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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

#221

Post by sershe »

Volundr wrote: post #202
sershe wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The litmus test is whether the issues are being treated like an (apocryphal?) Medieval witch test, where you are a witch regardless of the outcome. For example, the fact that males disproportionately commit suicide is blamed on toxic masculinity - lack of vulnerability, cultural self esteem issues or whatever. Ok, fair enough; now the counterfactual is, what if females disproportionately committed suicide? It's prett…

> Ok, fair enough; now the counterfactual is, what if females disproportionately committed suicide? It's pretty clear that it would be diagnosed on the left as related to toxic masculinity too. This is not at all clear to me. Women are actually more likely to attempt suicide then men, yet men are more likely to succeed. If what you say is true we should already be able to observe the phenomenon you describe. So where…

Looks like this issue in particular is not being discussed politically. The closest I can find is that it's explained by depression in women, which in turn is partially explained (search for culture) as I've expected: https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/depression/in...

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

#222

Post by em-bee »

foogazi wrote: post #182
em-bee wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Male parents too ?

i have seen families where the male parents absolutely didn't want to have anything to do with childcare. so i don't believe that it is a far stretch that some people come to the conclusion that this is normal and they shouldn't do childcare, and any man who is caring about children would be suspicious.

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

#223

Post by orwin »

NickC25 wrote: post #162
ZeroGravitas wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You think someone who was completely bought and paid for by the healthcare lobby was going to allow Obama to deploy a government-backed healthcare option, instead of the mess we got with the ACA? Are you talking about Biden, or every single Republican here?

Both, actually. I'm well aware that the GOP sucks, but the corporate wing of the Democratic party has put their foot down and voted with the GOP for way too long...especially on issues that are popular across the country even among different political demographics. Drug reform, immigration, education, healthcare, gun control, etc... Corporations donate lavishly to both parties because it's just too easy and cheap to…

I mean, from what I heard from west Virginia, you have the most pro-union, pro-work president since the New Deal, so hopefully that fucks up corporate America a little?

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

#224

Post by hdjjhhvvhga »

ericfrazier wrote: post #201
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.

Feminism is about equality, for men too.

This is what many feminist say. But when you look at what they actually do, most of the time they focus on female issues. It's not wrong, they're feminists after all. But taking care of male issues deserves due attention, too.

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

#225

Post by nrdxp »

gopherthon wrote: post #67
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.

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

#226

Post by PaulHoule »

pixl97 wrote: post #95
PaulHoule wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But you sure can get your head stuffed in a trash can in some places for it.

Where is assault legal in the US?

It's not like the DC universe where you can launch a space shuttle off a commercial airliner and Superman saves your ass. There is plenty of violent behavior where it comes down to "he said, she said" and the police and legal system practically do nothing.

For example at my undergrad school I made fun of some gay bashers so they came after me instead of going after gay people because this was the 1990s and they probably thought if they actually bashed gays they'd get AIDS or something. Their reign of terror against me and other people like the president of the paint pellet gun club continued for a year until they finally smashed somebody in the face with a rock at point blank range from a water balloon catapult in front of tens of witnesses.

I am still sore to this day at the dean of students who made excuses instead of busting the people involved. A gay man and a lesbian women committed suicide when this was going and I blame that dean of student more than anyone because the key thing about bullying is how the whole institution rallies to the support of the bully (e.g. if the institution can't protect you from that kind of abuse it is showing you you are worthless, not just *telling you.) I heard the ringleader of that gang did time and if he got out and went "straight" and put his life together and stayed out of trouble I would want to shake his hand because I know how hard that is, but that dean of students is celebrated as a hero for all the good things he's done for that school and I think never held to account for his role in that incident. When I really think about it I felt that I belonged there much more than many places in my life but I have not given money, been to reunions, or anything like that.

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

#227

Post by orwin »

wing-_-nuts wrote: post #101
tomtheelder wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But I see it discussed in left leaning media all the time. Topics like male suicide rates, loneliness, and social pressure against showing emotion come up over and over again.

Interesting, where do you see this discussed? I sub to r/bropill, they're a very positive men's support sub on reddit.

Just saw a reddit post about some 'Vaush' youtuber talking about the issue, maybe you should look into him?

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

#228

Post by sershe »

acdha wrote: post #212
sershe wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I provided a real example of an issue where men do worse being diagnosed on the left as a problem with men. I don't think I need to provide examples of issues where women do worse and it's diagnosed on the left as a problem with men. I argue that's the whole of the left discourse.. any new issues would be handled similarly regardless of the outcomes to be discussed. Can you provide any issues as counter-examples?

You mentioned an issue (suicide) but simply asserted how it would be treated. You didn’t mention a single real person taking a position on the issue, establish that they were broadly representative of a group, or even establish which group you’re talking about (i.e. are you using “left” in the Fox News sense, general mainstream American sense, or European sense? Those are very different.)

Hmm, are they hard to find? If you want one random example from a major source, here https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/05/23/real-man-wy...

I mean left in US context. The further to the left, the more issues/the more the issues are diagnosed like this, as far as I can tell

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

#229

Post by bnpxft »

Read bell hooks' "The Will to Change" to start. As someone on the far-left, we talk about positive masculinity all the time.

The whole concept of intersectional feminism is that there are different classes of privilege and exploitation that are relative to each other. To say that modern feminism doesn't think men are exploited is to misunderstand modern feminism.

Are young men exploited? Absolutely. They are exploited by capitalists to extract as much value out of their labor, their bodies be damned.

Are they exploited by people in power? Absolutely. The entire manosphere exploits their loneliness and keeps them isolated as emotionless rugged individuals.

Men are humans just as women are humans, and men have the same human need to connect and socialize. Toxic masculinity strips them of fulfilling that need.

Feminism gets caricatured so much by people who have something to benefit from that lampooning. Rather than dogpiling on the "feminism is mean to men" bandwagon, actually read modern feminist literature on masculinity.

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

#230

Post by akira2501 »

diogenes4 wrote: post #218
akira2501 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry.. what's "anti-labor" about this video?

Well, pitching "dirty jobs" as a solution to the decline in gender roles seems like a shallow effort to get people to accept shitty jobs as some sort of performative masculinity. I can't think of any other reason to do this—I don't know many men who long for dirtier jobs so they're seen as more manly. In fact I'm confident I've never met anyone who felt this way.

> to accept shitty jobs

Welding is a "shitty job?" I'd disagree entirely, and I think that would be Mike Rowe's position as well, and I think he directly cautions against the mentality you're attempting to take to these careers. You're also seemingly leaving no space for owner operated businesses.

> I can't think of any other reason to do this—I don't know many men who long for dirtier jobs so they're seen as more manly.

Doesn't that just undercut your own thesis, then? Or are you operating on the presumption that the advice being given by Mike Rowe is meant to be universal and you should upend your life in order to chase it? I don't see that at all.

I'm still baffled as to how you'd see any of this as "anti-labor."

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