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The demonization of all things male has had a pernicious effect on boys and men over the last 20 years. I've seen it negatively impact friends and, worse, my ow

The demonization of all things male has had a pernicious effect on boys and men over the last 20 years. I've seen it negatively impact friends and, worse, my own boys. Oone of the best things I ever did was cut the live TV feed and the commercials that only show men as drunken idiots, drunken leches, or bumbling idiots (notice: drunken and idiots is a repeating theme). As a society, we need to come to terms with masculinity. That means men need to be able to be masculine without being domineering and without being castigated.

GhotiFish 11y ago
I don't understand this. In most stories, arn't protagonists primarily male? Arn't they typically courageous, or intelligent, or unyielding, or strong, or determined? I don't understand.
- mixmastamyk 11y ago
  He's speaking of commercials, which often portray dad as barely able to tie his own shoes.
- Torgo 11y ago
  If I watch an action movie, I am not intimidated by or identify with the cool guy in the movie because I'm not the guy they're portraying. When sitcoms and commercials emasculate and defame the everyman, I know they're talking about me.
  - j2kun 11y ago
    Yet young boys grow up identifying with the hero.
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
    - marrs 11y ago
      Really? Fantasising about being him, maybe. It's usually the side-kick that one identifies with.
  - GhotiFish 11y ago
    daaaaaamn man. You're telling me you don't identify Jerry Seinfeld, you identify with George Costanza? Because when I've seen men get emascualated or mocked on TV, it's due to some jackassery on their part, and I don't feel the need to empathize. Isn't that true for you as well? If there's an over-riding theme in media regarding men that I would report, it's that the consequences they experience are a result of their actions. I'd call that just as far from the truth, but an otherwise pleasant lie.
    - Torgo 11y ago
      When I see the stereotypical sitcom dad, he keeps fucking up to telegraph to the audience that he's a fuckup, AKA Barney Fife, not to be a morality play "don't do this or this will happen." Barney can't not be a fuckup because that's his identity. Andy is a well-rounded character, he's not even perfect, sometimes he plays the fool and you learn the lesson, so it serves the morality play function. The dad on My Three Sons is near-perfect, he's the opposite of Barney Fife, his identity is that he's an inhuman archetypal father-figure. I Could see how this could be intimidating, but at least it's something to aspire to. From my perspective, the first two have mostly disappeared from television and most male characters that I would identify with are made to be Barney Fifes. There are also a lot of characters I don't identify with at all, I don't think anybody is supposed to identify with any character in Seinfeld, they are all supposed to be nigh-sociopathic. The audience is invited to laugh at all of them.
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
- sdrothrock 11y ago
  > In most stories, arn't protagonists primarily male? In most stories, the protagonist (male or female) is chosen because they're extraordinary. While I might identify a bit with Harry Potter or Luke Skywalker, they're certainly not going to be people I think of when I try to think of who I am because they're so fantastically extraordinary. On the other hand, Bart Simpson or Fresh Prince Will Smith? Or, considering the age I'm approaching, Al Bundy? I can identify with them a lot more, even with the negative traits. The other issue is: > Arn't they typically courageous, or intelligent, or unyielding, or strong, or determined? Why do you have to be courageous, intelligent, unyielding, strong, or determined? Why are all of those the absolute "good" traits? If you're not a super strategist, are you a bad person? What if you avoid conflict? Afraid of dogs? etc. The "standard" of extraordinary manhood is incredibly high if you look at stories like that.
- SoftwareMaven 11y ago
  It's a valid question, but most people I know (including my boys) identify far more with the guys on Big Bang Theory than Bruce Willis in Die Hard, and those guys are every negative archetype of maleness (sexist, unable to care for oneself, etc) wrapped up in a pseudo-intellectualized package. The one exception was Penny's boy friend, who filled "stupid jock".[1] What Bruce Willis brings to the table is this idealized version of what "man" is supposed to mean. So, on the one hand, we have an image of men as socially retarded incompetents and on the other hand, we have an image of men as unkillable tough guys. Where is a 15 year old supposed to land in there? 1. I actually really enjoyed the first five or so seasons of BBT, before they started playing more and more to the cheap "socially retarded scientists" jokes. I also believe they aren't making lives better for intellectual young women, either, who need the role models more than anyone.
  - sukilot 11y ago
    BBT has had nerdy women for a few seasons already. And most of the characters take care of themselves in their own apartment, and have highly respected careers. The nerdy women are actually a bit stronger than the nerdy men.
    - tdkl 11y ago
      > The nerdy women are actually a bit stronger than the nerdy men. Of course, they have to be, it's a modern sitcom. The most attractive one is also only a waitress/failed aspiring actress.
  - deleted 11y ago
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  - marrs 11y ago
    This is why you shouldn't rely on TV to provide your role models :p
- cmelbye 11y ago
  In older stories, sure. But the "action hero" died a while ago. Have you not noticed the rise of the weak male lead in movies/TV/commercials? It's hugely prevalent in romantic comedies, but even TV shows like Modern Family (bumbling Phil and razor-sharp Claire) depict archetypes that are becoming quite common. The formula is a charming yet incompetent male lead who's mainly driven by sex, paired with a strong, capable female lead who's always two steps ahead of him. If I had children, I certainly wouldn't want them watching TV/movies that depict their gender as incapable or unintelligent. And that's equally true for girls and boys.
  - antod 11y ago
    This isn't really a new thing. I presume it was already a cliche when The Flintstones came along.
    - bobbles 11y ago
      Exactly, the sitcom approach has also generally been fat dude + thin woman for just as long a time
  - Zikes 11y ago
    http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BumblingDad http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BumblingDad http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ParentingTheHusband http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ParentingTheHusba...
