I don't think that anyone is telling young men and boys that there is no such thing as positive masculinity, because I don't think that anyone is seriously talking to young men and boys about...
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I don't think that anyone is telling young men and boys that there is no such thing as positive masculinity, because I don't think that anyone is seriously talking to young men and boys about masculinity full stop.
I want to question your logic though; why should we push boys to perform a specific gender role? Even if we say things like "a good man protects women" it still perpetuates a notion that men should hold a position of greater power from which they can protect women. I think it's better to focus instead on the positive messages of "heroic masculinity" without tying them to masculinity – this way girls/women can also benefit!
Toxic masculinity refers specifically to the type of masculinity which is dominating, prone to violent, lacking emotional understanding, etc. Unfortunately the truth is that most masculinity is like this, at least that which I (as a young man) have encountered. Isn't it better to instead try to teach boys/men how to interact with women in a non-violent way, to express their feelings (and specifically their insecurities in a healthy and safe manner), to understand and empathise and take seriously the emotions of others and to understand that violence is not acceptable?
I think this is the exact problem with how you are thinking about this. Toxic masculinity is not "simply being a heterosexual man". Toxic masculinity is not "inextricable" to men. It's people who...
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It is very emotionally dangerous to teach young men to demonize a part of themselves that is inextricable. I did not choose to be a heterosexual man.
I think this is the exact problem with how you are thinking about this. Toxic masculinity is not "simply being a heterosexual man". Toxic masculinity is not "inextricable" to men. It's people who think that men "must be toxic to be masculine" that is the whole problem.
I consider myself a man, a heterosexual man and even a fairly "manly man" and I have never felt "attacked" by someone calling out toxic masculinity. It's just not true that men have an inner desire to be violent, misogynistic and emotionally unavailable.
What you're saying is true and good, but I think the part you're missing is that Tate rose for a reason, and the proposal here is that the reason for his rise is because there is a "masculinity...
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What you're saying is true and good, but I think the part you're missing is that Tate rose for a reason, and the proposal here is that the reason for his rise is because there is a "masculinity vacuum" - well-intentioned folks on the left try to downplay masculinity and gendered aspects of our society in general, and this has left a gap. Many young men feel some inherent but ill-defined masculinity anyway, and then what they see in the world giving focus to that feeling is Andrew Tate and his ilk, so to them masculinity == toxic masculinity.
The more I think about it, the more it seems to me that you actually agree with Rez, in spite of the first sentence of your reply.
I disagree that there is a “masculinity vacuum”. The things people like Tate are selling isn’t attractive because they are masculine, it is because they are promoting the idea that you can have...
I disagree that there is a “masculinity vacuum”. The things people like Tate are selling isn’t attractive because they are masculine, it is because they are promoting the idea that you can have social power and sex.
(edited because I realized that I accidentally made this comment to mean the opposite of what I intended)
Why does a man need to feel masculine? I think that's a problem with culture right there... the emphasis that one needs to feel masculine. It kinda puts a pedestal of man above woman in itself....
Why does a man need to feel masculine? I think that's a problem with culture right there... the emphasis that one needs to feel masculine. It kinda puts a pedestal of man above woman in itself. You don't see this idea on women that they develop problems and become assholes if they aren't able to get the right idea of femininity.
Thank you, your perspective is very interesting to me (because I think it's (a) reasonable and (b) diametrically opposed to mine). As I see it is that there are two things at play here (a) values...
Thank you, your perspective is very interesting to me (because I think it's (a) reasonable and (b) diametrically opposed to mine).
As I see it is that there are two things at play here
(a) values which are typically associated with masculinity that are positive (protecting other people, strength/resilience, leadership, self-reliance/independence)
(b) these values as traits which men should exhibit
I agree with (a) but reject (b). This comes partially from my view that we should try to move beyond gender roles (which is tricky because it is hard to at once support abolishing gender roles and also avoid the "if you don't believe in gender, how can sexism be a thing" tension). I think it's harmful for men to tell them "these are traits that are really positive for men to show, you should show them" and much better to say that, actually no it's fine if you don't want to be a "manly man" or have a strong masculine identity. You have a strong sense of masculine identity, but there are lots of boys out there who don't and are being told that they should adopt one. The converse also applies; I believe that we should be teaching young women/girls just as much as boys that they should seek to protect others or be learders, that they can be strong and self-reliant and that's fine.
Add these two facts together and the result is there are scores of young men out there with virtually no positive male role models while growing up except for what they find online.
I don't really believe in the "strong male role models" argument. Why can't strong female role models be role models for boys? I don't think idolising people is a healthy thing to do, but I don't see why people like Rosalind Franklin (extremely competent scientist who made amazing discoveries), Grace Hopper, Frances Allen, Amy Goodman, etc can't be positive role models for anyone, irrespective of gender identity. I think if they aren't this is even more worrying because it would mean that women are so biologically different than men that neither can perform the role of the other and each group must necessarily stick to certain functions – this is essentially a mandate for oppression.
I don't believe in any way that the notion that a "good man protects women" somehow necessarily means justifying men holding positions of greater power.
I think it kind of does:
if A is to protect B from X this (in many cases but not universally) implies that B cannot protect themselves from X, but A can
this kind of implies that A has more power than B because A is capable of exerting their will wrt whether X happens in a way that B cannot
Single motherhood is also increasingly common.
My intuition is that a lot of single mothers are disproprortionately poor, which is the real problem. I don't think that single mothers are really any worse as parents if we control for income. A very small sample (more an anecdote) is that I went to private school, and actually of the boys there I think those with stronger mother figures (e.g. mother is the breadwinner or makes as least as much as their partner) tended to end up as more stable individuals. Boys with strong father figures tended to be told by their fathers that they should be like them (which usually meant finance bro) but also weren't ever told things like "respect women's bodily autonomy" or "sexual assault is serious, don't do it". I also don't think that those with single mothers were really disadvantaged at a social/development level – obviously in this case they were not disadvantaged in an because their mothers earned lots of money (e.g. partners at law firms, owned businesses).
Further even if single motherhood is bad, usually single mothers are such because the man runs out (a cliché as old as time) and abandons the mother/children.
It is very emotionally dangerous to teach young men to demonize a part of themselves that is inextricable. I did not choose to be a heterosexual man. I must live life as a man, and must necessarily adopt a version of masculinity for myself, and I aspire to have that be as healthy and positive as possible. I refuse to live in self-hatred of an inalienable part of my identity.
So I think this can become really problematic when we consider repungent cases (sorry to go there but e.g. sex offenders come to mind). It's also problematic when we consider more typical cases – for example the classic line to excuse bad male behaviour is that "boys will be boys" which argues that bad male behaviour against women is inevitable and can't be stopped. Sure sexuality may not be a choice
and I aspire to have that be as healthy and positive as possible
Which is great, but I think a healthy masculinity looks so different from what we currently see that it might be unrecognisable as masculinity.
I am a cis-by-default woman (that is, I have no particular gender identity, so I just go with the flow because it's easier and I don't much care either way) and I don't grok what it's like, but I...
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I am a cis-by-default woman (that is, I have no particular gender identity, so I just go with the flow because it's easier and I don't much care either way) and I don't grok what it's like, but I have observed that a significant portion of the population strongly identify with gender. I don't know what causes it, but it seems to be genuine from what I can tell, considering the extreme lengths that some people go to align with their gender identity. I mean, you see people face extreme social condemnation, place themselves in mortal danger, live under the threat of serious legal consequences, undergo extremely painful and expensive surgeries, etc., just to express their gender identity. Even though I don't understand what it feels like to relate strongly to a gender, it does seem to be something that is very real and very important for some people. We can argue all day whether it's nature or nurture, but wherever it comes from, I think it's vital to acknowledge people as they actually are right now, not just the way we wish they all were in an alternative timeline.
If the world was filled up with people like you and me, the idea of "masculine" or "feminine" role models and the like would make no sense. It would be like talking about whether people with green eyes have good role models. Why should eye color come into it at all? What does that have to do with anything?
However, we share this planet with people who do experience a strong gender identity and have a deep need to express it. If they do not have an appropriate way to do so, they really suffer for it and sometimes act out in a way that causes the rest of us to suffer as well. For them, I think there is enormous value in ensuring that they do have role models who can guide them in safe and healthy ways to express their gender.
A really common and seemingly effective way to do this is to really build up men and women as protectors (as this makes them more likely to get along with other segments of society who are quite different from themselves), but in a gendered way so that it scratches their gender expression itch; for example, we'll use phrases like "nurturing" and "mother bear" when we talk about women's protective qualities, and we'll use phrases like "chivalry" and "courage" when we talk about men's protective traits, even when we are describing the exact same behaviors.
Obviously, these qualities are desirable for everyone, but packaging them up in optional pink bows and blue bows means a great deal for people who need those bows to feel fulfilled on a day-to-day basis. I think this is a more than fair compromise; I'm happy to wear bows of different colors, or even no bow at all, but that doesn't mean I should pressure other people to not wear the one and only bow they actually like. Why can't we just have lots of bows and lots of role models, and let everyone pick?
You say there should be no coercive element. Having an exclusive element would be anathema to the ideal of equally. So if there's no coercion but also no exclusivity, what exactly is being...
You say there should be no coercive element.
Having an exclusive element would be anathema to the ideal of equally. So if there's no coercion but also no exclusivity, what exactly is being offered? "Here are some things you probably should do, but don't have to do, to feel more like a good man, but also good women should do these things too". How is that different from saying "just be a good person"? If you change it, how are you not just entrenching gender roles?
The problem with this line of thinking is that it dismisses that a) gender is cultural, b) we have a culture, c) the overwhelming majority of people in that culture still subscribe to dual gender...
I want to question your logic though; why should we push boys to perform a specific gender role?
The problem with this line of thinking is that it dismisses that a) gender is cultural, b) we have a culture, c) the overwhelming majority of people in that culture still subscribe to dual gender thinking and that is really unlikely to change.
I don't think that anyone is seriously talking to young men and boys about masculinity full stop.
Taking the above into account this is the crux of the problem. Communities used to teach boys how to be men but at some point there's been a huge disconnect where society still teaches girls how to be healthy women but boys are only shown, through the media, how to be toxicly masculine. Fathers, uncles, grandfathers, male community leaders, and even their women counterparts to a lesser extent used to teach as well as show boys what being a good man was. The key word here is community. Communities are becoming more and more nonexistent in the western world and so of course boys will look other places for their uidance when they aren't getting it from the people around them and this is how so many become familiar with people like Andrew Tate with hardly anyone to provide an oposing view.
We are fortunate enough to have more informed views about gender and sexuality and we should always strive for greater acceptance and inclusion but we cannot be short sighted enough to ignore that in a dual gender society children will look for examples of how to fit into that society, desperately even. It's ingrained in our DNA to want to fit in but if no one is providing the template for how to do that it's very easy to be led astray
I agree with (a) and (b) but disagree with (c). I think we've already seen a big shift away from traditional thinking on gender roles towards a more progressive model (e.g. away from "women belong...
The problem with this line of thinking is that it dismisses that a) gender is cultural, b) we have a culture, c) the overwhelming majority of people in that culture still subscribe to dual gender thinking and that is really unlikely to change.
I agree with (a) and (b) but disagree with (c). I think we've already seen a big shift away from traditional thinking on gender roles towards a more progressive model (e.g. away from "women belong in the kitchen" towards "women should be free to work in professions that used to be male-only" etc).
there's been a huge disconnect where society still teaches girls how to be healthy women
Does society really teach girls how to be healthy women? For example society places a really high burden on women in how we dissect women's bodies and subject them to the kind of discussion/objectification which men would never face in the public sphere. One result of this is the rising level of eating disorders (which are terrible in the abstract, but even more terrible in reality – some parents I know have children with eating disorders and they are really a truly awful condition). We also see stigmatisation of women's bodies, things like periods or menopause, which I don't think is really healthy.
But I think that a lot of lessons that society has for women, like "try to find a rich husband" or "you should act more feminine" are very bad and do not result in healthy women.
