Looking at your examples, and I have to object at putting scratch in there.

My kids use it in clubs, and it’s great for getting algorithmic basics down before the keyboard proficiency is there for real coding.

For me this is the crux of the issue:

To Galloway, neither the left nor the right — which can seem compelling to rudderless young men — are providing a genuine alternative. “The far right conflate masculinity with cruelty,” he says, referencing Tate and Vladimir Putin. “The far left thinks that men should, quite frankly, act more like women. Neither of those is productive.”

Men, especially young men, today are stuck in a no man’s land where they know that the toxicity of the past is not what’s socially acceptable, but no one’s giving them a model of what they can be. They are collateral damage of the culture wars.

Andrew Tate (just writing that name feels dirty) and his clique are exploiting this to cultivate hate and toxicity, but the traditional feminist approach that “Men should get in touch with their feminine side” will leave them isolated socially from their peers and emotionally.

The middle road will not be feminine and won’t be the traditional masculine role that’s still very present in culture, but will be a place where men can confidently own their vulnerability.

Edit: spelling

Still a good pun, worthy of dad joke status

Well no, but Title IX was only ever fair as a stop gap measure until various groups can get their footing anyhow (eg to counter act the issues that red-lining are still causing).

If there’s declining male enrollment, the solution is going to be to look earlier in the school system to work out why buys aren’t getting as much as girls out of class and looking to fix it. IIRC, one idea was to have boys start school a year later to counter the developmental age gap.

In any case, tipping the scales at the university level is only ever going to mask the problem. I understand the need, but by itself it’s not going to work long term.

Emancipatory Masculinity, I like it :) .

Thanks

The answer is in the article I think.

These groups thrive in the void that is self help for men.

The classic feminist discourse doesn’t speak to men as it was designed by and for women to allow emancipation.

The disconnect with classical feminism is best evocked by the trans community where trans men explain how surprised they were at the reality of being a man in today’s world.

There isn’t much if anything around to help young men learn how to be a man in the 21st century, so they are inevitably drawn to the simple but toxic solutions people like Andrew Tate and Jordan Peterson provide.

This void used to be filled with the pick-up artist community, so this issue isn’t new.

The obvious counter would be for feminist groups like ours to also provide non toxic solutions to the issues boys and men face so that they can go into the world.

There is a way to be manly and tolerant and express your needs and wants healthily. We’re learning it the hard way. We need to make it easier for the next generation. I’m saying this as a father of 3 boys.

Pet peeve, but even the name feminism is going to be a hard sell when you’re trying to explain to boys how to be men.

I see your point and I agree with it, but that is not at all what I read in the quote where the author dismisses the assertion that most men aren’t violent by asserting that they are “programmed from birth” to be violent, and as such the fact that they haven’t been is no reason to not treat them as if they had been.

As for the expectation of violence in media, I’d say that the expectation is, today, far more gender neutral as we have violent and non violent protagonists of both genders in media. In some respects, the expectation is for men to show more restraint since inter-gender violence is not seen the same way depending on the gender of the aggressor (the fact that men are topically stronger obviously plays a role here).

That said I agree with you that better role models are needed (we need more loving male protagonists and we need to see them triumph over situations where muscle fails). We also, as you shared in another post, need to do everything we can to get more men into services and care, as those men will be on the front lines to help give boys a more nuanced view on what it means to be a man.

100% this. One of things I’m greatful for is that my son has a male teacher this year.

It is really important to encourage diversity in what are currently female dominated areas. Doing so will not only help with the gender pay gap, but will also help vehicle a healthier masculinity as a role model for up and coming generations.

This is a textbook example of “Men as a threat” and stereotyping, and is why a lot of boys and men feel lost. You can’t find your place in society if society rejects you as a threat.

People are, once again, portraying boys and men as a broken by design and pile on the blame rather than helping them grow.

Boys and men aren’t monsters programmed to strike, and they will naturally resent being called such.

You will also immediately lose them as a target audience, and shouldn’t be surprised that you’ve pushed them into the arms of toxic influencers.

It would be unthinkable to make such a sweeping statement about any other group today.

