Live data from Hacker News

Ignoring boys' emotional needs fuels public health risks

wbur.org

321–330 of 1001 posts

Re: Ignoring boys' emotional needs fuels public health risks

#321

As a black guy I don't remember a friend ever saying "black people suck" to my face. But I've heard people I'm close with, both women and men, say that "men suck" countless times. I think a lot of people who don't see themselves as "biased" still carry a lot of bias when it comes to gender, and it has an impact.

And we have this:

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2015/nov/17/row-after-...

> A row has broken out at York University after plans to mark International Men’s Day on Thursday were cancelled following an outcry from staff and students.

There is a big rift in feminism which feminists seem loath to acknowledge, preferring instead to claim that it isn't real, it's made up by anti-feminists, and it isn't important even if you can point to actual evidence. Well, it's real, it's important, and despite the posturing, we aren't all ignoring it.

More:

https://time.com/3432838/emma-watson-feminism-men-women/

> Just in the past few days, many feminist commentators have taken great umbrage at suggestions that soccer star Hope Solo, currently facing charges for assaulting her sister and teenage nephew, deserves similar censure to football player Ray Rice, who was caught on video striking his fiancée. Their argument boils down to the assertion that violence by men toward their female partners should be singled out because it’s a bigger problem than female violence toward family members. Meanwhile, in Watson’s native England, activists from women’s organizations recently blamed the shortage of services for abused women on efforts to accommodate abused men (despite the fact that, as Guardian columnist and blogger Ally Fogg demonstrated, even the lowest estimates of the prevalence of domestic violence against men suggest that male victims are far less likely than women to get help).

Re: Ignoring boys' emotional needs fuels public health risks

#322
post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tate has a following because anybody more mild or less delusional will just get shouted down by vocal radicals who have no concept of why lost men gravitate toward people like Tate in the first place. Anybody that exists in the space he does will be called an incel-adjacent far-right radical regardless of how reasonable what they're saying is, and the only winning move there is to just say that detractors are agents…

I think Jordan Peterson is doing a decent job at this though, his stance on helping young men is quite similar to Tate's, albeit less delusional.

Peterson is a perfect example of how being reasonable doesn't work. His ideology/commentary had nowhere near the delusion and woe-is-me gnashing of teeth that Tate's grift revolves around, it is nowhere near as destructive to its target audience and society, and it caught the dude so much shit that he basically self-destructed. There was a $35 million film made where the villain was based on him, with the director having this to say:

"We based that character on this insane man, Jordan Peterson, who is this pseudo-intellectual hero to the incel community. You know the incels? They’re basically disenfranchised, mostly white men, who believe they are entitled to sex from women. And they believe that society has now robbed them—that the idea of feminism is working against nature, and that we must be put back into the correct place. Yeah, they’re actually succeeding in many different ways. But this guy Jordan Peterson is someone that legitimizes certain aspects of their movement because he’s a former professor, he’s an author, he wears a suit, so they feel like this is a real philosophy that should be taken seriously."

If you're integrated into the modern US corporate society and media landscape, and think that some portion of Peterson's outlook is potentially helpful, keep that shit to yourself. That you will even humor his ideas is grounds for people with brain worms to attack your moral character. If it starts to make noise, your employer may not want to deal with it. Your friends and family may not want to deal with it. Mum's the word; you are only going to hurt yourself.

I would say that one of the few people in this specific media market that stands any chance of telling people that are looking to Tate and Peterson for advice something that may actually help them is Sam Hyde. Outside of his inflammatory comedy, his commentary on how to deal with being lost is hard to hear for somebody that's there, but ultimately as close as some talking head on the internet will ever get to helping somebody like that. He has pretty much completely checked out of "normal" society, so lost people looking integrate with "normal" society aren't going to find him. They'll find Tate instead, who has a relatively easy "answer" and is trying as hard as he can to change the world to fit it. Reasonable people commentating on this are doomed to fail in the current environment.

Re: Ignoring boys' emotional needs fuels public health risks

#323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only problem is - objectively some dads are just no damn good. Are their children supposed to "accept" him regardless, and feel bad about themselves if they can't?

Their children feel bad about themselves because they can't accept who their fathers were. In these offspring, that hate is always there somewhere and comes out in other ways, directed at other things, often outgroups. An antidote is Blaise Pascal's observation that, "To understand is to forgive," which has a lot of depth to it. The animus in the culture right now is divided between those who have some acceptance of…

Their children feel bad about themselves because they can't accept who their fathers were.

I get the moral point you're trying to make. But otherwise this statement simply is not factually tenable.

Granted, some children who don't "accept who their fathers were" fall into the borderline spectrum that you're referring to. Or are needlessly resentful of their parents due to simple human failings, such as a single lapse of judgement at some key moment. Of course.