The key word here is community. Communities are becoming more and more nonexistent in the western world and so of course boys will look other places for their uidance when they aren't getting it from the people around them and this is how so many become familiar with people like Andrew Tate with hardly anyone to provide an oposing view.
I agree with this, but I don't understand why we need to say "you are a man and therefore should do XYZ" rather than "you are a person and therefore should do XYZ". I think that women can be just as strong role models for boys as men can – and it's actually much healthier if boys look up to strong female role models and not just strong male role models.
Sure, currently society is currently structured differently, but we shouldn't just confine ourselves to the status quo; we should seek to improve it.
I have read a lot of anecdotes from feminist parents who really work hard to raise their boys in nongendered ways and are surprised by how persistent certain behaviors and preferences are in their...
I have read a lot of anecdotes from feminist parents who really work hard to raise their boys in nongendered ways and are surprised by how persistent certain behaviors and preferences are in their children.
I think we really don't know the boundaries between nature and nurture, but developmental needs change with age and maturity levels. If boys and male teens are consistently seeking male models, it seems important to notice and plan for that.
Here's another one: My wife and I wanted to do exactly that. Other than a single pink blanket that someone bought my daughter, we didn't want to have any "traditionally feminine" colored stuff...
I have read a lot of anecdotes from feminist parents who really work hard to raise their boys in nongendered ways and are surprised by how persistent certain behaviors and preferences are in their children.
Here's another one: My wife and I wanted to do exactly that. Other than a single pink blanket that someone bought my daughter, we didn't want to have any "traditionally feminine" colored stuff around her as a baby. Inevitably, she ended up with some "gender-specific" clothing. But it wasn't most of her wardrobe. And yet, somehow, we ended up with tantrums when she was a toddler because she emphatically did not want to wear pants when it was cold outside. Which is weird because my wife and her mother wore pants almost exclusively in cold weather. And now she's in high school and has become a cheerleader of all things, despite the fact that my wife and I are both very dorky and feminist. That one came as a big surprise to both of us. (Of course, our daughter also plays D&D with us every weekend and watches Star Trek with us every night, so we didn't totally lose the nerd battle!)
Point is, kids are weird. A lot of people like to pretend, like Freud, that children are simply empty vessels that parenting is poured into. But they really aren't. The developmental psychological concept of the active part children play in their own upbringing is one we need to better recognize as a culture.
But was the aforementioned "traditionally feminine" behavior I mentioned above my daughter's "instinctive feminine nature" asserting itself? Some sort of biological impetus to assert her "cisgendered instincts"? Or was it her picking up all of these signs from our culture that she was getting outside of the home that told her "girls are like this, boys are like that, and since you are a girl, you should be like this"? I have no idea. And honestly since socialization is some mix of nature and nurture—the exact proportions of which I doubt we will ever know—it doesn't necessarily have to be one or the other. But whatever it is, we need to meet kids, teenagers, and young adults where they are not where we want them to be. Because if we don't, someone else whose views we don't agree with probably will. Especially for young men, as we're finding.
Thank you for the well thought out response to my comment I think you misunderstand me, when I say that most of our culture still subscribes to dual genders I mean that in its most plain sense,...
Thank you for the well thought out response to my comment
I think we've already seen a big shift away from traditional thinking on gender roles towards a more progressive model (e.g. away from "women belong in the kitchen" towards "women should be free to work in professions that used to be male-only" etc).
I think you misunderstand me, when I say that most of our culture still subscribes to dual genders I mean that in its most plain sense, that there are two genders. As for your point, I agree. I think society largely has moderated our views on gender roles and that is a great thing but pay attention to the language: that it's okay that men help with the housework and kids, that it's okay that women hold leadership positions.
For example society places a really high burden on women in how we dissect women's bodies and subject them to the kind of discussion/objectification which men would never face in the public sphere
I also agree with this and will walk back my statement slightly. I think that women have better access to being healthy than men do. There is much less shame and stigma for a woman to access mental health resources, woman targeted social media often has themes about self care and wellness, etc. Society still has a very far way to go in this regard for women but I feel like men are being left behind in the dust here and that it's crucial we don't forget to also teach boys and men how to be well.
I agree with this, but I don't understand why we need to say "you are a man and therefore should do XYZ" rather than "you are a person and therefore should do XYZ". I think that women can be just as strong role models for boys as men can – and it's actually much healthier if boys look up to strong female role models and not just strong male role models.
Here is where I'll disagree. Men have the lived experience that informs their lessons on being men to boys, women do have a lot to teach boys on how to be better men but they are coming from a largely inaccessible experience and vice versa they have no experience as boys/men in our society. Looping back to point c above, society still overwhelmingly views gender as binary and aligned with physical sex. We have to say you are a man and therefore... because that is exactly how it's framed in society and in most people's minds.
What you seem to be seeking to me is a genderless society and I honestly cannot see that happening without some quantum leap in the way we as a society thinks about things. For most people, sex and gender are so deeply intwined that it cannot be separated. There is also the physical sex aspect. Hormones, physical development, etc. I'd argue are not 100% independent of gender. There is an interplay between societal gender and the physical realities of sex driven function and they inform each other to a certain extent. We could, in theory, eliminate societal gender roles but you cannot eliminate sex outside of medical intervention and you'd never pull that off for a whole society anyway.
Sure, currently society is currently structured differently, but we shouldn't just confine ourselves to the status quo; we should seek to improve it.
100% agreed! But I see improvement as a continuum, you will never reach the other side - it's a journey and not a destination. It's amazing and great that gender norms are being blurred, bent, and blown up but we will never reach a genderless society, I'm sorry. Women should have opportunities to be "masculine" and men should have opportunities to be "feminine" as much as they wish, society should tolerate that as much as possible but we cannot forget that the vast majority of people continue to live as Men and Women in our society and that is not going to change any time soon. So, for now at the very least, we need to teach people how to be good Men, good Women, good nonbinary, good whatever gender they choose to be, and we need to do that speaking in the language that they will understand - the language of gender
Because gender roles exist, and will likely always exist as long as difference in sexes exist. People naturally organize into groups based on subtle differences, and the biological differences...
I want to question your logic though; why should we push boys to perform a specific gender role? Even if we say things like "a good man protects women" it still perpetuates a notion that men should hold a position of greater power from which they can protect women
Because gender roles exist, and will likely always exist as long as difference in sexes exist. People naturally organize into groups based on subtle differences, and the biological differences between the majority of men and women are not that subtle. At a minimum, men are almost always bigger, stronger, and faster than women, all other factors being equal. Pretending that those differences don’t exist won’t make them go away or eliminate gender roles.
Because of those differences, boys need to be taught positive gender roles instead of no gender role at all, because they will naturally make up their own gender roles in the absence of one given to them. The idea of eliminating gender in total is nice, but ultimately a naive fantasy. Gender came to exist in the first place due to biological sexual dimorphism, and unless sexual dimorphism somehow goes away, I don’t see that being possible.
Why do physical differences need to confine us? Humans as a species are not really reliant on our brute strength (as we have machines) or agility. I don't think modern gender roles are really a...
Why do physical differences need to confine us? Humans as a species are not really reliant on our brute strength (as we have machines) or agility. I don't think modern gender roles are really a useful reaction to differences in biology. A lot of gender is constructed – for example the idea that men are better leaders than women does not have any biological basis (as far as I am aware), and yet we see this myth propagated throughout almost every modern organisation. Or, as another example, the idea that assertive women are "bossy" and assertive men are "confident". There are lots of other examples of properties that we ascribe to genders which have zero biological basis.
The idea of eliminating gender in total is nice, but ultimately a naive fantasy.
I agree that we won't be able to "eliminate" gender, but surely we can continue the existing trend of making it less relevant and not organising society around it to the same degree?
Many stereotypes about gender don't have a biological basis, but the organization of human society into two distinct genders largely does. As long as there are noticeable physical differences...
Many stereotypes about gender don't have a biological basis, but the organization of human society into two distinct genders largely does. As long as there are noticeable physical differences between human sex, humans will self-organize into genders. We can either futilely fight that tide and teach little boys that girls are no different from them in any way, (which is probably doomed to fail, because even kids have eyes and are able to deduce that that's not true) or we can promote the parts of the masculine gender role that are positive, and admonish the parts that aren't.
I think you misunderstand my argument – I am not claiming that the differences don't exist, I am saying that they are not important for how we organise our society and we should not allow them to...
I think you misunderstand my argument – I am not claiming that the differences don't exist, I am saying that they are not important for how we organise our society and we should not allow them to justify continued discrimination.
I think the argument that gender discrimination in society is just down to "biology" is quite dangerous.
Unfortunately, your argument is built on a faulty axiom; namely that "we" (policy makers or culture shapers) have the ability to "allow" gender to exist or not exist. It's not about whether...
Unfortunately, your argument is built on a faulty axiom; namely that "we" (policy makers or culture shapers) have the ability to "allow" gender to exist or not exist. It's not about whether biological differences should or should not determine how society is organized. It's a fact of life. Gender arose from biological differences in sexes; men being physically stronger, and not subject to the physical taxation of pregnancy and childbirth meant that they could dominate society from the very beginning of the concept. It doesn't matter that physical strength isn't as powerful in modern society as it was in past times. It's still somewhat powerful, but more importantly, it used to be massively powerful, and as such our entire culture was shaped by that legacy.
But even if we were to somehow wipe the slate clean and start from a completely blank state, which is obviously impossible, people would still self organize on the basis of sex and re-create gender, because human beings naturally organize themselves into similar groups. It's just a hard fact of sociology. Wherever there are groups of human beings who live together with fairly different, identifiable physical traits, people organize themselves into groups on the basis of those traits. Racial markers, beauty standards, or other random phenotypes. Sex kind of blows all of those other things out of the water though, because men a women are so different in so many ways.
So saying that we don't "need" to organize society around sex is like saying that we don't "need" gravity on earth. Whether or not that's true isn't really relevant beyond an academic argument, because we do have genders, and there's no feasible way around it, just like there is gravity, and there's no way around that either.
I don't think you've understood my argument at all. My argument is that sure, gender has some biological basis, but it is not a necessary condition for any societal organisation. You assertion...
Unfortunately, your argument is built on a faulty axiom; namely that "we" (policy makers or culture shapers) have the ability to "allow" gender to exist or not exist. It's not about whether biological differences should or should not determine how society is organized. It's a fact of life.
I don't think you've understood my argument at all. My argument is that sure, gender has some biological basis, but it is not a necessary condition for any societal organisation. You assertion that it is a "fact of life" is not very helpful – we literally overcome thousands of supposed "facts of life" every day when we turn on lightbulbs using electricity. I'm saying "we could try and make a better society" and you're saying "well society has always been like this so hah".
So saying that we don't "need" to organize society around sex is like saying that we don't "need" gravity on earth.
No it's not. At all. Saying "sex is not a thing" would be like saying "gravity is not a thing". Your argument is more "gravity is a thing, therefore we can't overcome it, let's not send rockets into space", whereas I am arguing that the differences between the sexes aren't that important because humans don't really rely on things like raw, brute strength and speed. Instead we use machines.
I am a 100 percent in favor of organizing society for adults in ways that are as little gendered as possible. I would prefer to do that for children as well, but we are physical and chemically and...
I am a 100 percent in favor of organizing society for adults in ways that are as little gendered as possible. I would prefer to do that for children as well, but we are physical and chemically and hormonally influenced as we develop and I don't want a vacuum and absence of positive male models to be the reason young boys turn to dangerous characters like Tate for guidance.
I don't really understand why Andrew Tate has become so popular, but I think it's naïve to assume that "strong male role models" will fix the problem. We see lots of examples where one dominant...
I don't really understand why Andrew Tate has become so popular, but I think it's naïve to assume that "strong male role models" will fix the problem. We see lots of examples where one dominant group believe that they are superior to another, and "debate them" or "educate them" doesn't really seem to work (e.g. nobody really believes that "strong white role models" will fix white supremacy and make celebrity white supremacists less popular).
I think you'd find that most people who study this sort of thing actually do think that famous, influential white people showing that they're dedicated to anti-racism are vital to combating white...
