Embracing ignorance is a trait of masculinity? Ok. That's a plausible evaluation. The author links to a piece about how "it's harder to be a man than a woman",

Embracing ignorance is a trait of masculinity? Ok. That's a plausible evaluation. The author links to a piece about how "it's harder to be a man than a woman", which basically asserts (I'm generalizing liberally) that people are too weak to question social norms and are simply unwitting victims of what society teaches them. Perhaps what's discussed there can be applied to college enrollment. If the issue, which the author appears to suggest, is that men can't help but try to be and want to be what they're taught and told they should be, then that leads to wondering what can be done about it. But so long as these masculine insecure men lean right, perhaps at least in part due to their inability to see beyond us-versus-them, and so long as it's socially acceptable to be right leaning, with all the implied racism, sexism, xenophobia and so on that go with it, things won't change much. Growing up, I was staunchly anti-religion. Religions have done more to harm humankind than any other thing, yet we're taught to "respect" religion and religious beliefs, even when those religions support misogyny, war, slavery, pedophilia, et cetera. I saw through that and marveled at how hard it was for most other people to see through it. But now, in 2024, we (most of us) at least try to squelch our desire to punish the victims when they speak out, which is a start. Perhaps it's time to do the same for toxic masculinity and right-leaning tendencies. Perhaps it should be socially acceptable to call men out when they're being assholes, to lean in to what they derisively refer to as cancel culture. Perhaps right-leaning beliefs should wholesale be called out for encouragement of unacceptance, particularly and especially when using religions as justification, while at the same time wanting those same religious beliefs to be "respected" because they include some good. Frankly, I'm tired as hell at the same people who want to punish immigrants and poor people saying that they believe in following Jesus, as though Jesus would say, "sure, send those needy fuckers packing". It's not like men are nice and accepting when people toe the line. Let's lean in to being the assholes that "masculine" men already tell us we are.