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Men Without Work (2016)

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Re: Men Without Work (2016)

#141

Post by [deleted] »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #46
javajosh wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that you need to apologize and explain why you care about issues that might affect men is telling in and of itself. The American Zeitgeist around gender issues is distorted to dehumanize men and alienate anyone who even dares to recognize this fact. I'm a pretty hardcore liberal and I I'm totally astonished on a daily basis at the hate in vitriol directed at men that go without comment, let alone castigation…

> The American Zeitgeist around gender issues is distorted to dehumanize men and alienate anyone who even dares to recognize this fact. I must be living under a rock then — this Zeitgeist you talk of is alien to me. I am a male who does not feel in any way dehumanized, nor have any of my male friends expressed as much.

[deleted]

Re: Men Without Work (2016)

#142

Post by afavour »

Eumenes wrote: post #123
chowells wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Toxic Masculinity" is an idea created by men's groups [1] to describe the stresses on them that make them unhealthy and come from some cultural ideal of manhood. It was literally created by men as language to separate discussion the good parts of societal expectations from the damaging parts. A large number of people (that is, everyone who wants to talk about it sincerely) still use precisely that meaning. It's only…

I don't know a single man that uses or embraces that term. It seems to be used exclusively by arm chair psychiatrists or terminally online twitter people.

I use it. HTH.

Re: Men Without Work (2016)

#143

Post by sonjat »

afavour wrote: post #74
javajosh wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>in theory I'd like and participate in the "men's rights" subreddit, in reality it's a pit of toxicity. Indeed, but so is the equivalent feminism subreddit (try "r/askafeminist" for example). And yet "women's rights" don't have the same stigma as "men's rights". What explains this asymmetry? Why is it some movements get defined by their extremists, and others don't? >: a lot of this societal pressure against men bein…

I’d argue that women’s rights, from Suffragettes on, has a widely documented history of… reasonableness, for want of a better term. Men’s Rights doesn’t yet. It’s a much newer movement, things may change. But right now I’m struggling to think of the sane, sensible organisations out there promoting men’s rights. I’d also question whether /r/askfeminists is “the equivalent”. It has 100k followers, /r/twoxchromosomes ha…

As a woman who finally gave up on twoxchromosomes because I felt is was a bit too toxic I somewhat disagree on it not being toxic. It seemed determined to paint women as perpetual victims of toxic men. Ironically it also seemed determined to paint men as bad if they didn't protect women (yes, this is an exaggeration. No, not all and perhaps not even most posts/comments were this way. It just happened enough and it made me angry enough that I decided avoiding that subreddit was best for my mental health)

Re: Men Without Work (2016)

#144

Post by [deleted] »

hallway_monitor wrote: post #127
chasd00 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Women were shunned for choosing their career in my experience raising two kids women are much more looked down on for choosing family over career. My wife wanted to be a stay-at-home mom but many of her friends, and especially online, thought she was "too good for that" with some even being hostile to the very concept. If a woman has an established career and then chooses to be a stay-at-home mom she's likely to pa…

It's literally insane that people would consider working at a company to be more important than someone raising their own children instead of paying someone else to raise them for most of the day. I'm thankful the mother of my children could stay at home with them while I worked.

[deleted]

Re: Men Without Work (2016)

#145

Post by fundad »

kranke155 wrote: post #72
blahblah1234567 wrote: post #53

I think "Men Without Work" is a euphemism. The problem is: - Men without Skills in-demand-- skills which are at least somewhat fulfilling & interesting to those men. Solution: Research labor data for careers in high demand, then cross reference those careers with skills a person is interested in. Then identify resources & a roadmap for learning those skills. And sit down, and put the time in to learn & apply those sk…

The amount of meaningful, well-paid work in our society is also shrinking at a rapid rate. Expecting everyone to just become baristas and waiters (which is what's happening in the UK at least) is just pushing people towards a giant mental health crisis. Without manufacturing there is no middle-class, and the West has abdicated its manufacturing. That's led to the bifurcation of our society in two halves - the well-to…

Service work can be elevated to a living wage career since we depend on it and there is so much capital tied up in restaurants and retail.

Of course people will say they don’t want to pay more but we’re already paying enough to support higher wages.