(e.g. nobody really believes that "strong white role models" will fix white supremacy and make celebrity white supremacists less popular)
I think you'd find that most people who study this sort of thing actually do think that famous, influential white people showing that they're dedicated to anti-racism are vital to combating white supremacy. That is probably a pretty widespread belief.
I think there's a difference between "white people in positions of power fighting racism" where specifically their power is helpful (e.g. LBJ supporting anti racist policies) and having more...
I think there's a difference between "white people in positions of power fighting racism" where specifically their power is helpful (e.g. LBJ supporting anti racist policies) and having more "strong white role models" for white people to look up to. It's a false equivocation to say that they are one and the same.
Speaking personally, I learned a lot from Wendell Berry's memoir about racism, the Hidden Wound, a book Bel Hooks used to teach in her classes on racism.
Speaking personally, I learned a lot from Wendell Berry's memoir about racism, the Hidden Wound, a book Bel Hooks used to teach in her classes on racism.
Isn't there some similarity in what you are comparing there? What I mean is, there's a move towards celebrating different cultures, races and backgrounds rather than attempting to pretend race (or...
Isn't there some similarity in what you are comparing there? What I mean is, there's a move towards celebrating different cultures, races and backgrounds rather than attempting to pretend race (or culture or anything else) doesn't exist, but in what way (other than white supremacy) do you see white people celebrate being white? In a similar but different way, a lot of the discussion in this comment section is boiling down to, there's no such thing as positive masculinity and any attempt to promote positive masculinity is turned back as an example of toxic masculinity or it isn't biologically associated with being born male (meaning there's no way to 'celebrate' masculinity). I don't think anyone is trying to take away the ability for women to celebrate femininity for those who want to do that (rather than embrace the ideal of a genderless society).
I'd be curious what the difference in approach is where some commenters think trying to be color blind to skin color is bad, but then perhaps approach gender or sex in that way where it should be approached with blinders on.
So, my personal and professional experience leads me to support belt and suspenders approaches to solving problems. Social media algorithms have played a huge role in spreading Peterson's and...
So, my personal and professional experience leads me to support belt and suspenders approaches to solving problems. Social media algorithms have played a huge role in spreading Peterson's and Tate's hateful content, but I don't think we should sit back and wait for social media to solve the problem.
The surgeon general of the US has declared a crisis of loneliness in society. Sociologists have written about how we are losing our third places for socializing. Kids need mentors. And it is an open question whether gender plays into who kids choose as role models. I am not attached to any one possible solution to the complex multifaceted problem of patriarchal oppression hatred and abuse. I also don't want us to miss anything that could help mitigate the problem.
Rez this is worth it's own post sometime imho. I agree. When I run into people online who seem young and unsure and interested in Peterson or Tate, I mention Admiral McRaven's work such as Make...
Rez this is worth it's own post sometime imho.
I agree. When I run into people online who seem young and unsure and interested in Peterson or Tate, I mention Admiral McRaven's work such as Make Your Bed. It's not that I think McRaven is so great, but he is not hateful, he offers a plan and a program, he points to heroic models etc. I will also mention Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning and the Stoic philosophers, but I think teeenage boys in particular really need prosocial male models that value who they are and what they do.
I don’t know, I think the “heroic masculinity” that article describes is teetering on the edge of toxic masculinity. Why such an emphasis on a man’s average physical advantages in a society where...
Men (as a group and to a significant extent) are larger, faster, and stronger than women. This cannot be disputed, and it cannot be understood as some irrelevancy, because it comes with an obvious moral question that each man must answer for himself: Will he use his strength to dominate the weak, or to protect them?
I don’t know, I think the “heroic masculinity” that article describes is teetering on the edge of toxic masculinity. Why such an emphasis on a man’s average physical advantages in a society where most people are couch potato office workers? Are men who aren’t strong physically in some way inferior to men who are?
Not that I don’t think having positive male role models is a good thing, but what the article describes is way too close going back to unhealthy gender stereotypes. At most it should be an adjunct model of masculinity - I think primarily people should aspire to the aspects we value in polite society that are irrespective of physical feats.
I still think that’s weird framing. Sure, those are predominately male occupations - but the glory for their physical sacrifice belongs to them, not ”men”, a group that comprises half of the...
but at the end of the day, it is in fact primarily men who are performing these physical duties to ensure that our society is as minimally violent and dangerous as possible, so that we may all enjoy peace.
I still think that’s weird framing. Sure, those are predominately male occupations - but the glory for their physical sacrifice belongs to them, not ”men”, a group that comprises half of the earths population. The implication seems to be that something is “owed” to these “guardians” of civilization - which seems pretty toxic to me.
That quote doesn’t really help. Is a man who has noodle arms inferior to a beefy gym dude? A taekwondo instructor more heroic than a professor because of the former’s martial prowess? Is a researcher who saves millions of lives with vaccine research not heroic?
Why attribute martial ability, even if only used in a “positive” manner, as an aspiration of the male gender as opposed to the occupations that use it? If you’re a police officer, you should perhaps aspire to her ideas around heroism and strength, regardless of gender, but statistically most likely men.
If you’re a man in general I do not think you should aspire as a default to this premise.
Hmm I’m on a mobile app at the moment so maybe I’m not seeing things correctly but the number of votes indicates it’s either labeled as offtopic or noise and given that it’s really neither of...
Hmm I’m on a mobile app at the moment so maybe I’m not seeing things correctly but the number of votes indicates it’s either labeled as offtopic or noise and given that it’s really neither of those things it feels like it’s been used as a downvote button.
As far as I know, none of us can tell what has been labelled noise but Deimos. If you feel votes are being misused, you could ask him to look into it. He has requested this several times since I...
As far as I know, none of us can tell what has been labelled noise but Deimos. If you feel votes are being misused, you could ask him to look into it. He has requested this several times since I have been here.
I found Anthony Conwright's piece on the concept of prescriptive masculinity enlightening: To strive to promote a 'bettered' version of masculinity is to implicitly accept the premise that it's...
The limitations of this prescriptive brand of male reform are, ironically enough, much like Peterson’s litany of male grievance: long on rhetoric, short on actual lived experience. To take just one example, former Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang confidently proposed an end-run around blocked male pathology when published his own “The Boys Are Not Alright” op-ed for The Washington Post in 2022. “We must stop defining masculinity as necessarily toxic and start promoting positive masculinity,” Yang writes. “Strong, healthy, fulfilled men are more likely to treat women well.” Well, sure; strong, healthy, fulfilled people are probably going to treat their partners well.
Had Yang ended his corrective at “we must stop defining masculinity,” he would have come closer to the point. Instead, of engaging with the core question of whether masculinity is necessarily toxic, Yang ends up endorsing a vision of “positive” masculinity that occupies the same level of idealized abstraction that traditional masculinity does. What does “strong” mean in this context—and who are the gatekeepers who define just what virtues make up “positive masculinity”?
[…] If men relieve themselves from shackles of masochism and chauvinism anchored in this gendered ideology, they might learn that the most crucial role we could play in society is to free ourselves from this fundamentally unrewarding and self-harming image of ourselves. We can start by envisioning the crisis of masculinity as less a gendered one—inherently antagonistic to the economic and social empowerment of women—and more as a fundamental malady of capitalist economic competition and the libertarian American culture that underwrites it.
To strive to promote a 'bettered' version of masculinity is to implicitly accept the premise that it's necessary to promote some doctrine of masculinity (or femininity), when we should first be examining whether promoting gendered expectations serves a net good at all.
Woman here. I first felt disagreement, then tried to break it down. I am no expert. I do believe young people need mentors, of both the same and different genders and places to explore adult...
Woman here. I first felt disagreement, then tried to break it down. I am no expert. I do believe young people need mentors, of both the same and different genders and places to explore adult responsibility such as scouts or sports or part time jobs.
Because biological essentialism has been used to try to politically dominate women, feminism tends to reject examination of our physiology and hormonal differences and brain sciences. It is right to be skeptical but we are physical as well as social beings. I have been reading Different, Gender through the Eyes of a Primatologist by De Waal. He was a ground breaking researcher who studied bonobos when they were still largely unknown. He locates us as equally related to the male dominant aggressive chimpanzees and the peaceful, non male dominant bonobos. He also observed an individual who appeared to be acting in a way that reminds him of transgender humans. These are not us, but they are our relatives.
I don't know what boys and young men need in order to grow up to be responsible happy adult males in society. I do know that right now, many are profoundly unhappy and are seeking plans and guidance for life and specifically looking for leaders. I hope educators point them toward heroes that I would agree are admirable. Courage is not a gender specific phenomenon at all. I am currently reading Lady Death the memoir of a russian woman sniper during WWII. In the past I read Corie Ten Boom's memoir about hiding Jewish people during the nazi occupation of the Netherlands. But I agree that young men need same gender role models.
I'd say the problem is not that boys need messages of one sort or another in the mass media or social media, it is that boys need male role models in real life. In a world where many fathers are...
I'd say the problem is not that boys need messages of one sort or another in the mass media or social media, it is that boys need male role models in real life.
In a world where many fathers are physically absent, others are emotionally absent, and where men in early childhood education are few and far between, it's no question that many boys are getting lost. The absence of men in early education sends boys an unambiguous message that "education is a girl thing"
I feel like there is supposed to be a causal link between these two. But I have difficulty seeing it. Can you elaborate? The best I can come up with is something like: But I find this at worst...
Because biological essentialism has been used to try to politically dominate women, feminism tends to reject examination of our physiology and hormonal differences and brain sciences. It is right to be skeptical but we are physical as well as social beings.
...
I agree that young men need same gender role models.
I feel like there is supposed to be a causal link between these two. But I have difficulty seeing it. Can you elaborate?
The best I can come up with is something like:
Because men and women tend to differ greatly in some respects, it would be good for a young man to have a role model who is like him in those respects, because otherwise he will not have an example to follow of somebody positively expressing those important faculties which are innate in him.
But I find this at worst rather unconvincing and at best incomplete. In part for reasons which are not entirely clear to me—the whole issue rather mystifies me, to be frank, as do the meta-issues surrounding it—but some thoughts:
What if young 'men' had 'female' role models who displayed 'masculine' characteristics? Would that be enough? I assume the answer is no, which seems to lend at least some weight to the parent's argument. But I imagine you think it would be an improvement?
What is the value of a role model? Presumably, it is unhelpful (not to mention impossible) to have a role model who is exactly the same as one's self. Everyone will have some unique qualities not manifest in any role model, and that seems to me a good thing. If we tried to quantify, for every person, how similar they are to their role models, we might end up with a bimodal distribution, where one peak roughly corresponds to women and the other roughly to men—the former will tend to have more role models that have more in common with them. The implication, then, is that this bimodality indicates a structural inequality, and that our men would be better served if we implemented structures to help move them closer to the other peak. But what makes us think that that is the best place to be? This also leads me to:
Whatever is characteristic of masculinity, does perhaps that itself have to do with the current situation? In other words: suppose there are as you say neurobiological differences characteristic of masculinity and femininity; then, might it be the case that, if men and women were socialised analogously while young, the present pathology would still manifest? If so, that would suggest that the problem is not that young women have role models which are like them but young men do not; but rather that a qualitatively different approach is needed for each. I shudder to think of the implications of this (though I think it is difficult to pursue the line of reasoning further without specifics, which are still lacking), but am curious what you think.
I used to think freeing ourselves from the shackles of gender expectations was as easy as letting go of them, and perhaps we will do that someday in the future. However, I think the vast, vast...
I used to think freeing ourselves from the shackles of gender expectations was as easy as letting go of them, and perhaps we will do that someday in the future. However, I think the vast, vast majority of people still feel, deep inside, some connection to their chosen gender and/or biological sex. There is a reason trans people say they feel like a man or woman deep down. I am a straight male and there are some things I feel, very deeply and innately, that my wife simply does not. I see it in my wife and her friends, myself and my friends - little things we do or don't do.
For example, I love to do yard work and hard labor around the house. I enjoy depictions of violence through movies, professional fighting, war documentaries, and video games. I get a high from logic puzzles, coding, and other stem-adjacent endeavors. A lot of it may be learned behavior, but a lot of it just feels more deeply-rooted than that.
