Ignoring boys' emotional needs fuels public health risks • Hacker News Board

Re: Ignoring boys' emotional needs fuels public health risks

#181

Post by rainsford » Sun, Jun 25, 2023, 11:24 PM UTC

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #131

caditinpiscinam wrote: post #29

As a black guy I don't remember a friend ever saying "black people suck" to my face. But I've heard people I'm close with, both women and men, say that "men suck" countless times. I think a lot of people who don't see themselves as "biased" still carry a lot of bias when it comes to gender, and it has an impact.

Misandry is normalized in society. Whenever you encounter a baseless attack on men just reverse the roles and you'll realize that there'd be pitchforks for treating women as anything other than paragons of virtue. Entire entertainment genres are built around portraying men as inept fools who can be looked down upon by the opposite sex. Seinfeld is one of the few sitcoms where a female character is as flawed as the me…

As a man I've never understood this complaint. Sure, it's a sitcom cliche to always have the bumbling dad and the competent mom who is usually also wildly out of his league, but the reasons why that's the more common case don't strike me as something to get upset about (it is boring writing, but that's a different problem). Humor at the expense of traditionally more powerful groups works better because it can be seen as both a way of balancing the scales a bit and it doesn't come with the uncomfortable connection to examples of people taking the underlying ideas way more seriously. Comedy about my gender is funnier because nobody actually thinks my gender is a weakness.

To that point, culture is absolutely full of baseless attacks on women too, often in a far more damaging context. Lots of people still feel way too comfortable suggesting women are biologically unsuited for high status jobs and really only valuable for making babies. And the vitriol directed at women in the abortion debate, and the actual reduction in rights that rhetoric has led to, sort of puts dumb male sitcom characters in perspective.

Re: Ignoring boys' emotional needs fuels public health risks

#182

Post by darth_avocado » Sun, Jun 25, 2023, 11:24 PM UTC

opportune wrote: post #165

Natsu wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> I think a lot of people who don't see themselves as "biased" still carry a lot of bias when it comes to gender, and it has an impact. ... > toxic masculinity Maybe we could make progress by tabooing words that frame being male as a bad thing?

Toxic masculinity is absolutely a thing, think things like refusing to admit you're wrong, being overly aggressive and escalating situations, being overly boastful, being reluctant to show emotions other than anger. A lot of people are just triggered by the term for whatever reason. You could just as easily replace "toxic masculinity" with the word "machismo" if it makes you feel less threatened

You just described a bunch of traits of a narcissist and assigned them to masculinity. But I’m reality plenty of women display the same traits.

> refusing to admit you’re wrong > escalating situations > being overly boastful

The reason why people, mostly men, don’t like that term is because it gets thrown around for pretty much anything at this point to mostly put men down. Spreading your legs and holding the door open for someone is considered toxic masculinity.

Re: Ignoring boys' emotional needs fuels public health risks

#183

Post by dpifke » Sun, Jun 25, 2023, 11:24 PM UTC

dpifke wrote: post #65

jl6 wrote: post #11

> New research shows that when fathers are present and emotionally invested in children’s lives, they are more likely to develop a stronger sense of self-worth and excel in everything from school to relationships. Regardless of the debate on how tough (or not) love should be, the absent fathers issue seems like something concrete and impactful that we should be trying to address.

I think the "absentee father" issue would be easy to address: have the courts stop favoring mothers as custodial parents in divorces. Of the divorced couples I know with children, the mothers were awarded custody in every single case , often over the strenuous objections of the fathers and other family members like grandparents (and in one case, even in the face of documented abuse by the mother). I feel like studies…

Too late to edit my comment, but I want to clarify the first sentence of the above: I'm not arguing the courts should automatically favor fathers, either. I meant to say blindly assuming one gender is more suited to raising children than the other is a bad policy, and it should be reformed. (And I do believe some family court jurisdictions have gotten better about this than when I had friends going through it 10-20 years ago.)

Re: Ignoring boys' emotional needs fuels public health risks

#184

Post by arp242 » Sun, Jun 25, 2023, 11:25 PM UTC

caditinpiscinam wrote: post #29

As a black guy I don't remember a friend ever saying "black people suck" to my face. But I've heard people I'm close with, both women and men, say that "men suck" countless times. I think a lot of people who don't see themselves as "biased" still carry a lot of bias when it comes to gender, and it has an impact.

Last year there was some graffiti near my house:

"Trans rights are human rights!"

Okay, fair enough. Then a few metres later, in the same colour and obviously by the same person:

"Kill all men!"

People will say "yes, but it doesn't mean literally kill all men", and of course it doesn't. But it's not exactly positive, is it?

Re: Ignoring boys' emotional needs fuels public health risks

#185

Post by otoburb » Sun, Jun 25, 2023, 11:28 PM UTC

hkt wrote: post #44

caditinpiscinam wrote: post #29

As a black guy I don't remember a friend ever saying "black people suck" to my face. But I've heard people I'm close with, both women and men, say that "men suck" countless times. I think a lot of people who don't see themselves as "biased" still carry a lot of bias when it comes to gender, and it has an impact.