  - sukilot 11y ago
    Why do you prefer seeing men only as action hero? In fact, many boys will grow up to be goofy dads.
    - Crito 11y ago
      That's quite the false dichotomy. Why would the opposite of "bumbling moron father" be "action hero", rather than "competent father"? The John McClanes of this world, if in fact they exist at all, are exceptionally few and far between. Good competent fathers though? Those are hardly Hollywood inventions.
- vijayr 11y ago
  Look at some of the stories from the media. Some airlines will not allow males sit next to unaccompanied children. A theme park bans single males from bird watching, "in case they are predators". Female sexual assaults are disgusting while male sexual assaults are funny, to most people. If a little girl has a problem, it is immediately attended to, whereas if a little boy has a problem, he is told to "be a man and suck it up". Feminism is cool whereas MRA is not. Oh, we also have some "interesting" people like this - http://www.vice.com/read/is-reducing-the-male-population-by-90-percent-the-solution-to-all-our-problems http://www.vice.com/read/is-reducing-the-male-population-by-... And so on. I wish we look at problems without the gender/race/nationality etc lens and only purely based on their merit. This is 2015 and we still have gender stereotypes, whole lot of double standards (for both genders), laws favoring one gender or the other etc. All this noise is just tiring.
  - pikachu_is_cool 11y ago
    Going off of that Vice article, sometimes I think that a 40/60 ratio of men to women would be favorable... it'd probably reflect the proportions of our hunter gatherer ancestry, and a lot of psychological benefits would come with that I'd imagine. But everything else she said was extremely misandrist and sexist.
    - jaggederest 11y ago
      You can actually see the difference in gender relations in places with different gender ratios, and by age, as well. "Single men become a rare commodity later in life due to our unfortunate propensity for dying. If you can get to 50 the world seems to be nothing but women." http://jonathansoma.com/singles/ http://jonathansoma.com/singles/
    - roel_v 11y ago
      "sometimes I think that a 40/60 ratio of men to women would be favorable..." Without wanting to turn this into a race thing, there are sociological circumstances which sort of give us a glimpse (in subsets of the population) of what that could look like - and it's not pretty... See e.g. http://www.economist.com/node/21532296 http://www.economist.com/node/21532296, which is one of the lesser emotionally charged discussions of it, but I'm sure you can find the right Google terms to find dozens of other articles about it yourself.
- danmaz74 11y ago
  In old stories, yes. But just look at The Simpsons as a major and early example to the contrary.
- s_baby 11y ago
  >I don't understand this. In most stories, arn't protagonists primarily male? Arn't they typically courageous, or intelligent, or unyielding, or strong, or determined? That is a common motif. Is it easy being expected to be unyielding/strong/determined/etc? You have lower social value when you aren't adhering to this role. When you are adhering to this role you are making yourself disposable to a "higher cause". In other words making yourself cannon fodder or getting black lung in some coal mine.
- facepalm 11y ago
  In Germany there was a funny incident recently: the Green political party decided to change all the wording in their publications to be gender neutral. In German often jobs have two names, somewhat like "captain" and "captainness" for male and female captains. And so on. They decided to change everything to "captain/ness". The funny thing was that they properly gendered all positive personae appearing in their publications. But they forgot about the negative appearances. So it would be "the captain/ness is steering the ship into the harbour" but "the captain is leaving the sinking ship". So check your bias next time you read a story. It's telling that you don't even notice all the negative portrayals of men anymore.
  - _pmf_ 11y ago
    > But they forgot about the negative appearances. "Forgot".
    - facepalm 11y ago
      What do you mean? Is it incorrect? I am not a native speaker of English.
      - jongraehl 11y ago
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scare_quotes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scare_quotes
- mattlutze 11y ago
  Like a lot of people have said, modern shows are very much into the everyman male lead. Bryan Cranston's character in Malcolm in the Middle, Ed O'Neill's Al Bundy, Tim Taylor playing, once again, the affable rough-though-bumbling dad. The thing is these are all prime-time sitcoms and comedies. There's just as many popular shows where this isn't the case. Dramas rarely have this sort of soft, incorrigible-but-loveable archetype. I'm not super-current on my media, but Game of Thrones, Boardwalk Empire, Walking Dead, Mad Men... most everything on HBO, Showtime, AMC, and FX run with strong, deep, emotionally complex male characters who grow and discover themselves, alongside the female characters. And the male characters in these dramas are, on the whole, much more identifiable and aspirational.
  - humanrebar 11y ago
    > Game of Thrones, Boardwalk Empire, Walking Dead, Mad Men Those characters are aspirational? They're almost all murderers, thieves, adulterers, or worse. I wouldn't want my son to be anything like any of those characters. Part of the problem with the antihero-as-role-model is that it also conveys that being interesting is important. And to be interesting, it's good (or at least OK) for a man to have significant character flaws. So many soon-to-be-men think having your crap together is boring and thus unattractive. And many women think falling for a flawed man and fixing him is a romantic notion.
    - mattlutze 11y ago
      Yeah, aspirational was probably the wrong statement there. Your son probably shouldn't be like any character on television, whether that's the antihero or bumbling means-well-but-worth-nothing comedy father. But Interesting doesn't require character flaws. Those exist in characters in stories to provide space for developmental arcs -- space for us to see them grow and change, something we all want to do. They exist to make a point out of a story. And these folks are so identifiable because we all sometimes feel like a not-put-together person. Heck, look how popular Breaking Bad, or House, M.D. were -- Laurie and Cranston were insanely popular in those roles because in their ridiculousness they reflected traits many people understand. Though I doubt their performances encouraged any meaningful percentage of the nation's fathers to start cooking meth, or medical professionals to treat people for lupus. The story for a lot of these characters is that you can look like you have your shit together and still have space to learn, grow, evolve. Sure, it's in the context of murders and whatever because there's more drama there than "guy that goes to the office and has an ongoing feud with his HOA". But that doesn't invalidate the story, or directly encourage the audience to adopt the superficial story components.
