If Barbie has taught us anything, it's that women can do anything. But an increasing number of people are saying young men and boys are now crying out for role models on how to be the best version of themselves.
You know the thing that bugs me the most about social patriarchy is the same thing that really gets me about anti-apologetics. There is the notion that there needs to be this unilateral action of sorts and straying from it shows weakness of sorts. It’s not uncommon to hear conservative and traditionalist indicate that admitting wrong is a sign of weakness. And the reality is that we learn best from our own mistakes. Trail and error is an incredible teaching tool.
Patriarchy goes against what we actually know about how human beings learn things. It goes against the nothing of taking multiple inputs to come to a conclusion. It goes against the process of being well informed. It’s these absolutes within this kind of system that give rise to the various toxic behaviors. I think if men actually sit there and actually listen to women and allow women to participate in decisive action, men will learn infinitely way more.
Men need feminism too
Exactly. Good objective thinking relies on taking all input and being able to share executive action. Humans aren’t stronger than a bear, we’re not faster than a cheetah, and hell we don’t live nearly as long as most trees. The quality that humans have that places them above all else, is thinking and reasoning. And we do better at that quality by broadening our horizons not limiting them. The whole wild arguments of “well male lobsters assert dominance…”. Lobsters or whatever animal a particular someone who I won’t name tries to parallel us with, they don’t reason and think in any remote sense the same way as humans. It’s silly to try and take some biological aspect of our species or other species and draw a conclusion about how we should use the thing that makes humans, human.
Ah yes. Let’s blame men for men’s problems. That should fix everything.
This shit is the major contributor to the problem. A woman expresses and embraces femininity? “You go girl!”. A man expresses and embraces masculinity? “You are broken and you are the problem of our society, and everything bad that happens to you is also your fault”.
And don’t give me this “Toxic masculinity is totally not just masculinity”. Almost every masculine trait has been called “toxic masculinity”. You might have your specific definition for what it means, but so does everyone else and together you all cover pretty much every facet of masculinity.
I’ve seen this from men recently here. They are attacking words like “feminism” and “toxic masculinity” with crap like this. It’s because they know they have no real arguments against them that they go for ad hominem attacks. They hate the word “feminism” because they’d rather have equality for “all” and imply feminism is equality for women only. Now this dude is attacking “toxic masculinity” because “women can be toxic, too” apparently. As if it wasn’t coined because the predominance was found in men and was trying to call attention to issues men face. It’s just a new tact in misogyny.
Look I get the knee jerk on hearing male. “Oh we’re talking about masculinity, that’s an attack on me.” But the topic at hand is masculinity.
Why are so many boys and men feeling alone and in the cold?
Yes, toxic behaviors exists in both mainstream genders. Shallow ass women who play on male insecurities is a thing. BUT that’s not the topic here. Like, you shoving the whole “but the other side” thing really comes like someone walking into a hospital being outraged they aren’t going to do a quick dental clean while you’re there. You’re in the wrong place. There is such a place to go to, but it ain’t here.
I mean nothing but love for ya, but the knee jerk comes off a bit hard. Like we can have that discussion, but honest, I don’t think this is the thread for it. It feels like it detracts from introspecting by way of blaming the other team. I’m not downvoting you, I get where you’re coming from. But I just feel it’s distraction.
And that is my opinion on the matter and nothing more.
It’s about sending young boys the message “toxic masculinity” over and over while they grow up and are trying to explore what masculinity means to them
Is that what you think the point of the discussion here is? What you’re saying is valid but that’s not this setting. I think that’s the aspect that might be getting lost with what I’m saying. I’m not discounting what your saying, what I’m indicating is that “your argument, completely valid in general. But are we not speaking specifically of this thread?”
It’s one of those things of, do you want to speak in general or in specific terms? In general yeah, we cannot just toss the term toxic masculinity all over the place with zero context. That’s just going to confuse people. BUT…
Men need feminism too. Patriarchy and toxic masculinity harm both men and women in different ways
The starting of this thread is examining a specific topic among the many and it feels like you want to interject a side topic for fear that someone here might get confused about the specifics of “toxic masculinity” and what the background of that is. We’re adults here and I think it’s safe to look at what the original comment was getting at without diving head first into what (to me and that may be different for you so I acknowledge that) feels like splitting hairs.