My wife doesn't get how her father and I can sit down and play BeamNG Drive (a car-crashing game) in slow mo for hours. I don't understand how she doesn't understand it. We will excitedly show her a crash and she'll roll her eyes and feign interest - same reaction I have to her latest pumpkin purchase from Target.
She loves romantic dramas, decorating our house, making crafts, using the Cricut, talking to her friends on the phone, etc.
I'm an ally and I've met a ton of people who don't fall into these stereotypes - but I've met a lot more who do (to varying degrees). I just can't ignore the probable influence of testosterone and estrogen in these things.
To be clear, I'm not saying men and women should have these characteristics, but rather that they often do have them. With that in mind, I think a positive road map for men is important. If everything I said above is incorrect and misguided, which it may be, positive masculinity would at least provide some guidance until society is ready to move on from these stereotypes.
As someone who's in the trans community (and whose wife is in her early stages of HRT), I promise you that you're overblowing the influence of hormones here. Testosterone and estrogen can cause...
I just can't ignore the probable influence of testosterone and estrogen in these things.
As someone who's in the trans community (and whose wife is in her early stages of HRT), I promise you that you're overblowing the influence of hormones here. Testosterone and estrogen can cause behavioral differences and of course physical changes, but they don't determine your hobbies. My wife has not suddenly lost interest in motorsports as she grows tits, nor do most trans people's preferences change radically in this way when they start HRT.
The traits you observe in this post that differ among men and women in a way that corresponds to our society's gendered stereotypes are almost definitely due to socialization (which doesn't necessarily mean "learned behavior", it just means that your sociocultural environment influences things like which hobbies you have access to or are encouraged to pursue, etc. It can be deeply rooted even if it isn't literally in your blood.) Even if there is some biological factor it would almost definitely not be hormonal -- you would expect prepubescent childrens' preferences to be less likely to conform to gendered stereotypes than those of postpubescent kids or adults in that case, when if anything the opposite is true.
Upvoting because you make some good points and because I appreciate the push back on this. I think it's a tough thing to settle since we can't actually test it without any societal influence...
Upvoting because you make some good points and because I appreciate the push back on this.
I think it's a tough thing to settle since we can't actually test it without any societal influence altering the results. Even raising kids in labs would subject them to tiny influences from any hypothetical scientist performing the experiment.
I think the only way we find out for sure is if society does continue to move forward and we see these things change. The next century or so might eliminate any doubt and prove you right.
In the meantime though, I maintain that we need to push for positive masculinity, as a stopgap at the very least.
Oh yeah no disagreement! I do think that there are ways we can teach young boys and girls to be good people that may be more effective if catered to their gender -- inherent or not, gender exists...
Oh yeah no disagreement! I do think that there are ways we can teach young boys and girls to be good people that may be more effective if catered to their gender -- inherent or not, gender exists in our society. The positive traits we want to see from positive masculinity may be the same traits we want to see in positive femininity, but there are still ways we can frame it differently to jive with boys' and girls' life experiences.
I do disagree with others' comments in the thread that teaching "positive masculinity" means avoiding or getting rid of the concept "toxic masculinity" -- that concept is an important one to teach young men, even if a different name would make it an easier pill to swallow. I think a lot of people even in this thread are reacting more to the name than to the concept itself. Toxic masculinity is all about how patriarchy and its standards can hurt men too, constraining men with gendered requirements on how they feel and act that hurt them. The classic "be a man" bullshit is a prime example. And that's something that I think is imperative to recognize to learn to be a good man in this society -- it's hard to escape a cultural paradigm like that without naming it and talking about how to get rid of it.
I think about masculinity a lot. I'm a tattooed cis-male that enjoys his metal and lifts a lot. I'm acutely aware how I am classified by people who don't know me. Occasionally when meeting someone...
I think about masculinity a lot. I'm a tattooed cis-male that enjoys his metal and lifts a lot. I'm acutely aware how I am classified by people who don't know me. Occasionally when meeting someone I can feel the distrust until I find ways to signal that I am an ally. And I completely understand why, these people have often suffered discrimination at the hands of people who display similar physiology.
The term "toxic masculinity" has a lot of power and has been successful in identifying a cohort of beliefs and behaviors that society should deprecate. But it has an unfortunate consequence of begging the question "What is the opposite? Because that must be the preferred mode." Which to my mind presents a false dichotomy.
Masculine (and feminine) are baseline descriptors. They don't have opposites. In this view "toxic" is not a modifier on "masculinity." Rather "toxic masculinity" is an independent phrase that labels a social phenomenon. The upside is that just as toxic masculinity has nothing to do with masculinity, its opposite does not either.
So let's consider some toxic traits and their alternatives:
Aggression : Understanding
Neuve Stoicism: Introspection, communication
Dominance: Support, advocacy
Territorial: Responsibility, accountability
I would say these are values that young people should learn. And constitute the opposite of "toxic masculinity" i.e. "being a good person."
A digression on the topic of role models that is more closely aligned with the conversation at large. Having grown up without good male role models I often feel adrift in the current discourse. Young boys see strong, confident individuals and want to "grow up" to be one of these people. They may learn these values at home but if they don't see these values practiced by cultural leaders they can just as easily fall into the trap of "sigma male grindset grows big biceps and gets girls" or some idiocy. Everyone wants to be inspired, but we need more Mr. Rogers in more body types.
I've been thinking about this kind of thing alot recently, and I think I disagree with you, but it's hard to explalin exactly why. At the core of it, I think it's a bad idea to give people...
I've been thinking about this kind of thing alot recently, and I think I disagree with you, but it's hard to explalin exactly why. At the core of it, I think it's a bad idea to give people templates of who they should be. Because people are actually all different. There's different kinds of people. Heroic masculinity is good for some people, but bad for others.
We don't usually like to talk about that, because its very easy for someone to come along and try and establish a heirarchy between different kinds of people. Which implies that between the different types, there is one option you should aspire towards. This is a bad attitude because lots of different types are needed for different things. Yes, there are situations where you need people who can run into burning buildings and climb the crumbling 9/11 towers. Some of those people are women, as the article explains. So rather than "heroic masculinity", isn't it just heroism?
But the opposite of heroic masculinity in that example isn't really toxic masculinity, its passivity. Which isn't always bad. Some people don't become firefighters, but become scientists or philosophers instead. Some people like sitting quietly and grappling with a complex problem until they figure it out, and others like jumping into action and figuring out a path along the way. It's not a good idea to promote one over the others, because depending on who you are either one might be a better fit. And depending on the situation, either one might be better to have.
When you try to unify all the good attributes under one umbrella that is something other than "good" you get weird contradictions, like men need to be stoic and not let themselves be controlled by their emotions, but also men need to be so passionate about justice that they can't help but act when the situation demands it. But also calm enough to not let their passions turn them violent in the wrong situations, but also not so careful that they become cowards.
It's trying to balance the absolutism of separating the world into a dichotomy with the nuance of understanding that the real world doesn't fit perfectly into a dichotomy.
In the end youre just left with the idea that everyone needs to learn to interpret each situation and take in its nuances and act accordingly to that exact scenario, and the whole "guiding principle" idea falls apart.
I agree with you that there are people desperate to find a clean answer that will finally just tell them what the right thing to do is, but the truth is that there is no such absolute definition. The only real solution is for people to mature enough to realize that the problem is that they are relying on an outside party to give them an answer. Instead, people need to learn to self reflect and find answers from their own conscience.
I have a few thoughts. I'm a woman who has worked for a battered women's organization. This is a problem. I'm grateful to the author for calling it out. A big part of the issue is the algorithms....
Exemplary
I have a few thoughts.
I'm a woman who has worked for a battered women's organization. This is a problem. I'm grateful to the author for calling it out.
A big part of the issue is the algorithms. Max Fisher's book the Chaos Machine is one decent source but human rights groups have been calling out big social media for encouraging hate rhetoric of all types through their algorithms, to the point of fomenting genocide in some instances and pogroms and lynchings in others in regions where ethnic tension is already high. The nazis and Rwanda used radio to spread their deadly ideology. Today it's Youtube, Facebook, now Tiktok. Yes these platforms are spreading male supremacist bullshit but also other forms of hate.
I'm not an industry insider, but Fisher claims that statistical modeling shows that outrage leads to increased engagement, so these companies program to favor that content. It's the same dynamic as leads to addictive design in casino machines but the fallout is hatred and violence.
Achievements in women's rights are always hard fought and must be defended. We are not progressing toward some gender utopia without work. When I was a teen, glorifying pimps was prominent in hiphop. That''s not exactly a woman friendly attitude. But I agree with the author that social media through a phone or tablet is a new danger and worse in some ways.
One of the reasons I am here on Tildes is that I believe there should be nonprofit options online. What this article is describing is more dangerous than selling sugary cereal, but big companies are always going to exploit people's worst instincts and cater to the lowest common denominator to achieve popular success.
I've been feeling this a lot recently too honestly. I try to curate my Instagram feeds as much as I can but some of it still gets through and I make the mistake of reading comments and feeling...
I'm not an industry insider, but Fisher claims that statistical modeling shows that outrage leads to increased engagement, so these companies program to favor that content. It's the same dynamic as leads to addictive design in casino machines but the fallout is hatred and violence.
I've been feeling this a lot recently too honestly. I try to curate my Instagram feeds as much as I can but some of it still gets through and I make the mistake of reading comments and feeling more despair at the world. I've been cutting back on social media more and more but it's definitely the easiest way to kill time and entertain yourself.
At the core of any recommendation algorithm is the desire to keep you hooked; watching, listening, consuming. No matter the platform, they don't achieve this with giving you "similar" content,...
At the core of any recommendation algorithm is the desire to keep you hooked; watching, listening, consuming. No matter the platform, they don't achieve this with giving you "similar" content, they do it by giving you more concentrated form of the same content. You end up in rabbit holes all the time because that's the explicit goals, coz doing that costs a lot of time.
As far as the US goes I can't see a solution. Congress paralyzes everything. If that were NOT the case perhaps there could be laws requiring the categorization of data. Then algorithms for some...
As far as the US goes I can't see a solution. Congress paralyzes everything. If that were NOT the case perhaps there could be laws requiring the categorization of data. Then algorithms for some types of data ( hate speech, misinformation about current events, infotainment ) could be made illegal while still remaining legal for nonvolatile subjects: wood working, Star Trek, vegan cooking, etc.
Is there not already regulation of certain categories of data? For example news broadcasts? Advertisements? Even pure entertainment is subject to censors in broadcast media. (This not to say I...
Is there not already regulation of certain categories of data? For example news broadcasts? Advertisements? Even pure entertainment is subject to censors in broadcast media.
(This not to say I necessarily agree with the comment to which you've responded.)
Yeah that is true, and fair. I think “algorithms for some types of data [being] made illegal” is dangerously close to restricted speech, like unconstitutionally so. But also I agree that something...
Yeah that is true, and fair. I think “algorithms for some types of data [being] made illegal” is dangerously close to restricted speech, like unconstitutionally so. But also I agree that something needs to be done, and I won’t pretend to know what the answer is. Almost certainly, section 230 needs to be modified in some way. Like companies pushing these messages that lead to radicalization and violence should probably be held liable in some way. But I also acknowledge it’s a crazy high bar to prove even partial fault in a case like that, even if they weren’t shielded by section 230 like they currently are. But, outright banning categories of data, or the promotion of that data, is imo far too powerful of a tool for the government to wield, and some future administration would inevitably use it to suppress dissenting voices.
Freedom of expression is not the same as the privilege of a platform. Just imagine if hate speech and violent rhetoric was controlled like copyrighted content. There's regulations and controls for...
Freedom of expression is not the same as the privilege of a platform. Just imagine if hate speech and violent rhetoric was controlled like copyrighted content. There's regulations and controls for it, platforms make an effort to remove it, people are only jailed in the most extreme circumstances and you generally have to go "off the beaten path" to access it. Don't kid yourself that there aren't already, and have been many more, rules and laws about what can be published and broadcasted.