Beautiful article Thank you very much

A really nice article, but one I feel needs to go a step further.

From experience, and outside really abusive relationships, if a relationship fails there’s always blame enough for both parties. I takes two to mess up a tango.

It’s worrying that social media is pushing these black and white narratives rather than helping growth.

The article is a sobering read, but unfortunately not a surprising one.

Demographically, Israel is split in 3 with secular Jews having a below replacement fecundity, orthodox Jews being off the charts (think 5 or 6 children per woman) and Israeli Arabs being around replacement.

This means that the orthodox community is getting bigger and bigger in the population, and this trend shows no sign of stopping.

Since orthodox women don’t work and orthodox men don’t serve in the army and often do religious studies, this means the community is becoming a bigger and bigger weight on Israeli society.

The current moves seem aimed at trying to appease the orthodox, and stave off an economic collapse in a few decades. Unfortunately by then the orthodox could well be a majority, and women look like the big loosers in this situation.

Short answer but absolutely, I’d jump at the chance.

I think the click baity title jinxed any discussion here.

I’m all for trans people having the right to live as their chosen gender and be left in peace to use the toilets of their choice, but the article clearly slanted it to be a case of “let’s ignore JK Rowling and co and bring this back to being a man problem”. This is from the first paragraph that gives the lens you’re supposed to read the data through.

Now, just to clear up on my origins, I’m a British expat so English is my native language but I’m also painfully aware of the scourge that is the Tory party and the havoc they’re wreaking, and I broadly agree with /u/crypticcoffee regarding the fact that there isn’t really a gender devide when it comes down to who is pushing the war on transgender people, it’s transphobes Vs the rest of us.

The revised title is much cleaner and frankly I agree with what it says, men are generally less accepting of trans people than women.

It depends “Is transphobia a problem” is not the same thing as “Are trans people a problem”.

For one thing trans-women seem to get far more hate than trans-men, which could sway things. Also being less exposed to progressive attitudes could also blind people to what trans people face (which would affect men more).

All this to say that the question asked in the study and what the article makes of it are very different things.

Also the spreads put up as evidence are no where near large enough (2/3 points each way) to push the idea that “cis” men are driving the issue (the study didn’t mention gender identity, the article just assumed).

All in all this article feels more like rage bait than anything that would push the discussion on trans rights Vs women’s rights forward in any reasonable way.

What I see in the article is that the devide is between professional and social settings.

In the educational or professional space lots has been done and a lot of progress has been made, so much so that the young women interrogated didn’t feel like sex was an obstacle in those areas.

In the social, or romantic sphere though things still seem largely unchanged with men and women still in very classic gender roles.

I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that if things haven’t moved as much in these spheres, it’s because there’s less pressure to achieve equality here. This could be due to the fact that inspite of the issues women face there is still an advantage to their place in social circles and romantic relationships and as such feminism hasn’t touched on them as much, or it could be that some of the issues have a more biological component that we will need to accommodate and compensate for rather than trying to simply level the playing field.

I’m very lucky to have a healthy relationship with my partner where we can both be vulnerable and we support each other.

That said, to get there I also had to integrate the fact that I could be vulnerable whilst also being confident and assert my beliefs, views and opinions (in a healthy way).

This will be a controversial recommendation but “Models” by Mark Manson was instrumental for me in finding this new road to being masculine but in a way that was healthy and respectful. The chapters on aggressive/assertive vulnerability and living your truth especially.

I feel that men today need to learn to live their truth, be proud of that truth and not hide it under traditional gender normes (aka agressivité and blatent sexism) or make it subservant to attone for some original sin linked to their sex.

All humans deserve respect and all humans deserve to be able to speak their inner truth and be vulnerable and accepted, no matter their sex or gender.

This.

Whilst traditional gender normes are hurting everyone (“be a man”, “smile more”) I really don’t feel that “patriarchy” and it’s evident undertone of finger pointing are the main cause.

I’d go even further and say that what people call “patriarchy” is really more of an emergent phenomenon coming from those underlying gender normes.

Thanks for your reply.