And every time a young boy questions the term in confusion he will be attacked “but the other side” yadda is not valid like you just did to me
Well. Are you a young boy? Are you confused about the term? And that’s the crux of what I am putting forward. And it isn’t in honesty an attack on you or at least wasn’t meant to be. We can talk “in general” about a hypothetical young boy, or we can be “specific” and address what you are and are not confused by. But we ought to avoid strafing between the two loosely because that’s going to be distracting in best light.
So I hope you understand when you have:
And every time a young boy questions the term in confusion he will be attacked “but the other side” yadda
and:
is not valid like you just did to me
Is taking the context of that first statement and attempting to apply it to the context of the second statement where the context of these two things are different altogether. “But the other side” yadda is dismissive in the first context and pointing out distraction in the second. We can use similar sounding statements in varied context to convey different ideas. Just like the statement “we need to go deeper” can have various meaning between the background of being on an oil derrick and being a gynecologist. Context really matters.
to be fair, the article specifically references “toxic males” and is focused on the challenges for young men in particular. What seems obviously lacking in the story is any reference to the diminished economic potential that all young people face. 30 years ago education and housing were somewhat reasonably priced and and generally available to all. Economic stress is a huge factor and immediate source of stress and anxiety that is completely ignored in the article. How is one supposed to feel ‘cocky’ while struggling to keep their head above water financially?
No, people get bent out of shape because it’s a gendered, sexist term. End of story. Just like man-splaining. You can discuss male specific toxicity and men being condescending without using terms that very clearly are divisive and prejudicial.
If you use the terms while pretending to be progressive or for equality then you’re a liar and a hypocrite. Hope that helps.
Men need feminism too. Patriarchy and toxic masculinity harm both men and women in different ways.
You know the thing that bugs me the most about social patriarchy is the same thing that really gets me about anti-apologetics. There is the notion that there needs to be this unilateral action of sorts and straying from it shows weakness of sorts. It’s not uncommon to hear conservative and traditionalist indicate that admitting wrong is a sign of weakness. And the reality is that we learn best from our own mistakes. Trail and error is an incredible teaching tool.
Patriarchy goes against what we actually know about how human beings learn things. It goes against the nothing of taking multiple inputs to come to a conclusion. It goes against the process of being well informed. It’s these absolutes within this kind of system that give rise to the various toxic behaviors. I think if men actually sit there and actually listen to women and allow women to participate in decisive action, men will learn infinitely way more.
Exactly. Good objective thinking relies on taking all input and being able to share executive action. Humans aren’t stronger than a bear, we’re not faster than a cheetah, and hell we don’t live nearly as long as most trees. The quality that humans have that places them above all else, is thinking and reasoning. And we do better at that quality by broadening our horizons not limiting them. The whole wild arguments of “well male lobsters assert dominance…”. Lobsters or whatever animal a particular someone who I won’t name tries to parallel us with, they don’t reason and think in any remote sense the same way as humans. It’s silly to try and take some biological aspect of our species or other species and draw a conclusion about how we should use the thing that makes humans, human.
But that is just my hot take on this.
Ah yes. Let’s blame men for men’s problems. That should fix everything.
This shit is the major contributor to the problem. A woman expresses and embraces femininity? “You go girl!”. A man expresses and embraces masculinity? “You are broken and you are the problem of our society, and everything bad that happens to you is also your fault”.
And don’t give me this “Toxic masculinity is totally not just masculinity”. Almost every masculine trait has been called “toxic masculinity”. You might have your specific definition for what it means, but so does everyone else and together you all cover pretty much every facet of masculinity.
Out of interest, what are some masculine traits that you feel are being rejected by society?
