[jdgoesmarching]

There’s a lot of validity to the social struggles of men in a lot of online discourse, but to say “society“ punishes us for not being women flies in the face of almost every useful metric of socioeconomic success.

Women did not create the society that is hurting men emotionally and economically. Buying into that victim complex is a distraction from your own self-development and healing.

[epicureanideal]

> flies in the face of almost every useful metric of socioeconomic success.

Earnings isn't necessarily the best measure of socioeconomic success.

https://girlpowermarketing.com/statistics-purchasing-power-w...

Women control or influence 85% of spending, for example.

I would say the amount of goods and services you actually purchase and consume would be a better indicator of socioeconomic success, compared with earnings that may be enjoyed by someone else.

Working really hard to the point of destroying your health in order to provide a good life to your family would show up as "highly successful" by the earnings metric, but I would say the family benefits more than the one who is destroyed.

[developer93]

Assuming a traditional household here with a working dad and stay at home mum, if the woman is mostly responsible for childcare, that's also a huge load. Just because the mother here isn't bringing in money doesn't mean she isn't working. Personally I'd take the employment (and have).

[ericmay]

Quality of work too. Like one person may be going to a soul-crushing office job while another is doing something undoubtedly meaningful and enjoyable, if not also stressful.

[developer93]

And full time work as against an 8 hour day or whatever. I don't think we should be blaming our partners for our own unhappiness.

[rdtwo]

But the wife of a c suite executive is actually the biggest winner. She gets all the benifits and the au-pair to do the child care not none of the 80 hour weeks and late night phone calls.

[developer93]

That's kind of an edge case though isn't it?

[FooBarBizBazz]

This explains a lot about advertising and media.

[username90]

Most kids spends their first 15 years mostly surrounded by women. Their doctors, their kinder garden teachers, their school teachers etc. Almost every authority figure is a woman there. If those boys have problem I feel it is ok to say that it is mostly those grownups fault, and they happen to be mostly women.

[acdha]

This is a weirdly sexist take: to give yourself license to blame women, you’re erasing all of the men in those kids’ lives. For example, most of them have fathers and uncles, and while there’s a gender skew teaching in younger grades it’s not absolute and you’re leaving out the skew in the other direction for administrators and older grades - and if you’re talking authority figures you should be talking about principals and deans, not to mention cops.

[username90]

Kids spends their whole days getting bossed around by teachers. Kids usually doesn't even know who the dean or administrators are, those aren't authority figures to kids. And I choose 15 years as the cut-off since that is roughly when you start seeing male teachers.

[hunter-gatherer]

You've managed to identify a few of the consequential problems from collective, societal child rearing, and deduced that these problems are the result of a dominant female influence from the years of 0-15. Sexism aside, that is a gross and lazy thought process. I'm curious how else you came to those conclusions?

[hajile]

Nature vs nurture

If every person of race X who is taught by teacher Y fails, does that mean that race X is the problem or that teacher Y is the problem?

Either male children are born bad or were raised incorrectly. If you accept the first option, what is your evidence? If you accept the second option and there are only women raising the child, how can men be the problem?

According to the US Census, 20% of asian, 34% of white, 42% of hispanic, and 66% of black families are single-mother homes.

In 1980, 30% of teachers were men. Today, it's around 15% (a mere 3-6% male for grades K-6). When you remove sports and PE teachers, it's the low single digits overall. The reason for this shift is rather obvious. Society assumes that men are predators. When a single false accusation will ruin not just your career, but your entire life, why take that risk?

That same risk applies to other male role models as well. A 2 year old drowned in England a few years ago (irresponsible daycare let them into the street IIRC). It was noticed that a van was nearby when the child was walking down the road. The driver was found and asked about what happened. They said they saw the child, but a man in a white panel van stopping to help a kid would face accusations of kidnapping. The man had his own family and did't want to put them at risk if anything should happen to him. The child was a victim of society's demonization of men (I'd add that studies of female predators are almost non-existent and what little research has been conducted indicates that there are tons of female predators who society simply refuses to look into).

