Somewhat related, but in my experience with other male friends, oftentimes (not all of course but at least a few, anecdotally) women might say it's okay to tell them about a problem and/or cry, but as soon as you do, they are immediately turned off by it and no longer see you as a strong man who can provide for her.
Some of the aforementioned male friends have even been broken up with due to such an incident. It's of course nonsense because every human being regardless of gender should be able to express one's feelings and cry if needed, but perhaps not everyone sees it that way.
It is an interesting example of a revealed preference in the sociological space [0].
People here who pretend this is not case are deluding themselves and others.
100%. Many data points in my own life and lifes of other people I know. What woman say they will do and what the actually do are two completely different things. They can very easily rationalize about anything with "feelings".
It's not exactly about crying per se, but psychological weakness. If you shed a tear on a funeral of your parent etc it's ok.
But the moment guy seems like a wimp, they loose all attractiveness. They will get to hear that things got boring, or relationship is not fulfilling enough or something else like that at the first convenient opportunity (a more promising candidate has shown up).
I think there may be a misunderstanding. From my experience, women do feel closer to a man who is able to share his feelings, and, yes, cry. But expressing feelings is a very different thing from complaining and/or giving up responsibility. I’d argue the problem is that men are often weaker in the area of handling emotions in general, hence they tend to “flip” from “I’m feeling nothing at all” to “I’m useless and the world is going to hell”. That’s what freaks women out, because they feel they can no longer predict your actions. It scares them.
(Expose the generalizations. Am on my phone here with no proper keyboard.)
“I’m feeling nothing at all” to “I’m useless and the world is going to hell”
I don't see anything wrong with people feeling like any of those 2 from time to time. If it is continuous and long term, then it's a matter of concern.
> women might say it's okay to tell them about a problem and/or cry, but as soon as you do, they are immediately turned off by it and no longer see you as a strong man who can provide for her
From an evolutionary lens they are presenting you with a sneaky test and when you cry you fail the test :)
Have you ever told them this in response to being told it’s ok to cry? Have you interrogated your assumption or are you operating on inferences without sufficient evidence?
“Women” aren’t some sort of psychosexual Kobayashi Maru where every choice is just a different wait to fail. They might surprise you if you’re willing to engage with them on the topic of how society is engineered to oppress those with feelings and compassion, like women, in places like the workplace, etc…
Sample size 1, but I also had a relationship go downhill and eventually end after constant requests for me to be more vulnerable. I am convinced that people like the superficial appearance of vulnerability when it doesn’t matter and it’s low stakes. But not when it matters and gets messy
Men cry when the situation calls for it. I don’t understand why there is a need to change the best force for civilization the world has ever seen. Not giving into trivial sadness and breaking down crying and giving into self pity is a genetically imbued superpower. Women just want to bring us down to their level.
Can’t tell if sarcasm or wrong, or worse… I don’t even know where to begin engaging with this opinion… I’m trying to do this sort of thing less often because it’s better to try converse so you set up the opportunity for the other party to discover the truth themselves… but you are wrong and I would encourage you to go and try and learn enough to back up your assertion from an individual psychological standpoint as opposed to a group psychology or sociological poi;t, what is advantageous for the group can be deleterious for the Individual and possibly even individuals around them.
>In particular, the dramatic rebalancing of power relations between men and women over the last few decades has rendered old modes of masculinity — especially men's role as family breadwinner — obsolete.
They aren't obsolete. The mere notion of this is laughable to anyone spending a bit of time looking around.
What happened was the standards cranking up to 11 and either the rewards aren't visible, or they simply aren't there. In addition, there's far more entertainment available and children are no longer seen as an automatic achievement. Some might even say, having kids is actively discouraged in the upper circles.
>Feminist writer Susan Faludi has pointed out that many men are "clinging to a phantom status." She's right, of course.
Based on what? I don't necessarily see men clinging onto a "phantom status" as much as their (potential) lover, family, friends and business network not giving a hoot unless their status is deemed great. Men are still primarily judged on status, not the other way around.
>He is not the only one. A common thread running through many of the challenges facing men is the culture shock of women's economic independence.
The article really misses nuance on this whole "economic independence" thing. Yes, women got "more economically independent". No, they can't just start families on their own and get by. In many countries, they can't even get a decent home (dual income households say hello). Check the demands of typical college-educated women, and then compare with the available pool of men. Now compare to the current education system, the way society works and what is happening with starting wages. There simply aren't enough men for all those women, and it's evident most women aren't willing to drop their standards yet. Meanwhile, men aren't willing to "step up", as popular lingo would like to claim.
The author correctly identifies so many things, only to come to the most safe conclusion. The same conclusion which has yet to be proven correct.
>The article really misses nuance on this whole "economic independence" thing. Yes, women got "more economically independent". No, they can't just start families on their own and get by.
To be pithy, we went from men having economic independence and women not to a situation where neither (save the highest earners) has economic independence. Couples are now interdependent and single people often need roommates. If you're economically independent, by definition you don't have to concern yourself with your partner's income.
Agreed. In many ways the conclusion about outdated status is ass-backwards. The men being left behind are opting out--skipping a career and a (planned) family. Successful men are the ones still clinging to the "outdated" view that they are the breadwinner.
If I didn't feel like I had to provide for a family, I'd get drunk at night and play video games all-day. Certainly better than working 60 hours a week.
That's not quite accurate. A rich man gets a hotter wife by most men's standards because most men's standards of "a hot woman" are very similar. The same is true for rich women, but women's standards for what "a hot man" is vary far more. Both are attaining what they think is hot though.
In order to use your money to help you on the dating market, you have to approach. Nobody is going up to people in bars and asking "will you buy me a drink?". However, social norms are nowhere near making this practical for most women.
I was hopeful for this article, as it touched on some aspects that are important. Most CEOs being men doesn't help the welder. In the one program, there were no male counselors.
But it fell back into the familiar trope: if men aren't succeeding, it's entirely their fault. They don't have the motivation, etc. When people use this line of thinking for Black communities we rightfully call them racist, but how can you look at these numbers for men and boys, especially in the lower class and not see something structural?
The cynical side of me thinks it's because the people who could study it don't care. There's a notion that a group that has had power for centuries is now losing it, and so it's just providing balance. But making individuals of today worse off won't provide justice to those long passed.
I will give credit to this article for not making the case that we should do something because if we don't then it will harm women in finding mates, like you see in so many other similar articles. Men's well-being should be worthwhile on its own.
>...it's entirely their fault. They don't have the motivation...
I think this is a leap, or maybe we have different ideas about motivation. Seems to me motivation and direction exist at the interface of an individual and their environment. Sometimes forming over the course of a lifetime, and sometimes changing with the wind, but always connected to the environment.
This is part of a greater trend in the United States for higher education. Women now enroll in college and I believe matriculate at a rate of two to one when compared against men.
Most articles, like this one tend to lay the blame at the feet of boys and men in a way that would be obscene if it were applied to women or minorities. EG they are just lazier and unmotivated. This is a superficial answer that fails to get at the deeper question: why are they less motivated. Of course I don't have an answer for why, but I I think it is a very pressing question. It is tied to higher rates of depression, suicide, low productivity, and antisocial Behavior
Plus, the education system is more suited for girls. It has been shown that boys learn best by doing and there is a real lack of practical work in schools.
I think, laying blame to a demographic and then considering the cased closed is a dumb kind of logic anyway.
Even if they were just lazy and unmotivated, if an entire demographic suddenly becomes lazy and unmotivated, that's a problem for society to solve and not some individual character flaw.
> Most articles, like this one tend to lay the blame at the feet of boys and men in a way that would be obscene if it were applied to women or minorities. EG they are just lazier and unmotivated.
But surely, we can acknowledge that there are at least some intrinsic behavioral differences between men and women. For example men are intrinsically more violent than women. 90%+ of violent crime is committed by men. This holds true across every human society ever studied. Another example, it's probably also a human universal that men have a higher predisposition to substance abuse than women.