- mason240 11y ago
  In more stories villains are male.
nkozyra 11y ago
My long - but casual - observation is this is not a phenomenon relegated to gender, but rather a common theme with the prevailing majority. The ability to hold up traits common to those that are in power as a source of derision seems to have a cathartic function in both the recipient(s) and the sender(s).
curun1r 11y ago
I think you're right about society's role, but I see a much more pernicious tendency that I think damages boys and, eventually, men. Society teaches boys to bottle up their feelings. "Be a man" means be strong, and don't show emotion. Crying is a sign of weakness. And god forbid you talk about your emotions...that's a female thing. But the thing is, those activities are what allow us to be vulnerable and what allow us to bond with others. The more you suppress those urges, the more you end up feeling alone. And loneliness is perhaps the most understandable cause of suicide I can think of. We need to stop sending this message to young boys. It's okay to express your feelings. It's okay to be vulnerable. You don't have to simply grit your teeth and toughen up to endure whatever is bothering you.
- angersock 11y ago
  This was maybe a useful message ten, twenty years ago. The problem is that, honestly, a lot of these feelings are messy. They aren't expressions of weakness, they aren't some magical key used to unlock progress, they're not even something that's easily sympathized with. They can be the white-hot anger of being pulled off a project or ignored for the nth time in class or being made fun of. They can be the bubbling cold black rage of being forced to work on something only to have it stunted at every turn by bad management or being shunned by members of the preferred gender for whatever reason. They can be the bright flash of joy and uncontainable exuberance of having pulled off the impossible on deadline or winning a hard contest. The point is, in all those cases, boys and men who express their feelings honestly and openly are considered creeps, weirdos, crazy, or unprofessional. So, no, the problem isn't that they keep these feelings bottled up--it's instead that, when they're honest and open in their passion, people become uncomfortable and afraid or inconvenienced. We celebrate the passionate man, in the abstract, but you bet your ass it's never made things better in the day-to-day. In fact, we tend to double-down on this nonsense, and so punish the behaviors (sparring, yelling, cursing, whatever) that would formerly be used to defuse the feelings in young folks until they realize such things are counterproductive, and bait-n-switch them.
  - forgottenpass 11y ago
    The idea men should express themselves combined with the limits on socially acceptable expression have always been a strong indicator to me that "men showing emotion" isn't about men showing emotion. The social limits on expression aren't even based on a laughably bad interpretation of "heathy" expression. It straight up means to continue conforming like you always have, but additionally cry and show emotional weakness when socially cued to do so.
bakhy 11y ago
Demonization of all things male? That's just ridiculous. There are nasty things both men and women have to struggle with. I'd say the problem with male suicides probably exists for longer than 20 years. Patriarchy has existed for a long time, and together with it its accompanying set of high expectations of men. Pressures to be strong, successful, never show emotion or weakness, to serve your family,.. there is nothing new there. It used to come with much more rewards, but feminism has eroded that away. So now we are kinda equal, while the old cultural norms still survive, causing pain to men. Patriarchy is the common enemy.
- facepalm 11y ago
  The difference is that women don't need to prove their worth to society. They can bear children. What can men do? If they can't find a way to make themselves useful, what is their place?
  - bakhy 11y ago
    That's extremely reductionist. We are human beings, not reproduction machines. The concept of "worth" is much more complex. I don't think a woman can simply bear children, and she's good. I presume you were trying to make a point that this may be a "core" biological difference, which will always lead to a difference in suicide statistics between men and women. You may be right, you may be wrong, but it is in any case too early, maybe even defeatist to talk about that now. I believe it is high time for a male revolt against patriarchy, and that it might, even if you are right, at least reduce this problem.
    - facepalm 11y ago
      "You may be right, you may be wrong, but it is in any case too early, maybe even defeatist to talk about that now" After hundreds of thousands of years of existance of humans you think it is too early to talk about that? I consider that ridiculous. You can not simply escape reality by crying "reductionism". Of course it is a statement of averages. Not every woman is fine, things can get in the way. But on average, woman will be considered to be valuable to society no matter what.
mreiland 11y ago
> As a society, we need to come to terms with masculinity. That means men need to be able to be masculine without being domineering and without being castigated. You're doing the exact same thing you're complaining about. This is a social problem towards men, it is not a mans problem they need to solve for themselves. The issue has nothing to do with masculinity and everything to do with the current crop of overly loud feminists. They won, and in doing so they left behind half the population. It's time for society to remember that other half.
- louhike 11y ago
  They did not win, they just managed to be listened to. Women still have more difficulties than men. And telling that is not saying that men do not have problems.
  - ebfe 11y ago