Totally. When my kid was young and I was out with him the other parents (invariably women) treated me as an oddity and assumed I would be incompetent. Yet, many don't like the fact they're saddled with the majority of childrearing. Dating is much the same: the majority of the hetero/bi female dating pool selects in favour of features that are often red flags for toxic masculinity. This gets better as one gets older,…

>>When my kid was young and I was out with him the other parents (invariably women) treated me as an oddity and assumed I would be incompetent.

That didn't happen to me but I live in a large city where I've come across (many) other dads who seemed to have more flexible schedules as evidenced by said dads showing up for pickup/dropoff and playdates. I'm not sure if there is/was a greater acceptance for fathers taking care of young children more visibly in metropolitan areas.

Re: Ignoring boys' emotional needs fuels public health risks

#186

Post by arp242 » Sun, Jun 25, 2023, 11:29 PM UTC

Gibbon1 wrote: post #117

caditinpiscinam wrote: post #29

As a black guy I don't remember a friend ever saying "black people suck" to my face. But I've heard people I'm close with, both women and men, say that "men suck" countless times. I think a lot of people who don't see themselves as "biased" still carry a lot of bias when it comes to gender, and it has an impact.

I've come around to replace 'insert group name' with the word Jews and see how it sounds.

I call this the "Muslim test": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27045005

I use "Muslim", mostly because there's been a lot of negativity and discrimination surrounding Muslims in my own country, but obviously whatever works for you.

Re: Ignoring boys' emotional needs fuels public health risks

#187

Post by hhjinks » Sun, Jun 25, 2023, 11:32 PM UTC

Timon3 wrote: post #71

tivert wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Girls on the other hand, all is well. > This is also far from the case. Yes, all is not well with girls, but I don't think they have to deal with an analog of the condemnation of "toxic masculinity" and messages that "their nature is flawed." I believe their problems are frequently blamed on external actors (e.g. beauty magazines, social media, etc).

I think you're gravely misunderstanding the concept of toxic masculinity. It's good that we condemn it, because it directly hurts boys . Toxic masculinity isn't a description of masculinity itself, it's about parts of the social image of masculinity that are toxic. Stuff like "boys shouldn't cry" or "boys should suck up their problems and not talk about them". You don't improve boys' emotional needs by resuming this…

Do we know that these aspects of masculinity actually hurt men, or are we trying to put a woman-shaped hat on men? Who's to say that men are incapable of dealing with their emotions through sombre silence? Stoicism has to confer some fitness advantage, either evolutionary or socially, otherwise it wouldn't be such a large part of masculinity.

Re: Ignoring boys' emotional needs fuels public health risks

#188

Post by type0 » Sun, Jun 25, 2023, 11:32 PM UTC

arp242 wrote: post #184

caditinpiscinam wrote: post #29

As a black guy I don't remember a friend ever saying "black people suck" to my face. But I've heard people I'm close with, both women and men, say that "men suck" countless times. I think a lot of people who don't see themselves as "biased" still carry a lot of bias when it comes to gender, and it has an impact.

Last year there was some graffiti near my house: "Trans rights are human rights!" Okay, fair enough. Then a few metres later, in the same colour and obviously by the same person: "Kill all men!" People will say "yes, but it doesn't mean literally kill all men", and of course it doesn't. But it's not exactly positive, is it?

Some people do mean it though

edit: radicalism is a real thing

Re: Ignoring boys' emotional needs fuels public health risks

#189

Post by rainsford » Sun, Jun 25, 2023, 11:33 PM UTC

akomtu wrote: post #90

caditinpiscinam wrote: post #29

As a black guy I don't remember a friend ever saying "black people suck" to my face. But I've heard people I'm close with, both women and men, say that "men suck" countless times. I think a lot of people who don't see themselves as "biased" still carry a lot of bias when it comes to gender, and it has an impact.

[flagged]

Aside from all the other problems with this that others have pointed out, the most obvious hyper-masculine adversary you might be referencing is currently proving to be embarrassingly inept at actual war. I would have expected western (particularly US) culture conservatives to stop complaining about the masculinity of our armed forces compared to our rivals once one of the rivals in question showed all the performative macho bullshit in the world doesn't make you actually good at fighting.

Re: Ignoring boys' emotional needs fuels public health risks

#190

Post by vkou » Sun, Jun 25, 2023, 11:36 PM UTC

caditinpiscinam wrote: post #29

As a black guy I don't remember a friend ever saying "black people suck" to my face. But I've heard people I'm close with, both women and men, say that "men suck" countless times. I think a lot of people who don't see themselves as "biased" still carry a lot of bias when it comes to gender, and it has an impact.

Your problem here is that if you look black, many racists and bigots won't say what they actually think to your face. (Or they justify it as 'oh, he's one of the good ones')

They are often more than happy to confide in what they think of ------------ when they feel they are in a safe space. A friend of mine, who is half-black, but passes as a white guy gets way more of that than he should in North Carolina [1].

[1] It really helps that he's working in a profession that is majority-team-red. Some people really can't help but run their mouth when they think they are preaching to the choir.