[BlackFly]

> Well, if the men want their stories, let them go and find them

She then goes on to mention the first(ish) man to do so, Robert Bly. The New York times, for his obiturary, wrote that Bly "started a controversial men’s movement with a best seller that called for a restoration of primal male audacity." Which underlines why most men don't want to do it and why actually it is better if women lead this study at this current time: even if your intentions are good, your statements may be misjudged by some. In Bly's case, it was misjudged by some anti-feminists to launch some actual misogynistic countercultures and misjudged by some feminists to blame Bly for some of this and prior misogyny.

Anyways, a round about way to say thank you, Dr. Sharon Blackie for writing this. As opposed to it being misplaced, I quite appreciate it and find it necessary.

[joshhansen]

"actually it is better if women lead this study at this current time"

This is such an indictment of our society.

I still believe that the proper response to women's mistreatment in the past and present is to stop mistreating women, not to start mistreating men.

Constraining men from discussing things of interest and value to them, basically because they're not women and don't have the societal "indulgence" of being female, is sexism and should be opposed.

Maybe that's the wrong read of the situation, I'd appreciate being steered aright, but that seems like the situation to me right now.

[BlackFly]

Well, I don't think it is an indictment so much as the typical indication of how we humans swing to extremes. I find it somewhat lamentable (although perhaps more enviable) how gay men are able to more openly discuss with one another what it means to be a man (because the biggest thing they need to grapple with is this gender norm that to "be a man" means having sex with women), but even they risk charges of misogyny and a heterosexual man would have to be quite lucky to be invited to such a men's group to be part of the discussions which I certainly feel is much more about grappling with the gender norm.

The problem here is that I can imagine Dr Blackie here might actually welcome with honest interest such an analysis by men. She certainly had only fair words for Robert Bly. But others would appear out of the woodwork to call such analysis some misogynistic manifesto. In some sense that should be expected, any good work should have breathless fans and seething critics. But the potential charge of misogyny is felt to carry too heavy a risk for most men nowadays.

I do not think the problem is that men are not women. Instead, there are some genuine jerks out there beating a war drum on the male identity. They create another nasty problem for the man who wants to honestly look at what it means to be a man because they create noise. The problem is that with this fear that men have, the only ones courageous enough to stand up and speak seem to be the jerks that don't really offer much insight, or at least the men with insight get buried under that noise and the noise of charges of misogyny when their insight is misappropriated by actual misogynists.

There needs to be fear before there can be courage is how I see it.

[wwwwwwwwwww]

I think this just as big of a problem among women. The loudest voices talking about both women's issues and men's issues tend to be quite sexist and obnoxious. Feminism has a misandry problem just as much as the men's rights movement has a misogyny problem. In both cases, it deters non-hateful people from participating, and that contributes further to the problem.

[mcphage]

> But the potential charge of misogyny is felt to carry too heavy a risk for most men nowadays.

Is it, actually, a risk? Or do we instead see misogynist men in many high positions?

[BlackFly]

This is a pretty good example actually of what makes entering these conversations so difficult.

It can logically be both and I would personally say it is both but your reply demands polarization. It is either one or the other because people like Harvey Weinstein exist. Don't get me wrong, it took way too long for Harvey to see justice and arguably he never did.

But here now I don't want to talk about Harvey Weinstein, I want to talk about male archetypes in fairy tales, yet here we are. Of course that isn't entirely true, since actually I was mentioning the meta-difficulty faced by people like Robert Bly and the controversy of the father's rights movement. So yeah, your comment is fair but a good example of the drive towards polarization faced by anyone trying to discuss being male and using that as a lens. Life has nuance and most of us want to express nuanced views but don't want to post manifestos.

[hnbad]

I'd put it differently: the proper response to women's mistreatment in the past and present is not to teach women how to avoid being mistreated but to teach men not to mistreat. Alas, we only teach them not to mistreat but not what mistreatment is and what to do instead.

This has gone so far men will hear "toxic masculinity" and just think they're being condemned for their identity and stop listening because all we have in mainstream media is the negativity of what is bad without the positivity of what to do instead and because it's all left to women (and Buzzfeed) to fill in the gaps, it all ends up being preachy and offputting because it only comes from a place of upset rather than healing. Thus, articles about manspreading.

Men need positive role models. Slowly but surely I'm seeing content creators and public figures actually provide positive representation for men but at the moment they're still drowned out by the likes of Andrew Tate and other dipshits trying to make a buck off insecurities about inadequacy powered by romanticized ideals about bygone modes of masculinity (e.g. yearning for a "tradwife" while at the same time not wanting the unfulfilling responsibility and sacrifice that comes with the model of masculinity that enabled that). Ironically some of the best positive examples I've seen are trans men - possibly because they were forced to think about their ideas of maculinity more than any man afforded their "man card" by assignment at birth.

Speaking of positive examples, here are two YouTube channels worth checking out for that:

https://www.youtube.com/@FinntasticMrFox

https://www.youtube.com/@ThatDangDad

[dazzawazza]

I just don't understand the controversy around this book (although I know nothing of the movement people often speak about). For me the book gave me great insight in to becoming a man. Something I and most men do by accident and not by design. Crucially I learned how I as an older man have a responsibility to guide younger men when they are a bit lost.