So the fact that men commit far more murders at women, we can probably lay the blame at the feet of men. It's not that society has let them down. It's that testosterone increases the propensity to violence. So, we can't categorically rule out that men are intrinsically less suited to productive participation in a post-industrial economy. (For example getting in bar fights and going to jail during prime earning years.)
Suggesting that high testosterone being correlated with higher rates of violence implies that men are " intrinsically less suited to productive participation in a post-industrial economy" is an enormous logical leap.
Higher testosterone I would guess (this is not my area of expertise so I emphasize "guess" here) is probably also correlated with higher competitiveness, leadership, and work drive, all perfectly suited for a post-industrial economy. Men are significantly more likely to pursue entrepreneurship and be competitive within companies (in fact studies show that the wage gap is the result of women prioritizing temporal flexibility, ie. greater work/life balance).
If you're going to suggest that men aren't suited to productive participation, you need to consider more variables than simply violence rates, which in practice is only relevant to a tiny fraction of the population.
There are absolutely intrinsic differences between men and women.
I think it is a valid question if men have gender specific challenges they face in modern society, economies, and cultures.
It is important to remember that the purpose of society is to serve men and women, not the other way around. If there is a problem, we should look at society with a critical lens to see if there are areas to reform to create a better fit.
Sure, men are probably always going to commit murder at a higher rate. That said, if men are depressed due to a lack of competitive and physical outlets, that is something worth consideration.
Black people have a higher murder rate than white people worldwide. That does not mean black people are more intrinsically violent than white people or "intrinsically less suited to productive participation in a post-industrial economy".
Often these problems are cause by systems we have set up rather than by innate character qualities.
Women aren't certainly more productive in a post industrialized economy. Its only due to government mandated favoritism and hand outs that women gain economic independence. After all, if the old claim of women doing more for less were true, no one would be forced to hire them. Any venture primarily manned by women fails for all the usual unmentionable reasons, and we have to pretend this isn't true. They sometimes say women are better represented in successful companies, but as with all consequences of regulatory capture, its more that they are able to carry the burden to suppress the competition.
I don't know if there's a causal link between testosterone and violence. I'm on feminizing HRT, so my T is lower than it used to be, and I still get angry about as much as I did before.
And I don't see a lot of trans men throwing rage tantrums when they increase their T.
Maybe the correlation appears after sampling bias - If men are bigger on average, they might feel safer acting violent than a smaller person.
I read this and interpret this with "men communicate more with the body than with words", rather than "more violent". Yes the communication can be hostile.
I am a male and I am sick and tired of seeing males moan about how hard they have it and that they would rather play video games all day long than work to improve their future. Grow a spine, put on your big boy pants, and get to work!
The alternative is to be a looser the rest of your life. You might never succeed in becoming wealthy or get the pretty girl or whatever but that’s not the point. The point is to do the best you can. It’s the struggle against the perceived odds that makes you respected. Not the end result.
>Most articles, like this one tend to lay the blame at the feet of boys and men in a way that would be obscene if it were applied to women or minorities.
Which is problematic because minorities are a subset of men. When you legitimize saying men are statistically for dangerous, that disproportionately ends up hurting black and brown men more as they are more likely to be assumed to be dangerous. It's implicit racist and it's crazy that it's acceptable in the mainstream just because no of wants to consider PoC
I don't think that is the problem for a number of reasons.
First off, something can be bad for simply hurting all men. You don't have to resort to a racial analysis.
Second, something can be statistically true in practice, but not intrinsically true. I don't think Arguments that say men are intrinsically lazy hold up under scrutiny anymore than claims that POC are intrinsically lazy.
Lastly, even if men are intrinsically more violent, which I think is plausible, that doesn't mean it's appropriate to blame men for their genetics. If it's a biological fact, I don't think it is something that can be weeded out of men. It is something that we simply need to understand and control. Maybe that means encouraging men to channel that energy into healthy and productive outlets.
At the end of the day, if journalists and policy makers are trying to say boys and men in America are falling behind because they are just naturally lazy and unmotivated, they are simply wrong. We can look across cultures and time and see that it is obviously not the case. There is something about our modern society and culture that is leading to these outcomes
Because men are bullied when they ask for it. This is what Brene Brown found:
> Here’s the painful pattern that emerged from my research with men: We ask them to be vulnerable, we beg them to let us in, and we plead with them to tell us when they’re afraid, but the truth is that most women can’t stomach it. In those moments when real vulnerability happens in men, most of us recoil with fear and that fear manifests as everything from disappointment to disgust.
I've experienced this firsthand, and I think most men have, with their girlfriend or wife (or even mother or sister). Your value as a male romantic partner relies on you being that "rock," and anything to dispel that notion makes your value plummet. Women, even Margaret Atwood-quoting feminists like my ex, are repulsed by male vulnerability.
If you act your gender, age and confident you'll be better off in most scenarios.
That may sound like a strange statement, but our programming is strong and no matter how much we debate it in the society it doesn't change. We are what we are. We may be able to evolve, but you can't snap your fingers and have that happen in a century. Arguably, I don't see us evolving past it either, as our programming likely gives us some advantage in reproduction.
In terms of "helping men" I used to work with troubled youth (13-17yrs); young men need role models and a place in society. They'll ask for help and the role models can help them. They do much better in apprenticeship type roles. I don't really think it can be force, but a bit of encouragement and guidance goes a LONG way.
Today our society coddles everyone, young men need responsibility, guidance and hard work. Everyone has the desire to be respected, show them how to fit into society and be respected and they'll follow your lead. Many of the issues we face in society today is we don't have high expectations coupled with mentorship. Sports do this to a degree, but it needs to be through all walks of life.
The main issue IMO is that we have removed male and female only spaces and are attempting to homogenize. We also coddle children and young adults to the point they are offended when someone uses their wrong pronoun. It's good to have roles in society it helps optimize and provides guidance to those who need it. It's also good to have a thick skin, so you can roll with the punches and still succeed. Men and women alike are attracted to the traditional roles of the opposite gender because it helps both partner. There's a good reason for that, historically and today. That's not to say other configurations aren't possible, but biologically, societally and economically the traditional roles make sense to most people internally.
Most people aren't offended when someone accidently uses the wrong pronoun. They do get offended when people purposefully use the wrong pronoun to intentionally offend. Pretending that those are the same thing is part of the problem.
Same here. My wife calls herself a feminist. Yet, when I cried one time in front of her, instead of comforting me, she told me - stop crying, you are making me angry.
Another time, she told me that the only value I bring to her life is 'to provide for our kid until they turn adult'.
I don't think we will be together much longer lol.
Man, I'm sorry to hear that. That's a terrible thing to hear.
I don't know the best way to proceed, since you no doubt have entanglements such as your children to consider, but I wish you all the best in finding your way out of that relationship. You deserve better than someone who would treat you that way.
I would not recommend divorcing. She has said she will remain married to you until the kids are adult. This is a GREAT commitment.
Appreciate that she has made this commitment. Confirm it to her and tell her you are on board, and you will make life as easy as possible for the both of you until then. See if she is willing to make the same commitment out loud.
I have a suspicion, perhaps too romantic, that once you and her are broken from the bonds of obligation, you will discover yourselves again and will voluntarily decide to stay together.
But then again, some people just shouldn't be married.
As a man, I find myself increasingly detesting other men who whine. Our society now wants all men to be able to cry just like women can and everyone should applaud. But we have a billion generations of evolution behind us pushing men who don't cry in the face of problems, but fight and overcome. Maybe I am just a backwards throwback, but maybe not. All of the men who cry in front of women (even women who claim crying is okay) that I've heard of are not embraced, but reviled. That is just biology. Toughen up.
how does gender even play into this? seems a lot more like you married a shitty person who has more rigid ideas about gender norms than you. this situation can just as easily apply to two men.
As a happily married man (I say this only to pre-empt the aspersions of being a frustrated, involuntarily celibate man), I believe modern feminism has some logical inconsistencies, such as the above, to work out if it's to be a sustainable movement. I have my doubts, as fertility rates are higher in more conservative areas of the U.S. [0]. Another major inconsistency in feminism is upholding the career woman ideal, yet women's preference is still that the man should be higher earning or more successful.