Children raised by single mothers are much more likely to have learning issues, bad grades, be in trouble at school, not graduate, and have mental health problems. Single mothers are also much more likely to have mental health and anxiety issues. This is just as true for the 20% of asians and the 66% of blacks, so the inverse proposal of the mothers passing these issues on to their children is not likely (if it were true, then the claims of racists would also be true). These rates also track upward over time. Remember that only around 25% of black mothers were single parents in the 1960s (before the civil rights act). It's even notable that the single mother rates under slavery didn't come close to the rates today.

The most notable and undeniable single mother statistic is crime. Somewhere around 85% of all people in prison had no significant father figure. Incarceration rates per capita per race track single mother rates closely (as a surprisingly large fraction of those homes).

Here's the surprise -- this is NOT true for single father households. Is this because fathers are better parents? I think not. Instead, I'd put forward that female role models are everywhere and women are willing to get close to kids while male role models are very scarce and men are forced by society to remain aloof. I haven't seen studies, but I'd be interested to know if societies where the pedo scare didn't happen have the same issues.

[throoooway]

Male teachers who are not retirees have been removed from the teaching pool. Why? Schools do not pay enough to build a career or family. You cannot afford to have male teachers who are not retired and doing it for fun.

[mutedpossibly]

The absence of men in these fields is part of the problem, as you say! However, the absence of men in these fields are by choice. To place the blame on only those that are present in raising everyones children and ignore the fact that most men choose not to be part in this hugely important societal task is (imo) wrong.

[LunaSea]

And I'm sure that you would also agree that women not being CEO is also a choice right?

After all, they could simply have created their own company.

[rdtwo]

It’s because incentives and liabilities stack significantly against men in early childhood education.

It’s like all the barriers that women face in tech without any of the support programs or big payday in the end

[MSM]

The only way that you can be surrounded by women for your entire upbringing is if you don't engage in sports. Sports are typically hours per day. Coaches are absolute authority figures, and there are very few female coaches.

I can't think of any men that never played sports but are somehow punished for being "so masculine"

[mycologos]

"Sports" may be hours per day for boys --- and even this is probably but organized sports definitely aren't, and that's where the coaches are. Unless he's playing AAU basketball or club soccer or something, I really don't think a boy is spending even a few hours per week under an "absolute authority figure" coach.

On reflection, the parent comment jibes with my experience growing up in the suburbs in the early 2000s. Literally all of my elementary school teachers were women. The only man I remember was a PE teacher, and I don't remember ascribing any authority to him at all.

[AussieWog93]

Same era, same experience here. I don't think it's fair to ascribe too much blame on women teachers, though.

The overwhelming majority of them genuinely care about their male students, acknowledge their different learning styles professionally and give them as good an opportunity as any competent male teacher would.

If you wanted to make a big difference, you wouldn't need to change gender ratios through social engineering. The small minority of female teachers that undermine boys' education are all known by the student body and other teachers.

[wearywanderer]

Competitive highschool sports often practice for several hours a day. It's not really a serious sport if you're only going to practice a few hours a week, is it? Maybe badminton club practices an hour on thursdays, but the swim team is going to be swimming for at least two hours every weekday for much of the year. Sometimes we had practice in the morning before school as well, two practice sessions in a day. There were days I spent almost as much time in the water as I did in a classroom.

But to the point raised in comments above, most boys were not participating in sports. Maybe 1 in 4 were at my school.

[mycologos]

I think we agree? I was responding to a comment claiming, I think, that the serious sport participation you describe is the norm among boys, and as you observe, it definitely isn't.

[username90]

As far as I know boys playing sports do far better than those who don't, so this you'd conclude that adding grown men to their lives helps them and that "toxic-masculinity" isn't really the main issue boys have.

[MSM]

"Most" boys play some kind of sport. I have to assume it's the vast majority. My argument is that in those kids' lives, I would wager many of the authority figures that they spend significant time with and respect the most are men.

Blaming women as a whole makes no sense to me.

