To be honest, I find articles like this one to be almost too depressing to get through. I can't help but feel like society is doomed when feminists, despite following an enlightened, egalitarian...
Exemplary
To be honest, I find articles like this one to be almost too depressing to get through. I can't help but feel like society is doomed when feminists, despite following an enlightened, egalitarian philosophy that in theory I should be 100% on board with, and despite generating a considerable amount of valid insight into masculinity, STILL ultimately fail to connect to dots. They are so close to conceiving an equitable, effective response to men's problems, but at the last moment they make a hard turn towards the same resentment that drives a lot of the paradigms of toxic masculinity.
One of the principal failures of this particular article is its apparent unfamiliarity with actual, real life men. It is written as though the 'manosphere' were perfectly representative of the average man. It assumes that toxic, patriarchal narratives and social movements play a pivotal role in every man's experience of their own masculinity, of society, and of loneliness.
I am a man, and I have known a great number of lonely men in my life. The majority of these men were not lonely due to toxic behavior. They were lonely due to mental illness, physical illness, social trauma, a lack of a support system, a lack of time and opportunity to be social, among many other reasons. For most men, loneliness develops out of these issues, and desperate to solve the problem, they blindly grope towards maladaptive 'solutions': various forms of addiction (drugs, alcohol, porn, gambling), self-harm, escapism, obsession with their career or a specific hobby, and yes, listening to grifters who provide a narrative where women are to blame for loneliness.
Some men get really wrapped up in this narrative, and it is certainly worth dissecting and fighting against those men. But for many more men - a majority of the minority that even entertains the 'blame women' narrative - their affinity for it is only casual. They have no strong allegiance to it, their heart is not in it. It's just another futile attempt at relief, that like a drug, feels good for a moment, but quickly stops working, and if its use continues, it only does so in a vestigial, low-grade form, like someone who pounds a six pack after work every day due to sheer habit. Nobody thinks this is actually going to help their problems. If it serves any use, it's as a sort of a compulsive ritual, a way of distracting oneself from unpleasant thoughts and feelings.
Obviously, even this casual sexism can still be harmful (to both its agent and object), but it's a far less ingrained aspect of men's behavior than the author of this article suggests. Surely we've all had the experience of a new male acquaintance who seems more or less normal, well-adjusted in his attitude towards women, but after many cumulative hours together, all of the sudden, he says or does something fairly toxic. Many feminists are eager to construe this behavior as symptomatic of a deeper, more significant toxicity within him - he is pretending to respect women in order to fit in, and as soon as he thinks he can get away with it, he will bare his putrid soul. But in my experience, men's sexism is often fairly surface-level, disconnected from (and often in conflict with) their deeper values, used in a flailing attempt to achieve some unrelated goal - to regulate emotions, navigate a social interaction, to fit in with peers, etc.
At this point, I may seem like an apologist for this behavior. So to be clear, the reason for this train of thought is what I feel to be an important distinction between two types of men. There are those inveterate sexists who follow toxic narratives with enthusiastic, almost gleeful hatred (and in some cases use the narratives to grift other men), and whose misbehavior is far past the point where we expect the baseline, bare-minimum level of human empathy and intelligence to kick in and steer the ship. Then, there are the casual, unenthusiastic sexists whose internal experience I've outlined above. And the reasons why this distinction IS important align with the main topics of this article - the matter of blame, responsibility, and fairness.
A lot of this article seems to boil down to this - many men experience loneliness (often just a cover word for 'celibacy') because of the way they behave towards women; only men (not women) are responsible for the way men behave; therefore, it is not fair to expect women to fix male loneliness. The reasoning here is unimpeachable when applied to the enthusiastic sexists. But what about the unenthusiastic ones? Are they fully responsible? Are they offenders, or are they VICTIMS of a society which creates the preconditions for loneliness (REAL loneliness, not just celibacy), which in turn makes sexism a vaguely appealing option?
Reasonable people can differ on how they answer this question. If you believe that all sexism is the fault of those who practice it, I don't have a good argument to make against you. But I can argue against hypocrisy, and I have found many feminists to be hypocrites on this subject. Most feminists are also social progressives who have very compassionate attitudes towards minorities of all kinds. This creates a contradiction when examining the broad tendencies of each of these demographics. Consider the typical social progressive views on the following two superficially true facts:
Despite being only 13% of the population, black people commit 50% of the murders - Racist, obviously racist. Perhaps technically numerically true, but completely fails to account for confounding factors, like the higher rates of poverty and other systemic disadvantages experienced by black people, and how they lead to specific social problems like gang violence. Society is responsible for this statistic, and we need to collectively do better.
Despite being only 50% of the population, men commit 92% of the sexual harrassment - Sexual harrassment and other sexist behavior is the result of patriarchy and toxic masculinity. Men have to own this problem, their behavior is not women's fault, nor is it their responsibility.
There's an argument to be had about the exact numbers here, but hopefully we can agree there is at least some disproportionateness in each pair of values. In any case, the main issue is more about how we assign blame. In one setting, we admit the offender is also a victim, we empathize with them and allow their victimhood to explain their behavior, and perhaps even excuse it to a degree, at least when generalizing to the group as a whole. In the other setting, we assign 100% of the blame to the offender. I believe it is intellectually dishonest to apply different standards of blame to different demographic groups. Of course, some might argue that men cannot be victims when they gain so many advantages from a patriarchal society. Except, the unenthusiastic sexists whose victimhood I am trying to highlight are typically the ones who gain the least advantage from patriarchy - most of the advantage is reserved for the few percent of men with power and money and prestige. And furthermore, having some advantages does not magically negate victimhood. If we measure the cumulative impact of both advantage and victimhood on quality of life, most men suffering from loneliness are primarily victims.
Now, most feminists will even go so far as to say that patriarchy hurts everyone. So where does this other blame/responsibility-centric attitude come from? To begin with, I suspect there's just a greater personal salience to sex/gender issues. Not everyone interacts with people of other races or religions on a regular basis. And it's certainly easier to be 'casually sexist' than it is to 'casually violent' (for instance). This naturally turns the conversation from 'how can society fix this problem' to 'how can I protect myself against this problem'. And for the latter question, I would agree that women should not be obligated to deal with toxic men on a personal level. But the author of this article equivocates this reasonable belief with its societal counterpart - that women as a collective (which is just one entire half of society) should not be obligated to deal with the general problem of toxic men. This is a truly insane take. He states 'the actual path to liberation for lonely men is feminism', while absolving feminism of all responsibility towards men. He reiterates how men must work on themselves, and even highlights the many difficulties in doing so, only to dust off his hands at the end and say 'well, good luck with that.'
The optics of this alone are... not good. I guarantee you that someone who is struggling with loneliness, which is almost certainly in part due to factors beyond their control, will not be persuaded by 'this is all your fault, and by the way, you should follow our belief system'. In fact, this exact incongruity is exploited by alt-right grifters as part of the narrative that feminism ostensibly tries to combat. 'Look at all these progressives treating minorities with compassion even when they misbehave. Yet when you do one thing wrong (or perhaps nothing wrong at all), everything is your fault!'. This narrative inflames one of the most basic human emotional instincts, that of unfairness. It's one of the first refined, higher emotions we develop as children, even before we are able to fully develop empathy. And while this is an obvious manipulation tactic to those of us standing outside the circle, it's extraordinarily convincing to those in it.
At a certain point, feminists will need to consider the possibility that they too are inside a circle where unfairness serves as an emotionally compelling but ultimately unhelpful narrative. It starts with a somewhat valid feeling, but quickly degenerates into a poor strategy for managing what is ultimately a societal problem, even developing its own threads of outright misinformation. I've seen a number of people claim the male loneliness epidemic isn't even real - someone here linked a study which showed women are lonelier than men. Except, if you trace this claim back to the original study (a survey/census analysis from ons.gov.uk), we come upon the real finding - 'women reported feeling lonely more often than men' (emphasis mine). When feminists will happily proclaim, that patriarchy makes it extremely difficult for men to express their feelings, how is simply asking people if they are lonely an even remotely accurate judge of loneliness? In contrast, statistics on suicide rate by gender tell a very different story (though I'll admit there's a lot of nuance to the relationship between suicide and loneliness per se).
I've gone on for too long at this point, but overall, I just wish feminists would spend more time actually helping men rather than telling them to help themselves. Obviously, it's okay to draw boundaries about what sort of behavior you're willing to tolerate in person. But at minimum, this doesn't give you the excuse to foster a deep resentment towards men. And hopefully, we adults who can tolerate a little bit of unfairness can use it as opportunity to help people. Whether these people 'deserve' help is a question you should leave the Republicans to ask.
I have a lot of thoughts about your post, but I'm omw to the hospital right now so this one bit i want to point out as a factual matter. If you're going to use rates of suicide, women attempt more...
In contrast, statistics on suicide rate by gender tell a very different story (though I'll admit there's a lot of nuance to the relationship between suicide and loneliness per se).
I have a lot of thoughts about your post, but I'm omw to the hospital right now so this one bit i want to point out as a factual matter. If you're going to use rates of suicide, women attempt more often because they typically choose less lethal means. Some of this relates to access to and familiarity with firearms, but there are an number of other theories including that women tend not to "really" want to die and that MDD is diagnosed in more women.
I could keep breaking down that data and it will get more and more complex and nuanced but I don't think it's a useful stand in for loneliness. Which I'd love to hear how you'd want to assess someone's internal feelings outside of a self-report. I'm sure there are other ways but self report is basically going to be the key one.
CDC data demonstrates that men account for over 76% of suicide deaths in the United States each year. The CDC also found that there are 3.3 male suicide deaths for every female suicide death. In contrast, in research studies, women are two to three times more likely to discuss thoughts of suicide than men, and there are approximately three female suicide attempts per every one male suicide attempt. Source
I really firmly disagree with your perspective on and portrayal of feminism as a whole, and I can certainly say it doesn't represent my feelings and beliefs. I'll try to come back later and give a more thorough response.
I'll await your full response (and I hope everything goes well at the hospital), but I have a few things to say about your initial comment. I agree with you about the gender disparity in suicide...
I'll await your full response (and I hope everything goes well at the hospital), but I have a few things to say about your initial comment.
I agree with you about the gender disparity in suicide attempt rates, but unfortunately the statistics are rarely clear about the actual number of suicidal people (which is arguably what we're more interested in, if we want to relate suicidality to something like loneliness). Dead people can't re-attempt suicide, and unfortunately many unsuccessful suicides are later followed by successful ones. The only source I could find puts the 'multiple suicide attempts' rate at ~7% for women and ~4% for men, but this also doesn't consider the number of additional attempts.
Access to firearms and MDD (an endogenous contributor to suicide) are definitely both factors, but I'm more skeptical about 'women not really wanting to die'. It's a plausible theory, but I worry it's just another narrative to society uses to blame women and minimize their suffering. Maybe you already agree with me about that to some extent.
And finally, I'll concede that suicide rates aren't a perfect reflection of loneliness, but I don't think there is a single datum that is. A person's internal feelings are intrinsically opaque. At best, I think you'd have to consider a large number of factors, and use self-reported loneliness as a relative measure (comparing values when controlled by some of the factors).
I do not particularly think women who attempt are less "serious" about their attempts but it was mentioned as a theory in my source so I wanted to be thorough. In my experience most suicidal...
I do not particularly think women who attempt are less "serious" about their attempts but it was mentioned as a theory in my source so I wanted to be thorough. In my experience most suicidal people are stopped by the survival instinct in their brains. People who choose, say, poisoning, as a method often have the ability to call 911 afterwards when the reality sets in. Or (and I work with young people which may influence it) they don't choose lethal medications. (I very much appreciate when my students are not "good" at harming themselves.)
My point was that by the standard you used, women would appear to struggle "more" but that ultimately I don't think it's actually a good measure. Nor is it really important other than pointing out the disparity in how loneliness is talked about among genders in the news media. (And I'll note that vast majority of this data and conversation ignores non-binary people, who like myself may identify in a binary way if that's the only option or might decline to continue)
Loneliness is a subjective experience, like much of psychology, so it's very difficult to use other measures and many of those would also be self-report or fall into the same issues of stigma discouraging men from engaging or self identifying. For example, number of friends might be indicative, but some people report feeling satisfied with a small number of friends and others feel lonely despite saying they have many friends. An assessment tool that doesn't say "are you lonely y/n" but asks questions about loneliness more obliquely might get more honest answers but is still self-report. And I am not aware if such a tested, normed, valid, assessment tool exists.
When I was in a workgroup on the topic we did not have any sort of assessment tool. It was also being considered not as a gendered occurrence but one impacting all our students, and this was just pre-covid. Our goals of getting people to interact in person were ... Let's say they went unachieved in March of 2020.
I do think we have a societal issue with loneliness and that all of our various identities impact that in different ways. What I think is interesting is when people say they want to hear men talking to men about these topics, those men get the same responses as the women do, including that they don't understand or care about men.
I genuinely want men to be happy. I believe that liberation from patriarchy is the/a path to that. (We have a few other systems to tear down too. I see few people considering intersectionality among men in these discussions for example.)
As for the hospital, my partner who was supposed to go home for the third time tomorrow has a pulmonary embolism today. He's ok but we're not sure what's next.
Do you happen to know how number of suicide attempts are measured? It seems like it must be a pretty difficult thing to record accurately, and those records could be demographically skewed if some...
Do you happen to know how number of suicide attempts are measured? It seems like it must be a pretty difficult thing to record accurately, and those records could be demographically skewed if some genders/races/age groups/socioeconomic groups/etc. are more reluctant to seek help or less likely to admit to past suicide attempts.
It's a mix of survey data and hospital/ER records. They exclude self-harm (with lethal intent being the differentiation). They're certainly under reported across the board. I often turn up past...
It's a mix of survey data and hospital/ER records. They exclude self-harm (with lethal intent being the differentiation). They're certainly under reported across the board. I often turn up past attempts that went unreported talking with my students.
It's worth noting that survey data has the issue of being "self report" but that those tools are used by professionals and have been designed in content and implementation to reduce issues of disclosure to a minimum. We simply have no other way to gather the data. Adolescents hide the most attempts. What's positive is that consistent reporters are generally at the most risk so the people most likely to hide are at least statistically likely to be more ok despite that.
Where I see a lot of recent data change and perhaps correction in the "skew" of data is the huge increase in reported suicide attempts by Black youth. I suspect it's less of an actual increase and more a correction in reporting. But if it continues to rise we may be seeing a reflection of societal pressures. AI/AN men and elderly men are the highest risk for death by suicide. Queer youth attempt at a rate of 20%. I can slice it dozens of ways, most of which are much more intersectional than this conversation.
As I said I could keep peeling back layers on this and get more and more nuanced. Underreporting is a real thing but probably not only from certain groups.
I'm not engaging with everything you wrote here, because it's a lot and I'm not really equipped to address a lot of it, but I don't think the idea of "toxic masculinity" is that masculinity causes...
I'm not engaging with everything you wrote here, because it's a lot and I'm not really equipped to address a lot of it, but I don't think the idea of "toxic masculinity" is that masculinity causes men to be toxic. I think the idea is more that patriarchal ideas and structures, and the culture that is taught consciously and unconsciously to men (and women) around gender are toxic in and of themselves. That "ideal masculinity" is harmful both to men and to women. I know that I struggle constantly with not really fully taking care of myself, partially because of attitudes that I attribute to the way I was raised to be "masculine", and I didn't have an abusive father, just a normal guy who was trying to do his best. In a lot of ways my dad was making an effort to take care of his (and my) mental and emotional health more than a lot of fathers, but there are so many fucked up notions around being self-made and confident, and little attitudes and signals that discourage vulnerability or self-reflection when you grow up as a boy that it makes it really difficult to connect to people on more than a surface level. Men have trouble making real friends because we're all so damn scared of being vulnerable and talking about real shit, and we're afraid of other people being vulnerable because we don't know how to respond to it. As a result, a lot of men wind up leaning on whatever women are around them, mothers or girlfriends/spouses, to take on all of that emotional labor themselves.
Plus, it's not like society as a whole is doing all that well when it comes to friendship/community/connection in general. We've systematically dismantled every support structure we had, and we've replaced them with capitalist dehumanization/exploitation algorithms. It's no wonder everybody feels like shit, frankly.
Interesting comment, thanks for sharing. I'm surprised to see that you don't seem to identify as a feminist considering that I'm sure you agree with the simplistic definition of feminism, as...
Interesting comment, thanks for sharing. I'm surprised to see that you don't seem to identify as a feminist considering that I'm sure you agree with the simplistic definition of feminism, as presented in the article:
The system that holds that women are property of men is called patriarchy.
The system that holds that women are human beings is called feminism.
But I'm sure that specific feminists or specific feminist ideas that you've heard from have given it a bad name. This article itself sort of gives it a bad name considering how much sarcasm and abstraction gets in the way of the core of its argument, which I think boils down to, "let's build a society that values everyone as equal regardless of sex/gender," something that's always appealed to me. I think it'd be hard not to be a feminist with that simplistic view of the movement.
Nevertheless, I especially appreciated your distinction between enthusiastic sexists and casual ones. This actually empathizes with these lonely men in ways that the article absolutely does not. The article is absolutely right to deride some of the things that some men do, but it has the tone of deriding men in general for it, and this kind of thing is exactly what has turned some men against feminism. I also appreciate that you identify something the article does not: that society has failed these men and that society really could do better to help them.
I honestly think that it's best to just disregard the whole "assigning blame" aspect (with one caveat: obviously women are not to blame for choosing not to "fix" men's loneliness in whatever way) in favor of just moving on and helping (and another caveat in case it isn't obvious: men are of course to blame and subject to justice for any violent acts). And I guess I do agree with the article in its solution:
Fix your hearts or die. We can see that as a threat, and I imagine many men do, but I think it's an invitation. It's not if you don't fix your heart, we will kill you—though some who fail to fix their hearts will make themselves so violent in their lives that they may eventually meet a violent end.
I think it's that if you base your identity on unsustainable lies, your heart is broken, and if you live with a broken heart, you will die. Not metaphorically, but actually, and inevitably, because you have set your heart upon something unsustainable, and unsustainable things will not sustain.
So, fix it. Fix your hearts or die. Fix your hearts or isolation. Fix your hearts or loneliness.
Or, if you like: Fix your hearts and live.
In other words, learn to treat everyone as equals and thrive. This still leaves out men, like me in my 20s, who embraced feminism but still felt very lonely, but it certainly helped. Some of my best friends in my 20s were women. It hurt that they didn't want to be more than friends, but even so, their friendships really did help me learn to thrive. And if I hadn't treated them as equals, I would've been far worse off.
Thanks for giving me a space to think out loud about this. I don't think about the topic all that often, but it's always meant a lot to me. Hopefully this comment was worth sharing overall.
We assume good faith here. Their point was very clearly that if '13/50' is an obviously bigoted argument, we should be more skeptical about a similar one, and I don't see how they're deploying it...
You go on to say 'I was using it to make a point!', but, come on.
We assume good faith here. Their point was very clearly that if '13/50' is an obviously bigoted argument, we should be more skeptical about a similar one, and I don't see how they're deploying it as anything but a denigration of that logic.
I think you're misunderstanding me - I only bring up that statistic as a rhetorical example. It's not a direct comment on all of these masculinity-related issues we're discussing. And I thought it...
I think you're misunderstanding me - I only bring up that statistic as a rhetorical example. It's not a direct comment on all of these masculinity-related issues we're discussing.
And I thought it would be obvious from context that I disagree with the way the statistic is typically used. The progressive criticism which comprises the rest of what you quoted from my comment is one I agree with, and one which I expect everyone else here to agree with. It is, as you put it, a distortion of facts - but importantly, a distortion that is based on some vague scrutiny of the facts.
And if the nature of this distortion is so obvious, why is it that so many people are willing to accept the exact same kind of distortion when the narrative blames men instead of black people? Why is it that we empathize with the extenuating factors for one demographic, and practically villainize them for the other? I'm not asking you to excuse the misbehavior of individual men, I'm asking you to consider and empathize with the struggle and suffering that is a major factor in that misbehavior, the same as you would for black people or any other distinct demographic group.
It seems a few other people are misinterpreting that one part of my comment in the same way, and to be honest I don't have the energy right now to respond to each of you individually. One part of me is frustrated that you seem to be missing my point, but on the other hand, perhaps it's instructive for you to have a knee-jerk reaction of shock and outrage at seeing a 'well known dog whistle'. Because for many men, the other statistic I used in my example (or any equivalent generalization that is used by a narrative which blames men instead of understands them) feels exactly as insulting and unfair.
An effective feminism NEEDS to admit this feeling is often justified, and adjust its framing of men's responsibility accordingly. I'm not trying to rile up anyone more than necessary, this is a serious topic which is deeply related to toxic cultural and political trends that are having an increasingly serious impact on people's lives. I live in the USA, and fascism has fully arrived - fascism, an ideology which leverages male discontent into political force. Performative feminist empathy has accomplished so little - can we please for the love of god start looking for a real solution?
If their rhetorical point is to demonstrate the bigoted motivation of one overly simple reading of statistics, how does contrasting a recognizedly racist "gotcha" with a structurally similar point...
If their rhetorical point is to demonstrate the bigoted motivation of one overly simple reading of statistics, how does contrasting a recognizedly racist "gotcha" with a structurally similar point about a different demographic grouping (in that set A, containing subset a, is distinct from its subset) separate them from manhood?
I don't see how this interpretation of their comment isn't actively misinterpreting what is very clearly couched as a rhetorical sockpuppet as though it is sincerely expressing racist views. You're assuming a lot of bad faith just to miss their point. Hell, your quote includes the quotation marks meant to distinguish that.
Hey, I had some thoughts on your rhetorical. For the sake of my argument, let's assume the statistics you originally provided are true (I don't necessarily think they are, but lots of other people...
Hey, I had some thoughts on your rhetorical. For the sake of my argument, let's assume the statistics you originally provided are true (I don't necessarily think they are, but lots of other people have engaged with that already).
So, there's these two statistics: black men & violence, and men & sexual assault. In a vacuum, they are both numbers, and they are both similarly disproportionate. So, why is one bad, and one okay, to accept? (Simplified labeling here).
I think the crux of the issue is how these statistics (and similar) are both used, and how their root causes are handled. Let's take black men & violence: as a surface level statistic, it is used as a racist dog whistle to paint black people (esp men) as overly-violent, to justify their mistreatment. Now let's look at Men & SA: at a surface level, it is used by women as justification for actions they take, usually in their own safety (carrying mace, not walking alone, etc). As a "good guy" it does feel bad to have someone you don't know just assume you're dangerous, so I definitely get that feeling discriminated, but there's a difference here between actions be done to you (state-sanctioned violence against black people) vs actions being done because of you (women being generally less trusting and the various actions stemming from that).
And now let's dig a layer deeper, to see if we can find the "causes" to try and "solve" them. Disclaimer: while I am generally aware of both issues, I'm an expert on neither, so apologies if I get some core issues wrong here.
For black men & violence, a large part of that number goes back to the relatively low-income aspect of black people (at least in the USA); when you're unable to get your basic needs met by the usual channels, you're more likely to do crime, incl violent crime. So is the issue black men are just naturally inclined to be more poor? No, not really; basic history of the country, esp post civil war, shows all the ways black people were legally and illegally kept from being able to build the foundations for family wealth in the same wayz white people were (redlining, bombing of black wall street, lots more). So the core here is the racist treatment of black people, which has had this downstream effect of disproportionate violent crime. Stopping before the core ("black people are naturally more violent!" or "Black people are naturally more poor!") is failing to address the real issues, and instead substituting racist beliefs. The statistic could have real-world use (for example, you could probably have anger management classes aimed at black teens and men as part of a larger social net of services and programs to try and address this particular effect), but that's not what it's used for, it's almost always used as "Black People Bad". And importantly, Black people cannot solve this core issue themselves; while they can (and do) need to play a part, our current structures will not allow them to succeed alone, and in fact will violently resist it (see black wall street, ICE, etc).
Now let's look at Men & SA: while there may be some biological differences, none are so stark to make up for such a large statistic. So going one layer deeper: the culture below our actions has informed our decisions on how to act, as any culture does. So men are not naturally more-sexually violent: they are conditioned by our society to believe several things: sex is good and you need it, a purpose of women is to provide for this need, and plenty more. So the core issue is this Patriarchy. And unlike the racism directed at black men, patriarchy is something inside of us, and while we can certainly receive help from women or other men, ultimately we have to do the work within ourselves to change.
Now, no man alive is responsible for the creation of our patriarchal society, in the same way no black man is responsible for the racial society. But an important distinction here is: every man does benefit from patriarchy, whether you want to or not. Feminists of all genders do work to try and dismantle patriarchy in several ways, but much in the same way that black men can't solve that issue alone, women can't either; we men also need to pitch in, and part of that is recognizing that we have Patriarchy within us too.
So, on a superficial level it's easy to think "why is one of these progressive-bad, and the other progressive-good", but once you've dived into what each statistic is asking, and represents, you can see how they are different.
If you're looking for a good man-focused book on feminism and patriarchy, I'd suggest The Will to Change by Bell Hooks; she's a long-standing woman feminist, and wrote this book for a lot of the reasons you mentioned: we need the men too, and we need to help them too.
I think a lot of people in this thread are zeroing in on your usage of that statistic and painting you with a slightly unfair brush because of it. Its an extremely commonly used white supremacist...
why is it that so many people are willing to accept the exact same kind of distortion when the narrative blames men instead of black people?
I think a lot of people in this thread are zeroing in on your usage of that statistic and painting you with a slightly unfair brush because of it. Its an extremely commonly used white supremacist talking point, to the extent that citing it virtually always paints someone as a white supremacist, but I understand the point you were trying to make, so I'll take a stab at explaining the difference in how those two statistics are taken. I won't comment on whether either is true or not, so for the sake of argument I'll pretend they both are.
First, black people in the US, as a whole, on average, are disadvantaged to this day. They have lower overall wages, higher rates of poverty, higher obesity rates, shorter lifespans, lower rates of literacy and so on than the general population. This stems from either modern racism, or the echos of historical racism that propogated until the modern day. You can't divorce crime statistics from those facts.
Men are not disadvantaged all in all. There is no pervasive discrimination against men in modern society.
Two, historically, black people were imported to and enslaved in the US. That one fact influenced everything about US race relations. It influence black culture, it influences white culture, it has far reaching implications 200 years later in incomes, development patterns, living situations, and crime.
Men have never experienced shared trauma like that that would explain negative outcomes today.
And finally, and perhaps most importantly, black people are white people are almost identical, biologically. Overall, similar brain sizes, body sizes and configuration, hormone levels, and so on. The only real differences are superficial.
Men and women are not biologically identical. Their bodies are quite different. Their brains are different. One isn't better than the other, but the idea that men are more inherently prone to violence is wayyyyyyyy better supported in science than the idea that black people are.
You can't really compare the two statistics then and call someone a hypocrite because they think one is racist but the other one isn't sexist. They're completely different axes of comparison, so one is more problematic than the other.
A lot of replies to my original comment seem to be rejecting it without even really trying to understand it. So I appreciate that you are willing to actually engage with my arguments in good...
A lot of replies to my original comment seem to be rejecting it without even really trying to understand it. So I appreciate that you are willing to actually engage with my arguments in good faith, even though you might disagree with some of them.
First, black people in the US, as a whole, on average, are disadvantaged to this day. They have lower overall wages, higher rates of poverty, higher obesity rates, shorter lifespans, lower rates of literacy and so on than the general population. This stems from either modern racism, or the echos of historical racism that propogated until the modern day. You can't divorce crime statistics from those facts.
We are 100% in agreement about that, which makes the following all the more puzzling.
Men are not disadvantaged all in all. There is no pervasive discrimination against men in modern society.
Men absolutely face pervasive, systemic disadvantages and discrimination in modern society. Granted, quite a bit lower in extent compared to women, or black people, or various other demographics, but I don't think it's constructive to make this into a contest. Moreover, the fact that an apparently well meaning comment can make such an absolute form of the claim does not bode well for the state of discourse on this topic.
A lot of discrimination against men relates to how they are perceived as intrinsically dangerous, especially to women and children. One example is the stigma of men being around children in public. I'm at an age where lots of my friends have started families, and basically every dad I know has at least one story of being treated with suspicion for watching their own kid play in a playground, or reproached for helping someone else's kid down from the monkey bars or whatever. This stigma exists in a systemic form too - during divorce, men are often seriously and baselessly disadvantaged in custody battles (though this does vary somewhat with jursidiction). Likewise, stigma against men makes it far more difficult to them to become elementary school teachers - which is particularly impactful due to the already worsening lack of male role models in early childhood.
Some discrimination against men has improved over time. For instance, military conscription has, in recent Western history, been exclusive to men. It was unheard of for women to serve as soldiers and face the attendent dangers of that role. Nowadays, however, it is common for women to serve in the military, and at least in the USA, we haven't had a draft in a while, to the point where most people don't consider this a serious men's issue.
Conversely, some discrimination against men has worsened. For instance, as recently as a few decades ago, men moderately outnumbered women in higher education, and going further back the divide was even wider. But now, the trend has begun to flip, and women modestly outnumber men. It's a complex topic, but personally, I think a lot of this stems from gender differences in learning styles making success in primary/secondary education more difficult for boys, especially in the digital age. This is bad enough by itself, and it's compounded by how so many people fail to recognize (or aren't even willing to recognize) this as discrimination. The lack of male educational attainment is absolutely a crisis in the making. It's even more serious when you consider how education (or lack thereof) intersects with right wing political movements.
None of this should be controversial. I don't know your personal willingness to trust Wikipedia, but there's a fairly large article that cites sources for these issues among many more.
And finally, and perhaps most importantly, black people are white people are almost identical, biologically. Overall, similar brain sizes, body sizes and configuration, hormone levels, and so on. The only real differences are superficial.
Men and women are not biologically identical. Their bodies are quite different. Their brains are different. One isn't better than the other, but the idea that men are more inherently prone to violence is wayyyyyyyy better supported in science than the idea that black people are.
Here's where the argument gets really interesting, I feel. I completely agree with you that there are no significant biological differences among races, and that any kind of statistical correlation between race and criminality is entirely due to historic reasons, and the resulting poverty, racism, discrimination, etc. that continues to this day. I also agree with you that men and women are not biologically identical, and that men are biologically prone to aggressive (and sexually aggressive) behavior.
However, a society that adjusts to the reality that men have a greater tendency towards violence creates laws and social mores that make violence more likely even among men who wouldn't otherwise be violent. I didn't even get into how men face discrimination in criminal sentencing, and that may be an understated factor here - imprisonment often forces men to inure themselves to violence, and that experience follows them even after leaving prison. And it's not just violence, but other male traits, like emotional processing as well. A slight biological tendency towards stoicism traps men in a vicious cycle where expectations enforce behavior which then further enforces expectations. This is a subject which feminism actually provides considerably insight about.
But more importantly, the exact distinction between which historical forces, biological tendencies, and social structures generate statistical outcomes in these two demographics turns out to be, I feel, not actually all that important. The crux of my original comment was an unequal standard for assigning blame and responsibility. Of course, it's perfectly valid to say that any correlation between race and criminality is due to social factors outside of the effected individuals' control, and to temper the blame and responsibility accordingly. But then, aren't the biological factors that make men as a whole more prone to violence also outside of their control? And so too aren't the systems which react to that general tendency and treat men as a monolith? On a societal level, there doesn't seem to be any real reason to assign blame and responsibility any differently here.
I suspect a lot of people think 'well, men should just learn to control their aggression - it comes from inside of them, so surely they can be responsible for it.' But it's not as though men choose their biological makeup. And while it certainly possible for a naturally aggressive man to figure out a way to cope with that tendency, to work on themselves and attain control over it, this is not really much different from any other person whose ability to behave well is hindered by forces that are not initially within their control. For instance, it's an unfortunate reality that many black people are faced with a need to figure out a way out of poverty, gang culture, etc. In the end, none of us asked to be where we are, and we are all challenged by factors that stand in the way of our moral development.
We should ALWAYS consider those factors when assigning blame and responsibility to misbehavior. The fact that so many people seem to exclude men from this consideration is the main thing I am arguing against. It doesn't even really feel like a big ask; it's perfectly compatible with so much of feminist philosophy. And I think that rectifying this attitude would do a lot to help with a lot of gender issues facing us today.
It might be the case for other folks, but I at least was staying on the sidelines for this whole thread. I had a comment drafted up on this one, as well as another, and deleted them. Honestly it...
No one has challenged the statistics on this comment, which I find quite odd. I’ve literally been on this site for years and I’ve never seen statistics like this be so docilely accepted.
It might be the case for other folks, but I at least was staying on the sidelines for this whole thread. I had a comment drafted up on this one, as well as another, and deleted them. Honestly it scares me to get involved, since there's so much heated emotion around this entire topic (but that might just be the ~life topic? I don't hang out here much), and I don't want to swing a bat directly at a delicate situation as it's unfolding.
That said, for context, I had a spit take when reading that line, and yelled something obscene at my monitor. Then decided I shouldn't get worked up about a person I've never met, nor will I ever meet, and who is probably intending to rile me up. So I went and made breakfast.
Also, for the record, 13/50 is a well-known dog whistle. It is a distortion of facts.
Thank you for calling them out. There're some weird discussion points around these parts.
(edit) A propos of nothing, please note that -- while there isn't a "block" feature in tildes -- you can still add cosmetic filters to uBlock Origin which work similarly. In case that's helpful for people that also compulsively read things that're inadvisable for the sake of their cardiopulmonary health.
Friendly reminder that dog whistle are purposely chosen from widely innocently used things, otherwise they wouldn't work as dog whistle (plausible deniability). Obviously this doesn't mean you...
Also, for the record, 13/50 is a well-known dog whistle. It is a distortion of facts.
Thank you for calling them out. There're some weird discussion points around these parts.
Friendly reminder that dog whistle are purposely chosen from widely innocently used things, otherwise they wouldn't work as dog whistle (plausible deniability).
Obviously this doesn't mean you shouldn't call it out when you're confident it's being used as a dog whistle (like if someone uses many different dog whistle), but if every use of some particular word (or stat) seems like an obvious dog whistle, well, you're probably wrong about most of those.
Also, dog whistle =/= recurrent talking point obsessed over by one side of the debate and ignored by the other.
What? Are you talking about American politics? I try not to follow them; that country keeps talking about destroying mine, and funds radical groups to destabilize our social institutions. I'm not...
Also, dog whistle =/= recurrent talking point obsessed over by one side of the debate and ignored by the other.
What? Are you talking about American politics? I try not to follow them; that country keeps talking about destroying mine, and funds radical groups to destabilize our social institutions. I'm not sure why you bring that up.
The comparison between points is misleading. It's creating a strawman feminist that holds some absurd opinions (i.e. black people good, men bad), then knocks them down as obviously false. Their comment repeatedly references feminists as an amorphous blob of villains who think men should just figure out their problem themselves.
And hey -- btw -- if a tonne of men are suffering from not being able to shack up, either the women are all going gay or they're also lonely (unless women physiologically can't be lonely? Let's see a quote on that, too!). It's great that we plow straight through that observation, repeatedly, across this hundred comment thread with exemplary's tossed around every time a comment talks about taking those dang feminists down a notch. Yeah, you show 'em!
I'm absolutely out of this thread, now. I literally had trouble sleeping because of it, and I'm going to now block the thread and ignore all responses. If you feel the need to take the last word, you can have it.
I truly don't understand what you are trying to say, and I am also close to burning out, so I'll just repond to the last paragraph. I believe it is good to have discussion about things even when...
I truly don't understand what you are trying to say, and I am also close to burning out, so I'll just repond to the last paragraph.
I literally had trouble sleeping because of it, and I'm going to now block the thread and ignore all responses.
I believe it is good to have discussion about things even when some feel the conclusion is obvious and shouldn't even be discussed. I even believe it is good to push ourselves a bit out of our comfort zone.
Now obviously, I agree that it is apparently impacting you too much and withdrawing is understandable here. Take care of yourself.
I'm absolutely out of this thread, now.[...] If you feel the need to take the last word, you can have it.
Now I must call out this blatant attempt to have the last word yourself. This is the equivalent of leaving and slamming the door shut while saying "you can have the last word". Unfortunately, I don't have enough social grace to let you have it, so there!
What's there to call out? Their whole argument revolves around that being racist. Are you saying you believe that @eyechoirs chose that statistic because they're racist?
Thank you for calling them out. There're some weird discussion points around these parts.
What's there to call out? Their whole argument revolves around that being racist. Are you saying you believe that @eyechoirs chose that statistic because they're racist?
Mostly because I don't have the energy to come back to it, especially watching the "exemplary" votes and the rest of the commentary. I'm fairly convinced no one wants real solutions anyway. But...
Mostly because I don't have the energy to come back to it, especially watching the "exemplary" votes and the rest of the commentary.
I'm fairly convinced no one wants real solutions anyway. But it's ok, apparently feminists foster deep resentment against men, so, what am I even doing. I've seen plenty of shitty stats and takes though.
What would it take to convince you at least some (me) resonate with this post yet actually want a real solution? (I'm offering to try accommodate that if reasonnable) Everyone hates being blamed...
What would it take to convince you at least some (me) resonate with this post yet actually want a real solution? (I'm offering to try accommodate that if reasonnable)
Everyone hates being blamed for things they don't feel responsible for.
I know some folks do want real solutions. I don't need convinced I'm just watching the pattern of how the posts go and seeing how often it plays out exactly like this. I know why folks get...
Exemplary
I know some folks do want real solutions. I don't need convinced I'm just watching the pattern of how the posts go and seeing how often it plays out exactly like this.
I know why folks get defensive too. But I have learned how useless it is to get defensive about how I'm not racist when people talk about the harms white people do. Because it serves nothing but making myself feel better because I'm "a good one." So no, I don't react this way when people "blame me for things I didnt do" (which isn't what this article or similar conversations do at all )
But I don't have the solutions other people want, so I'll let other people figure them out, at least for now. Personally I think that which is proposed here would actually help.
For what it's worth, I agree with you that which is proposed here would actually help. It's just that the way it's worded in the article makes it look like helping isn't really the main goal here.
For what it's worth, I agree with you that which is proposed here would actually help.
It's just that the way it's worded in the article makes it look like helping isn't really the main goal here.
If I somehow get to it, would you be open to proof-reading / giving feedback on my best try at giving sane advice to incel in a way they can accept it? I'd try and keep it short of course.
If I somehow get to it, would you be open to proof-reading / giving feedback on my best try at giving sane advice to incel in a way they can accept it? I'd try and keep it short of course.
I'd be happy to, but I wasn't targeting incels particularly. This stuff is a spectrum. I have a good sense of what helps individuals, not so much large groups
I'd be happy to, but I wasn't targeting incels particularly. This stuff is a spectrum. I have a good sense of what helps individuals, not so much large groups
Julia Serano, in her book Whipping Girl, breaks sexism into two different components: Traditional sexism, which holds that femininity is inferior to masculinity Oppositional sexism, which holds...
Exemplary
Julia Serano, in her book Whipping Girl, breaks sexism into two different components:
Traditional sexism, which holds that femininity is inferior to masculinity
Oppositional sexism, which holds that men and women are rigid, mutually exclusive categories
Serano then goes on to examine how these forces enact transmisogyny, which is a transphobic misogyny that trans women specifically face.
I bring this up because "oppositional sexism" was an eye-opener for me. It named a phenomenon that I sort of always knew was there under the surface, but that I never really could put a name to.
Oppositional sexism has a lot of facets, but one of its most insidious is that it implicitly encourages a sort of gender-based score-keeping and tribalism. If you ever read something that treats gender like it's a zero-sum game, where advances for women mean oppression for men (or vice versa), then you're staring oppositional sexism in the face.
I lead in with this, because I feel like it's a primary flaw of this article. Here's the opening paragraph, emphasis mine:
My inbox, via The Boston Globe, tells me that men are opting out of college, and New England’s campuses are missing them. It's a problem, it appears; one for the rest of us to solve, it appears; on behalf of those men, it appears. And the Sydney Morning Herald informs me that "two top podcasters have identified a global decline" and also a cause: "The problem, they say, is women." There's even a pull-quote. “'A huge amount of men between the age of 15 and 50 will not pass on their genes. They will effectively die out of the gene pool...Should society intervene?' Steven Bartlett asked last year." Apparently men, and only men, are having trouble reproducing. Apparently this is a problem caused by women. Apparently it's for society—that's us—to solve this problem, on behalf of these men.
