Mein Deutsch ist nicht das Gelbe vom Ei, aber es geht.
Bekannt? aus /r/germany, /r/german, /r/greek und /r/egenbogen.
I worry this is a fairly backwards looking perspective on masculinity. Is an association with manual labor and sports really something we should perpetuate?
Could you elaborate on that association? I don’t think I get it, especially when it comes to the shop classes (which seems to be the US equivalent of the Tech and Design classes we had where I grew up).
Back on Reddit’s equivalent community, I enjoyed reading how straight men relate to and experience their masculinity in all those context of life where the default script would be provided by patriarchy. Basically reading about how straight men find ways to overcome that default script. This may be somewhat voyeuristic and I hope it doesn’t make any straight guys uncomfortable to hear, but it is, in some way, healing to witness such instances of non-patriarchal masculinity. It offers hope.
Secondarily, I liked that it served as a compassionate space to talk about sexual and domestic abuse against men of any sexuality. As a gay guy back on Reddit, I found that the gay male subreddits were horrible places to talk about abuse experiences because the patriarchal script was performed to a tee. The MensLib community was far better on this topic.
In summary:
What sort of content and which men’s issues would you like to see more of?
Advice and personal discussion posts, and posts tackling abuse against men.
At least in Germany, especially here in the eastern part where right-wing radicalisation is very prevalent, the lack of adequate street-work (in this sense) and youth centres offers is discussed as a contributing factor. More generally/systemically, I’ve seen arguments that the sudden and wholesale disappearance of previous social structures that engaged youth[1] left the space open for neo-Nazi groups to basically be “the people who are there, who give us something to do and a reason to do it”.
As to what that kind of street-work looks like, even if not offered at nearly enough capacity, here’s an example. It ranges from organising leisure activities to helping kids who have trouble with the law - so that neo-nazis aren’t the ones who are the first to offer their help and win their trust.
[1]: Such as the Protestant Church and the state-controlled youth organisation of the GDR - reminder: what was previously keeping kids engaged doesn’t have to necessarily be good. Something bad can be replaced by something also bad. The point is to replace it by something good.
I think this article totally (but only implicitly) ignores young men and boys being sexualised by other men in ways that are as dangerous as the way young women and girls are sexualised.
Aside from that, I agree with the comment from @Pons_Aelius@kbin.social that it’s about misidentifying sexualisation as positive attention and seeking the latter by ways of the former.