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New research highlights a shortage of male mentors for boys and young men

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Re: New research highlights a shortage of male mentors for boys and young men

#51

Post by CalRobert »

FranzFerdiNaN wrote: post #36
CalRobert wrote: post #8

It does feel a bit cruel that we were told to be vulnerable and open, and then when men said we’re lonely got accused of asking other people to fix our problems and that we just needed to deal with it. Also I don’t think I’d risk being e.g. a teacher - the girls in my high school would casually joke about accusing their teachers of being creeps if they failed a test, etc.

Too many lonely men seem to think that women can and should fix all their problems. That if only they had a relationship all their shit would be over. While the first step should be to join a hobby club or do some volunteer work or find a sport to do (and definitely not the gym or running or any other solo sport). Just find something where you regularly interact with people, and especially the same people over a long…

I was talking about friendships, not dating.

Re: New research highlights a shortage of male mentors for boys and young men

#52

Post by pjc50 »

Vinnl wrote: post #25
CalRobert wrote: post #8

It does feel a bit cruel that we were told to be vulnerable and open, and then when men said we’re lonely got accused of asking other people to fix our problems and that we just needed to deal with it. Also I don’t think I’d risk being e.g. a teacher - the girls in my high school would casually joke about accusing their teachers of being creeps if they failed a test, etc.

I think one problem we have (always had, but worse now that there are so many more opinions to be exposed to) is that we expect "society's" opinions to be consistent, despite being made up of millions of different people. Of course there are going to be people telling others to be vulnerable and open, and of course there are also going to be people telling others not to complain because that's dumping their problems…

Also, by "society" often people mean "twitter", which is hardly an organic cross section of public opinion.

Re: New research highlights a shortage of male mentors for boys and young men

#53

Post by pjc50 »

FranzFerdiNaN wrote: post #42
pjc50 wrote: post #23

Whole bunch of factors involved in this which HN is ill-equipped to deal with. But I think paranoia about "grooming" should probably be counted as a factor as well. A lot of people are going to be suspicious about an adult man who wants to hang out with children. So everything gets tangled up and shut down in the name of safeguarding. If you ask the question "what proportion of girls and young women have a male mento…

Yeah, this is also a huge part of it. Society has made it incredibly dangerous for any man to be around children, because a single allegation is enough to destroy a life.

In fairness, a single act of abuse can wreck someone's mental health for their whole life as well. It's a difficult problem that requires lots of human effort.

Re: New research highlights a shortage of male mentors for boys and young men

#54

Post by kakacik »

toyg wrote: post #40
benterix wrote: post #30

I used to work for a short time as an IT teacher. The kids there were wonderful, even the troublemakers weren't that bad. What struck me is that clearly for some of the boys I seemed to be the only male figure they could related to in their lives: direct, available, happy to just be there and listen, sharing a common passion. They would come to me very often to talk about anything, not just computers. The younger one…

Relationship with fathers are not easy even at the best of times, there are a bunch of factors that complicate things. Somewhat ironically, having a relationship with a stranger can be much easier and liberating. It's a bit like talking about your problems with a barman.

I have much easier relationship with other son's peers than him. And I love him to no end and we do lots of hugs and are generally close.

But your own kids have seemingly this special superpower to get you pissed off to extreme levels (both for men and women) that no other situation in adult life can ever come close to. We as adults learnt the easy or hard way some form of basic empathy required when communicating with others, while kids lack it. Like doing 20x the same thing that pisses you off while ignoring your kind calm words - where else do you experience it, in your face, with big grin on top of that?

I've see it many times - people who are otherwise calm and relaxed get turned to 11 in seconds by their offsprings doing something stupid, arrogant or dangerous. Bonus points if its any form of unprovoked aggression towards other kids, especially younger/weaker.

Re: New research highlights a shortage of male mentors for boys and young men

#55

Post by pjc50 »

lelanthran wrote: post #46
ml-anon wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah “society” had millennia of that. It’s quite telling that perhaps less than a decade of taking women seriously led to a a vitriol filled backlash full of Tates, Trumps and the manosphere. It’s also quite telling that your main complaint is Disney superhero movies. It’s difficult to think of something more juvenile and unimportant.

> It’s quite telling that perhaps less than a decade of taking women seriously led to a a vitriol filled backlash full of Tates, Trumps and the manosphere. 1. It's been about 30 years since the "strong independent women" meme first started in popular media. 2. Where is the vitriol and backlash in my post to which you are referring to? Your response looks like a canned one that can be inserted into any discussion abou…

> It's been about 30 years since the "strong independent women" meme first started in popular media.

Much longer than that. While there was significant pre-war feminism, it really took off in the 1960s. Perhaps what people mean is a sort of post-"Bechdel test" world, where people will be sharply criticized if they make a piece of media that only has (properly characterized) male characters.

I see it as a co-existence problem. Trying to insist on male-only spaces or male-only values isn't going to fly any more. A lot of traditional masculinity is framed around being "not a woman", an inherently denigratory concept. It needs a programme that is (a) positive and (b) a concept of personhood and value that's not tied to gender.

Re: New research highlights a shortage of male mentors for boys and young men

#56

Post by pjc50 »

Jgoauh wrote: post #48

I think there is a big problem around "man things" and "girl things" that has cost a lot to society, the women scientists who thought it wasn't for them, the men teachers and nurses who thought the same, and all the knowledge kept from people seen as being the wrong gender for it (cooking, cleaning, car repair ...) and i think the solution and a necessary step for the advancement of humanity is the recognition that t…

A lot of people on bluesky have very good "wow, everything is gender now" observations about just how stupid US politics has become.

Re: New research highlights a shortage of male mentors for boys and young men

#57

Post by pjc50 »

lelanthran wrote: post #6
Urahandystar wrote: post #2

One of the saddest things I heard was a young kid say he's never heard the word masculinity unless it was paired with the word toxic before it. With that kind of attitude is this any wonder?

It is difficult to get society to accept that maybe it's time to balance the constant public and media validation of women with some public and media validation of men. Disney has seen a bunch of Marvel flops since they switched the focus to Marvel properties that target women (they've since publicly indicated a course correction on this). Take a bunch of IP that primarily males are interested in (super-heros), water…

> Marvel

One of my most crank opinions is that superhero stuff is (a) for kids, (b) inherently a bit fascist even if you make it textually anti-fascist, and (c) ultimately like popcorn, something that should be only a small part of a more varied diet.

Now, that's not a terribly strong opinion, and I know it'll make a lot of people mad, but I have personally got fed up with the oversupply of superhero stuff and believe that there should be more movies that mixed-gender adult audiences would like. Maybe find a way of doing an action-romcom that men will like. Characters that have human level ability and must find human level solutions. Probably the problem is that audience has now fragmented, moving the genders further apart.

Re: New research highlights a shortage of male mentors for boys and young men

#58

Post by kakacik »

pjc50 wrote: post #53
FranzFerdiNaN wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, this is also a huge part of it. Society has made it incredibly dangerous for any man to be around children, because a single allegation is enough to destroy a life.

In fairness, a single act of abuse can wreck someone's mental health for their whole life as well. It's a difficult problem that requires lots of human effort.

Some risk of more severe harm vs guaranteed harm on all male population. I'd take the chances

Re: New research highlights a shortage of male mentors for boys and young men

#59

Post by mrjay42 »

This article is based on this https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA4451-1.html which is NOT a peer reviewed study but a "research report", which doesn't mean it's wrong or false or fake, but it means that you have to read it with extreme precautions.

Nothing in there has been double-checked by reviewers :/

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