[username90]

Most kids doesn't even get the recommended level of physical activity, I doubt they spend that much time playing organized sports. An hour a week isn't really a significant amount of time compared to how much time school takes.

And to add, if you go to less privileged neighbourhoods you'll see sports participation drop significantly, most don't do any sports at all. And the problems are much worse there. It might have been even worse if they did more sports, who knows, but I doubt it.

> According to the National Survey of Children’s Health, only 24% of youth ages 6 to 17 engage in at least 60 minutes of physical activity per day, down from 30% a decade earlier. B

https://www.aspeninstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/20...

[developer93]

So having more working mothers and stay at home fathers makes tons of sense in this case, would you agree?

[CapricornNoble]

>>>>"Most" boys play some kind of sport. I have to assume it's the vast majority.

There was a TED Talk a few years back from a US Army General about how the terrible physical fitness of America's youth is becoming a national security problem.[1] I think the "low quality" of adolescent males over the past 2 decades is partly behind the push for more women in the military: we have so few physically-fit high-testosterone males that we have to cast a wider net and recruit physically-fit, comparatively-high-T females; they are better than soft fatbody guys. If boys were seriously engaged in sports at the rates that you are suggesting, teen obesity shouldn't be so widespread.

[1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWN13pKVp9s

[horns4lyfe]

In my experience as an army officer, the “wider net” is cast for positions in the army where that fitness isn’t really necessary; ie, logistics units, cooks, admin, etc. I spent all of my time in infantry units and the people in those physically fit, high T jobs are still almost all men that are physically fit and aggressive. And that’s in normal units, so not even counting special forces and rangers. I also met some guys that looked fat and soft that fought like devils when pressed and would run exactly as fast as they needed to to pass a fitness test.

[wearywanderer]

Strange implication. My swim coach was a woman and that wasn't unusual, many of the teams we competed against were also coached by women.

She was a very good coach too; she was also the one who taught me to swim about 10 years earlier.

[odiroot]

> Sports are typically hours per day.

Maybe in some parts of USA. Definitely not the case for Europe.

[fb13]

Well put. I had a much less constructive take on this comment, since deleted, because it wreaks of insecurity that's causing so much of this problem.

My dad was great, but through divorce, I had other great male role models, none of which you'd consider "feminine." However, it helped me understand the plurality of what it means to be a man. There are many ways to embrace your "natural" manhood that are beneficial to society. Animals rape each other, but we're not animals. Don't fall for the naturalistic fallacies.

[grammarnazzzi]

> Women did not create the society that is hurting men emotionally and economically

The extreme elements of 3rd wave feminism has influcenced society in ways that unfairly and negatively impact boys.

Specifically the concept of "toxic masculinity". Toxic people are toxic. Toxic behaviors are toxic. Toxic people should be shamed and toxic behaviors should be discouraged.

Boys should not be shamed for being masculine, and masuclinity should not be discouraged.

[developer93]

This is not what toxic masculinity means. It's not saying masculinity is toxic, toxic is a qualifier not a description. It's used to talk about those attitudes which are ascribed by some people to be super masculine, but actually are just unhealthy (like hyper aggression, or the idea, ironically, that men shouldn't ask for help or complain about anything)

[TheAdamAndChe]

The way you phrase a word affects its interpretation. Imagine for a minute if the term "neurotic feminity" was a common thing, and described how anxiety, depression, and other negative aspects of stereotypically female behavior are actually just unhealthy. People would be upset because the phrasing implies that feminity itself is bad, which is wrong.

[developer93]

It really doesn't: do you think that saying small houses or purple birds implies that all houses are small or all birds are purple?

[grammarnazzzi]

The term "toxic masculinity" creates a subliminal negative association between "male" and "toxicity".

Although you can rationalize the association away, it still exists and influences listeners. It's marketing against men.

If you really wanted to address issues with hyper-agression, you would use the term "hyper-agression", which is gender-neutral.

If you really wanted to address the consequence of not asking for help or compaining, you would perhaps use the term "stoicism", which is gender-neutral.