    That's actually not true. Compared to men, women: * Live longer * Are less likely to kill themselves * Are less likely to be the victim of violence * Are better protected under the law if they are victimized * Are less likely to be homeless (and receive more support if they are) * Receive shorter sentences for the same crimes * Are less likely to be victims of police brutality (the disparity between men and women is actually greater than the disparity between blacks and whites!) * Are protected under the law from genital mutilation * Have reproductive rights * Are more likely to go to college * When applying for academic positions, are twice as likely to be selected over equally qualified men * Are the majority of the electorate * Receive preferential treatment in civil court * The youngest generations now out-earns their male peers * Are provided government loans, tax breaks, and contracts unavailable to men * Are given better grades in school for the same answers * Own the majority of wealth in the United States Everything else being equal, men face far greater issues than their female peers.
    - benihana 11y ago
      >Everything else being equal, men face far greater issues than their female peers. This sentiment is part of the problem in my opinion. How shitty you have it isn't a damn competition. I think we should be working to remove these systemic issues for everyone, rather than keeping score on who has had the more challenging game of life. Edit: I was thinking about your comment. You bring up a legitimate list of concerns that I happen to agree with you on. I just don't really care for the way it was delivered. I think you could win a lot more support if you presented the argument less as a competition for who has it worse, and more as a way to illuminate issues for people who may not be aware or who may have not given these issues much though.
senorito 11y ago
And how is this related to suicide? Actually I think guys with especially masculine ambitions face the highest risk of suicide - which is also explained in the article.
redml 11y ago
This is a product of the wrong people continuously trying to redefine masculinity to fit their own agenda, and most men are confused, shy, unattractive, have low self-esteem, are passive, etc. as a result of this. These parties would rather men kill themselves over their identity crisis than those men rediscovering true masculinity - because they're afraid of the bad part. It's just the nature of things, Masculinity and Femininity both their good and bad parts, but we only shun one.
whybroke 11y ago
"In every country in the world..." Obviously including extreme male centered societies like Iran and Saudi Arabia "middle-aged men are most at risk" So obviously not a recent attack on male children. Indeed the problem is greatest among people who are older then the average poster to this thread let alone their often hypothetical children. There is obviously a serious problem here, apparently related to age, and instead of a sensible discussion it's shoehorned into some men's right agenda. It appears that HN is frequented by individuals so extremist it clouds even their basic critical thinking. It makes about as much sense as claiming George Price's mental illness didn't cause his suicide but his generosity did it. Or voting to the front page an article about ending the fiscal "evils" of democracy by building an unseaworthy boat.
- arprocter 11y ago
  How do you know the average age of the people in this thread? From the linked article - "In 2013, if you were a man between the ages of 20 and 49 who’d died, the most likely cause was not assault nor car crash nor drug abuse nor heart attack, but a decision that you didn’t wish to live any more". Dismissing the people who try to talk about these issues and branding everyone 'MRAs' seems like an attempt to kill any discussion, normally by those who cannot argue with the statistics.
  - whybroke 11y ago
    From the World health organization, the age group with the highest suicide is 45 - 54 That group used to be the 4th most at risk, now it is the most. But as important as this issue is, some of the most upvoted posts include: "TV...only show men as drunken idiots", "We're turning into a bunch of sissy, touchy feely men", "This is a product of the wrong people continuously trying to redefine masculinity", "The issue has ... everything to do with the current crop of overly loud feminists" So yes, any discussion was annihilated by MRAs griping about TV shows, feminists and "good ol' fashioned values" because we can safely say none of this is why a 50 year old or Iraq vet kill themselves. You have a screwed up economy, a society that throws away anyone over 45 and utterly inadequate social protections of any sort, even to vets, because that's "socialist". And some of the people most damaged by it have had their justifiable anger mindless redirected at women and TV. Actually the only thing accomplished here was to make hn just a little more of laughable to recruitment managers.
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lazyant 11y ago
Yes, name a tv show where the man is the idiot and the woman the smart or normal one (all of them). Name a sitcom where the man is smart and the woman an idiot (none of them, and 'Married with children' doesn't count, they were all idiots. Of course I'm not advocating portraying women as idiots).
- kazinator 11y ago
  In a TV show in which people are portrayed as unusually smart (not merely normal), most of them will be male.
  - falcolas 11y ago
    And hampered by social ineptitude completely out of proportion to their increased intelligence, to the point where they depend upon someone of the opposite gender to lubricate their social interactions.
    - theorique 11y ago
      Are you referring to the "nerd blackface" of Big Bang Theory?
      - dragonwriter 11y ago
        Not only do I disagree with the description of Big Bang Theory as "nerd blackface" (and, in fact, find that description offensively trivializing of the actual nature and impact of blackface, but that's getting tangential), but clearly the description is more applicable to Scorpion, in which, unlike Big Bang Theory: 1. All the hyper-intelligent characters that are part of the main recurring cast are male (BBT has a 4:2 gender ratio in the characters portrayed as unusually intelligent), 2. The one female character that is part of the team with those characters is a female who is explicitly part of the team to, as described upthread, "lubricate their social interactions." (BBT has a range of social ineptitude among the intelligent characters, including one of the intelligent female characters as particularly socially inept.) 3. Is, rather than a deliberately and overtly ridiculous sitcom, a drama billed as reality-based.
Squarel 11y ago
You may be right about that, but there are plenty of societies worldwide that have not had the demonization of all things male, which show a similar pattern in suicides. The only exceptions seem to be Bangladesh and China. This indicates that, whilst it would be nice to have a simple one-size fits all reason for male suicides pretty much globally being higher than female, the picture is somewhat more complex than "We have been demonizing all things male".