The author immediately frames the situation in oppositional terms: men vs. women, or men vs. "us." Of course, the author is also responding to podcasters who are doing the same thing, claiming women are the problem. The author is not alone in turning gender discussions into a men vs. women problem. It's far too common, and in fact it's, I believe, at the root of a lot of the things he's trying to address in this article.
The author then proceeds to sort of debunk this constructed idea that he admits isn't even fully formed in the first place. In the second paragraph, he notes that he didn't even read the articles he's responding to:
I want to be transparent about these pieces. They are both behind a paywall, and I didn't feel like paying to read them, so I don't know what's in them specifically, and I'm not linking to them. Perhaps these pieces have brand new and surprising lines of thought around their subjects, though I must confess I find it unlikely.
He walks this back by saying that he's responding to a general pattern he's witnessed and these are just a jumping off point, but even I, as someone who generally agrees with some of his broader points and would call myself a feminist, think that this is sloppy and off-putting. (Though, admittedly, a lot of my comments, including this one, follow a similar pattern, so it's genuinely unfair of me to fault him for it.)
Anyway, he then laboriously deconstructs the idea of a "male loneliness epidemic" in a very score-keepy way, which is where I think this article veers from misguided to outright problematic, in my opinion.
Jullia Serano wrote her entire book about transmisogyny because she wanted to identify a type of oppression specific to trans women. Part of the reason I used this is as an example is that it's a great way of framing sexism in a non-oppositional way. We can accept the existence of transmisogyny without downplaying or undervaluing the misogyny that cis women face. The same goes for, say, misogynoir and people of color. In all of these instances, the specific focus on identity illuminates a phenomenon that can otherwise go unseen, and the existence of one doesn't negate the other. Transmisogyny doesn't invalidate misogyny -- it's instead an important segment of it worth considering both on its own and also under its broader umbrella.
In progressive/feminist circles, this is called intersectionality, where we consider how different factors overlap and apply to different classes of people as well as the individuals within those classes.
So when the author laboriously rails against the idea of a "male loneliness epidemic" even existing, I see it as, essentially, a failure of intersectionality as a product of oppositional sexism. In a non-oppositional, intersectional model of sexism, we could see "male loneliness epidemic" as a potentially necessary, specific illumination of a particular corner of loneliness that isn't captured by the umbrella concept of "loneliness" on its own.
In an intersectional view, we'd understand that men are also harmed by sexism and that, as a widespread, societal force, we cannot boil its resolution down solely to the level of personal responsibility. This is why, we, as progressives, have discussions about systemic changes in the first place -- because we acknowledge that change isn't possible through individual action alone.
Furthermore, in order to discredit the idea of a "male loneliness epidemic," he uses some rhetoric that I find jarring and dishonest (italic emphasis in the original, bolded emphasis mine):
And loneliness is an interesting way to frame the complaint—for complaint it is. The complaint is not a dearth of companionship, exactly. What the problem usually boils down to is a dearth of available sexual opportunities—not so much willing sex partners, as women who don't totally own their own bodies, and so therefore can't say "no" to sex so easily. Women should not be allowed to be voluntarily celibate, it seems—not if it means a man might be involuntarily celibate, and not get the sex he has coming to him.
In pretty much everything I've seen about the loneliness epidemic in general, but also about the male loneliness epidemic specifically, there's been prolific discussion of screens, social media, parasocial relationships, loss of third places, increase in mental health issues, the impacts of COVID, etc. All of these have broad impacts which include men and are, in my mind, extremely valid structural things that we SHOULD be looking at.
But if we look at the author's last sentence, he is basically saying that the "male loneliness epidemic" is literally incel ideology that promotes the rape of women.
He does the same shift later, even more clearly this time:
In fact, the fact that I say these things instead of building paths of redemption is what is to blame for the abusive and destructive behavior of lonely—that is involuntarily celibate—men.
Yes, there are too many people who buy into incel ideology that is explicitly hateful and harmful to women. I don't want to downplay that at all. It is horrific. However, I do think that taking that minority of individuals and framing them as indicative of men as a whole is also unjust. It makes his later points land better within his own scope, because, yes, undoubtedly women should have rights and men aren't owed sex, but a solution isn't a solution if a problem has been misidentified in the first place, and I feel that's what he's done.
I think in order to properly identify the problem, we have to stop thinking of men and women in oppositional terms and instead identify that men and women can both be lonely for valid reasons, and that those reasons can be different, and that it is far more likely that these phenomena are happening in tandem rather than because of each other. He comes close to this towards the end, eventually acknowledging that the loneliness of men and women are both "quite real". He identifies that patriarchy hurts both men and women, and that feminism can be a source of liberation with men.
This is where I agree with him, because feminism is one of the frameworks that gives us the language to look at the world and change it by structural means.
It's also why I find his "men need to work on themselves" to be a short-sighted and unfulfilling response. There is some truth to it, as there always is, because individual people have a large amount of agency in their lives, but the whole idea of agency in the first place is predicated on the existence of external factors that can limit it. Without acknowledging that men are also subject to this, we're back to a a very limited and I would argue incorrect framing of what patriarchy is and does in the first place.
I was going to end there, but then I paused on this for a bit, took a breather, and came back to it.
I realized that I was angry about something and I think I hid that anger behind my sort of distanced, clinical response to this piece.
So, I'm going to speak to my actual feelings now that I've thought about them.
Part of me doesn't like this article for all the reasons I said above, but I think what most bothers me about it is that the author's opinion towards men comes across as smarmy, dismissive, and ultimately condescending.
I think it's a failure of the author's empathy that he cannot understand that there are a lot of everyday men who aren't awful people who are hurting and lonely. I think it's a failure of the author's progressive stance that he uses the conservative canard of "personal responsibility" as moral absolution from empathy. I think his article comes across as patronizing because it fundamentally treats men as if they're incapable, unthinking beings who uncritically buy horrific incel ideology.
His experience doesn't match mine.
I know plenty of men who are lonely and who aren't monsters. I see it in my students, and I assure you many of them are not neck-deep in manosphere content. I also think that there are a TON of men who have done a TON of work on themselves and still are lonely because I think that sexism isn't the sole source of loneliness in life.
A big part of me hates writing stuff like this, because I don't like to respond in anger in the first place. Another part of me is trying to, well, put in the work to balance the call to action that anger can generate with a more measured fairness that aligns with my values. I've, admittedly, probably failed that ideal with this post.
In the interest of full transparency, and being honest about my feelings, I should admit that I think the anger comes from my own alignment with the author, rather than opposition to him. I see myself in him a bit. He identifies as a feminist and believes that men benefit from feminism. I do too! He's is tired of the broad pattern of gender discourse he's seen online and is responding to that landscape, just as I am.
I think our ideological closeness is what makes me so critical in the first place, because I see the potential in his words but think he fails to meet that potential. In fact, I think he actually does damage to the ideas that he's putting forth.
From my perspective, I feel that this piece uses disingenuous rhetoric that relies on men and women being put at odds and frames men in the worst possible way. I think he uses progressive ideals in regressive ways.
This is a hard thing to talk about because oppositional sexism is a baggage that we all carry. My defensive hackles are already up because I fear that someone will read everything I've written here and automatically assume that I'm speaking negatively about women or overlooking women's issues or unsympathetic to them because I'm focusing on men.
I promise you, in full earnestness: that is not my intention. To me, men and women are not in opposition and are in fact all living in this sexist soup we call a world. It doesn't mean that our problems are the same in type or magnitude, but I fundamentally reject the ideas that solutions for one create problems for the other and that turning off our empathy for either is a means of arriving at justice.
With this comment, I'm instead trying to illuminate a little corner of sexism that I think could use some light. I promise I'm not trying to put anyone else in darkness while doing so.
I've already used my exemplary for the day, so, uh, have a...Tildes silver? This really captures a really specific and burning hot form of rage that I've felt many times. I agree with pretty much...
I've already used my exemplary for the day, so, uh, have a...Tildes silver?
I think our ideological closeness is what makes me so critical in the first place, because I see the potential in his words but think he fails to meet that potential. In fact, I think he actually does damage to the ideas that he's putting forth.
This really captures a really specific and burning hot form of rage that I've felt many times. I agree with pretty much all you've wrote, but I hone in on this one line because it leaves me thoughtful lately, when I take the time to think deeper. I agree - it's frustrating because it feels like self sabotage, that people on "my team" are messing it up and making our goals further away! They're making me look bad!
But...I wonder now much more than I did even 5 years ago, perhaps the solution isn't to let my anger at their short-sightedness set off my self-righteousness about the implication that I'm being painted with the same brush at them. I think that feels better, but the solution is to do what you've done here: try to respond empathetically while being very clear and specific as to why you think they've gone down the wrong path. I've spent a lot of time lately thinking about how I build up the emotional stamina and maturity to do that more often. Bravo for demonstrating it here!
I very much appreciate your thoughts and I think that the "MLE" rhetoric being responded to doesn't match the reality of loneliness as experienced. It's possible he's seeing the targeted rhetoric...
I very much appreciate your thoughts and I think that the "MLE" rhetoric being responded to doesn't match the reality of loneliness as experienced. It's possible he's seeing the targeted rhetoric described by his examples directly where my feed is only showing me the criticisms of it. And perhaps he isn't seeing more of what you describe similarly.
I don't think I agree that there isn't empathy there nor that he doesn't understand "everyday" men or that he thinks of men as incapable. I think he sees men as completely capable, knows that men can make a different choice and that many men, theoretically including himself, do.
I get your point about intersectionality but in my mind there's some key differences between the language of "male loneliness epidemic" and "the loneliness epidemic's impact on men" and maybe that's just how the former has been co-opted. I also don't see folks really getting into other intersections, even within discussing men's loneliness. I know personally I wouldn't have the response to the rhetoric of MLE if it wasn't treated as a singular thing that requires almost exclusively the emotional labor of non-men to address and I have not yet seen an approach to addressing it that hasn't received the same pushback. It's condescending, the speaker doesn't like/respect/care about men, where are the positive men speaking about this. Be nicer. Expect less. They're doing their best, what can you expect. That's always been so much more condescending to me than please go seek out help from anyone who isn't a podcaster for this thing making you miserable.
I genuinely want men, and everyone, to be happy, healthy, and self-actualized. I know how to work for systemic change, I know how to individually help people (who want it, mostly, but some who don't.) I'm at a loss for how to en masse inform folks who are miserable that they could do something besides doubling down on being miserable in a way they won't object to. I haven't figured it out with racism either, which has a similar dearth of solutions and a similar defensive pushback from many white folks who feel that people aren't being generous enough and kind enough to them/us.
This ran a bit long. Thank you again for your thoughts, I did appreciate reading them
I always appreciate your thoughts too, Fae. And please know that even though I'm critical of this article, that doesn't extend to you. I can absolutely understand why people like you and...
Exemplary
I always appreciate your thoughts too, Fae.
And please know that even though I'm critical of this article, that doesn't extend to you. I can absolutely understand why people like you and @patience_limited found value and insight in this. I have nothing but a deep and abiding respect for y'all.
It's possible he's seeing the targeted rhetoric described by his examples directly where my feed is only showing me the criticisms of it. And perhaps he isn't seeing more of what you describe similarly.
This, and your later specifics of what you see are a really good point. Are the three of us all even talking about the same thing, or are we all seeing our own particular limited slice of it and responding to that in kind?
Like, as someone who isn't on any social media besides Tildes, I have no doubt that I'm insulated from so much of this, especially the worst parts of it.
So, in a big sense, my weights on this particular issue aren't adequately calibrated to the social landscape in which we now live.
On the other hand, I'm a pretty strong believer in the idea that those social media platforms specifically raise the presence of hateful, conflict-driven stuff as an easy way of driving engagement. It undoubtedly works -- that root impulse is what prompted me to take over an HOUR out of my day to type out my original response! (Not saying that Tildes is outraged-based — in fact, I love that it isn’t.) So, in that sense, the weights there are deliberately miscalibrated as well.
It's hard to find grounding on my own, much less a common grounding between multiple distinct perspectives.
I'm not saying this to blame anyone on those platforms or excuse anyone using those platforms to amplify awful content. Instead, I see it more as a structural factor I'm considering but don't really know how to account for.
Immediately after reading this article, I clicked on this one and felt a similar anger to the one I felt here, though that anger isn't aimed at the author but instead at the awful shit that she (and people like her) have to go through. My honest emotional response to that, in complete contrast with my comment here, was "ugh, fuck men" because, well, it's hard for me to see hateful, awful stuff like that and not have a target on which my anger needs to land.
I don't even really know where I'm going with this other than I'm just kind of thinking out loud and trying to honor the idea that this is a very difficult topic to talk about, with lots of different layers, inputs, and perspectives that we have to consider. It also hits at the core of our emotional centers and our identities. I spent over an hour doing what I see as defending men in my first comment only to turn around and immediately hate them moments later when faced with a different stimulus. This is a tough landscape to navigate.
I think the self-assured tone of my first comment is mostly a front, because really I lack confidence and certainty about complex, seemingly intractable problems like sexism. I'm a male and benefit from that significantly in my life, but I also attribute to sexism the homophobia I faced growing up and that nearly ended my life, so I know first-hand what it's like to feel the suffocating weight of its oppression.
One thing I do confidently know (and hopefully adequately showed with this comment) is that this difficult landscape requires a lot of time and energy to navigate. You are someone who willingly and repeatedly does that here. You put in an incredible amount of time and effort to address and discuss difficult topics, and you do so with a clear-eyed vision that I admire. Please know that your efforts don't go unnoticed or unappreciated. You're putting in the work and then some.
Sorry to insert myself into this conversation, but I just wanted to express how grateful I am for how much empathy you display in so many of your comments on this site, and on this topic in...
Sorry to insert myself into this conversation, but I just wanted to express how grateful I am for how much empathy you display in so many of your comments on this site, and on this topic in particular. Your contributions here are the best of what this site could be.
It's interesting to me that your reaction to the other article posted yesterday was anger toward men. I definitely had some of that, as well as some really deep anxiety as a parent to an 11 year old girl, but a lot of my frustration was directed at the platforms that are pushing this content into the feeds of this girl, are using every available psychological trick to make her feel she has to keep exposing herself to this kind of abuse, and that are pushing men and boys into algorithmic silos that amplify the kind of thinking that would lead to this type of harassment. I'm not naive enough to think that the author of that article wouldn't experience misogyny without algorithmic social media, or that the boys and men that are perpetuating it wouldn't learn it without social media, but I also can't help but think that these tech companies are actively making our society worse in the pursuit of more money and control. We know this, and yet even on a site like Tildes there's this constant feeling that we can't do anything about it - that we have to allow these companies to keep making things worse, and that it's impossible to do anything about it on a societal level.
I don't know where I'm going with this, except to say that I'm increasingly done with the modern internet, but I really appreciate people like you and OP who are trying to make this site a better space, as imperfect as it can sometimes be.
Don't be sorry! You are always welcome to join in wherever, Reverend. Those are such kind words. Thank you. You're another person on the site that I have a deep, abiding respect for, by the way....
Don't be sorry! You are always welcome to join in wherever, Reverend.
Those are such kind words. Thank you. You're another person on the site that I have a deep, abiding respect for, by the way. Whenever I see your name come up, I always know your comment is going to be worth reading. I feel like you're constantly offering measured, well-thought-out responses.
Fun fact about your username: I know "RtRev" is meant to be "Right Reverend," but when I first read it, my initial thought was that if "Lt" is "Lieutenant" then "Rt" must be "Rieutenant" and so, since then, you have always mentally been "The Rieutenant Reverend Kaiser" for me.
You (as you always do) have a great point about the platforms. That's the same place my mind goes when I sit and think about it beyond the knee jerk. Like you, I am highly critical of these companies that know exactly what they're doing to kids and keep doing it anyway. As a teacher, I have high standards put on me for the stewardship of children, because it's widely understood that teachers' significant presence and influence in children's lives can have a significant impact in their development. It bothers me to no end that social media platforms do not feel any obligation towards a similar level of stewardship, nor is the government holding them to that standard in the first place, and they arguably have more of an influence in my students' lives than I do.
They have not only completely failed to care for the children they reach, but in many instances (like this article) they are actively making it worse. If I did what those platforms did to kids, I would be fired in a heartbeat and face criminal charges.
My initial "fuck men" was more of a reflex than anything else -- an immediate emotional flash rather than an actual thought or value. I don't stand by it, I don't actually feel that way, but I wanted to highlight that it happened because I wanted to be honest about it. I'm a man, I also love men, and so it's important to me that we get a fair shake. On the other hand, I've also been harmed by men, and I'm also continually made aware of some absolutely awful shit that, unfortunately, is often specific to men.
I think the flash of disgust/hatred I experienced with that article is essentially my conscience confronting a horror, if that makes sense. It's like an instantaneous survival mechanism where my brain activates its pattern recognition and finds a common link to try to make sense of the situation. It's treating the situation as an immediate and pressing threat, which overrides the slower, more measured response I could have if my brain had prioritized it differently.
I think this is actually part of what makes gender discussions so difficult in general, because once that survival sense is triggered, it makes it unbelievably hard to adequately process the actual information in front of you and not just respond to the pattern. I think it's part of why so many people here, including myself and the author of the linked article, are basing our comments off generalized experiences rather than specific elements, because a lot of us had that trigger in our brain go off, and overriding it is tough.
Sidenote: the above is all pseudoscientific hogwash, by the way, and probably not how brains actually work, but it's the best I can do to try to explain the experience of the phenomenon in a way that makes sense.
Finally, I 100% hear you on being "done with the internet." I feel the exact same way. Tildes is my one and only digital hangout, and it increasingly feels like a storm cellar I'm hiding in for safety as the winds continue to kick up outside. Everything just seems to be getting worse, and with AI being so "good" at what it does these days, it feels like the internet has been polluted past the point of healthy livability -- like it's now one big superfund site.
I think about it a lot in terms of my students and people like your daughter. What's their experience of this internet landscape when they're not old enough to know any different than what it is now? What is it going to be like for them in 5 or 10 years? I try not to be pessimistic, because I believe kids are creative and resilient and far more capable than a lot of our adult anxieties about them make us think they are, but on the other hand, I know they're up against some massive, very powerful forces the likes of which we as humans haven't ever seen before.
Part of the reason that I love this site is because it feels strongly insulated from those forces. I hope kids are able to find their own spaces like this too.
But the reason I stick around and put so much time in here is because it's got awesome people like you, who bring humanity and thoughtfulness to your posts. Thank you again for the kind words, and thanks for hanging out in this tiny storm cellar with me. I'm happy that we get to share this little place.
Thank you so much for these kind words - they feel kinder than I deserve, and I truly appreciate them. I think what you're saying about the "survival response" kicking in with discussions like...
Thank you so much for these kind words - they feel kinder than I deserve, and I truly appreciate them. I think what you're saying about the "survival response" kicking in with discussions like this makes a lot of sense. I think many of us have an immediate, instinctive anger response to topics that are emotionally fraught, and the speed at which we can communicate certainly doesn't help temper that any. It feels like our whole society has bent around these really unhealthy ways of taking in information and communicating with others, and I think it has distorted so many important facets of life. I wish I knew how to put the genie back in the bottle.
Edit: I got a chuckle out of your comment about my username, it sounds very Scooby Doo the way you think of it, lol.
Full disclosure: I ultimately chose not to post this essay myself because I expected it to be contentious, and wasn't prepared to engage with that conversation at length and in detail. I'm not a...
Full disclosure: I ultimately chose not to post this essay myself because I expected it to be contentious, and wasn't prepared to engage with that conversation at length and in detail. I'm not a scholar or practitioner in any of the relevant disciplines, though I have been an observer, participant in, and sometimes, a victim of the phenomena described.
My first impression was that the essay posed its arguments in exactly the way you critiqued. My feelings about A. R. Moxon's writing are mixed in general - there are often well-explained big picture callouts, but insufficient exploration of implications and background, as well as a perpetuation of "us vs. them" rhetoric chosen (consciously or unconsciously) as engagement bait. This particular piece was clearly a reaction to a couple of sexist examples, and as you pointed out, engaged in some oppositional sexism of its own. I have a lot of thoughts about unnegotiated calls for any group as a whole to carry blame and responsibility, and not enough time or motivation to distill them coherently.
I’ve recently quit tic tok because I realized how bad it was for my mental health, and only then did I realize how bad filter bubbles have truly become. It’s still so strange to me that the...
I’ve recently quit tic tok because I realized how bad it was for my mental health, and only then did I realize how bad filter bubbles have truly become. It’s still so strange to me that the internet has moved from being a place where you go to find varied perspectives and opinions to being a place where your pre-existing opinions are confirmed. The thing I never understood about filter bubbles until now is how they didn’t just remove dissenting voices, but more advanced algorithms effectively piece together a narrative that appears to be a majoritarian one because it comes from many people.
On your other point, one of the things I appreciate the most about the effects of queer liberation is the ability to opt out of the concepts of masculinity and femininity. That’s one of the reasons why I am so hard on men who insist on machismo; to me it feels homophobic to need to cling to this ideal, let alone the fact that it is hurting them and everyone around them.
I always wish I had something better to say to my "not sexist" coworker who always says things like "men are x, whereas women are y" other than "I don't think that's true." I know he doesn't mean...
I bring this up because "oppositional sexism" was an eye-opener for me. It named a phenomenon that I sort of always knew was there under the surface, but that I never really could put a name to.
I always wish I had something better to say to my "not sexist" coworker who always says things like "men are x, whereas women are y" other than "I don't think that's true."
I know he doesn't mean it to be disrespectful in any way, and he makes many other similar generalizations (e.g., explaining to international coworkers that Americans feel a certain way—which I usually end up chiming in with "not me" because he's usually just describing symptoms of PTSD), but it's just an uncomfortable situation because he's (possibly unwittingly) getting so close to crossing the line.
Not sure this wokescolding finger wagging stuff that’s been around since 2017 is going to change the minds of guys who believe “they are owed women”. I think there are critiques of the “male...
Exemplary
Not sure this wokescolding finger wagging stuff that’s been around since 2017 is going to change the minds of guys who believe “they are owed women”.
I think there are critiques of the “male loneliness epidemic” to be made but this was I think the easy route to take. To frame it as the guys that are experiencing this to be morally bankrupt or whatever. Doesn’t really cover how much of it is affecting guys who likely already hold these values they’re pleading, and how that’s exactly why they’ve abstained from approaching women and dating. I’ve seen much more stuff about how guys are afraid to get seen as creepy, to get posted online because they dared approach a girl in public. Yet the author decided not to engage with that aspect of it for the sake of simplicity. Because it’s much easier to believe the guys experiencing this hate women.
I agree. I vehemently disagree with the idea that women should have to compromise themselves to make men feel comfortable...bit there is a genuine problem where men are not being supported or...
Exemplary
I agree. I vehemently disagree with the idea that women should have to compromise themselves to make men feel comfortable...bit there is a genuine problem where men are not being supported or properly integrated into modern society, and it's causing tangible problems: a large number of men are unemployed, and it isn't clear why. A lot of men, if they go to college, underachieve compared to women, and we don't know why. And a lot of violence is committed by men, and we aren't doing anything about it. Many men have said they lack emotional support systems that they want, and instead societally we make fun of them and tell them to figure it out. What I frequently hear and see is a cry for help, and what I see instead is a philosophical argument saying "fix your shit or perish." I think one reason why manosphere content is so appealing is because it offers something, often for people who are desperate to find anything, a community to belong to. I think a lot of men do feel like they're perishing, and they're looking for a lifeline to hold them up. What really bothers me is that we haven't done enough to figure out why, and to really address solutions to help suffering people and reing them into a societal fold. MAGA was one of the first large scale movements to make forgotten and suffering people feel that someone gave a shit about them, and that's why it has been so powerful.
As a millennial who grew up in the "girl power" era, one thing that has really bothered me is that I grew up with all kinds of seminars and slogans and teams that told me I could do anything I wanted - the world was my oyster and finally opening up for people like me, and that meant that if I tried hard, looked for opportunities, and found the right people, I could go really far. I never noticed anything similar for boys - there was no empowerment, no encouragement, no offers of specific help. I think the idea was that "boys already know what to do", or perhaps "boys are already represented", and so little effort was made to prepare and support them for life after school. When I was teaching at university, my best students were almost invariably women. They worked harder, they organized study groups, and they took initiative. I had so many men as students who were kind of floating through class, barely passing and not doing much to learn or change up what was happening. They seemed by and large to lack the motivation of their female peers. And it broke my heart, because there shouldn't be any intellectual reason why they were falling behind - but I think the lack of intentional support at younger ages, the lack of teaching and encouraging boys to learn particular soft skills does really affect them in negative ways. Add in the societal commentary that men hurt others, take up too much space, and need to be tough and strong and powerful, is it any wonder why we have a loneliness epidemic? I really don't think the way forward is not through tough love, it's through compassion and support.
I’m on my phone so I won’t be writing as much. You’re right about a lot of those points, and as a man, I am trying to minimize my existence to be barely noticed, especially around but not limited...
I’m on my phone so I won’t be writing as much.
You’re right about a lot of those points, and as a man, I am trying to minimize my existence to be barely noticed, especially around but not limited to, women.
I don’t have a relationship despite really wanting one. I don’t foresee I’ll ever get into one. I don’t have friends of either gender. I’m lonely. I’m part of the “male loneliness epidemic”, and a lot of it is my own doing, yes. Even so, just 20 minutes ago I was on reddit for the first time in days, and the first thing I see is large swaths of comments from people (or bots, most likely?) about how male loneliness epidemic is mine to solve and not anyone else’s problem at all. It’s my fault as a man it exists. It’s my fault and I should “just go to therapy”. Never mind that I don’t have money for that and public access to it is little to none.
As for why a lot of it is my own doing? Because I have a lot of issues and I’ve chosen to self-isolate because people prefer not to deal with someone who may not be peachy every day.
I’ll find comfort in other things, such as hobbies, and try to keep my mind occupied as much as I can. Despite my loneliness slowly consuming me every day.
People will be quick to throw advice at me like “hit the gym” (I am, actually, going to the gym) or “go to therapy” (I wish).
Anyway my post is lacking proper structure and it slightly all over the place.
I guess this was just a long winded way of saying that you’re right, we’re out here, not all of us think we’re entitled to women, not all of us are shitty people, and a lot of us call out other men who are trashy to women or society in general. Despite all that, still lonely. Don’t know what to do tbh.
Thank you for sharing, I appreciate your candor. I don't know what to do, either, and as a teacher I have felt helpless about how to help my male students who are falling behind - my encouragement...
Thank you for sharing, I appreciate your candor. I don't know what to do, either, and as a teacher I have felt helpless about how to help my male students who are falling behind - my encouragement doesn't work, lower grades doesn't work, and they don't want to connect with me. I think this is an issue where communities need to try and make spaces for people to feel safe to be out and about in the world, and unfortunately, I think a lot of people - regardless of gender - find the world a scary place. I think part of the challenge is that marginalized people have traditionally found ways to meet and share community despite hardship, and ironically, a lot of men don't really have that naturally, and I don't think they necessarily know what to do when the world feels hostile. Furthermore, men are discouraged from being vulnerable, and are ridiculed and shamed when they are. And that can make it hard to develop a healthy community, especially when you want it to have a male focus, addressing grievances and distress. There's naturally going to be resentment, just like there is in other types of safe spaces! It just feels more threatening because of privilege.
I think the reason why people struggle with feminism is because misogyny is still a structural thing - we haven't fixed that, and I still have to deal with obnoxious shit in the workplace that I shouldn't have to, and think way too hard about what is "appropriate" for a woman to be at work. I have been harassed and sexually assaulted at work. The difference is that now men are also feeling unwelcome and attacked, and so everyone seems to be miserable and unwilling to listen to the grievances of someone else, and that's why I think our society has bifurcated in ways that aren't easy to fix. Men need help, but women aren't ready to sit and listen, because they're still dealing with messy men at work - I personally would feel deep resentment if I had to go to a seminar on how to help men feel comfy at work when I'm still hearing all kinds of misogynist shit around me. Someone needs to mediate, here, but there's no obvious person - I think both sides are right, and both want society to be different to include everyone. The question is, how do we acknowledge grievances of everyone - not to mention people who don't fall neatly into traditional binary gender identities - and make sure people get what they need? How do we get people to sit and listen and really be compassionate toward someone who isn't like you?
I wish you well - I don't know your specific story and how you got to be here, but I hope you are able to find healthy friendships and relationships, and to feel empowered to be yourself. It may feel scary, but there are people out there who you can connect with, and who will be uplifting - it may not be the easiest thing to find them, but they are out there. Good luck.
Years ago, I heard this story on the radio about some country that had been through some civil war - I think Rwanda. They had a program that existed as a way to help mend the leftover pain and...
Years ago, I heard this story on the radio about some country that had been through some civil war - I think Rwanda. They had a program that existed as a way to help mend the leftover pain and resentment that helped to trigger the war. What they did was they took teachers who were from communities who were primarily made up from one culture (tribe?) and force them to move and teach communities primarily of the other culture for five years. This let the teacher tell the young people about their own culture while forcing the teacher to learn about the culture they are immersed in, which would help eradicate the prejudice in their hearts. When they would move back home with their families they could tell them about the things they learned. If it really were Rwanda, then the program seems to have done a really fantastic job.
Obviously this isn’t something that would work for this situation, but the thing that the program did was force the conversation. And frankly I think that’s the only thing that will ever work, for any situation in which prejudice is an issue: the conversation must be forced to those who will not listen until they finally break down and start listening. Let them air their grievances because doing so is the only way they will let go of or otherwise be addressed. And without a program of that scale and caliber being possible, sharing these kinds of stories and articles - specifically like the OP post -is about as good as we can do.
I’ve written and re-written this a few times but I want to be clear that I’m not attacking you at all personally or discrediting your feelings. I’ve been there too and it sucks. I’ve seen this...
I’ve written and re-written this a few times but I want to be clear that I’m not attacking you at all personally or discrediting your feelings. I’ve been there too and it sucks.
You’re right about a lot of those points, and as a man, I am trying to minimize my existence to be barely noticed, especially around but not limited to, women. […] I don’t have a relationship despite really wanting one.
I’ve seen this idea/feeling expressed a lot (and experienced it myself in the past). There’s a weird thing that we do as humans where we do two things diametrically opposed and are frustrated when they clash…
But if you are trying to “minimize” your existence, then you shouldn’t be surprised if you don’t connect with others and end up feeling lonely. (I realize that maybe it isn’t that simple and that there are other factors involved too).
[T]he first thing I see is large swaths of comments from people (or bots, most likely?) about how male loneliness epidemic is mine to solve and not anyone else’s problem at all. It’s my fault as a man it exists.
I think it’s important to remember that we are writing about the whole here, not an individual. I know it’s easy to see it as “it’s my problem as a man to solve” but that’s not what most of those people are saying. They’re saying “it’s a problem that all men need to solve”. It isn’t just one man. It’s all men as a collective.
I don’t have any great advice on how to beat loneliness. All I can offer is that I found a forum/community related to a hobby of mine and just…started talking. Eventually I started making online friends there. People I talked to every day about things outside of the hobby. Every once in a while, they’d hold real world meet ups. After a while, I worked up the courage to go to one. It went pretty well. I told myself “hey, if you can make online friends then I bet you could do it in real life too!” It took me a long time, so I wont pretend it is a quick fix or anything…but it made a difference for me.
The problem with this type of messaging, from what I've seen, is that it typically misses the people it needs to hit and hits the people it needs to miss. People of generally high empathy (who are...
I know it’s easy to see it as “it’s my problem as a man to solve” but that’s not what most of those people are saying. They’re saying “it’s a problem that all men need to solve”. It isn’t just one man. It’s all men as a collective.
The problem with this type of messaging, from what I've seen, is that it typically misses the people it needs to hit and hits the people it needs to miss. People of generally high empathy (who are likely already doing more than their fair share) hear these kinds of messages, feel like failures, and burn out. And people of generally low empathy (who are likely doing less than their fair share) hear these kinds of messages and conclude, "Oh, so it's not MY problem then," and don't change their behavior at all.
I don't know what the solution to this is, but I suspect that sticking to much more specific and actionable advice (e.g., telling managers to double-check their payrolls to ensure there isn't a gender bias in their employees' salaries) would be a lot more effective. People who are already following that advice will just keep following it, and people who aren't will have a harder time making excuses.
To me this is very clearly the other side of the coin. Women are calling men out because they are being macho creeps. Another commenter said they know one girl who is quick to reject boys when...
To me this is very clearly the other side of the coin. Women are calling men out because they are being macho creeps. Another commenter said they know one girl who is quick to reject boys when they show signs of hiding their macho side, so it’s pretty easy to understand that the reason why this category of men are hurting still gets traced back to the behavior of the machismo crowd. To put things more succinctly, patriarchy hurts everyone.
If you ever find a way to tell people things they don’t want to hear, let me know.
I really don’t understand what you’re trying to say. So because women have bad experience with some guys, then it’s still the fault of the male gender for other guys being lonely? When a woman...
I really don’t understand what you’re trying to say. So because women have bad experience with some guys, then it’s still the fault of the male gender for other guys being lonely? When a woman decides that a guy is being performative and hiding their deep dark sexism, then they’re automatically right and it’s again the guys fault? What are we talking about here.
If you ever find a way to tell people things they don’t want to hear, let me know.
This article isn’t aimed at changing minds. It’s pretty clearly just speaking to the choir, echoing through people who already agreed with this point of view. It’s not an actual attempt to change anyone’s mind. And it’s not engaging with nuance. It’s the long form equivalent of a tweet about how men ain’t shit and whatnot.
If a woman wants to be regarded as an equal, and she starts seeing red flags that the man she’s dating does not view her that way, she would be wise to get out. Even if it’s a misunderstanding on...
When a woman decides that a guy is being performative and hiding their deep dark sexism, then they’re automatically right and it’s again the guys fault?
If a woman wants to be regarded as an equal, and she starts seeing red flags that the man she’s dating does not view her that way, she would be wise to get out. Even if it’s a misunderstanding on her part, she’s not obligated to suppress her discomfort and remain in a relationship where she does not feel respected.
It’s not about blaming the man, it’s about giving the woman agency over her own intuitions and the terms of her relationships.
The author, who is a man, is explicitly not blaming the entire male gender. His point is that lonely people are responsible for themselves, broadly and it isn't the responsibility of everyone else...
The author, who is a man, is explicitly not blaming the entire male gender. His point is that lonely people are responsible for themselves, broadly and it isn't the responsibility of everyone else to fix things for them.
Also that women are (as a group) lonelier than men but we see no societal expectation of men (as a group) or a societal focus on fixing that. Anecdotally the percentage of the time I see women saying "we like men who _______" and are told by men (whose hearts are not "fixed") that they're lying, is near 100%.
If anyone rejects anyone in a relationship, they're free to do so. If I'm being rejected because my partners feel unsafe around me, why would that be anyone's problem but mine? But in much of society it's being framed as a problem men have that women need to fix.
What is our responsibility is to create paths to liberation and spaces for people when they get there. I'm in favor of tearing down patriarchy not just for women but because it will help men. I'm in favor of tearing down racism because it will also free white people from it. I'm in favor of tearing down a lot of our harmful institutions because they hurt so many people.
It’s not everyone’s responsibility but it’s their problem when the angry men gain power and influence and change laws and cause other people to become angry misogynists. The perspective of the...
and it isn't the responsibility of everyone else to fix things for them.
It’s not everyone’s responsibility but it’s their problem when the angry men gain power and influence and change laws and cause other people to become angry misogynists.
The perspective of the articles trying to find a way to “solve” the issue is more that the “angry working class male misogyny/loneliness/machismo” problem isn’t going fizzle out on its own. People can absolutely live lives of misery and bitterness for generations and spread that to entire societies - there’s plenty of historic precedent. On one extreme you have Afghanistan where women are banned from singing, appearing in public, and speaking without permission, and that seems to be a stable society that’s resisted invasion from 3 superpowers.
In theory that's the perspective of such articles, some such articles and the views being espoused by some of the most toxic spaces alike put the onus on women. It's very similar in my eyes to the...
In theory that's the perspective of such articles, some such articles and the views being espoused by some of the most toxic spaces alike put the onus on women. It's very similar in my eyes to the "how to respond to conservatives regretting their votes" where the onus is on Democrats (but particularly women and WOC) to bend over backwards not to upset them lest they vote conservative again. It's exhausting being responsible for everyone else's emotions.
In the context of political theory, it goes back to the difference between whether or not you should have to do something as an ethical or obligatory manner, and whether or not you should do...
In the context of political theory, it goes back to the difference between whether or not you should have to do something as an ethical or obligatory manner, and whether or not you should do something as a matter of practicality.
As a pedestrian, when crossing a protected crosswalk you shouldn't have to look at the traffic and see whether or not it's safe to cross. You have right of way.
However, while it may not be your responsibility, it is your problem when a car hits you and you die. And in the US, with drivers as they are, you absolutely should, in a practical sense, watch where you're going, right of way or not.
I think the article seems to assume that the status quo is that these men will just sulk in a corner and be sad and do nothing. And if that's the end of it, then sure. Everyone is personally responsible for themselves, in the end.
But we (in the generic sense, obviously not everyone who reads this will be American) all live in the same America, and when America ends abortion access, just because it wasn't your responsibility, doesn't mean it's not your problem anymore.
It's not fair, but the world isn't fair, and sometimes you have to things that are not fair for you to do to survive and thrive.
Of course, hence everything women are told to do all the time basically. And why they wear fake rings at the bar, and lie about having a boyfriend to avoid a violent response to a "no" and all the...
It's not fair, but the world isn't fair, and sometimes you have to things that are not fair for you to do to survive and thrive.
Of course, hence everything women are told to do all the time basically. And why they wear fake rings at the bar, and lie about having a boyfriend to avoid a violent response to a "no" and all the everything.
And it's why I'm a mental health professional and educator. I "get" to have an educational conversation with a student using racial slurs about how they have free speech but the people around them are still harmed regularly
But the answer isn't going to be dating men instead of rejecting them for those conservative beliefs. I am not sure anyone who thinks that it's "gay" to have empathy or to care about their partner's sexual pleasure is really going to be inclined to listen to women. And when women act to protect themselves, because the world isn't fair and they need to survive, they're at fault for isolating men further.
Women haven't stopped doing emotional labor, I know I'm just pointing out more how it's being expected often by men to solve the problems of (other) men, with zero reciprocity. Not even 1 to 1 reciprocity but even with a similar contribution to the social contract. I just think that people, all people, can do better than that.
I liked that this was an article from a man about men - and I want to amplify those voices - but it's already back to "women have to do more" and "he doesn't understand regular men" and idk how he doesn't but Elon Musk, Andrew Tate or whoever somehow do.
But if I'm "doing it wrong" and he's "doing it wrong" I've yet to have anyone say what the actual right method is short of essentially "be nicer"
Obviously that’s ridiculous, but is that what the article is responding to? It lists two articles, one of the from the Boston globe about college enrollment. This is what said article actually...
But the answer isn't going to be dating men instead of rejecting them for those conservative beliefs.
Obviously that’s ridiculous, but is that what the article is responding to? It lists two articles, one of the from the Boston globe about college enrollment. This is what said article actually said we should “do about” the issue.
After graduating from UVM, Cuttitta became interested in data and polling trends that showed men struggling with loneliness and having trouble engaging with people who have differing political views.
So, he and colleagues created a place on campus for male and male-identifying students to self-reflect and consider what it means to be a healthy man. Cuttitta said his ultimate goal is to help students foster skills to recognize where students want to go in life, and what might be a fulfilling career or livelihood to pursue.
UVM launched its men program in 2025. A small but growing number of male students now regularly participate in events and discussions Cuttitta leads about what it means to be a man, and where those ideas come from.
“It was really cool to be in a room of people who cared about building meaningful community, being good friends to each other, being good partners,” said Kalman Slater, a senior at UVM who has participated in the program. “It’s really beautiful.”
UVM also launched a “Shark Tank”-style pitch competition for high school students, which tends to attract a disproportionate number of men, said Jay Jacobs, vice president for enrollment management. The university awards the winner a full tuition scholarship to the university.
