You raise some excellent points here, however I’m not entirely swayed.
Your point about raising men with a good social culture is a good one, however it has its roots in the fallacy which really lies at the heart of the matter - that only men need fixing.
As a man, I’ve sat through a work conversation where a group of women (including my direct senior) have openly denigrated men in humour (I found it edgily funny). If it had been the other way around, the men involved would be talking to HR the next day, no laughs involved. The standards to which both parties are held need to be the same, though what those standards are is anybody’s guess.
Equality, equity, justice: that lovely ladder graphic. If you give students extra resources, their outcomes are better. “Women in stem”, “women’s networking day”, all aimed in one place at one group. In our drive to redress imbalance against women, we have created one against men. It isn’t the fact that young men feel isolated and need socialising that’s stopping them, it’s the fact that the deck is rigged against them and we celebrate that rigging.
What you see with the “manosphere” (never heard it called that before, I like the name), is the froth and bubbles. The boys who are angry, but who can’t do anything about it, are the ones who tumble in there and become monsters instead.
The solution isn’t simple, and while socialisation will help a little, there needs to be fundamental changes to the social world before we can move forward. If your argument were to be, say, socialising both men and women to be kinder to one another, I’d be with you.
Your point about raising men with a good social culture is a good one, however it has its roots in the fallacy which really lies at the heart of the matter - that only men need fixing.
i think this is a misunderstanding of my point. I’m not saying that men are fucking stupid and removeded, i’m saying that society has let men slip through it’s fingers into a pit of despair, with little to help them crawl out of it. Women are socially better equipped to deal with this for various different reasons, and socially they’re doing pretty good right now because of their workforce and education push happening right now, which is a good thing, presumably they will have a similar problem in the future, however i don’t think it’s going to be as significant as they all have really solid support structures, men often have none. Socially it’s ok for women to engage in them and to partake in them, socially for men, it’s not nearly as acceptable.
As a collective society, fathers, mothers, family relatives, we all need to work and focus on raising better men going forward who can be more functional in society, as well as giving them a clear place to exist, because right now, there isn’t really a place for them to exist.
As a man, I’ve sat through a work conversation where a group of women (including my direct senior) have openly denigrated men in humour (I found it edgily funny). If it had been the other way around, the men involved would be talking to HR the next day, no laughs involved. The standards to which both parties are held need to be the same, though what those standards are is anybody’s guess.
this is definitely a problem, and this is why i’m leaving these comments, people focus too much on this aspect of the issue, rather than the aspect we should be collectively focusing on, including you at the moment.
Equality, equity, justice: that lovely ladder graphic. If you give students extra resources, their outcomes are better. “Women in stem”, “women’s networking day”, all aimed in one place at one group. In our drive to redress imbalance against women, we have created one against men.
this is a different story entirely, and im not sure how much of this is a problem, though it’s probably not the optimal way of going about it either so.
It isn’t the fact that young men feel isolated and need socialising that’s stopping them, it’s the fact that the deck is rigged against them and we celebrate that rigging.
i think it’s more along the lines that men are essentially an english speaker who up and moved to a place with a completely different culture and a completely different language, they just can’t really do much in that environment because the expectations they have don’t exist in the real world. There’s a reason we see male partners break up with females who begin making more than them, theres a reason they have higher suicide rates, there’s a reason men are generally less sociable than women. There’s a reason behind all of this, and it isn’t some failure of the previous social system, it’s a failure of the previous system, and the current one. The worst aspects of both systems are rearing the ugly sides of their faces simultaneously right now, and it’s compounding somewhat excessively here.
What you see with the “manosphere” (never heard it called that before, I like the name), is the froth and bubbles. The boys who are angry, but who can’t do anything about it, are the ones who tumble in there and become monsters instead.
exactly, and the reason why they end up in there, is because it gives them some sense of purpose, and some sort of drive, redefining social norms back to how they were in the 50s makes everything they do more logical in their framework. We need the modern version of this that isn’t predicated on women having no rights, and men having literally only the protection of women to deal with. (i didn’t come up with the name btw, it’s what online peeps refer to it as)
The solution isn’t simple, and while socialisation will help a little, there needs to be fundamental changes to the social world before we can move forward. If your argument were to be, say, socialising both men and women to be kinder to one another, I’d be with you.
my argument is that we aren’t raising them correctly, we’re not raising them with the proper expectations or any at all, and this has a clear and defined impact on the life of men going forward, it’s not hard to demonstrate it. It’s not hard to redefine the role of a person in society, we just need to do it from a young age. The broader philosophical and child rearing debate here is how specifically to do that, but we all have people that we all love for being genuinely good humans, jimmy carter, mr rogers, etc. People like that are of a dying breed i worry. Starting there would at least give us something to work with on the short span of it.