GhotiFish 11y ago

I don't understand this. In most stories, arn't protagonists primarily male? Arn't they typically courageous, or intelligent, or unyielding, or strong, or determined? I don't understand.

mixmastamyk 11y ago
He's speaking of commercials, which often portray dad as barely able to tie his own shoes.
Torgo 11y ago
If I watch an action movie, I am not intimidated by or identify with the cool guy in the movie because I'm not the guy they're portraying. When sitcoms and commercials emasculate and defame the everyman, I know they're talking about me.
- j2kun 11y ago
  Yet young boys grow up identifying with the hero.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - marrs 11y ago
    Really? Fantasising about being him, maybe. It's usually the side-kick that one identifies with.
- GhotiFish 11y ago
  daaaaaamn man. You're telling me you don't identify Jerry Seinfeld, you identify with George Costanza? Because when I've seen men get emascualated or mocked on TV, it's due to some jackassery on their part, and I don't feel the need to empathize. Isn't that true for you as well? If there's an over-riding theme in media regarding men that I would report, it's that the consequences they experience are a result of their actions. I'd call that just as far from the truth, but an otherwise pleasant lie.
  - Torgo 11y ago
    When I see the stereotypical sitcom dad, he keeps fucking up to telegraph to the audience that he's a fuckup, AKA Barney Fife, not to be a morality play "don't do this or this will happen." Barney can't not be a fuckup because that's his identity. Andy is a well-rounded character, he's not even perfect, sometimes he plays the fool and you learn the lesson, so it serves the morality play function. The dad on My Three Sons is near-perfect, he's the opposite of Barney Fife, his identity is that he's an inhuman archetypal father-figure. I Could see how this could be intimidating, but at least it's something to aspire to. From my perspective, the first two have mostly disappeared from television and most male characters that I would identify with are made to be Barney Fifes. There are also a lot of characters I don't identify with at all, I don't think anybody is supposed to identify with any character in Seinfeld, they are all supposed to be nigh-sociopathic. The audience is invited to laugh at all of them.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
sdrothrock 11y ago
> In most stories, arn't protagonists primarily male? In most stories, the protagonist (male or female) is chosen because they're extraordinary. While I might identify a bit with Harry Potter or Luke Skywalker, they're certainly not going to be people I think of when I try to think of who I am because they're so fantastically extraordinary. On the other hand, Bart Simpson or Fresh Prince Will Smith? Or, considering the age I'm approaching, Al Bundy? I can identify with them a lot more, even with the negative traits. The other issue is: > Arn't they typically courageous, or intelligent, or unyielding, or strong, or determined? Why do you have to be courageous, intelligent, unyielding, strong, or determined? Why are all of those the absolute "good" traits? If you're not a super strategist, are you a bad person? What if you avoid conflict? Afraid of dogs? etc. The "standard" of extraordinary manhood is incredibly high if you look at stories like that.
SoftwareMaven 11y ago
It's a valid question, but most people I know (including my boys) identify far more with the guys on Big Bang Theory than Bruce Willis in Die Hard, and those guys are every negative archetype of maleness (sexist, unable to care for oneself, etc) wrapped up in a pseudo-intellectualized package. The one exception was Penny's boy friend, who filled "stupid jock".[1] What Bruce Willis brings to the table is this idealized version of what "man" is supposed to mean. So, on the one hand, we have an image of men as socially retarded incompetents and on the other hand, we have an image of men as unkillable tough guys. Where is a 15 year old supposed to land in there? 1. I actually really enjoyed the first five or so seasons of BBT, before they started playing more and more to the cheap "socially retarded scientists" jokes. I also believe they aren't making lives better for intellectual young women, either, who need the role models more than anyone.
- sukilot 11y ago
  BBT has had nerdy women for a few seasons already. And most of the characters take care of themselves in their own apartment, and have highly respected careers. The nerdy women are actually a bit stronger than the nerdy men.
  - tdkl 11y ago
    > The nerdy women are actually a bit stronger than the nerdy men. Of course, they have to be, it's a modern sitcom. The most attractive one is also only a waitress/failed aspiring actress.
- deleted 11y ago
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- marrs 11y ago
  This is why you shouldn't rely on TV to provide your role models :p
cmelbye 11y ago
In older stories, sure. But the "action hero" died a while ago. Have you not noticed the rise of the weak male lead in movies/TV/commercials? It's hugely prevalent in romantic comedies, but even TV shows like Modern Family (bumbling Phil and razor-sharp Claire) depict archetypes that are becoming quite common. The formula is a charming yet incompetent male lead who's mainly driven by sex, paired with a strong, capable female lead who's always two steps ahead of him. If I had children, I certainly wouldn't want them watching TV/movies that depict their gender as incapable or unintelligent. And that's equally true for girls and boys.
- antod 11y ago
  This isn't really a new thing. I presume it was already a cliche when The Flintstones came along.
  - bobbles 11y ago
    Exactly, the sitcom approach has also generally been fat dude + thin woman for just as long a time
- Zikes 11y ago
  http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BumblingDad http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BumblingDad http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ParentingTheHusband http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ParentingTheHusba...
- sukilot 11y ago
  Why do you prefer seeing men only as action hero? In fact, many boys will grow up to be goofy dads.
  - Crito 11y ago
    That's quite the false dichotomy. Why would the opposite of "bumbling moron father" be "action hero", rather than "competent father"? The John McClanes of this world, if in fact they exist at all, are exceptionally few and far between. Good competent fathers though? Those are hardly Hollywood inventions.
vijayr 11y ago