Sure, but the fairness doctrine didn’t make it outright illegal to present certain information, or in a certain way - it just said you can’t keep a broadcasters license if you do so. But you were...
Sure, but the fairness doctrine didn’t make it outright illegal to present certain information, or in a certain way - it just said you can’t keep a broadcasters license if you do so. But you were still free to present “unfair” information via other means. I think it was a very reasonable way to filter who can use the limited resource that is the RF spectrum - but if they’d attempted to regulate publications in general in that way, I think it would’ve been swiftly shut down by the Supreme Court.
Neither does my idea of requiring social media to categorize content and then disallowing algorithms from being applied from politics/current events/subjects of misinformation. YouTube could be...
didn’t make it outright illegal to present certain information
Neither does my idea of requiring social media to categorize content and then disallowing algorithms from being applied from politics/current events/subjects of misinformation. YouTube could be free to publish it all. They just wouldn't be able to mummify people in it based on clicked links.
I've seen articles for years that many shows and videos get around being nailed on a lot of laws that would otherwise stop them by claiming to be "entertainment".
I've seen articles for years that many shows and videos get around being nailed on a lot of laws that would otherwise stop them by claiming to be "entertainment".
Eh, those articles are generally overblown in that regard. They're usually talking about Fox News and while it is classified that way, First Amendment protections are the real barrier to getting...
Eh, those articles are generally overblown in that regard. They're usually talking about Fox News and while it is classified that way, First Amendment protections are the real barrier to getting rid of the hateful rhetoric they spread -- whether something is classified as entertainment or news, US law purposefully makes it very difficult for the government to punish speech based on its content.
Even if regulating the algorithms rather than the content itself is different though, I'm not sure it would actually work. You can't just ban training algorithms on this type of data -- that would make it impossible to train a model to detect hate speech so you can remove it, which you obviously want these sites to do. If you want to more specifically ban algorithms that favor that stuff, it's going to be really hard to assess that. These types of models are typically black boxes trained to optimize a metric. While we can clearly see that using engagement as this metric is not good in practice for online discourse, it's a lot harder to forbid someone from optimizing for a metrif that might have negative side effects -- especially with how little visibility we have into the inner workings of models like this, it's not really possible to guarantee that.
It would be practical to write a statute or regulation requiring some combination of effective moderation and or change in the algorithm to prevent these results. The results are observable. The...
It would be practical to write a statute or regulation requiring some combination of effective moderation and or change in the algorithm to prevent these results. The results are observable. The companies are in the best position to know which type of change would be more cost effective and practical to implement.
Netflix is great for finding non US content. I have enjoyed the Canadian sitcoms Corner Gas and Kim's Convenience, the irish teen/family comedy Derry Girls, the old UK show the IT Crowd, the...
Netflix is great for finding non US content. I have enjoyed the Canadian sitcoms Corner Gas and Kim's Convenience, the irish teen/family comedy Derry Girls, the old UK show the IT Crowd, the Japanese Slice of Life show Midnight Diner recently. I also revisit the Muppet Show when I want a short dose of wholesome comedy.
For me it's Home Improvement, X-Files, Diagnosis Murder, Dexter, and Futurama. I always have one of those playing endlessly. Drives my girlfriend up the wall but it's the only thing that holds my...
For me it's Home Improvement, X-Files, Diagnosis Murder, Dexter, and Futurama. I always have one of those playing endlessly. Drives my girlfriend up the wall but it's the only thing that holds my brain still.
Surveying this wide a developmental spectrum is frankly insane. A 6 year old has no conceivable world view and fully formed thoughts of masculinity and femininity beyond an extremely basic grasp....
6-15
Surveying this wide a developmental spectrum is frankly insane. A 6 year old has no conceivable world view and fully formed thoughts of masculinity and femininity beyond an extremely basic grasp. While many 14 and 15 year olds are reading and thinking at college levels and capable of adult, fleshed out world views and opinions.
Would much prefer to see this data segmented between the under 10's and over 10's at least.
Well, the article's main source for the popularity claims is a pollster called YouGov, who does in fact distinguish children from teenagers in their article, and the summary is basically that 50%...
Well, the article's main source for the popularity claims is a pollster called YouGov, who does in fact distinguish children from teenagers in their article, and the summary is basically that 50% of young teen boys dislike Tate, 25% like him and 25% don't know who he is or don't know how they feel about Tate's ideology:
Overall, 54% of children aged 6-15 have heard of Tate, including 60% of boys that age. Among boys aged 13-15 that figure increases to 84%.
One in six 6-15 year old boys (17%) have a positive opinion of Andrew Tate, including 23% of 13-15 year olds.
By contrast, 56% of all boys in the 6-15 year old age group have a negative opinion of Tate, including 63% of 13-15 year olds.
However, their polling seems to indicate that Tate's classic rhetoric about self-improvement (well, the wild distortion of self-improvement that guys like him peddle) and the general imagery of a muscular dude with big cars and homes is more popular than the extreme misogyny, but not by too much:
One in eight boys aged 6-15 (12%) say they agree with Tate’s views on women, compared to 17% of his views on masculinity and what it means to be a man, and 20% for his views on work and success.
(The teenage boy crosstabs are available on that link and views on women are 50% opposed and 10% supported while work and success are 30% supported and 35% opposed, which is nearly even. The other 30% either didn't know what Tate think of Women or Work in specific or didn't know who he is.)
My general opinion on this data is that Tate is more unpopular than popular but that's a very disappointing bar to clear, especially when the amount of girls who support Tate is pinned at 5% or less, a full 5 times lower, which I think strengthens the case that there is a growing political gap between young boys and young girls where young girls are becoming the most progressive cohort in human history while young boys are plurality center left but with 30% of them holding reactionary beliefs about women and every other minority.
Yes, it's super worrying – especially that really young boys are now expressing structurally misogynistic views (i.e. about how society should be organised) as well as at an...
My general opinion on this data is that Tate is more unpopular than popular but that's a very disappointing bar to clear, especially when the amount of girls who support Tate is pinned at 5% or less, a full 5 times lower, which I think strengthens the case that there is a growing political gap between young boys and young girls where young girls are becoming the most progressive cohort in human history while young boys are plurality center left but with 30% of them holding reactionary beliefs about women and every other minority.
Yes, it's super worrying – especially that really young boys are now expressing structurally misogynistic views (i.e. about how society should be organised) as well as at an individual/interpersonal level.
I don’t know why but YouTube Shorts keeps pushing weird manosphere and transphobic content on me. I don’t engage beyond a pause where I’m like “Hold up what is this? Oh no Andrew Tate! Get me the...
I don’t know why but YouTube Shorts keeps pushing weird manosphere and transphobic content on me. I don’t engage beyond a pause where I’m like “Hold up what is this? Oh no Andrew Tate! Get me the fuck out of here!”
I guess the algorithm sees that pause and thinks they’ve got me all figured out. Because it keeps coming.
Same here. I downvote those shorts, then click the "don't recommend channel" option. I have noticed less of that garbage, but I still get an occasional short with Andrew Tate, Joe Rogan, or Jordan...
I don’t know why but YouTube Shorts keeps pushing weird manosphere and transphobic content on me.
Same here.
I downvote those shorts, then click the "don't recommend channel" option.
I have noticed less of that garbage, but I still get an occasional short with Andrew Tate, Joe Rogan, or Jordan Peterson in it.
I don't think that anyone is telling young men and boys that there is no such thing as positive masculinity, because I don't think that anyone is seriously talking to young men and boys about masculinity full stop.
I want to question your logic though; why should we push boys to perform a specific gender role? Even if we say things like "a good man protects women" it still perpetuates a notion that men should hold a position of greater power from which they can protect women. I think it's better to focus instead on the positive messages of "heroic masculinity" without tying them to masculinity – this way girls/women can also benefit!
Toxic masculinity refers specifically to the type of masculinity which is dominating, prone to violent, lacking emotional understanding, etc. Unfortunately the truth is that most masculinity is like this, at least that which I (as a young man) have encountered. Isn't it better to instead try to teach boys/men how to interact with women in a non-violent way, to express their feelings (and specifically their insecurities in a healthy and safe manner), to understand and empathise and take seriously the emotions of others and to understand that violence is not acceptable?
I think this is the exact problem with how you are thinking about this. Toxic masculinity is not "simply being a heterosexual man". Toxic masculinity is not "inextricable" to men. It's people who think that men "must be toxic to be masculine" that is the whole problem.
I consider myself a man, a heterosexual man and even a fairly "manly man" and I have never felt "attacked" by someone calling out toxic masculinity. It's just not true that men have an inner desire to be violent, misogynistic and emotionally unavailable.
What you're saying is true and good, but I think the part you're missing is that Tate rose for a reason, and the proposal here is that the reason for his rise is because there is a "masculinity vacuum" - well-intentioned folks on the left try to downplay masculinity and gendered aspects of our society in general, and this has left a gap. Many young men feel some inherent but ill-defined masculinity anyway, and then what they see in the world giving focus to that feeling is Andrew Tate and his ilk, so to them masculinity == toxic masculinity.
The more I think about it, the more it seems to me that you actually agree with Rez, in spite of the first sentence of your reply.
I disagree that there is a “masculinity vacuum”. The things people like Tate are selling isn’t attractive because they are masculine, it is because they are promoting the idea that you can have social power and sex.
(edited because I realized that I accidentally made this comment to mean the opposite of what I intended)
Why does a man need to feel masculine? I think that's a problem with culture right there... the emphasis that one needs to feel masculine. It kinda puts a pedestal of man above woman in itself. You don't see this idea on women that they develop problems and become assholes if they aren't able to get the right idea of femininity.
Thank you, your perspective is very interesting to me (because I think it's (a) reasonable and (b) diametrically opposed to mine).
As I see it is that there are two things at play here
I agree with (a) but reject (b). This comes partially from my view that we should try to move beyond gender roles (which is tricky because it is hard to at once support abolishing gender roles and also avoid the "if you don't believe in gender, how can sexism be a thing" tension). I think it's harmful for men to tell them "these are traits that are really positive for men to show, you should show them" and much better to say that, actually no it's fine if you don't want to be a "manly man" or have a strong masculine identity. You have a strong sense of masculine identity, but there are lots of boys out there who don't and are being told that they should adopt one. The converse also applies; I believe that we should be teaching young women/girls just as much as boys that they should seek to protect others or be learders, that they can be strong and self-reliant and that's fine.
I don't really believe in the "strong male role models" argument. Why can't strong female role models be role models for boys? I don't think idolising people is a healthy thing to do, but I don't see why people like Rosalind Franklin (extremely competent scientist who made amazing discoveries), Grace Hopper, Frances Allen, Amy Goodman, etc can't be positive role models for anyone, irrespective of gender identity. I think if they aren't this is even more worrying because it would mean that women are so biologically different than men that neither can perform the role of the other and each group must necessarily stick to certain functions – this is essentially a mandate for oppression.
I think it kind of does:
My intuition is that a lot of single mothers are disproprortionately poor, which is the real problem. I don't think that single mothers are really any worse as parents if we control for income. A very small sample (more an anecdote) is that I went to private school, and actually of the boys there I think those with stronger mother figures (e.g. mother is the breadwinner or makes as least as much as their partner) tended to end up as more stable individuals. Boys with strong father figures tended to be told by their fathers that they should be like them (which usually meant finance bro) but also weren't ever told things like "respect women's bodily autonomy" or "sexual assault is serious, don't do it". I also don't think that those with single mothers were really disadvantaged at a social/development level – obviously in this case they were not disadvantaged in an because their mothers earned lots of money (e.g. partners at law firms, owned businesses).
Further even if single motherhood is bad, usually single mothers are such because the man runs out (a cliché as old as time) and abandons the mother/children.
So I think this can become really problematic when we consider repungent cases (sorry to go there but e.g. sex offenders come to mind). It's also problematic when we consider more typical cases – for example the classic line to excuse bad male behaviour is that "boys will be boys" which argues that bad male behaviour against women is inevitable and can't be stopped. Sure sexuality may not be a choice
Which is great, but I think a healthy masculinity looks so different from what we currently see that it might be unrecognisable as masculinity.