You raise some excellent points here, however I’m not entirely swayed.
Your point about raising men with a good social culture is a good one, however it has its roots in the fallacy which really lies at the heart of the matter - that only men need fixing.
As a man, I’ve sat through a work conversation where a group of women (including my direct senior) have openly denigrated men in humour (I found it edgily funny). If it had been the other way around, the men involved would be talking to HR the next day, no laughs involved. The standards to which both parties are held need to be the same, though what those standards are is anybody’s guess.
Equality, equity, justice: that lovely ladder graphic. If you give students extra resources, their outcomes are better. “Women in stem”, “women’s networking day”, all aimed in one place at one group. In our drive to redress imbalance against women, we have created one against men. It isn’t the fact that young men feel isolated and need socialising that’s stopping them, it’s the fact that the deck is rigged against them and we celebrate that rigging.
What you see with the “manosphere” (never heard it called that before, I like the name), is the froth and bubbles. The boys who are angry, but who can’t do anything about it, are the ones who tumble in there and become monsters instead.
The solution isn’t simple, and while socialisation will help a little, there needs to be fundamental changes to the social world before we can move forward. If your argument were to be, say, socialising both men and women to be kinder to one another, I’d be with you.
i think this is a misunderstanding of my point. I’m not saying that men are fucking stupid and removeded, i’m saying that society has let men slip through it’s fingers into a pit of despair, with little to help them crawl out of it. Women are socially better equipped to deal with this for various different reasons, and socially they’re doing pretty good right now because of their workforce and education push happening right now, which is a good thing, presumably they will have a similar problem in the future, however i don’t think it’s going to be as significant as they all have really solid support structures, men often have none. Socially it’s ok for women to engage in them and to partake in them, socially for men, it’s not nearly as acceptable.
As a collective society, fathers, mothers, family relatives, we all need to work and focus on raising better men going forward who can be more functional in society, as well as giving them a clear place to exist, because right now, there isn’t really a place for them to exist.
this is definitely a problem, and this is why i’m leaving these comments, people focus too much on this aspect of the issue, rather than the aspect we should be collectively focusing on, including you at the moment.
this is a different story entirely, and im not sure how much of this is a problem, though it’s probably not the optimal way of going about it either so.
i think it’s more along the lines that men are essentially an english speaker who up and moved to a place with a completely different culture and a completely different language, they just can’t really do much in that environment because the expectations they have don’t exist in the real world. There’s a reason we see male partners break up with females who begin making more than them, theres a reason they have higher suicide rates, there’s a reason men are generally less sociable than women. There’s a reason behind all of this, and it isn’t some failure of the previous social system, it’s a failure of the previous system, and the current one. The worst aspects of both systems are rearing the ugly sides of their faces simultaneously right now, and it’s compounding somewhat excessively here.
exactly, and the reason why they end up in there, is because it gives them some sense of purpose, and some sort of drive, redefining social norms back to how they were in the 50s makes everything they do more logical in their framework. We need the modern version of this that isn’t predicated on women having no rights, and men having literally only the protection of women to deal with. (i didn’t come up with the name btw, it’s what online peeps refer to it as)
my argument is that we aren’t raising them correctly, we’re not raising them with the proper expectations or any at all, and this has a clear and defined impact on the life of men going forward, it’s not hard to demonstrate it. It’s not hard to redefine the role of a person in society, we just need to do it from a young age. The broader philosophical and child rearing debate here is how specifically to do that, but we all have people that we all love for being genuinely good humans, jimmy carter, mr rogers, etc. People like that are of a dying breed i worry. Starting there would at least give us something to work with on the short span of it.