The critical flaw in contemporary popular feminism is the inability to acknowledge both that women have agency and that women use that agency to enforce gender roles.
E.g. the pay gap. The pay gap opens up only after marriage and especially children; in the majority of major metropolitan areas today, young single women actually earn more than men.
Heterosexual women's mate choice is what drives this: they have a strong preference for a male who makes more over one who earns less. Everyone wants to earn more money, but men have the additional incentive of needing to earn more to attract a mate. Given this incentive structure, it's inevitable that men as a group will outearn women.
Most individual women have an easy way to contribute to the pay gap statistic: either by not pairing at all, or by pairing with a man who wants to play a supportive role at home instead of being the "breadwinner." The large majority of women choose the tradeoff that results in the current social structure we see.
Men, of course, also use their agency to create this world with restrictive gender roles. But everyone recognizes this; point out that women also bear responsibility for their use of agency to create it and you get, at best, called nasty names.
Eloquently put, you can add height on top of that. Any close woman I've talked to about this admitted that man needs to be higher, or cca same height. Otherwise he needs to be one hell of a charmer.
Another point is overall physique. Almost no woman admits it, but ask good looking gym builders who don't overdo it, how easy is for them to get a date. I don't mean from all women, but finding some decent looking one, often smart is simply much easier. Or even better - ask a smart well earning guy who was weak and pale who went through proper gym/sport transformation (while remaining smart well earning) - the change of interest from women is ridiculous. I can attest to that, I've changed few personal opinions after putting in enough time with free weights. Its not so much about muscle mass per se, but overall posture, confidence, happiness and projection of strength.
Women, much more than men, like to feel they are above primitive emotions and impulses. Well sometimes only till they aren't.
The thing is, I think we are just in a time of social rediscovery. Everything seems chaotic because there were a lot of repressed people in society who are just now finding the freedom not to hide themselves. Nobody really knows what it means to integrate all these new elements and we are trying to figure it out. Combined with larger geopolitical issues like economic inequality, immigration and climate change it seems like the whole world in in turmoil.
My point is that I feel like it's not necessary to hold these groups to the standard of being logically consistent and rational all the time. The movements are still in their infancy. They will make mistakes. It's all experimental right now. We will figure it out, but it may take generations so the best thing to do is just relax and be supportive.
> Another major inconsistency in feminism is upholding the career woman ideal, yet women's preference is still that the man should be higher earning or more successful.
But this is not an inconsistency in feminism, this is a discrepancy between feminism and what many women actually want.
A person can want to earn their own living while also wanting a viable and optimal partnership with a qualified person.
If you see people as at least partially rational actors, "Have enough income on your own that you're not trapped in a situation with anyone," and, "Have a partner that is successful," aren't two opposed concepts.
It's not a logical inconsistency, it's actually rational. I think you may be falsely equating "consistency" and "fairness," or "equability," but they're distinct concepts: A person can want to be successful and still find a successful partner more attractive. This isn't inconsistent.
> Another major inconsistency in feminism is upholding the career woman ideal, yet women's preference is still that the man should be higher earning or more successful.
And here is why there is not a single feminism. I made two categories, but there is more, it is just easier for my brain. You have the "liberal" feminism, targeting equality, and the "traditional" feminism (inherited from Emma Goldman and other marxist and Marxist-adgascent like Beauvoir, so maybe calling it traditional is wrong. Postmodern Feminism?) targeting emancipation. Emancipation is not equality, it is just asking to have the possibility to do what you are able to do (aka firewoman, general, or pornstar).
Short story about emancipation and empowerment:
At first, i thought it was the same. That the French "émanciper" was translated as "empowered", and did not go further. Then like 8 years ago (i was still a lib at the time), i've heard at the radio "We don't have an equivalent in French, this is the idea of empowerment". So i looked into the difference between emancipation and empowerment. Empowerment is practices to reach freedom for the self within the institutional structures, and emancipation, is a process of freedom for the self and others in society through challenging and changing the existing structures of power. Giorgia Meloni and Simone Veil.
> major inconsistency in feminism is upholding the career woman ideal, yet women's preference is still that the man should be higher earning or more successful.
Women's preferences don't define feminism. I think the Feminism is not a good word to describe feminism because it creates associations like these.
Perhaps unrelated, but there's the large problem of unaddressed spousal abuse that victimizes men. Self-reported data from here in Canada[0] shows that men are more likely to experience spousal violence overall, albeit roughly half as likely to experience sexual assault or a serious beating.
But there are no shelters for men in most provinces, and many shelters that accept children will reject male children over a certain age. Moreover, based on court-enforced outcomes, men who leave an abusive home face a serious risk of significantly diminished custody and access in the future[1].
The fact is, a lot of Canadian men are living in abusive homes with nowhere to turn and the knowledge that if they leave their children will be left to face their abuser alone.
>>But there are no shelters for men in most provinces
People have tried, the last person I am aware of that tried to get a mens shelter off the ground was harassed to the point of suicide, and faced extreme resistance and protesting in attempting to fund it. There is lots of government funds for womens shelters, and zero government funds for mens shelters
> anything to dispel that notion makes your value plummet
The disgusting thing is that if one's value does plummet, that serves as a blank check for the partner to harm the relationship as a passive-aggressive feedback mechanism to discourage subsequent behavior like it, be that withdrawal, or avoidance, or picking fights over inconsequential things.
Thus, men should constantly be striving for more value (read: status), or risk losing leverage with those they love. In a sense, projected status anxiety ensures that it is impossible for men to fully escape the evaluative sphere.
Internalizing this will age your soul, and not in a good way.
> mattgreenrocks 17 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [–]
> anything to dispel that notion makes your value plummet
The disgusting thing is that if one's value does plummet, that serves as a blank check for the partner to harm the relationship as a passive-aggressive feedback mechanism to discourage subsequent behavior like it, be that withdrawal, or avoidance, or picking fights over inconsequential things
the devalue phase of an unhealthy narcissistic relationship is not representative of most healthy relationships. a healthy compassion based relationship would see a value plummet met with support.
I hate that I speak from experience on the matter.
> The disgusting thing is that if one's value does plummet
A more disgusting thing to me is the idea that people see their partners (or believe their partners see them) as having “value” like they’re a breathing stock ticker symbol.
If I want to break up with a woman, without me doing the breaking up? I have a moment of vulnerability over something, even allow myself to cry. She'll do the rest.
You're allowed to cry when your mother dies or your dog dies. Anything else and you may as well be wearing a dress. The constant encouragement to be vulnerable and express feelings is merely a test to make sure you're still "masculine enough."
A social hacker! You never had to initiate the hard conversation. Just indulge your feelings a bit, it's even a little therapeutic, and then the burden for ending things is on her.
>Anything else and you may as well be wearing a dress.
I've always found it strange how women wearing men clothes is normal and just a style choice, while men wearing women's clothes is perverse and emasculating. Even many of the pro equality people feel this way
I’m not saying it’s fair, but it’s pretty obvious why this is the case.
A 200lb man, who has the physical ability kill someone with their bare hands crying over an emotional vulnerability is scary. The issue isn’t “men aren’t allowed to have feelings”, but men are expected to have self-control over how they express themselves.
This is the one and only answer. Every other comment in this thread can be deleted.
Many - if not all - of the difficult modern sociological problems we face are rooted in the inability for people to accept that while our technological understanding is, frankly, unfathomable compared to 100,000 years ago, our biology, our neurobiology, etc., is all still running under the software that was developed hundreds of thousands of years ago.
I have experienced this first hand as well and will never commit that naive mistake again.
See also the responses of women learning their partner is bisexual or their dating racial preferences.
Their mating strategy optimizes for status and in the process creates and reinforces the very structures they claim to oppose. What they are really opposing is the negative effects these structures have on them.