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I’ve seen this from men recently here. They are attacking words like “feminism” and “toxic masculinity” with crap like this. It’s because they know they have no real arguments against them that they go for ad hominem attacks. They hate the word “feminism” because they’d rather have equality for “all” and imply feminism is equality for women only. Now this dude is attacking “toxic masculinity” because “women can be toxic, too” apparently. As if it wasn’t coined because the predominance was found in men and was trying to call attention to issues men face. It’s just a new tact in misogyny.
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Look I get the knee jerk on hearing male. “Oh we’re talking about masculinity, that’s an attack on me.” But the topic at hand is masculinity.
Yes, toxic behaviors exists in both mainstream genders. Shallow ass women who play on male insecurities is a thing. BUT that’s not the topic here. Like, you shoving the whole “but the other side” thing really comes like someone walking into a hospital being outraged they aren’t going to do a quick dental clean while you’re there. You’re in the wrong place. There is such a place to go to, but it ain’t here.
I mean nothing but love for ya, but the knee jerk comes off a bit hard. Like we can have that discussion, but honest, I don’t think this is the thread for it. It feels like it detracts from introspecting by way of blaming the other team. I’m not downvoting you, I get where you’re coming from. But I just feel it’s distraction.
And that is my opinion on the matter and nothing more.
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Is that what you think the point of the discussion here is? What you’re saying is valid but that’s not this setting. I think that’s the aspect that might be getting lost with what I’m saying. I’m not discounting what your saying, what I’m indicating is that “your argument, completely valid in general. But are we not speaking specifically of this thread?”
It’s one of those things of, do you want to speak in general or in specific terms? In general yeah, we cannot just toss the term toxic masculinity all over the place with zero context. That’s just going to confuse people. BUT…
The starting of this thread is examining a specific topic among the many and it feels like you want to interject a side topic for fear that someone here might get confused about the specifics of “toxic masculinity” and what the background of that is. We’re adults here and I think it’s safe to look at what the original comment was getting at without diving head first into what (to me and that may be different for you so I acknowledge that) feels like splitting hairs.
Well. Are you a young boy? Are you confused about the term? And that’s the crux of what I am putting forward. And it isn’t in honesty an attack on you or at least wasn’t meant to be. We can talk “in general” about a hypothetical young boy, or we can be “specific” and address what you are and are not confused by. But we ought to avoid strafing between the two loosely because that’s going to be distracting in best light.
So I hope you understand when you have:
and:
Is taking the context of that first statement and attempting to apply it to the context of the second statement where the context of these two things are different altogether. “But the other side” yadda is dismissive in the first context and pointing out distraction in the second. We can use similar sounding statements in varied context to convey different ideas. Just like the statement “we need to go deeper” can have various meaning between the background of being on an oil derrick and being a gynecologist. Context really matters.
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to be fair, the article specifically references “toxic males” and is focused on the challenges for young men in particular. What seems obviously lacking in the story is any reference to the diminished economic potential that all young people face. 30 years ago education and housing were somewhat reasonably priced and and generally available to all. Economic stress is a huge factor and immediate source of stress and anxiety that is completely ignored in the article. How is one supposed to feel ‘cocky’ while struggling to keep their head above water financially?
Men get so bent out of shape whenever they even could be considered at fault for anything.
Meanwhile the word hysteria exists…
No, people get bent out of shape because it’s a gendered, sexist term. End of story. Just like man-splaining. You can discuss male specific toxicity and men being condescending without using terms that very clearly are divisive and prejudicial.
If you use the terms while pretending to be progressive or for equality then you’re a liar and a hypocrite. Hope that helps.
It doesn’t. Because this is a misogynist talking point. But you know that. That’s your goal.
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You should look up the origin then. Because your clearly concern trolling at this point.
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The first fucking paragraph is the point. Literally everyone knows this.
And it’s not an ad hominem when the position I’m criticizing and the term mean the same thing. Your bigotry is appallingly obvious. Shoo.
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Well, yeah mate
‘Boys don’t cry strong silent type don’t show any emotion beyond anger’ is not a societal pressure applied to women.
It is however, very much a toxic version of perceived masculinity