5 ms·

One of the saddest things I heard was a young kid say he's never heard the word masculinity unless it was paired with the word toxic before it. With that kind o

One of the saddest things I heard was a young kid say he's never heard the word masculinity unless it was paired with the word toxic before it. With that kind of attitude is this any wonder?

yetihehe 11mo ago
Sites like artofmanliness.com seem to be more and more needed in today's world.
- sunrunner 11mo ago
  So we can all be schooled in the important manly things such as the '6 Card Games Every Many Should Know' or 'The Dale Carnegie That Will Instantly Improve Your Relationships'?
  - yetihehe 11mo ago
    No, so we can all be schooled in "Why Every Man Should Be Strong"[0], "How to Set a Table"[1], "9 Ways to Start a Fire Without Matches"[2] or "Win the War on Debt: 80 Ways to Be Frugal and Save Money"[3]. You used probably the weakest reason to discredit the idea of men improving themselves. That's not a "good" manly behavior. [0] https://www.artofmanliness.com/health-fitness/fitness/why-every-man-should-be-strong/ https://www.artofmanliness.com/health-fitness/fitness/why-ev... [1] https://www.artofmanliness.com/character/etiquette/how-to-set-a-table/ https://www.artofmanliness.com/character/etiquette/how-to-se... [2] https://www.artofmanliness.com/skills/outdoor-survival/9-ways-to-start-a-fire-without-matches/ https://www.artofmanliness.com/skills/outdoor-survival/9-way... [3] https://www.artofmanliness.com/career-wealth/wealth/money-saving-tips/ https://www.artofmanliness.com/career-wealth/wealth/money-sa...
    - piva00 11mo ago
      I think there might be some of that happening on YouTube, James from Speeed[0] (who used to be in Donut Media before) has been mixing the usual car-related content with wholesome masculinity stuff, and I feel that should be the future of making masculinity be seen less as "being tough" to being a resilient, dependable, empathetic person. I don't think his channel is the only one, it's the only one I'm exposed to so kinda tells me there should be quite a bit more of those around, hopefully that way of masculinity gets traction instead of Andrew Tate-esque buffoons. [0] https://www.youtube.com/@SpeeedCo https://www.youtube.com/@SpeeedCo
      - Fire-Dragon-DoL 11mo ago
        What's are the differences supposed to be,between male and female? Genuine question
        piva00 11mo ago
        Inherently? I'd say almost none except for the obvious physical ones and their higher order effects. Culturally there's a lot of differences that won't be patched for generations, social expectations can come from parenting and/or environment, including their society, interactions between genders shaped by those cultural differences from an early age, so on and so forth. Such expectations shape their worldview and place in it, males being told to be tough, not be "a sissy", being shaped into clamming up emotionally. Females being told they can't achieve things solely due to their gender, having to learn to be guarded against potential male aggression, etc. There's just too much to even start enumerating in a comment but it boils down to cultural expectations from early age, and how those shape people into gendered behaviours as a reaction, not only from the expectations but also the feedbacks happening across gendered higher order effects of those expectations.
        Fire-Dragon-DoL 11mo ago
        Well but the physical difference must account for some natural social differences, my naive thinking is: other animals do act like that. A simple example is that I can lift my wife's body but she cannot lift mine. Wouldn't that affect our social behavior in some form? My thinking is going to how other animals have different behavior based on sex
        piva00 11mo ago
        We're entering the treacherous path of determining nature vs nurture, other animals act like that but we're also not like other animals, there might be biological reasons to account for some baseline differences while the exaggeration of those traits can also be mostly cultural. Reducing the comparison to other animals don't really make sense since our societies are many orders of magnitude more complex than other animals, e.g.: the fact of being physically stronger don't explain why until some 100-150 years ago women were considered less intelligent and unsuitable for intellectual work compared to men. There will be different behaviours due to biological differences, it's just not possible to reduce the vast range of gendered pigeon holing into that, culture is a much higher drive of those, and is empirically visible in societies that moved away from traditionalist views of genders. Could it be that at some point the biological sex differences sown the gendered culture? I can see that, doesn't mean the perpetuation of it in modern times is due to physical/biological differences.
    - sunrunner 11mo ago
      > You used probably the weakest reason to discredit the idea of men improving themselves Those examples you posted that actually are good would also seem to me to be universally important for everyone across all genders. '80 Ways to Be Frugal and Save Money' seems useful for everyone, and while I doubt a lot of people are going to need '9 Ways to Start a Fire Without Matches' immediately, what makes that specifically 'manly' and not good for anyone either going seriously outdoors or prepping. Yes, I picked those examples deliberately, but I don't see why any of the qualitatively good ones are 'manly'.