Look at some of the stories from the media. Some airlines will not allow males sit next to unaccompanied children. A theme park bans single males from bird watching, "in case they are predators". Female sexual assaults are disgusting while male sexual assaults are funny, to most people. If a little girl has a problem, it is immediately attended to, whereas if a little boy has a problem, he is told to "be a man and suck it up". Feminism is cool whereas MRA is not. Oh, we also have some "interesting" people like this - http://www.vice.com/read/is-reducing-the-male-population-by-90-percent-the-solution-to-all-our-problems http://www.vice.com/read/is-reducing-the-male-population-by-... And so on. I wish we look at problems without the gender/race/nationality etc lens and only purely based on their merit. This is 2015 and we still have gender stereotypes, whole lot of double standards (for both genders), laws favoring one gender or the other etc. All this noise is just tiring.
- pikachu_is_cool 11y ago
  Going off of that Vice article, sometimes I think that a 40/60 ratio of men to women would be favorable... it'd probably reflect the proportions of our hunter gatherer ancestry, and a lot of psychological benefits would come with that I'd imagine. But everything else she said was extremely misandrist and sexist.
  - jaggederest 11y ago
    You can actually see the difference in gender relations in places with different gender ratios, and by age, as well. "Single men become a rare commodity later in life due to our unfortunate propensity for dying. If you can get to 50 the world seems to be nothing but women." http://jonathansoma.com/singles/ http://jonathansoma.com/singles/
  - roel_v 11y ago
    "sometimes I think that a 40/60 ratio of men to women would be favorable..." Without wanting to turn this into a race thing, there are sociological circumstances which sort of give us a glimpse (in subsets of the population) of what that could look like - and it's not pretty... See e.g. http://www.economist.com/node/21532296 http://www.economist.com/node/21532296, which is one of the lesser emotionally charged discussions of it, but I'm sure you can find the right Google terms to find dozens of other articles about it yourself.
danmaz74 11y ago
In old stories, yes. But just look at The Simpsons as a major and early example to the contrary.
s_baby 11y ago
>I don't understand this. In most stories, arn't protagonists primarily male? Arn't they typically courageous, or intelligent, or unyielding, or strong, or determined? That is a common motif. Is it easy being expected to be unyielding/strong/determined/etc? You have lower social value when you aren't adhering to this role. When you are adhering to this role you are making yourself disposable to a "higher cause". In other words making yourself cannon fodder or getting black lung in some coal mine.
facepalm 11y ago
In Germany there was a funny incident recently: the Green political party decided to change all the wording in their publications to be gender neutral. In German often jobs have two names, somewhat like "captain" and "captainness" for male and female captains. And so on. They decided to change everything to "captain/ness". The funny thing was that they properly gendered all positive personae appearing in their publications. But they forgot about the negative appearances. So it would be "the captain/ness is steering the ship into the harbour" but "the captain is leaving the sinking ship". So check your bias next time you read a story. It's telling that you don't even notice all the negative portrayals of men anymore.
- _pmf_ 11y ago
  > But they forgot about the negative appearances. "Forgot".
  - facepalm 11y ago
    What do you mean? Is it incorrect? I am not a native speaker of English.
    - jongraehl 11y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scare_quotes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scare_quotes
mattlutze 11y ago
Like a lot of people have said, modern shows are very much into the everyman male lead. Bryan Cranston's character in Malcolm in the Middle, Ed O'Neill's Al Bundy, Tim Taylor playing, once again, the affable rough-though-bumbling dad. The thing is these are all prime-time sitcoms and comedies. There's just as many popular shows where this isn't the case. Dramas rarely have this sort of soft, incorrigible-but-loveable archetype. I'm not super-current on my media, but Game of Thrones, Boardwalk Empire, Walking Dead, Mad Men... most everything on HBO, Showtime, AMC, and FX run with strong, deep, emotionally complex male characters who grow and discover themselves, alongside the female characters. And the male characters in these dramas are, on the whole, much more identifiable and aspirational.
- humanrebar 11y ago
  > Game of Thrones, Boardwalk Empire, Walking Dead, Mad Men Those characters are aspirational? They're almost all murderers, thieves, adulterers, or worse. I wouldn't want my son to be anything like any of those characters. Part of the problem with the antihero-as-role-model is that it also conveys that being interesting is important. And to be interesting, it's good (or at least OK) for a man to have significant character flaws. So many soon-to-be-men think having your crap together is boring and thus unattractive. And many women think falling for a flawed man and fixing him is a romantic notion.
  - mattlutze 11y ago
    Yeah, aspirational was probably the wrong statement there. Your son probably shouldn't be like any character on television, whether that's the antihero or bumbling means-well-but-worth-nothing comedy father. But Interesting doesn't require character flaws. Those exist in characters in stories to provide space for developmental arcs -- space for us to see them grow and change, something we all want to do. They exist to make a point out of a story. And these folks are so identifiable because we all sometimes feel like a not-put-together person. Heck, look how popular Breaking Bad, or House, M.D. were -- Laurie and Cranston were insanely popular in those roles because in their ridiculousness they reflected traits many people understand. Though I doubt their performances encouraged any meaningful percentage of the nation's fathers to start cooking meth, or medical professionals to treat people for lupus. The story for a lot of these characters is that you can look like you have your shit together and still have space to learn, grow, evolve. Sure, it's in the context of murders and whatever because there's more drama there than "guy that goes to the office and has an ongoing feud with his HOA". But that doesn't invalidate the story, or directly encourage the audience to adopt the superficial story components.
mason240 11y ago
In more stories villains are male.