They are not evil or man-hating, but all of us are ruled by instinct way more than we would like to admit. And the people self aware enough to recognize and avoid reacting to them, specially when they relate to something as important as romantic relationships, are not very common.
To be fair, there are women out there who are consistently feminist and whose revealed relationship preferences match the rhetoric.
But of course cherrypicking just the convenient parts of feminism is common, and it's not always easy to tell early on what kind of person the other one is.
Good point. The features women are attracted to: confidence, money, physical prowess, etc. all go hand in hand with the masculine behaviors society is
rallying against. It is a bit confusing to me as an adult with a long time relationship, I can't imagine how you would navigate that as a 13 year old. At 13 I was basically doing backflips trying to get girls to notice me lol.
It is also possible that all the modern pressures and beliefs won't really override physical attraction. In general if someone is pretty to look at they have a lot of slack personality wise, whether they are a chest thumping mansplainer or an emotional crybaby.
There's good advice for an individual and good advice for a society, and as a young person it's hard to tell these things apart.
Good for society: People should not be harassed or mugged when they walk at night. Good advice for an individual: Stay aware of your surroundings and make situational choices about your clothes and behavior.
Good for society: Men should also express their feelings, including their bad ones. Good for individuals: Know who is safe to express your feelings to, and who is not.
There was a big revelation that maybe we should try to improve society instead of all the victim blaming of the 70s-90s. I think it's great that we focus on perpetrators more than victims, but we forgot to tell individuals that they still live in a imperfect world, and that even though it's not their fault when they get targeted, they could still take action to protect themselves while waiting for society to improve.
> The features women are attracted to: confidence, money, physical prowess, etc. all go hand in hand with the masculine behaviors society is rallying against.
I think this is wrong - like 180 degrees wrong. The mode of failure I see most often for men is low EQ - misreading the wants / needs of the woman and delivering the wrong things with no awareness of where they are going wrong.
The reason why women find confidence attractive is because low self esteem / insecurity is often the root cause of negative and harmful behaviors. See pride and envy occupying the lowest circles of hell.
Many guys totally misread this as women want assholes, rather than incessant approval seeking behavior indicates low self esteem / insecurity which has the potential to make her life hell. It’s not that you can’t be kind to women, you just need to be doing it for the right reasons - because you feel this is the right way to conduct yourself - and not because you are scared that you are unworthy of love or admiration.
My mother had cancer when I was in high school. My Dad ended up crying when my grandmother was around over it. My grandmother then told my Mom that she didn't think he was up to being her husband through difficult times.
I have a lot of female friends. They will rip their boyfriends apart for vulnerable moments or emotional needs or economic inadequacies. One complained about him having to visit his dying aunt and leaving her alone for a weekend. Another called her boyfriend a loser for not making enough money for them to live in Vancouver proper (an expensive place). Heck, my mother has called my father as loser for "only" making about 250K a year (my parents live in a 1 million person LCOL city).
Man, I am sorry to say but you have some f**ed up people around you, care to maybe let some of them off your life? Quality over quantity of relationships as in everything else
I come from a conservative Muslim country, and there is no doubt that we’re well behind America in terms of gender equality when considering the whole picture. But I think there are areas where we are distinctly ahead. The women in my family are all highly educated and accomplished. But at the same time, none grew up being fed a narrative that what will make them happy is to find a sensitive man who shares their taste in music. And none believe that. American society by contrast feeds women all these false narratives. And then it leaves them holding the bag—raising children alone, etc.—when ideals don’t match reality.
but the problem is that those ideals are the result of the western model of gender equality. maybe they are false narratives, but the current alternative is going back to the inequality of the past.
the question then would be, how does gender equality look like that doesn't rely on these narratives?
if on the other hand we assume that these ideals are good, then the problem is not that the narratives are false, but that we haven't yet actually achieved equality.
Huh? Connect the dots between the narrative of pairing up with a partner who shares your taste in music and raising children alone? This reads like a parody. Are the men spurning their children because of the woman's scorn for Post Malone?
I’d recount some of my own experiences here, but since my actual name is connected to this account, I’d rather not. But I have also experienced this first-hand, many times throughout my life.
As a man I also feel repulsed by it, if it's too much. Even when I am being vulnerable, I unconsciously make sure to stay in the "strong because vulnerable and facing hell" zone instead of the "weak and pathetic cry-baby" zone.
I had a friend whose mental health always seemed a little precarious. One time he told me that he'd broken down and just hugged one of his kids and cried.
Intellectually, I knew he deserved pity. But my gut reaction was revulsion at showing such weakness to one of his kids. In retrospect, what most bothered me was probably the inversion of caregiving burden between a parent and a young child.
Do you know why you are repulsed, if I may ask? We have completely different ways to tackle this, apparently! :D
I'm like you, totally stoic. But if one of my mates has problems or is obviously in a dark place and wants to talk, it doesn't bother me at all, even if it is a, from my perspective, petty reason - we're humans and not rational machines, after all.
This is 100% accurate in my experience. It is good to know that others have also experienced this. At least the more old-fashioned women are honest about their needs. The feminist type pretends to like sensitive men but is disgusted when they open up. If you're a straight man you should never open up to your SO (easier said than done of course).
Also have experienced it first hand. Show real emotion and they immediately start to distance themselves, and stop talking, and physically move away from you.
As someone who divorced last year and is now in a relationship with a wonderful woman who identifies as a feminist: not all women are like this.
I’ve been open and emotional on multiple occasions with my partner, including to the point of crying. I’m open about my doubts, flaws, and weaknesses. It hasn’t diminished her desire or commitment in the slightest.
And if it did, I’d much rather lose her than lose myself like I did in my marriage.
Living your life behind a mask to earn the approval of someone else is the path to the life of “quiet desperation” that Thoreau wrote about. You’ll never feel loved and accepted for who you are, because you won’t have truly revealed yourself.
Why be with someone if you can’t be truly known by them?
After reading the replies I believe this dynamic is real, but from my own opposite experiences, not universal. I asked my feminist wife about this and she said the reason she isn't put off by vulnerable men is partly because her father was a sensitive man and traditional gender roles were not enforced by her mother either. And that feminists are not immune to the pathriarchy.
So I think this reaction can change but it will take time.
Did you read the article? It's about social/educational/economic programs that have profound impact for women but little to no impact for men. Programs that include both men and women, but where men aren't seeing any real improvements from them. It discusses men and women both having the same opportunities, but men are not seizing them like women are, due to what is cited as a lack of drive/ambition/motivation. It mentions that research into understanding this gender gap is not being done, but is paramount for effective program and policy design, and that continuing to spend money on these programs that don't work for half of the population is irresponsible.
I don't know if I see the connection to emotional vulnerability in a romantic relationship.
> Because men are bullied when they ask for it. This is what Brene Brown found:
>> Here’s the painful pattern that emerged from my research with men: We ask them to be vulnerable, we beg them to let us in, and we plead with them to tell us when they’re afraid, but the truth is that most women can’t stomach it. In those moments when real vulnerability happens in men, most of us recoil with fear and that fear manifests as everything from disappointment to disgust.
How is that relevant? Supposedly men are not good at asking for and receiving help because of their traditional gender role.
Women are like rats, first to flee a sinking ship. A man needs male friends, counting on your spouse to be your support system is the biggest mistake man can make.
My mom is filing for divorce right now and my dad has been entirely financially dependent on her for the past 30 years. He was a homemaker, after all. I have been reflecting on this exact thought (specifically, women are not "loyal" and will abandon a partner that doesn't produce income or has some other shortcoming much more readily than men will). I used the "rats fleeing a sinking ship" metaphor when talking about it with my wife the other day.
That isn't to say I don't think they should be divorced. It's just what's on my mind.
the problem is that not being able to ask for help also makes finding this kind of friends that can be your support system very difficult. so i have to disagree. i need my partner to be my support system, and i want to be hers.
it is still good to have friends, but for me this is the definition of an ideal relationship. a fortress of well-being where both partners support each other.