      - lelanthran 11mo ago
        > Those examples you posted that actually are good would also seem to me to be universally important for everyone across all genders. '80 Ways to Be Frugal and Save Money' seems useful for everyone, and while I doubt a lot of people are going to need '9 Ways to Start a Fire Without Matches' immediately, what makes that specifically 'manly' and not good for anyone either going seriously outdoors or prepping. For the same reason "Be strong and independent" is a message targeted only at women, even though it can easily double as a universal message.
      - yetihehe 11mo ago
        > Yes, I picked those examples deliberately, but I don't see why any of the qualitatively good ones are 'manly'. What was your goal? What was your argument? I said that we need men to be more manly (strong and able to do things that are historically considered to be done by men) and you said that those can be also done by women? I would consider woman able to change a tire, play cards and start fire without matches to be manly. If she wants to, she can of course. Currently the problem is that we indirectly say to men that being strong is for women and not for men. We say to women "be more manly" and to men "be more womanly", which just perpetuates old cliches, but in reverse.
        sunrunner 11mo ago
        > What was your goal? I think the thread has been a bit derailed in terms of my intention, which was more to point out that I don't feel like the qualities that are mentioned in the original article (mentorship, guidance figures, schoolwork, relationships, future planning) are really represented well by a clickbait website with articles mostly split between 'Top N things you really need to do for X' and things that would be useful to anyone. I'd even say the 'Get Style', 'Get Strong', 'Get Social' and 'Get Skilled' categories always appear to wander towards (while never approaching) Andrew Tate territory, in terms of their goals. > Currently the problem is that we indirectly say to men that being strong is for women and not for men. We say to women "be more manly" and to men "be more womanly", which just perpetuates old cliches, but in reverse. This I agree with, but I don't feel that website is a good example of a role model for the qualities that the original article mentioned were missing.
- Balgair 11mo ago
  I've been reading Kate and Bret for decades (!) now. Amazing site and filled with great male content. But, umm, anyone know of any other good male-centric sites out there? All I got is Esquire.com, and it's clearly not the same kinda thing.
lelanthran 11mo ago
It is difficult to get society to accept that maybe it's time to balance the constant public and media validation of women with some public and media validation of men. Disney has seen a bunch of Marvel flops since they switched the focus to Marvel properties that target women (they've since publicly indicated a course correction on this). Take a bunch of IP that primarily males are interested in (super-heros), water it down so that it's less male focused, and then find that neither males nor females are interested.
- ml-anon 11mo ago
  Yeah “society” had millennia of that. It’s quite telling that perhaps less than a decade of taking women seriously led to a a vitriol filled backlash full of Tates, Trumps and the manosphere. It’s also quite telling that your main complaint is Disney superhero movies. It’s difficult to think of something more juvenile and unimportant.
  - lelanthran 11mo ago
    > It’s quite telling that perhaps less than a decade of taking women seriously led to a a vitriol filled backlash full of Tates, Trumps and the manosphere. 1. It's been about 30 years since the "strong independent women" meme first started in popular media. 2. Where is the vitriol and backlash in my post to which you are referring to? Your response looks like a canned one that can be inserted into any discussion about males.
    - pjc50 11mo ago
      > It's been about 30 years since the "strong independent women" meme first started in popular media. Much longer than that. While there was significant pre-war feminism, it really took off in the 1960s. Perhaps what people mean is a sort of post-"Bechdel test" world, where people will be sharply criticized if they make a piece of media that only has (properly characterized) male characters. I see it as a co-existence problem. Trying to insist on male-only spaces or male-only values isn't going to fly any more. A lot of traditional masculinity is framed around being "not a woman", an inherently denigratory concept. It needs a programme that is (a) positive and (b) a concept of personhood and value that's not tied to gender.
wincy 11mo ago
My friend’s son was four and had to have it explicitly explained to him that men can be scientists, too! Based on all the books he’d been read and other media, he assumed only women were scientists.
- Fire-Dragon-DoL 11mo ago
  My son wants to be female because every super hero that's interesting to him, it's female (he is 4). We learned to coast with this, but I did complain about the lack of cool male characters for young kids: the female ones seems to be better curated and more abundant
  - akimbostrawman 11mo ago
    >My son wants to be female That's the plan
    - Fire-Dragon-DoL 11mo ago
      I actually want him to not differentiate between the two. I find concerning that he distinguishes female as "being better". Now of course he has a bigger sister he deeply loves and that's probably a big part of the deal