Idk, seems pretty far from “women, have sex with incels so they don’t vote for Donald Trump”.
I think these kinds of articles or calls to action are fine? Not only is the problem real, and effects everyone, the proposed solutions neither call for ridiculousness nor seem to disproportionately demand women to do the actions.
I think the author was pretty open and explicit about not responding directly to the mentioned articles but to a broader conversation so I'm not responding to them either. But there are people...
I think the author was pretty open and explicit about not responding directly to the mentioned articles but to a broader conversation so I'm not responding to them either.
But there are people making the argument, even if you and I think it's absurd. That isn't even an example of women doing what they have to to survive. I'm glad for men making (I assume) non toxic spaces. Great! I don't really see how it relates to our line of conversation though. I am less confident in replicating something like this all over because these are the same sorts of groups that were fraternities and secret societies and philosophy clubs and all the other men's only spaces that led no one to liberation. But I hope more men do this sort of thing for each other
The author of the article is responding "to" a trend or movement. Step 1 of making those kinds of arguments is to actually define what the trend or movement is as finely as possible. The fact that...
The author of the article is responding "to" a trend or movement. Step 1 of making those kinds of arguments is to actually define what the trend or movement is as finely as possible. The fact that the author could not find examples of what they were talking about is really the height of laziness.
I don't really see how it relates to our line of conversation though.
It relates because the overall argument is about whether or not the kinds of articles in the "broader conversation" as apparently exemplified by that Boston Globe article should exist, or if they are giving too much leeway to the incels. And in that context, what the "broader conversation" is saying matters a lot. It is the crux of the issue, actually.
If the articles are about "women should bang trump supporters so they become democrats", then yes, that is pretty bad. And probably not effective even if they were to do it.
But if the article is "women should be OK with school funding going to male only or male specific programs", or on a more extreme level, "section 10 money that was otherwise mainly going to women's programs should be decreased so that they can go to men's programs", that's another question. Ultimately funding is zero sum, so that is a give-and-take.
To me, what the broader conversation represents in this context is exemplified by the book Of Boys and Men - it really seems like to me all the articles and whatnot started when the author of that book started their media tour on it. And all the articles that the author of this post mentioned (and didn't read) is also in the vein of the book Of Boys and Men.
So if the "broader conversation" is not like that, then they failed at doing job #1 as an author, and the response on this forum is what it is when no one agrees what they're even talking about as a baseline.
I think that's a fair criticism of the article it's just several angles off of the comment of mine you responded to and our back and forth. Did you want to talk about this instead?
I think that's a fair criticism of the article it's just several angles off of the comment of mine you responded to and our back and forth. Did you want to talk about this instead?
I don't think it is. Ultimately what the "sacrifice" that everyone else would be asked to make or expected to do matters greatly in whether or not something is reasonable. From a political point...
I don't think it is. Ultimately what the "sacrifice" that everyone else would be asked to make or expected to do matters greatly in whether or not something is reasonable.
His point is that lonely people are responsible for themselves, broadly and it isn't the responsibility of everyone else to fix things for them.
From a political point of view, these kind of "male loneliness epidemic" articles is trying to get at is, in a democracy, if Republicans (or more specifically, MAGA man-o-sphere influencers) offer solutions, offer to go the extra mile to "fix" (note: not saying it would fix anything in practice) these people, then they get their support, and their support is power.
Is it fair that the auto unions gets far more political favors than the writers guild? Maybe not, but the reality is one of them determines the president and the other doesn't.
And so the democratic party, and people who support not just the ideals of democratic party, but anything left of MAGA, does need to figure out a "solution" to winning over these voters. Not because they necessarily deserve a solution, but because everyone else needs them to be solved.
What I hear here is that the Republicans promise a fix - which is generally this domineering mentality described in the article - that does not seem to actually lead to happiness. So the Dems have...
What I hear here is that the Republicans promise a fix - which is generally this domineering mentality described in the article - that does not seem to actually lead to happiness. So the Dems have to offer solutions that work... But not this one. Not any of the other ones - focusing on jobs, groceries, healthcare, cost of education - all things that directly help men. Not coming from a woman who laughs weird. Not coming from a guy who is too educated. It feels really weird from the critics of so called identity politics to demand identity politics.
This wasn't even about Republicans - all the grifts aren't coming from them by any means - but I'm not a political scientist or sociologist, I don't have the solution to fix a group of people ignoring their best interests because the person hurting them makes them feel good. I'm not even thinking about the election(s), I'm thinking about these individual guys' well beings. (And why does it feel like we're mostly only talking about white men here...) The men in my life don't espouse this stuff and when they have hangups they're things we talk through and they're already trying to work on.
I do this sort of work individually, but societally? Everyone keeps saying to do better - like what .... Lie because the other "team" is? Convince women to become political lesbians until the men reinstate their bodily autonomy? Rebrand it as meninism but keep it as the egalitarianism that feminism is? I'm not familiar with section 10 funding (and Google was not clarifying) but Title IX does apply to men and should.
Not a single message on this topic is well received in a male dominated tech space, no matter who the messenger is. I shared this because it was from a dude speaking to dudes which is what I kept seeing in the responses to articles by women/enbys. So I got nothing. I truly think that if (these) men stopped seeing proximity to and friendship with women, and empathy for each other as weaknesses and "gay" that they would be happier. I don't think male only spaces are the solution but sure try it again! Be great! This is not sarcastic.
But I find this overarching portrayal of men as so weak that anything but the gentlest remark is criticism to be so much more insulting than anything this article said. Like this reverts to the idea that women need to "manage" their husbands to manipulate them into the right outcome. Also yeah it's weird that auto unions have more power but it's weirder that they endorsed the anti-union guy. Because they liked how he made them feel I suppose.
Which, once again, means this is out of my wheelhouse. My work is being honest with folks, even when that's tough. It doesn't help people to lie to them. They "deserve" a solution, everyone does, I just don't know why it's being expected of the people they're actively harming and denigrating and who they explicitly won't listen to.
Dems need to win elections. That's step 1 to accomplishing anything. White men are disproportionately powerful in the political dynamics of the US. So yes, like how the auto unions are...
So the Dems have to offer solutions that work...
Dems need to win elections. That's step 1 to accomplishing anything. White men are disproportionately powerful in the political dynamics of the US. So yes, like how the auto unions are disproportionately powerful because they employ most of the voters in the kingmaker states, they both get disproportionate political coddling. Is what it is. The alternate is being irrelevant.
To get back to the article, the author is positing that people who write political opinion columns, and the Democratic party, should not try to seek the votes (or at least to discourage them from strongly voting in the other direction) of directionless men without a college degree, because there is no obligation to.
And it's like, obligation or not has nothing to do with anything in this realm. It doesn't matter if they don't deserve extra attention, if these are the votes that matter, they're the votes that matter.
I went back to reread and do a search and I think you've made a big leap from "this problem is framed as one men have, caused by women, to be solved by everyone else and men need to be willing to...
I went back to reread and do a search and I think you've made a big leap from "this problem is framed as one men have, caused by women, to be solved by everyone else and men need to be willing to do some of this themselves and stop blaming women" to "Dems shouldn't seek their votes."
I understand the leap you're making but I don't think it's at all something he's saying, nor am I sure it's something he agrees with. He explicitly says to make spaces for them, in fact. And working towards liberation is working to help them alongside everyone else too.
But I don't think this article is about electoral politics and the position you're presenting as the authors is not one he's explicitly taken.
I am saying that the macho men are the ones creating the world that is causing the non-macho men to be lonely. Machismo hurts everyone, not just women or macho men. I really disagree with your...
I am saying that the macho men are the ones creating the world that is causing the non-macho men to be lonely. Machismo hurts everyone, not just women or macho men.
I really disagree with your characterization of the article. Perhaps it’s not talking to you, because you are not a macho man. It’s being written in the perspective of women, but it’s targeting macho men.
"It's an invitation, not a threat" I thought this was a really excellent essay that highlights a lot of the problems I have with presenting male loneliness as a problem women have to solve, but...
"It's an invitation, not a threat"
I thought this was a really excellent essay that highlights a lot of the problems I have with presenting male loneliness as a problem women have to solve, but also discussing the roots of the issue of loneliness. Even though women are more likely to be lonely than men, we still only hear about the "male loneliness epidemic" rather than looking at loneliness in general. Moxon gets into the feedback loop of it all, and how it's being capitalized on by people just trying to make money.
The loneliness of men—which is quite real—is usually presented as a problem to solve. Not by men, but by women. Or, if you like, by the rest of us, compelling women to change their behavior by asking them to agree to be dominated.
The loneliness of women—also quite real—is not a problem that's usually mentioned at all, much less as one worth seeking a solution to, and certainly never as one that ought to be solved by men deciding that they no longer need to dominate others as a core of their identity.
Some bits, but the whole essay is excellent and I wouldn't recommend operating off these bits alone for discussion
This is the discourse about what is commonly called the male loneliness epidemic, which is a problem, usually one that is presented as something for the rest of us to solve on behalf of lonely men. If we don't solve it, we're usually warned, we will be at fault for whatever these men do next, in retaliation for not having their problem solved.
This has always bothered me. It's right up there with "allies" becoming enemies because someone was mean to them or how we are told to be nice to conservatives who have been hateful or they'll stay conservative. I'm not inclined to have my actions be held hostage to someone else's potential bad behavior.
Yes, women don't want to be property, so they choose not to be with men who believe they are property. And patriarchal men holding such beliefs decry women who would withhold themselves over nothing more than political beliefs—beliefs these men think women should find completely unimportant, yet which men also hold as so fundamental to their identities that they seem unwilling to change them, no matter how isolating those beliefs are. Many of these men, rather than fixing their hearts, will lie about their beliefs, which makes women, who still would rather not have companionship at all at the cost of their personhood, increasingly wary of men. And I'm told that this makes men feel as if they are being treated like the bad guys, irredeemable, isolated, unlovable.
It's just that, increasingly, women are finding that they would rather suffer loneliness than the far greater suffering that attends being owned by a man who sees them more as an acquisition than a person. [... ]Meanwhile men are finding out that they'd rather suffer loneliness than learn how to treat women as human beings instead of possessions, because treating a woman as a possession is domination, which means that it is seen as not just masculine, but core to masculinity.
Treating a woman as a human being is gay, which is the least masculine thing of all.
It's fine to say that we need to help patriarchal men heal, but if we are serious about doing that we have to give them somewhere to go, and if we are serious about liberation, it cannot be someplace that is made exclusively for them. If we are serious about not being people of domination, we have to leave them the freedom to walk the path of liberation and gain the reward of liberation, or to walk the path of domination alone, and let them pay the natural cost of that choice alone, too.
Fix your hearts or die. We can see that as a threat, and I imagine many men do, but I think it's an invitation. It's not if you don't fix your heart, we will kill you—though some who fail to fix their hearts will make themselves so violent in their lives that they may eventually meet a violent end.
I think it's that if you base your identity on unsustainable lies, your heart is broken, and if you live with a broken heart, you will die. Not metaphorically, but actually, and inevitably, because you have set your heart upon something unsustainable, and unsustainable things will not sustain.
So, fix it. Fix your hearts or die. Fix your hearts or isolation. Fix your hearts or loneliness.
Thanks for sharing this article and your highlights - I always appreciate your thoughts across the Tildes! Going a little sideways, fix your hearts or die is also basically the message (and, I...
Thanks for sharing this article and your highlights - I always appreciate your thoughts across the Tildes!
Going a little sideways, fix your hearts or die is also basically the message (and, I would argue, invitation) of the biblical prophets and Jesus. Personally, as the most privileged type of white man in the history of the world (I think I check all the boxes except being born to a millionaire), moving more and more into what this article talks about has been frequently driven by how I interpret "biblical manhood" - laying down what I was given for the benefit of others, as Jesus did. The article is right - thinking about all people as actual people does tend to make community and relationships happen more easily.
Thank you for the kind words! I think the use of "Fix your Hearts or Die" was so intentional for that reason - because it's using the same language also used by so many of the most toxic...
Thank you for the kind words!
I think the use of "Fix your Hearts or Die" was so intentional for that reason - because it's using the same language also used by so many of the most toxic messaging. (It can be kind or cruel.). But I think it's genuinely well intended here.
Thank you for posting this essay here! It has sparked some incredible discussion from different corners, and from having been in threads like these, even on Tildes they can get overwhelming,...
Thank you for posting this essay here! It has sparked some incredible discussion from different corners, and from having been in threads like these, even on Tildes they can get overwhelming, complicated and emotionally draining.
From one stranger to another, I hope you're doing okay.
I’m a man, but I’ve never felt very connected to the more traditional “man” side of things. Because of that, it’s always been hard for me to relate to a lot of the modern discourse around men. At...
I’m a man, but I’ve never felt very connected to the more traditional “man” side of things. Because of that, it’s always been hard for me to relate to a lot of the modern discourse around men.
At the same time, I consider myself an extremely lonely person. Last year I told two of my closest friends that I felt really lonely, and they looked at me like it was my problem, something I needed to fix on my own. I’ve been trying. I’ve gone to therapy, meetups, and improv classes with the goal of improving my social skills, but I feel like I’m reaching the point where I want to give up. It feels like I’ll never be able to connect like a “normal” person.
And I know there’s something contradictory about saying I’m lonely while also saying I have at least two friends. But the truth is they’re there because I message them first. Nobody ever takes the initiative to reach out to me. That’s what really messes with me. It makes me feel like I could die at any moment and that would be it. In the best case, people might take weeks to notice something happened.
What I want to say is that both men and women have internalized expectations about how men should behave. When men don’t meet those expectations, they get ostracized. One of those expectations is that you’re never supposed to talk about how hard it is for you to connect with people. Society also needs to think about how little room it gives men to express themselves, but nobody seems willing to have that conversation. It's easier to just blame them for struggling and let them fall behind.
I really feel for you on this, and I think you’ve kind of hit on why I was feeling some dissonance reading the essay. By and large it’s saying things about sexism and interpersonal relationships...
Exemplary
I really feel for you on this, and I think you’ve kind of hit on why I was feeling some dissonance reading the essay.
By and large it’s saying things about sexism and interpersonal relationships more broadly that I agree with - but it bears very little similarity to what I’d think when I hear “male loneliness epidemic”. What you’ve said and described is much closer to what comes to my mind there, and what concerns me in how we treat each other as a society.
If you asked me for a comment on that term without reading the piece, I’d say something like this: We’re all struggling through a collapse of close community bonds as late stage capitalism grinds them down, along with hugely damaging and intentional polarisation being deliberately caused through propaganda and misinformation. Pretty much everyone is alienated, exhausted, scared, and angry - often with good reason. The suicide figures alone show that something in modern society is especially difficult for men in particular to cope with, and I’d guess that all of those universal issues are perhaps magnified by an expectation to remain stoic and “manly”, as well as a world that (understandably, but unfortunately) treats each of us as an inherent threat to be kept at a distance until proven otherwise.
It seems… odd, I guess, reading this whole piece that’s contextualised the issue through the lens of sex and romantic relationships - and talks about things that broadly make sense to me in that context - but takes the issue of male loneliness to be that alone when it wouldn’t even have made the cut to be included in my thoughts on the topic.
Maybe that’s just another facet of the deeper problem: we don’t even share an understanding of what terms mean, because they’re misunderstood and misused and actively weaponised until they overtly mean one thing, imply another, and act as a dog whistle for a third. How are we supposed to approach a conversation about loneliness when some people are using the word genuinely, others are using it as code to mean “sexual rejection”, and everyone’s talking past each other assuming that everyone understands it in the same way they do?
Interesting about your guy friends needing to be reached out to first, and that you're always the one to do it. That's a tough arrangement for friendships, one that I've found transgresses the...
Interesting about your guy friends needing to be reached out to first, and that you're always the one to do it.
That's a tough arrangement for friendships, one that I've found transgresses the sexes. Some people are prime movers with initiative and some aren't.
As another guy who's historically made the effort, I found it crushing that some of the people with whom I shared years of friendship or forged intimate bonds with had stopped reciprocating our friendship or never did it in the first place. In my late 20s, I found a lot of value in letting friends know -- whether directly or indirectly -- that I expect friends to share the burden of effort. It's a protective tactic but also a realistic one that helps me to determine who to invest in.
Loneliness is a tough nut to crack, but if I'm to empathize with what you've said out loud, it's that I hope you have an understanding of your intrinsic value. If you're not being recognized by current friends in a way that's satisfying, it's worth seeking out those who do.
True. I have a few people that I am genuinely good friends with that I’ve known for decades but we only hang out when I plan stuff. It isn’t unique to me, it’s just that they never take the...
That's a tough arrangement for friendships, one that I've found transgresses the sexes. Some people are prime movers with initiative and some aren't.
True. I have a few people that I am genuinely good friends with that I’ve known for decades but we only hang out when I plan stuff. It isn’t unique to me, it’s just that they never take the initiative with anyone.
Ah, well that's reassuring in a way. I'm curious, how do you frame those friendships in terms of their contributions to your life? Are they legacy relationships where the history between you is...
Ah, well that's reassuring in a way.
I'm curious, how do you frame those friendships in terms of their contributions to your life? Are they legacy relationships where the history between you is what's motivating you to keep reaching out?
I don't know if there's an analog here, but I'm reminded of a group of friends I once had where, after growing out of the activities/circumstances to brought us together, we still continued to see each other.
It was the sort of connection built on the food times, and it wasn't until I moved that it became clear that it wasn't serving either of us.
Is there a chance that you as a person would benefit from branching out a little?
I think that’s actually a really good, succinct summary of the article. The whole point is that we need embrace feminism to stop men from doing those things or reacting by turning inward. The idea...
What I want to say is that both men and women have internalized expectations about how men should behave. When men don’t meet those expectations, they get ostracized. One of those expectations is that you’re never supposed to talk about how hard it is for you to connect with people. Society also needs to think about how little room it gives men to express themselves, but nobody seems willing to have that conversation. It's easier to just blame them for struggling and let them fall behind.
I think that’s actually a really good, succinct summary of the article. The whole point is that we need embrace feminism to stop men from doing those things or reacting by turning inward. The idea is that if men embraced the idea of casting off patriarchal shackles from both women and themselves, then men could have those access to those spaces where they could feel safe and express themselves. But the article posits that it’s up to men to do that.
I think this article falls immediately into a series of neoliberal fallacies. Specifically, it misunderstands the patriarchy in purely social, not economic terms, in addition to not reflecting on...
I think this article falls immediately into a series of neoliberal fallacies. Specifically, it misunderstands the patriarchy in purely social, not economic terms, in addition to not reflecting on broader societal trends as a whole, and assuming an 'end of history' viewpoint. To that extent, its another worthless think piece that provides a dangerous and self congratulatory misunderstanding of a deep-rooted issue.
On a surface level, I fundamentally agree that adhering to a dogma of egalitarian and feminist philosophies is absolutely something that betters the lives and outcomes of men. However, given the economic environment that the modern person lives in, it's just not realistic to assume that these ideas will magically make everything better.
In my experience, the issue of male loneliness is rooted in the shifting social and economic roles for men, in addition to broad spectrum economic and social shifts.
Economically, real wages have been down for decades. Courtship (and making new friends) requires at least some form disposable income and time commitment. With less disposable income and time, people can't afford to forge new relationships.
Third Spaces are also in shorter supply. Between the Pandemic, and the 2007 recession, there are just fewer cheap places that young adults can exist in. Where are people supposed to meet people?
Online spaces are increasingly dominated by influencers and bots, making it harder for people to meet online.
Shifts in social dynamics, especially post Me-To lead people to avoid intimate relationships with people they work with. Previously, work and school was a common place people met their partners at. Between jobs being harder to get, people working from home, and an overzealous commitment to "safe working environment" has decreased people's accessibility for meeting other people in employment and school.
In this environment of drought, grifters and snake oil salesmen have built an entire industry on isolated men. The Manosphere is essentially a large scale grift engine built to farm off the desperation of men who have been economically and socially left behind in the digital revolution. They are sold a lie about Feminism ruining western culture, in order to get them to buy supplements and vote for right candidates.
Feminism by itself will not solve the problems of our day and age, because it simply isn't designed to. Feminism is designed to facilitate a more egalitarian world where men and women are treated equally. This is a wonderful thing, but fundamentally it can leave men and women to 'equally' suffer under hardship. The patriarchy is a tool of capital, and this article cannot be bothered to address that.
Additionally, this article is inherently problematic by assuming a sweeping, uninformed, universalist revision of gender dynamics. The article's feminist understanding casts women as victims pre-20th century feminism. This is entirely an uninformed position, for a variety of reasons. Culturally, and historically, there have been a wide array of gender dynamics, with Victorian gender dynamics being assumed to have been a cultural default. (i.e. the patriarchal structure 20th century feminism railed against.)
Most disturbingly, "Fix your Heart or Die" is uncomfortably on the nose when dealing with the uncomfortable pivot towards fascism in the United States. As Umberto Eco observes in Ur-Fascism, a cult of death is inherently part of a Fascist's belief structure. We seem to be getting to the point where people are queuing up to die for 'traditional values.'
The Manosphere has already made their decision: "Harden your heart and die." If we want to win hearts and minds, we'll have to try better than this.
Agreed that it's incomplete, you need feminism AND everything else. But I don't think this subset of men will acknowledge who is actually keeping them down until they realize and accept that women...
Agreed that it's incomplete, you need feminism AND everything else. But I don't think this subset of men will acknowledge who is actually keeping them down until they realize and accept that women aren't. Similarly I don't think many white folks will realize who the "problem" is in their communities until they stop leaning on the cheap and easy racism and xenophobia as the answer. We see what happens in MN when the populace refuses to deny their neighbors' personhood and buy into bullshit. Once you shove it aside you're willing to stand up against the system.
And I think it's possible that once you shove the misogyny aside you can be willing to see the billionaires holding you down (many of whom were actively collaborating of messaging strategies to counter the MeToo movement in the Epstein files, for example) and take a stand against the bigger system.
But maybe I'm wrong. If I am I think it just confirms though that there's probably not a way for people like me to convey the message.
I don't feel like you're acknowledging my point. My point is, there is a specific subset of men who have already embraced American Fascism, and articles like this are arguing as if that isn't the...
I don't feel like you're acknowledging my point. My point is, there is a specific subset of men who have already embraced American Fascism, and articles like this are arguing as if that isn't the case.
Specifically, to me, this feels like an article for 2016, or 2023 at the latest. We're so far beyond the issue of male loneliness in our society, and pieces like this do not reflect the current reality we live in. Personally, I'd say we have transcended from an epidemic of male loneliness, to a situation where white nationalists are recruiting white men, and liberal institutions are struggling to meet the needs of anyone.
That is my issue with the piece, that it isn't ready to address and rectify the issue of Men's Loneliness with the myriad of issues surrounding it. Specifically, that Men's Loneliness is an exploitable commodity to grifters and right wing agitators.
We see what happens in MN when the populace refuses to deny their neighbors' personhood and buy into bullshit.
On a personal level, I live in Minnesota. I think that protests here aren't quite relevant to this discussion. While we absolutely are standing up to protect our neighbor's rights, there is a significant and nuanced history behind it. As a Minnesotan, there's a lot to be said about how the anti-ICE protests here can be seen as a continuation of / successor to the George Floyd Protests, or how there's a long history of leftist activism AND racism in the Twin Cities that continues to be reckoned with. Regardless of that, please slow your roll with assuming that Minneapolis was some sort of victory. Getting ICE to "draw down" was a lengthy and costly victory at best. Our current understanding is that ICE has begun targeting rural and suburban communities away from the Metro area. That's not even getting into the psychological and economic wounds that was left in my community.
Don't get me wrong, I am extraordinarily proud of people here for resisting, but it was not easy. Ultimately, we resisted because it was the right thing to do, regardless of the gender politics of the 21st century. While I would be tickled pink to find that Minnesota's model of gender politics is so egalitarian that it uniquely allowed us to resist, I think that is an extraordinary claim that is beyond the scope of this conversation.
I also agree that Racism and Xenophobia are an immediate and omnipresent component of Sexism. However, there is an unfortunate truth that Xenophobia and Racism can just as freely exist in Feminist spaces. I really, truly cannot empathize enough that the issue of Men's loneliness cannot solely be fixed via having them embrace Feminism.
But maybe I'm wrong. If I am I think it just confirms though that there's probably not a way for people like me to convey the message.
I think you are correct. Not everyone is the best messenger for every issue or perspective. The unfortunate answer is that Male Loneliness is a Complicated, Economic, and Social Problem that stems from a century of poor public policy and messaging. I appreciate you considering your role and perspective in the messaging, and I'd encourage you to not be disheartened.
I want to clarify, I'm not ignoring that there's a group of folks who have embraced fascism, that's a fact. I don't think this article is addressing that subset. But also while I'm aware of how...
I want to clarify, I'm not ignoring that there's a group of folks who have embraced fascism, that's a fact. I don't think this article is addressing that subset. But also while I'm aware of how much more complex the dynamics of MN's situation are my point wasn't that the gender politics are amazing, it was that the folks standing up there decided not to buy into the xenophobia/racism being sold and in doing so faced down the system. I'm not claiming a victory, I don't think I said that? I'm respecting the labor and the sacrifice. It was work. It is work still.
I'm not pretending that Minnesota has expunged racism, just that while this isn't a destruction of the entire system, systems often get challenged when people start to examine and reject one corrupt piece of it. I think you mistook the comparison I was making.
Embracing feminism won't free everyone from everything, it's a step on the path to liberation. But I think it would genuinely help for these men not to isolate themselves from over half the population for being "gay"/femme/womanly/weak/beta/whatever.
As for why this now? The MLE is being talked about a lot, even if it feels old news to you. It's not just being sold by the right either even if the narrative ultimately serves them. If the pipeline can be interrupted at those initial phases and redirecting young men away from the far right bottom of the slide that is probably worth doing. It won't solve everything, no. Nothing solves everything. Not even freedom from capitalism.
So, my point was just that taking steps toward liberation is valuable using the work of those in MN as an example of a different 1st step.
I didn't address all your points because I don't really have the energy to get in deep on all of it, nor do I have all the answers. Was just explaining how I see it. I do understand your points.
Articles like these just make me so existentially tired. I don't disagree that the very specific group, loud misogynists online, they are talking about sucks and are terrible. I completely agree!...
Do the work. Be a man.
Articles like these just make me so existentially tired. I don't disagree that the very specific group, loud misogynists online, they are talking about sucks and are terrible. I completely agree! But none of those people are reading their article, and I am pretty sure they know that. And even if they did read it, I can't imagine it would change their mind, or more importantly, that the author believes it would change their mind. Its written by a liberal feminist for other liberal feminists. That's not an intrinsic problem for me, but then textually its explictly written as if the audience is those loud misogynists. I find it baffling.
The thing that pisses me off is that it continues the dumb, sexist canard that people are lonely because their bad people. I very much disagree, partly because I've always been a loner but also because I think its gross and wrong. I'm lonely because I had a childhood that taught me people are untrustworthy and will constantly lie about how good they are in the relationship. I've never been in a romantic relationship because I sincerely believed I was fundamentally undesirable for most of my life and now I feel its too late to start. Neither of those things have anything to do with a desire to dominate women or having that desire but being robbed of the opportunity to fufill it.
The actual path to liberation for lonely men is feminism.
Do they really believe that there aren't lonely feminists? Like what? I don't know if the author knows this, but conservatives are capable of making friends and dating each other. Most lonely people are lonely for mundane reasons, not their political beliefs. They're lonely because they have crippling social anxiety or have no free time to meet new people. Or they had bad experiences in the past and nopped out. Or they don't know where to meet people that are actually like them. They also acknowledge many women are lonely, but is feminism and "Be a man" also the solution for them? If not, why is loneliness a real problem for women and not men?
I didn't read the article yet, but I interpret the quoted statement as follows: feminism is an antidote to the patriarchal mindset that many (all) of us were indoctrinated into. One facet of it...
The actual path to liberation for lonely men is feminism.
Do they really believe that there aren't lonely feminists? Like what?
I didn't read the article yet, but I interpret the quoted statement as follows: feminism is an antidote to the patriarchal mindset that many (all) of us were indoctrinated into. One facet of it has to do with the idea of ownership: parents sometimes behave as if their children are commodities they own (even when they don't consciously hold such beliefs), and men sometimes behave as if their spouse is similarly owned by them. With this comes the idea that men who have these possessions are more admirable and more highly respected than those who do not.
The agony of incels can be seen as deriving from the above mindset, perhaps not entirely, but to a significant degree. (Similarly, some women experience anxiety due to not having reproduced even if they don't even really want kids.)
Feminism teaches us that these ideas are ultimately there to control us, not liberate us, and that we can reject them if they don't serve us. The solution to this type of loneliness isn't finding a partner but realising you can be happy and a good person even when you're single.
I dont think I would ever be able to earnestly engage with feminism, to be honest. The writer is not hostile, per se, but I sense a general feeling of exasperation and resentment at the...
I dont think I would ever be able to earnestly engage with feminism, to be honest.
The writer is not hostile, per se, but I sense a general feeling of exasperation and resentment at the expectation of sympathizing or empathizing with men at all. When they talk about the "male loneliness epidemic" thing its framed exclusively as a men not being able to get girlfriends thing. But from what Ive seen online this buzzword describes more of a broader social disconnection which is occuring that includes regular nonsexual friendships. However, because wanting a friend doesnt come off as entitled as wanting to own a woman, its not really relevant here. Only the aspects which you ought to feel ashamed of yourself for are worth discussing.
I would also add that the characterization of what "men" are supposed to be like seems to be exclusively derived from alpha male podcasts that dont reflect average male sentiment very well, so it sounds like a strawman based on youtube personalities that are playing an exaggerated character role and therefore these conversations dont actually apply to me so much as an abstraction of male sexism that Im supposed to assume responsibility for.
I feel it would be very difficult for me to ever openly explore my thoughts and motivations, or expose amy vulnerabilities that might be underlying my thought processes, because I just would not be able to trust the dialogue as a safe place to engage with those things. I would fear that doing so would only open me up to being manipulated by people who seek to weaponize shame and guilt as a means of controlling others. I would feel compelled to bury my feelings and just pretend to engage, so as to not risk voicing an actual opinion that might not be received well.
But then again, Im not particularly bothered by the "male loneliness epidemic" so if I never get liberated I guess it doesnt matter.
Have you considered that perhaps the problems you are having with feminism is the places you have these conversations in? Many places on the web have been poisoned by manosphere types, and I can...
Have you considered that perhaps the problems you are having with feminism is the places you have these conversations in? Many places on the web have been poisoned by manosphere types, and I can understand if you feel that you don't want to talk about some of your thoughts here for the pushback you could get.
My suggestion is to simply read some books by feminist authors. There are pretty much no major misandrist voices in modern feminism and by most accounts feminists want to help men to live happier, healthier lives.
I have thought about that. Ive thought about the fact that most of my apprehension towards activism of all types is due to the fact that I mostly see it online, and people online are often way...
I have thought about that. Ive thought about the fact that most of my apprehension towards activism of all types is due to the fact that I mostly see it online, and people online are often way shittier than they would be in real life, especially if they can tell themselves they are being shitty in service of a greater good.
But its much more precarious a situation to dip my toes into conversations with real people. Online I can and often do write out all my thoughts and post them, and then quickly realize I dont want to be involved so I delete my comment and move on. Its much harder to cut and run if I risk having a real life conversation and it goes bad.
As for reading books, I dont think I have the patience for that. Just reading this one article took me a good while because I kept getting sidetracked with all my thoughts and objections and frustrations. It was a real slog to get through, I dont think Im up for hundreds of pages of that.
I have no recommendations about the subject at hand other than to say to try audiobooks at as fast as speed as you can handle. I finally finished Moby Dick last year after trying to read it 3...
I have no recommendations about the subject at hand other than to say to try audiobooks at as fast as speed as you can handle. I finally finished Moby Dick last year after trying to read it 3 times and giving up really early on. 2x speed usually works to stop me from mental wandering much, though I have to slow it down a bit depending on the reader's accent. If you're in the US with a decent library system nearby, Libby and Hoopla tend to have quite a bit you can check out for free.
I would say the alternative to books is to read articles about feminism, but frankly that's a field too broad to put into a single article. Instead, maybe consider looking up more modern feminist...
I would say the alternative to books is to read articles about feminism, but frankly that's a field too broad to put into a single article. Instead, maybe consider looking up more modern feminist frameworks such as the ethics of care and intersectionality.
Those links are to wikipedia, but of course wikipedia articles aren't meant to be persuasive, so I'd encourage you to find other articles about them.
While I do agree with the way of life this essay argues for, it really rubbed me the wrong way. The broad strokes of this are true for a very particular period of time (post-Industrial Revolution...
While I do agree with the way of life this essay argues for, it really rubbed me the wrong way.
To simplify greatly for the sake of relative brevity, it breaks down like this. For long centuries, women were deemed property—owned by a man, given to another man for his use—mostly sexual use, but also for free labor. This created a need to guard very strictly the definition of femininity as property of man, and masculinity as owner of female, and, also and crucially, as not female. Or, to simplify further, it cast masculinity as essentially dominating and femininity as essentially dominated. It also created an expectation that every man was owed at least one female, and that if a man wanted a female, that desire meant that the female at least owed some part of herself to him, unless she had already been claimed by some other man's desire.
The broad strokes of this are true for a very particular period of time (post-Industrial Revolution through to roughly the latter half of the 1900s in Western cultures, so about 150 years), but to claim this is true for long centuries beyond that is incorrect. I'll be speaking from a Western pre-modern farmer perspective in the following paragraph, using ACOUP's excellent series on peasant family labor, especially the sections on marriage, legality, and patriarchy, childbearing, and women's labor.
For long centuries, women were deemed property—owned by a man, given to another man for his use—mostly sexual use, but also for free labor.
When it comes to sex, there's an important consideration of the economic reality of households. Women (and men) couldn't afford to have not have children, because additional labor was required to sustain the household. Yes, I'm certain countless sexual abuses did happen. However, the phrase "mostly sexual use" implies to me that the author is thinking about marriage primarily in terms of male pleasure, whereas I strongly suspect the medieval male peasant was primarily thinking about continuing to make ends meet because his cousins are dying at the (ripe old) age of 45 and just to maintain population levels takes ~10 pregnancies given mortality rates. Sex was just as much about subsistence farming survival as much as it was about male pleasure, likely much more so.
So women were not mostly for sexual use -- they worked vastly more hours than the men and were a vitally important part of the labor of the household! Without women's labor, the household would not have been able to meet its needs year-over-year. Furthermore, phrasing it as "free labor" (as in, free labor for the man of the house) is pushing a very modern and individualistic way of thinking onto past societies that would not have thought in such terms. Women's labor is not free labor for the man, it is necessary labor for the household.
Or, to simplify further, it cast masculinity as essentially dominating and femininity as essentially dominated.
To drive the collectivist nature of this society home, men were also owned by men. Patriarchy, after all, means rule by fathers. The hypothetical man the author is talking about would have been put to work at the age of ~5 (as would the woman) at the behest of his father to help make ends meet. He would have exactly as much choice in who he would marry as his wife would - that is to say, next to none. He would remain in the household and under the power of (and in some cultures, legal ownership of) his father until his father died. Only then would he be "free", but he would still be beholden to community leaders and other social betters. He would be expected to produce ~4-5 kids just to make ends meet, regardless of how he felt, regardless of how many died in childbirth. This is not an environment for individualism to thrive. This man would not feel like he was dominating, or indeed that he had any real say in the broad strokes of his life.
I harp on this paragraph so much, even though the author says he has simplified greatly, because it nonetheless strongly feels like he's taken these simplifications and ran with them for the rest of the article. Marriage was not a power fantasy.
It feels like he's taken this caricature of the past, imagining a history of a sexual power fantasy by husbands, and argued venomously against it (as he should, if it were real!). It leads to a similar dissonance in his critique of modern men, arguing venomously against the Andrew Tates and the right-wing manosphere (again, as he should!), while ignoring the large section of men who commit to feminism as he defines it but are nonetheless lonely. Those are the people who are most important for him to reach, but this article will do nothing for them.
The interesting thing about this is that in parts of the US that are less distantly removed from farm life (e.g. the parents of gen X/millenials participated in it), traces of these expectations...
To drive the collectivist nature of this society home, men were also owned by men. Patriarchy, after all, means rule by fathers. The hypothetical man the author is talking about would have been put to work at the age of ~5 (as would the woman) at the behest of his father to help make ends meet. He would have exactly as much choice in who he would marry as his wife would - that is to say, next to none. He would remain in the household and under the power (and in some cultures, legal ownership of) of his father until his father died. Only then would he be "free", but he would still be beholden to community leaders and other social betters. He would be expected to produce ~4-5 kids just to make ends meet, regardless of how he felt, regardless of how many died in childbirth. This is not an environment for individualism to thrive. This man would not feel like he was dominating, or indeed that he had any real say in the broad strokes of his life.
The interesting thing about this is that in parts of the US that are less distantly removed from farm life (e.g. the parents of gen X/millenials participated in it), traces of these expectations remain. In my hometown, around the time of my early 20s (early 2010s) it was still part of the expected norm to be married with 1.5 kids by 22-24 or so and if men didn't conform to that they'd begin to be subject to people questioning if they were gay or if something else was "wrong" (their perspective, not mine) with them.
Indeed! A pre-modern-like farming society is not too distant a past for a large chunk of the middle US. My grandmother was born on a Texas farm and had (at least) 9 children. Though she moved to...
Indeed! A pre-modern-like farming society is not too distant a past for a large chunk of the middle US.
My grandmother was born on a Texas farm and had (at least) 9 children. Though she moved to the city when she got married, she still carried expectations that her children would contribute, either through working in the family restaurant or getting an outside job and giving the money back to the household. My mother - the oldest daughter - dropped out of high school in the late 1980s to help raise yet more kids and get a job to help pay the bills.
(Funnily enough for this thread, my grandmother was the undisputed master of the house and all economic proceeds went to her. It helps that Mexican culture is significantly more matriarchal... plus she split the male power base three-ways with three husbands!)
I don't think you're wrong to point out that men also were subject to a lot of legal and social forces that severely constrained their options, but this comment feels like it's equating them with...
He would remain in the household and under the power of (and in some cultures, legal ownership of) his father until his father died. Only then would he be "free", but he would still be beholden to community leaders and other social betters. He would be expected to produce ~4-5 kids just to make ends meet, regardless of how he felt, regardless of how many died in childbirth.
I don't think you're wrong to point out that men also were subject to a lot of legal and social forces that severely constrained their options, but this comment feels like it's equating them with those of women, and that feels kinda awful and dismissive to me. The relationship between a husband and wife was not remotely legally or socially equal. Women were also beholden to community leaders and social betters but were also the property (often literally) of their husbands. When divorce existed it often was something that could be deployed against women by men and not vice-versa. Women usually had no legal ownership over any familial assets or ability to acquire their own wealth. There's a reason "widows and orphans" have been the stereotypical example of the poor and destitute who need charity for ages. Moreover, surely you can see that the burden of producing 4-5 children and the risks of childbirth fall extremely disproportionately on the women, right? Even if you ignore the uneven distribution of unpaid labor associated with child rearing after these babies are born, surely you must acknowledge that the labor and risk of child-bearing falls almost entirely on the woman. To say a man "would be expected to produce 4-5 kids" is all well and good but I think it's pretty unfair to obscure the difference in what "produce kids" entails for men vs women.
Muslim and Roman women could initiate divorce and maintain their property. At least in South Carolina, white women were the buyer and/or seller in 40% of slave sales. In late medieval and early...
Muslim and Roman women could initiate divorce and maintain their property. At least in South Carolina, white women were the buyer and/or seller in 40% of slave sales. In late medieval and early modern England, young peasant women could move to the cities alone to make money to increase the dowry she brought to the marriage. Widows in medieval Europe were able to run the businesses of their dead spouses, and in some areas, were included in worker's guilds. In late medieval Spain, widows directly owned their dowry and husbands were often required to pay into the dowry; women usually married men that were 10-15 years older, so being a widow was quite common. Arranged marriages varied a lot in the particulars, but usually involved the mothers as much or more as the fathers. Spinster means a never married women who historically lived off selling the thread and fabric she made; its meant that since the 1500s. The reason that names like Smith and Miller are common is because jobs were usually patrilinearly inherited; women, whether through marriage or birth, would often been involved with the household business. In England and Japan, literacy moved from the upper-class through middle-class women to the rest of society.
