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Boys and Men in the United States Are Struggling. The Left Should Talk About It

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Re: Boys and Men in the United States Are Struggling. The Left Should Talk About It

#81

Post by hellisothers »

zzzeek wrote: post #71
mellosouls wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The overwhelming way the left talks about it is in terms of "toxic" masculinity or through the perspective of feminism. The latter is a valid perspective, but dominates the discourse which is hardly a balanced approach.

[flagged]

I believe what the OP is getting at is the masculinity discussion on the left is predominantly about what not to do while the discussion on the right is more often about what to do. If the left doesn’t provide a framework and examples of what positive masculinity looks like it presents a risk of young impressionable people draping themselves over the framework that is being provided by others.

Re: Boys and Men in the United States Are Struggling. The Left Should Talk About It

#82

Post by Gibbon1 »

mellosouls wrote: post #30
acdha wrote: post #11

The left talks about this all of the time, as do the middle and right. Pretending otherwise makes me question whether the author is actually trying to help or simply sell his book.

The overwhelming way the left talks about it is in terms of "toxic" masculinity or through the perspective of feminism. The latter is a valid perspective, but dominates the discourse which is hardly a balanced approach.

My problem besides pure misandrists hiding behind feminism is the quasi-marxist idea that men are a separate species that exploits women. As opposed to the reality that ordinary men are exploited as much but different.

In particular you see pointless bashing of young men. Who are actually at the very bottom of the patriarcal order, completely disposable and a seen mostly as fodder. So punching at young men is actually punching down and reinforcing the patriarcal order.

Re: Boys and Men in the United States Are Struggling. The Left Should Talk About It

#83

Post by majormajor »

Anyone who isn't a religious fundamentalist needs to find a non-combative way to talk about it that doesn't make it into a zero-sum game between boys and girls because the far-right evangelicals approach this as a means to an end: "here's this thing that will be easy to point at as a justification for the reversion to traditional gender roles that we already wanted."

So anyone who wants to advance the experience of people regardless of gender has got to fight that framing as well as advance possible solutions.

Re: Boys and Men in the United States Are Struggling. The Left Should Talk About It

#84

Post by ap99 »

wing-_-nuts wrote: post #32
acdha wrote: post #11

The left talks about this all of the time, as do the middle and right. Pretending otherwise makes me question whether the author is actually trying to help or simply sell his book.

>The left talks about this all of the time They absolutely do NOT. The right has Jordan Peterson and a raft of people discussing men's issues. The left has NO equivalent. The silence is deafening. If you dare to bring up men's issues in education, parental rights, etc, you get lumped in with the MRA wackadoodles. The left is especially harsh in silencing dissent, and frankly every time it happens, you're pushing peop…

That's precisely what's happened to me.

I'm not rushing towards the right, I'm being pushed away from the left.

Re: Boys and Men in the United States Are Struggling. The Left Should Talk About It

#85

Post by n3storm »

mellosouls wrote: post #30
acdha wrote: post #11

The left talks about this all of the time, as do the middle and right. Pretending otherwise makes me question whether the author is actually trying to help or simply sell his book.

The overwhelming way the left talks about it is in terms of "toxic" masculinity or through the perspective of feminism. The latter is a valid perspective, but dominates the discourse which is hardly a balanced approach.

Is not toxic masculinity. Is toxic humanity.

Re: Boys and Men in the United States Are Struggling. The Left Should Talk About It

#86

Post by junofan »

crazygringo wrote: post #43
hosh wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious, can you give examples? I hear this issue pretty loudly from the right, but not really much from the left. I know ordinary people talk about this issue, but it isn't the same as people in positions of power or influence.

Basically all of the liberal publications treat it as a major topic every so often. A hugely shared article from 2 months ago in WaPo: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/07/10/christine... Also in the Atlantic last year: https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2022/10/21-r... This is just off the top of my head, but it's easy to do a Google search.