Chiming in on a throwaway account to confirm that this behavior toward men who've shown vulnerability is 100% not limited to current or potential romantic partners and may be displayed by supposed friends and family. People you've known for years, maybe for nearly your whole life, can turn and treat you as worthless human trash for having shown yourself to be "less of a man". Maybe they cut you off as a friend. Maybe they fail to call 911 when you need medical attention, neglect you after major surgery, and then gaslight you about it while still making sure to remind you how worthless you are. And people wonder how toxic masculinity perpetuates.
Exactly this. Specifically in the U.S. we have a self righteous moralist problem. People say words about how they want equality. In action they're just following discriminatory culture all the same.
It's not new, it's influenced from American Christian culture where the social perception of individuals is more important than the truth. The perception of holiness to buy ones way.
In reality the overwhelming majority of those that say it's "okay" for men to be vulnerable and emotional will react negatively when it happens.
Unfortunately that in itself is an unacceptable opinion by the moralist because it paints woman in a poor light. Again, caring about perceptions, not the truth. In truth its universal, woman+man relationships just happen to be the majority.
It happens in all other forms. It's something about the power dynamic of relationships.
> It's not new, it's influenced from American Christian culture where the social perception of individuals is more important than the truth.
This isn't a uniquely Christian thing, and it's definitely not something that suddenly popped up in the last century. Here's Jesus rebuking the 1st century jews for this exact behavior:
“And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward."
Matthew 6:5 ESV
I think this is more of a "human" problem than a uniquely Christian problem.
Lots of people in this discussion are misunderstanding what is happening here with this dynamic where men "finally have the courage to be vulnerable" but are then immediately seen as unattractive.
It's not the vulnerability itself that is the problem- it's that the vulnerability is revealing what is perceived as a huge character flaw: emotional weakness. When guys are admitting that they feel afraid, helpless, scared, etc. it's demonstrating that they are lacking strength, courage, and emotional maturity to deal with hardships constructively. They probably really are lacking these things, and the women didn't realize it before because they kept silent.
Ironically, vulnerability is actually one thing women find most attractive in men, as explained in Mark Manson's book models- it is really an impressive and attractive thing when done properly, it shows that you aren't afraid of the woman's rejection.
However, to be attractively vulnerable you also need to be strong, brave, and emotionally mature. You can't really fake this, it comes from hard work and life experience. It takes a lot of work and time for most people, and yes, crying over little things might be a valuable first step in being aware of your own emotions and starting to work on these issues.
What women are looking for in a vulnerable man, is a man that has overcome some really difficult stuff, and is tough and stable as nails in the face of adversity. He might be upset about something, and share that, but he also has a plan for what he is going to do about it. He isn't much afraid of her, or of sharing his inner feelings and challenges, because he has a lifelong habit of directly facing his fears in a courageous way with circumstances much more difficult.
I do share my inner challenges and feelings with my girlfriend, and she finds it attractive. I have also been through some really terrible shit in my life, and always have that in mind that the current challenge is tiny in comparison, and something that will make me even stronger once I overcome it. I also plan to fix the problem myself, and let her know that I have such a plan.
Vulnerability revels inner truths about a person. Are those truths about you attractive or unattractive? If your inner truths are unattractive is that her fault or yours?
Strongly disagree. Very dangerous conclusion to draw. There is a difference between vulnerability and being “a rock”. Being “a rock” is helpful in terms of being reliable and safe. But repressing emotions and giving the impression that you always are in control is what eventually kills many marriages.
I think it is more that many men don't consider the benefits worth the effort. Plenty of men are happy living in an old building playing video games all day. Don't need a lot of money for that.
They need a better reward than just a nicer career to consider it worth it.
>He is torn between being the kind of man he has been told to be and the kind of man the world seems to want now.
Ironically, I think many men seem to experience this in the opposite direction implied by the article. Men are told to be obedient male feminists, and they find a world in which that mentality sets them up for failure. Women on the otherhand are encouraged to pursue the "toxic masculinity" mindset that men have been chastized for.
So it seems that masculinity itself is a winning strategy, just the sex pursuing that strategy has partially reversed.
For any young people reading this and feeling hopeless - it's not universal. There are friend groups, companies, and places where people are kind to each other, and if someone comes in playing dominance hierarchy games (is this what you mean by 'toxic masculinity?) they will be politely redirected, and eventually shown the door.
There are good situations out there, and as you get older you may gain the ability to explore more and find one.
It will give you peace of mind and it will take away that "wtf?!" anxiety you feel (in time; it's not immediate so be patient). Just read the books and consider the ideas, don't get sucked into the manosphere bs (there are a lot of idiots who grift on these ideas—the only guy who actually backs up his points is the author of this series).
The education system itself is a huge part of the problem in my opinion. Women are naturally more obedient, while men are more skeptical of authority. The education system is designed to reward the most obedient - those who can sit still in class for lecture after lecture and complete homework assignments. Add to that the fact that most teachers are women, and it is not surprising to me at all that boys lag girls in school. Boys outperforming girls on standardized tests shows that they're not stupid, just working within a system not suited to them.
As a male I always hated school because I thought it was tyrannical, being forced to learn and do things I didn't care about. Luckily I still complied enough to get by, but had I been more principled I might've just withdrawn from it altogether. I think a lot more men would relate to my experience than women. A better education system I believe would better facilitate independent thinking, real world problems, and entrepreneurship.
> "The cost-benefit analysis showed an overall gain of $69,000 per female participant — a return on investment of at least 12% — compared to an overall loss of $21,000 for each male participant. In short, for men, the program was both costly and ineffective."
I wonder how they calculated this. If they are referring to post-graduation earnings, this does surprise me. I wonder how many years after graduation they are using to calculate these values.
Cost-benefit is easy to explain. Men with a low-tier liberal arts college degree fare far worse than men in the trades. A woman with any college degree at all, is a shoe-in for government or administrative jobs, and a woman with no college degree is likely claiming almost zero income in a tip-based role.
Reading this article I'm once again struck by how, as with so many problems in the U.S. is so rare to look outside their borders to learn from what is working in other countries.
Americans seem to have an almost pathological blindness to seeking out the experience of other countries.
It's not obvious that cross-country comparisons are useful for the kinds of problems the article describes. They seem cultural, and you can't really just decide that the US is going to have the cultural norms of some other country even if you think you'd get good results.
There's also other factors - almost all other countries are a lot more culturally, racially, and religiously homogeneous than the US. Obviously a lot of that is upstream from the resultant culture, but it still makes comparison hard. It's easy to point to things the US is "doing wrong" that it's famous for, but it's important to remember that very few cultural dividing lines are actually a majority in the US, and almost everyone is some melange of different traditions and identities compared to most other countries.
Is this a natural thing that occurs in other countries? I honestly don't think so. Cross country idea exchange like this usually happens due to geography - the citizens themselves see what works in other countries by visiting them on trips & vacations and they bring these ideas back. Otherwise you can't force stuff like this, the people will reject it as foreign and alien. Simply watching videos or being told how great things are in other countries isn't enough, you have to go there and actually experience it.
I would argue the current anti-car movement in the U.S is a result of more americans going abroad for vacation to Europe and Asia and seeing what works there and bringing those ideas back. But how easy is it for Americans to go abroad? Most can't.
Readit News
Some of the aforementioned male friends have even been broken up with due to such an incident. It's of course nonsense because every human being regardless of gender should be able to express one's feelings and cry if needed, but perhaps not everyone sees it that way.
It is an interesting example of a revealed preference in the sociological space [0].
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revealed_preference
100%. Many data points in my own life and lifes of other people I know. What woman say they will do and what the actually do are two completely different things. They can very easily rationalize about anything with "feelings".
It's not exactly about crying per se, but psychological weakness. If you shed a tear on a funeral of your parent etc it's ok.
But the moment guy seems like a wimp, they loose all attractiveness. They will get to hear that things got boring, or relationship is not fulfilling enough or something else like that at the first convenient opportunity (a more promising candidate has shown up).
(Expose the generalizations. Am on my phone here with no proper keyboard.)
