'Traditional masculinity' labeled 'harmful' by the American Psychological Assc

> traditional masculinity — marked by stoicism, competitiveness, dominance and aggression — is, on the whole, harmful.

comes from the APA's Monitor Jan. '19 edition [1]. The context of the quote seems to indicate that some recent research has taken the tack that masculinity is harmful and that such a bent in the research should be corrected. The full sentence in the Monitor piece is:

> The main thrust of the subsequent research is that traditional masculinity—marked by stoicism, competitiveness, dominance and aggression—is, on the whole, harmful.

Read the rest of The Atlantic article for a better take on the APA guidelines going forward. It's real journalism.

However, I'm going to soapbox a bit here:

This whole exercise has been a real eye opener for me. The very inflammatory quote was a bit much and so I idly opened the linked document. Seeing a fair few pages of text, I just tried to Ctrl+F for the sentence, to get a quick way to see greater context on the quote. I could not find it.

I tried some permutations on that sentence. Still nothing. The more I looked, the less sense everything made. Yet many of the commentors here on HN and in a fair few other sites I visit, were outraged at the APA. Many of the comments on this article are greyed out, downvoted, calling on feminists, political bents, conspiracies, etc. Other sites are equally as bad, just really crazy stuff that the actual APA guidelines have nothing to do with. I've re-skimmed them and, honestly, it's fairly good advice for practitioners, though not really 'brass tacks' advice. But it seems that nearly none of you actually read the guidelines before commenting. It seems that YOU (yes you, the real person reading this!) barely skimmed the LA Times article, let alone dug into the APA guidelines at all.

And the author, Jessica Schladebeck, really played with journalistic standards by confusing quotes from the APA guidelines with quotes from the APA's Monitor. Now, if you look at her output on a typical day [2], she writes about three 2000 word essays on a multitude of events and topics; she seems to have no specialty or 'beat'. 6k words per day is a full time job, that is for sure. But I cannot excuse the total lack of copy editing at the LA Times. I know they are going through a fair few issues of their own [3], but come on!, this is simple stuff yall.

Has journalism really sunken that far for a real, actual, major US newspaper?! Jesus, no wonder we are in the pit that we find ourselves as a country. I'll say that I have been surprised, shocked even, at the level of discourse in this country, in my local community, my work, and even in my family. I've always wondered why that was. Now I know the answer.

The information we digest really is 'fake'. Jessica Schladebeck's article dances on the line of journalistic ethics. Honestly, I feel that it merrily crosses right over that line. It's pure 'clickbait' dressed up in the veneer of a 'real' newspaper. I expect this kind of crap from Buzzfeed, but the LA Times?! I mean, they actually printed this and sent it out on broadsheets?! How little do they pay per line?

What is going on?! Now, I thought that HNers were a bit above the hoi polloi, but no. You all just like to argue over imaginary differences. You all made up these points of view from whole cloth and then took sides in an argument that had no basis at all in reality. Some commentors bemoan :"disappointing to see things phrased this way", yet the APA never phrased things in that way and bemoaned it themselves (it seems to me). Others state they are "glad it's finally being treated in this way", yet the APA is not treating masculinity as toxic and their discussion is nuanced in the Monitor. Others still question the APA via: "encouraging men to achieve success in life is harmful?", but that statement cannot be pulled out of the APA guidelines, and can barely be pulled out of the LA Times article itself.

Quite literally, you all are 'playing yourselves'. So stop it.

Stop trying to get in fights on the internet. Stop skimming articles. Stop being smug. You're not getting more information faster. You're getting all but lied to and you are lying at each other. Internet karma points do not matter. It feels like so many 4th graders trying to come up with book reports on the spot [4]. So, if you commented in this thread about this article, it's time you took a note from John Green [5] and took a sabbatical from the internet. It's not helping you, it's hurting you and those around you.

[0] https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2019/01/tradition...

[1] https://www.apa.org/monitor/2019/01/ce-corner.aspx

[2] https://www.latimes.com/author-all/?fn=Jessica&ln=Schladebec...

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Angeles_Times#Modern_era

[4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fo45o69HaKI

[5] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WoHkvc3DA3o

It wasn't.

FYI, hyper implies excess. "Risk seeking" implies seeking risk for its own sake, i.e. when it's not situationally appropriate. That's not "completely different" wording at all. The only bullshit here is your attempt to exaggerate conflict, which BTW is another part of that toxic behavior cluster we were talking about.

When reacting to pejorative language, it's important to eschew it oneself.

Learning to deal with your emotions is the mark of true maturity. Suppression is itself a manifestation of fear, and denial of that fear. As with anything else, it's better to solve problems than to turn a blind eye.