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The data are clear: The boys are not all right

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Re: The data are clear: The boys are not all right

#162
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally, I would love to quit working and take care of my family at home. I find much more joy in that than working a programming career. I think a lot of men have been conditioned to think we have to be the provider much like women have been conditioned to think they have to be a homemaker.

Indeed; how is it fair that men are "forced" to work and provide income (with all the stress associated for that, especially for low-earners) and are "forced" to miss out on their kids? It seems to me that's just as much of an injustice as women being "forced" to stay at home. ("forced" in quotes as it's not strongly forced, but rather "forced" by expectations, prospects, etc.) I've long considered traditional gender…

Men are socialized to work by the same society that women are socialized to stay home and make babies. Feminism's direct goals would be breaking that down so that men could stay home (unfortunately we cannot make babies) and women could work, or any other combination, without the traditional gender role boundaries. Feminism's goals are good for everyone.

Re: The data are clear: The boys are not all right

#163

My observation is that we are going to have a radical rebalancing of who reproduces and who doesn’t. Lot of men and women who are generally not too motivated to seek out a companion, lose weight, put in the work to make it happen just…won’t pass on genetics. Children are a lot of work and energy. I’m highly introverted and high earning. My wife was the aggressor in my case. She pretty much made it all happen. I think…

The very rich by ability and the very poor by inability to attain family planning, and everyone else in TX. I maybe in a skewed population (FAANG) but women are much more aggressive here in urban areas. While I was walking downtown, a woman pulled her Mercedes over in traffic and shouted an offer at me. I thought she was hilarious and bold but not attractive enough. In the past, this was sometimes a thing too: in 194…

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Re: The data are clear: The boys are not all right

#164

White, straight, male, 37 with two kids. One who is severely disabled and under the age of 5. In the past couple of years, its become clear to me that I will probably become a caretaker to my daughter at some point in my life. The prospects of keeping a full time job, in my field are quickly changing - I am no longer desired. Doing this in a financial services setting is especially stark because there's no empathy. I…

White, straight male in my 40s who worked hard to build a decent career. The feeling that this culture hates me based on each of those categories, completely without knowing me, is hard to ignore much longer without a response. The feeling comes from being on the losing side of every action the government and popular culture takes. Being told that you can’t even be involved in a conversation about that fact.

White, straight male (too far) into in my 40s, but in France: for now I don't witness that. There is overall concern for women and minorities, but no hate towards my "category".

Reading what happens elsewhere, I'm happy to live in a more cohesive society.

Re: The data are clear: The boys are not all right

#165

Of course. We treat females like they are a marginalized minority. My son’s school has a “Girls Can Code” program. All collateral features women and girls. (Boys are welcome though) I worked at a place where a C-level executive hosted company endorsed dinners at her home for female managers to mentor them for executive roles. If I setup a boys club for computers at school or hosted a men’s IT society at work, that wo…

My CS lectures barely have any women. 1/10 students in a class of 200-300 are women. In more difficult/less mainstream classes (operating systems, networking, sometimes PL theory), it's 1/20. The game development club I'm in has 2 woman in it (including me) out of the ~20 people that regularly show up. This is in 2019-2022.

My school also hosts a hackathon for women and underrepresented gender minorities every year (organized by a student org that rents out a building from the school for it). The hackathon is also open to high school students. Many people I've talked to there talk about how they only went into CS because someone they knew invited them to the hackathon, or have made friends and feel less alone in CS because of it.

There's a real need for these groups. Whether men needs their own groups is a separate discussion that I have no real stance on.

Re: The data are clear: The boys are not all right

#167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If I setup a boys club for computers at school or hosted a men’s IT society at work, that wouldn’t end well. Maybe not, but nearly every Users Group I've attended may as well have been a men's IT society for all the women I've seen attend, despite specific outreach efforts to get them there.

Probably. But why should small boys be punished and denied opportunities because of that? Also, this has been even broader: Around here, until recently girls got extra points even on studies were they were massively over-represented (in addition to being generally over-represented in higher education.) Just recently boys started to get extra points when applying for Engineering degrees in Chemistry or in Nursing.)

I don't know where "around here" is or even what "girls got extra points even on studies where they were massively over-represented" means. Are you talking about grades? "points" towards college admissions?

Re: The data are clear: The boys are not all right

#168

White, straight, male, 37 with two kids. One who is severely disabled and under the age of 5. In the past couple of years, its become clear to me that I will probably become a caretaker to my daughter at some point in my life. The prospects of keeping a full time job, in my field are quickly changing - I am no longer desired. Doing this in a financial services setting is especially stark because there's no empathy. I…

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Re: The data are clear: The boys are not all right

#169
post #46

Andrew Yang makes some good points in this piece, particularly about positive masculinity and role models. Whether fair or not, the perception that the left is hostile to men has driven recruitment for the far right, and that merits some reflection. But he's also really facile about underlying economic causes. It's easy to blame problems on "our culture has been broken by the wokes!", but many of the problems of youn…

I've coached high school sports teams, both boys and girls, for the last two decades. I've seen some of these trends unfold over the years with my student athletes. My observation is girls are just more motivated than boys, even for something fun like sports practices and workouts, girls in general will show up more consistently than boys. The teachers I've spoken to at the school where I coach have confirmed the sam…

> and from my experience it's often the mother. I'm not trying to downplay the role of positive male role models and their impact

No, that is exactly what you are doing.

All the available evidence shows boys, especially, do less well across the board when raised without a father in the home.

Re: The data are clear: The boys are not all right

#170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this actually true? This feels a bit like a post-facto generalization from specific situations. "I was a nerd and didn't go on dates. Being a nerd got me into software and now I make a lot of money. Therefore people who are on the path to high earning are not getting dates." My experience has been that a lot of the stereotypical jocks ended up in finance and are doing quite well and that software is no longer domi…

A lot of popular kids and jocks end up in management in tech while the loners and kids of immigrants are the ones actually creating the software.

Maybe true but there's a lot of survivorship bias in the population. Software shops are often hurting for clear communicators. Winsome folks tend to get bumped into leadership roles even if they start out slinging curly braces and semicolons.
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