My point isn't that women had it great, they definetely didn't, but that it varied a lot in time and place. And broad stroke claims about women's role and treatment in society only further muddies the real issue, gender discrimination in societies today. There is and was no universal standard for women's role in any one society at any one point in time.
Women's treatment and rights absolutely have varied across time and place, and I think there's ultimately a solid understanding of class that needs to be taken into account, as comparisons that...
Women's treatment and rights absolutely have varied across time and place, and I think there's ultimately a solid understanding of class that needs to be taken into account, as comparisons that ignore class end up being very apples and oranges. But I think emphasizing the circumstances in which women did have limited agency historically while downplaying the ways in which they did legitimately have significantly diminished rights compared to men is an unfair way to frame things. I don't think it's wrong necessarily to point out that men were (and are) also subject to social forces that served to subjugate them, but since women were subject to those same forces and additional limitations due to the sexism entrenched in society, and I don't think it makes a stronger case for men to diminish the very real inequalities that have existed historically throughout most societies (although the details do vary enough that it's difficult to generalize on most of the specifics).
I don't think discussion of the long history of women's oppression muddles the issue of modern gender discrimination, as they are fundamentally related, but in any case the comment I responded to was about historical treatment rather than just modern gender discrimination, and that's what I was thus responding to. And an issue I took with the comment I responded to above (which isn't really the case with this comment now) was that it seemed to attempt to equate the ways in which men were subject to similar societal pressures to those of women, even in cases like childbirth where the labor and risk have universally fallen on the one actually bearing the children.
Also, this is more of a nitpick, but your discussion of literacy in Japanese society is misleadingly worded. I only bring this up because I'm very familiar with it from a seminar I took on the topic in college. A lot of the foundational works of literature written in Japanese are indeed written by women, but this is because in Japanese society at the time educated men wrote exclusively in literary Chinese. Women were not allowed to learn to do this (although we have evidence of particular educated women who did so on the down-low), and writing in the Japanese language was considered lesser at the time. While the early literary works in Japanese by women are considered hugely important now and did have a huge influence on the development of Japanese writing and literature thereafter, I don't think it serves as a good example of circumstances when women were particularly free societally, as even the high-class women who had the time and education to learn to write at all in Japanese society only ended up producing works of literature in the Japanese language because they were not equal to men and were prevented from participating in most of the contemporary literary scene because of their gender alone.
I'd say my point, which I should have clear about, is that often feminists say women had it worse then men while never actually comparing a woman to an equivalent man in any one culture. At most a...
I'd say my point, which I should have clear about, is that often feminists say women had it worse then men while never actually comparing a woman to an equivalent man in any one culture.
At most a real negative thing about the female gender role will be stated and nothing said about the male role.
For example, childbirth will be brought up as a dangerous thing that only effects women, which is true.
But the natural male counterpart is soldiering.
Its just about as gendered as childbirth and its far more lethal then childbirth, which balances out its reduced occurrence.
Men also have just as much choice in being soldier as women do in being a mother, often less.
Soldiers were usually either conscripted or explicitly raised to be a warrior since they were 5.
Again I agree women have and had many terrible norms forced onto them, but that says nothing about the male role.
Men don't need to have it good for women to have it bad.
Yes, women had strict gender roles, but so did men.
Was the gender role forced onto women worse then the role forced onto men?
I think that's a very complicated question that is deeply subjective.
It depends on the particulars of the society and the particulars of each person.
I don't consider someone who sincerely enjoys their gender role oppressed, but I understand that some will disagree with me.
An uncritical statement that its better to be a man then a woman always feels patriarchal to me.
My knowledge of gender in Japanese literature was only in relation to a similarity in North-Western Europe, so you have me beat there.
I definitely think that other factors like class could, depending on the specifics, absolutely overcome gendered differences in terms of their impact upon individuals. A rich, high-class woman...
Exemplary
I definitely think that other factors like class could, depending on the specifics, absolutely overcome gendered differences in terms of their impact upon individuals. A rich, high-class woman almost certainly had a much better life than an impoverished man in, like, most societies. But I think attempts to compare women to men "within the same culture" are disingenuous if they focus on comparing high-class, rich women to low-class, impoverished men, as they're pretty deliberately putting a hand on the scales there. The comparison absolutely looks much different when you control for class and compare men and women of similar economic and social rank, as well as looking at ways in which women generally were limited in their social and economic mobility compared to men (though the specifics vary a lot by location and time period, there are vanishingly few examples where there were no such gendered limitations). You can argue that class was more important than gender in terms of its influence on one's life, sure, but I don't think whether it was or not has much to say about how to combat the gendered oppression we know exists.
Moreover, I don't think trying to "rank" it like this is necessarily helpful in terms of addressing either type of oppression, and I think that's especially true when we do try to apply it to modern-day discrimination, as this also holds true when considering other factors like race, sexuality, etc. Ultimately this leads to counterproductive arguments that don't actually address any of the types of oppression involved. Addressing different types of oppression separately but also discussing how they combine and influence each other is a core part of modern intersectional feminism, and I would caution you to avoid assuming feminists are all painting with this broad "all women are always worse than all men" brush as being descriptive of "feminism" as a whole. Pop feminism may lean that way, and I won't say there aren't fringe groups with radical ideologies that do think that way, but actually engaging with the work of modern feminist authors would by and large give you a much more nuanced picture of feminist thought, I think.
I think it's possible to acknowledge the societal structures that oppress men, even those that uniquely oppress men, and seek solutions without framing it as a "men have it just as bad as women" because that comes across as very dismissive of the struggles that are genuinely unique to women, and I don't think that it even helps us when it comes to actually focusing on men's issues (or issues that affect people of any gender and thus necessarily also affect men, which is where I would categorize class-based oppression). I also think a big problem with a lot of the "discourse" surrounding things like the male loneliness epidemic, even when it's interpreted more charitably than the author of this article did, is that it pits men's problems against women in a way that implies women need to give up rights/freedoms or put in particular types of labor for men's problems to be solved, and I simply don't believe that any of those problems are actually even effectively solved that way.
I actually wonder if you're correct that combat is more deadly than childbirth. I'd be interested in reliable sources, which I had trouble finding for this (and record-keeping plus the struggle to make any stats directly comparable would make it very difficult to directly compare them in the time periods we seem to be discussing anyway), but I think you're very much underestimating the risk of maternal mortality in childbirth without the access to modern medical equipment if you think it's clear-cut that combat is much more deadly for men than childbirth is for women. Setting aside the inability to find hard stats, the two were often rhetorically directly compared historically, even by figures who I wouldn't really describe as particularly feminist. But my desire here isn't to diminish how bad war is or anything. The absolute comparison is kinda orthogonal to my point, because my main issue with the initial comment's discussion of childbirth wasn't that the comment discussed men's issues in general, but that it attempted to emphasize the struggles and obligations men have when it comes to producing children without remotely acknowledging how much that particular issue disproportionately affected and still affects women.
My principle issue with a lot of the rhetoric around men's issues is that so many men who try to have conversations about it are unwilling to concede that women do indeed suffer from real problems and unequal treatment that men do not experience, and while I think the general tone of this conversation has been more nuanced than that, I think the initial comment rubbed me the wrong way because it reminded me of that rhetoric. I think insisting that we just can't tell whether historical gender roles were worse for women or men simply doesn't hold water, and I think citing the exceptional circumstances under which some subset of women had some limited power or relying on axes of oppression other than gender fails to make that point more convincing. I want to talk about men's issues in modern society and historically. I'm transmasc myself, so I wish I could engage with it more, frankly. But I struggle to do so in an environment others discussing such issues can't even acknowledge that gender-based oppression of women was incredibly common historically, much less that it's still common today. Back when I still used reddit I found r/menslib did a good job of discussing these issues in a nuanced, feminist while having moderation that overall did a good job of allowing comments from those participating in good faith while stamping out toxic elements. I don't, frankly, think Tildes is as well-moderated in this respect, but that's at least in part a resources issue, as Deimos is just one guy. But there are definitely topics where some of the upvoted and exemplaried comments would make me hesitant to recommend Tildes to people in my life until they were off the front page.
I feel like we're talking past each other a bit. My original point was against the pop-feminist trope that women have only ever been functionally slaves across history; my point is that a woman,...
I feel like we're talking past each other a bit. My original point was against the pop-feminist trope that women have only ever been functionally slaves across history; my point is that a woman, compared to her male peer has less, but not 0 power in most societies. I'm definitely not saying that women didn't have unique problems or that those problems are insignificant. I would counter that pop-feminists are feminists and pop-feminism is the brand of feminism that has the most formal power in society at large. I do generally agree with and like more "serious" (I can't think of a better word) feminists, but I feel like its bad faith to claim they're the only "real" feminists. I'm fucking terrible with names, but I'm thinking of the woman who coined the concept of "mansplaining" and the woman who wrote about doing a personal privilege audit as being examples of fairly mainstream feminists I agreed with. To be clear, I identify as pro-feminist, mainly because men who talk a lot about being feminists usually aren't particularly feminist in practice. That and I don't personally want to wade into the culture war over which branch of feminism owns the term "feminism".
We probably move in different circles, but I usually see men starting every conversation about men's issue with an explict statement about how they know women and non-binary people have it worse then men. I'm coming from a place were its, rightfully, taken as a given women have bad, real and significant problems and men's issues gets largely ignored and erased. I'll be honest, I don't think I've ever even heard of any progressive group taking men's issues more seriously then women's or non-binary peoples, let alone seen it in real life. I personally feel the need to be more vocal about men's issues because women's and non-binary people's issues have far more significant groups supporting them.
My historical argument is purely from the fact that we have no direct accounts from the lower 90% of pretty much every culture in history, irregardless of their gender. My understanding of your argument is that that you're suggesting that one the elites in the vast majority of cultures are unambigiously patriarchal and that two, once we start having direct accounts from the lower class, they also exhibit at least some patriarchial elements as well. I know I'm extrapolating a far bit from what you wrote, but that's the sense I got. If I am largely correct in my understanding of your point, then I agree with it, I'm simply neurotic about couching every educated guess in asterisks and caveats.
For specific statistics on historical maternal mortality, This article from Cambridge puts the Lifetime maternal mortality risk in 17th century England at 5.6 percent and the article contexualizes that normal Yearly mortality was about the same rate. I'm not certain how much maternal mortality changed between cultures and through time, but my guess would be that it doesn't vary by enormous amounts. I completely agree that its impossible to produce an average risk for generic combat across history, but my source was this Acoup blog post that put it at 10% per battle for ancient Greek hoplites, which is significantly higher then lifetime maternal mortality.
As to the original post, I mostly noticed it because it refrenced a blog I also like a lot and I wasn't reading it for its implications. I completely agree that the risks of childbirth exclusively fall on women. As to other comments here and Tildes in general, I can only say that due to my bad habit of trawling dumpster subreddits my calibration for iffy stuff is set to deranged rants.
I think this is getting at something similar to what I was talking about in my previous comment, albeit from a different direction -- my problem is that I cannot find groups or even discussions...
I'll be honest, I don't think I've ever even heard of any progressive group taking men's issues more seriously then women's or non-binary peoples, let alone seen it in real life. I personally feel the need to be more vocal about men's issues because women's and non-binary people's issues have far more significant groups supporting them.
I think this is getting at something similar to what I was talking about in my previous comment, albeit from a different direction -- my problem is that I cannot find groups or even discussions that are focused on men's issues that aren't dominated by voices that are at best extremely dismissive of feminism and women's issues, if not straight-up regressive. I don't think it's actually the case that men's issues don't have significant groups supporting them, it's just that when you weed out the groups that allow or even foster regressive conservatives and misogynists, there's very little left. Even on sites that lean progressive, like Tildes, you'll often get some pretty blasé misogyny whenever gendered issues come up (nothing as bad as the depths of many subreddits or worse, but bad by comparison with the Tildes status quo). Especially given that I'm trans myself, this leaves me hesitant around men who are vocal about men's issues specifically without doing a lot of the acknowledgement you describe (which I don't think I see much of here in this topic's comments, to be frank) as the bare minimum to signal that they don't think things like that women are oppressing men by not dating them or that women are too picky and more manipulative than men.
And you're definitely overestimating the amount of support there is for non-binary issues specifically. I promise you, there's not actually very much out there for us on a practical level, even online, even in queer/trans-focused spaces. Ultimately you have to settle for hopping between groups for men and groups for women depending on what actually applies for you and how willing they are to accept your presence.
(EDIT: Just wanted to add that, for the record, I've considered our discussion here an enriching conversation, so it's not what I'm talking about when I mention disliking particular types of comments on this topic. I'm not always 100% sure how my tone comes off but I'm not like mad or trying to argue with you fwiw)
Yeah, men's issues groups do tend conservative/anti-feminist, which bums me out. I do feel like progressives have just completely given up the space without attempting to counter it at all. I...
Yeah, men's issues groups do tend conservative/anti-feminist, which bums me out. I do feel like progressives have just completely given up the space without attempting to counter it at all.
I disagree that it should be required to acknowledge that women have very real issues every time someone wants to talk about men's issues. It makes sense in some spaces and conversations, but it can be kinda degrading to make it necessary. Men are allowed to just talk about their problems.
I wouldn't say non-binary issues have a lot of support, but are allowed to be framed as real and significant problems in the wider discourse. That definetely doesn't mean its given the care and support it deserves. My central experience of talking about men's issues to progressives is the response that it simply doesn't exist. The other response is that Patriarchy hurts men too, which I agree is true, but then the conversation ends there. There's no discussion of what that actually means or how to actually help men.
Your tone's fine! I also get unsure how I come across in text, so I feel you.
To be clear, I agree with this in principle. It's less that I don't think men should be allowed to talk about their problems and more that men acknowledging that women's problems exist is...
I disagree that it should be required to acknowledge that women have very real issues every time someone wants to talk about men's issues. It makes sense in some spaces and conversations, but it can be kinda degrading to make it necessary. Men are allowed to just talk about their problems.
To be clear, I agree with this in principle. It's less that I don't think men should be allowed to talk about their problems and more that men acknowledging that women's problems exist is unfortunately necessary in these conversations because so many conversations and spaces about men's issues are so anti-feminist. It's less that I think it's some moral obligation they have and more that I really need a signal that this isn't one of those spaces/conversations before I really want to engage with someone on men's issues, because I don't want to waste my time (or, since whether I'm deemed to "count" as a man varies wildly in such spaces, to be unsafe).
I'd say there's a difference between it being a personal standard and it being a general rule. As a personal standard, it seems perfectly fucking fair to me; you do what keeps you safe. But as a...
I'd say there's a difference between it being a personal standard and it being a general rule. As a personal standard, it seems perfectly fucking fair to me; you do what keeps you safe. But as a general rule, it just sets a much higher standard for discussing men's issues then other groups have. Men have real problems that are unique to them; the way people talk about them doesn't change that. Feminist discourse, whatever your opinion on it is, is given a lot of latitude in talking negatively about men, and in my experience, it often crosses the line into bigotry. I can understand #killallmen isn't meant literally and I can still think its gross. I'd personally prefer that all groups be held to a higher standard of care when talking in public spaces.
I'm also not a fan of the #killallmen style of "feminist" discourse, ftr, and I tend to avoid spaces where women's issues are discussed in that way as well. The difference is mainly that I'm...
I'm also not a fan of the #killallmen style of "feminist" discourse, ftr, and I tend to avoid spaces where women's issues are discussed in that way as well. The difference is mainly that I'm generally able to more safely and easily "dip my toes" in women's spaces to assess whether they're inclusive or not without as many clear signs up front, as I pass better as a butch woman than as a man atm.
Part of me doesn't want to chime in on this topic, as an otherwise inocuous comment I posted about how sky-high dating standards have caused a male loneliness epidemic and made more men turn to...
Part of me doesn't want to chime in on this topic, as an otherwise inocuous comment I posted about how sky-high dating standards have caused a male loneliness epidemic and made more men turn to sycophant AI chatbots earned me a recent permaban from a major subreddit. This is despite me not using misogynistic terminology, not promoting hateful ideology and not resorting to personal insults.
If venting about my bad experiences from over a decade of frequenting online dating sites was enough to draw the ire of Reddit's power user cabal, it kinda shows how polarized and partisan the whole debate has become.
Screw it, I spent way too long typing this out...
The reason young men are lonely—that is (to name the specific problem that is usually indicated whenever male loneliness is mentioned), the reason they are having trouble getting sex partners they want—is that, if you listen to the young men suffering in this way, they still believe that they are owed a female as a possession, and because of feminism, women increasingly do not have to be a possession anymore, so more and more women are opting out of seeking sex and companionship from patriarchal men, and patriarchal men are very upset and enraged (and, increasingly, violent) to learn that they will not be given what they were told they are owed.
This is an incredibly sweeping and damaging generalization of how men think. Men aren't lonely because they feel they are owed women as property. That's a very small, vocal and sadly violent minority that had been drawn down into an incel rabbit hole and radicalized by hateful ideology.
Someone's immediate response to a lonely male virgin who is feeling downtrodden about their sex life (or lack thereof) and the fact that their peers are in healthy relationships and they're forever-alone shouldn't be "women don't owe you sex" - as if the mere desire for romantic and/or sexual intimacy in itself deserves to be chastised.
There's even a pull-quote. “'A huge amount of men between the age of 15 and 50 will not pass on their genes. They will effectively die out of the gene pool...Should society intervene?' Steven Bartlett asked last year.
I had no idea Steven Bartlett got into deep shit for that quote until I looked deeper into the episode. It actually took me some time to find the specific clip because I was looking at the wrong episodes and it turns out that YouTube commenters who have been condemning him for his question are not even remotely helpful and will call anyone who asks them for a timestamp "lazy."
Will admit, not a good look for him, but I kinda see why he raised that question, given how he and Dr K have often discussed the issues of male loneliness, inceldom and male radicalization. I definitely think Steven could have worded this question a whole lot better. Dr K's response was actually really good because he shut down the argument that society should find them partners by bringing up the issue of consent. He flat-out said "my right to reproduce never trumps someone's right to not want to reproduce with me."
The solution that people who use this sort of framing usually land upon is to solve male involuntary celibacy, not by encouraging men to become the sort of person women want to be around, but by making women become sexual property again.
There's a massive difference between wanting to be around someone and wanting to sleep with them. If someone has a lot of women as friends in their life yet none of them will see him as anything beyond that (even those who aren't in relationships of their own), what is it that they need to work on?
Again, the author doesn't answer this, even in the half-dozen paragraphs afterwards promoting feminism as the solution. It's all well and good to state this but I want to understand why.
And that returns me to the daily flotilla of pieces that wash ashore each week, contemplating the male loneliness epidemic, because The Boston Globe tells me that men are opting out of college, and we miss them. Does the Globe suggest that the solution is that men need to get over patriarchy and accept women as equals in academia? It might. Some of these pieces do. Most don't.
I offer a different interpretation, both for why more men are opting out of college and why fewer men are having sexual relationships (27% of men between 18-30 in the US have not had sex. Figures published by the Telegraph suggesting that only 34% of male university students in the UK are sexually active paint an even bleaker picture.)
Men are opting out of college because it's a debt-laden waste of time. A degree won't even guarantee you a stable job in this day and age. This is only going to get worse as AI evolves.
Women are more judgmental, harsh and selective about their sexual partners especially on dating apps, but do not like to admit it. This is a point men often rant about on social media. Okcupid even did research into this based on their own data and found that women rate 80% of their male users as below-average attractiveness (archived because this was published in an era before a corporate acquisition from Match Group enshittified the platform. And it's understandable why they'd want to purge research/trends like this.) What I'm basically saying is that cishet men and women suffer from entirely different problems. Men struggle to get any kind of interaction whereas women are flooded with copious and often unwanted quantities and types of it.
In the post-WW2 era when women had gained equal voting rights and the ability to (permanently) join the workforce, it didn't result in an immediate societal shift. Salaries and costs of living were still very much affordable, meaning that it was still possible to be a stay-at-home parent and have a breadwinner in the family. Wages have largely stagnated over the next few decades whilst living costs have absolutely skyrocketed to unaffordability.
With skyrocketed living costs, the dream of owning your own home has long since vanished, and now more men are living with their parents than ever before. And women don't want to date a momma's boy. Trust me, my best friend is in this predicament too and he's genuinely been unmatched for being honest about his living situation - he lives with his parents because they're elderly and unwell.
If you cannot afford to live in your own place (as a renter or homeowner) on a single salary, then cohabiting is the only solution. And when you're lonely, the only friends you have all have living situations of their own, and no woman wants to date you, you basically end up in this male underclass.
The TL;DR? this incel epidemic is an economic issue as much as it's a social one. Tackling wealth inequality will go a long way.
A woman here. Hi. I have serious beef with this very often repeated statement. It's just all wrong, in all parts, and it's infuriating that when women say so, men refuse to listen. i) Yes, I am...
Exemplary
Women are more judgmental, harsh and selective about their sexual partners especially on dating apps, but do not like to admit it.
A woman here. Hi. I have serious beef with this very often repeated statement. It's just all wrong, in all parts, and it's infuriating that when women say so, men refuse to listen.
i) Yes, I am selective about my dating partners. I'm monogamous and strongly prefer long term relationships, which means I can only get involved with a handful of people in my lifetime! Most guys are not a good fit for a LTR for me so of course I am selective. Because a lot of guys aren't selective at all, or don't care about compatibility the way I do, the entire business of being selective falls on me, which I really dislike, but whatever.
ii) I have zero problem "admitting" that I'm selective.
iii) However, I am NOT selective about looks, income, status and other such things commonly referred to by the incel community. When I say so online, the response is usually that I'm lying. But if you took a look at the people I've actually seriously dated / been in a relationship with, you would see I'm not. I've dated a (non-professional) model but also someone that most people would consider a troll from under the bridge, and I did not love or desire the latter any less.
iv) The above OkCupid "research" is often referred to, but I almost never see it mentioned that despite the ratings women gave, women still sent messages to the majority of men. Men were the ones who acted picky about looks, contacting the highest-rated women a lot more than they did other women.
v) I was actually an OkCupid user at the time when they gathered data for this "research". This was before the era of swiping and the site worked completely differently: you were shown profiles in a feed that you could filter based on your chosen criteria. They put a small box on top of the page that displayed a photo from 3 or 4 different profiles at a time and asked you to indicate if you like each of the people or not (a precursor to swiping, then, and the real reason they were doing this was probably market research about whether swiping should be implemented on the site).
And here's what I'm getting at: users were not being asked to evaluate those people's LOOKS, at all. I don't remember the question specifically but it was something along the lines of "do you like this person" or "would you consider dating this person"? I remember feeling very frustrated because I had to click open each profile to see more info about them than the one photo, but I did so every time before answering. Even if I hadn't done so, there is always a lot more information in a photo than just looks that influences whether or not I like the person. I clicked "no" to most of the profiles shown to me because there was something about them that would make them a poor match for me, but not because I thought they were not attractive! If my memory serves, most were decently attractive guys and I would have said so if they had asked, FFS.
I am absolutely certain that I'm not some freak of nature of a woman for doing this. Even though I am very much outside many norms, this particular thing - considering the personality of your potential dating partner over their looks - is extremely common to the point of being standard behaviour.
It would be lovely if we could stop spreading misinformation about women that paints us double-awful: more superficial than we are, and on top of that, habitually lying about our own preferences.
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Your point regarding cost of living is a good one. Does it disproportionately affect men in your opinion? Is it less of a problem for a guy to date a woman who lives with friends / family? When I was last dating, I did find myself hesitating to date someone who was still living with an ex (due to financial reasons) and I might have felt similarly about someone living with his parents. I believe I could have gotten over it for someone that has a mature, adult relationship with the parents: not letting them cross your boundaries or influence you in a disproportionate way. Unfortunately this isn't all too common even for people who live on their own, so I'd say it's reasonable to be somewhat cautious about it.
I think this is overall a great breakdown of all the ways it doesn't match your lived experience, but some thoughts: "It would be lovely if we could stop spreading misinformation about women that...
I think this is overall a great breakdown of all the ways it doesn't match your lived experience, but some thoughts:
"It would be lovely if we could stop spreading misinformation about women that paints us double-awful: more superficial than we are, and on top of that, habitually lying about our own preferences."
This is pretty funny to me when the majority of the pushback against the OP article is basically the male inverse to this (even if the article arguably doesn't say all men are liars).
I appreciate the breakdown of how the study is incorrect and have no broader, paper or article to counter-point with. I only have my anecdote as someone who was single with a lot of single female friends as dating apps blew up 2012-2020 or so: the women I knew were absolutely getting spoiled for choice on these apps, were being way more selective on the apps than they ever would be in person and admitted it, and also getting just the grossest messages frequently on these apps. So I always framed the apps as getting spoiled for bad choices for women, while men were screaming into a void and never getting a response. Things may have changed more recently, but I wouldn't bet on it given the way other discourse has gone online.
I'm not the guy you're responding to, but yes, I absolutely do think that the cost of living disproportionately affects men's ability to date than women, in ways that clearly are tied to broader patriarchal beliefs. Men are expected to be caretakers and pick up the bill, especially for early dates (not all women believe this, but a large proportion of them still do). Conversely, a lot of women actually struggle in the dating world because they're too successful - insecure men are uncomfortable being with women who earn more than them.
I might go as far to as to say that a man’s ability to support others and by extension, having other(s) to support is a central pillar of masculine identity. This is clearly an outdated vestige of...
Men are expected to be caretakers and pick up the bill, especially for early dates (not all women believe this, but a large proportion of them still do).
I might go as far to as to say that a man’s ability to support others and by extension, having other(s) to support is a central pillar of masculine identity. This is clearly an outdated vestige of patriarchal society, but it doggedly persists and means men without either with no clear path to change that are in crisis — not just because they’re lonely but also due to lack of gender affirmation, unclear identity, and low perceived value, and that’s why this group is dangerous.
I didn't read the article and based on the comments here I'm unsure if I want to. I do agree that sweeping generalisations aren't helpful either way and I've seen more accusations fly in both...
This is pretty funny to me when the majority of the pushback against the OP article is basically the male inverse to this (even if the article arguably doesn't say all men are liars).
I didn't read the article and based on the comments here I'm unsure if I want to. I do agree that sweeping generalisations aren't helpful either way and I've seen more accusations fly in both directions than I'd like. Basically I don't really understand anyone who attempts to date the opposite sex while actively holding and expressing hateful ideas about that same group of people. That said, most of my parents' generation seem to have done exactly that - as if that's just how the world works or something. No wonder so many of their marriages were and are unhappy.
...2012-2020 or so: the women I knew were absolutely getting spoiled for choice on these apps, were being way more selective on the apps than they ever would be in person and admitted it, and also getting just the grossest messages frequently on these apps
For reference, I met my most important long term partner on one of the earliest dating sites in 2002. Since then I've been back a few times. I'm assuming "spoiled for choice" has to do with getting lots of likes? And I don't want to downplay the emotional repercussions of getting / not getting them, but it shouldn't be seen as indication of how easy it is to find a partner, and you seem to be saying the same with the "spoiled for bad choices".
Mathematically speaking, the end goal is equally easy or hard for both sexes to reach when looking at monogamous, heterosexual relationships. That is: every time a heterosexual woman finds a monogamous relationship partner on or off the apps, a heterosexual man finds one too.
My experience remains the same as it's always been: finding a truly compatible person is very hard and rare. That's just how life is. The apps probably expose how hard it is in a new, more tangible way because you can go through so many "options" in a short span of time, most of whom are not really options at all (just users of the same app), but you have to go through them anyway so you get a chance to encounter those rare people who are.
I'm not sure what your friends meant when they said they were being "way more selective on the apps than they'd be in person", but I don't think this is an easy comparison to make accurately. The apps essentially show you everyone in your age bracket who is single and looking (and a user). It's like walking down the street or taking public transit and being able to detect which of the people you see are single and looking. Would your friends really go up to these strangers and start chatting them up a lot more often than they do on the apps? I know I wouldn't. Could it be that they were comparing with a scenario where someone is expressing interest after some sort of initial vibe check, or even after getting to know them a little in a work context, etc.? That sort of comparison is misleading.
I'm not the guy you're responding to, but yes, I absolutely do think that the cost of living disproportionately affects men's ability to date than women, in ways that clearly are tied to broader patriarchal beliefs. Men are expected to be caretakers and pick up the bill, especially for early dates (not all women believe this, but a large proportion of them still do).
This makes sense. Personally I don't care who pays for a date, how much my date earns, or similar things. But I'm also very far removed from the patriarchal ideas that are still prevalent even in liberal, Western societies. I broke up with the love of my life because I didn't want to sacrifice my career, my ability to have time off, my pension, and if worse came to worst, my physical and mental health in order to have our children. He couldn't imagine a future without children. If I try to imagine a version of myself who does want kids, in our current society that we live in, then I would probably expect a man to show generosity, willingness and ability to support me through that ordeal because the risks involved are inherently still so lopsided.
Conversely, a lot of women actually struggle in the dating world because they're too successful - insecure men are uncomfortable being with women who earn more than them.
I've heard about this phenomenon but haven't experienced it myself due to being a (mostly) starving artist. I do have first hand experience on a related, equally annoying hangup, something that usually takes a while to show up unlike the income thing which is usually clear from the start. I'm feeling really lucky that it already came up with the person I'm dating now, even though he is a fairly new acquaintance. He even brought it up himself. He said he can tell I'm smarter than him, but also that he's been in this situation before and it doesn't bother him. A massive relief. :D (And he's socially more perceptive than me so I still get to look up to him too.)
I was a bit worried that I came across as putting you down in my response, so thanks for the kind follow-up. To respond to a few things: I agree with this. I think it probably does expose, in a...
I was a bit worried that I came across as putting you down in my response, so thanks for the kind follow-up. To respond to a few things:
The apps probably expose how hard it is in a new, more tangible way because you can go through so many "options" in a short span of time, most of whom are not really options at all (just users of the same app), but you have to go through them anyway so you get a chance to encounter those rare people who are.
I agree with this. I think it probably does expose, in a different way, just how bad the odds can be. I find this particularly disheartening because I would've thought that because the odds are so bad, apps would be a perfect solution to speed up the process.
I'm not sure what your friends meant when they said they were being "way more selective on the apps than they'd be in person", but I don't think this is an easy comparison to make accurately. The apps essentially show you everyone in your age bracket who is single and looking (and a user). It's like walking down the street or taking public transit and being able to detect which of the people you see are single and looking. Would your friends really go up to these strangers and start chatting them up a lot more often than they do on the apps? I know I wouldn't. Could it be that they comparing with a scenario where someone is expressing interest after some sort of initial vibe check, or even after getting to know them a little in a work context, etc.? That sort of comparison is misleading.
In general, how the apps work is you swipe right on a person you want to talk to. If the other person swipes right on you, you get a match. What they mean is that they were swiping left/no on way more people than they would in real life due to being more picky on the apps: not good looking enough, not the right job, didn't write the catchiest intro sentence, etc. I've sat around with friends as they casually dismissed men on the apps for the most inane things: "ugh, I hate how his bangs are to the left in that pic. Nope. Oh my god this guy has another picture of a fish in his photo, nope. Ugh, another picture with a group of friends first? Nope. Oh my god all he said was "Hi!" in his first message - unmatch."
They explained it to me as a result of the process: they get such an overwhelming amount of potential matches (e.g. almost everyone they swipe right on is a match it feels like to them), they're forced to be more selective. That process of becoming more selective then gets worse as the matches themselves end up crappy - dudes sending dick pics or asking for nudes. In person, they still typically had a pretty open mind when meeting folks at a party, or a friend of a friend. This was attributed to both there being less potential options in person, and also stronger expectations of sanity/quality of humanity in person.
I'm happy to hear that you're seeing someone who addressed a typical inequity quickly for the better! I hope it goes swimmingly for you two :).
For me, they have done exactly that. I probably wouldn't have met any of the most important people in my life if it weren't for online dating (some are still actively in my life even after we've...
I agree with this. I think it probably does expose, in a different way, just how bad the odds can be. I find this particularly disheartening because I would've thought that because the odds are so bad, apps would be a perfect solution to speed up the process.
For me, they have done exactly that. I probably wouldn't have met any of the most important people in my life if it weren't for online dating (some are still actively in my life even after we've broken up romantically or just never ended up dating even though we met on the apps). I'd say my dating went from "impossible" to "just really hard". And the way I'm framing it for myself isn't actually that it's "hard" - it's just something that takes very high effort and yields results very rarely. But really good results, which makes it worth the effort.
They explained it to me as a result of the process: they get such an overwhelming amount of potential matches (e.g. almost everyone they swipe right on is a match it feels like to them), they're forced to be more selective. That process of becoming more selective then gets worse as the matches themselves end up crappy - dudes sending dick pics or asking for nudes. In person, they still typically had a pretty open mind when meeting folks at a party, or a friend of a friend. This was attributed to both there being less potential options in person, and also stronger expectations of sanity/quality of humanity in person.
Thanks for elaborating. Yeah so they are more open IRL because i) the people they meet are likely already inside their bubble one way or another - not just complete randos off the street, ii) expressing interest (sending a like) leads to a different level of commitment on the app than just responding to someone who chats you up at a friend's party. These are sane responses to the online environment IMO. Becoming picky about the wrong things is of course less productive, such as the direction of someone's bangs (FFS) or not being good looking enough.
Some things that may seem meaningless are actually not, and you learn this when you spend enough time browsing profiles and talking to their owners.
I hesitate to get very specific lest I offend people, but I'll mention one that was important to me. I always have the highest-effort profile I can possibly achieve and every time I send someone an opening message, it's similarly high effort. If I get a low effort opener such as "Hi" or "Nice lips" or "Can we talk?", the only time I will consider responding is if their profile is an exceptionally descriptive and creative showcase of a person whom I feel very excited about. But it never is. It's always medium effort at best.
When I have already given a lot of material to start a conversation and they have given less, and their opener is essentially saying "I can't be bothered to come up with anything to talk about, can you do it please", that's enough to know I'm not dealing with one of the rare highly compatible people I'm looking for. Those people have high effort profiles like myself and when they match with me, they have no problem disclosing why they would like to talk to me.
I was a bit worried that I came across as putting you down in my response
Your extremely constructive tone is a pleasure to engage with and you have a long way to go if you wanted to stoop to put-downs.
I think you've done a lot more to explain the female perspective of online dating than this article ever could. Not being able to convey personality or just not having a relatable set of...
I think you've done a lot more to explain the female perspective of online dating than this article ever could. Not being able to convey personality or just not having a relatable set of hobbies/interests in general could be the core issue. The kind of people who go down these rabbit-holes are generally the terminally online types and I don't think "play 8 hours of WoW a day" or "spend evenings shitposting on 4chan, Twitter, Reddit, etc" is really going to draw many people to a man.
Also I think that point applies both ways. I've tried the whole "taking an interest" and "writing thoughtful intros" thing but when 98% or more of the profiles I see on my online dating feeds have no profile description, no bio and basically nothing filled out, there isn't a lot to go on and that gets a bit frustrating. Even pics rarely give me much to strike a conversation on, and it's usually going to be if there's a dog or cat in one of their photos. And it gets mentally exhausting to use apps this way, especially when the failure rate is so damn high.
I have this personal theory that I seem to get along a lot better with people who are in long term healthy relationships because they possess far more green flags and are a lot more likely to be likeable and relatable in general.
Your point regarding cost of living is a good one. Does it disproportionately affect men in your opinion? Is it less of a problem for a guy to date a woman who lives with friends / family? When I was last dating, I did find myself hesitating to date someone who was still living with an ex (due to financial reasons) and I might have felt similarly about someone living with his parents. I believe I could have gotten over it for someone that has a mature, adult relationship with the parents: not letting them cross your boundaries or influence you in a disproportionate way. Unfortunately this isn't all too common even for people who live on their own, so I'd say it's reasonable to be somewhat cautious about it.
Hard to say. My previous ex (we mutually and amicably agreed that we were better off as friends and have remained on really good terms since) lives with family, suffers from fibromyalgia and lives in a deprived part of South Wales. It hasn't really bothered me, but her situation with her parents is different to mine and I don't particularly want to elaborate on that. Mine are overbearing and mollycoddling, but maybe not to the point of being helicopter parents, I'll leave it at that.
Maybe not "disproportionately" in terms of more men being on lower salaried jobs or being unemployed. But I do think with how lonely and desperate men have become, it's a lot easier for a heterosexual woman to date in that situation than it is for a man to find love.
I've watched the incel phenomenon grow since before it was given that name, and I think you're on to something here. If I had to pinpoint one key factor, it would be a lack of empathy and/or...
Not being able to convey personality or just not having a relatable set of hobbies/interests in general could be the core issue.
I've watched the incel phenomenon grow since before it was given that name, and I think you're on to something here.
If I had to pinpoint one key factor, it would be a lack of empathy and/or emotional intelligence. It affects so many things, including your perception of who would be a good partner for you (but also your career trajectory - edit: or even just employability - in the modern society, etc.). An extreme example of this is a guy who is only able to perceive women's exterior qualities and who tries to select a partner based on those alone. This is incredibly off-putting to almost all women and women can tell when they're being evaluated this way even when the example person isn't being transparent about it. On the other hand, this type of guy probably can't tell that women can tell. And if he can't appreciate people's personality traits, he probably won't understand or believe when women tell him that things like that matter to them. Such women may come across as liars to a guy like this.
That's the extreme example but some fairly broad group of men seem to suffer from similar handicaps to a lesser degree - still enough that it most likely impacts their dating.
98% or more of the profiles I see on my online dating feeds have no profile description, no bio and basically nothing filled out
Wow, really, 98%? That's.. rough. In my area, maybe 60% of men had a blank or mostly blank profile last year on Tinder (on OkCupid even way less blanks). My male friend who is browsing women isn't seeing that many blank profiles. He's annoyed though that many women's bio descriptions are awfully generic/cliché.
I wonder what country/city you're in but I get it if you don't want to disclose (I don't either).
It’s a great essay that will not be read by the people who need to read it most. I’m reminded of this Neil Gaiman suggestion to imagine “a world in which we replaced the phrase ‘politically...
It’s a great essay that will not be read by the people who need to read it most.
I’m reminded of this Neil Gaiman suggestion to imagine “a world in which we replaced the phrase ‘politically correct’ wherever we could with ‘treating other people with respect.’” The simplicity of this is powerful. An awful lot of ink has been expended on definitions of feminism, patriarchy, equity, and so on, but honestly it all boils down to DON’T BE A DICK.
And equally bluntly, this MAGA moment we’re in, this conservative pushback against everything “woke,” all boils down to BUT I WANT TO BE A DICK, SO FUCK YOU.
I honestly don’t think there’s much more to it than that, at the end of the day. Good people treat others like equals, and everybody else is weaving elaborate frameworks of justification from threads of religion, tradition, game theory / natural selection junk science, unresolved personal histories of generational trauma and abuse, whatever— all to make themselves feel more comfortable about being a dick.
I grew up in the right wing, I know these justifications. When you’re in that culture, it’s hard to notice the water you’re swimming in. It wasn’t until well into my adulthood that I started thinking about different worldviews in terms of whether they condemn or condone being dicks to people. It seems almost trivial now, it’s so black-and-white and basic but it took adopting that perspective to completely deprogram my upbringing.
I used to be a “both sides make good points” kind of guy who could equivocate the left and right like they were just different flavors of cultural ice cream. Like there wasn’t an underlying ethical difference between the two. I can’t say that anymore. I mean sure, when you zoom in on specifics, ethics are complex; I’m not trying to endorse moral absolutism or be so black-and-white about it. But from a very high level I’m no longer uncomfortable saying that being a dick is just plain evil, and treating people like people is just plain good. We can navigate nuances after establishing that baseline.
And I know I’ve been conflating dicks with the right, and respectful people with the left. That’s a sloppy shorthand. What I’m really talking about is individuals living under a personal ideology of small-L liberalism, which is (in my experience) absent from the right and… less absent from the left. But it doesn’t map neatly to party lines.
I do wish Gaiman had implemented more of that philosophy himself, alas. I agree this isn't just about being conservative. I've watched white male leftists shout down black women in leftist spaces...
