The book "Boys Adrift: The Five Factors Driving the Growing Epidemic of Unmotivated Boys and Underachieving Young Men" by Leonard Sax goes into a lot of detail behind some of the underlying problems causing this.
Men Without Work (2016)
201–210 of 471 posts
Re: Men Without Work (2016)
#202> Statistically, the labor force involvement for men twenty and older fell from 86% to 68% between 1948 and 2015 So what are they doing instead? How are they surviving?
They’re NEETs. Likely live with their parents. May sell odd things here and there to make a buck. Likely invested in cryptos which until recently was enough to get by. Often getting some government gibs like unemployment or disability benefits. American society doesn’t know how to use low skilled men so we keep ‘em fed and put them to the side.
You say "low skilled" but many of them have university education. I do not think that is the problem at all
Re: Men Without Work (2016)
#203Earlier 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'm conflicted about that. Not denying that what you've said is true but I specifically chose the term "red pilled" because there are huge toxic (predominantly online) communities that are openly misogynistic. e.g. in theory I'd like and participate in the "men's rights" subreddit, i…
"but the result [of men's rights subreddits/etc] is not positive"
For me, it was positive. When you're going through personal hell, there's a lot to be said for having others in the situation to commiserate with. Do many of the guys there sound like jerks? Sure. Maybe they even are--or maybe they're just blowing off steam in the face of a horrible situation. I think it's often the latter.
One side effect of carefully banning forums that (truly) support men is that we're left with an environment where most places that might seem to be "help" are actually dedicated to gas-lighting and castigating men in this situation. This has created a vacuum where some rather dubious looking options are actually the best available.
May the gods bless my MRAs and the guys at my local dive bar. Without them, I wouldn't have made it.
Re: Men Without Work (2016)
#204In 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…
Yeah it seems like there used to be a cultural value of putting people to work. Generally speaking you had to be a real fuck-up to not get a job. Maybe the jobs available weren't the best, but you could get something to pay for basic food/housing with little effort or credentialing. The attitude was, if you were a decent person and willing to work, "come by and we'll find something for you to do". Now the zeitgeist i…
Do you think this is a social change or a change in the reality of workers leverage? You seem to be implying that corporations used to give people jobs because it was the right thing to do, but now they are more selfish. I think laborers just don't have much leverage anymore.
Domestic workers losing leverage isn't a huge surprise given that the last 30 years have been about globalization.
Re: Men Without Work (2016)
#205Earlier 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.
Having been through this, I think some of it is a little jealousy/sour grapes from the 2 income couples who have to work to pay for all their stuff.
Re: Men Without Work (2016)
#206Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's a pretty useless quote. It entirely ignores the fact the economic systems all exist on a spectrum from extreme libertarianism to complete state ownership. The question has never been capitalism versus socialism, it's always been "how much regulation do we want as a society in exchange for a higher floor in our quality of life?" (and its follow up, did that regulation actually achieve its goals?)
It's not just a spectrum from Libertarian Free Market to State Socialism. There are many other forms of economic system. Capitalism isn't even synonymous with free markets. Capitalism just speaks to who gets to own the businesses (those with the capital). There are alternatives other than "the state". Worker cooperatives exist and are perfectly functional and successful. Which means one economic system that isn't oft…
> Worker cooperatives exist and are perfectly functional and successful. Which means one economic system that isn't often spoken about might be described as "Free Market Socialism", in which businesses are governed democratically by their workers in a free market.
Re: Men Without Work (2016)
#207In 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…
> I also just remember the “tragedy of my twenties” realizing society had basically no interest in me.
For me it was wallowing in grad school for five years after graduating college in 2007 and not being able to find any entry level positions with a math degree due to the housing crisis, and the relative uselessness of an undergrad math degree, without useful experience in anything else. I remember the constant manic hum of "when am I going to start making real money, instead of pulling out more loans each year?".
Fortunately, I learned to program during that time and eventually got my first job writing Python for a small civil engineering start-up.
Re: Men Without Work (2016)
#20860% of college graduates are women and the gap widens every year. It's going to get a lot worse before (if) it gets better.
Re: Men Without Work (2016)
#209The book "Boys Adrift: The Five Factors Driving the Growing Epidemic of Unmotivated Boys and Underachieving Young Men" by Leonard Sax goes into a lot of detail behind some of the underlying problems causing this.
For anyone else wondering what the five factors are:
> Sax’s research found that the following five factors attribute to our society of underachieving, disengaged boys: (1) changes at school; (2) video games; (3) medications for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD); (4) endocrine disruptors; and (5) the revenge of the forsaken gods.
From this Amazon review which also goes into further detail: https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R2UQS7MYS7I5JI/
Re: Men Without Work (2016)
#210Earlier quoted context omitted.
i know exactly what you mean. I remember an early doc appointment with my wife she was pregnant with our first child, the doctor was going over things with my wife like what she should be doing and what she should not be doing etc. I asked the doctor what i should be doing and what i should look out for, she just glared at me and said "you've done enough." implying i was only there to get my wife pregnant. That was 1…
I mean, what you think doctor should tell you about what you should be doing while wife is pregnant? If the wife wants your support, I would expect the wife to tell you what kind of support she needs. She does not need doctor to be her speaker, presumably. And doctor giving you instructions on what she should be doing in pregnancy would be patronizing toward wife.
For a first pregnancy, the doctor shouldn't make any assumptions about what the couple knows and doesn't know.
Even if the advice was "Let her listen to her body, she will know when she needs help and support" would go a long way- both in assuaging the father's concern, and in reinforcing that it is both acceptable and encouraged to ask for help as the mother's body changes.