nkozyra 11y ago

My long - but casual - observation is this is not a phenomenon relegated to gender, but rather a common theme with the prevailing majority. The ability to hold up traits common to those that are in power as a source of derision seems to have a cathartic function in both the recipient(s) and the sender(s).

curun1r 11y ago

I think you're right about society's role, but I see a much more pernicious tendency that I think damages boys and, eventually, men. Society teaches boys to bottle up their feelings. "Be a man" means be strong, and don't show emotion. Crying is a sign of weakness. And god forbid you talk about your emotions...that's a female thing. But the thing is, those activities are what allow us to be vulnerable and what allow us to bond with others. The more you suppress those urges, the more you end up feeling alone. And loneliness is perhaps the most understandable cause of suicide I can think of. We need to stop sending this message to young boys. It's okay to express your feelings. It's okay to be vulnerable. You don't have to simply grit your teeth and toughen up to endure whatever is bothering you.

angersock 11y ago
This was maybe a useful message ten, twenty years ago. The problem is that, honestly, a lot of these feelings are messy. They aren't expressions of weakness, they aren't some magical key used to unlock progress, they're not even something that's easily sympathized with. They can be the white-hot anger of being pulled off a project or ignored for the nth time in class or being made fun of. They can be the bubbling cold black rage of being forced to work on something only to have it stunted at every turn by bad management or being shunned by members of the preferred gender for whatever reason. They can be the bright flash of joy and uncontainable exuberance of having pulled off the impossible on deadline or winning a hard contest. The point is, in all those cases, boys and men who express their feelings honestly and openly are considered creeps, weirdos, crazy, or unprofessional. So, no, the problem isn't that they keep these feelings bottled up--it's instead that, when they're honest and open in their passion, people become uncomfortable and afraid or inconvenienced. We celebrate the passionate man, in the abstract, but you bet your ass it's never made things better in the day-to-day. In fact, we tend to double-down on this nonsense, and so punish the behaviors (sparring, yelling, cursing, whatever) that would formerly be used to defuse the feelings in young folks until they realize such things are counterproductive, and bait-n-switch them.
- forgottenpass 11y ago
  The idea men should express themselves combined with the limits on socially acceptable expression have always been a strong indicator to me that "men showing emotion" isn't about men showing emotion. The social limits on expression aren't even based on a laughably bad interpretation of "heathy" expression. It straight up means to continue conforming like you always have, but additionally cry and show emotional weakness when socially cued to do so.

bakhy 11y ago

Demonization of all things male? That's just ridiculous. There are nasty things both men and women have to struggle with. I'd say the problem with male suicides probably exists for longer than 20 years. Patriarchy has existed for a long time, and together with it its accompanying set of high expectations of men. Pressures to be strong, successful, never show emotion or weakness, to serve your family,.. there is nothing new there. It used to come with much more rewards, but feminism has eroded that away. So now we are kinda equal, while the old cultural norms still survive, causing pain to men. Patriarchy is the common enemy.

facepalm 11y ago
The difference is that women don't need to prove their worth to society. They can bear children. What can men do? If they can't find a way to make themselves useful, what is their place?
- bakhy 11y ago
  That's extremely reductionist. We are human beings, not reproduction machines. The concept of "worth" is much more complex. I don't think a woman can simply bear children, and she's good. I presume you were trying to make a point that this may be a "core" biological difference, which will always lead to a difference in suicide statistics between men and women. You may be right, you may be wrong, but it is in any case too early, maybe even defeatist to talk about that now. I believe it is high time for a male revolt against patriarchy, and that it might, even if you are right, at least reduce this problem.
  - facepalm 11y ago
    "You may be right, you may be wrong, but it is in any case too early, maybe even defeatist to talk about that now" After hundreds of thousands of years of existance of humans you think it is too early to talk about that? I consider that ridiculous. You can not simply escape reality by crying "reductionism". Of course it is a statement of averages. Not every woman is fine, things can get in the way. But on average, woman will be considered to be valuable to society no matter what.

mreiland 11y ago

> As a society, we need to come to terms with masculinity. That means men need to be able to be masculine without being domineering and without being castigated. You're doing the exact same thing you're complaining about. This is a social problem towards men, it is not a mans problem they need to solve for themselves. The issue has nothing to do with masculinity and everything to do with the current crop of overly loud feminists. They won, and in doing so they left behind half the population. It's time for society to remember that other half.