If you really wanted to address people overly affected by irrational fears, you would use the term "neuroticism", rather than "toxic femininity"

[developer93]

I think it's also been promoted like that as a straw man by vested interests. Like I said in another comment outrage sells wat better than assuming the best.

All these traits together are a subset of those denoted by "masculinity". I would not have a problem with toxic femininity being used in the same context, for example to describe the idea that a woman shouldn't earn her own way, or that one should manipulate men to get ahead or whatever else.

For the record I'd be far happier if the concepts of masculinity and femininity didn't exist at all, I think it just puts us in boxes and makes us insecure, but unfortunately they do.

[FooBarBizBazz]

Your word "marketing" here represents a good insight.

[developer93]

And it's also wrong. With no other phrase that I can think of does that apply. Yellow birds, American presidents, main road, farmer's field, tall tree.

[wwweston]

> Toxic people are toxic.

Yes, and generally when the term "toxic people" is used, few assume that the speaker is saying that "people are toxic" and "people should be shamed for being people."

And yet... you've done pretty much that with the term "toxic masculinity." It's almost as if someone has persuaded you that adjectives are actually appositives.

The phrase "toxic masculinity" no more implies that masculinity itself should be discouraged or shamed than the phrase "toxic food" implies the entire world should fast forever.

And like "toxic food" would suggest there's some subset of foodstuffs one should avoid, it does suggest that there's some subset of masculine-identified behavior that are unhealthy for either those acting those behaviors out, or those on the receiving end of them.

[FooBarBizBazz]

"I'm not complaining about the Mexicans, I'm complaining about the LAZY Mexicans, can't you do logic?"

Nobody's fooled.

[UncleMeat]

Ok. What phrase would you use? Presumably you do agree that there are elements of masculinity that are harmful, both to men and women. How should we describe these in a way that is impossible to misinterpret?

[grammarnazzzi]

The difference is that "toxic food" directly implies food that is poisonous.

"Toxic masulinity" has no obvious or direct meaning. It's a made up term. It's marketing. It itself conveys no useful meaning other than to associate masculitity with toxicicity.

To tie such a negative term to any other social/gender group would be called out as the biggotry it is.

[tacocataco]

Women can be influenced by toxic masculinity as well.

[fb13]

I've never encountered "toxic masculinity" in my entire life.

Conservatives will be conservatives, aka creating a straw man so their base can feel just and continue in their camaraderie-through-bullying strategy.

Like the abolishment of "critical race theory" which was taught exactly zero places in the US before the calling for it's ban.

[exporectomy]

I've encountered a lot of it before it had that name. It appears as bullying, talking over people, arrogance, aggression, threats of violence, violence, condescension, etc. Generally, efforts gain dominance over others in ways that harm them rather than being genuinely better at dominating constructively.

I think it's fine to call it toxic masculinity as long as people don't get it confused with healthy masculinity (not the same as femininity) or forget that toxic femininity exists or assume all men have toxic masculinity, or all the other misunderstandings that come with simplistic judgements of popular issues.

[okaram]

The problem is that some behaviors traditionally associated with masculinity (mostly violence) are toxic, hence toxic masculinity.

[hajile]

There was a study on domestic violence a few years ago. It broke down DV into asymmetric violence (one violent person) and symmetric violent (both people).

It found that the overwhelming bulk of DV was symmetric. In asymmetric cases, it was actually perpetuated by the woman in some 2/3 of cases. Further, in symmetric violence, the women admitted to starting the encounters 2/3 of the time.

Likewise, if a weapon is involved in DV, it was used by a woman in something like 4 out of 5 cases.

In most places, the law is to arrest the bigger party even if they were NOT the aggressor. Further, the law often dictates that an arrest is MANDATORY. This combination makes it easy to arrest large numbers of men which then plays havoc with the DV statistics.

As another data point, DV between gay (male) partners is several times less than heterosexual partners while DV between lesbian partners is several times higher.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1854883/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domestic_violence_against_men

[FooBarBizBazz]

Those DV numbers match divorce rates. Gay men have the stablest marriages.