cross-posted from: https://beehaw.org/post/6895873
While many believe young people are becoming more liberal, data shows that 12th grade boys are nearly twice as likely to identify as conservative compared to liberal. Around 25% of high school seniors identify as conservative while only 13% identify as liberal. In contrast, the share of 12th grade girls identifying as liberal has risen to 30%. Many factors may contribute to this trend, including the rhetoric of Donald Trump which appealed to disaffected young men, and the focus of progressive movements on issues of gender and racial equality which some young men perceive as a “matriarchy.” However, most high school seniors claim no political identity, and many boys in high school do not actively discuss
It’s a confusing time to be a man. Things are shifting in society. A lot of women are deciding that most men aren’t offering them anything they want or need. Unfortunately, when you’re having difficulty figuring out your place in society, and what it means to be a man, you are vulnerable to extremism. Being told your rightful place is on top, and that women, minorities, and LGBTQ are to blame is powerful messaging.
I doubt that’s an accurate description of reality, but I guess that’s a good portrayal of what is perceived by these confused men.
Supposedly it actually is.
If you think about it it’s not that surprising. Sexism was basically a way to subsidize substandard men and guarantee them a sexual partner. If you can’t open a bank account without a man, you find a man, even if he’s an angry ball of mush.
That’s true. It’s hard for this men to compete on the playing field of being a genuine partner.
Ironically, they prefer to compete on the Manosphere standards of money and fake status. Which is an insane choice
“Damn I really want to get laid. Too bad all these women are such bitches and won’t let me fuck their non existent brains out”
Gee, Foster/Tanner/Tracker/Trigger/Dakota I wonder why that is
The best pickup technique is treat them like a person. It works everytime and when it doesn’t you get to talk to a nice person
I remember like 10 years back I was 23 and was riding the bus with young guy from one of the clubs I was in in university. He was maybe 19 or so.
We’re on the bus, and a woman boards who looks very pretty and has a satchel with a bunch of enamel pins of the pokemon gym badges on it.
I compliment her flair, and we have a pleasant conversation about pokemon until my stop. Pretty normal stuff.
I disembark with my mentee and he turns to me and goes “WHAT?! IT’S THAT EASY TO TALK TO WOMEN BY JUST ASKING ABOUT THEIR INTERESTS?”
He was just completely unaware that people respond well when you pay attention to them and treat them like people. He was convinced the only way to talk to girls was by using pickup lines.
Crazy how that works.
In fact I agree many men don’t have a net positive to offer. What I disagree with is the framing that women are “deciding” that, and I wouldn’t discard the idea that the increase in women freedom is contributing factor for an uptick in extremist sexism but I also think that warrants some proper care to back it up as a claim.
I’m confused by what you mean. You mean this is less a revelation about men and more an increased ability to walk away? Sure. I’m damn sure our great grandmammies knew their hubbies weren’t shit.
Yes, that’s the point. I might be splitting hairs here, but I think the portrayal of these “confusing times” as a consequence of women walking away is part of the problem. Them walking away is part of the remedy for extremist sexism, not a cause for its increase in strength.
It can be both. Inspiring a reaction doesn’t mean the action is itself any better or worse for it.
It can, sure. But I doubt it is. Do we have evidence of it?
I mean, lots of it
I think it’s just a matter of wording that might be causing a misunderstanding. I don’t think he said that this is caused by women ‘deciding’ to walk away, but rather, for the first times in history, women as a whole have far more agency than they ever had in deciding to be in a relationship or not.
Take everything I say with a grain of salt because I’m not a man. I’m going to make a lot of assumptions about cis men here.
Under the patriarchal norms, many men are raised to derive their self worth based on things that are not always fully within their control such as wealth, looks, employment, etc, many of which are conflated with their ability to attract a partner. Some of these men may have also been socialized into believing that finding a sexual partner is a valid subsistute for emotional connection, because horniness and anger are the only acceptable emotions. This leads to the idea that all women exist to resolve their repressed mental health issues and sexual frustrations.
It’s a confusing time for these men because not only are many women becoming more selective towards feminist men who don’t adhere as strongly to these ideologies, but many women are also just happily single. Feminism has taught many women, but not enough men, how to live a fulfilling life beyond patriarchal norms. It hasn’t done enough to teach men how to find self worth independent of women, how to embrace and process emotions, how to address mental health issues, how to recognize male sexual assault, how to live by yourself, how to empathize with peers, etc.
Women walking away from men is a symptom of feminism teaching them how to fulfilling lives as people, and we have yet to do so as effectively with men. It’s not that feminism is teaching women to become single, but that a partner with antiquated views is no longer a prerequisite to a fulfilling life.
I think that’s an overall look we can all agree on; and if that’s the high level conceptualization that the original comment was aiming for, we’re good.
On the other hand, anyone who has a decent number of hetero women friends knows that even though the overall anxiety over being single has reduced (not zeroed, unfortunately), most are open to the idea of a relationship. And if you just go out there and ask them if they believe that such relationship could offer something of value, the answer will be: “of course”. And if you have a chat in most groups, stories of recent attempts to build a relationship abound. Women are still very open and as actively pursuant of men - in fact, more than in previous times in some ways.
Hence saying “women are deciding that most men don’t have anything of value to offer” is, in my view, an overly dramatic characterization of the feminist thought. We were speaking of extremism and you know what contributes to reactionary movements? Exaggerated characterizations of the other side. We want men to be self sufficient, not MGTOWs.
