Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't understand this. In most stories, arn't protagonists primarily male? Arn't they typically courageous, or intelligent, or unyielding, or strong, or determined? I don't understand.
In older stories, sure. But the "action hero" died a while ago. Have you not noticed the rise of the weak male lead in movies/TV/commercials? It's hugely prevalent in romantic comedies, but even TV shows like Modern Family (bumbling Phil and razor-sharp Claire) depict archetypes that are becoming quite common. The formula is a charming yet incompetent male lead who's mainly driven by sex, paired with a strong, capabl…
The male suicides: how social perfectionism kills
31–40 of 359 posts
Re: The male suicides: how social perfectionism kills
#32The demonization of all things male has had a pernicious effect on boys and men over the last 20 years. I've seen it negatively impact friends and, worse, my own boys. Oone of the best things I ever did was cut the live TV feed and the commercials that only show men as drunken idiots, drunken leches, or bumbling idiots (notice: drunken and idiots is a repeating theme). As a society, we need to come to terms with masc…
I think you're right about society's role, but I see a much more pernicious tendency that I think damages boys and, eventually, men. Society teaches boys to bottle up their feelings. "Be a man" means be strong, and don't show emotion. Crying is a sign of weakness. And god forbid you talk about your emotions...that's a female thing.
But the thing is, those activities are what allow us to be vulnerable and what allow us to bond with others. The more you suppress those urges, the more you end up feeling alone. And loneliness is perhaps the most understandable cause of suicide I can think of.
We need to stop sending this message to young boys. It's okay to express your feelings. It's okay to be vulnerable. You don't have to simply grit your teeth and toughen up to endure whatever is bothering you.
Re: The male suicides: how social perfectionism kills
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I hardly feel threatened by basically everything you just listed there. Do you? Seeing a bias and pointing it out does not equal "being threatened". Would you speak this way to a woman who was pointing out, say, anti-female bias in hackathon results? > I get the feeling if you asked most women: "Do you think men are awful?" The answer would be "Yes but we love them anyway." The fact that you accept the "yes" at the…
huh? No. I was talking about my life only. I'm sure you're wonderful. To be clear, I don't actually believe that the thought "Society treats men so poorly, and I'm a man" is a thought that is pushing you towards depression, or anyone to depression. I don't believe would depress anyone. I do believe it outrages you. I would agree, some of those things seem pretty outrageous! I'd have a hard time believing you were act…
> It would deeply contradict my experience with depression.
And I think that that is where the problem is. You are assuming that your personal, anecdotal experience with depression is representative of all cases of depression for everybody.
It's not.
Re: The male suicides: how social perfectionism kills
#34It all boils down to social pressure, doesn't it?
Socially, it is unacceptable for men to be "losers". To have any social standing men have to do what is "respectable". Losing a job, for example, is not.
Why can't a man be appreciated for who he is? Why does he have lower standing if he makes min wage or does something boring? Maybe he has other things he takes care of. Maybe he has a deep personality and even deeper interests.
To be honest, once I realized that this is how males are treated in real world, I started having more respect for men in any situation...for I know what they've been through. The world is cursed for men.
Re: The male suicides: how social perfectionism kills
#35what in god's name is that font literally unreadable!
Helvetica is indeed a monster. One might even call it grotesque
Re: The male suicides: how social perfectionism kills
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
If I watch an action movie, I am not intimidated by or identify with the cool guy in the movie because I'm not the guy they're portraying. When sitcoms and commercials emasculate and defame the everyman, I know they're talking about me.
daaaaaamn man. You're telling me you don't identify Jerry Seinfeld, you identify with George Costanza? Because when I've seen men get emascualated or mocked on TV, it's due to some jackassery on their part, and I don't feel the need to empathize. Isn't that true for you as well? If there's an over-riding theme in media regarding men that I would report, it's that the consequences they experience are a result of their…
When I see the stereotypical sitcom dad, he keeps fucking up to telegraph to the audience that he's a fuckup, AKA Barney Fife, not to be a morality play "don't do this or this will happen." Barney can't not be a fuckup because that's his identity. Andy is a well-rounded character, he's not even perfect, sometimes he plays the fool and you learn the lesson, so it serves the morality play function. The dad on My Three Sons is near-perfect, he's the opposite of Barney Fife, his identity is that he's an inhuman archetypal father-figure. I Could see how this could be intimidating, but at least it's something to aspire to. From my perspective, the first two have mostly disappeared from television and most male characters that I would identify with are made to be Barney Fifes. There are also a lot of characters I don't identify with at all, I don't think anybody is supposed to identify with any character in Seinfeld, they are all supposed to be nigh-sociopathic. The audience is invited to laugh at all of them.
