Earlier quoted context omitted.
Every single feminist I know encourages me to open up, and supports me when I do. You need to know better feminists.
The No True Scottmans Fallacy coupled with an assumption that the problem is men not being more like women emotionally.
The male suicides: how social perfectionism kills
271–280 of 359 posts
Re: The male suicides: how social perfectionism kills
#272Earlier quoted context omitted.
Using the word "Patriarchy" unironically gives away the fact you don't care about mens problems, because you're automatically blaming men for these problems. You live in an age of abundance now, but 50 or so years ago you might be singing a different tune, and you can't reprogram society overnight without causing serious harm.
You fail to grasp one crucial distinction - patriarchy is not a term that labels all men. It is a system. The crimes of patriarchy are not automatically the fault of all men. It is perfectly possible to be a man and against patriarchy (you're speaking with one right now, actually). As for "reprogramming society" - that's just spreading FUD. Society is not a piece of stone, it changes constantly. And far from it that…
Are you really saying "all of society's problems exist because men run everything" whilst also saying "all of society's accomplishments are despite men running everything"?
I don't mean to put words into your mouth but that is how your statements read to me.
OK, having read more of this discussion, I don't think that's what you're saying. But what do you mean by patriarchy? What do you mean by its crimes?
Re: The male suicides: how social perfectionism kills
#273Queue male rights activists to explain to us how this is all feminism's fault :/ Tragic, really. Things like this seem to obviously stem from patriarchy. But instead of dismantling patriarchy, a small group of men simply blame everything on feminists. Those feminists, how dare they fight for themselves before they have solved the problems of men! :D
P.S. The way Hacker News is "moderated" sucks. It was really easily predictable that this would bring me downvotes, irrelevant of how well or poor it may have been written. Dissenting opinions have little place here.
I'd say your comment was rightly downvoted because it was inflammatory, unsubstantive, and off topic. One needn't disagree with your views to see how that breaks the site guidelines.
Re: The male suicides: how social perfectionism kills
#274I think this article puts the euphemism 'social perfectionism' on the subtle, and in some cases blatant anti-male stance that pervades US and UK society today. Sports teams fall over themselves to wear pink for Mother's Day, hardly anyone celebrates Father's Day. [1] Time Magazine publishes an article on how "Men are Obsolete". [2] Politicians routinely trumpet the 77% pay gap despite it being "more complicated than…
Please don't take threads like this further off-topic with prefabricated lists of links and talking points. This is not conversation. This entire thread is a train wreck, but this comment is one of the places the tracks were blown up.
Sorry, I will keep this in mind in the future.
I thought references to what I was saying would be helpful, to prove that I wasn't talking out my bottom. Hence, I was trying to give references from major newspapers and other media resources that backed up things that I knew from memory. A lot of other assertions in this thread (or indeed in a lot of HN threads) don't do this, so I assumed it was a positive.
> prefabricated lists of links and talking points
As I said in another comment, a lot of things can't be verified over the Internet, but I will tell you that my list wasn't prefabricated. I wrote that paragraph (or a rough skeleton of it) from the various anti-male things I had seen in the media (not very difficult, IMO); and then took the time to search for the exact details, and added in the references.
I do agree that it is a hodgepodge of various things, which significantly detracts from its quality. I'll try to narrow down my comments in the future as well.
Re: The male suicides: how social perfectionism kills
#275The 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…
There is two sides to this equation. Men need to be taught to express their emotions, but society needs to be taught to be just as accepting of a man who expresses his emotions as one who is stoic, if not more accepting. As it stands, you can teach men to express their emotions all you want, but as long as the stoic man is valued more, we are going to have problems.
Re: The male suicides: how social perfectionism kills
#276Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
An aspect of this problem is that society not only teaches people how to behave, but defines expected behavior. If a man defy those expectations and do seek help at a psychiatrist, a documented problem is that he won't be taken serious. Male patients get often too little or no medical support, while female patients suffer from over medication and forced hospitalization.
Beyond this, if knowledge is leaked that the man is seeking help, he will lose respect in the eyes of his peers, likely making any existing problems worse. Also, there is the issue of ones psychological health being used against them (such as some people wanting to restrict one's job or rights based on their diagnosed mental health).
Re: The male suicides: how social perfectionism kills
#277Earlier quoted context omitted.
But feminists aren't the ones enforcing a rigid version of masculinity that discourages men from talking about their problems.
In other words, it's mens fault. This is exactly the problem. Instead of considering what it would take to solve the problem you point the finger at men for no other reason than they aren't women.
Never said it was men's fault. I said the problem is society's skewed definition of masculinity. It's perpetuated by both men and women. The solution is implied: redefine what it means to be a man.
Re: The male suicides: how social perfectionism kills
#278Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It was not feminism that painted the picture of the man as incompetent parent. No, but it is the reason that this is the modern trope men are reduced to in modern media. Matt Groening has gone on the record saying that the reason he created Homer and Bart as incompetent / lovable / stupid / trouble makers, and Lisa / Marge as competent, intelligent role models, is because at the time the series was coming out he fe…
Wait, what are we even talking about here any more - are you saying men contemplate suicide because feminists make them feel bad about themselves? Because of sitcom tropes? Anyway, feminists fight for women. They are mostly women. They had a serious bunch of wrongs to right, more than just some unfavorable sitcom tropes. If they were not, during this fight, sufficiently sensitized to the problems of men, can you real…
Anyway, feminists fight for women.
The idea that we achieve this by having women fight for women's rights and men fight for men's rights is absurd. It might have been inevitable to begin with, but we're not living in the 60s any more, and if we don't move away from this adversarial position then of course people will start to feel threatened, retreat to fundamentalist positions, and react in the way you object to.
Re: The male suicides: how social perfectionism kills
#279Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well, if none of it matters, might as well stick around. It's not like you have anything better to do.
How brilliant. How is that a better argument than "if you don't like it here, you might as well kill yourself."? Oh I see. Because you implicitly value "doing" as better than "not doing", no matter what. So in that case, "living" must be better than "not existing", but definition. Hence you should stay around. How brilliant. Got any more brilliant arguments which are by default true by your own axioms?
You sound awfully angry. I'm not sure why. I'm not really saying either is better. Rather, each of us has an eternity of "not existing" waiting for us; there just doesn't seem to be any reason to rush into it. It's not going anywhere.
Re: The male suicides: how social perfectionism kills
#280Earlier quoted context omitted.
"we are kinda equal" Which gender legally gets the kids, house and alimony in +90% of divorces?
We could start listing examples of injustices, each one of us could find them, and we would only get farther from finding any solution, or farther from just having a meaningful discussion. I am not negating that there are prejudice against men. I simply wish to point out the obvious - these prejudice are a product of patriarchy. It was not feminism that painted the picture of the man as incompetent parent. It is a ve…
>these prejudice are a product of patriarchy.
A uesless hypothesis that isn't testable.
Women treated worse? Patriarchy.
Men treated worse? Patriarchy.
Consider that if you go back far enough, men were considered the better parent. I'm sure Patriarchy is to blame for that even though it was to blame for men being considered the worse parent as well.