Amen
I think this is the case for some women and isn’t just a perception. There are surveys that are showing that single women are the happiest and most satisfied with their life while married women are the least. The old threat that you will die single and alone isn’t working anymore. The helpless men (the ones who can’t cook, can’t clean, can’t support emotionally) used to skate by since women needed men. They don’t anymore and they are scared.
It’s sad because the expectations to be a “good” partner are so low for most men and most still don’t meet it. Most women I know want someone with a job, whose clean and nice to them but can’t find someone who fits all three.
As a demographic men need to step it up and as a society we failed them. It’s so sad the number of men who can’t cook a single meal or clean anything. These are important life skills that their mothers and fathers didn’t prepare them for because of outdated gender roles. Mother’s prepared their daughters for these changes but didn’t their sons. That is the issue
Yeah a lot of my (happily single) female friends say they don’t want a man-child to take care of, but a partner to be with. I think one of the failings of patriarchy is that men are taught that they will have a woman to do house stuff, but women, as it turns out, are just as uninterested in doing that as men are.
Bingo! Say it louder for the fellas in the back.
I sometimes frequent forums where women air their grievances, and so many of the complaints about men particularly are just sad as hell.
One I can recall from a month or two ago was a woman ranting about how she doesn’t want to be expected to give blow jobs on her knees, and doesn’t want to always do 4-5 positions during intercourse with the strange men she’s dating. She says “what’s wrong with missionary anyway?” And “all I want is to be treated like a human being, not a throw away sex toy”.
Women as a group literally could not make it any easier for men today, and still the throw away/instant gratification/porn culture of it all just persists in many young women’s lives, thanks to exactly what you said… Society let men down, and has to do better to change it.
It’s the old sad boomer joke that the mothers least favorite child is their husband
This is mostly wrong. While there are many men child, many aren’t. But 1) many women are actually conservative (probably about 30%) and 2) even if they aren’t, you don’t pickup women just by being nice, it takes social skills that you probably don’t know you innately have, but many men don’t.
Maybe? Big difference between “a lot of women” and “for some woman”. And even so, I don’t buy that line of argument.
I take issue with the wording and that’s why I doubt this is a truthful phenomenon:
What is a lot here? 10% of women? 1%? 80%? Does this come from a survey? This is being offered as an explanation, so I think it’s important to not handwave this kind of qualitative analysis. If you’re going to put some responsibility on women’s attitudes, I think it warrants proper research.
Is it a decision? Do women get to decide the consequences of the behavior of men?
Okay. There are also surveys that say otherwise. And even if we’re to believe that single women is the happiest cohort, can you establish a real link between that and more teens getting exposed to sexist ideology?
This all feels cheap philosophy and it’s ridiculously close of shifting the blame of men’s bad upbringing towards women being less accepting of garbage relationships. Maybe teenage men getting out of high school talking shit about alpha/beta/sigma is the reason why single women is the happiest cohort, not the other way around.
The problem is that churches and religious zealots have a LOT of money and are willing to spend it on things that make our world more like a Handmaid’s Tale.
I found this video to be really well put together analysis of these religiously-funded redpill outlets staffed by young religious single guys or multiply divored religious assholes who are trying to be experts on love and dsting despite being absolutely horrible people.
https://youtu.be/9ewTLFKRPmQ
The key takeaway is that a lot of what appeals to these American Taliban types is the idea of being able to hold women captive and under control, because they know they are awful and that given free will no woman wants to be with a controlling asshat, so they work to enact “enforced monogamy” and to eliminate divorce.
You would think the answer would be obvious, but I guess some men just refuse to offer women what they actually want.
What do women want? Maybe men don’t have anything to offer anymore, or no longer can offer what women want
What do women want? Every woman is different, so that’s for you to figure out. And if you can’t figure it out, it’s not women who are responsible for that.
Well I am married, but I think that majority of men legitimately have nothing to offer and that’s why so many are single
I also thing that women often expect things from men that are not possible
I believe this mostly stems from the fabric of society being rotted away by social media and neither gender is happy
There’s all the wrong heros out there for boys. My 9yo was asking about Andrew Tate the other day.
It’s amazing that Tate, a failed athlete turned failed reality TV show participant turned literal sex-trafficker has any pull anywhere…
But the reality is that rich assholes like Peter Thiel want him and his radically regressive beliefs to be popular so they fund him and give him top spots on their platforms (e.g. Rumble, which is owned by Thiel and has him as a featured channel next to Newsmax and Alex Jones).
A lot of women wish that men would offer what they want and need.
Shockingly, most women are straight. They want to have sex with men. They want companionship, love, romance etc.
The old vestiges of toxic masculinity mean that women would rather go without: that’s how bad the old ways are.
Modern men do not have these problems, it’s just relics of the past snatching youth when they all feel like everything is confusing.
Being a teenager is inherently confusing and volatile. It doesn’t take much to plant the poison.
Well I think a interesting thing this article kind of hide with the title is that in men who identify as conservative are mostly holding steady over time with women shifting liberal and unaligned is growing.
So it makes sense that young women are not buying what conservatives are selling while young men still are at relative rates. This makes the relative difference greater overall but it’s driven mostly by one side
There’s a gap in roles for boys.
Maybe it’s my filter bubble, but I don’t hear a lot of people saying “if you want to be successful, study and go into a trade/profession.” That leaves boys without a plan, which leaves them without a future.
It’s kind of both ways - there’s a lot of messaging out there about ‘low value’ women… and that’s before a lot of messages out there against single moms and aged women.