Opinion pieces are cool, but have you seen any politicians in positions of power advance debate? What’s the Biden administration’s agenda for men?

Re: Boys and Men in the United States Are Struggling. The Left Should Talk About It

#87

Post by wing-_-nuts »

acdha wrote: post #72
wing-_-nuts wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The left talks about this all of the time They absolutely do NOT. The right has Jordan Peterson and a raft of people discussing men's issues. The left has NO equivalent. The silence is deafening. If you dare to bring up men's issues in education, parental rights, etc, you get lumped in with the MRA wackadoodles. The left is especially harsh in silencing dissent, and frankly every time it happens, you're pushing peop…

> If you dare to bring up men's issues in education, parental rights, etc, you get lumped in with the MRA wackadoodles The only time I’ve seen that happen is when the proposed solutions are things like rolling back women’s independence or trying to excuse things like harassment as “boys will be boys”. I’ve otherwise read tons of things about helping build healthy relationships, having non-sexual friendships, improvin…

I'm not trying to be disagreeable or abrasive, but this does not track with my experience. Bring up a women's issue, and it's societies problem. Bring up a men's issue and you'll quickly be invalidated or told 'men need to fix this issue themselves!'

Re: Boys and Men in the United States Are Struggling. The Left Should Talk About It

#88

Post by happytoexplain »

hosh wrote: post #20
acdha wrote: post #11

The left talks about this all of the time, as do the middle and right. Pretending otherwise makes me question whether the author is actually trying to help or simply sell his book.

I'm curious, can you give examples? I hear this issue pretty loudly from the right, but not really much from the left. I know ordinary people talk about this issue, but it isn't the same as people in positions of power or influence.

>it isn't the same as people in positions of power

This is the crux of 90% of fallacious criticisms of political parties. A lot of people in power are immoral and don't care about certain issues for identity-politics reasons, but as well there are reasonable people in power who can only give so much attention to so many topics at any given time, and some issues naturally become more associated with one party than another. In a perfect world that would be fine and everybody would understand that just because the news articles and speeches concerning a particular party don't divvy their focus on particular issues in the same manner as one personally would given one's own specific politics, that doesn't mean "the left" or "the right" "don't care" about X issue or are "silent on" issue X. That phrasing is usually an oversimplification used as an excuse to bash a party disliked by the writer/speaker for other reasons. The two specifics reasons this pattern is fallacious is:

A. It implies that the people in power generally don't care about the issue, which may only appear true if you do not have a holistic sample of their opinions and policies, which is not something the media facilitates.

B. It implies that the voter base of those people must generally agree with them on the particular issue.

Re: Boys and Men in the United States Are Struggling. The Left Should Talk About It

#89

Post by em-bee »

clipsy wrote: post #46
amelius wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Women had less rights for a long time Women always had different kinds of rights, like expressing themselves more with emotions and clothing and cosmetics, etc., and taking care of children. Men don't have these rights. A man working in daycare is frowned upon. A man wearing eyeshadow is frowned upon, a man sending heart ♥ emoticons in WhatsApp is frowned upon, etc. It seems fair that if women claim more rights, th…

Men have the rights to do all of those things.

in new zealand men can't get a job as a kindergarten or primary school teacher (not sure about middle or high school) because parents won't have it.

Re: Boys and Men in the United States Are Struggling. The Left Should Talk About It

#90

Post by klyrs »

hellisothers wrote: post #81
zzzeek wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I believe what the OP is getting at is the masculinity discussion on the left is predominantly about what not to do while the discussion on the right is more often about what to do. If the left doesn’t provide a framework and examples of what positive masculinity looks like it presents a risk of young impressionable people draping themselves over the framework that is being provided by others.

My dad would tell other men "don't be a pussy," an attitude that is far from dead on the right. I've read a lot of advice from left, "men, seek therapy." I'm not sure that either side has a monopoly on positive/negative framing.
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