Factory owners didn’t want to pay much either so we don’t have good-paying factory work. VCs and CEOs don’t want to pay much for programmers either and we see where they’re taking the industry for the next generation.

Re: Men Without Work (2016)

#146

Post by nineplay »

afavour wrote: post #8

I'm very far from a red-pilled anti-feminist but I do think this is a hugely overlooked problem. Perhaps too much of an aside but I was lucky enough to be able to take an extended parental leave when my child was born, being a "stay at home dad" for the best part of a year. It was incredibly hard work, incredibly rewarding but also a real eye opener at how society still doesn't know what to do with a full-time parent…

It's a real problem that goes further than feminism. There are large numbers of men and women who truly believe that childcare is more naturally a woman's domain and see men getting involved as a kind of 'woke-ism' - men aren't raising children because they want to, they are raising children because they think it gives them leftist brownie points.

I've seen this attitude on HN. I think a lot of posters like to see themselves in a man-of-the-house role and wouldn't want to give up their position as breadwinners.

Re: Men Without Work (2016)

#147

Post by subradios »

ryandrake wrote: post #129
nimbius wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

a lot of this, at least in the united states, is due to a deep-seated dichotomy of heteronormative gender roles in suburban life. new mums groups have learned to be welcoming, but not inclusive to newcomers and that may largely be due to puritanical influences present in a lot of the cultures that oversee these groups. one could go so far as to say such patronisation and strict gender conformity serve to ostracize an…

> First, we decided 30 years ago everyone had to go to college, and in doing so found most degrees hardly worth the paper they were printed on while landed gentry reaped the windfall of college loan income. conversely tradecraft like welding, carpentry, HVAC, engine repair, and plumbing fell by the wayside with many of these crafts given a scarlet letter and left to beg and plead for any help whatsoever. there is sti…

I think comparing the trades to the hottest intellectual profession on the planet with extremely heavy competition is extremely misguided.

The whiteboard torture test exists because there are tens of thousands of candidates and only hundreds of those actually have a pulse when it comes to developing software.

I'm not talking about implementing Kadane's or Dijkstra's, I'm talking about fizzbuzz, basic control structures, etc.

Re: Men Without Work (2016)

#148

Post by fundad »

judge2020 wrote: post #121
Damogran6 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unspecified in all of this is: Society at large needs less labor to function. What happens when all of the production is automated to the point we don't NEED 'Men to work'? What do we do with them? What mischief do they get into when they have idle hands?

Even if something like food service at McDonald's is automated, it's tough to argue that we should be getting humans to work on things that can be automated. Imagine working 40 hours a week then seeing that the machine both prepared more product and made fewer mistakes than you, or feeling like you're doing work just because someone (the government) pities you enough to force some jobs to remain non-automated. Workin…

Order-taking is miles apart from the actual prep, cooking and serving. Imagine owning AND MAINTAINING a machine that can do all of that with less combined labor and expense.

Re: Men Without Work (2016)

#149

Post by commandlinefan »

adversaryIdiot wrote: post #39
ianai wrote: post #2

In lieu of any particular review I’m submitting the Wikipedia page. I was unemployed for most of the Great Recession and can empathize with much of this book. I also just remember the “tragedy of my twenties” realizing society had basically no interest in me. Despite a math degree and IT/programming experience. Then the myriad people I’ve interacted with in the last decade plus who are in this situation. Luckily I no…

man I am so happy i heard someone else say it too. I seriously felt like "society had no interest in me". Not being able to find a job and getting no matches on things like tinder left me devastated. I am on anti depressants and fear that time to this day.

> Not being able to find a job and getting no matches on things like tinder

I never personally experienced this (I've always been employed since graduation and I got married before there was tinder), but it still always feels like a gut punch to read that other people experienced it.

Re: Men Without Work (2016)

#150

Post by commandlinefan »

robotburrito wrote: post #110
Damogran6 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unspecified in all of this is: Society at large needs less labor to function. What happens when all of the production is automated to the point we don't NEED 'Men to work'? What do we do with them? What mischief do they get into when they have idle hands?

The question that must be asked is instead, "What will they do with us?"

> What will they do with us

Or to us.

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