I don't see anything wrong with people feeling like any of those 2 from time to time. If it is continuous and long term, then it's a matter of concern.
From an evolutionary lens they are presenting you with a sneaky test and when you cry you fail the test :)
“Women” aren’t some sort of psychosexual Kobayashi Maru where every choice is just a different wait to fail. They might surprise you if you’re willing to engage with them on the topic of how society is engineered to oppress those with feelings and compassion, like women, in places like the workplace, etc…
Women don’t belong to some secret organisation that go around testing men for their viable “genetic strength”.
Sounds like someone’s giving in to self pity.
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They aren't obsolete. The mere notion of this is laughable to anyone spending a bit of time looking around.
What happened was the standards cranking up to 11 and either the rewards aren't visible, or they simply aren't there. In addition, there's far more entertainment available and children are no longer seen as an automatic achievement. Some might even say, having kids is actively discouraged in the upper circles.
>Feminist writer Susan Faludi has pointed out that many men are "clinging to a phantom status." She's right, of course.
Based on what? I don't necessarily see men clinging onto a "phantom status" as much as their (potential) lover, family, friends and business network not giving a hoot unless their status is deemed great. Men are still primarily judged on status, not the other way around.
>He is not the only one. A common thread running through many of the challenges facing men is the culture shock of women's economic independence.
The article really misses nuance on this whole "economic independence" thing. Yes, women got "more economically independent". No, they can't just start families on their own and get by. In many countries, they can't even get a decent home (dual income households say hello). Check the demands of typical college-educated women, and then compare with the available pool of men. Now compare to the current education system, the way society works and what is happening with starting wages. There simply aren't enough men for all those women, and it's evident most women aren't willing to drop their standards yet. Meanwhile, men aren't willing to "step up", as popular lingo would like to claim.
The author correctly identifies so many things, only to come to the most safe conclusion. The same conclusion which has yet to be proven correct.
To be pithy, we went from men having economic independence and women not to a situation where neither (save the highest earners) has economic independence. Couples are now interdependent and single people often need roommates. If you're economically independent, by definition you don't have to concern yourself with your partner's income.
If I didn't feel like I had to provide for a family, I'd get drunk at night and play video games all-day. Certainly better than working 60 hours a week.
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A man I know is attempting to add a new wife to his household every 5 years...
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But it fell back into the familiar trope: if men aren't succeeding, it's entirely their fault. They don't have the motivation, etc. When people use this line of thinking for Black communities we rightfully call them racist, but how can you look at these numbers for men and boys, especially in the lower class and not see something structural?
The cynical side of me thinks it's because the people who could study it don't care. There's a notion that a group that has had power for centuries is now losing it, and so it's just providing balance. But making individuals of today worse off won't provide justice to those long passed.
I will give credit to this article for not making the case that we should do something because if we don't then it will harm women in finding mates, like you see in so many other similar articles. Men's well-being should be worthwhile on its own.
I think this is a leap, or maybe we have different ideas about motivation. Seems to me motivation and direction exist at the interface of an individual and their environment. Sometimes forming over the course of a lifetime, and sometimes changing with the wind, but always connected to the environment.
Most articles, like this one tend to lay the blame at the feet of boys and men in a way that would be obscene if it were applied to women or minorities. EG they are just lazier and unmotivated. This is a superficial answer that fails to get at the deeper question: why are they less motivated. Of course I don't have an answer for why, but I I think it is a very pressing question. It is tied to higher rates of depression, suicide, low productivity, and antisocial Behavior
• Lack of father figures affect's men's educational success more than women
• Feelings of helplessness due to impossibly high standards beyond just education
• Lack of males employed by the education system mean fewer role models
• Less attention given to them by adults as boys than as girls
• Easily satisfied by pornography
• Lack of success with women causes men to give up on dating and self-care
• Need for more physical activity during childhood and adolescence which school prohibits
• Lack of freedom in the education system puts off even intelligent boys
• Declining social spaces means that men and women participate in society less
I have no proof of any of these, just anecdata
Even if they were just lazy and unmotivated, if an entire demographic suddenly becomes lazy and unmotivated, that's a problem for society to solve and not some individual character flaw.
But surely, we can acknowledge that there are at least some intrinsic behavioral differences between men and women. For example men are intrinsically more violent than women. 90%+ of violent crime is committed by men. This holds true across every human society ever studied. Another example, it's probably also a human universal that men have a higher predisposition to substance abuse than women.
So the fact that men commit far more murders at women, we can probably lay the blame at the feet of men. It's not that society has let them down. It's that testosterone increases the propensity to violence. So, we can't categorically rule out that men are intrinsically less suited to productive participation in a post-industrial economy. (For example getting in bar fights and going to jail during prime earning years.)
Higher testosterone I would guess (this is not my area of expertise so I emphasize "guess" here) is probably also correlated with higher competitiveness, leadership, and work drive, all perfectly suited for a post-industrial economy. Men are significantly more likely to pursue entrepreneurship and be competitive within companies (in fact studies show that the wage gap is the result of women prioritizing temporal flexibility, ie. greater work/life balance).
If you're going to suggest that men aren't suited to productive participation, you need to consider more variables than simply violence rates, which in practice is only relevant to a tiny fraction of the population.
I think it is a valid question if men have gender specific challenges they face in modern society, economies, and cultures.
It is important to remember that the purpose of society is to serve men and women, not the other way around. If there is a problem, we should look at society with a critical lens to see if there are areas to reform to create a better fit.
Sure, men are probably always going to commit murder at a higher rate. That said, if men are depressed due to a lack of competitive and physical outlets, that is something worth consideration.
Often these problems are cause by systems we have set up rather than by innate character qualities.
And I don't see a lot of trans men throwing rage tantrums when they increase their T.
Maybe the correlation appears after sampling bias - If men are bigger on average, they might feel safer acting violent than a smaller person.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.yhbeh.2019.104644
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The alternative is to be a looser the rest of your life. You might never succeed in becoming wealthy or get the pretty girl or whatever but that’s not the point. The point is to do the best you can. It’s the struggle against the perceived odds that makes you respected. Not the end result.
Which is problematic because minorities are a subset of men. When you legitimize saying men are statistically for dangerous, that disproportionately ends up hurting black and brown men more as they are more likely to be assumed to be dangerous. It's implicit racist and it's crazy that it's acceptable in the mainstream just because no of wants to consider PoC
First off, something can be bad for simply hurting all men. You don't have to resort to a racial analysis.
Second, something can be statistically true in practice, but not intrinsically true. I don't think Arguments that say men are intrinsically lazy hold up under scrutiny anymore than claims that POC are intrinsically lazy.
Lastly, even if men are intrinsically more violent, which I think is plausible, that doesn't mean it's appropriate to blame men for their genetics. If it's a biological fact, I don't think it is something that can be weeded out of men. It is something that we simply need to understand and control. Maybe that means encouraging men to channel that energy into healthy and productive outlets.
At the end of the day, if journalists and policy makers are trying to say boys and men in America are falling behind because they are just naturally lazy and unmotivated, they are simply wrong. We can look across cultures and time and see that it is obviously not the case. There is something about our modern society and culture that is leading to these outcomes
> Here’s the painful pattern that emerged from my research with men: We ask them to be vulnerable, we beg them to let us in, and we plead with them to tell us when they’re afraid, but the truth is that most women can’t stomach it. In those moments when real vulnerability happens in men, most of us recoil with fear and that fear manifests as everything from disappointment to disgust.
I've experienced this firsthand, and I think most men have, with their girlfriend or wife (or even mother or sister). Your value as a male romantic partner relies on you being that "rock," and anything to dispel that notion makes your value plummet. Women, even Margaret Atwood-quoting feminists like my ex, are repulsed by male vulnerability.
That may sound like a strange statement, but our programming is strong and no matter how much we debate it in the society it doesn't change. We are what we are. We may be able to evolve, but you can't snap your fingers and have that happen in a century. Arguably, I don't see us evolving past it either, as our programming likely gives us some advantage in reproduction.
