[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