I am a cis-by-default woman (that is, I have no particular gender identity, so I just go with the flow because it's easier and I don't much care either way) and I don't grok what it's like, but I have observed that a significant portion of the population strongly identify with gender. I don't know what causes it, but it seems to be genuine from what I can tell, considering the extreme lengths that some people go to align with their gender identity. I mean, you see people face extreme social condemnation, place themselves in mortal danger, live under the threat of serious legal consequences, undergo extremely painful and expensive surgeries, etc., just to express their gender identity. Even though I don't understand what it feels like to relate strongly to a gender, it does seem to be something that is very real and very important for some people. We can argue all day whether it's nature or nurture, but wherever it comes from, I think it's vital to acknowledge people as they actually are right now, not just the way we wish they all were in an alternative timeline.
If the world was filled up with people like you and me, the idea of "masculine" or "feminine" role models and the like would make no sense. It would be like talking about whether people with green eyes have good role models. Why should eye color come into it at all? What does that have to do with anything?
However, we share this planet with people who do experience a strong gender identity and have a deep need to express it. If they do not have an appropriate way to do so, they really suffer for it and sometimes act out in a way that causes the rest of us to suffer as well. For them, I think there is enormous value in ensuring that they do have role models who can guide them in safe and healthy ways to express their gender.
A really common and seemingly effective way to do this is to really build up men and women as protectors (as this makes them more likely to get along with other segments of society who are quite different from themselves), but in a gendered way so that it scratches their gender expression itch; for example, we'll use phrases like "nurturing" and "mother bear" when we talk about women's protective qualities, and we'll use phrases like "chivalry" and "courage" when we talk about men's protective traits, even when we are describing the exact same behaviors.
Obviously, these qualities are desirable for everyone, but packaging them up in optional pink bows and blue bows means a great deal for people who need those bows to feel fulfilled on a day-to-day basis. I think this is a more than fair compromise; I'm happy to wear bows of different colors, or even no bow at all, but that doesn't mean I should pressure other people to not wear the one and only bow they actually like. Why can't we just have lots of bows and lots of role models, and let everyone pick?
You say there should be no coercive element.
Having an exclusive element would be anathema to the ideal of equally. So if there's no coercion but also no exclusivity, what exactly is being offered? "Here are some things you probably should do, but don't have to do, to feel more like a good man, but also good women should do these things too". How is that different from saying "just be a good person"? If you change it, how are you not just entrenching gender roles?
The problem with this line of thinking is that it dismisses that a) gender is cultural, b) we have a culture, c) the overwhelming majority of people in that culture still subscribe to dual gender thinking and that is really unlikely to change.
Taking the above into account this is the crux of the problem. Communities used to teach boys how to be men but at some point there's been a huge disconnect where society still teaches girls how to be healthy women but boys are only shown, through the media, how to be toxicly masculine. Fathers, uncles, grandfathers, male community leaders, and even their women counterparts to a lesser extent used to teach as well as show boys what being a good man was. The key word here is community. Communities are becoming more and more nonexistent in the western world and so of course boys will look other places for their uidance when they aren't getting it from the people around them and this is how so many become familiar with people like Andrew Tate with hardly anyone to provide an oposing view.
We are fortunate enough to have more informed views about gender and sexuality and we should always strive for greater acceptance and inclusion but we cannot be short sighted enough to ignore that in a dual gender society children will look for examples of how to fit into that society, desperately even. It's ingrained in our DNA to want to fit in but if no one is providing the template for how to do that it's very easy to be led astray
I agree with (a) and (b) but disagree with (c). I think we've already seen a big shift away from traditional thinking on gender roles towards a more progressive model (e.g. away from "women belong in the kitchen" towards "women should be free to work in professions that used to be male-only" etc).
Does society really teach girls how to be healthy women? For example society places a really high burden on women in how we dissect women's bodies and subject them to the kind of discussion/objectification which men would never face in the public sphere. One result of this is the rising level of eating disorders (which are terrible in the abstract, but even more terrible in reality – some parents I know have children with eating disorders and they are really a truly awful condition). We also see stigmatisation of women's bodies, things like periods or menopause, which I don't think is really healthy.
But I think that a lot of lessons that society has for women, like "try to find a rich husband" or "you should act more feminine" are very bad and do not result in healthy women.
I agree with this, but I don't understand why we need to say "you are a man and therefore should do XYZ" rather than "you are a person and therefore should do XYZ". I think that women can be just as strong role models for boys as men can – and it's actually much healthier if boys look up to strong female role models and not just strong male role models.
Sure, currently society is currently structured differently, but we shouldn't just confine ourselves to the status quo; we should seek to improve it.
I have read a lot of anecdotes from feminist parents who really work hard to raise their boys in nongendered ways and are surprised by how persistent certain behaviors and preferences are in their children.
I think we really don't know the boundaries between nature and nurture, but developmental needs change with age and maturity levels. If boys and male teens are consistently seeking male models, it seems important to notice and plan for that.
Here's another one: My wife and I wanted to do exactly that. Other than a single pink blanket that someone bought my daughter, we didn't want to have any "traditionally feminine" colored stuff around her as a baby. Inevitably, she ended up with some "gender-specific" clothing. But it wasn't most of her wardrobe. And yet, somehow, we ended up with tantrums when she was a toddler because she emphatically did not want to wear pants when it was cold outside. Which is weird because my wife and her mother wore pants almost exclusively in cold weather. And now she's in high school and has become a cheerleader of all things, despite the fact that my wife and I are both very dorky and feminist. That one came as a big surprise to both of us. (Of course, our daughter also plays D&D with us every weekend and watches Star Trek with us every night, so we didn't totally lose the nerd battle!)
Point is, kids are weird. A lot of people like to pretend, like Freud, that children are simply empty vessels that parenting is poured into. But they really aren't. The developmental psychological concept of the active part children play in their own upbringing is one we need to better recognize as a culture.
But was the aforementioned "traditionally feminine" behavior I mentioned above my daughter's "instinctive feminine nature" asserting itself? Some sort of biological impetus to assert her "cisgendered instincts"? Or was it her picking up all of these signs from our culture that she was getting outside of the home that told her "girls are like this, boys are like that, and since you are a girl, you should be like this"? I have no idea. And honestly since socialization is some mix of nature and nurture—the exact proportions of which I doubt we will ever know—it doesn't necessarily have to be one or the other. But whatever it is, we need to meet kids, teenagers, and young adults where they are not where we want them to be. Because if we don't, someone else whose views we don't agree with probably will. Especially for young men, as we're finding.
Thank you for the well thought out response to my comment
I think you misunderstand me, when I say that most of our culture still subscribes to dual genders I mean that in its most plain sense, that there are two genders. As for your point, I agree. I think society largely has moderated our views on gender roles and that is a great thing but pay attention to the language: that it's okay that men help with the housework and kids, that it's okay that women hold leadership positions.
I also agree with this and will walk back my statement slightly. I think that women have better access to being healthy than men do. There is much less shame and stigma for a woman to access mental health resources, woman targeted social media often has themes about self care and wellness, etc. Society still has a very far way to go in this regard for women but I feel like men are being left behind in the dust here and that it's crucial we don't forget to also teach boys and men how to be well.
Here is where I'll disagree. Men have the lived experience that informs their lessons on being men to boys, women do have a lot to teach boys on how to be better men but they are coming from a largely inaccessible experience and vice versa they have no experience as boys/men in our society. Looping back to point c above, society still overwhelmingly views gender as binary and aligned with physical sex. We have to say you are a man and therefore... because that is exactly how it's framed in society and in most people's minds.
What you seem to be seeking to me is a genderless society and I honestly cannot see that happening without some quantum leap in the way we as a society thinks about things. For most people, sex and gender are so deeply intwined that it cannot be separated. There is also the physical sex aspect. Hormones, physical development, etc. I'd argue are not 100% independent of gender. There is an interplay between societal gender and the physical realities of sex driven function and they inform each other to a certain extent. We could, in theory, eliminate societal gender roles but you cannot eliminate sex outside of medical intervention and you'd never pull that off for a whole society anyway.
100% agreed! But I see improvement as a continuum, you will never reach the other side - it's a journey and not a destination. It's amazing and great that gender norms are being blurred, bent, and blown up but we will never reach a genderless society, I'm sorry. Women should have opportunities to be "masculine" and men should have opportunities to be "feminine" as much as they wish, society should tolerate that as much as possible but we cannot forget that the vast majority of people continue to live as Men and Women in our society and that is not going to change any time soon. So, for now at the very least, we need to teach people how to be good Men, good Women, good nonbinary, good whatever gender they choose to be, and we need to do that speaking in the language that they will understand - the language of gender
Because gender roles exist, and will likely always exist as long as difference in sexes exist. People naturally organize into groups based on subtle differences, and the biological differences between the majority of men and women are not that subtle. At a minimum, men are almost always bigger, stronger, and faster than women, all other factors being equal. Pretending that those differences don’t exist won’t make them go away or eliminate gender roles.
Because of those differences, boys need to be taught positive gender roles instead of no gender role at all, because they will naturally make up their own gender roles in the absence of one given to them. The idea of eliminating gender in total is nice, but ultimately a naive fantasy. Gender came to exist in the first place due to biological sexual dimorphism, and unless sexual dimorphism somehow goes away, I don’t see that being possible.
Why do physical differences need to confine us? Humans as a species are not really reliant on our brute strength (as we have machines) or agility. I don't think modern gender roles are really a useful reaction to differences in biology. A lot of gender is constructed – for example the idea that men are better leaders than women does not have any biological basis (as far as I am aware), and yet we see this myth propagated throughout almost every modern organisation. Or, as another example, the idea that assertive women are "bossy" and assertive men are "confident". There are lots of other examples of properties that we ascribe to genders which have zero biological basis.
I agree that we won't be able to "eliminate" gender, but surely we can continue the existing trend of making it less relevant and not organising society around it to the same degree?
Many stereotypes about gender don't have a biological basis, but the organization of human society into two distinct genders largely does. As long as there are noticeable physical differences between human sex, humans will self-organize into genders. We can either futilely fight that tide and teach little boys that girls are no different from them in any way, (which is probably doomed to fail, because even kids have eyes and are able to deduce that that's not true) or we can promote the parts of the masculine gender role that are positive, and admonish the parts that aren't.
I think you misunderstand my argument – I am not claiming that the differences don't exist, I am saying that they are not important for how we organise our society and we should not allow them to justify continued discrimination.
I think the argument that gender discrimination in society is just down to "biology" is quite dangerous.
Unfortunately, your argument is built on a faulty axiom; namely that "we" (policy makers or culture shapers) have the ability to "allow" gender to exist or not exist. It's not about whether biological differences should or should not determine how society is organized. It's a fact of life. Gender arose from biological differences in sexes; men being physically stronger, and not subject to the physical taxation of pregnancy and childbirth meant that they could dominate society from the very beginning of the concept. It doesn't matter that physical strength isn't as powerful in modern society as it was in past times. It's still somewhat powerful, but more importantly, it used to be massively powerful, and as such our entire culture was shaped by that legacy.
But even if we were to somehow wipe the slate clean and start from a completely blank state, which is obviously impossible, people would still self organize on the basis of sex and re-create gender, because human beings naturally organize themselves into similar groups. It's just a hard fact of sociology. Wherever there are groups of human beings who live together with fairly different, identifiable physical traits, people organize themselves into groups on the basis of those traits. Racial markers, beauty standards, or other random phenotypes. Sex kind of blows all of those other things out of the water though, because men a women are so different in so many ways.
So saying that we don't "need" to organize society around sex is like saying that we don't "need" gravity on earth. Whether or not that's true isn't really relevant beyond an academic argument, because we do have genders, and there's no feasible way around it, just like there is gravity, and there's no way around that either.
I don't think you've understood my argument at all. My argument is that sure, gender has some biological basis, but it is not a necessary condition for any societal organisation. You assertion that it is a "fact of life" is not very helpful – we literally overcome thousands of supposed "facts of life" every day when we turn on lightbulbs using electricity. I'm saying "we could try and make a better society" and you're saying "well society has always been like this so hah".