I do wish Gaiman had implemented more of that philosophy himself, alas.
I agree this isn't just about being conservative. I've watched white male leftists shout down black women in leftist spaces too often not to notice the same patterns. I've heard too many people fall into that "men" and "females" dichotomy outside of MAGA spaces.
I don't understand what is so hard about caring about other people, except that as far as I can tell, it's "gay" to do it.
There's a lot of problems with this article that others have already dissected way better than I ever could, so I'll just nitpick this one: Yeah? I was overweight for the last 4 years at least and...
There's a lot of problems with this article that others have already dissected way better than I ever could, so I'll just nitpick this one:
Even when somebody is suggesting men do work on themselves, it's usually within the patriarchal framework, the admonition is to pursue the standard outward shows of value—money, possessions, property, physical appearance—that reinforces the idea that companionship is something to be acquired, that human worth is something that must be earned, than domination is core to masculinity.
Yeah? I was overweight for the last 4 years at least and after finally losing about 25lbs, lo and behold, dating became a lot better. Is it patriarchal when it's women responding to the physical appearance change? I still have the same personality I've always had!
I've also had a sobering realizing this past year that a very large portion of women that identify as progressive believe that men should pay for dates. Like I've had hours of discussion on this with multiple friend groups, coworkers, and strangers. So the money part also matters way more than I'd hoped it would.
If you're a guy being told to work on yourself through the lenses of physical appearance and wealth, it's frankly not a male-only viewpoint.
Oh bro. I lost over 100lbs, and the response I get from women is completely different. I’m very much a believer in lookism, and I think looks is the primary driver of sexual attraction and dating....
Oh bro. I lost over 100lbs, and the response I get from women is completely different. I’m very much a believer in lookism, and I think looks is the primary driver of sexual attraction and dating. Now that I’m above average, and look like the lead of a rom-com, everything is much easier. Getting looks, attention, sex. I don’t even necessarily have to be a great guy and I’ve tested it to certain degrees (this is degenerate behavior and I don’t recommend doing it) but it turns out I can get away with a lot. So you don’t just “have to be a good person.”
And absolutely even some of the most progressive women expect you to pay on dates, and in fact expect a lot of traditional behavior from you.
These types of articles always put women on pedestals, and people are quick to accept that. I think that’s a disservice to women because it doesn’t make them human. Shouldn’t you want to be humanized and acknowledge the flaws that you may hold.
One particular thing I liked in this post I know quite a few ex-military guys and have been around more. This is something that always bugged me, as they're consistently apt to say "female" when...
One particular thing I liked in this post
A man is a person. A female is a category. People will tell you things without knowing it, if you know how to listen.
I know quite a few ex-military guys and have been around more. This is something that always bugged me, as they're consistently apt to say "female" when describing women and it's always driven me batty. I've called them out for it as it being weird and they always fob it off as being from their military days and I just haven't had a cogent reason for why I disliked it, but I think this is it.
I also thought this was cogent:
And patriarchal men holding such beliefs decry women who would withhold themselves over nothing more than political beliefs—beliefs these men think women should find completely unimportant, yet which men also hold as so fundamental to their identities that they seem unwilling to change them, no matter how isolating those beliefs are. Many of these men, rather than fixing their hearts, will lie about their beliefs, which makes women, who still would rather not have companionship at all at the cost of their personhood, increasingly wary of men
Watching my Sisters-In-Law date, this seems to become a problem frequently. Luckily one of my Sisters is pretty quick to pick up on these things and will quickly drop any person she suspects may be like this.
Anyway, it's an interesting read, especially as someone in the middle. I've been in a stable relationship for almost 20 years now, but my Sisters-In-Law are dating and I have many male friends, whom I've been friends with for 30+ years, several of whom are single and not dating. It's...amusing (maybe not the right word) to see the disparity between the two opposite groups. The women in my life have their shit together, good jobs, own their own homes, just generally know what they want and have it together for lack of a better term.
My male friends on the other hand seem to be just barely keeping it together. The places they live (One rents an apartment, the other lives with his parents) are a wreck, they work crappy jobs, their health is suspect, etc. I'm not trying to slag them off, they're my good friends and I talk to them every day and hang out with them several times a month and I cannot say I wouldn't necessarily be in a similar position if I were single. But they seem to have no drive to do anything better and I know they often hold similar views about women, even if they don't necessarily voice them often. As their peer, I've worked on them, but it doesn't penetrate and they've been in this limbo for the last 10-15 years, things unchanging for them because their unwillingness to do anything about their circumstances.
But also, I don't know what to do about any of it. Our society is permeated with this idea of Men and Women and it starts early. I am the Father of two sons and I want to raise them to be respectful of everyone and to not be afraid of anything they might perceive as feminine or gay (not that their familiar with that term yet, but girl could certainly be a stand-in for it at their ages) and it went great...until school. My oldest is now in second grade and now firmly aware of Gendered things, now refusing anything that might be perceived as girly (gay).
My youngest hit Kindergarten in August and has been steadily moving away from things that they were once happy with. Suddenly, K-Pop Demon Hunters are uncool and lame because they're girls (gay). I would describe myself as a fairly masculine man, I'm tall, wide, have a large beard and a deep voice, I dress in a stereotypical way (T-Shirt/Jeans) and I'm trying to work on them and confront them about thing when they describe it as being for girls ("What makes it for girls? Why is this thing essentially girl?" There's my Bachelors in Philosophy paying off in my parenting), but I feel that there's only so much ground I can gain as their Dad when their peers now see them and work on them for 30 hours a week or more.
My biggest fear is that they turn into one of these men...one of my good friends. Somewhat isolated and lonely, going down that right wing rabbit hole. I'm just hoping in that between my continuing to work with them, a close cousin who is very queer with different pronouns and many feminist uncles that are what I would describe as "Good Men", that they don't end-up on this path.
Thanks - I was debating posting this after reading it yesterday, but you beat me to it. As a critique of the media framing of the "male loneliness epidemic" and a passionate call for equal dignity...
Thanks - I was debating posting this after reading it yesterday, but you beat me to it. As a critique of the media framing of the "male loneliness epidemic" and a passionate call for equal dignity among genders, it's a great essay.
Unfortunately, I think the decades-long right-wing traditionalist attack on "feminism" has gotten too thorough a grip on the public imagination for a true understanding of what equal dignity means.
The thing that kills me about the public rejection of feminism is the utter failure of the majority to learn what it is or even the definition of some of the most basic terms. “Toxic masculinity”,...
The thing that kills me about the public rejection of feminism is the utter failure of the majority to learn what it is or even the definition of some of the most basic terms. “Toxic masculinity”, for instance, is a term to describe how masculine ideals hurt men, but the public decided instead that it means that all men are poisonous. What an absurd leap!
People like to pretend that feminism is some cult that came out of nowhere in the 1960s, but in reality is an evolution of the combined philosophies which is simply applying those principles more universally by examining the barrier of gender. It’s not something that can be disproven if you are actually making good faith attempts to understand the arguments. And more importantly, it’s (generally, but not always) not a means of putting women on top of society, but bringing true egalitarianism to be.
There's very intentional right-wing reframing involved in the "toxic masculinity" misconception you described. I don't think I'm paranoid in understanding patriarchal backlash as a political...
There's very intentional right-wing reframing involved in the "toxic masculinity" misconception you described. I don't think I'm paranoid in understanding patriarchal backlash as a political strategy to split identities that would otherwise have aligned egalitarian interests, rather than just a philosophical/religious disagreement about gender roles.
While I believe that I personally "get" what's meant when people use the term "toxic masculinity", a point that's been risen which I also find understandable is that the counterpart concept of...
While I believe that I personally "get" what's meant when people use the term "toxic masculinity", a point that's been risen which I also find understandable is that the counterpart concept of "postive masculinity" is only vaguely defined and not well differentiated — what about it is masculine and not generalizable to women or any other member of society? I could see where attempting to grapple this could leave some guys in a bit of an identity crisis, which would explain some of the adverse reactions I've seen.
The thing is that there isn't really a "counterpart concept" of "positive masculinity". "Toxic masculinity" was created to describe a particular social force in our culture, one that can be...
the counterpart concept of "postive masculinity" is only vaguely defined and not well differentiated — what about it is masculine and not generalizable to women or any other member of society
The thing is that there isn't really a "counterpart concept" of "positive masculinity". "Toxic masculinity" was created to describe a particular social force in our culture, one that can be enforced by women just as easily as by men. It's not just describing individual behaviors, and there isn't an equivalent or counterpart social force that corresponds well to the idea of "positive masculinity" -- which is, as you seem to say, pretty much just generally positive traits that one can exhibit regardless of gender, except For Men.
Something that seems to go ignored a lot in this kinds of discussions, but that I think we need to acknowledge: Under the age of about 60 (the exact age varies some, depending on which country...
Something that seems to go ignored a lot in this kinds of discussions, but that I think we need to acknowledge: Under the age of about 60 (the exact age varies some, depending on which country we're looking at), men outnumber women. Although women as a whole are more populous than men, this is due almost entirely to the fact that elderly women tend to live longer than elderly men.
Outside those elderly age groups, there are simply going to be a lot of single, lonely men. Even if every last person on Earth were a bastion of egalitarianism, we would still see a lot of lonely men through absolutely no fault of their own or anyone else's, because male loneliness is ultimately a demographic problem, not a sexism problem.
And it's a very real problem. It's not made up, it's not going away, it creates a lot of instability for society all around, and the more we look for someone to blame, the worse we make it. We as a society need to develop better ways to support and empathize with single people, and to ensure life is still fulfilling and meaningful for people who don't find partners, because that's the only realistic way to address it (outside of deeply unethical solutions like forcing sex-selective abortions on the population).
I’m seeing a common theme among a lot of the lower-voted comments here. I’m responding to you because your comment talked about it most directly but please know this isn’t directed specifically to...
I’m seeing a common theme among a lot of the lower-voted comments here. I’m responding to you because your comment talked about it most directly but please know this isn’t directed specifically to you.
It seems a big problem for men is this idea that sex is necessary. And I totally get it; when I was young I felt the same way. But then I had sex. It was incredible that being with someone could make me feel so good. But that was not a relationship, and it hurt when I was effectively ignored from then on. I had sex with more people and while most of those had the intention of becoming relationships they didn’t end up working out. One of those people I had sex with eventually came back after about a year and we started dating more seriously. Eventually we got married.
There are two twists to that story though. The first is that after we got back together, we didn’t have that much sex. Our attraction to each other was a lot more intimate in ways that extended beyond sex. One of the things you will learn over time is that the kind of lasting fulfilling relationship is something that older people will respect, but nobody outside of that relationship will ever come close to fully understanding. Heck, my spouse has an ex husband who is still part of his life, and by extension is a part of my life too.
The other twist is that I am a man and my spouse is a husband. There are considerably fewer gay men than there are straight women, and there were significantly fewer partners if you also consider I was looking for a long term relationship and it had to be someone who would have accepted someone who weighed more than 400 Lbs at the time!
One may read this and think “OK, you managed to get a partner, but statistically not everyone can.” And to that, I would respond that you are thinking too rigidly. When I met my husband, I was a fling; he was in a long distance relationship and I was basically there just to fulfill a need. But he grew and changed to see the value in me. I had never been with an Asian man before him and didn’t think he would have amounted to anything (who would have thought a young man could be casually racist?), but I grew and changed to realize the value in him. If we didn’t both decide to make a change, we would have been lonely for many many more years. Yes, there may be more men than women in your age group, but thinking of that as proof one will be lonely forever is also accepting so many negative assumptions. It’s assuming that you will not change, that all the women in the world will never change, and possibly even the idea that women are either permanent property or valueless after being in a serious relationship with a man.
There is much happiness to find in this world, but we often need to understand what it looks like, and that requires that we change and grow.
Unfortunately, sex and romance are major biological drives for most humans. These drives can vary quite a bit between individuals, just like the drive to eat and sleep can vary, but it's really...
Unfortunately, sex and romance are major biological drives for most humans. These drives can vary quite a bit between individuals, just like the drive to eat and sleep can vary, but it's really important that we not inadvertently blame people for having these drives and/or for being unable to fulfill them.
Sexual preference is also something that varies between individuals. As great as it would be if we could just ask single men to all be bi, gay, or asexual, we probably won't have a whole lot of success with it. (Creating a society that's more welcoming of bi, gay, and asexual men is certainly a huge help, of course!)
On an individual level, it might be helpful sometimes to take an "anything's possible" kind of approach; plenty of people who thought they'd be single forever have nonetheless found themselves in stable, happy relationships.
But on a society-wide level, this is not a realistic solution. It's like saying that everybody working low-paid jobs should just find better work; yes, many people will be able to find better work, but not everybody can because there just aren't that many great jobs. Instead, we as a society need to accept that a certain percentage of people will be stuck in dead-end jobs, and we need to find other ways to support them (minimum wage, social safety nets, etc.) to make their lives as stable and fulfilling as possible even if they can't have their dream career. Likewise, we as a society need to accept that a certain percentage of the population will be single against their wishes, and we need to find other ways to support them as well (creating stronger platonic communities, more third spaces, etc.).
And just to be clear, this is not an issue that applies to me directly. I'm a woman in a longterm relationship. However, it does affect a number of men I care about and empathize with deeply.
I bring up sex not because I’m saying that men should just accept that they will never have sex, but to illustrate that the key to success was to grow past what it meant to be in a successful...
I bring up sex not because I’m saying that men should just accept that they will never have sex, but to illustrate that the key to success was to grow past what it meant to be in a successful relationship. That is what is needed by a great many “forever alone” types, regardless of sex, gender, or sexual orientation. To say that there are men who are doomed to be alone forever is completely wrong though. Even with fewer women than men, that doesn’t mean that women will stay with a single partner for their entire life. I can only think of a handful of people who have managed that.
Accepting the premise that there are some men who will be alone forever is hugely damaging to both individuals and society as a whole. It creates incel culture, for one thing. There are more than a handful of incels out there who could much more easily find partners if they just fixed their perspective on life.
It sounds like your solution is for women to jump between relationships more often? I've been with my partner for 16 years, and I love him deeply. But I suppose I should leave him and give another...
It sounds like your solution is for women to jump between relationships more often? I've been with my partner for 16 years, and I love him deeply. But I suppose I should leave him and give another man a chance for a while?
According to surveys I've read, women who've been widowed or divorced are less likely to be interested in dating again than men who've been widowed or divorced — which further contributes to the demographic problem. Expecting women to ignore their own preferences and pass themselves around, so every man can get a go, strikes me as highly questionable. I would prefer the sex-selective abortions, honestly.
What? No! Not at all. I'm saying the fact that there are less women than men in certain age groups doesn't mean that there will be some men who are doomed to be alone forever.
What? No! Not at all. I'm saying the fact that there are less women than men in certain age groups doesn't mean that there will be some men who are doomed to be alone forever.
What are you suggesting then? I'm not sure how to match a smaller number of single women to a larger number of single men without asking those women to change their dating behavior.
What are you suggesting then? I'm not sure how to match a smaller number of single women to a larger number of single men without asking those women to change their dating behavior.
I'm not suggesting any action other than helping men to understand that there is no such thing as being forever alone, and that if they want a relationship then they need time and personal growth.
I'm not suggesting any action other than helping men to understand that there is no such thing as being forever alone, and that if they want a relationship then they need time and personal growth.
But realistically, a lot of men are going to end up single, and framing it this way is (whether intentionally or not) is effectively placing blame on those men who fall through the cracks. Like I...
But realistically, a lot of men are going to end up single, and framing it this way is (whether intentionally or not) is effectively placing blame on those men who fall through the cracks.
Like I mentioned in my original comment, I think we do a lot of harm when we suggest that people stuck in low-wage jobs can all just pull themselves up by the bootstraps if they put their mind to it. Many people can, but not everyone can because our economy is simply not set up to support meaningful careers for that many people. Suggesting otherwise, even with the best intentions, leaves a lot of people feeling like failures for something that isn't their fault. Some percentage of the population are simply going to be stuck with crappy jobs, and we as a society do them a huge disservice when we tell them they just need to try harder or they have the wrong mindset. Instead, I think we need to acknowledge that crappy jobs are a fact of life for a lot of people and make a genuine effort to materially ease that crappiness as much as we can.
The same applies to single men. Some percentage of men are simply going to end up alone. Denying their reality isn't doing them any favors. All it serves is to relieve ourselves of the burden of empathy and the effort of creating a kinder society.
So much good discussion here! I wish I could engage with more of it individually, but my takeaway from reading through the comments with many opposing views can be summed up as: **Our society, as...
So much good discussion here! I wish I could engage with more of it individually, but my takeaway from reading through the comments with many opposing views can be summed up as:
**Our society, as a system, fails different people in different ways. **
On the surface, this is kind of a nothing burger, but I think it could be the point of commonality that could allow people with disparate views to connect.
I think a lot of the confusion and talking past each other comes from conflating two different things. Are we talking about individual people and their experiences and needs, or are we talking about the way we wish to change system that we all are a part of. Because to me those are to very different things.
When it comes to individuals dealing with the other individuals, I think the order of the day should be empathy. It's hard to speak about this in broad terms because every individual experience is different, but as a specific hypothetical: a man who is feeling this loneliness and a woman who is feeling marginalized can connect if they can get past the "yes, but" into a real, intellectual curiousity about the others experience.
When it comes to the structure of society, I personally will prioritize the group that experiences the greater actual harm. Women experience so much more physical violence and intimidation that if we're talking about changes to the system to address that, those feel more important and urgent to me.
Whatever other things I agree or disagree with, if you're sincere about reaching people who you acknowledge are maybe not getting the most sane takes on things in an age of headline reading, maybe...
Whatever other things I agree or disagree with, if you're sincere about reaching people who you acknowledge are maybe not getting the most sane takes on things in an age of headline reading, maybe don't open with something that sounds like a threat and have your first line be "its not a threat".
Because...yeah...that's a quick way to make sure you're only preaching to the choir.
To be honest, I find articles like this one to be almost too depressing to get through. I can't help but feel like society is doomed when feminists, despite following an enlightened, egalitarian philosophy that in theory I should be 100% on board with, and despite generating a considerable amount of valid insight into masculinity, STILL ultimately fail to connect to dots. They are so close to conceiving an equitable, effective response to men's problems, but at the last moment they make a hard turn towards the same resentment that drives a lot of the paradigms of toxic masculinity.
One of the principal failures of this particular article is its apparent unfamiliarity with actual, real life men. It is written as though the 'manosphere' were perfectly representative of the average man. It assumes that toxic, patriarchal narratives and social movements play a pivotal role in every man's experience of their own masculinity, of society, and of loneliness.
I am a man, and I have known a great number of lonely men in my life. The majority of these men were not lonely due to toxic behavior. They were lonely due to mental illness, physical illness, social trauma, a lack of a support system, a lack of time and opportunity to be social, among many other reasons. For most men, loneliness develops out of these issues, and desperate to solve the problem, they blindly grope towards maladaptive 'solutions': various forms of addiction (drugs, alcohol, porn, gambling), self-harm, escapism, obsession with their career or a specific hobby, and yes, listening to grifters who provide a narrative where women are to blame for loneliness.
Some men get really wrapped up in this narrative, and it is certainly worth dissecting and fighting against those men. But for many more men - a majority of the minority that even entertains the 'blame women' narrative - their affinity for it is only casual. They have no strong allegiance to it, their heart is not in it. It's just another futile attempt at relief, that like a drug, feels good for a moment, but quickly stops working, and if its use continues, it only does so in a vestigial, low-grade form, like someone who pounds a six pack after work every day due to sheer habit. Nobody thinks this is actually going to help their problems. If it serves any use, it's as a sort of a compulsive ritual, a way of distracting oneself from unpleasant thoughts and feelings.
Obviously, even this casual sexism can still be harmful (to both its agent and object), but it's a far less ingrained aspect of men's behavior than the author of this article suggests. Surely we've all had the experience of a new male acquaintance who seems more or less normal, well-adjusted in his attitude towards women, but after many cumulative hours together, all of the sudden, he says or does something fairly toxic. Many feminists are eager to construe this behavior as symptomatic of a deeper, more significant toxicity within him - he is pretending to respect women in order to fit in, and as soon as he thinks he can get away with it, he will bare his putrid soul. But in my experience, men's sexism is often fairly surface-level, disconnected from (and often in conflict with) their deeper values, used in a flailing attempt to achieve some unrelated goal - to regulate emotions, navigate a social interaction, to fit in with peers, etc.
At this point, I may seem like an apologist for this behavior. So to be clear, the reason for this train of thought is what I feel to be an important distinction between two types of men. There are those inveterate sexists who follow toxic narratives with enthusiastic, almost gleeful hatred (and in some cases use the narratives to grift other men), and whose misbehavior is far past the point where we expect the baseline, bare-minimum level of human empathy and intelligence to kick in and steer the ship. Then, there are the casual, unenthusiastic sexists whose internal experience I've outlined above. And the reasons why this distinction IS important align with the main topics of this article - the matter of blame, responsibility, and fairness.
A lot of this article seems to boil down to this - many men experience loneliness (often just a cover word for 'celibacy') because of the way they behave towards women; only men (not women) are responsible for the way men behave; therefore, it is not fair to expect women to fix male loneliness. The reasoning here is unimpeachable when applied to the enthusiastic sexists. But what about the unenthusiastic ones? Are they fully responsible? Are they offenders, or are they VICTIMS of a society which creates the preconditions for loneliness (REAL loneliness, not just celibacy), which in turn makes sexism a vaguely appealing option?
Reasonable people can differ on how they answer this question. If you believe that all sexism is the fault of those who practice it, I don't have a good argument to make against you. But I can argue against hypocrisy, and I have found many feminists to be hypocrites on this subject. Most feminists are also social progressives who have very compassionate attitudes towards minorities of all kinds. This creates a contradiction when examining the broad tendencies of each of these demographics. Consider the typical social progressive views on the following two superficially true facts:
There's an argument to be had about the exact numbers here, but hopefully we can agree there is at least some disproportionateness in each pair of values. In any case, the main issue is more about how we assign blame. In one setting, we admit the offender is also a victim, we empathize with them and allow their victimhood to explain their behavior, and perhaps even excuse it to a degree, at least when generalizing to the group as a whole. In the other setting, we assign 100% of the blame to the offender. I believe it is intellectually dishonest to apply different standards of blame to different demographic groups. Of course, some might argue that men cannot be victims when they gain so many advantages from a patriarchal society. Except, the unenthusiastic sexists whose victimhood I am trying to highlight are typically the ones who gain the least advantage from patriarchy - most of the advantage is reserved for the few percent of men with power and money and prestige. And furthermore, having some advantages does not magically negate victimhood. If we measure the cumulative impact of both advantage and victimhood on quality of life, most men suffering from loneliness are primarily victims.
Now, most feminists will even go so far as to say that patriarchy hurts everyone. So where does this other blame/responsibility-centric attitude come from? To begin with, I suspect there's just a greater personal salience to sex/gender issues. Not everyone interacts with people of other races or religions on a regular basis. And it's certainly easier to be 'casually sexist' than it is to 'casually violent' (for instance). This naturally turns the conversation from 'how can society fix this problem' to 'how can I protect myself against this problem'. And for the latter question, I would agree that women should not be obligated to deal with toxic men on a personal level. But the author of this article equivocates this reasonable belief with its societal counterpart - that women as a collective (which is just one entire half of society) should not be obligated to deal with the general problem of toxic men. This is a truly insane take. He states 'the actual path to liberation for lonely men is feminism', while absolving feminism of all responsibility towards men. He reiterates how men must work on themselves, and even highlights the many difficulties in doing so, only to dust off his hands at the end and say 'well, good luck with that.'
The optics of this alone are... not good. I guarantee you that someone who is struggling with loneliness, which is almost certainly in part due to factors beyond their control, will not be persuaded by 'this is all your fault, and by the way, you should follow our belief system'. In fact, this exact incongruity is exploited by alt-right grifters as part of the narrative that feminism ostensibly tries to combat. 'Look at all these progressives treating minorities with compassion even when they misbehave. Yet when you do one thing wrong (or perhaps nothing wrong at all), everything is your fault!'. This narrative inflames one of the most basic human emotional instincts, that of unfairness. It's one of the first refined, higher emotions we develop as children, even before we are able to fully develop empathy. And while this is an obvious manipulation tactic to those of us standing outside the circle, it's extraordinarily convincing to those in it.
At a certain point, feminists will need to consider the possibility that they too are inside a circle where unfairness serves as an emotionally compelling but ultimately unhelpful narrative. It starts with a somewhat valid feeling, but quickly degenerates into a poor strategy for managing what is ultimately a societal problem, even developing its own threads of outright misinformation. I've seen a number of people claim the male loneliness epidemic isn't even real - someone here linked a study which showed women are lonelier than men. Except, if you trace this claim back to the original study (a survey/census analysis from ons.gov.uk), we come upon the real finding - 'women reported feeling lonely more often than men' (emphasis mine). When feminists will happily proclaim, that patriarchy makes it extremely difficult for men to express their feelings, how is simply asking people if they are lonely an even remotely accurate judge of loneliness? In contrast, statistics on suicide rate by gender tell a very different story (though I'll admit there's a lot of nuance to the relationship between suicide and loneliness per se).
I've gone on for too long at this point, but overall, I just wish feminists would spend more time actually helping men rather than telling them to help themselves. Obviously, it's okay to draw boundaries about what sort of behavior you're willing to tolerate in person. But at minimum, this doesn't give you the excuse to foster a deep resentment towards men. And hopefully, we adults who can tolerate a little bit of unfairness can use it as opportunity to help people. Whether these people 'deserve' help is a question you should leave the Republicans to ask.
I have a lot of thoughts about your post, but I'm omw to the hospital right now so this one bit i want to point out as a factual matter. If you're going to use rates of suicide, women attempt more often because they typically choose less lethal means. Some of this relates to access to and familiarity with firearms, but there are an number of other theories including that women tend not to "really" want to die and that MDD is diagnosed in more women.
I could keep breaking down that data and it will get more and more complex and nuanced but I don't think it's a useful stand in for loneliness. Which I'd love to hear how you'd want to assess someone's internal feelings outside of a self-report. I'm sure there are other ways but self report is basically going to be the key one.
I really firmly disagree with your perspective on and portrayal of feminism as a whole, and I can certainly say it doesn't represent my feelings and beliefs. I'll try to come back later and give a more thorough response.
I'll await your full response (and I hope everything goes well at the hospital), but I have a few things to say about your initial comment.
I agree with you about the gender disparity in suicide attempt rates, but unfortunately the statistics are rarely clear about the actual number of suicidal people (which is arguably what we're more interested in, if we want to relate suicidality to something like loneliness). Dead people can't re-attempt suicide, and unfortunately many unsuccessful suicides are later followed by successful ones. The only source I could find puts the 'multiple suicide attempts' rate at ~7% for women and ~4% for men, but this also doesn't consider the number of additional attempts.
Access to firearms and MDD (an endogenous contributor to suicide) are definitely both factors, but I'm more skeptical about 'women not really wanting to die'. It's a plausible theory, but I worry it's just another narrative to society uses to blame women and minimize their suffering. Maybe you already agree with me about that to some extent.
And finally, I'll concede that suicide rates aren't a perfect reflection of loneliness, but I don't think there is a single datum that is. A person's internal feelings are intrinsically opaque. At best, I think you'd have to consider a large number of factors, and use self-reported loneliness as a relative measure (comparing values when controlled by some of the factors).
I do not particularly think women who attempt are less "serious" about their attempts but it was mentioned as a theory in my source so I wanted to be thorough. In my experience most suicidal people are stopped by the survival instinct in their brains. People who choose, say, poisoning, as a method often have the ability to call 911 afterwards when the reality sets in. Or (and I work with young people which may influence it) they don't choose lethal medications. (I very much appreciate when my students are not "good" at harming themselves.)
My point was that by the standard you used, women would appear to struggle "more" but that ultimately I don't think it's actually a good measure. Nor is it really important other than pointing out the disparity in how loneliness is talked about among genders in the news media. (And I'll note that vast majority of this data and conversation ignores non-binary people, who like myself may identify in a binary way if that's the only option or might decline to continue)
Loneliness is a subjective experience, like much of psychology, so it's very difficult to use other measures and many of those would also be self-report or fall into the same issues of stigma discouraging men from engaging or self identifying. For example, number of friends might be indicative, but some people report feeling satisfied with a small number of friends and others feel lonely despite saying they have many friends. An assessment tool that doesn't say "are you lonely y/n" but asks questions about loneliness more obliquely might get more honest answers but is still self-report. And I am not aware if such a tested, normed, valid, assessment tool exists.
When I was in a workgroup on the topic we did not have any sort of assessment tool. It was also being considered not as a gendered occurrence but one impacting all our students, and this was just pre-covid. Our goals of getting people to interact in person were ... Let's say they went unachieved in March of 2020.
I do think we have a societal issue with loneliness and that all of our various identities impact that in different ways. What I think is interesting is when people say they want to hear men talking to men about these topics, those men get the same responses as the women do, including that they don't understand or care about men.
I genuinely want men to be happy. I believe that liberation from patriarchy is the/a path to that. (We have a few other systems to tear down too. I see few people considering intersectionality among men in these discussions for example.)
As for the hospital, my partner who was supposed to go home for the third time tomorrow has a pulmonary embolism today. He's ok but we're not sure what's next.
Do you happen to know how number of suicide attempts are measured? It seems like it must be a pretty difficult thing to record accurately, and those records could be demographically skewed if some genders/races/age groups/socioeconomic groups/etc. are more reluctant to seek help or less likely to admit to past suicide attempts.
It's a mix of survey data and hospital/ER records. They exclude self-harm (with lethal intent being the differentiation). They're certainly under reported across the board. I often turn up past attempts that went unreported talking with my students.
It's worth noting that survey data has the issue of being "self report" but that those tools are used by professionals and have been designed in content and implementation to reduce issues of disclosure to a minimum. We simply have no other way to gather the data. Adolescents hide the most attempts. What's positive is that consistent reporters are generally at the most risk so the people most likely to hide are at least statistically likely to be more ok despite that.
Where I see a lot of recent data change and perhaps correction in the "skew" of data is the huge increase in reported suicide attempts by Black youth. I suspect it's less of an actual increase and more a correction in reporting. But if it continues to rise we may be seeing a reflection of societal pressures. AI/AN men and elderly men are the highest risk for death by suicide. Queer youth attempt at a rate of 20%. I can slice it dozens of ways, most of which are much more intersectional than this conversation.
As I said I could keep peeling back layers on this and get more and more nuanced. Underreporting is a real thing but probably not only from certain groups.
I'm not engaging with everything you wrote here, because it's a lot and I'm not really equipped to address a lot of it, but I don't think the idea of "toxic masculinity" is that masculinity causes men to be toxic. I think the idea is more that patriarchal ideas and structures, and the culture that is taught consciously and unconsciously to men (and women) around gender are toxic in and of themselves. That "ideal masculinity" is harmful both to men and to women. I know that I struggle constantly with not really fully taking care of myself, partially because of attitudes that I attribute to the way I was raised to be "masculine", and I didn't have an abusive father, just a normal guy who was trying to do his best. In a lot of ways my dad was making an effort to take care of his (and my) mental and emotional health more than a lot of fathers, but there are so many fucked up notions around being self-made and confident, and little attitudes and signals that discourage vulnerability or self-reflection when you grow up as a boy that it makes it really difficult to connect to people on more than a surface level. Men have trouble making real friends because we're all so damn scared of being vulnerable and talking about real shit, and we're afraid of other people being vulnerable because we don't know how to respond to it. As a result, a lot of men wind up leaning on whatever women are around them, mothers or girlfriends/spouses, to take on all of that emotional labor themselves.
Plus, it's not like society as a whole is doing all that well when it comes to friendship/community/connection in general. We've systematically dismantled every support structure we had, and we've replaced them with capitalist dehumanization/exploitation algorithms. It's no wonder everybody feels like shit, frankly.
Interesting comment, thanks for sharing. I'm surprised to see that you don't seem to identify as a feminist considering that I'm sure you agree with the simplistic definition of feminism, as presented in the article:
But I'm sure that specific feminists or specific feminist ideas that you've heard from have given it a bad name. This article itself sort of gives it a bad name considering how much sarcasm and abstraction gets in the way of the core of its argument, which I think boils down to, "let's build a society that values everyone as equal regardless of sex/gender," something that's always appealed to me. I think it'd be hard not to be a feminist with that simplistic view of the movement.
Nevertheless, I especially appreciated your distinction between enthusiastic sexists and casual ones. This actually empathizes with these lonely men in ways that the article absolutely does not. The article is absolutely right to deride some of the things that some men do, but it has the tone of deriding men in general for it, and this kind of thing is exactly what has turned some men against feminism. I also appreciate that you identify something the article does not: that society has failed these men and that society really could do better to help them.
I honestly think that it's best to just disregard the whole "assigning blame" aspect (with one caveat: obviously women are not to blame for choosing not to "fix" men's loneliness in whatever way) in favor of just moving on and helping (and another caveat in case it isn't obvious: men are of course to blame and subject to justice for any violent acts). And I guess I do agree with the article in its solution:
In other words, learn to treat everyone as equals and thrive. This still leaves out men, like me in my 20s, who embraced feminism but still felt very lonely, but it certainly helped. Some of my best friends in my 20s were women. It hurt that they didn't want to be more than friends, but even so, their friendships really did help me learn to thrive. And if I hadn't treated them as equals, I would've been far worse off.
Thanks for giving me a space to think out loud about this. I don't think about the topic all that often, but it's always meant a lot to me. Hopefully this comment was worth sharing overall.
We assume good faith here. Their point was very clearly that if '13/50' is an obviously bigoted argument, we should be more skeptical about a similar one, and I don't see how they're deploying it as anything but a denigration of that logic.
I think you're misunderstanding me - I only bring up that statistic as a rhetorical example. It's not a direct comment on all of these masculinity-related issues we're discussing.
And I thought it would be obvious from context that I disagree with the way the statistic is typically used. The progressive criticism which comprises the rest of what you quoted from my comment is one I agree with, and one which I expect everyone else here to agree with. It is, as you put it, a distortion of facts - but importantly, a distortion that is based on some vague scrutiny of the facts.
And if the nature of this distortion is so obvious, why is it that so many people are willing to accept the exact same kind of distortion when the narrative blames men instead of black people? Why is it that we empathize with the extenuating factors for one demographic, and practically villainize them for the other? I'm not asking you to excuse the misbehavior of individual men, I'm asking you to consider and empathize with the struggle and suffering that is a major factor in that misbehavior, the same as you would for black people or any other distinct demographic group.
It seems a few other people are misinterpreting that one part of my comment in the same way, and to be honest I don't have the energy right now to respond to each of you individually. One part of me is frustrated that you seem to be missing my point, but on the other hand, perhaps it's instructive for you to have a knee-jerk reaction of shock and outrage at seeing a 'well known dog whistle'. Because for many men, the other statistic I used in my example (or any equivalent generalization that is used by a narrative which blames men instead of understands them) feels exactly as insulting and unfair.
An effective feminism NEEDS to admit this feeling is often justified, and adjust its framing of men's responsibility accordingly. I'm not trying to rile up anyone more than necessary, this is a serious topic which is deeply related to toxic cultural and political trends that are having an increasingly serious impact on people's lives. I live in the USA, and fascism has fully arrived - fascism, an ideology which leverages male discontent into political force. Performative feminist empathy has accomplished so little - can we please for the love of god start looking for a real solution?
If their rhetorical point is to demonstrate the bigoted motivation of one overly simple reading of statistics, how does contrasting a recognizedly racist "gotcha" with a structurally similar point about a different demographic grouping (in that set A, containing subset a, is distinct from its subset) separate them from manhood?
I don't see how this interpretation of their comment isn't actively misinterpreting what is very clearly couched as a rhetorical sockpuppet as though it is sincerely expressing racist views. You're assuming a lot of bad faith just to miss their point. Hell, your quote includes the quotation marks meant to distinguish that.
Hey, I had some thoughts on your rhetorical. For the sake of my argument, let's assume the statistics you originally provided are true (I don't necessarily think they are, but lots of other people have engaged with that already).
So, there's these two statistics: black men & violence, and men & sexual assault. In a vacuum, they are both numbers, and they are both similarly disproportionate. So, why is one bad, and one okay, to accept? (Simplified labeling here).
I think the crux of the issue is how these statistics (and similar) are both used, and how their root causes are handled. Let's take black men & violence: as a surface level statistic, it is used as a racist dog whistle to paint black people (esp men) as overly-violent, to justify their mistreatment. Now let's look at Men & SA: at a surface level, it is used by women as justification for actions they take, usually in their own safety (carrying mace, not walking alone, etc). As a "good guy" it does feel bad to have someone you don't know just assume you're dangerous, so I definitely get that feeling discriminated, but there's a difference here between actions be done to you (state-sanctioned violence against black people) vs actions being done because of you (women being generally less trusting and the various actions stemming from that).
And now let's dig a layer deeper, to see if we can find the "causes" to try and "solve" them. Disclaimer: while I am generally aware of both issues, I'm an expert on neither, so apologies if I get some core issues wrong here.
For black men & violence, a large part of that number goes back to the relatively low-income aspect of black people (at least in the USA); when you're unable to get your basic needs met by the usual channels, you're more likely to do crime, incl violent crime. So is the issue black men are just naturally inclined to be more poor? No, not really; basic history of the country, esp post civil war, shows all the ways black people were legally and illegally kept from being able to build the foundations for family wealth in the same wayz white people were (redlining, bombing of black wall street, lots more). So the core here is the racist treatment of black people, which has had this downstream effect of disproportionate violent crime. Stopping before the core ("black people are naturally more violent!" or "Black people are naturally more poor!") is failing to address the real issues, and instead substituting racist beliefs. The statistic could have real-world use (for example, you could probably have anger management classes aimed at black teens and men as part of a larger social net of services and programs to try and address this particular effect), but that's not what it's used for, it's almost always used as "Black People Bad". And importantly, Black people cannot solve this core issue themselves; while they can (and do) need to play a part, our current structures will not allow them to succeed alone, and in fact will violently resist it (see black wall street, ICE, etc).
Now let's look at Men & SA: while there may be some biological differences, none are so stark to make up for such a large statistic. So going one layer deeper: the culture below our actions has informed our decisions on how to act, as any culture does. So men are not naturally more-sexually violent: they are conditioned by our society to believe several things: sex is good and you need it, a purpose of women is to provide for this need, and plenty more. So the core issue is this Patriarchy. And unlike the racism directed at black men, patriarchy is something inside of us, and while we can certainly receive help from women or other men, ultimately we have to do the work within ourselves to change.
Now, no man alive is responsible for the creation of our patriarchal society, in the same way no black man is responsible for the racial society. But an important distinction here is: every man does benefit from patriarchy, whether you want to or not. Feminists of all genders do work to try and dismantle patriarchy in several ways, but much in the same way that black men can't solve that issue alone, women can't either; we men also need to pitch in, and part of that is recognizing that we have Patriarchy within us too.
So, on a superficial level it's easy to think "why is one of these progressive-bad, and the other progressive-good", but once you've dived into what each statistic is asking, and represents, you can see how they are different.
If you're looking for a good man-focused book on feminism and patriarchy, I'd suggest The Will to Change by Bell Hooks; she's a long-standing woman feminist, and wrote this book for a lot of the reasons you mentioned: we need the men too, and we need to help them too.
I think a lot of people in this thread are zeroing in on your usage of that statistic and painting you with a slightly unfair brush because of it. Its an extremely commonly used white supremacist talking point, to the extent that citing it virtually always paints someone as a white supremacist, but I understand the point you were trying to make, so I'll take a stab at explaining the difference in how those two statistics are taken. I won't comment on whether either is true or not, so for the sake of argument I'll pretend they both are.
First, black people in the US, as a whole, on average, are disadvantaged to this day. They have lower overall wages, higher rates of poverty, higher obesity rates, shorter lifespans, lower rates of literacy and so on than the general population. This stems from either modern racism, or the echos of historical racism that propogated until the modern day. You can't divorce crime statistics from those facts.
Men are not disadvantaged all in all. There is no pervasive discrimination against men in modern society.
Two, historically, black people were imported to and enslaved in the US. That one fact influenced everything about US race relations. It influence black culture, it influences white culture, it has far reaching implications 200 years later in incomes, development patterns, living situations, and crime.