In terms of "helping men" I used to work with troubled youth (13-17yrs); young men need role models and a place in society. They'll ask for help and the role models can help them. They do much better in apprenticeship type roles. I don't really think it can be force, but a bit of encouragement and guidance goes a LONG way.
Today our society coddles everyone, young men need responsibility, guidance and hard work. Everyone has the desire to be respected, show them how to fit into society and be respected and they'll follow your lead. Many of the issues we face in society today is we don't have high expectations coupled with mentorship. Sports do this to a degree, but it needs to be through all walks of life.
The main issue IMO is that we have removed male and female only spaces and are attempting to homogenize. We also coddle children and young adults to the point they are offended when someone uses their wrong pronoun. It's good to have roles in society it helps optimize and provides guidance to those who need it. It's also good to have a thick skin, so you can roll with the punches and still succeed. Men and women alike are attracted to the traditional roles of the opposite gender because it helps both partner. There's a good reason for that, historically and today. That's not to say other configurations aren't possible, but biologically, societally and economically the traditional roles make sense to most people internally.
Another time, she told me that the only value I bring to her life is 'to provide for our kid until they turn adult'.
I don't think we will be together much longer lol.
I don't know the best way to proceed, since you no doubt have entanglements such as your children to consider, but I wish you all the best in finding your way out of that relationship. You deserve better than someone who would treat you that way.
Appreciate that she has made this commitment. Confirm it to her and tell her you are on board, and you will make life as easy as possible for the both of you until then. See if she is willing to make the same commitment out loud.
I have a suspicion, perhaps too romantic, that once you and her are broken from the bonds of obligation, you will discover yourselves again and will voluntarily decide to stay together.
But then again, some people just shouldn't be married.
But after that second quote about value, that is a big, fluttering red flag signal for you to leave. That is no longer a functioning relationship.
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[0] https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/sosmap/fertility_rate/fer...
E.g. the pay gap. The pay gap opens up only after marriage and especially children; in the majority of major metropolitan areas today, young single women actually earn more than men.
Heterosexual women's mate choice is what drives this: they have a strong preference for a male who makes more over one who earns less. Everyone wants to earn more money, but men have the additional incentive of needing to earn more to attract a mate. Given this incentive structure, it's inevitable that men as a group will outearn women.
Most individual women have an easy way to contribute to the pay gap statistic: either by not pairing at all, or by pairing with a man who wants to play a supportive role at home instead of being the "breadwinner." The large majority of women choose the tradeoff that results in the current social structure we see.
Men, of course, also use their agency to create this world with restrictive gender roles. But everyone recognizes this; point out that women also bear responsibility for their use of agency to create it and you get, at best, called nasty names.
Another point is overall physique. Almost no woman admits it, but ask good looking gym builders who don't overdo it, how easy is for them to get a date. I don't mean from all women, but finding some decent looking one, often smart is simply much easier. Or even better - ask a smart well earning guy who was weak and pale who went through proper gym/sport transformation (while remaining smart well earning) - the change of interest from women is ridiculous. I can attest to that, I've changed few personal opinions after putting in enough time with free weights. Its not so much about muscle mass per se, but overall posture, confidence, happiness and projection of strength.
Women, much more than men, like to feel they are above primitive emotions and impulses. Well sometimes only till they aren't.
My point is that I feel like it's not necessary to hold these groups to the standard of being logically consistent and rational all the time. The movements are still in their infancy. They will make mistakes. It's all experimental right now. We will figure it out, but it may take generations so the best thing to do is just relax and be supportive.
But this is not an inconsistency in feminism, this is a discrepancy between feminism and what many women actually want.
If you see people as at least partially rational actors, "Have enough income on your own that you're not trapped in a situation with anyone," and, "Have a partner that is successful," aren't two opposed concepts.
It's not a logical inconsistency, it's actually rational. I think you may be falsely equating "consistency" and "fairness," or "equability," but they're distinct concepts: A person can want to be successful and still find a successful partner more attractive. This isn't inconsistent.
And here is why there is not a single feminism. I made two categories, but there is more, it is just easier for my brain. You have the "liberal" feminism, targeting equality, and the "traditional" feminism (inherited from Emma Goldman and other marxist and Marxist-adgascent like Beauvoir, so maybe calling it traditional is wrong. Postmodern Feminism?) targeting emancipation. Emancipation is not equality, it is just asking to have the possibility to do what you are able to do (aka firewoman, general, or pornstar).
Short story about emancipation and empowerment:
At first, i thought it was the same. That the French "émanciper" was translated as "empowered", and did not go further. Then like 8 years ago (i was still a lib at the time), i've heard at the radio "We don't have an equivalent in French, this is the idea of empowerment". So i looked into the difference between emancipation and empowerment. Empowerment is practices to reach freedom for the self within the institutional structures, and emancipation, is a process of freedom for the self and others in society through challenging and changing the existing structures of power. Giorgia Meloni and Simone Veil.
Women's preferences don't define feminism. I think the Feminism is not a good word to describe feminism because it creates associations like these.
But there are no shelters for men in most provinces, and many shelters that accept children will reject male children over a certain age. Moreover, based on court-enforced outcomes, men who leave an abusive home face a serious risk of significantly diminished custody and access in the future[1].
The fact is, a lot of Canadian men are living in abusive homes with nowhere to turn and the knowledge that if they leave their children will be left to face their abuser alone.
0: https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/85-002-x/2016001/article...
1: https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/rp-pr/jr/jf-pf/2017/nov02.html
People have tried, the last person I am aware of that tried to get a mens shelter off the ground was harassed to the point of suicide, and faced extreme resistance and protesting in attempting to fund it. There is lots of government funds for womens shelters, and zero government funds for mens shelters
The disgusting thing is that if one's value does plummet, that serves as a blank check for the partner to harm the relationship as a passive-aggressive feedback mechanism to discourage subsequent behavior like it, be that withdrawal, or avoidance, or picking fights over inconsequential things.
Thus, men should constantly be striving for more value (read: status), or risk losing leverage with those they love. In a sense, projected status anxiety ensures that it is impossible for men to fully escape the evaluative sphere.
Internalizing this will age your soul, and not in a good way.
> anything to dispel that notion makes your value plummet The disgusting thing is that if one's value does plummet, that serves as a blank check for the partner to harm the relationship as a passive-aggressive feedback mechanism to discourage subsequent behavior like it, be that withdrawal, or avoidance, or picking fights over inconsequential things
the devalue phase of an unhealthy narcissistic relationship is not representative of most healthy relationships. a healthy compassion based relationship would see a value plummet met with support.
I hate that I speak from experience on the matter.
A more disgusting thing to me is the idea that people see their partners (or believe their partners see them) as having “value” like they’re a breathing stock ticker symbol.
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You're allowed to cry when your mother dies or your dog dies. Anything else and you may as well be wearing a dress. The constant encouragement to be vulnerable and express feelings is merely a test to make sure you're still "masculine enough."
I've always found it strange how women wearing men clothes is normal and just a style choice, while men wearing women's clothes is perverse and emasculating. Even many of the pro equality people feel this way
A 200lb man, who has the physical ability kill someone with their bare hands crying over an emotional vulnerability is scary. The issue isn’t “men aren’t allowed to have feelings”, but men are expected to have self-control over how they express themselves.
Many - if not all - of the difficult modern sociological problems we face are rooted in the inability for people to accept that while our technological understanding is, frankly, unfathomable compared to 100,000 years ago, our biology, our neurobiology, etc., is all still running under the software that was developed hundreds of thousands of years ago.
See also the responses of women learning their partner is bisexual or their dating racial preferences.
Their mating strategy optimizes for status and in the process creates and reinforces the very structures they claim to oppose. What they are really opposing is the negative effects these structures have on them.
They are not evil or man-hating, but all of us are ruled by instinct way more than we would like to admit. And the people self aware enough to recognize and avoid reacting to them, specially when they relate to something as important as romantic relationships, are not very common.