Re: The male suicides: how social perfectionism kills
#37The demonization of all things male has had a pernicious effect on boys and men over the last 20 years. I've seen it negatively impact friends and, worse, my own boys. Oone of the best things I ever did was cut the live TV feed and the commercials that only show men as drunken idiots, drunken leches, or bumbling idiots (notice: drunken and idiots is a repeating theme). As a society, we need to come to terms with masc…
I don't understand this. In most stories, arn't protagonists primarily male? Arn't they typically courageous, or intelligent, or unyielding, or strong, or determined? I don't understand.
Look at some of the stories from the media. Some airlines will not allow males sit next to unaccompanied children. A theme park bans single males from bird watching, "in case they are predators". Female sexual assaults are disgusting while male sexual assaults are funny, to most people. If a little girl has a problem, it is immediately attended to, whereas if a little boy has a problem, he is told to "be a man and suck it up".
Feminism is cool whereas MRA is not. Oh, we also have some "interesting" people like this - http://www.vice.com/read/is-reducing-the-male-population-by-...
And so on.
I wish we look at problems without the gender/race/nationality etc lens and only purely based on their merit. This is 2015 and we still have gender stereotypes, whole lot of double standards (for both genders), laws favoring one gender or the other etc. All this noise is just tiring.
Re: The male suicides: how social perfectionism kills
#38The demonization of all things male has had a pernicious effect on boys and men over the last 20 years. I've seen it negatively impact friends and, worse, my own boys. Oone of the best things I ever did was cut the live TV feed and the commercials that only show men as drunken idiots, drunken leches, or bumbling idiots (notice: drunken and idiots is a repeating theme). As a society, we need to come to terms with masc…
I think you're right about society's role, but I see a much more pernicious tendency that I think damages boys and, eventually, men. Society teaches boys to bottle up their feelings. "Be a man" means be strong, and don't show emotion. Crying is a sign of weakness. And god forbid you talk about your emotions...that's a female thing. But the thing is, those activities are what allow us to be vulnerable and what allow u…
This was maybe a useful message ten, twenty years ago.
The problem is that, honestly, a lot of these feelings are messy. They aren't expressions of weakness, they aren't some magical key used to unlock progress, they're not even something that's easily sympathized with.
They can be the white-hot anger of being pulled off a project or ignored for the nth time in class or being made fun of. They can be the bubbling cold black rage of being forced to work on something only to have it stunted at every turn by bad management or being shunned by members of the preferred gender for whatever reason. They can be the bright flash of joy and uncontainable exuberance of having pulled off the impossible on deadline or winning a hard contest.
The point is, in all those cases, boys and men who express their feelings honestly and openly are considered creeps, weirdos, crazy, or unprofessional.
So, no, the problem isn't that they keep these feelings bottled up--it's instead that, when they're honest and open in their passion, people become uncomfortable and afraid or inconvenienced. We celebrate the passionate man, in the abstract, but you bet your ass it's never made things better in the day-to-day.
In fact, we tend to double-down on this nonsense, and so punish the behaviors (sparring, yelling, cursing, whatever) that would formerly be used to defuse the feelings in young folks until they realize such things are counterproductive, and bait-n-switch them.
Re: The male suicides: how social perfectionism kills
#39The demonization of all things male has had a pernicious effect on boys and men over the last 20 years. I've seen it negatively impact friends and, worse, my own boys. Oone of the best things I ever did was cut the live TV feed and the commercials that only show men as drunken idiots, drunken leches, or bumbling idiots (notice: drunken and idiots is a repeating theme). As a society, we need to come to terms with masc…
I think you're right about society's role, but I see a much more pernicious tendency that I think damages boys and, eventually, men. Society teaches boys to bottle up their feelings. "Be a man" means be strong, and don't show emotion. Crying is a sign of weakness. And god forbid you talk about your emotions...that's a female thing. But the thing is, those activities are what allow us to be vulnerable and what allow u…
[deleted]
Re: The male suicides: how social perfectionism kills
#40look, men are disposable. and it's always been this way, biologically speaking. throughout most of history, mens' purpose was disposability - through soldiering, exploring, entrepreneurialism (the high risk / high reward activities), or just working your fuckin' ass to the bone in the fields of fealty or a in a grey cubicle (the low risk / low reward activities). let's define some terms. "meaning of life" (note i did…
There's nothing like a large population of angry young men who are under-employed and over-educated. The Arab Spring/chaos started with a guy lighting himself on fire because he didn't have work, and a lot of the fundamentalist appeal over there is that at least it gives you a purpose.
I've often thought this, every now and then you get a guy that goes off (shooting spree, whatever) - one of these days, one of those people who go off the deep end may be an extremely technically gifted, it would be scary what sort of havoc that type of a person could wreak if they set their mind to it.