Men have never experienced shared trauma like that that would explain negative outcomes today.
And finally, and perhaps most importantly, black people are white people are almost identical, biologically. Overall, similar brain sizes, body sizes and configuration, hormone levels, and so on. The only real differences are superficial.
Men and women are not biologically identical. Their bodies are quite different. Their brains are different. One isn't better than the other, but the idea that men are more inherently prone to violence is wayyyyyyyy better supported in science than the idea that black people are.
You can't really compare the two statistics then and call someone a hypocrite because they think one is racist but the other one isn't sexist. They're completely different axes of comparison, so one is more problematic than the other.
A lot of replies to my original comment seem to be rejecting it without even really trying to understand it. So I appreciate that you are willing to actually engage with my arguments in good faith, even though you might disagree with some of them.
We are 100% in agreement about that, which makes the following all the more puzzling.
Men absolutely face pervasive, systemic disadvantages and discrimination in modern society. Granted, quite a bit lower in extent compared to women, or black people, or various other demographics, but I don't think it's constructive to make this into a contest. Moreover, the fact that an apparently well meaning comment can make such an absolute form of the claim does not bode well for the state of discourse on this topic.
A lot of discrimination against men relates to how they are perceived as intrinsically dangerous, especially to women and children. One example is the stigma of men being around children in public. I'm at an age where lots of my friends have started families, and basically every dad I know has at least one story of being treated with suspicion for watching their own kid play in a playground, or reproached for helping someone else's kid down from the monkey bars or whatever. This stigma exists in a systemic form too - during divorce, men are often seriously and baselessly disadvantaged in custody battles (though this does vary somewhat with jursidiction). Likewise, stigma against men makes it far more difficult to them to become elementary school teachers - which is particularly impactful due to the already worsening lack of male role models in early childhood.
Some discrimination against men has improved over time. For instance, military conscription has, in recent Western history, been exclusive to men. It was unheard of for women to serve as soldiers and face the attendent dangers of that role. Nowadays, however, it is common for women to serve in the military, and at least in the USA, we haven't had a draft in a while, to the point where most people don't consider this a serious men's issue.
Conversely, some discrimination against men has worsened. For instance, as recently as a few decades ago, men moderately outnumbered women in higher education, and going further back the divide was even wider. But now, the trend has begun to flip, and women modestly outnumber men. It's a complex topic, but personally, I think a lot of this stems from gender differences in learning styles making success in primary/secondary education more difficult for boys, especially in the digital age. This is bad enough by itself, and it's compounded by how so many people fail to recognize (or aren't even willing to recognize) this as discrimination. The lack of male educational attainment is absolutely a crisis in the making. It's even more serious when you consider how education (or lack thereof) intersects with right wing political movements.
None of this should be controversial. I don't know your personal willingness to trust Wikipedia, but there's a fairly large article that cites sources for these issues among many more.
Here's where the argument gets really interesting, I feel. I completely agree with you that there are no significant biological differences among races, and that any kind of statistical correlation between race and criminality is entirely due to historic reasons, and the resulting poverty, racism, discrimination, etc. that continues to this day. I also agree with you that men and women are not biologically identical, and that men are biologically prone to aggressive (and sexually aggressive) behavior.
However, a society that adjusts to the reality that men have a greater tendency towards violence creates laws and social mores that make violence more likely even among men who wouldn't otherwise be violent. I didn't even get into how men face discrimination in criminal sentencing, and that may be an understated factor here - imprisonment often forces men to inure themselves to violence, and that experience follows them even after leaving prison. And it's not just violence, but other male traits, like emotional processing as well. A slight biological tendency towards stoicism traps men in a vicious cycle where expectations enforce behavior which then further enforces expectations. This is a subject which feminism actually provides considerably insight about.
But more importantly, the exact distinction between which historical forces, biological tendencies, and social structures generate statistical outcomes in these two demographics turns out to be, I feel, not actually all that important. The crux of my original comment was an unequal standard for assigning blame and responsibility. Of course, it's perfectly valid to say that any correlation between race and criminality is due to social factors outside of the effected individuals' control, and to temper the blame and responsibility accordingly. But then, aren't the biological factors that make men as a whole more prone to violence also outside of their control? And so too aren't the systems which react to that general tendency and treat men as a monolith? On a societal level, there doesn't seem to be any real reason to assign blame and responsibility any differently here.
I suspect a lot of people think 'well, men should just learn to control their aggression - it comes from inside of them, so surely they can be responsible for it.' But it's not as though men choose their biological makeup. And while it certainly possible for a naturally aggressive man to figure out a way to cope with that tendency, to work on themselves and attain control over it, this is not really much different from any other person whose ability to behave well is hindered by forces that are not initially within their control. For instance, it's an unfortunate reality that many black people are faced with a need to figure out a way out of poverty, gang culture, etc. In the end, none of us asked to be where we are, and we are all challenged by factors that stand in the way of our moral development.
We should ALWAYS consider those factors when assigning blame and responsibility to misbehavior. The fact that so many people seem to exclude men from this consideration is the main thing I am arguing against. It doesn't even really feel like a big ask; it's perfectly compatible with so much of feminist philosophy. And I think that rectifying this attitude would do a lot to help with a lot of gender issues facing us today.
It might be the case for other folks, but I at least was staying on the sidelines for this whole thread. I had a comment drafted up on this one, as well as another, and deleted them. Honestly it scares me to get involved, since there's so much heated emotion around this entire topic (but that might just be the ~life topic? I don't hang out here much), and I don't want to swing a bat directly at a delicate situation as it's unfolding.
That said, for context, I had a spit take when reading that line, and yelled something obscene at my monitor. Then decided I shouldn't get worked up about a person I've never met, nor will I ever meet, and who is probably intending to rile me up. So I went and made breakfast.
Thank you for calling them out. There're some weird discussion points around these parts.
(edit) A propos of nothing, please note that -- while there isn't a "block" feature in tildes -- you can still add cosmetic filters to uBlock Origin which work similarly. In case that's helpful for people that also compulsively read things that're inadvisable for the sake of their cardiopulmonary health.
Friendly reminder that dog whistle are purposely chosen from widely innocently used things, otherwise they wouldn't work as dog whistle (plausible deniability).
Obviously this doesn't mean you shouldn't call it out when you're confident it's being used as a dog whistle (like if someone uses many different dog whistle), but if every use of some particular word (or stat) seems like an obvious dog whistle, well, you're probably wrong about most of those.
Also, dog whistle =/= recurrent talking point obsessed over by one side of the debate and ignored by the other.
What? Are you talking about American politics? I try not to follow them; that country keeps talking about destroying mine, and funds radical groups to destabilize our social institutions. I'm not sure why you bring that up.
The comparison between points is misleading. It's creating a strawman feminist that holds some absurd opinions (i.e. black people good, men bad), then knocks them down as obviously false. Their comment repeatedly references feminists as an amorphous blob of villains who think men should just figure out their problem themselves.
And hey -- btw -- if a tonne of men are suffering from not being able to shack up, either the women are all going gay or they're also lonely (unless women physiologically can't be lonely? Let's see a quote on that, too!). It's great that we plow straight through that observation, repeatedly, across this hundred comment thread with exemplary's tossed around every time a comment talks about taking those dang feminists down a notch. Yeah, you show 'em!
I'm absolutely out of this thread, now. I literally had trouble sleeping because of it, and I'm going to now block the thread and ignore all responses. If you feel the need to take the last word, you can have it.
I truly don't understand what you are trying to say, and I am also close to burning out, so I'll just repond to the last paragraph.
I believe it is good to have discussion about things even when some feel the conclusion is obvious and shouldn't even be discussed. I even believe it is good to push ourselves a bit out of our comfort zone.
Now obviously, I agree that it is apparently impacting you too much and withdrawing is understandable here. Take care of yourself.
Now I must call out this blatant attempt to have the last word yourself. This is the equivalent of leaving and slamming the door shut while saying "you can have the last word". Unfortunately, I don't have enough social grace to let you have it, so there!
;)
What's there to call out? Their whole argument revolves around that being racist. Are you saying you believe that @eyechoirs chose that statistic because they're racist?
Mostly because I don't have the energy to come back to it, especially watching the "exemplary" votes and the rest of the commentary.
I'm fairly convinced no one wants real solutions anyway. But it's ok, apparently feminists foster deep resentment against men, so, what am I even doing. I've seen plenty of shitty stats and takes though.
What would it take to convince you at least some (me) resonate with this post yet actually want a real solution? (I'm offering to try accommodate that if reasonnable)
Everyone hates being blamed for things they don't feel responsible for.
I know some folks do want real solutions. I don't need convinced I'm just watching the pattern of how the posts go and seeing how often it plays out exactly like this.
I know why folks get defensive too. But I have learned how useless it is to get defensive about how I'm not racist when people talk about the harms white people do. Because it serves nothing but making myself feel better because I'm "a good one." So no, I don't react this way when people "blame me for things I didnt do" (which isn't what this article or similar conversations do at all )
But I don't have the solutions other people want, so I'll let other people figure them out, at least for now. Personally I think that which is proposed here would actually help.
For what it's worth, I agree with you that which is proposed here would actually help.
It's just that the way it's worded in the article makes it look like helping isn't really the main goal here.
I have not found a message nor messenger that people have found acceptable. And I think that is unlikely to change.
If I somehow get to it, would you be open to proof-reading / giving feedback on my best try at giving sane advice to incel in a way they can accept it? I'd try and keep it short of course.
I'd be happy to, but I wasn't targeting incels particularly. This stuff is a spectrum. I have a good sense of what helps individuals, not so much large groups
Julia Serano, in her book Whipping Girl, breaks sexism into two different components:
Serano then goes on to examine how these forces enact transmisogyny, which is a transphobic misogyny that trans women specifically face.
I bring this up because "oppositional sexism" was an eye-opener for me. It named a phenomenon that I sort of always knew was there under the surface, but that I never really could put a name to.
Oppositional sexism has a lot of facets, but one of its most insidious is that it implicitly encourages a sort of gender-based score-keeping and tribalism. If you ever read something that treats gender like it's a zero-sum game, where advances for women mean oppression for men (or vice versa), then you're staring oppositional sexism in the face.
I lead in with this, because I feel like it's a primary flaw of this article. Here's the opening paragraph, emphasis mine:
The author immediately frames the situation in oppositional terms: men vs. women, or men vs. "us." Of course, the author is also responding to podcasters who are doing the same thing, claiming women are the problem. The author is not alone in turning gender discussions into a men vs. women problem. It's far too common, and in fact it's, I believe, at the root of a lot of the things he's trying to address in this article.
The author then proceeds to sort of debunk this constructed idea that he admits isn't even fully formed in the first place. In the second paragraph, he notes that he didn't even read the articles he's responding to:
He walks this back by saying that he's responding to a general pattern he's witnessed and these are just a jumping off point, but even I, as someone who generally agrees with some of his broader points and would call myself a feminist, think that this is sloppy and off-putting. (Though, admittedly, a lot of my comments, including this one, follow a similar pattern, so it's genuinely unfair of me to fault him for it.)
Anyway, he then laboriously deconstructs the idea of a "male loneliness epidemic" in a very score-keepy way, which is where I think this article veers from misguided to outright problematic, in my opinion.
Jullia Serano wrote her entire book about transmisogyny because she wanted to identify a type of oppression specific to trans women. Part of the reason I used this is as an example is that it's a great way of framing sexism in a non-oppositional way. We can accept the existence of transmisogyny without downplaying or undervaluing the misogyny that cis women face. The same goes for, say, misogynoir and people of color. In all of these instances, the specific focus on identity illuminates a phenomenon that can otherwise go unseen, and the existence of one doesn't negate the other. Transmisogyny doesn't invalidate misogyny -- it's instead an important segment of it worth considering both on its own and also under its broader umbrella.
In progressive/feminist circles, this is called intersectionality, where we consider how different factors overlap and apply to different classes of people as well as the individuals within those classes.
So when the author laboriously rails against the idea of a "male loneliness epidemic" even existing, I see it as, essentially, a failure of intersectionality as a product of oppositional sexism. In a non-oppositional, intersectional model of sexism, we could see "male loneliness epidemic" as a potentially necessary, specific illumination of a particular corner of loneliness that isn't captured by the umbrella concept of "loneliness" on its own.
In an intersectional view, we'd understand that men are also harmed by sexism and that, as a widespread, societal force, we cannot boil its resolution down solely to the level of personal responsibility. This is why, we, as progressives, have discussions about systemic changes in the first place -- because we acknowledge that change isn't possible through individual action alone.
Furthermore, in order to discredit the idea of a "male loneliness epidemic," he uses some rhetoric that I find jarring and dishonest (italic emphasis in the original, bolded emphasis mine):
In pretty much everything I've seen about the loneliness epidemic in general, but also about the male loneliness epidemic specifically, there's been prolific discussion of screens, social media, parasocial relationships, loss of third places, increase in mental health issues, the impacts of COVID, etc. All of these have broad impacts which include men and are, in my mind, extremely valid structural things that we SHOULD be looking at.
But if we look at the author's last sentence, he is basically saying that the "male loneliness epidemic" is literally incel ideology that promotes the rape of women.
He does the same shift later, even more clearly this time:
Yes, there are too many people who buy into incel ideology that is explicitly hateful and harmful to women. I don't want to downplay that at all. It is horrific. However, I do think that taking that minority of individuals and framing them as indicative of men as a whole is also unjust. It makes his later points land better within his own scope, because, yes, undoubtedly women should have rights and men aren't owed sex, but a solution isn't a solution if a problem has been misidentified in the first place, and I feel that's what he's done.
I think in order to properly identify the problem, we have to stop thinking of men and women in oppositional terms and instead identify that men and women can both be lonely for valid reasons, and that those reasons can be different, and that it is far more likely that these phenomena are happening in tandem rather than because of each other. He comes close to this towards the end, eventually acknowledging that the loneliness of men and women are both "quite real". He identifies that patriarchy hurts both men and women, and that feminism can be a source of liberation with men.
This is where I agree with him, because feminism is one of the frameworks that gives us the language to look at the world and change it by structural means.
It's also why I find his "men need to work on themselves" to be a short-sighted and unfulfilling response. There is some truth to it, as there always is, because individual people have a large amount of agency in their lives, but the whole idea of agency in the first place is predicated on the existence of external factors that can limit it. Without acknowledging that men are also subject to this, we're back to a a very limited and I would argue incorrect framing of what patriarchy is and does in the first place.
I was going to end there, but then I paused on this for a bit, took a breather, and came back to it.
I realized that I was angry about something and I think I hid that anger behind my sort of distanced, clinical response to this piece.
So, I'm going to speak to my actual feelings now that I've thought about them.
Part of me doesn't like this article for all the reasons I said above, but I think what most bothers me about it is that the author's opinion towards men comes across as smarmy, dismissive, and ultimately condescending.
I think it's a failure of the author's empathy that he cannot understand that there are a lot of everyday men who aren't awful people who are hurting and lonely. I think it's a failure of the author's progressive stance that he uses the conservative canard of "personal responsibility" as moral absolution from empathy. I think his article comes across as patronizing because it fundamentally treats men as if they're incapable, unthinking beings who uncritically buy horrific incel ideology.
His experience doesn't match mine.
I know plenty of men who are lonely and who aren't monsters. I see it in my students, and I assure you many of them are not neck-deep in manosphere content. I also think that there are a TON of men who have done a TON of work on themselves and still are lonely because I think that sexism isn't the sole source of loneliness in life.
A big part of me hates writing stuff like this, because I don't like to respond in anger in the first place. Another part of me is trying to, well, put in the work to balance the call to action that anger can generate with a more measured fairness that aligns with my values. I've, admittedly, probably failed that ideal with this post.
In the interest of full transparency, and being honest about my feelings, I should admit that I think the anger comes from my own alignment with the author, rather than opposition to him. I see myself in him a bit. He identifies as a feminist and believes that men benefit from feminism. I do too! He's is tired of the broad pattern of gender discourse he's seen online and is responding to that landscape, just as I am.
I think our ideological closeness is what makes me so critical in the first place, because I see the potential in his words but think he fails to meet that potential. In fact, I think he actually does damage to the ideas that he's putting forth.
From my perspective, I feel that this piece uses disingenuous rhetoric that relies on men and women being put at odds and frames men in the worst possible way. I think he uses progressive ideals in regressive ways.
This is a hard thing to talk about because oppositional sexism is a baggage that we all carry. My defensive hackles are already up because I fear that someone will read everything I've written here and automatically assume that I'm speaking negatively about women or overlooking women's issues or unsympathetic to them because I'm focusing on men.
I promise you, in full earnestness: that is not my intention. To me, men and women are not in opposition and are in fact all living in this sexist soup we call a world. It doesn't mean that our problems are the same in type or magnitude, but I fundamentally reject the ideas that solutions for one create problems for the other and that turning off our empathy for either is a means of arriving at justice.
With this comment, I'm instead trying to illuminate a little corner of sexism that I think could use some light. I promise I'm not trying to put anyone else in darkness while doing so.
I've already used my exemplary for the day, so, uh, have a...Tildes silver?
This really captures a really specific and burning hot form of rage that I've felt many times. I agree with pretty much all you've wrote, but I hone in on this one line because it leaves me thoughtful lately, when I take the time to think deeper. I agree - it's frustrating because it feels like self sabotage, that people on "my team" are messing it up and making our goals further away! They're making me look bad!
But...I wonder now much more than I did even 5 years ago, perhaps the solution isn't to let my anger at their short-sightedness set off my self-righteousness about the implication that I'm being painted with the same brush at them. I think that feels better, but the solution is to do what you've done here: try to respond empathetically while being very clear and specific as to why you think they've gone down the wrong path. I've spent a lot of time lately thinking about how I build up the emotional stamina and maturity to do that more often. Bravo for demonstrating it here!
I very much appreciate your thoughts and I think that the "MLE" rhetoric being responded to doesn't match the reality of loneliness as experienced. It's possible he's seeing the targeted rhetoric described by his examples directly where my feed is only showing me the criticisms of it. And perhaps he isn't seeing more of what you describe similarly.
I don't think I agree that there isn't empathy there nor that he doesn't understand "everyday" men or that he thinks of men as incapable. I think he sees men as completely capable, knows that men can make a different choice and that many men, theoretically including himself, do.
I get your point about intersectionality but in my mind there's some key differences between the language of "male loneliness epidemic" and "the loneliness epidemic's impact on men" and maybe that's just how the former has been co-opted. I also don't see folks really getting into other intersections, even within discussing men's loneliness. I know personally I wouldn't have the response to the rhetoric of MLE if it wasn't treated as a singular thing that requires almost exclusively the emotional labor of non-men to address and I have not yet seen an approach to addressing it that hasn't received the same pushback. It's condescending, the speaker doesn't like/respect/care about men, where are the positive men speaking about this. Be nicer. Expect less. They're doing their best, what can you expect. That's always been so much more condescending to me than please go seek out help from anyone who isn't a podcaster for this thing making you miserable.
I genuinely want men, and everyone, to be happy, healthy, and self-actualized. I know how to work for systemic change, I know how to individually help people (who want it, mostly, but some who don't.) I'm at a loss for how to en masse inform folks who are miserable that they could do something besides doubling down on being miserable in a way they won't object to. I haven't figured it out with racism either, which has a similar dearth of solutions and a similar defensive pushback from many white folks who feel that people aren't being generous enough and kind enough to them/us.
This ran a bit long. Thank you again for your thoughts, I did appreciate reading them
I always appreciate your thoughts too, Fae.
And please know that even though I'm critical of this article, that doesn't extend to you. I can absolutely understand why people like you and @patience_limited found value and insight in this. I have nothing but a deep and abiding respect for y'all.
This, and your later specifics of what you see are a really good point. Are the three of us all even talking about the same thing, or are we all seeing our own particular limited slice of it and responding to that in kind?
Like, as someone who isn't on any social media besides Tildes, I have no doubt that I'm insulated from so much of this, especially the worst parts of it.
So, in a big sense, my weights on this particular issue aren't adequately calibrated to the social landscape in which we now live.
On the other hand, I'm a pretty strong believer in the idea that those social media platforms specifically raise the presence of hateful, conflict-driven stuff as an easy way of driving engagement. It undoubtedly works -- that root impulse is what prompted me to take over an HOUR out of my day to type out my original response! (Not saying that Tildes is outraged-based — in fact, I love that it isn’t.) So, in that sense, the weights there are deliberately miscalibrated as well.
It's hard to find grounding on my own, much less a common grounding between multiple distinct perspectives.
I'm not saying this to blame anyone on those platforms or excuse anyone using those platforms to amplify awful content. Instead, I see it more as a structural factor I'm considering but don't really know how to account for.
Immediately after reading this article, I clicked on this one and felt a similar anger to the one I felt here, though that anger isn't aimed at the author but instead at the awful shit that she (and people like her) have to go through. My honest emotional response to that, in complete contrast with my comment here, was "ugh, fuck men" because, well, it's hard for me to see hateful, awful stuff like that and not have a target on which my anger needs to land.
I don't even really know where I'm going with this other than I'm just kind of thinking out loud and trying to honor the idea that this is a very difficult topic to talk about, with lots of different layers, inputs, and perspectives that we have to consider. It also hits at the core of our emotional centers and our identities. I spent over an hour doing what I see as defending men in my first comment only to turn around and immediately hate them moments later when faced with a different stimulus. This is a tough landscape to navigate.
I think the self-assured tone of my first comment is mostly a front, because really I lack confidence and certainty about complex, seemingly intractable problems like sexism. I'm a male and benefit from that significantly in my life, but I also attribute to sexism the homophobia I faced growing up and that nearly ended my life, so I know first-hand what it's like to feel the suffocating weight of its oppression.
One thing I do confidently know (and hopefully adequately showed with this comment) is that this difficult landscape requires a lot of time and energy to navigate. You are someone who willingly and repeatedly does that here. You put in an incredible amount of time and effort to address and discuss difficult topics, and you do so with a clear-eyed vision that I admire. Please know that your efforts don't go unnoticed or unappreciated. You're putting in the work and then some.
Sorry to insert myself into this conversation, but I just wanted to express how grateful I am for how much empathy you display in so many of your comments on this site, and on this topic in particular. Your contributions here are the best of what this site could be.
It's interesting to me that your reaction to the other article posted yesterday was anger toward men. I definitely had some of that, as well as some really deep anxiety as a parent to an 11 year old girl, but a lot of my frustration was directed at the platforms that are pushing this content into the feeds of this girl, are using every available psychological trick to make her feel she has to keep exposing herself to this kind of abuse, and that are pushing men and boys into algorithmic silos that amplify the kind of thinking that would lead to this type of harassment. I'm not naive enough to think that the author of that article wouldn't experience misogyny without algorithmic social media, or that the boys and men that are perpetuating it wouldn't learn it without social media, but I also can't help but think that these tech companies are actively making our society worse in the pursuit of more money and control. We know this, and yet even on a site like Tildes there's this constant feeling that we can't do anything about it - that we have to allow these companies to keep making things worse, and that it's impossible to do anything about it on a societal level.
I don't know where I'm going with this, except to say that I'm increasingly done with the modern internet, but I really appreciate people like you and OP who are trying to make this site a better space, as imperfect as it can sometimes be.
Don't be sorry! You are always welcome to join in wherever, Reverend.
Those are such kind words. Thank you. You're another person on the site that I have a deep, abiding respect for, by the way. Whenever I see your name come up, I always know your comment is going to be worth reading. I feel like you're constantly offering measured, well-thought-out responses.
Fun fact about your username: I know "RtRev" is meant to be "Right Reverend," but when I first read it, my initial thought was that if "Lt" is "Lieutenant" then "Rt" must be "Rieutenant" and so, since then, you have always mentally been "The Rieutenant Reverend Kaiser" for me.
You (as you always do) have a great point about the platforms. That's the same place my mind goes when I sit and think about it beyond the knee jerk. Like you, I am highly critical of these companies that know exactly what they're doing to kids and keep doing it anyway. As a teacher, I have high standards put on me for the stewardship of children, because it's widely understood that teachers' significant presence and influence in children's lives can have a significant impact in their development. It bothers me to no end that social media platforms do not feel any obligation towards a similar level of stewardship, nor is the government holding them to that standard in the first place, and they arguably have more of an influence in my students' lives than I do.
They have not only completely failed to care for the children they reach, but in many instances (like this article) they are actively making it worse. If I did what those platforms did to kids, I would be fired in a heartbeat and face criminal charges.
My initial "fuck men" was more of a reflex than anything else -- an immediate emotional flash rather than an actual thought or value. I don't stand by it, I don't actually feel that way, but I wanted to highlight that it happened because I wanted to be honest about it. I'm a man, I also love men, and so it's important to me that we get a fair shake. On the other hand, I've also been harmed by men, and I'm also continually made aware of some absolutely awful shit that, unfortunately, is often specific to men.
I think the flash of disgust/hatred I experienced with that article is essentially my conscience confronting a horror, if that makes sense. It's like an instantaneous survival mechanism where my brain activates its pattern recognition and finds a common link to try to make sense of the situation. It's treating the situation as an immediate and pressing threat, which overrides the slower, more measured response I could have if my brain had prioritized it differently.
I think this is actually part of what makes gender discussions so difficult in general, because once that survival sense is triggered, it makes it unbelievably hard to adequately process the actual information in front of you and not just respond to the pattern. I think it's part of why so many people here, including myself and the author of the linked article, are basing our comments off generalized experiences rather than specific elements, because a lot of us had that trigger in our brain go off, and overriding it is tough.
Sidenote: the above is all pseudoscientific hogwash, by the way, and probably not how brains actually work, but it's the best I can do to try to explain the experience of the phenomenon in a way that makes sense.
Finally, I 100% hear you on being "done with the internet." I feel the exact same way. Tildes is my one and only digital hangout, and it increasingly feels like a storm cellar I'm hiding in for safety as the winds continue to kick up outside. Everything just seems to be getting worse, and with AI being so "good" at what it does these days, it feels like the internet has been polluted past the point of healthy livability -- like it's now one big superfund site.
I think about it a lot in terms of my students and people like your daughter. What's their experience of this internet landscape when they're not old enough to know any different than what it is now? What is it going to be like for them in 5 or 10 years? I try not to be pessimistic, because I believe kids are creative and resilient and far more capable than a lot of our adult anxieties about them make us think they are, but on the other hand, I know they're up against some massive, very powerful forces the likes of which we as humans haven't ever seen before.
Part of the reason that I love this site is because it feels strongly insulated from those forces. I hope kids are able to find their own spaces like this too.
But the reason I stick around and put so much time in here is because it's got awesome people like you, who bring humanity and thoughtfulness to your posts. Thank you again for the kind words, and thanks for hanging out in this tiny storm cellar with me. I'm happy that we get to share this little place.
Thank you so much for these kind words - they feel kinder than I deserve, and I truly appreciate them. I think what you're saying about the "survival response" kicking in with discussions like this makes a lot of sense. I think many of us have an immediate, instinctive anger response to topics that are emotionally fraught, and the speed at which we can communicate certainly doesn't help temper that any. It feels like our whole society has bent around these really unhealthy ways of taking in information and communicating with others, and I think it has distorted so many important facets of life. I wish I knew how to put the genie back in the bottle.
Edit: I got a chuckle out of your comment about my username, it sounds very Scooby Doo the way you think of it, lol.
Full disclosure: I ultimately chose not to post this essay myself because I expected it to be contentious, and wasn't prepared to engage with that conversation at length and in detail. I'm not a scholar or practitioner in any of the relevant disciplines, though I have been an observer, participant in, and sometimes, a victim of the phenomena described.
My first impression was that the essay posed its arguments in exactly the way you critiqued. My feelings about A. R. Moxon's writing are mixed in general - there are often well-explained big picture callouts, but insufficient exploration of implications and background, as well as a perpetuation of "us vs. them" rhetoric chosen (consciously or unconsciously) as engagement bait. This particular piece was clearly a reaction to a couple of sexist examples, and as you pointed out, engaged in some oppositional sexism of its own. I have a lot of thoughts about unnegotiated calls for any group as a whole to carry blame and responsibility, and not enough time or motivation to distill them coherently.
I’ve recently quit tic tok because I realized how bad it was for my mental health, and only then did I realize how bad filter bubbles have truly become. It’s still so strange to me that the internet has moved from being a place where you go to find varied perspectives and opinions to being a place where your pre-existing opinions are confirmed. The thing I never understood about filter bubbles until now is how they didn’t just remove dissenting voices, but more advanced algorithms effectively piece together a narrative that appears to be a majoritarian one because it comes from many people.
On your other point, one of the things I appreciate the most about the effects of queer liberation is the ability to opt out of the concepts of masculinity and femininity. That’s one of the reasons why I am so hard on men who insist on machismo; to me it feels homophobic to need to cling to this ideal, let alone the fact that it is hurting them and everyone around them.
I always wish I had something better to say to my "not sexist" coworker who always says things like "men are x, whereas women are y" other than "I don't think that's true."
I know he doesn't mean it to be disrespectful in any way, and he makes many other similar generalizations (e.g., explaining to international coworkers that Americans feel a certain way—which I usually end up chiming in with "not me" because he's usually just describing symptoms of PTSD), but it's just an uncomfortable situation because he's (possibly unwittingly) getting so close to crossing the line.
Not sure this wokescolding finger wagging stuff that’s been around since 2017 is going to change the minds of guys who believe “they are owed women”.
I think there are critiques of the “male loneliness epidemic” to be made but this was I think the easy route to take. To frame it as the guys that are experiencing this to be morally bankrupt or whatever. Doesn’t really cover how much of it is affecting guys who likely already hold these values they’re pleading, and how that’s exactly why they’ve abstained from approaching women and dating. I’ve seen much more stuff about how guys are afraid to get seen as creepy, to get posted online because they dared approach a girl in public. Yet the author decided not to engage with that aspect of it for the sake of simplicity. Because it’s much easier to believe the guys experiencing this hate women.
I agree. I vehemently disagree with the idea that women should have to compromise themselves to make men feel comfortable...bit there is a genuine problem where men are not being supported or properly integrated into modern society, and it's causing tangible problems: a large number of men are unemployed, and it isn't clear why. A lot of men, if they go to college, underachieve compared to women, and we don't know why. And a lot of violence is committed by men, and we aren't doing anything about it. Many men have said they lack emotional support systems that they want, and instead societally we make fun of them and tell them to figure it out. What I frequently hear and see is a cry for help, and what I see instead is a philosophical argument saying "fix your shit or perish." I think one reason why manosphere content is so appealing is because it offers something, often for people who are desperate to find anything, a community to belong to. I think a lot of men do feel like they're perishing, and they're looking for a lifeline to hold them up. What really bothers me is that we haven't done enough to figure out why, and to really address solutions to help suffering people and reing them into a societal fold. MAGA was one of the first large scale movements to make forgotten and suffering people feel that someone gave a shit about them, and that's why it has been so powerful.
As a millennial who grew up in the "girl power" era, one thing that has really bothered me is that I grew up with all kinds of seminars and slogans and teams that told me I could do anything I wanted - the world was my oyster and finally opening up for people like me, and that meant that if I tried hard, looked for opportunities, and found the right people, I could go really far. I never noticed anything similar for boys - there was no empowerment, no encouragement, no offers of specific help. I think the idea was that "boys already know what to do", or perhaps "boys are already represented", and so little effort was made to prepare and support them for life after school. When I was teaching at university, my best students were almost invariably women. They worked harder, they organized study groups, and they took initiative. I had so many men as students who were kind of floating through class, barely passing and not doing much to learn or change up what was happening. They seemed by and large to lack the motivation of their female peers. And it broke my heart, because there shouldn't be any intellectual reason why they were falling behind - but I think the lack of intentional support at younger ages, the lack of teaching and encouraging boys to learn particular soft skills does really affect them in negative ways. Add in the societal commentary that men hurt others, take up too much space, and need to be tough and strong and powerful, is it any wonder why we have a loneliness epidemic? I really don't think the way forward is not through tough love, it's through compassion and support.
I’m on my phone so I won’t be writing as much.
You’re right about a lot of those points, and as a man, I am trying to minimize my existence to be barely noticed, especially around but not limited to, women.
I don’t have a relationship despite really wanting one. I don’t foresee I’ll ever get into one. I don’t have friends of either gender. I’m lonely. I’m part of the “male loneliness epidemic”, and a lot of it is my own doing, yes. Even so, just 20 minutes ago I was on reddit for the first time in days, and the first thing I see is large swaths of comments from people (or bots, most likely?) about how male loneliness epidemic is mine to solve and not anyone else’s problem at all. It’s my fault as a man it exists. It’s my fault and I should “just go to therapy”. Never mind that I don’t have money for that and public access to it is little to none.
As for why a lot of it is my own doing? Because I have a lot of issues and I’ve chosen to self-isolate because people prefer not to deal with someone who may not be peachy every day.
I’ll find comfort in other things, such as hobbies, and try to keep my mind occupied as much as I can. Despite my loneliness slowly consuming me every day.
People will be quick to throw advice at me like “hit the gym” (I am, actually, going to the gym) or “go to therapy” (I wish).
Anyway my post is lacking proper structure and it slightly all over the place.
I guess this was just a long winded way of saying that you’re right, we’re out here, not all of us think we’re entitled to women, not all of us are shitty people, and a lot of us call out other men who are trashy to women or society in general. Despite all that, still lonely. Don’t know what to do tbh.
Thank you for sharing, I appreciate your candor. I don't know what to do, either, and as a teacher I have felt helpless about how to help my male students who are falling behind - my encouragement doesn't work, lower grades doesn't work, and they don't want to connect with me. I think this is an issue where communities need to try and make spaces for people to feel safe to be out and about in the world, and unfortunately, I think a lot of people - regardless of gender - find the world a scary place. I think part of the challenge is that marginalized people have traditionally found ways to meet and share community despite hardship, and ironically, a lot of men don't really have that naturally, and I don't think they necessarily know what to do when the world feels hostile. Furthermore, men are discouraged from being vulnerable, and are ridiculed and shamed when they are. And that can make it hard to develop a healthy community, especially when you want it to have a male focus, addressing grievances and distress. There's naturally going to be resentment, just like there is in other types of safe spaces! It just feels more threatening because of privilege.
I think the reason why people struggle with feminism is because misogyny is still a structural thing - we haven't fixed that, and I still have to deal with obnoxious shit in the workplace that I shouldn't have to, and think way too hard about what is "appropriate" for a woman to be at work. I have been harassed and sexually assaulted at work. The difference is that now men are also feeling unwelcome and attacked, and so everyone seems to be miserable and unwilling to listen to the grievances of someone else, and that's why I think our society has bifurcated in ways that aren't easy to fix. Men need help, but women aren't ready to sit and listen, because they're still dealing with messy men at work - I personally would feel deep resentment if I had to go to a seminar on how to help men feel comfy at work when I'm still hearing all kinds of misogynist shit around me. Someone needs to mediate, here, but there's no obvious person - I think both sides are right, and both want society to be different to include everyone. The question is, how do we acknowledge grievances of everyone - not to mention people who don't fall neatly into traditional binary gender identities - and make sure people get what they need? How do we get people to sit and listen and really be compassionate toward someone who isn't like you?
I wish you well - I don't know your specific story and how you got to be here, but I hope you are able to find healthy friendships and relationships, and to feel empowered to be yourself. It may feel scary, but there are people out there who you can connect with, and who will be uplifting - it may not be the easiest thing to find them, but they are out there. Good luck.
Years ago, I heard this story on the radio about some country that had been through some civil war - I think Rwanda. They had a program that existed as a way to help mend the leftover pain and resentment that helped to trigger the war. What they did was they took teachers who were from communities who were primarily made up from one culture (tribe?) and force them to move and teach communities primarily of the other culture for five years. This let the teacher tell the young people about their own culture while forcing the teacher to learn about the culture they are immersed in, which would help eradicate the prejudice in their hearts. When they would move back home with their families they could tell them about the things they learned. If it really were Rwanda, then the program seems to have done a really fantastic job.
Obviously this isn’t something that would work for this situation, but the thing that the program did was force the conversation. And frankly I think that’s the only thing that will ever work, for any situation in which prejudice is an issue: the conversation must be forced to those who will not listen until they finally break down and start listening. Let them air their grievances because doing so is the only way they will let go of or otherwise be addressed. And without a program of that scale and caliber being possible, sharing these kinds of stories and articles - specifically like the OP post -is about as good as we can do.
I’ve written and re-written this a few times but I want to be clear that I’m not attacking you at all personally or discrediting your feelings. I’ve been there too and it sucks.
I’ve seen this idea/feeling expressed a lot (and experienced it myself in the past). There’s a weird thing that we do as humans where we do two things diametrically opposed and are frustrated when they clash…
But if you are trying to “minimize” your existence, then you shouldn’t be surprised if you don’t connect with others and end up feeling lonely. (I realize that maybe it isn’t that simple and that there are other factors involved too).
I think it’s important to remember that we are writing about the whole here, not an individual. I know it’s easy to see it as “it’s my problem as a man to solve” but that’s not what most of those people are saying. They’re saying “it’s a problem that all men need to solve”. It isn’t just one man. It’s all men as a collective.
I don’t have any great advice on how to beat loneliness. All I can offer is that I found a forum/community related to a hobby of mine and just…started talking. Eventually I started making online friends there. People I talked to every day about things outside of the hobby. Every once in a while, they’d hold real world meet ups. After a while, I worked up the courage to go to one. It went pretty well. I told myself “hey, if you can make online friends then I bet you could do it in real life too!” It took me a long time, so I wont pretend it is a quick fix or anything…but it made a difference for me.
The problem with this type of messaging, from what I've seen, is that it typically misses the people it needs to hit and hits the people it needs to miss. People of generally high empathy (who are likely already doing more than their fair share) hear these kinds of messages, feel like failures, and burn out. And people of generally low empathy (who are likely doing less than their fair share) hear these kinds of messages and conclude, "Oh, so it's not MY problem then," and don't change their behavior at all.
I don't know what the solution to this is, but I suspect that sticking to much more specific and actionable advice (e.g., telling managers to double-check their payrolls to ensure there isn't a gender bias in their employees' salaries) would be a lot more effective. People who are already following that advice will just keep following it, and people who aren't will have a harder time making excuses.
To me this is very clearly the other side of the coin. Women are calling men out because they are being macho creeps. Another commenter said they know one girl who is quick to reject boys when they show signs of hiding their macho side, so it’s pretty easy to understand that the reason why this category of men are hurting still gets traced back to the behavior of the machismo crowd. To put things more succinctly, patriarchy hurts everyone.
If you ever find a way to tell people things they don’t want to hear, let me know.
I really don’t understand what you’re trying to say. So because women have bad experience with some guys, then it’s still the fault of the male gender for other guys being lonely? When a woman decides that a guy is being performative and hiding their deep dark sexism, then they’re automatically right and it’s again the guys fault? What are we talking about here.
This article isn’t aimed at changing minds. It’s pretty clearly just speaking to the choir, echoing through people who already agreed with this point of view. It’s not an actual attempt to change anyone’s mind. And it’s not engaging with nuance. It’s the long form equivalent of a tweet about how men ain’t shit and whatnot.
If a woman wants to be regarded as an equal, and she starts seeing red flags that the man she’s dating does not view her that way, she would be wise to get out. Even if it’s a misunderstanding on her part, she’s not obligated to suppress her discomfort and remain in a relationship where she does not feel respected.
It’s not about blaming the man, it’s about giving the woman agency over her own intuitions and the terms of her relationships.
The author, who is a man, is explicitly not blaming the entire male gender. His point is that lonely people are responsible for themselves, broadly and it isn't the responsibility of everyone else to fix things for them.
Also that women are (as a group) lonelier than men but we see no societal expectation of men (as a group) or a societal focus on fixing that. Anecdotally the percentage of the time I see women saying "we like men who _______" and are told by men (whose hearts are not "fixed") that they're lying, is near 100%.
If anyone rejects anyone in a relationship, they're free to do so. If I'm being rejected because my partners feel unsafe around me, why would that be anyone's problem but mine? But in much of society it's being framed as a problem men have that women need to fix.