I can totally see that asking women to abandon feminist terminology in light of the overturning of roe vs wade and other setbacks is a tall ask, even if I feel that more gender neutral phrasings might help bridge the devide (that said they might also just encourage the people pushing these attacks through). I should also state that it’s not up to me to tell anyone what to call things, my reaction is my own and they certainly don’t owe me anything.

Thank you for the article. It’s a really interesting read, and I agree with what is written regarding toxic masculinity as it pertains to men’s behaviours. I find it also interesting that one of the reasons the author didn’t like the term was that they thought that it would distract from other gender imbalances. I personally feel that we need more precision here, so limiting toxic masculinity to the cases where men are being toxic is exactly what’s needed.

I also agree that some people will take offence no matter what, so I can see that there is an argument for not wasting brain power on name changes that don’t change the fundamental issue.

That said I disagree with the idea that there can’t be a good healthy masculinity, in the same way that there can be healthy feminity.

Chances are the healthy versions of both are much closer to the mean than the unhealthy versions, but experience both in my personal relationships as well as observing the relationships of others, either heterosexual, homosexual makes me feel that you will always have a certain dichotomy in relationships.

That said there is no reason the lady couldn’t be the more “masculine”, for lack of a better word, partner, but that will also require an evolution of social norms and what we find attractive, and we are no where near that yet.

Finally, regarding the situation in France, on some fronts things are pretty good. There are equal pay laws, a minister in charge of gender equality and men get 4 weeks paid paternity leave when we (or our SO) has a baby (they get 3 months). We’ve also moved to “parent 1”, “parent 2” rather than father and mother. The family justice system also privileges split custody (and having been through the system twice, I can tell you that this isn’t just words, plural of anecdote isn’t data YMMV but that’s my experience even if I’ve read the contry online)

On the other hands, there’s still a pay gap, promotions are still harder for women, we have a far right problem like everyone else (the 2027 presidential election will be interesting) and there is a major domestic violence problem that isn’t going away (1/3 of all murders IIRC are domestic).

Since you talked about gender neutral terms, that’s another item that’s hot in France. French is a traditionally genderd language: Adjectives have to accord with their subject in number and gender, there is no “they” singular or plural and in case of pluriels, the masculine form is used in case of conflict, so a couple would be masculine plural.

Certain feminists have tried to change this by creating a they (iel as a mixture of il and elle) and using the median point to mash masculine and feminine versions of adjectives together, so “the man and the women were big and beautiful” would be “Les hommes et les femmes étaient grand•e•s et b•eaux•elles” rather than “grands et beaux” (I’ve taken an extreme example but the point stands)

Needless to say this isn’t universally loved and has become a major battle ground, between those who want the new system, those who want the old, and those who would rather something less barbaric as an alternative (say “grand(e)s et beaux/belles”)

Finally, I’ve found the masculinist term mainly on french subreddits where it’s used to describe someone who belongs to mysoginistic social circles (what is often called the manosphere).

I’m going to scratch a pet peeve here, but I feel that a lot of the issues come down to what is essentially bad marketing.

Using the term ‘feminist’ to describe pushing for gender equality and an end to gender based discrimination (and according to certain schools of thought men can’t even be feminist but can only attain the lesser rank of “ally”).

Using the term ‘masculinist’ to mean, not pushing for gender equality and an end to gender based discrimination but rather as a synonyme for misogynist.

Using the term ‘toxic masculinity’ which has been applied to toxic behaviors by people of all genders.

Using the term ‘patriarchy’ to define the old gender normes that hurt every one, men, women and other genders alike.

If we want to reach the young buys today we have to stop (even subconsciously) gender shaming them but rather showing them what it really means to be a man in 2023: A man who is present at home and at work, who shares in running the house and taking care of the children (not just “educating” them when their older, which is an outdated and frankly toxic trend), showing them also how to be vulnerable. A man who supports his partner, respects his/her boundaries but also makes sure his own boundaries are respected. A man who stands up for what he believes is right.

In short we need to give positive examples and role models.

If we don’t show them a path to what they can become, and how they can grow and flourish, they will be easy pickings to people who lure them in with false promises of simple solutions.