One of the saddest things I heard was a young kid say he's never heard the word masculinity unless it was paired with the word toxic before it. With that kind of attitude is this any wonder?

yetihehe 11mo ago

Sites like artofmanliness.com seem to be more and more needed in today's world.

sunrunner 11mo ago
So we can all be schooled in the important manly things such as the '6 Card Games Every Many Should Know' or 'The Dale Carnegie That Will Instantly Improve Your Relationships'?
- yetihehe 11mo ago
  No, so we can all be schooled in "Why Every Man Should Be Strong"[0], "How to Set a Table"[1], "9 Ways to Start a Fire Without Matches"[2] or "Win the War on Debt: 80 Ways to Be Frugal and Save Money"[3]. You used probably the weakest reason to discredit the idea of men improving themselves. That's not a "good" manly behavior. [0] https://www.artofmanliness.com/health-fitness/fitness/why-every-man-should-be-strong/ https://www.artofmanliness.com/health-fitness/fitness/why-ev... [1] https://www.artofmanliness.com/character/etiquette/how-to-set-a-table/ https://www.artofmanliness.com/character/etiquette/how-to-se... [2] https://www.artofmanliness.com/skills/outdoor-survival/9-ways-to-start-a-fire-without-matches/ https://www.artofmanliness.com/skills/outdoor-survival/9-way... [3] https://www.artofmanliness.com/career-wealth/wealth/money-saving-tips/ https://www.artofmanliness.com/career-wealth/wealth/money-sa...
  - piva00 11mo ago
    I think there might be some of that happening on YouTube, James from Speeed[0] (who used to be in Donut Media before) has been mixing the usual car-related content with wholesome masculinity stuff, and I feel that should be the future of making masculinity be seen less as "being tough" to being a resilient, dependable, empathetic person. I don't think his channel is the only one, it's the only one I'm exposed to so kinda tells me there should be quite a bit more of those around, hopefully that way of masculinity gets traction instead of Andrew Tate-esque buffoons. [0] https://www.youtube.com/@SpeeedCo https://www.youtube.com/@SpeeedCo
    - Fire-Dragon-DoL 11mo ago
      What's are the differences supposed to be,between male and female? Genuine question
      - piva00 11mo ago
        Inherently? I'd say almost none except for the obvious physical ones and their higher order effects. Culturally there's a lot of differences that won't be patched for generations, social expectations can come from parenting and/or environment, including their society, interactions between genders shaped by those cultural differences from an early age, so on and so forth. Such expectations shape their worldview and place in it, males being told to be tough, not be "a sissy", being shaped into clamming up emotionally. Females being told they can't achieve things solely due to their gender, having to learn to be guarded against potential male aggression, etc. There's just too much to even start enumerating in a comment but it boils down to cultural expectations from early age, and how those shape people into gendered behaviours as a reaction, not only from the expectations but also the feedbacks happening across gendered higher order effects of those expectations.
        Fire-Dragon-DoL 11mo ago
        Well but the physical difference must account for some natural social differences, my naive thinking is: other animals do act like that. A simple example is that I can lift my wife's body but she cannot lift mine. Wouldn't that affect our social behavior in some form? My thinking is going to how other animals have different behavior based on sex
        piva00 11mo ago
        We're entering the treacherous path of determining nature vs nurture, other animals act like that but we're also not like other animals, there might be biological reasons to account for some baseline differences while the exaggeration of those traits can also be mostly cultural. Reducing the comparison to other animals don't really make sense since our societies are many orders of magnitude more complex than other animals, e.g.: the fact of being physically stronger don't explain why until some 100-150 years ago women were considered less intelligent and unsuitable for intellectual work compared to men. There will be different behaviours due to biological differences, it's just not possible to reduce the vast range of gendered pigeon holing into that, culture is a much higher drive of those, and is empirically visible in societies that moved away from traditionalist views of genders. Could it be that at some point the biological sex differences sown the gendered culture? I can see that, doesn't mean the perpetuation of it in modern times is due to physical/biological differences.
  - sunrunner 11mo ago
    > You used probably the weakest reason to discredit the idea of men improving themselves Those examples you posted that actually are good would also seem to me to be universally important for everyone across all genders. '80 Ways to Be Frugal and Save Money' seems useful for everyone, and while I doubt a lot of people are going to need '9 Ways to Start a Fire Without Matches' immediately, what makes that specifically 'manly' and not good for anyone either going seriously outdoors or prepping. Yes, I picked those examples deliberately, but I don't see why any of the qualitatively good ones are 'manly'.
    - lelanthran 11mo ago
      > Those examples you posted that actually are good would also seem to me to be universally important for everyone across all genders. '80 Ways to Be Frugal and Save Money' seems useful for everyone, and while I doubt a lot of people are going to need '9 Ways to Start a Fire Without Matches' immediately, what makes that specifically 'manly' and not good for anyone either going seriously outdoors or prepping. For the same reason "Be strong and independent" is a message targeted only at women, even though it can easily double as a universal message.
    - yetihehe 11mo ago
      > Yes, I picked those examples deliberately, but I don't see why any of the qualitatively good ones are 'manly'. What was your goal? What was your argument? I said that we need men to be more manly (strong and able to do things that are historically considered to be done by men) and you said that those can be also done by women? I would consider woman able to change a tire, play cards and start fire without matches to be manly. If she wants to, she can of course. Currently the problem is that we indirectly say to men that being strong is for women and not for men. We say to women "be more manly" and to men "be more womanly", which just perpetuates old cliches, but in reverse.
      - sunrunner 11mo ago
        > What was your goal? I think the thread has been a bit derailed in terms of my intention, which was more to point out that I don't feel like the qualities that are mentioned in the original article (mentorship, guidance figures, schoolwork, relationships, future planning) are really represented well by a clickbait website with articles mostly split between 'Top N things you really need to do for X' and things that would be useful to anyone. I'd even say the 'Get Style', 'Get Strong', 'Get Social' and 'Get Skilled' categories always appear to wander towards (while never approaching) Andrew Tate territory, in terms of their goals. > Currently the problem is that we indirectly say to men that being strong is for women and not for men. We say to women "be more manly" and to men "be more womanly", which just perpetuates old cliches, but in reverse. This I agree with, but I don't feel that website is a good example of a role model for the qualities that the original article mentioned were missing.
Balgair 11mo ago
I've been reading Kate and Bret for decades (!) now. Amazing site and filled with great male content. But, umm, anyone know of any other good male-centric sites out there? All I got is Esquire.com, and it's clearly not the same kinda thing.