What is our responsibility is to create paths to liberation and spaces for people when they get there. I'm in favor of tearing down patriarchy not just for women but because it will help men. I'm in favor of tearing down racism because it will also free white people from it. I'm in favor of tearing down a lot of our harmful institutions because they hurt so many people.
It’s not everyone’s responsibility but it’s their problem when the angry men gain power and influence and change laws and cause other people to become angry misogynists.
The perspective of the articles trying to find a way to “solve” the issue is more that the “angry working class male misogyny/loneliness/machismo” problem isn’t going fizzle out on its own. People can absolutely live lives of misery and bitterness for generations and spread that to entire societies - there’s plenty of historic precedent. On one extreme you have Afghanistan where women are banned from singing, appearing in public, and speaking without permission, and that seems to be a stable society that’s resisted invasion from 3 superpowers.
In theory that's the perspective of such articles, some such articles and the views being espoused by some of the most toxic spaces alike put the onus on women. It's very similar in my eyes to the "how to respond to conservatives regretting their votes" where the onus is on Democrats (but particularly women and WOC) to bend over backwards not to upset them lest they vote conservative again. It's exhausting being responsible for everyone else's emotions.
In the context of political theory, it goes back to the difference between whether or not you should have to do something as an ethical or obligatory manner, and whether or not you should do something as a matter of practicality.
As a pedestrian, when crossing a protected crosswalk you shouldn't have to look at the traffic and see whether or not it's safe to cross. You have right of way.
However, while it may not be your responsibility, it is your problem when a car hits you and you die. And in the US, with drivers as they are, you absolutely should, in a practical sense, watch where you're going, right of way or not.
I think the article seems to assume that the status quo is that these men will just sulk in a corner and be sad and do nothing. And if that's the end of it, then sure. Everyone is personally responsible for themselves, in the end.
But we (in the generic sense, obviously not everyone who reads this will be American) all live in the same America, and when America ends abortion access, just because it wasn't your responsibility, doesn't mean it's not your problem anymore.
It's not fair, but the world isn't fair, and sometimes you have to things that are not fair for you to do to survive and thrive.
Of course, hence everything women are told to do all the time basically. And why they wear fake rings at the bar, and lie about having a boyfriend to avoid a violent response to a "no" and all the everything.
And it's why I'm a mental health professional and educator. I "get" to have an educational conversation with a student using racial slurs about how they have free speech but the people around them are still harmed regularly
But the answer isn't going to be dating men instead of rejecting them for those conservative beliefs. I am not sure anyone who thinks that it's "gay" to have empathy or to care about their partner's sexual pleasure is really going to be inclined to listen to women. And when women act to protect themselves, because the world isn't fair and they need to survive, they're at fault for isolating men further.
Women haven't stopped doing emotional labor, I know I'm just pointing out more how it's being expected often by men to solve the problems of (other) men, with zero reciprocity. Not even 1 to 1 reciprocity but even with a similar contribution to the social contract. I just think that people, all people, can do better than that.
I liked that this was an article from a man about men - and I want to amplify those voices - but it's already back to "women have to do more" and "he doesn't understand regular men" and idk how he doesn't but Elon Musk, Andrew Tate or whoever somehow do.
But if I'm "doing it wrong" and he's "doing it wrong" I've yet to have anyone say what the actual right method is short of essentially "be nicer"
Obviously that’s ridiculous, but is that what the article is responding to? It lists two articles, one of the from the Boston globe about college enrollment. This is what said article actually said we should “do about” the issue.
Idk, seems pretty far from “women, have sex with incels so they don’t vote for Donald Trump”.
I think these kinds of articles or calls to action are fine? Not only is the problem real, and effects everyone, the proposed solutions neither call for ridiculousness nor seem to disproportionately demand women to do the actions.
I think the author was pretty open and explicit about not responding directly to the mentioned articles but to a broader conversation so I'm not responding to them either.
But there are people making the argument, even if you and I think it's absurd. That isn't even an example of women doing what they have to to survive. I'm glad for men making (I assume) non toxic spaces. Great! I don't really see how it relates to our line of conversation though. I am less confident in replicating something like this all over because these are the same sorts of groups that were fraternities and secret societies and philosophy clubs and all the other men's only spaces that led no one to liberation. But I hope more men do this sort of thing for each other
The author of the article is responding "to" a trend or movement. Step 1 of making those kinds of arguments is to actually define what the trend or movement is as finely as possible. The fact that the author could not find examples of what they were talking about is really the height of laziness.
It relates because the overall argument is about whether or not the kinds of articles in the "broader conversation" as apparently exemplified by that Boston Globe article should exist, or if they are giving too much leeway to the incels. And in that context, what the "broader conversation" is saying matters a lot. It is the crux of the issue, actually.
If the articles are about "women should bang trump supporters so they become democrats", then yes, that is pretty bad. And probably not effective even if they were to do it.
But if the article is "women should be OK with school funding going to male only or male specific programs", or on a more extreme level, "section 10 money that was otherwise mainly going to women's programs should be decreased so that they can go to men's programs", that's another question. Ultimately funding is zero sum, so that is a give-and-take.
To me, what the broader conversation represents in this context is exemplified by the book Of Boys and Men - it really seems like to me all the articles and whatnot started when the author of that book started their media tour on it. And all the articles that the author of this post mentioned (and didn't read) is also in the vein of the book Of Boys and Men.
So if the "broader conversation" is not like that, then they failed at doing job #1 as an author, and the response on this forum is what it is when no one agrees what they're even talking about as a baseline.
I think that's a fair criticism of the article it's just several angles off of the comment of mine you responded to and our back and forth. Did you want to talk about this instead?
I don't think it is. Ultimately what the "sacrifice" that everyone else would be asked to make or expected to do matters greatly in whether or not something is reasonable.
From a political point of view, these kind of "male loneliness epidemic" articles is trying to get at is, in a democracy, if Republicans (or more specifically, MAGA man-o-sphere influencers) offer solutions, offer to go the extra mile to "fix" (note: not saying it would fix anything in practice) these people, then they get their support, and their support is power.
Is it fair that the auto unions gets far more political favors than the writers guild? Maybe not, but the reality is one of them determines the president and the other doesn't.
And so the democratic party, and people who support not just the ideals of democratic party, but anything left of MAGA, does need to figure out a "solution" to winning over these voters. Not because they necessarily deserve a solution, but because everyone else needs them to be solved.
What I hear here is that the Republicans promise a fix - which is generally this domineering mentality described in the article - that does not seem to actually lead to happiness. So the Dems have to offer solutions that work... But not this one. Not any of the other ones - focusing on jobs, groceries, healthcare, cost of education - all things that directly help men. Not coming from a woman who laughs weird. Not coming from a guy who is too educated. It feels really weird from the critics of so called identity politics to demand identity politics.
This wasn't even about Republicans - all the grifts aren't coming from them by any means - but I'm not a political scientist or sociologist, I don't have the solution to fix a group of people ignoring their best interests because the person hurting them makes them feel good. I'm not even thinking about the election(s), I'm thinking about these individual guys' well beings. (And why does it feel like we're mostly only talking about white men here...) The men in my life don't espouse this stuff and when they have hangups they're things we talk through and they're already trying to work on.
I do this sort of work individually, but societally? Everyone keeps saying to do better - like what .... Lie because the other "team" is? Convince women to become political lesbians until the men reinstate their bodily autonomy? Rebrand it as meninism but keep it as the egalitarianism that feminism is? I'm not familiar with section 10 funding (and Google was not clarifying) but Title IX does apply to men and should.
Not a single message on this topic is well received in a male dominated tech space, no matter who the messenger is. I shared this because it was from a dude speaking to dudes which is what I kept seeing in the responses to articles by women/enbys. So I got nothing. I truly think that if (these) men stopped seeing proximity to and friendship with women, and empathy for each other as weaknesses and "gay" that they would be happier. I don't think male only spaces are the solution but sure try it again! Be great! This is not sarcastic.
But I find this overarching portrayal of men as so weak that anything but the gentlest remark is criticism to be so much more insulting than anything this article said. Like this reverts to the idea that women need to "manage" their husbands to manipulate them into the right outcome. Also yeah it's weird that auto unions have more power but it's weirder that they endorsed the anti-union guy. Because they liked how he made them feel I suppose.
Which, once again, means this is out of my wheelhouse. My work is being honest with folks, even when that's tough. It doesn't help people to lie to them. They "deserve" a solution, everyone does, I just don't know why it's being expected of the people they're actively harming and denigrating and who they explicitly won't listen to.
Dems need to win elections. That's step 1 to accomplishing anything. White men are disproportionately powerful in the political dynamics of the US. So yes, like how the auto unions are disproportionately powerful because they employ most of the voters in the kingmaker states, they both get disproportionate political coddling. Is what it is. The alternate is being irrelevant.
To get back to the article, the author is positing that people who write political opinion columns, and the Democratic party, should not try to seek the votes (or at least to discourage them from strongly voting in the other direction) of directionless men without a college degree, because there is no obligation to.
And it's like, obligation or not has nothing to do with anything in this realm. It doesn't matter if they don't deserve extra attention, if these are the votes that matter, they're the votes that matter.
I went back to reread and do a search and I think you've made a big leap from "this problem is framed as one men have, caused by women, to be solved by everyone else and men need to be willing to do some of this themselves and stop blaming women" to "Dems shouldn't seek their votes."
I understand the leap you're making but I don't think it's at all something he's saying, nor am I sure it's something he agrees with. He explicitly says to make spaces for them, in fact. And working towards liberation is working to help them alongside everyone else too.
But I don't think this article is about electoral politics and the position you're presenting as the authors is not one he's explicitly taken.
I am saying that the macho men are the ones creating the world that is causing the non-macho men to be lonely. Machismo hurts everyone, not just women or macho men.
I really disagree with your characterization of the article. Perhaps it’s not talking to you, because you are not a macho man. It’s being written in the perspective of women, but it’s targeting macho men.
For what it's worth the author is a man, I don't think he's writing from a women's perspective but from one that considers women as people.
Oh, perhaps I misunderstood by the use of "us" in the article.
Understandable, I think it's easy to default to us/them being men/women vs say, society/specific subgroups or people who want change/people who don't.
"It's an invitation, not a threat"
I thought this was a really excellent essay that highlights a lot of the problems I have with presenting male loneliness as a problem women have to solve, but also discussing the roots of the issue of loneliness. Even though women are more likely to be lonely than men, we still only hear about the "male loneliness epidemic" rather than looking at loneliness in general. Moxon gets into the feedback loop of it all, and how it's being capitalized on by people just trying to make money.
Some bits, but the whole essay is excellent and I wouldn't recommend operating off these bits alone for discussion
This has always bothered me. It's right up there with "allies" becoming enemies because someone was mean to them or how we are told to be nice to conservatives who have been hateful or they'll stay conservative. I'm not inclined to have my actions be held hostage to someone else's potential bad behavior.
Thanks for sharing this article and your highlights - I always appreciate your thoughts across the Tildes!
Going a little sideways, fix your hearts or die is also basically the message (and, I would argue, invitation) of the biblical prophets and Jesus. Personally, as the most privileged type of white man in the history of the world (I think I check all the boxes except being born to a millionaire), moving more and more into what this article talks about has been frequently driven by how I interpret "biblical manhood" - laying down what I was given for the benefit of others, as Jesus did. The article is right - thinking about all people as actual people does tend to make community and relationships happen more easily.
Thank you for the kind words!
I think the use of "Fix your Hearts or Die" was so intentional for that reason - because it's using the same language also used by so many of the most toxic messaging. (It can be kind or cruel.). But I think it's genuinely well intended here.
Thank you for posting this essay here! It has sparked some incredible discussion from different corners, and from having been in threads like these, even on Tildes they can get overwhelming, complicated and emotionally draining.
From one stranger to another, I hope you're doing okay.
I'm good, my actual stress comes from my partner's medical stuff right now.
Thanks for the kind thoughts
I’m a man, but I’ve never felt very connected to the more traditional “man” side of things. Because of that, it’s always been hard for me to relate to a lot of the modern discourse around men.
At the same time, I consider myself an extremely lonely person. Last year I told two of my closest friends that I felt really lonely, and they looked at me like it was my problem, something I needed to fix on my own. I’ve been trying. I’ve gone to therapy, meetups, and improv classes with the goal of improving my social skills, but I feel like I’m reaching the point where I want to give up. It feels like I’ll never be able to connect like a “normal” person.
And I know there’s something contradictory about saying I’m lonely while also saying I have at least two friends. But the truth is they’re there because I message them first. Nobody ever takes the initiative to reach out to me. That’s what really messes with me. It makes me feel like I could die at any moment and that would be it. In the best case, people might take weeks to notice something happened.
What I want to say is that both men and women have internalized expectations about how men should behave. When men don’t meet those expectations, they get ostracized. One of those expectations is that you’re never supposed to talk about how hard it is for you to connect with people. Society also needs to think about how little room it gives men to express themselves, but nobody seems willing to have that conversation. It's easier to just blame them for struggling and let them fall behind.
I really feel for you on this, and I think you’ve kind of hit on why I was feeling some dissonance reading the essay.
By and large it’s saying things about sexism and interpersonal relationships more broadly that I agree with - but it bears very little similarity to what I’d think when I hear “male loneliness epidemic”. What you’ve said and described is much closer to what comes to my mind there, and what concerns me in how we treat each other as a society.
If you asked me for a comment on that term without reading the piece, I’d say something like this: We’re all struggling through a collapse of close community bonds as late stage capitalism grinds them down, along with hugely damaging and intentional polarisation being deliberately caused through propaganda and misinformation. Pretty much everyone is alienated, exhausted, scared, and angry - often with good reason. The suicide figures alone show that something in modern society is especially difficult for men in particular to cope with, and I’d guess that all of those universal issues are perhaps magnified by an expectation to remain stoic and “manly”, as well as a world that (understandably, but unfortunately) treats each of us as an inherent threat to be kept at a distance until proven otherwise.
It seems… odd, I guess, reading this whole piece that’s contextualised the issue through the lens of sex and romantic relationships - and talks about things that broadly make sense to me in that context - but takes the issue of male loneliness to be that alone when it wouldn’t even have made the cut to be included in my thoughts on the topic.
Maybe that’s just another facet of the deeper problem: we don’t even share an understanding of what terms mean, because they’re misunderstood and misused and actively weaponised until they overtly mean one thing, imply another, and act as a dog whistle for a third. How are we supposed to approach a conversation about loneliness when some people are using the word genuinely, others are using it as code to mean “sexual rejection”, and everyone’s talking past each other assuming that everyone understands it in the same way they do?
Interesting about your guy friends needing to be reached out to first, and that you're always the one to do it.
That's a tough arrangement for friendships, one that I've found transgresses the sexes. Some people are prime movers with initiative and some aren't.
As another guy who's historically made the effort, I found it crushing that some of the people with whom I shared years of friendship or forged intimate bonds with had stopped reciprocating our friendship or never did it in the first place. In my late 20s, I found a lot of value in letting friends know -- whether directly or indirectly -- that I expect friends to share the burden of effort. It's a protective tactic but also a realistic one that helps me to determine who to invest in.
Loneliness is a tough nut to crack, but if I'm to empathize with what you've said out loud, it's that I hope you have an understanding of your intrinsic value. If you're not being recognized by current friends in a way that's satisfying, it's worth seeking out those who do.
True. I have a few people that I am genuinely good friends with that I’ve known for decades but we only hang out when I plan stuff. It isn’t unique to me, it’s just that they never take the initiative with anyone.
Ah, well that's reassuring in a way.
I'm curious, how do you frame those friendships in terms of their contributions to your life? Are they legacy relationships where the history between you is what's motivating you to keep reaching out?
I don't know if there's an analog here, but I'm reminded of a group of friends I once had where, after growing out of the activities/circumstances to brought us together, we still continued to see each other.
It was the sort of connection built on the food times, and it wasn't until I moved that it became clear that it wasn't serving either of us.
Is there a chance that you as a person would benefit from branching out a little?
I think that’s actually a really good, succinct summary of the article. The whole point is that we need embrace feminism to stop men from doing those things or reacting by turning inward. The idea is that if men embraced the idea of casting off patriarchal shackles from both women and themselves, then men could have those access to those spaces where they could feel safe and express themselves. But the article posits that it’s up to men to do that.
I think this article falls immediately into a series of neoliberal fallacies. Specifically, it misunderstands the patriarchy in purely social, not economic terms, in addition to not reflecting on broader societal trends as a whole, and assuming an 'end of history' viewpoint. To that extent, its another worthless think piece that provides a dangerous and self congratulatory misunderstanding of a deep-rooted issue.
On a surface level, I fundamentally agree that adhering to a dogma of egalitarian and feminist philosophies is absolutely something that betters the lives and outcomes of men. However, given the economic environment that the modern person lives in, it's just not realistic to assume that these ideas will magically make everything better.
In my experience, the issue of male loneliness is rooted in the shifting social and economic roles for men, in addition to broad spectrum economic and social shifts.
In this environment of drought, grifters and snake oil salesmen have built an entire industry on isolated men. The Manosphere is essentially a large scale grift engine built to farm off the desperation of men who have been economically and socially left behind in the digital revolution. They are sold a lie about Feminism ruining western culture, in order to get them to buy supplements and vote for right candidates.
Feminism by itself will not solve the problems of our day and age, because it simply isn't designed to. Feminism is designed to facilitate a more egalitarian world where men and women are treated equally. This is a wonderful thing, but fundamentally it can leave men and women to 'equally' suffer under hardship. The patriarchy is a tool of capital, and this article cannot be bothered to address that.
Additionally, this article is inherently problematic by assuming a sweeping, uninformed, universalist revision of gender dynamics. The article's feminist understanding casts women as victims pre-20th century feminism. This is entirely an uninformed position, for a variety of reasons. Culturally, and historically, there have been a wide array of gender dynamics, with Victorian gender dynamics being assumed to have been a cultural default. (i.e. the patriarchal structure 20th century feminism railed against.)
Most disturbingly, "Fix your Heart or Die" is uncomfortably on the nose when dealing with the uncomfortable pivot towards fascism in the United States. As Umberto Eco observes in Ur-Fascism, a cult of death is inherently part of a Fascist's belief structure. We seem to be getting to the point where people are queuing up to die for 'traditional values.'
The Manosphere has already made their decision: "Harden your heart and die." If we want to win hearts and minds, we'll have to try better than this.
Agreed that it's incomplete, you need feminism AND everything else. But I don't think this subset of men will acknowledge who is actually keeping them down until they realize and accept that women aren't. Similarly I don't think many white folks will realize who the "problem" is in their communities until they stop leaning on the cheap and easy racism and xenophobia as the answer. We see what happens in MN when the populace refuses to deny their neighbors' personhood and buy into bullshit. Once you shove it aside you're willing to stand up against the system.
And I think it's possible that once you shove the misogyny aside you can be willing to see the billionaires holding you down (many of whom were actively collaborating of messaging strategies to counter the MeToo movement in the Epstein files, for example) and take a stand against the bigger system.
But maybe I'm wrong. If I am I think it just confirms though that there's probably not a way for people like me to convey the message.
I don't feel like you're acknowledging my point. My point is, there is a specific subset of men who have already embraced American Fascism, and articles like this are arguing as if that isn't the case.
Specifically, to me, this feels like an article for 2016, or 2023 at the latest. We're so far beyond the issue of male loneliness in our society, and pieces like this do not reflect the current reality we live in. Personally, I'd say we have transcended from an epidemic of male loneliness, to a situation where white nationalists are recruiting white men, and liberal institutions are struggling to meet the needs of anyone.
That is my issue with the piece, that it isn't ready to address and rectify the issue of Men's Loneliness with the myriad of issues surrounding it. Specifically, that Men's Loneliness is an exploitable commodity to grifters and right wing agitators.
On a personal level, I live in Minnesota. I think that protests here aren't quite relevant to this discussion. While we absolutely are standing up to protect our neighbor's rights, there is a significant and nuanced history behind it. As a Minnesotan, there's a lot to be said about how the anti-ICE protests here can be seen as a continuation of / successor to the George Floyd Protests, or how there's a long history of leftist activism AND racism in the Twin Cities that continues to be reckoned with. Regardless of that, please slow your roll with assuming that Minneapolis was some sort of victory. Getting ICE to "draw down" was a lengthy and costly victory at best. Our current understanding is that ICE has begun targeting rural and suburban communities away from the Metro area. That's not even getting into the psychological and economic wounds that was left in my community.
Don't get me wrong, I am extraordinarily proud of people here for resisting, but it was not easy. Ultimately, we resisted because it was the right thing to do, regardless of the gender politics of the 21st century. While I would be tickled pink to find that Minnesota's model of gender politics is so egalitarian that it uniquely allowed us to resist, I think that is an extraordinary claim that is beyond the scope of this conversation.
I also agree that Racism and Xenophobia are an immediate and omnipresent component of Sexism. However, there is an unfortunate truth that Xenophobia and Racism can just as freely exist in Feminist spaces. I really, truly cannot empathize enough that the issue of Men's loneliness cannot solely be fixed via having them embrace Feminism.
I think you are correct. Not everyone is the best messenger for every issue or perspective. The unfortunate answer is that Male Loneliness is a Complicated, Economic, and Social Problem that stems from a century of poor public policy and messaging. I appreciate you considering your role and perspective in the messaging, and I'd encourage you to not be disheartened.
I want to clarify, I'm not ignoring that there's a group of folks who have embraced fascism, that's a fact. I don't think this article is addressing that subset. But also while I'm aware of how much more complex the dynamics of MN's situation are my point wasn't that the gender politics are amazing, it was that the folks standing up there decided not to buy into the xenophobia/racism being sold and in doing so faced down the system. I'm not claiming a victory, I don't think I said that? I'm respecting the labor and the sacrifice. It was work. It is work still.
I'm not pretending that Minnesota has expunged racism, just that while this isn't a destruction of the entire system, systems often get challenged when people start to examine and reject one corrupt piece of it. I think you mistook the comparison I was making.
Embracing feminism won't free everyone from everything, it's a step on the path to liberation. But I think it would genuinely help for these men not to isolate themselves from over half the population for being "gay"/femme/womanly/weak/beta/whatever.
As for why this now? The MLE is being talked about a lot, even if it feels old news to you. It's not just being sold by the right either even if the narrative ultimately serves them. If the pipeline can be interrupted at those initial phases and redirecting young men away from the far right bottom of the slide that is probably worth doing. It won't solve everything, no. Nothing solves everything. Not even freedom from capitalism.
So, my point was just that taking steps toward liberation is valuable using the work of those in MN as an example of a different 1st step.
I didn't address all your points because I don't really have the energy to get in deep on all of it, nor do I have all the answers. Was just explaining how I see it. I do understand your points.
Articles like these just make me so existentially tired. I don't disagree that the very specific group, loud misogynists online, they are talking about sucks and are terrible. I completely agree! But none of those people are reading their article, and I am pretty sure they know that. And even if they did read it, I can't imagine it would change their mind, or more importantly, that the author believes it would change their mind. Its written by a liberal feminist for other liberal feminists. That's not an intrinsic problem for me, but then textually its explictly written as if the audience is those loud misogynists. I find it baffling.
The thing that pisses me off is that it continues the dumb, sexist canard that people are lonely because their bad people. I very much disagree, partly because I've always been a loner but also because I think its gross and wrong. I'm lonely because I had a childhood that taught me people are untrustworthy and will constantly lie about how good they are in the relationship. I've never been in a romantic relationship because I sincerely believed I was fundamentally undesirable for most of my life and now I feel its too late to start. Neither of those things have anything to do with a desire to dominate women or having that desire but being robbed of the opportunity to fufill it.
Do they really believe that there aren't lonely feminists? Like what? I don't know if the author knows this, but conservatives are capable of making friends and dating each other. Most lonely people are lonely for mundane reasons, not their political beliefs. They're lonely because they have crippling social anxiety or have no free time to meet new people. Or they had bad experiences in the past and nopped out. Or they don't know where to meet people that are actually like them. They also acknowledge many women are lonely, but is feminism and "Be a man" also the solution for them? If not, why is loneliness a real problem for women and not men?
I didn't read the article yet, but I interpret the quoted statement as follows: feminism is an antidote to the patriarchal mindset that many (all) of us were indoctrinated into. One facet of it has to do with the idea of ownership: parents sometimes behave as if their children are commodities they own (even when they don't consciously hold such beliefs), and men sometimes behave as if their spouse is similarly owned by them. With this comes the idea that men who have these possessions are more admirable and more highly respected than those who do not.
The agony of incels can be seen as deriving from the above mindset, perhaps not entirely, but to a significant degree. (Similarly, some women experience anxiety due to not having reproduced even if they don't even really want kids.)
Feminism teaches us that these ideas are ultimately there to control us, not liberate us, and that we can reject them if they don't serve us. The solution to this type of loneliness isn't finding a partner but realising you can be happy and a good person even when you're single.
I dont think I would ever be able to earnestly engage with feminism, to be honest.
The writer is not hostile, per se, but I sense a general feeling of exasperation and resentment at the expectation of sympathizing or empathizing with men at all. When they talk about the "male loneliness epidemic" thing its framed exclusively as a men not being able to get girlfriends thing. But from what Ive seen online this buzzword describes more of a broader social disconnection which is occuring that includes regular nonsexual friendships. However, because wanting a friend doesnt come off as entitled as wanting to own a woman, its not really relevant here. Only the aspects which you ought to feel ashamed of yourself for are worth discussing.
I would also add that the characterization of what "men" are supposed to be like seems to be exclusively derived from alpha male podcasts that dont reflect average male sentiment very well, so it sounds like a strawman based on youtube personalities that are playing an exaggerated character role and therefore these conversations dont actually apply to me so much as an abstraction of male sexism that Im supposed to assume responsibility for.
I feel it would be very difficult for me to ever openly explore my thoughts and motivations, or expose amy vulnerabilities that might be underlying my thought processes, because I just would not be able to trust the dialogue as a safe place to engage with those things. I would fear that doing so would only open me up to being manipulated by people who seek to weaponize shame and guilt as a means of controlling others. I would feel compelled to bury my feelings and just pretend to engage, so as to not risk voicing an actual opinion that might not be received well.
But then again, Im not particularly bothered by the "male loneliness epidemic" so if I never get liberated I guess it doesnt matter.
Have you considered that perhaps the problems you are having with feminism is the places you have these conversations in? Many places on the web have been poisoned by manosphere types, and I can understand if you feel that you don't want to talk about some of your thoughts here for the pushback you could get.
My suggestion is to simply read some books by feminist authors. There are pretty much no major misandrist voices in modern feminism and by most accounts feminists want to help men to live happier, healthier lives.
I have thought about that. Ive thought about the fact that most of my apprehension towards activism of all types is due to the fact that I mostly see it online, and people online are often way shittier than they would be in real life, especially if they can tell themselves they are being shitty in service of a greater good.
But its much more precarious a situation to dip my toes into conversations with real people. Online I can and often do write out all my thoughts and post them, and then quickly realize I dont want to be involved so I delete my comment and move on. Its much harder to cut and run if I risk having a real life conversation and it goes bad.
As for reading books, I dont think I have the patience for that. Just reading this one article took me a good while because I kept getting sidetracked with all my thoughts and objections and frustrations. It was a real slog to get through, I dont think Im up for hundreds of pages of that.
I have no recommendations about the subject at hand other than to say to try audiobooks at as fast as speed as you can handle. I finally finished Moby Dick last year after trying to read it 3 times and giving up really early on. 2x speed usually works to stop me from mental wandering much, though I have to slow it down a bit depending on the reader's accent. If you're in the US with a decent library system nearby, Libby and Hoopla tend to have quite a bit you can check out for free.
I would say the alternative to books is to read articles about feminism, but frankly that's a field too broad to put into a single article. Instead, maybe consider looking up more modern feminist frameworks such as the ethics of care and intersectionality.
Those links are to wikipedia, but of course wikipedia articles aren't meant to be persuasive, so I'd encourage you to find other articles about them.
While I do agree with the way of life this essay argues for, it really rubbed me the wrong way.
The broad strokes of this are true for a very particular period of time (post-Industrial Revolution through to roughly the latter half of the 1900s in Western cultures, so about 150 years), but to claim this is true for long centuries beyond that is incorrect. I'll be speaking from a Western pre-modern farmer perspective in the following paragraph, using ACOUP's excellent series on peasant family labor, especially the sections on marriage, legality, and patriarchy, childbearing, and women's labor.
When it comes to sex, there's an important consideration of the economic reality of households. Women (and men) couldn't afford to have not have children, because additional labor was required to sustain the household. Yes, I'm certain countless sexual abuses did happen. However, the phrase "mostly sexual use" implies to me that the author is thinking about marriage primarily in terms of male pleasure, whereas I strongly suspect the medieval male peasant was primarily thinking about continuing to make ends meet because his cousins are dying at the (ripe old) age of 45 and just to maintain population levels takes ~10 pregnancies given mortality rates. Sex was just as much about subsistence farming survival as much as it was about male pleasure, likely much more so.
So women were not mostly for sexual use -- they worked vastly more hours than the men and were a vitally important part of the labor of the household! Without women's labor, the household would not have been able to meet its needs year-over-year. Furthermore, phrasing it as "free labor" (as in, free labor for the man of the house) is pushing a very modern and individualistic way of thinking onto past societies that would not have thought in such terms. Women's labor is not free labor for the man, it is necessary labor for the household.
To drive the collectivist nature of this society home, men were also owned by men. Patriarchy, after all, means rule by fathers. The hypothetical man the author is talking about would have been put to work at the age of ~5 (as would the woman) at the behest of his father to help make ends meet. He would have exactly as much choice in who he would marry as his wife would - that is to say, next to none. He would remain in the household and under the power of (and in some cultures, legal ownership of) his father until his father died. Only then would he be "free", but he would still be beholden to community leaders and other social betters. He would be expected to produce ~4-5 kids just to make ends meet, regardless of how he felt, regardless of how many died in childbirth. This is not an environment for individualism to thrive. This man would not feel like he was dominating, or indeed that he had any real say in the broad strokes of his life.
I harp on this paragraph so much, even though the author says he has simplified greatly, because it nonetheless strongly feels like he's taken these simplifications and ran with them for the rest of the article. Marriage was not a power fantasy.
It feels like he's taken this caricature of the past, imagining a history of a sexual power fantasy by husbands, and argued venomously against it (as he should, if it were real!). It leads to a similar dissonance in his critique of modern men, arguing venomously against the Andrew Tates and the right-wing manosphere (again, as he should!), while ignoring the large section of men who commit to feminism as he defines it but are nonetheless lonely. Those are the people who are most important for him to reach, but this article will do nothing for them.
The interesting thing about this is that in parts of the US that are less distantly removed from farm life (e.g. the parents of gen X/millenials participated in it), traces of these expectations remain. In my hometown, around the time of my early 20s (early 2010s) it was still part of the expected norm to be married with 1.5 kids by 22-24 or so and if men didn't conform to that they'd begin to be subject to people questioning if they were gay or if something else was "wrong" (their perspective, not mine) with them.
Indeed! A pre-modern-like farming society is not too distant a past for a large chunk of the middle US.
My grandmother was born on a Texas farm and had (at least) 9 children. Though she moved to the city when she got married, she still carried expectations that her children would contribute, either through working in the family restaurant or getting an outside job and giving the money back to the household. My mother - the oldest daughter - dropped out of high school in the late 1980s to help raise yet more kids and get a job to help pay the bills.
(Funnily enough for this thread, my grandmother was the undisputed master of the house and all economic proceeds went to her. It helps that Mexican culture is significantly more matriarchal... plus she split the male power base three-ways with three husbands!)
I don't think you're wrong to point out that men also were subject to a lot of legal and social forces that severely constrained their options, but this comment feels like it's equating them with those of women, and that feels kinda awful and dismissive to me. The relationship between a husband and wife was not remotely legally or socially equal. Women were also beholden to community leaders and social betters but were also the property (often literally) of their husbands. When divorce existed it often was something that could be deployed against women by men and not vice-versa. Women usually had no legal ownership over any familial assets or ability to acquire their own wealth. There's a reason "widows and orphans" have been the stereotypical example of the poor and destitute who need charity for ages. Moreover, surely you can see that the burden of producing 4-5 children and the risks of childbirth fall extremely disproportionately on the women, right? Even if you ignore the uneven distribution of unpaid labor associated with child rearing after these babies are born, surely you must acknowledge that the labor and risk of child-bearing falls almost entirely on the woman. To say a man "would be expected to produce 4-5 kids" is all well and good but I think it's pretty unfair to obscure the difference in what "produce kids" entails for men vs women.
Muslim and Roman women could initiate divorce and maintain their property. At least in South Carolina, white women were the buyer and/or seller in 40% of slave sales. In late medieval and early modern England, young peasant women could move to the cities alone to make money to increase the dowry she brought to the marriage. Widows in medieval Europe were able to run the businesses of their dead spouses, and in some areas, were included in worker's guilds. In late medieval Spain, widows directly owned their dowry and husbands were often required to pay into the dowry; women usually married men that were 10-15 years older, so being a widow was quite common. Arranged marriages varied a lot in the particulars, but usually involved the mothers as much or more as the fathers. Spinster means a never married women who historically lived off selling the thread and fabric she made; its meant that since the 1500s. The reason that names like Smith and Miller are common is because jobs were usually patrilinearly inherited; women, whether through marriage or birth, would often been involved with the household business. In England and Japan, literacy moved from the upper-class through middle-class women to the rest of society.
My point isn't that women had it great, they definetely didn't, but that it varied a lot in time and place. And broad stroke claims about women's role and treatment in society only further muddies the real issue, gender discrimination in societies today. There is and was no universal standard for women's role in any one society at any one point in time.
Women's treatment and rights absolutely have varied across time and place, and I think there's ultimately a solid understanding of class that needs to be taken into account, as comparisons that ignore class end up being very apples and oranges. But I think emphasizing the circumstances in which women did have limited agency historically while downplaying the ways in which they did legitimately have significantly diminished rights compared to men is an unfair way to frame things. I don't think it's wrong necessarily to point out that men were (and are) also subject to social forces that served to subjugate them, but since women were subject to those same forces and additional limitations due to the sexism entrenched in society, and I don't think it makes a stronger case for men to diminish the very real inequalities that have existed historically throughout most societies (although the details do vary enough that it's difficult to generalize on most of the specifics).
I don't think discussion of the long history of women's oppression muddles the issue of modern gender discrimination, as they are fundamentally related, but in any case the comment I responded to was about historical treatment rather than just modern gender discrimination, and that's what I was thus responding to. And an issue I took with the comment I responded to above (which isn't really the case with this comment now) was that it seemed to attempt to equate the ways in which men were subject to similar societal pressures to those of women, even in cases like childbirth where the labor and risk have universally fallen on the one actually bearing the children.
Also, this is more of a nitpick, but your discussion of literacy in Japanese society is misleadingly worded. I only bring this up because I'm very familiar with it from a seminar I took on the topic in college. A lot of the foundational works of literature written in Japanese are indeed written by women, but this is because in Japanese society at the time educated men wrote exclusively in literary Chinese. Women were not allowed to learn to do this (although we have evidence of particular educated women who did so on the down-low), and writing in the Japanese language was considered lesser at the time. While the early literary works in Japanese by women are considered hugely important now and did have a huge influence on the development of Japanese writing and literature thereafter, I don't think it serves as a good example of circumstances when women were particularly free societally, as even the high-class women who had the time and education to learn to write at all in Japanese society only ended up producing works of literature in the Japanese language because they were not equal to men and were prevented from participating in most of the contemporary literary scene because of their gender alone.
I'd say my point, which I should have clear about, is that often feminists say women had it worse then men while never actually comparing a woman to an equivalent man in any one culture.
At most a real negative thing about the female gender role will be stated and nothing said about the male role.
For example, childbirth will be brought up as a dangerous thing that only effects women, which is true.
But the natural male counterpart is soldiering.
Its just about as gendered as childbirth and its far more lethal then childbirth, which balances out its reduced occurrence.
Men also have just as much choice in being soldier as women do in being a mother, often less.
Soldiers were usually either conscripted or explicitly raised to be a warrior since they were 5.
Again I agree women have and had many terrible norms forced onto them, but that says nothing about the male role.
Men don't need to have it good for women to have it bad.
Yes, women had strict gender roles, but so did men.
Was the gender role forced onto women worse then the role forced onto men?
I think that's a very complicated question that is deeply subjective.
It depends on the particulars of the society and the particulars of each person.
I don't consider someone who sincerely enjoys their gender role oppressed, but I understand that some will disagree with me.
An uncritical statement that its better to be a man then a woman always feels patriarchal to me.
My knowledge of gender in Japanese literature was only in relation to a similarity in North-Western Europe, so you have me beat there.
I definitely think that other factors like class could, depending on the specifics, absolutely overcome gendered differences in terms of their impact upon individuals. A rich, high-class woman almost certainly had a much better life than an impoverished man in, like, most societies. But I think attempts to compare women to men "within the same culture" are disingenuous if they focus on comparing high-class, rich women to low-class, impoverished men, as they're pretty deliberately putting a hand on the scales there. The comparison absolutely looks much different when you control for class and compare men and women of similar economic and social rank, as well as looking at ways in which women generally were limited in their social and economic mobility compared to men (though the specifics vary a lot by location and time period, there are vanishingly few examples where there were no such gendered limitations). You can argue that class was more important than gender in terms of its influence on one's life, sure, but I don't think whether it was or not has much to say about how to combat the gendered oppression we know exists.
Moreover, I don't think trying to "rank" it like this is necessarily helpful in terms of addressing either type of oppression, and I think that's especially true when we do try to apply it to modern-day discrimination, as this also holds true when considering other factors like race, sexuality, etc. Ultimately this leads to counterproductive arguments that don't actually address any of the types of oppression involved. Addressing different types of oppression separately but also discussing how they combine and influence each other is a core part of modern intersectional feminism, and I would caution you to avoid assuming feminists are all painting with this broad "all women are always worse than all men" brush as being descriptive of "feminism" as a whole. Pop feminism may lean that way, and I won't say there aren't fringe groups with radical ideologies that do think that way, but actually engaging with the work of modern feminist authors would by and large give you a much more nuanced picture of feminist thought, I think.
I think it's possible to acknowledge the societal structures that oppress men, even those that uniquely oppress men, and seek solutions without framing it as a "men have it just as bad as women" because that comes across as very dismissive of the struggles that are genuinely unique to women, and I don't think that it even helps us when it comes to actually focusing on men's issues (or issues that affect people of any gender and thus necessarily also affect men, which is where I would categorize class-based oppression). I also think a big problem with a lot of the "discourse" surrounding things like the male loneliness epidemic, even when it's interpreted more charitably than the author of this article did, is that it pits men's problems against women in a way that implies women need to give up rights/freedoms or put in particular types of labor for men's problems to be solved, and I simply don't believe that any of those problems are actually even effectively solved that way.
I actually wonder if you're correct that combat is more deadly than childbirth. I'd be interested in reliable sources, which I had trouble finding for this (and record-keeping plus the struggle to make any stats directly comparable would make it very difficult to directly compare them in the time periods we seem to be discussing anyway), but I think you're very much underestimating the risk of maternal mortality in childbirth without the access to modern medical equipment if you think it's clear-cut that combat is much more deadly for men than childbirth is for women. Setting aside the inability to find hard stats, the two were often rhetorically directly compared historically, even by figures who I wouldn't really describe as particularly feminist. But my desire here isn't to diminish how bad war is or anything. The absolute comparison is kinda orthogonal to my point, because my main issue with the initial comment's discussion of childbirth wasn't that the comment discussed men's issues in general, but that it attempted to emphasize the struggles and obligations men have when it comes to producing children without remotely acknowledging how much that particular issue disproportionately affected and still affects women.
My principle issue with a lot of the rhetoric around men's issues is that so many men who try to have conversations about it are unwilling to concede that women do indeed suffer from real problems and unequal treatment that men do not experience, and while I think the general tone of this conversation has been more nuanced than that, I think the initial comment rubbed me the wrong way because it reminded me of that rhetoric. I think insisting that we just can't tell whether historical gender roles were worse for women or men simply doesn't hold water, and I think citing the exceptional circumstances under which some subset of women had some limited power or relying on axes of oppression other than gender fails to make that point more convincing. I want to talk about men's issues in modern society and historically. I'm transmasc myself, so I wish I could engage with it more, frankly. But I struggle to do so in an environment others discussing such issues can't even acknowledge that gender-based oppression of women was incredibly common historically, much less that it's still common today. Back when I still used reddit I found r/menslib did a good job of discussing these issues in a nuanced, feminist while having moderation that overall did a good job of allowing comments from those participating in good faith while stamping out toxic elements. I don't, frankly, think Tildes is as well-moderated in this respect, but that's at least in part a resources issue, as Deimos is just one guy. But there are definitely topics where some of the upvoted and exemplaried comments would make me hesitant to recommend Tildes to people in my life until they were off the front page.
