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New research highlights a shortage of male mentors for boys and young men

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Re: New research highlights a shortage of male mentors for boys and young men

#21

Post by yetihehe »

sunrunner wrote: post #12
yetihehe wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sites like artofmanliness.com seem to be more and more needed in today's world.

So we can all be schooled in the important manly things such as the '6 Card Games Every Many Should Know' or 'The Dale Carnegie That Will Instantly Improve Your Relationships'?

No, so we can all be schooled in "Why Every Man Should Be Strong"[0], "How to Set a Table"[1], "9 Ways to Start a Fire Without Matches"[2] or "Win the War on Debt: 80 Ways to Be Frugal and Save Money"[3]. You used probably the weakest reason to discredit the idea of men improving themselves. That's not a "good" manly behavior.

[0] https://www.artofmanliness.com/health-fitness/fitness/why-ev...

[1] https://www.artofmanliness.com/character/etiquette/how-to-se...

[2] https://www.artofmanliness.com/skills/outdoor-survival/9-way...

[3] https://www.artofmanliness.com/career-wealth/wealth/money-sa...

Re: New research highlights a shortage of male mentors for boys and young men

#22

Post by haritha-j »

fzeroracer wrote: post #11

People are going to misread the article and go off in their own direction but the problem is clearly capitalism. It's always been capitalism. Lower income boys have drastically less access to male mentors than higher income ones and the article even states this. Low family income means less options. Most of your mentors at a young age are going to come from schooling, which still generally has a gender tilt towards w…

Ah yes, the answer to the problem of inequal income distribution is of course capitalism.

Re: New research highlights a shortage of male mentors for boys and young men

#23

Post by pjc50 »

Whole bunch of factors involved in this which HN is ill-equipped to deal with. But I think paranoia about "grooming" should probably be counted as a factor as well. A lot of people are going to be suspicious about an adult man who wants to hang out with children. So everything gets tangled up and shut down in the name of safeguarding.

If you ask the question "what proportion of girls and young women have a male mentor", the problem becomes even more obvious.

Re: New research highlights a shortage of male mentors for boys and young men

#24

Post by pjc50 »

cal_dent wrote: post #17

What about their dad’s & uncle’s? Mum’s male friends? I don’t know, external (outside the family) isn’t the only source of “mentorship” and we should stop trying to pretend it is

Often missing as well. Lot of isolated single mothers out there.

Re: New research highlights a shortage of male mentors for boys and young men

#25

Post by Vinnl »

CalRobert wrote: post #8

It does feel a bit cruel that we were told to be vulnerable and open, and then when men said we’re lonely got accused of asking other people to fix our problems and that we just needed to deal with it. Also I don’t think I’d risk being e.g. a teacher - the girls in my high school would casually joke about accusing their teachers of being creeps if they failed a test, etc.

I think one problem we have (always had, but worse now that there are so many more opinions to be exposed to) is that we expect "society's" opinions to be consistent, despite being made up of millions of different people.

Of course there are going to be people telling others to be vulnerable and open, and of course there are also going to be people telling others not to complain because that's dumping their problems on other people.

Re: New research highlights a shortage of male mentors for boys and young men

#26

Post by fzeroracer »

sirwhinesalot wrote: post #19
fzeroracer wrote: post #11

People are going to misread the article and go off in their own direction but the problem is clearly capitalism. It's always been capitalism. Lower income boys have drastically less access to male mentors than higher income ones and the article even states this. Low family income means less options. Most of your mentors at a young age are going to come from schooling, which still generally has a gender tilt towards w…

Yes lower income boys are hit way harder, but it's not like the issue disappears at the higher end. > 72 percent of boys from households earning $100,000 or more reported having a male mentor for schoolwork. > A similar trend appeared regarding relationship advice. Only 45 percent of boys in the lowest income group had a male mentor for relationships. This compares to 67 percent of boys in the highest income group. E…

$100,000 isn't even 'rich' nowdays, that's below middle class especially if we're talking about an actual family unit. I can guarantee that if this research further stratified things into $100-200k, and $200k+ you would see the results continue to improve as people cross the threshold into middle class.

This survey can be seen as comparing people in poverty level income vs everyone else.

Re: New research highlights a shortage of male mentors for boys and young men

#27

Post by dmichulke »

fzeroracer wrote: post #11

People are going to misread the article and go off in their own direction but the problem is clearly capitalism. It's always been capitalism. Lower income boys have drastically less access to male mentors than higher income ones and the article even states this. Low family income means less options. Most of your mentors at a young age are going to come from schooling, which still generally has a gender tilt towards w…

When you say "capitalism" you mean poverty?

I believe poverty is the natural state of man and I wonder how non-capitalism (= socialism?) makes people rich?

What I think you mean is that equal access to education is a promise of the state that is too often broken. But then we're talking about incompetence or corruption at the state level, paid for and sustained with your taxes, and you have those problems in socialism, too.

Re: New research highlights a shortage of male mentors for boys and young men

#28

Post by sirwhinesalot »

fzeroracer wrote: post #26
sirwhinesalot wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes lower income boys are hit way harder, but it's not like the issue disappears at the higher end. > 72 percent of boys from households earning $100,000 or more reported having a male mentor for schoolwork. > A similar trend appeared regarding relationship advice. Only 45 percent of boys in the lowest income group had a male mentor for relationships. This compares to 67 percent of boys in the highest income group. E…

$100,000 isn't even 'rich' nowdays, that's below middle class especially if we're talking about an actual family unit. I can guarantee that if this research further stratified things into $100-200k, and $200k+ you would see the results continue to improve as people cross the threshold into middle class. This survey can be seen as comparing people in poverty level income vs everyone else.

A lot of the lower income kids are from single parent homes (which is why they can't cross the $100.000 threshold), those will obviously have less access to a male role model.

If you correct for that the numbers would likely get closer, not further apart.

Re: New research highlights a shortage of male mentors for boys and young men

#30

Post by benterix »

I used to work for a short time as an IT teacher. The kids there were wonderful, even the troublemakers weren't that bad. What struck me is that clearly for some of the boys I seemed to be the only male figure they could related to in their lives: direct, available, happy to just be there and listen, sharing a common passion. They would come to me very often to talk about anything, not just computers. The younger ones also tried to hug me, which of course I had to stop, which is a pity as I believe these kids should be hugged as much as they need, obviously not necessarily by me.
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