No it's not. At all. Saying "sex is not a thing" would be like saying "gravity is not a thing". Your argument is more "gravity is a thing, therefore we can't overcome it, let's not send rockets into space", whereas I am arguing that the differences between the sexes aren't that important because humans don't really rely on things like raw, brute strength and speed. Instead we use machines.
I am a 100 percent in favor of organizing society for adults in ways that are as little gendered as possible. I would prefer to do that for children as well, but we are physical and chemically and hormonally influenced as we develop and I don't want a vacuum and absence of positive male models to be the reason young boys turn to dangerous characters like Tate for guidance.
I don't really understand why Andrew Tate has become so popular, but I think it's naïve to assume that "strong male role models" will fix the problem. We see lots of examples where one dominant group believe that they are superior to another, and "debate them" or "educate them" doesn't really seem to work (e.g. nobody really believes that "strong white role models" will fix white supremacy and make celebrity white supremacists less popular).
I think you'd find that most people who study this sort of thing actually do think that famous, influential white people showing that they're dedicated to anti-racism are vital to combating white supremacy. That is probably a pretty widespread belief.
I think there's a difference between "white people in positions of power fighting racism" where specifically their power is helpful (e.g. LBJ supporting anti racist policies) and having more "strong white role models" for white people to look up to. It's a false equivocation to say that they are one and the same.
Speaking personally, I learned a lot from Wendell Berry's memoir about racism, the Hidden Wound, a book Bel Hooks used to teach in her classes on racism.
Isn't there some similarity in what you are comparing there? What I mean is, there's a move towards celebrating different cultures, races and backgrounds rather than attempting to pretend race (or culture or anything else) doesn't exist, but in what way (other than white supremacy) do you see white people celebrate being white? In a similar but different way, a lot of the discussion in this comment section is boiling down to, there's no such thing as positive masculinity and any attempt to promote positive masculinity is turned back as an example of toxic masculinity or it isn't biologically associated with being born male (meaning there's no way to 'celebrate' masculinity). I don't think anyone is trying to take away the ability for women to celebrate femininity for those who want to do that (rather than embrace the ideal of a genderless society).
I'd be curious what the difference in approach is where some commenters think trying to be color blind to skin color is bad, but then perhaps approach gender or sex in that way where it should be approached with blinders on.
So, my personal and professional experience leads me to support belt and suspenders approaches to solving problems. Social media algorithms have played a huge role in spreading Peterson's and Tate's hateful content, but I don't think we should sit back and wait for social media to solve the problem.
The surgeon general of the US has declared a crisis of loneliness in society. Sociologists have written about how we are losing our third places for socializing. Kids need mentors. And it is an open question whether gender plays into who kids choose as role models. I am not attached to any one possible solution to the complex multifaceted problem of patriarchal oppression hatred and abuse. I also don't want us to miss anything that could help mitigate the problem.
Rez this is worth it's own post sometime imho.
I agree. When I run into people online who seem young and unsure and interested in Peterson or Tate, I mention Admiral McRaven's work such as Make Your Bed. It's not that I think McRaven is so great, but he is not hateful, he offers a plan and a program, he points to heroic models etc. I will also mention Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning and the Stoic philosophers, but I think teeenage boys in particular really need prosocial male models that value who they are and what they do.
I don’t know, I think the “heroic masculinity” that article describes is teetering on the edge of toxic masculinity. Why such an emphasis on a man’s average physical advantages in a society where most people are couch potato office workers? Are men who aren’t strong physically in some way inferior to men who are?
Not that I don’t think having positive male role models is a good thing, but what the article describes is way too close going back to unhealthy gender stereotypes. At most it should be an adjunct model of masculinity - I think primarily people should aspire to the aspects we value in polite society that are irrespective of physical feats.
I still think that’s weird framing. Sure, those are predominately male occupations - but the glory for their physical sacrifice belongs to them, not ”men”, a group that comprises half of the earths population. The implication seems to be that something is “owed” to these “guardians” of civilization - which seems pretty toxic to me.
That quote doesn’t really help. Is a man who has noodle arms inferior to a beefy gym dude? A taekwondo instructor more heroic than a professor because of the former’s martial prowess? Is a researcher who saves millions of lives with vaccine research not heroic?
Why attribute martial ability, even if only used in a “positive” manner, as an aspiration of the male gender as opposed to the occupations that use it? If you’re a police officer, you should perhaps aspire to her ideas around heroism and strength, regardless of gender, but statistically most likely men.
If you’re a man in general I do not think you should aspire as a default to this premise.
Apologies for the meta-reply.
Why is this labeled as noise?
This is definitely misuse of the noise label.
Was it? The comment wasn’t auto-collapsed for me, and your reply here had it expanded.
Hmm I’m on a mobile app at the moment so maybe I’m not seeing things correctly but the number of votes indicates it’s either labeled as offtopic or noise and given that it’s really neither of those things it feels like it’s been used as a downvote button.
This wasn't labelled as noise or offtopic for me. Is it possible that it's collapsing read replies for you?
As far as I know, none of us can tell what has been labelled noise but Deimos. If you feel votes are being misused, you could ask him to look into it. He has requested this several times since I have been here.
I found Anthony Conwright's piece on the concept of prescriptive masculinity enlightening:
To strive to promote a 'bettered' version of masculinity is to implicitly accept the premise that it's necessary to promote some doctrine of masculinity (or femininity), when we should first be examining whether promoting gendered expectations serves a net good at all.
Woman here. I first felt disagreement, then tried to break it down. I am no expert. I do believe young people need mentors, of both the same and different genders and places to explore adult responsibility such as scouts or sports or part time jobs.
Because biological essentialism has been used to try to politically dominate women, feminism tends to reject examination of our physiology and hormonal differences and brain sciences. It is right to be skeptical but we are physical as well as social beings. I have been reading Different, Gender through the Eyes of a Primatologist by De Waal. He was a ground breaking researcher who studied bonobos when they were still largely unknown. He locates us as equally related to the male dominant aggressive chimpanzees and the peaceful, non male dominant bonobos. He also observed an individual who appeared to be acting in a way that reminds him of transgender humans. These are not us, but they are our relatives.
I don't know what boys and young men need in order to grow up to be responsible happy adult males in society. I do know that right now, many are profoundly unhappy and are seeking plans and guidance for life and specifically looking for leaders. I hope educators point them toward heroes that I would agree are admirable. Courage is not a gender specific phenomenon at all. I am currently reading Lady Death the memoir of a russian woman sniper during WWII. In the past I read Corie Ten Boom's memoir about hiding Jewish people during the nazi occupation of the Netherlands. But I agree that young men need same gender role models.
I'd say the problem is not that boys need messages of one sort or another in the mass media or social media, it is that boys need male role models in real life.
In a world where many fathers are physically absent, others are emotionally absent, and where men in early childhood education are few and far between, it's no question that many boys are getting lost. The absence of men in early education sends boys an unambiguous message that "education is a girl thing"
See https://www.amazon.com/Real-Boys-Rescuing-Myths-Boyhood/dp/0805061835
I feel like there is supposed to be a causal link between these two. But I have difficulty seeing it. Can you elaborate?
The best I can come up with is something like:
But I find this at worst rather unconvincing and at best incomplete. In part for reasons which are not entirely clear to me—the whole issue rather mystifies me, to be frank, as do the meta-issues surrounding it—but some thoughts:
What if young 'men' had 'female' role models who displayed 'masculine' characteristics? Would that be enough? I assume the answer is no, which seems to lend at least some weight to the parent's argument. But I imagine you think it would be an improvement?
What is the value of a role model? Presumably, it is unhelpful (not to mention impossible) to have a role model who is exactly the same as one's self. Everyone will have some unique qualities not manifest in any role model, and that seems to me a good thing. If we tried to quantify, for every person, how similar they are to their role models, we might end up with a bimodal distribution, where one peak roughly corresponds to women and the other roughly to men—the former will tend to have more role models that have more in common with them. The implication, then, is that this bimodality indicates a structural inequality, and that our men would be better served if we implemented structures to help move them closer to the other peak. But what makes us think that that is the best place to be? This also leads me to:
Whatever is characteristic of masculinity, does perhaps that itself have to do with the current situation? In other words: suppose there are as you say neurobiological differences characteristic of masculinity and femininity; then, might it be the case that, if men and women were socialised analogously while young, the present pathology would still manifest? If so, that would suggest that the problem is not that young women have role models which are like them but young men do not; but rather that a qualitatively different approach is needed for each. I shudder to think of the implications of this (though I think it is difficult to pursue the line of reasoning further without specifics, which are still lacking), but am curious what you think.
I used to think freeing ourselves from the shackles of gender expectations was as easy as letting go of them, and perhaps we will do that someday in the future. However, I think the vast, vast majority of people still feel, deep inside, some connection to their chosen gender and/or biological sex. There is a reason trans people say they feel like a man or woman deep down. I am a straight male and there are some things I feel, very deeply and innately, that my wife simply does not. I see it in my wife and her friends, myself and my friends - little things we do or don't do.
For example, I love to do yard work and hard labor around the house. I enjoy depictions of violence through movies, professional fighting, war documentaries, and video games. I get a high from logic puzzles, coding, and other stem-adjacent endeavors. A lot of it may be learned behavior, but a lot of it just feels more deeply-rooted than that.
My wife doesn't get how her father and I can sit down and play BeamNG Drive (a car-crashing game) in slow mo for hours. I don't understand how she doesn't understand it. We will excitedly show her a crash and she'll roll her eyes and feign interest - same reaction I have to her latest pumpkin purchase from Target.
She loves romantic dramas, decorating our house, making crafts, using the Cricut, talking to her friends on the phone, etc.
I'm an ally and I've met a ton of people who don't fall into these stereotypes - but I've met a lot more who do (to varying degrees). I just can't ignore the probable influence of testosterone and estrogen in these things.
To be clear, I'm not saying men and women should have these characteristics, but rather that they often do have them. With that in mind, I think a positive road map for men is important. If everything I said above is incorrect and misguided, which it may be, positive masculinity would at least provide some guidance until society is ready to move on from these stereotypes.
As someone who's in the trans community (and whose wife is in her early stages of HRT), I promise you that you're overblowing the influence of hormones here. Testosterone and estrogen can cause behavioral differences and of course physical changes, but they don't determine your hobbies. My wife has not suddenly lost interest in motorsports as she grows tits, nor do most trans people's preferences change radically in this way when they start HRT.
The traits you observe in this post that differ among men and women in a way that corresponds to our society's gendered stereotypes are almost definitely due to socialization (which doesn't necessarily mean "learned behavior", it just means that your sociocultural environment influences things like which hobbies you have access to or are encouraged to pursue, etc. It can be deeply rooted even if it isn't literally in your blood.) Even if there is some biological factor it would almost definitely not be hormonal -- you would expect prepubescent childrens' preferences to be less likely to conform to gendered stereotypes than those of postpubescent kids or adults in that case, when if anything the opposite is true.
Upvoting because you make some good points and because I appreciate the push back on this.
I think it's a tough thing to settle since we can't actually test it without any societal influence altering the results. Even raising kids in labs would subject them to tiny influences from any hypothetical scientist performing the experiment.
I think the only way we find out for sure is if society does continue to move forward and we see these things change. The next century or so might eliminate any doubt and prove you right.
In the meantime though, I maintain that we need to push for positive masculinity, as a stopgap at the very least.
Oh yeah no disagreement! I do think that there are ways we can teach young boys and girls to be good people that may be more effective if catered to their gender -- inherent or not, gender exists in our society. The positive traits we want to see from positive masculinity may be the same traits we want to see in positive femininity, but there are still ways we can frame it differently to jive with boys' and girls' life experiences.
I do disagree with others' comments in the thread that teaching "positive masculinity" means avoiding or getting rid of the concept "toxic masculinity" -- that concept is an important one to teach young men, even if a different name would make it an easier pill to swallow. I think a lot of people even in this thread are reacting more to the name than to the concept itself. Toxic masculinity is all about how patriarchy and its standards can hurt men too, constraining men with gendered requirements on how they feel and act that hurt them. The classic "be a man" bullshit is a prime example. And that's something that I think is imperative to recognize to learn to be a good man in this society -- it's hard to escape a cultural paradigm like that without naming it and talking about how to get rid of it.