I feel like we're talking past each other a bit. My original point was against the pop-feminist trope that women have only ever been functionally slaves across history; my point is that a woman, compared to her male peer has less, but not 0 power in most societies. I'm definitely not saying that women didn't have unique problems or that those problems are insignificant. I would counter that pop-feminists are feminists and pop-feminism is the brand of feminism that has the most formal power in society at large. I do generally agree with and like more "serious" (I can't think of a better word) feminists, but I feel like its bad faith to claim they're the only "real" feminists. I'm fucking terrible with names, but I'm thinking of the woman who coined the concept of "mansplaining" and the woman who wrote about doing a personal privilege audit as being examples of fairly mainstream feminists I agreed with. To be clear, I identify as pro-feminist, mainly because men who talk a lot about being feminists usually aren't particularly feminist in practice. That and I don't personally want to wade into the culture war over which branch of feminism owns the term "feminism".
We probably move in different circles, but I usually see men starting every conversation about men's issue with an explict statement about how they know women and non-binary people have it worse then men. I'm coming from a place were its, rightfully, taken as a given women have bad, real and significant problems and men's issues gets largely ignored and erased. I'll be honest, I don't think I've ever even heard of any progressive group taking men's issues more seriously then women's or non-binary peoples, let alone seen it in real life. I personally feel the need to be more vocal about men's issues because women's and non-binary people's issues have far more significant groups supporting them.
My historical argument is purely from the fact that we have no direct accounts from the lower 90% of pretty much every culture in history, irregardless of their gender. My understanding of your argument is that that you're suggesting that one the elites in the vast majority of cultures are unambigiously patriarchal and that two, once we start having direct accounts from the lower class, they also exhibit at least some patriarchial elements as well. I know I'm extrapolating a far bit from what you wrote, but that's the sense I got. If I am largely correct in my understanding of your point, then I agree with it, I'm simply neurotic about couching every educated guess in asterisks and caveats.
For specific statistics on historical maternal mortality, This article from Cambridge puts the Lifetime maternal mortality risk in 17th century England at 5.6 percent and the article contexualizes that normal Yearly mortality was about the same rate. I'm not certain how much maternal mortality changed between cultures and through time, but my guess would be that it doesn't vary by enormous amounts. I completely agree that its impossible to produce an average risk for generic combat across history, but my source was this Acoup blog post that put it at 10% per battle for ancient Greek hoplites, which is significantly higher then lifetime maternal mortality.
As to the original post, I mostly noticed it because it refrenced a blog I also like a lot and I wasn't reading it for its implications. I completely agree that the risks of childbirth exclusively fall on women. As to other comments here and Tildes in general, I can only say that due to my bad habit of trawling dumpster subreddits my calibration for iffy stuff is set to deranged rants.
I think this is getting at something similar to what I was talking about in my previous comment, albeit from a different direction -- my problem is that I cannot find groups or even discussions that are focused on men's issues that aren't dominated by voices that are at best extremely dismissive of feminism and women's issues, if not straight-up regressive. I don't think it's actually the case that men's issues don't have significant groups supporting them, it's just that when you weed out the groups that allow or even foster regressive conservatives and misogynists, there's very little left. Even on sites that lean progressive, like Tildes, you'll often get some pretty blasé misogyny whenever gendered issues come up (nothing as bad as the depths of many subreddits or worse, but bad by comparison with the Tildes status quo). Especially given that I'm trans myself, this leaves me hesitant around men who are vocal about men's issues specifically without doing a lot of the acknowledgement you describe (which I don't think I see much of here in this topic's comments, to be frank) as the bare minimum to signal that they don't think things like that women are oppressing men by not dating them or that women are too picky and more manipulative than men.
And you're definitely overestimating the amount of support there is for non-binary issues specifically. I promise you, there's not actually very much out there for us on a practical level, even online, even in queer/trans-focused spaces. Ultimately you have to settle for hopping between groups for men and groups for women depending on what actually applies for you and how willing they are to accept your presence.
(EDIT: Just wanted to add that, for the record, I've considered our discussion here an enriching conversation, so it's not what I'm talking about when I mention disliking particular types of comments on this topic. I'm not always 100% sure how my tone comes off but I'm not like mad or trying to argue with you fwiw)
Yeah, men's issues groups do tend conservative/anti-feminist, which bums me out. I do feel like progressives have just completely given up the space without attempting to counter it at all.
I disagree that it should be required to acknowledge that women have very real issues every time someone wants to talk about men's issues. It makes sense in some spaces and conversations, but it can be kinda degrading to make it necessary. Men are allowed to just talk about their problems.
I wouldn't say non-binary issues have a lot of support, but are allowed to be framed as real and significant problems in the wider discourse. That definetely doesn't mean its given the care and support it deserves. My central experience of talking about men's issues to progressives is the response that it simply doesn't exist. The other response is that Patriarchy hurts men too, which I agree is true, but then the conversation ends there. There's no discussion of what that actually means or how to actually help men.
Your tone's fine! I also get unsure how I come across in text, so I feel you.
To be clear, I agree with this in principle. It's less that I don't think men should be allowed to talk about their problems and more that men acknowledging that women's problems exist is unfortunately necessary in these conversations because so many conversations and spaces about men's issues are so anti-feminist. It's less that I think it's some moral obligation they have and more that I really need a signal that this isn't one of those spaces/conversations before I really want to engage with someone on men's issues, because I don't want to waste my time (or, since whether I'm deemed to "count" as a man varies wildly in such spaces, to be unsafe).
I'd say there's a difference between it being a personal standard and it being a general rule. As a personal standard, it seems perfectly fucking fair to me; you do what keeps you safe. But as a general rule, it just sets a much higher standard for discussing men's issues then other groups have. Men have real problems that are unique to them; the way people talk about them doesn't change that. Feminist discourse, whatever your opinion on it is, is given a lot of latitude in talking negatively about men, and in my experience, it often crosses the line into bigotry. I can understand #killallmen isn't meant literally and I can still think its gross. I'd personally prefer that all groups be held to a higher standard of care when talking in public spaces.
I'm also not a fan of the #killallmen style of "feminist" discourse, ftr, and I tend to avoid spaces where women's issues are discussed in that way as well. The difference is mainly that I'm generally able to more safely and easily "dip my toes" in women's spaces to assess whether they're inclusive or not without as many clear signs up front, as I pass better as a butch woman than as a man atm.
Part of me doesn't want to chime in on this topic, as an otherwise inocuous comment I posted about how sky-high dating standards have caused a male loneliness epidemic and made more men turn to sycophant AI chatbots earned me a recent permaban from a major subreddit. This is despite me not using misogynistic terminology, not promoting hateful ideology and not resorting to personal insults.
If venting about my bad experiences from over a decade of frequenting online dating sites was enough to draw the ire of Reddit's power user cabal, it kinda shows how polarized and partisan the whole debate has become.
Screw it, I spent way too long typing this out...
This is an incredibly sweeping and damaging generalization of how men think. Men aren't lonely because they feel they are owed women as property. That's a very small, vocal and sadly violent minority that had been drawn down into an incel rabbit hole and radicalized by hateful ideology.
Someone's immediate response to a lonely male virgin who is feeling downtrodden about their sex life (or lack thereof) and the fact that their peers are in healthy relationships and they're forever-alone shouldn't be "women don't owe you sex" - as if the mere desire for romantic and/or sexual intimacy in itself deserves to be chastised.
I had no idea Steven Bartlett got into deep shit for that quote until I looked deeper into the episode. It actually took me some time to find the specific clip because I was looking at the wrong episodes and it turns out that YouTube commenters who have been condemning him for his question are not even remotely helpful and will call anyone who asks them for a timestamp "lazy."
Turns out it's from an interview he did with Dr K about porn addiction six months ago...
Will admit, not a good look for him, but I kinda see why he raised that question, given how he and Dr K have often discussed the issues of male loneliness, inceldom and male radicalization. I definitely think Steven could have worded this question a whole lot better. Dr K's response was actually really good because he shut down the argument that society should find them partners by bringing up the issue of consent. He flat-out said "my right to reproduce never trumps someone's right to not want to reproduce with me."
There's a massive difference between wanting to be around someone and wanting to sleep with them. If someone has a lot of women as friends in their life yet none of them will see him as anything beyond that (even those who aren't in relationships of their own), what is it that they need to work on?
Again, the author doesn't answer this, even in the half-dozen paragraphs afterwards promoting feminism as the solution. It's all well and good to state this but I want to understand why.
I offer a different interpretation, both for why more men are opting out of college and why fewer men are having sexual relationships (27% of men between 18-30 in the US have not had sex. Figures published by the Telegraph suggesting that only 34% of male university students in the UK are sexually active paint an even bleaker picture.)
Men are opting out of college because it's a debt-laden waste of time. A degree won't even guarantee you a stable job in this day and age. This is only going to get worse as AI evolves.
Women are more judgmental, harsh and selective about their sexual partners especially on dating apps, but do not like to admit it. This is a point men often rant about on social media. Okcupid even did research into this based on their own data and found that women rate 80% of their male users as below-average attractiveness (archived because this was published in an era before a corporate acquisition from Match Group enshittified the platform. And it's understandable why they'd want to purge research/trends like this.) What I'm basically saying is that cishet men and women suffer from entirely different problems. Men struggle to get any kind of interaction whereas women are flooded with copious and often unwanted quantities and types of it.
In the post-WW2 era when women had gained equal voting rights and the ability to (permanently) join the workforce, it didn't result in an immediate societal shift. Salaries and costs of living were still very much affordable, meaning that it was still possible to be a stay-at-home parent and have a breadwinner in the family. Wages have largely stagnated over the next few decades whilst living costs have absolutely skyrocketed to unaffordability.
With skyrocketed living costs, the dream of owning your own home has long since vanished, and now more men are living with their parents than ever before. And women don't want to date a momma's boy. Trust me, my best friend is in this predicament too and he's genuinely been unmatched for being honest about his living situation - he lives with his parents because they're elderly and unwell.
If you cannot afford to live in your own place (as a renter or homeowner) on a single salary, then cohabiting is the only solution. And when you're lonely, the only friends you have all have living situations of their own, and no woman wants to date you, you basically end up in this male underclass.
The TL;DR? this incel epidemic is an economic issue as much as it's a social one. Tackling wealth inequality will go a long way.
A woman here. Hi. I have serious beef with this very often repeated statement. It's just all wrong, in all parts, and it's infuriating that when women say so, men refuse to listen.
i) Yes, I am selective about my dating partners. I'm monogamous and strongly prefer long term relationships, which means I can only get involved with a handful of people in my lifetime! Most guys are not a good fit for a LTR for me so of course I am selective. Because a lot of guys aren't selective at all, or don't care about compatibility the way I do, the entire business of being selective falls on me, which I really dislike, but whatever.
ii) I have zero problem "admitting" that I'm selective.
iii) However, I am NOT selective about looks, income, status and other such things commonly referred to by the incel community. When I say so online, the response is usually that I'm lying. But if you took a look at the people I've actually seriously dated / been in a relationship with, you would see I'm not. I've dated a (non-professional) model but also someone that most people would consider a troll from under the bridge, and I did not love or desire the latter any less.
iv) The above OkCupid "research" is often referred to, but I almost never see it mentioned that despite the ratings women gave, women still sent messages to the majority of men. Men were the ones who acted picky about looks, contacting the highest-rated women a lot more than they did other women.
v) I was actually an OkCupid user at the time when they gathered data for this "research". This was before the era of swiping and the site worked completely differently: you were shown profiles in a feed that you could filter based on your chosen criteria. They put a small box on top of the page that displayed a photo from 3 or 4 different profiles at a time and asked you to indicate if you like each of the people or not (a precursor to swiping, then, and the real reason they were doing this was probably market research about whether swiping should be implemented on the site).
And here's what I'm getting at: users were not being asked to evaluate those people's LOOKS, at all. I don't remember the question specifically but it was something along the lines of "do you like this person" or "would you consider dating this person"? I remember feeling very frustrated because I had to click open each profile to see more info about them than the one photo, but I did so every time before answering. Even if I hadn't done so, there is always a lot more information in a photo than just looks that influences whether or not I like the person. I clicked "no" to most of the profiles shown to me because there was something about them that would make them a poor match for me, but not because I thought they were not attractive! If my memory serves, most were decently attractive guys and I would have said so if they had asked, FFS.
I am absolutely certain that I'm not some freak of nature of a woman for doing this. Even though I am very much outside many norms, this particular thing - considering the personality of your potential dating partner over their looks - is extremely common to the point of being standard behaviour.
It would be lovely if we could stop spreading misinformation about women that paints us double-awful: more superficial than we are, and on top of that, habitually lying about our own preferences.
__
Your point regarding cost of living is a good one. Does it disproportionately affect men in your opinion? Is it less of a problem for a guy to date a woman who lives with friends / family? When I was last dating, I did find myself hesitating to date someone who was still living with an ex (due to financial reasons) and I might have felt similarly about someone living with his parents. I believe I could have gotten over it for someone that has a mature, adult relationship with the parents: not letting them cross your boundaries or influence you in a disproportionate way. Unfortunately this isn't all too common even for people who live on their own, so I'd say it's reasonable to be somewhat cautious about it.
I think this is overall a great breakdown of all the ways it doesn't match your lived experience, but some thoughts:
"It would be lovely if we could stop spreading misinformation about women that paints us double-awful: more superficial than we are, and on top of that, habitually lying about our own preferences."
This is pretty funny to me when the majority of the pushback against the OP article is basically the male inverse to this (even if the article arguably doesn't say all men are liars).
I appreciate the breakdown of how the study is incorrect and have no broader, paper or article to counter-point with. I only have my anecdote as someone who was single with a lot of single female friends as dating apps blew up 2012-2020 or so: the women I knew were absolutely getting spoiled for choice on these apps, were being way more selective on the apps than they ever would be in person and admitted it, and also getting just the grossest messages frequently on these apps. So I always framed the apps as getting spoiled for bad choices for women, while men were screaming into a void and never getting a response. Things may have changed more recently, but I wouldn't bet on it given the way other discourse has gone online.
I'm not the guy you're responding to, but yes, I absolutely do think that the cost of living disproportionately affects men's ability to date than women, in ways that clearly are tied to broader patriarchal beliefs. Men are expected to be caretakers and pick up the bill, especially for early dates (not all women believe this, but a large proportion of them still do). Conversely, a lot of women actually struggle in the dating world because they're too successful - insecure men are uncomfortable being with women who earn more than them.
I might go as far to as to say that a man’s ability to support others and by extension, having other(s) to support is a central pillar of masculine identity. This is clearly an outdated vestige of patriarchal society, but it doggedly persists and means men without either with no clear path to change that are in crisis — not just because they’re lonely but also due to lack of gender affirmation, unclear identity, and low perceived value, and that’s why this group is dangerous.
I didn't read the article and based on the comments here I'm unsure if I want to. I do agree that sweeping generalisations aren't helpful either way and I've seen more accusations fly in both directions than I'd like. Basically I don't really understand anyone who attempts to date the opposite sex while actively holding and expressing hateful ideas about that same group of people. That said, most of my parents' generation seem to have done exactly that - as if that's just how the world works or something. No wonder so many of their marriages were and are unhappy.
For reference, I met my most important long term partner on one of the earliest dating sites in 2002. Since then I've been back a few times. I'm assuming "spoiled for choice" has to do with getting lots of likes? And I don't want to downplay the emotional repercussions of getting / not getting them, but it shouldn't be seen as indication of how easy it is to find a partner, and you seem to be saying the same with the "spoiled for bad choices".
Mathematically speaking, the end goal is equally easy or hard for both sexes to reach when looking at monogamous, heterosexual relationships. That is: every time a heterosexual woman finds a monogamous relationship partner on or off the apps, a heterosexual man finds one too.
My experience remains the same as it's always been: finding a truly compatible person is very hard and rare. That's just how life is. The apps probably expose how hard it is in a new, more tangible way because you can go through so many "options" in a short span of time, most of whom are not really options at all (just users of the same app), but you have to go through them anyway so you get a chance to encounter those rare people who are.
I'm not sure what your friends meant when they said they were being "way more selective on the apps than they'd be in person", but I don't think this is an easy comparison to make accurately. The apps essentially show you everyone in your age bracket who is single and looking (and a user). It's like walking down the street or taking public transit and being able to detect which of the people you see are single and looking. Would your friends really go up to these strangers and start chatting them up a lot more often than they do on the apps? I know I wouldn't. Could it be that they were comparing with a scenario where someone is expressing interest after some sort of initial vibe check, or even after getting to know them a little in a work context, etc.? That sort of comparison is misleading.
This makes sense. Personally I don't care who pays for a date, how much my date earns, or similar things. But I'm also very far removed from the patriarchal ideas that are still prevalent even in liberal, Western societies. I broke up with the love of my life because I didn't want to sacrifice my career, my ability to have time off, my pension, and if worse came to worst, my physical and mental health in order to have our children. He couldn't imagine a future without children. If I try to imagine a version of myself who does want kids, in our current society that we live in, then I would probably expect a man to show generosity, willingness and ability to support me through that ordeal because the risks involved are inherently still so lopsided.
I've heard about this phenomenon but haven't experienced it myself due to being a (mostly) starving artist. I do have first hand experience on a related, equally annoying hangup, something that usually takes a while to show up unlike the income thing which is usually clear from the start. I'm feeling really lucky that it already came up with the person I'm dating now, even though he is a fairly new acquaintance. He even brought it up himself. He said he can tell I'm smarter than him, but also that he's been in this situation before and it doesn't bother him. A massive relief. :D (And he's socially more perceptive than me so I still get to look up to him too.)
I was a bit worried that I came across as putting you down in my response, so thanks for the kind follow-up. To respond to a few things:
I agree with this. I think it probably does expose, in a different way, just how bad the odds can be. I find this particularly disheartening because I would've thought that because the odds are so bad, apps would be a perfect solution to speed up the process.
In general, how the apps work is you swipe right on a person you want to talk to. If the other person swipes right on you, you get a match. What they mean is that they were swiping left/no on way more people than they would in real life due to being more picky on the apps: not good looking enough, not the right job, didn't write the catchiest intro sentence, etc. I've sat around with friends as they casually dismissed men on the apps for the most inane things: "ugh, I hate how his bangs are to the left in that pic. Nope. Oh my god this guy has another picture of a fish in his photo, nope. Ugh, another picture with a group of friends first? Nope. Oh my god all he said was "Hi!" in his first message - unmatch."
They explained it to me as a result of the process: they get such an overwhelming amount of potential matches (e.g. almost everyone they swipe right on is a match it feels like to them), they're forced to be more selective. That process of becoming more selective then gets worse as the matches themselves end up crappy - dudes sending dick pics or asking for nudes. In person, they still typically had a pretty open mind when meeting folks at a party, or a friend of a friend. This was attributed to both there being less potential options in person, and also stronger expectations of sanity/quality of humanity in person.
I'm happy to hear that you're seeing someone who addressed a typical inequity quickly for the better! I hope it goes swimmingly for you two :).
For me, they have done exactly that. I probably wouldn't have met any of the most important people in my life if it weren't for online dating (some are still actively in my life even after we've broken up romantically or just never ended up dating even though we met on the apps). I'd say my dating went from "impossible" to "just really hard". And the way I'm framing it for myself isn't actually that it's "hard" - it's just something that takes very high effort and yields results very rarely. But really good results, which makes it worth the effort.
Thanks for elaborating. Yeah so they are more open IRL because i) the people they meet are likely already inside their bubble one way or another - not just complete randos off the street, ii) expressing interest (sending a like) leads to a different level of commitment on the app than just responding to someone who chats you up at a friend's party. These are sane responses to the online environment IMO. Becoming picky about the wrong things is of course less productive, such as the direction of someone's bangs (FFS) or not being good looking enough.
Some things that may seem meaningless are actually not, and you learn this when you spend enough time browsing profiles and talking to their owners.
I hesitate to get very specific lest I offend people, but I'll mention one that was important to me. I always have the highest-effort profile I can possibly achieve and every time I send someone an opening message, it's similarly high effort. If I get a low effort opener such as "Hi" or "Nice lips" or "Can we talk?", the only time I will consider responding is if their profile is an exceptionally descriptive and creative showcase of a person whom I feel very excited about. But it never is. It's always medium effort at best.
When I have already given a lot of material to start a conversation and they have given less, and their opener is essentially saying "I can't be bothered to come up with anything to talk about, can you do it please", that's enough to know I'm not dealing with one of the rare highly compatible people I'm looking for. Those people have high effort profiles like myself and when they match with me, they have no problem disclosing why they would like to talk to me.
Your extremely constructive tone is a pleasure to engage with and you have a long way to go if you wanted to stoop to put-downs.
I just realized I never told you - this small statement made my day! Thanks for being nice :).
Well, I was having a fairly crappy day when I read this and felt instantly better! Thanks for mentioning it. :)
I think you've done a lot more to explain the female perspective of online dating than this article ever could. Not being able to convey personality or just not having a relatable set of hobbies/interests in general could be the core issue. The kind of people who go down these rabbit-holes are generally the terminally online types and I don't think "play 8 hours of WoW a day" or "spend evenings shitposting on 4chan, Twitter, Reddit, etc" is really going to draw many people to a man.
Also I think that point applies both ways. I've tried the whole "taking an interest" and "writing thoughtful intros" thing but when 98% or more of the profiles I see on my online dating feeds have no profile description, no bio and basically nothing filled out, there isn't a lot to go on and that gets a bit frustrating. Even pics rarely give me much to strike a conversation on, and it's usually going to be if there's a dog or cat in one of their photos. And it gets mentally exhausting to use apps this way, especially when the failure rate is so damn high.
I have this personal theory that I seem to get along a lot better with people who are in long term healthy relationships because they possess far more green flags and are a lot more likely to be likeable and relatable in general.
Hard to say. My previous ex (we mutually and amicably agreed that we were better off as friends and have remained on really good terms since) lives with family, suffers from fibromyalgia and lives in a deprived part of South Wales. It hasn't really bothered me, but her situation with her parents is different to mine and I don't particularly want to elaborate on that. Mine are overbearing and mollycoddling, but maybe not to the point of being helicopter parents, I'll leave it at that.
Maybe not "disproportionately" in terms of more men being on lower salaried jobs or being unemployed. But I do think with how lonely and desperate men have become, it's a lot easier for a heterosexual woman to date in that situation than it is for a man to find love.
I've watched the incel phenomenon grow since before it was given that name, and I think you're on to something here.
If I had to pinpoint one key factor, it would be a lack of empathy and/or emotional intelligence. It affects so many things, including your perception of who would be a good partner for you (but also your career trajectory - edit: or even just employability - in the modern society, etc.). An extreme example of this is a guy who is only able to perceive women's exterior qualities and who tries to select a partner based on those alone. This is incredibly off-putting to almost all women and women can tell when they're being evaluated this way even when the example person isn't being transparent about it. On the other hand, this type of guy probably can't tell that women can tell. And if he can't appreciate people's personality traits, he probably won't understand or believe when women tell him that things like that matter to them. Such women may come across as liars to a guy like this.
That's the extreme example but some fairly broad group of men seem to suffer from similar handicaps to a lesser degree - still enough that it most likely impacts their dating.
Wow, really, 98%? That's.. rough. In my area, maybe 60% of men had a blank or mostly blank profile last year on Tinder (on OkCupid even way less blanks). My male friend who is browsing women isn't seeing that many blank profiles. He's annoyed though that many women's bio descriptions are awfully generic/cliché.
I wonder what country/city you're in but I get it if you don't want to disclose (I don't either).
Bristol, England.
I've also had the same phenomenon on Tinder when I was in Santorini.
I believe Bull is a Brit.
It’s a great essay that will not be read by the people who need to read it most.
I’m reminded of this Neil Gaiman suggestion to imagine “a world in which we replaced the phrase ‘politically correct’ wherever we could with ‘treating other people with respect.’” The simplicity of this is powerful. An awful lot of ink has been expended on definitions of feminism, patriarchy, equity, and so on, but honestly it all boils down to DON’T BE A DICK.
And equally bluntly, this MAGA moment we’re in, this conservative pushback against everything “woke,” all boils down to BUT I WANT TO BE A DICK, SO FUCK YOU.
I honestly don’t think there’s much more to it than that, at the end of the day. Good people treat others like equals, and everybody else is weaving elaborate frameworks of justification from threads of religion, tradition, game theory / natural selection junk science, unresolved personal histories of generational trauma and abuse, whatever— all to make themselves feel more comfortable about being a dick.
I grew up in the right wing, I know these justifications. When you’re in that culture, it’s hard to notice the water you’re swimming in. It wasn’t until well into my adulthood that I started thinking about different worldviews in terms of whether they condemn or condone being dicks to people. It seems almost trivial now, it’s so black-and-white and basic but it took adopting that perspective to completely deprogram my upbringing.
I used to be a “both sides make good points” kind of guy who could equivocate the left and right like they were just different flavors of cultural ice cream. Like there wasn’t an underlying ethical difference between the two. I can’t say that anymore. I mean sure, when you zoom in on specifics, ethics are complex; I’m not trying to endorse moral absolutism or be so black-and-white about it. But from a very high level I’m no longer uncomfortable saying that being a dick is just plain evil, and treating people like people is just plain good. We can navigate nuances after establishing that baseline.
And I know I’ve been conflating dicks with the right, and respectful people with the left. That’s a sloppy shorthand. What I’m really talking about is individuals living under a personal ideology of small-L liberalism, which is (in my experience) absent from the right and… less absent from the left. But it doesn’t map neatly to party lines.
I do wish Gaiman had implemented more of that philosophy himself, alas.
I agree this isn't just about being conservative. I've watched white male leftists shout down black women in leftist spaces too often not to notice the same patterns. I've heard too many people fall into that "men" and "females" dichotomy outside of MAGA spaces.
I don't understand what is so hard about caring about other people, except that as far as I can tell, it's "gay" to do it.
There's a lot of problems with this article that others have already dissected way better than I ever could, so I'll just nitpick this one:
Yeah? I was overweight for the last 4 years at least and after finally losing about 25lbs, lo and behold, dating became a lot better. Is it patriarchal when it's women responding to the physical appearance change? I still have the same personality I've always had!
I've also had a sobering realizing this past year that a very large portion of women that identify as progressive believe that men should pay for dates. Like I've had hours of discussion on this with multiple friend groups, coworkers, and strangers. So the money part also matters way more than I'd hoped it would.
If you're a guy being told to work on yourself through the lenses of physical appearance and wealth, it's frankly not a male-only viewpoint.
Oh bro. I lost over 100lbs, and the response I get from women is completely different. I’m very much a believer in lookism, and I think looks is the primary driver of sexual attraction and dating. Now that I’m above average, and look like the lead of a rom-com, everything is much easier. Getting looks, attention, sex. I don’t even necessarily have to be a great guy and I’ve tested it to certain degrees (this is degenerate behavior and I don’t recommend doing it) but it turns out I can get away with a lot. So you don’t just “have to be a good person.”
And absolutely even some of the most progressive women expect you to pay on dates, and in fact expect a lot of traditional behavior from you.
These types of articles always put women on pedestals, and people are quick to accept that. I think that’s a disservice to women because it doesn’t make them human. Shouldn’t you want to be humanized and acknowledge the flaws that you may hold.
One particular thing I liked in this post
I know quite a few ex-military guys and have been around more. This is something that always bugged me, as they're consistently apt to say "female" when describing women and it's always driven me batty. I've called them out for it as it being weird and they always fob it off as being from their military days and I just haven't had a cogent reason for why I disliked it, but I think this is it.
I also thought this was cogent:
Watching my Sisters-In-Law date, this seems to become a problem frequently. Luckily one of my Sisters is pretty quick to pick up on these things and will quickly drop any person she suspects may be like this.
Anyway, it's an interesting read, especially as someone in the middle. I've been in a stable relationship for almost 20 years now, but my Sisters-In-Law are dating and I have many male friends, whom I've been friends with for 30+ years, several of whom are single and not dating. It's...amusing (maybe not the right word) to see the disparity between the two opposite groups. The women in my life have their shit together, good jobs, own their own homes, just generally know what they want and have it together for lack of a better term.
My male friends on the other hand seem to be just barely keeping it together. The places they live (One rents an apartment, the other lives with his parents) are a wreck, they work crappy jobs, their health is suspect, etc. I'm not trying to slag them off, they're my good friends and I talk to them every day and hang out with them several times a month and I cannot say I wouldn't necessarily be in a similar position if I were single. But they seem to have no drive to do anything better and I know they often hold similar views about women, even if they don't necessarily voice them often. As their peer, I've worked on them, but it doesn't penetrate and they've been in this limbo for the last 10-15 years, things unchanging for them because their unwillingness to do anything about their circumstances.
But also, I don't know what to do about any of it. Our society is permeated with this idea of Men and Women and it starts early. I am the Father of two sons and I want to raise them to be respectful of everyone and to not be afraid of anything they might perceive as feminine or gay (not that their familiar with that term yet, but girl could certainly be a stand-in for it at their ages) and it went great...until school. My oldest is now in second grade and now firmly aware of Gendered things, now refusing anything that might be perceived as girly (gay).
My youngest hit Kindergarten in August and has been steadily moving away from things that they were once happy with. Suddenly, K-Pop Demon Hunters are uncool and lame because they're girls (gay). I would describe myself as a fairly masculine man, I'm tall, wide, have a large beard and a deep voice, I dress in a stereotypical way (T-Shirt/Jeans) and I'm trying to work on them and confront them about thing when they describe it as being for girls ("What makes it for girls? Why is this thing essentially girl?" There's my Bachelors in Philosophy paying off in my parenting), but I feel that there's only so much ground I can gain as their Dad when their peers now see them and work on them for 30 hours a week or more.
My biggest fear is that they turn into one of these men...one of my good friends. Somewhat isolated and lonely, going down that right wing rabbit hole. I'm just hoping in that between my continuing to work with them, a close cousin who is very queer with different pronouns and many feminist uncles that are what I would describe as "Good Men", that they don't end-up on this path.
Thanks - I was debating posting this after reading it yesterday, but you beat me to it. As a critique of the media framing of the "male loneliness epidemic" and a passionate call for equal dignity among genders, it's a great essay.
Unfortunately, I think the decades-long right-wing traditionalist attack on "feminism" has gotten too thorough a grip on the public imagination for a true understanding of what equal dignity means.
The thing that kills me about the public rejection of feminism is the utter failure of the majority to learn what it is or even the definition of some of the most basic terms. “Toxic masculinity”, for instance, is a term to describe how masculine ideals hurt men, but the public decided instead that it means that all men are poisonous. What an absurd leap!
People like to pretend that feminism is some cult that came out of nowhere in the 1960s, but in reality is an evolution of the combined philosophies which is simply applying those principles more universally by examining the barrier of gender. It’s not something that can be disproven if you are actually making good faith attempts to understand the arguments. And more importantly, it’s (generally, but not always) not a means of putting women on top of society, but bringing true egalitarianism to be.
There's very intentional right-wing reframing involved in the "toxic masculinity" misconception you described. I don't think I'm paranoid in understanding patriarchal backlash as a political strategy to split identities that would otherwise have aligned egalitarian interests, rather than just a philosophical/religious disagreement about gender roles.
While I believe that I personally "get" what's meant when people use the term "toxic masculinity", a point that's been risen which I also find understandable is that the counterpart concept of "postive masculinity" is only vaguely defined and not well differentiated — what about it is masculine and not generalizable to women or any other member of society? I could see where attempting to grapple this could leave some guys in a bit of an identity crisis, which would explain some of the adverse reactions I've seen.
The thing is that there isn't really a "counterpart concept" of "positive masculinity". "Toxic masculinity" was created to describe a particular social force in our culture, one that can be enforced by women just as easily as by men. It's not just describing individual behaviors, and there isn't an equivalent or counterpart social force that corresponds well to the idea of "positive masculinity" -- which is, as you seem to say, pretty much just generally positive traits that one can exhibit regardless of gender, except For Men.
Something that seems to go ignored a lot in this kinds of discussions, but that I think we need to acknowledge: Under the age of about 60 (the exact age varies some, depending on which country we're looking at), men outnumber women. Although women as a whole are more populous than men, this is due almost entirely to the fact that elderly women tend to live longer than elderly men.
Outside those elderly age groups, there are simply going to be a lot of single, lonely men. Even if every last person on Earth were a bastion of egalitarianism, we would still see a lot of lonely men through absolutely no fault of their own or anyone else's, because male loneliness is ultimately a demographic problem, not a sexism problem.
And it's a very real problem. It's not made up, it's not going away, it creates a lot of instability for society all around, and the more we look for someone to blame, the worse we make it. We as a society need to develop better ways to support and empathize with single people, and to ensure life is still fulfilling and meaningful for people who don't find partners, because that's the only realistic way to address it (outside of deeply unethical solutions like forcing sex-selective abortions on the population).
I’m seeing a common theme among a lot of the lower-voted comments here. I’m responding to you because your comment talked about it most directly but please know this isn’t directed specifically to you.
It seems a big problem for men is this idea that sex is necessary. And I totally get it; when I was young I felt the same way. But then I had sex. It was incredible that being with someone could make me feel so good. But that was not a relationship, and it hurt when I was effectively ignored from then on. I had sex with more people and while most of those had the intention of becoming relationships they didn’t end up working out. One of those people I had sex with eventually came back after about a year and we started dating more seriously. Eventually we got married.
There are two twists to that story though. The first is that after we got back together, we didn’t have that much sex. Our attraction to each other was a lot more intimate in ways that extended beyond sex. One of the things you will learn over time is that the kind of lasting fulfilling relationship is something that older people will respect, but nobody outside of that relationship will ever come close to fully understanding. Heck, my spouse has an ex husband who is still part of his life, and by extension is a part of my life too.
The other twist is that I am a man and my spouse is a husband. There are considerably fewer gay men than there are straight women, and there were significantly fewer partners if you also consider I was looking for a long term relationship and it had to be someone who would have accepted someone who weighed more than 400 Lbs at the time!
One may read this and think “OK, you managed to get a partner, but statistically not everyone can.” And to that, I would respond that you are thinking too rigidly. When I met my husband, I was a fling; he was in a long distance relationship and I was basically there just to fulfill a need. But he grew and changed to see the value in me. I had never been with an Asian man before him and didn’t think he would have amounted to anything (who would have thought a young man could be casually racist?), but I grew and changed to realize the value in him. If we didn’t both decide to make a change, we would have been lonely for many many more years. Yes, there may be more men than women in your age group, but thinking of that as proof one will be lonely forever is also accepting so many negative assumptions. It’s assuming that you will not change, that all the women in the world will never change, and possibly even the idea that women are either permanent property or valueless after being in a serious relationship with a man.
There is much happiness to find in this world, but we often need to understand what it looks like, and that requires that we change and grow.
Unfortunately, sex and romance are major biological drives for most humans. These drives can vary quite a bit between individuals, just like the drive to eat and sleep can vary, but it's really important that we not inadvertently blame people for having these drives and/or for being unable to fulfill them.
Sexual preference is also something that varies between individuals. As great as it would be if we could just ask single men to all be bi, gay, or asexual, we probably won't have a whole lot of success with it. (Creating a society that's more welcoming of bi, gay, and asexual men is certainly a huge help, of course!)
On an individual level, it might be helpful sometimes to take an "anything's possible" kind of approach; plenty of people who thought they'd be single forever have nonetheless found themselves in stable, happy relationships.
But on a society-wide level, this is not a realistic solution. It's like saying that everybody working low-paid jobs should just find better work; yes, many people will be able to find better work, but not everybody can because there just aren't that many great jobs. Instead, we as a society need to accept that a certain percentage of people will be stuck in dead-end jobs, and we need to find other ways to support them (minimum wage, social safety nets, etc.) to make their lives as stable and fulfilling as possible even if they can't have their dream career. Likewise, we as a society need to accept that a certain percentage of the population will be single against their wishes, and we need to find other ways to support them as well (creating stronger platonic communities, more third spaces, etc.).
And just to be clear, this is not an issue that applies to me directly. I'm a woman in a longterm relationship. However, it does affect a number of men I care about and empathize with deeply.
I bring up sex not because I’m saying that men should just accept that they will never have sex, but to illustrate that the key to success was to grow past what it meant to be in a successful relationship. That is what is needed by a great many “forever alone” types, regardless of sex, gender, or sexual orientation. To say that there are men who are doomed to be alone forever is completely wrong though. Even with fewer women than men, that doesn’t mean that women will stay with a single partner for their entire life. I can only think of a handful of people who have managed that.
Accepting the premise that there are some men who will be alone forever is hugely damaging to both individuals and society as a whole. It creates incel culture, for one thing. There are more than a handful of incels out there who could much more easily find partners if they just fixed their perspective on life.
It sounds like your solution is for women to jump between relationships more often? I've been with my partner for 16 years, and I love him deeply. But I suppose I should leave him and give another man a chance for a while?
According to surveys I've read, women who've been widowed or divorced are less likely to be interested in dating again than men who've been widowed or divorced — which further contributes to the demographic problem. Expecting women to ignore their own preferences and pass themselves around, so every man can get a go, strikes me as highly questionable. I would prefer the sex-selective abortions, honestly.
What? No! Not at all. I'm saying the fact that there are less women than men in certain age groups doesn't mean that there will be some men who are doomed to be alone forever.
What are you suggesting then? I'm not sure how to match a smaller number of single women to a larger number of single men without asking those women to change their dating behavior.
I'm not suggesting any action other than helping men to understand that there is no such thing as being forever alone, and that if they want a relationship then they need time and personal growth.
But realistically, a lot of men are going to end up single, and framing it this way is (whether intentionally or not) is effectively placing blame on those men who fall through the cracks.
Like I mentioned in my original comment, I think we do a lot of harm when we suggest that people stuck in low-wage jobs can all just pull themselves up by the bootstraps if they put their mind to it. Many people can, but not everyone can because our economy is simply not set up to support meaningful careers for that many people. Suggesting otherwise, even with the best intentions, leaves a lot of people feeling like failures for something that isn't their fault. Some percentage of the population are simply going to be stuck with crappy jobs, and we as a society do them a huge disservice when we tell them they just need to try harder or they have the wrong mindset. Instead, I think we need to acknowledge that crappy jobs are a fact of life for a lot of people and make a genuine effort to materially ease that crappiness as much as we can.
The same applies to single men. Some percentage of men are simply going to end up alone. Denying their reality isn't doing them any favors. All it serves is to relieve ourselves of the burden of empathy and the effort of creating a kinder society.
So much good discussion here! I wish I could engage with more of it individually, but my takeaway from reading through the comments with many opposing views can be summed up as:
**Our society, as a system, fails different people in different ways. **
On the surface, this is kind of a nothing burger, but I think it could be the point of commonality that could allow people with disparate views to connect.
I think a lot of the confusion and talking past each other comes from conflating two different things. Are we talking about individual people and their experiences and needs, or are we talking about the way we wish to change system that we all are a part of. Because to me those are to very different things.
When it comes to individuals dealing with the other individuals, I think the order of the day should be empathy. It's hard to speak about this in broad terms because every individual experience is different, but as a specific hypothetical: a man who is feeling this loneliness and a woman who is feeling marginalized can connect if they can get past the "yes, but" into a real, intellectual curiousity about the others experience.
When it comes to the structure of society, I personally will prioritize the group that experiences the greater actual harm. Women experience so much more physical violence and intimidation that if we're talking about changes to the system to address that, those feel more important and urgent to me.
Whatever other things I agree or disagree with, if you're sincere about reaching people who you acknowledge are maybe not getting the most sane takes on things in an age of headline reading, maybe don't open with something that sounds like a threat and have your first line be "its not a threat".
Because...yeah...that's a quick way to make sure you're only preaching to the choir.
I'll pass your thoughts along to the author.