louhike 11y ago
They did not win, they just managed to be listened to. Women still have more difficulties than men. And telling that is not saying that men do not have problems.
- ebfe 11y ago
  That's actually not true. Compared to men, women: * Live longer * Are less likely to kill themselves * Are less likely to be the victim of violence * Are better protected under the law if they are victimized * Are less likely to be homeless (and receive more support if they are) * Receive shorter sentences for the same crimes * Are less likely to be victims of police brutality (the disparity between men and women is actually greater than the disparity between blacks and whites!) * Are protected under the law from genital mutilation * Have reproductive rights * Are more likely to go to college * When applying for academic positions, are twice as likely to be selected over equally qualified men * Are the majority of the electorate * Receive preferential treatment in civil court * The youngest generations now out-earns their male peers * Are provided government loans, tax breaks, and contracts unavailable to men * Are given better grades in school for the same answers * Own the majority of wealth in the United States Everything else being equal, men face far greater issues than their female peers.
  - benihana 11y ago
    >Everything else being equal, men face far greater issues than their female peers. This sentiment is part of the problem in my opinion. How shitty you have it isn't a damn competition. I think we should be working to remove these systemic issues for everyone, rather than keeping score on who has had the more challenging game of life. Edit: I was thinking about your comment. You bring up a legitimate list of concerns that I happen to agree with you on. I just don't really care for the way it was delivered. I think you could win a lot more support if you presented the argument less as a competition for who has it worse, and more as a way to illuminate issues for people who may not be aware or who may have not given these issues much though.

senorito 11y ago

And how is this related to suicide? Actually I think guys with especially masculine ambitions face the highest risk of suicide - which is also explained in the article.

redml 11y ago

This is a product of the wrong people continuously trying to redefine masculinity to fit their own agenda, and most men are confused, shy, unattractive, have low self-esteem, are passive, etc. as a result of this. These parties would rather men kill themselves over their identity crisis than those men rediscovering true masculinity - because they're afraid of the bad part. It's just the nature of things, Masculinity and Femininity both their good and bad parts, but we only shun one.

whybroke 11y ago

"In every country in the world..." Obviously including extreme male centered societies like Iran and Saudi Arabia "middle-aged men are most at risk" So obviously not a recent attack on male children. Indeed the problem is greatest among people who are older then the average poster to this thread let alone their often hypothetical children. There is obviously a serious problem here, apparently related to age, and instead of a sensible discussion it's shoehorned into some men's right agenda. It appears that HN is frequented by individuals so extremist it clouds even their basic critical thinking. It makes about as much sense as claiming George Price's mental illness didn't cause his suicide but his generosity did it. Or voting to the front page an article about ending the fiscal "evils" of democracy by building an unseaworthy boat.

arprocter 11y ago
How do you know the average age of the people in this thread? From the linked article - "In 2013, if you were a man between the ages of 20 and 49 who’d died, the most likely cause was not assault nor car crash nor drug abuse nor heart attack, but a decision that you didn’t wish to live any more". Dismissing the people who try to talk about these issues and branding everyone 'MRAs' seems like an attempt to kill any discussion, normally by those who cannot argue with the statistics.
- whybroke 11y ago
  From the World health organization, the age group with the highest suicide is 45 - 54 That group used to be the 4th most at risk, now it is the most. But as important as this issue is, some of the most upvoted posts include: "TV...only show men as drunken idiots", "We're turning into a bunch of sissy, touchy feely men", "This is a product of the wrong people continuously trying to redefine masculinity", "The issue has ... everything to do with the current crop of overly loud feminists" So yes, any discussion was annihilated by MRAs griping about TV shows, feminists and "good ol' fashioned values" because we can safely say none of this is why a 50 year old or Iraq vet kill themselves. You have a screwed up economy, a society that throws away anyone over 45 and utterly inadequate social protections of any sort, even to vets, because that's "socialist". And some of the people most damaged by it have had their justifiable anger mindless redirected at women and TV. Actually the only thing accomplished here was to make hn just a little more of laughable to recruitment managers.

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lazyant 11y ago

Yes, name a tv show where the man is the idiot and the woman the smart or normal one (all of them). Name a sitcom where the man is smart and the woman an idiot (none of them, and 'Married with children' doesn't count, they were all idiots. Of course I'm not advocating portraying women as idiots).

kazinator 11y ago
In a TV show in which people are portrayed as unusually smart (not merely normal), most of them will be male.
- falcolas 11y ago
  And hampered by social ineptitude completely out of proportion to their increased intelligence, to the point where they depend upon someone of the opposite gender to lubricate their social interactions.
  - theorique 11y ago
    Are you referring to the "nerd blackface" of Big Bang Theory?
    - dragonwriter 11y ago
      Not only do I disagree with the description of Big Bang Theory as "nerd blackface" (and, in fact, find that description offensively trivializing of the actual nature and impact of blackface, but that's getting tangential), but clearly the description is more applicable to Scorpion, in which, unlike Big Bang Theory: 1. All the hyper-intelligent characters that are part of the main recurring cast are male (BBT has a 4:2 gender ratio in the characters portrayed as unusually intelligent), 2. The one female character that is part of the team with those characters is a female who is explicitly part of the team to, as described upthread, "lubricate their social interactions." (BBT has a range of social ineptitude among the intelligent characters, including one of the intelligent female characters as particularly socially inept.) 3. Is, rather than a deliberately and overtly ridiculous sitcom, a drama billed as reality-based.

Squarel 11y ago

You may be right about that, but there are plenty of societies worldwide that have not had the demonization of all things male, which show a similar pattern in suicides. The only exceptions seem to be Bangladesh and China. This indicates that, whilst it would be nice to have a simple one-size fits all reason for male suicides pretty much globally being higher than female, the picture is somewhat more complex than "We have been demonizing all things male".