lelanthran 11mo ago

It is difficult to get society to accept that maybe it's time to balance the constant public and media validation of women with some public and media validation of men. Disney has seen a bunch of Marvel flops since they switched the focus to Marvel properties that target women (they've since publicly indicated a course correction on this). Take a bunch of IP that primarily males are interested in (super-heros), water it down so that it's less male focused, and then find that neither males nor females are interested.

ml-anon 11mo ago
Yeah “society” had millennia of that. It’s quite telling that perhaps less than a decade of taking women seriously led to a a vitriol filled backlash full of Tates, Trumps and the manosphere. It’s also quite telling that your main complaint is Disney superhero movies. It’s difficult to think of something more juvenile and unimportant.
- lelanthran 11mo ago
  > It’s quite telling that perhaps less than a decade of taking women seriously led to a a vitriol filled backlash full of Tates, Trumps and the manosphere. 1. It's been about 30 years since the "strong independent women" meme first started in popular media. 2. Where is the vitriol and backlash in my post to which you are referring to? Your response looks like a canned one that can be inserted into any discussion about males.
  - pjc50 11mo ago
    > It's been about 30 years since the "strong independent women" meme first started in popular media. Much longer than that. While there was significant pre-war feminism, it really took off in the 1960s. Perhaps what people mean is a sort of post-"Bechdel test" world, where people will be sharply criticized if they make a piece of media that only has (properly characterized) male characters. I see it as a co-existence problem. Trying to insist on male-only spaces or male-only values isn't going to fly any more. A lot of traditional masculinity is framed around being "not a woman", an inherently denigratory concept. It needs a programme that is (a) positive and (b) a concept of personhood and value that's not tied to gender.

wincy 11mo ago

My friend’s son was four and had to have it explicitly explained to him that men can be scientists, too! Based on all the books he’d been read and other media, he assumed only women were scientists.

Fire-Dragon-DoL 11mo ago
My son wants to be female because every super hero that's interesting to him, it's female (he is 4). We learned to coast with this, but I did complain about the lack of cool male characters for young kids: the female ones seems to be better curated and more abundant
- akimbostrawman 11mo ago
  >My son wants to be female That's the plan
  - Fire-Dragon-DoL 11mo ago
    I actually want him to not differentiate between the two. I find concerning that he distinguishes female as "being better". Now of course he has a bigger sister he deeply loves and that's probably a big part of the deal