[majormajor]

As always when people make these claims, you have a lot of far-from-proven assumption embedded in here, so the claim that society is "anti-male" rather than "less aggressively pro-male than it used to be" is unsupported.

A more subtle point would be that, to a marginal young male, it may be hard to tell the difference. Resentment is likely to be high to start with in someone struggling but consistently failing. This I find much easier to believe, and less wildly in contradiction to the evidence of my (male) eyes and the experience of people who grew up around me. But it's a hugely significant difference in what it implies about who should do what.

That's without getting into proving a correlation, let alone causation. The timelines don't seem to line up for your claim, IMO.

[trs80]

> demonstrate that society is "anti-male" rather than "less aggressively pro-male than it used to be."

Call it whatever you'd like... it can still be a contributing factor. Also, I never claimed society was anti-male, only increasingly so.

[majormajor]

Ok. So now you seem to be saying "increasingly anti-male" is the "less biased in favor of males than it used to be." Let's run with that!

My fellow men - namely the video-gaming and complaining-about-anti-male views that we're talking about here - will have to compete with non-males. Male gamers have a shitty as hell reputation for social skills and behavior - maybe people who feel inclined and entitled to act like that are simply less employable because people think they're assholes.

This isn't all or even most gamers, but it seems to be the ones that make the most noise both in the games and about how everything is turning against them socially. Rallying people behind a cause of "things aren't quite as in my favor as they used to be" is going to be hard, even if it feels very real and discouraging.

EDIT: reworded in response to good point from response about equating laziness with employment outcomes

I'm unconvinced by the class arguments so far, though. The people I know personally in this bucket are not from lower-class backgrounds. The people I know whose parents were constantly struggling to stay employed and make ends meet have a very different perspective on what it takes to get by, and never had the same amount of time available to waste.

[Inconel]

I think it wise to not automatically conflate laziness or the lack of desire to compete with non-males with unemployment or underemployment.

[majormajor]

True, good point, revising.

[hnuser1234]

You're not getting any replies from the person you replied to because you exposed yourself as too closedminded to even be capable of considering it.

[dropit_sphere]

> "anti-male" rather than "less aggressively pro-male than it used to be"

Is there a difference? The assumed model in a lot of these discussions is that there is a pie of goodies that is divided, zero-sum, between sexes. But this assumes (or at least implies) identical utility functions. A trivial example: government funding for any abortions I might have is of zero value to me, since as a dude, I'm not likely to fall pregnant any time soon. This can be extended to whatever gender stereotype the reader feels comfortable standing by.

It becomes harder to determine in isolation when you take into account that the sexes have not just sex-specific benefits, but also problems and responsibilities. My sister may feel a pressure to be warm and comforting; I serve as her unpaid bodyguard if we find ourselves in any sort of dangerous situation.

I'm not trying to say these "are equivalent," --- indeed, that's the point. I don't think they can be really compared. The only place we approach anything like equality (which implies not just equal measure, but like terms) is in the NumbersLand of employee compensation, and we can't even do that unimpeachably enough for everyone's satisfaction, because other factors leak in.

My point is that I don't think comparison is a fruitful model (anti-male does not automatically mean pro-female), and that it's relative. Is society more pro-male than 1000 AD? Probably, I haven't caught dysentery lately. On the other hand, I wasn't expected to provide a college education for my children then, either.

We should be pro-male! We should be pro-female too!

[wjn0]

> A trivial example: government funding for any abortions I might have is of zero value to me, since as a dude, I'm not likely to fall pregnant any time soon.

For young men, especially poor young men, this is an absolutely terrible example (child support laws, for example).

[dropit_sphere]

I'll admit it's not ideal. Could you suggest a better one?

[wjn0]

>>> The assumed model in a lot of these discussions is that there is a pie of goodies that is divided, zero-sum, between sexes. But this assumes (or at least implies) identical utility functions.

I agree that this is a faulty premise. However, there's a difference between the pressure of social norms and whether this particular "zero-sum sentiment" is actually reflected in, say, US law or policy. I personally believe it's not, and I can't think of any policy or law that refutes that.

[bilbo0s]

You probably don't even have to be a marginal young male in a purely technical sense.

I mean, you could just be a hispanic young male or something.

[majormajor]

In terms of happiness and the like, it might actually be the reverse. I saw an op-ed recently about this ( http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-frey-millennials-... ), and some googling also turns up some source reports like this from 2017 based on what looks like a different from some people at UTexas: https://qz.com/937266/young-white-americans-are-the-most-apa...

Interesting takeaways: whites were less optimistic but also less ambitious and less concerned.

> White millennials were also consistently less concerned about reaching personal aspirations, such as achieving financial stability, owning a home, traveling, or getting a college degree.

So there's a potentially interesting connection to the male-vs-female question. If both whites, and males, show reduced motivation despite being currently at the top of the pyramid, that's curious. Could be that things are too cushy (having tons of time to play video games doesn't seem like the result of anti-male pressures). Could be that things are too hollow, that material results aren't ultimately so meaningful, especially when they're from your parents labor, not your own?

[Inconel]

I'm somewhat weary of the notion that all whites, and especially that all males, are somehow at the top of the pyramid.

[majormajor]

Not every white or every male has to be in the upper echelon for the aggregate trends in to be interesting. And let's remember we're talking, here, about a population defined by copious amounts of free time and the economic flexibility to devote that free time to serious video gaming.

[merpnderp]

If you were interested in trends of males being at the top of the pyramid, why wouldn't you start with Asian American males?