensual sex. How the hell do you blame the toxic masculinity problem, caused by assholes like Jordan Peterson, Andrew tate, Nick Fuentes, "Fresh and fit podcast" etc, on women asking to be treated like people. It is not women driving the hatred against women, it is morally bankrupt individuals quite literally profiting off boys who were never told that they shouldn't be trying to pressure their girlfriend into sex, or kids who have no idea how to treat women being told "here's a simple mental model" that surely explains all their problems, they just have to be fit enough or attractive enough and then they will get the sex they "deserve". Meanwhile, all these "Manosphere" influencers seem to be really against anyone being gay, or anyone being trans, and also for some reason are great friends with actual neo-nazis, and I don't remember those people being very pro-women's rights.