But a very significant portion have perfectly valid reasons for "not accepting who their fathers were". And it would be psychologically unhealthy for them to try to force themselves to do so.

Any more than any other victim of violent (or comparable) crime needs to "accept their attacker for who they were". Or force themselves to "understand" their attacker's motives. Let alone forgive them for anything.

Re: Ignoring boys' emotional needs fuels public health risks

#324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's that simple. The fact that women give birth, have periods, and have a hormonal cycle that has wide ranging impact upon their psyche and decision making processes also has probably had a major impact on most cultures trending patriarchal.

What do you mean by 'impact on their psyche and decision making processes'? They are less mentally capable in some sense? I'd like you to spell it out.

[flagged]

Re: Ignoring boys' emotional needs fuels public health risks

#325

It is absolutely true that boys have been neglected. But the contempt of men is a recent phenomenon. Feminism has a great deal to do with it, demonizing masculinity by construing all men as brutes and promoting the false doctrine that men are unnecessary, that women are self-sufficient, that the patriarchy is some kind of evil oppressive thing. All of that is false. Men and women are complementary , which is to say t…

> There's a reason virtually every culture is patriarchal. It's because men are physically stronger than women. That's it. That's all it is.

I’m on board with tailoring upbringing to the kid’s gender and being conscious of how society sometimes treats young men in a negative way.

But I second that is a weird take or point to throw in.

Re: Ignoring boys' emotional needs fuels public health risks

#326
post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What makes you say the problems facing people other than man are far worse? I'm genuinely curious, because often conversation around these topics will go along the lines of "well, women have to worry about getting beaten up" (or (sexually) assaulted, etc), but men have problems too! The above attitude I feel like minimises men's problems - the implicit assumption is that everyone else has it worse, whether that attit…

I was wrong to use the word "obviously", and would change it to "in my opinion" if I could still edit that post. And definitely did not intend to minimize mens problems - I'm a man myself and have first hand experience. I've had this conversation with a friend who is a outspoken feminist who I felt erased the problems men faced. I don't have time to show my thoughts with any objective metrics, so I'm just going to la…

Thanks for the reply, I get where you're coming from. I think I mostly just wanted to bring up the implicit assumptions that are made about the problems a certain group can have.

I suppose a lot of these issues come down to these subtler problems - Men have fewer problems in some senses (physical capability, professional respect, etc) but more in others (generally emotional and relationships), wheas for women it's often the reverse. These sorts of implicit assumptions that exist on a cultural level can be difficult for people of the opposite gender to see or understand.

Re: Ignoring boys' emotional needs fuels public health risks

#327

This plays out at all levels. I felt extremely insulted just a few days ago when my youngest’s preschool held a gathering to celebrate their “graduation” to pre-school. At least 4 times mothers were called on to step forward— once to have a song sung to them, another to receive a flower, etc. Fathers were not mentioned at all. This prompted me to look around, get a rough sense of the distribution… Counting the kids &…

[flagged]

There were no graduation planning meetings. It was not in any way an event planned by the parents. It was completely planned by the school.

Re: Ignoring boys' emotional needs fuels public health risks

#328

It is absolutely true that boys have been neglected. But the contempt of men is a recent phenomenon. Feminism has a great deal to do with it, demonizing masculinity by construing all men as brutes and promoting the false doctrine that men are unnecessary, that women are self-sufficient, that the patriarchy is some kind of evil oppressive thing. All of that is false. Men and women are complementary , which is to say t…

> There's a reason virtually every culture is patriarchal. It's because men are physically stronger than women. That's it. That's all it is.

This is not true. The reason men tend to rule things is because men tend to lift each other up in life to a higher degree than women do.

Re: Ignoring boys' emotional needs fuels public health risks

#329

> many young men don’t seek emotional support when they need it because they fear being perceived as weak and ineffective. I would be curious to see a study on what happens to those men who do seek it. As in every last case I anecdotally am aware of, that perception quickly became reality and those men regretted it.

Brene Brown studied it. It does not turn out well for men: > I was not prepared to hear over and over from men how the women — the mothers, sisters, girlfriends, wives — in their lives are constantly criticizing them for not being open and vulnerable and intimate, all the while they are standing in front of that cramped wizard closet where their men are huddled inside, adjusting the curtain and making sure no one see…

i'd suggest the total opposite: do talk about your feelings, and if she can't handle it then she isn't the right partner for you.

Re: Ignoring boys' emotional needs fuels public health risks

#330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's that simple. The fact that women give birth, have periods, and have a hormonal cycle that has wide ranging impact upon their psyche and decision making processes also has probably had a major impact on most cultures trending patriarchal.

What do you mean by 'impact on their psyche and decision making processes'? They are less mentally capable in some sense? I'd like you to spell it out.

[deleted]
Post reply on HN