This entire article feels very strangely pro-violence.
I think about masculinity a lot. I'm a tattooed cis-male that enjoys his metal and lifts a lot. I'm acutely aware how I am classified by people who don't know me. Occasionally when meeting someone I can feel the distrust until I find ways to signal that I am an ally. And I completely understand why, these people have often suffered discrimination at the hands of people who display similar physiology.
The term "toxic masculinity" has a lot of power and has been successful in identifying a cohort of beliefs and behaviors that society should deprecate. But it has an unfortunate consequence of begging the question "What is the opposite? Because that must be the preferred mode." Which to my mind presents a false dichotomy.
Masculine (and feminine) are baseline descriptors. They don't have opposites. In this view "toxic" is not a modifier on "masculinity." Rather "toxic masculinity" is an independent phrase that labels a social phenomenon. The upside is that just as toxic masculinity has nothing to do with masculinity, its opposite does not either.
So let's consider some toxic traits and their alternatives:
Aggression: UnderstandingNeuve Stoicism: Introspection, communicationDominance: Support, advocacyTerritorial: Responsibility, accountabilityI would say these are values that young people should learn. And constitute the opposite of "toxic masculinity" i.e. "being a good person."
A digression on the topic of role models that is more closely aligned with the conversation at large. Having grown up without good male role models I often feel adrift in the current discourse. Young boys see strong, confident individuals and want to "grow up" to be one of these people. They may learn these values at home but if they don't see these values practiced by cultural leaders they can just as easily fall into the trap of "sigma male grindset grows big biceps and gets girls" or some idiocy. Everyone wants to be inspired, but we need more Mr. Rogers in more body types.
I've been thinking about this kind of thing alot recently, and I think I disagree with you, but it's hard to explalin exactly why. At the core of it, I think it's a bad idea to give people templates of who they should be. Because people are actually all different. There's different kinds of people. Heroic masculinity is good for some people, but bad for others.
We don't usually like to talk about that, because its very easy for someone to come along and try and establish a heirarchy between different kinds of people. Which implies that between the different types, there is one option you should aspire towards. This is a bad attitude because lots of different types are needed for different things. Yes, there are situations where you need people who can run into burning buildings and climb the crumbling 9/11 towers. Some of those people are women, as the article explains. So rather than "heroic masculinity", isn't it just heroism?
But the opposite of heroic masculinity in that example isn't really toxic masculinity, its passivity. Which isn't always bad. Some people don't become firefighters, but become scientists or philosophers instead. Some people like sitting quietly and grappling with a complex problem until they figure it out, and others like jumping into action and figuring out a path along the way. It's not a good idea to promote one over the others, because depending on who you are either one might be a better fit. And depending on the situation, either one might be better to have.
When you try to unify all the good attributes under one umbrella that is something other than "good" you get weird contradictions, like men need to be stoic and not let themselves be controlled by their emotions, but also men need to be so passionate about justice that they can't help but act when the situation demands it. But also calm enough to not let their passions turn them violent in the wrong situations, but also not so careful that they become cowards.
It's trying to balance the absolutism of separating the world into a dichotomy with the nuance of understanding that the real world doesn't fit perfectly into a dichotomy.
In the end youre just left with the idea that everyone needs to learn to interpret each situation and take in its nuances and act accordingly to that exact scenario, and the whole "guiding principle" idea falls apart.
I agree with you that there are people desperate to find a clean answer that will finally just tell them what the right thing to do is, but the truth is that there is no such absolute definition. The only real solution is for people to mature enough to realize that the problem is that they are relying on an outside party to give them an answer. Instead, people need to learn to self reflect and find answers from their own conscience.
I have a few thoughts.
I'm a woman who has worked for a battered women's organization. This is a problem. I'm grateful to the author for calling it out.
A big part of the issue is the algorithms. Max Fisher's book the Chaos Machine is one decent source but human rights groups have been calling out big social media for encouraging hate rhetoric of all types through their algorithms, to the point of fomenting genocide in some instances and pogroms and lynchings in others in regions where ethnic tension is already high. The nazis and Rwanda used radio to spread their deadly ideology. Today it's Youtube, Facebook, now Tiktok. Yes these platforms are spreading male supremacist bullshit but also other forms of hate.
I'm not an industry insider, but Fisher claims that statistical modeling shows that outrage leads to increased engagement, so these companies program to favor that content. It's the same dynamic as leads to addictive design in casino machines but the fallout is hatred and violence.
Achievements in women's rights are always hard fought and must be defended. We are not progressing toward some gender utopia without work. When I was a teen, glorifying pimps was prominent in hiphop. That''s not exactly a woman friendly attitude. But I agree with the author that social media through a phone or tablet is a new danger and worse in some ways.
One of the reasons I am here on Tildes is that I believe there should be nonprofit options online. What this article is describing is more dangerous than selling sugary cereal, but big companies are always going to exploit people's worst instincts and cater to the lowest common denominator to achieve popular success.
I've been feeling this a lot recently too honestly. I try to curate my Instagram feeds as much as I can but some of it still gets through and I make the mistake of reading comments and feeling more despair at the world. I've been cutting back on social media more and more but it's definitely the easiest way to kill time and entertain yourself.
At the core of any recommendation algorithm is the desire to keep you hooked; watching, listening, consuming. No matter the platform, they don't achieve this with giving you "similar" content, they do it by giving you more concentrated form of the same content. You end up in rabbit holes all the time because that's the explicit goals, coz doing that costs a lot of time.
As far as the US goes I can't see a solution. Congress paralyzes everything. If that were NOT the case perhaps there could be laws requiring the categorization of data. Then algorithms for some types of data ( hate speech, misinformation about current events, infotainment ) could be made illegal while still remaining legal for nonvolatile subjects: wood working, Star Trek, vegan cooking, etc.
You want Congress to regulate what can be done with certain categories of data? Have you uhh read the first amendment?
Is there not already regulation of certain categories of data? For example news broadcasts? Advertisements? Even pure entertainment is subject to censors in broadcast media.
(This not to say I necessarily agree with the comment to which you've responded.)
Yeah that is true, and fair. I think “algorithms for some types of data [being] made illegal” is dangerously close to restricted speech, like unconstitutionally so. But also I agree that something needs to be done, and I won’t pretend to know what the answer is. Almost certainly, section 230 needs to be modified in some way. Like companies pushing these messages that lead to radicalization and violence should probably be held liable in some way. But I also acknowledge it’s a crazy high bar to prove even partial fault in a case like that, even if they weren’t shielded by section 230 like they currently are. But, outright banning categories of data, or the promotion of that data, is imo far too powerful of a tool for the government to wield, and some future administration would inevitably use it to suppress dissenting voices.
Freedom of expression is not the same as the privilege of a platform. Just imagine if hate speech and violent rhetoric was controlled like copyrighted content. There's regulations and controls for it, platforms make an effort to remove it, people are only jailed in the most extreme circumstances and you generally have to go "off the beaten path" to access it. Don't kid yourself that there aren't already, and have been many more, rules and laws about what can be published and broadcasted.
Why not? There is already a precedent with The "Fairness Doctrine".
Sure, but the fairness doctrine didn’t make it outright illegal to present certain information, or in a certain way - it just said you can’t keep a broadcasters license if you do so. But you were still free to present “unfair” information via other means. I think it was a very reasonable way to filter who can use the limited resource that is the RF spectrum - but if they’d attempted to regulate publications in general in that way, I think it would’ve been swiftly shut down by the Supreme Court.
Neither does my idea of requiring social media to categorize content and then disallowing algorithms from being applied from politics/current events/subjects of misinformation. YouTube could be free to publish it all. They just wouldn't be able to mummify people in it based on clicked links.
I've seen articles for years that many shows and videos get around being nailed on a lot of laws that would otherwise stop them by claiming to be "entertainment".
Eh, those articles are generally overblown in that regard. They're usually talking about Fox News and while it is classified that way, First Amendment protections are the real barrier to getting rid of the hateful rhetoric they spread -- whether something is classified as entertainment or news, US law purposefully makes it very difficult for the government to punish speech based on its content.
Even if regulating the algorithms rather than the content itself is different though, I'm not sure it would actually work. You can't just ban training algorithms on this type of data -- that would make it impossible to train a model to detect hate speech so you can remove it, which you obviously want these sites to do. If you want to more specifically ban algorithms that favor that stuff, it's going to be really hard to assess that. These types of models are typically black boxes trained to optimize a metric. While we can clearly see that using engagement as this metric is not good in practice for online discourse, it's a lot harder to forbid someone from optimizing for a metrif that might have negative side effects -- especially with how little visibility we have into the inner workings of models like this, it's not really possible to guarantee that.
It would be practical to write a statute or regulation requiring some combination of effective moderation and or change in the algorithm to prevent these results. The results are observable. The companies are in the best position to know which type of change would be more cost effective and practical to implement.
Oh yeah I think there are definitely practical steps that can be taken, it's just a lot more complex than it seems.
Golden Girl reruns are great for this. Actually, a lot of the old school sitcoms fill this niche which isn't produced in the TV industry anymore.
Netflix is great for finding non US content. I have enjoyed the Canadian sitcoms Corner Gas and Kim's Convenience, the irish teen/family comedy Derry Girls, the old UK show the IT Crowd, the Japanese Slice of Life show Midnight Diner recently. I also revisit the Muppet Show when I want a short dose of wholesome comedy.
For me it's Home Improvement, X-Files, Diagnosis Murder, Dexter, and Futurama. I always have one of those playing endlessly. Drives my girlfriend up the wall but it's the only thing that holds my brain still.
I believe that both boys and girls should be taught healthy masculinity and femininity. Ultimately, we have a bit of both inside us anyway.
Surveying this wide a developmental spectrum is frankly insane. A 6 year old has no conceivable world view and fully formed thoughts of masculinity and femininity beyond an extremely basic grasp. While many 14 and 15 year olds are reading and thinking at college levels and capable of adult, fleshed out world views and opinions.
Would much prefer to see this data segmented between the under 10's and over 10's at least.
Well, the article's main source for the popularity claims is a pollster called YouGov, who does in fact distinguish children from teenagers in their article, and the summary is basically that 50% of young teen boys dislike Tate, 25% like him and 25% don't know who he is or don't know how they feel about Tate's ideology:
However, their polling seems to indicate that Tate's classic rhetoric about self-improvement (well, the wild distortion of self-improvement that guys like him peddle) and the general imagery of a muscular dude with big cars and homes is more popular than the extreme misogyny, but not by too much:
(The teenage boy crosstabs are available on that link and views on women are 50% opposed and 10% supported while work and success are 30% supported and 35% opposed, which is nearly even. The other 30% either didn't know what Tate think of Women or Work in specific or didn't know who he is.)
My general opinion on this data is that Tate is more unpopular than popular but that's a very disappointing bar to clear, especially when the amount of girls who support Tate is pinned at 5% or less, a full 5 times lower, which I think strengthens the case that there is a growing political gap between young boys and young girls where young girls are becoming the most progressive cohort in human history while young boys are plurality center left but with 30% of them holding reactionary beliefs about women and every other minority.
Yes, it's super worrying – especially that really young boys are now expressing structurally misogynistic views (i.e. about how society should be organised) as well as at an individual/interpersonal level.
Just a small thing – women aren't a minority.
Paywall bypass
https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.newstatesman.com%2Fcomment%2F2023%2F10%2Fincel-ideology-entered-mainstream
Thank you.
I don’t know why but YouTube Shorts keeps pushing weird manosphere and transphobic content on me. I don’t engage beyond a pause where I’m like “Hold up what is this? Oh no Andrew Tate! Get me the fuck out of here!”
I guess the algorithm sees that pause and thinks they’ve got me all figured out. Because it keeps coming.
Same here.
I downvote those shorts, then click the "don't recommend channel" option.
I have noticed less of that garbage, but I still get an occasional short with Andrew Tate, Joe Rogan, or Jordan Peterson in it.