But of course cherrypicking just the convenient parts of feminism is common, and it's not always easy to tell early on what kind of person the other one is.
It is also possible that all the modern pressures and beliefs won't really override physical attraction. In general if someone is pretty to look at they have a lot of slack personality wise, whether they are a chest thumping mansplainer or an emotional crybaby.
Good for society: People should not be harassed or mugged when they walk at night. Good advice for an individual: Stay aware of your surroundings and make situational choices about your clothes and behavior.
Good for society: Men should also express their feelings, including their bad ones. Good for individuals: Know who is safe to express your feelings to, and who is not.
There was a big revelation that maybe we should try to improve society instead of all the victim blaming of the 70s-90s. I think it's great that we focus on perpetrators more than victims, but we forgot to tell individuals that they still live in a imperfect world, and that even though it's not their fault when they get targeted, they could still take action to protect themselves while waiting for society to improve.
I think this is wrong - like 180 degrees wrong. The mode of failure I see most often for men is low EQ - misreading the wants / needs of the woman and delivering the wrong things with no awareness of where they are going wrong.
The reason why women find confidence attractive is because low self esteem / insecurity is often the root cause of negative and harmful behaviors. See pride and envy occupying the lowest circles of hell.
Many guys totally misread this as women want assholes, rather than incessant approval seeking behavior indicates low self esteem / insecurity which has the potential to make her life hell. It’s not that you can’t be kind to women, you just need to be doing it for the right reasons - because you feel this is the right way to conduct yourself - and not because you are scared that you are unworthy of love or admiration.
I have a lot of female friends. They will rip their boyfriends apart for vulnerable moments or emotional needs or economic inadequacies. One complained about him having to visit his dying aunt and leaving her alone for a weekend. Another called her boyfriend a loser for not making enough money for them to live in Vancouver proper (an expensive place). Heck, my mother has called my father as loser for "only" making about 250K a year (my parents live in a 1 million person LCOL city).
the question then would be, how does gender equality look like that doesn't rely on these narratives?
if on the other hand we assume that these ideals are good, then the problem is not that the narratives are false, but that we haven't yet actually achieved equality.
I had a friend whose mental health always seemed a little precarious. One time he told me that he'd broken down and just hugged one of his kids and cried.
Intellectually, I knew he deserved pity. But my gut reaction was revulsion at showing such weakness to one of his kids. In retrospect, what most bothered me was probably the inversion of caregiving burden between a parent and a young child.
I'm like you, totally stoic. But if one of my mates has problems or is obviously in a dark place and wants to talk, it doesn't bother me at all, even if it is a, from my perspective, petty reason - we're humans and not rational machines, after all.
The hard part is that it's something you can only really learn about your partner with certainty once it really matters.
So in a way it's actually better to open up early, when the cost of being disappointed isn't too high yet.
I’ve been open and emotional on multiple occasions with my partner, including to the point of crying. I’m open about my doubts, flaws, and weaknesses. It hasn’t diminished her desire or commitment in the slightest.
And if it did, I’d much rather lose her than lose myself like I did in my marriage.
Living your life behind a mask to earn the approval of someone else is the path to the life of “quiet desperation” that Thoreau wrote about. You’ll never feel loved and accepted for who you are, because you won’t have truly revealed yourself.
Why be with someone if you can’t be truly known by them?
So I think this reaction can change but it will take time.
I don't know if I see the connection to emotional vulnerability in a romantic relationship.
>> Here’s the painful pattern that emerged from my research with men: We ask them to be vulnerable, we beg them to let us in, and we plead with them to tell us when they’re afraid, but the truth is that most women can’t stomach it. In those moments when real vulnerability happens in men, most of us recoil with fear and that fear manifests as everything from disappointment to disgust.
How is that relevant? Supposedly men are not good at asking for and receiving help because of their traditional gender role.
You have to be an extraordinary man to have an ordinary life these days.
That isn't to say I don't think they should be divorced. It's just what's on my mind.
it is still good to have friends, but for me this is the definition of an ideal relationship. a fortress of well-being where both partners support each other.
It's not new, it's influenced from American Christian culture where the social perception of individuals is more important than the truth. The perception of holiness to buy ones way.
In reality the overwhelming majority of those that say it's "okay" for men to be vulnerable and emotional will react negatively when it happens.
Unfortunately that in itself is an unacceptable opinion by the moralist because it paints woman in a poor light. Again, caring about perceptions, not the truth. In truth its universal, woman+man relationships just happen to be the majority.
It happens in all other forms. It's something about the power dynamic of relationships.
This isn't a uniquely Christian thing, and it's definitely not something that suddenly popped up in the last century. Here's Jesus rebuking the 1st century jews for this exact behavior:
“And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward." Matthew 6:5 ESV
I think this is more of a "human" problem than a uniquely Christian problem.
It's not the vulnerability itself that is the problem- it's that the vulnerability is revealing what is perceived as a huge character flaw: emotional weakness. When guys are admitting that they feel afraid, helpless, scared, etc. it's demonstrating that they are lacking strength, courage, and emotional maturity to deal with hardships constructively. They probably really are lacking these things, and the women didn't realize it before because they kept silent.
Ironically, vulnerability is actually one thing women find most attractive in men, as explained in Mark Manson's book models- it is really an impressive and attractive thing when done properly, it shows that you aren't afraid of the woman's rejection.
However, to be attractively vulnerable you also need to be strong, brave, and emotionally mature. You can't really fake this, it comes from hard work and life experience. It takes a lot of work and time for most people, and yes, crying over little things might be a valuable first step in being aware of your own emotions and starting to work on these issues.
What women are looking for in a vulnerable man, is a man that has overcome some really difficult stuff, and is tough and stable as nails in the face of adversity. He might be upset about something, and share that, but he also has a plan for what he is going to do about it. He isn't much afraid of her, or of sharing his inner feelings and challenges, because he has a lifelong habit of directly facing his fears in a courageous way with circumstances much more difficult.
I do share my inner challenges and feelings with my girlfriend, and she finds it attractive. I have also been through some really terrible shit in my life, and always have that in mind that the current challenge is tiny in comparison, and something that will make me even stronger once I overcome it. I also plan to fix the problem myself, and let her know that I have such a plan.
Vulnerability revels inner truths about a person. Are those truths about you attractive or unattractive? If your inner truths are unattractive is that her fault or yours?
good old triggers are more potent than any progressist concept that popped up in the last century
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They need a better reward than just a nicer career to consider it worth it.
Ironically, I think many men seem to experience this in the opposite direction implied by the article. Men are told to be obedient male feminists, and they find a world in which that mentality sets them up for failure. Women on the otherhand are encouraged to pursue the "toxic masculinity" mindset that men have been chastized for.
So it seems that masculinity itself is a winning strategy, just the sex pursuing that strategy has partially reversed.
There are good situations out there, and as you get older you may gain the ability to explore more and find one.
It will give you peace of mind and it will take away that "wtf?!" anxiety you feel (in time; it's not immediate so be patient). Just read the books and consider the ideas, don't get sucked into the manosphere bs (there are a lot of idiots who grift on these ideas—the only guy who actually backs up his points is the author of this series).
As a male I always hated school because I thought it was tyrannical, being forced to learn and do things I didn't care about. Luckily I still complied enough to get by, but had I been more principled I might've just withdrawn from it altogether. I think a lot more men would relate to my experience than women. A better education system I believe would better facilitate independent thinking, real world problems, and entrepreneurship.
> "The cost-benefit analysis showed an overall gain of $69,000 per female participant — a return on investment of at least 12% — compared to an overall loss of $21,000 for each male participant. In short, for men, the program was both costly and ineffective."
I wonder how they calculated this. If they are referring to post-graduation earnings, this does surprise me. I wonder how many years after graduation they are using to calculate these values.
Americans seem to have an almost pathological blindness to seeking out the experience of other countries.
I would argue the current anti-car movement in the U.S is a result of more americans going abroad for vacation to Europe and Asia and seeing what works there and bringing those ideas back. But how easy is it for Americans to go abroad? Most can't.