Regarding your statement, why do women like the “What’s Wrong with Men” discourse so much, and why do men like it so little?
I actually take issue with women who are so big about bashing on men. Good heavens. We women are not perfect and we as a culture have pushed men to the outer edges of society. We have mocked them, belittled them and basically said "you aren't needed." But in the next breath we are also saying "You should do more. Why don't you do enough? You don't make me happy."
I'm tired of women talking about "what's wrong with men." Instead how about we stay reflective of ourselves, and look at men, eager to celebrate what they have done right?!
And how about us Millennial Women and anyone who wants to join us start speaking up more to the bitter feminists: you've had your turn. The 'I am woman. I can do all things' brand stinks. It's not fun. And it is not enough. Men ARE needed. Women ARE worthy of respect. And one cannot operate without the other for a healthy, prolific society. Men deserve a seat in our lives and they are an important formula to making the world go round. I want to tell the bitter feminists, leave the men alone and let's get back to having men AND women both in the conversation with dignity and honor.
Why do men not like hearing what's wrong with them? I don't know, why does *anyone* not like hearing what's wrong with them? It feels bad.
For that matter, I think women who write magazine articles are more enamored of that stuff than women in general. My pet theory is it's kind of a matter of self-interest. ("If you would persuade a man, speak of Interest, not Reason," to quote Ben Franklin.) Who's overrepresented in the media? High-verbal-IQ, neurotic straight women (who are among the less attractive types to men, and hence have dating problems), lesbians (for whom weakening men weakens competition for the much larger bi female pool), and gay men (who have their own interests). All of those groups either benefit from less manly men or are angry they can't get any.
(What, you thought I was going there? Nah, I think Beck and Ellis, who invented CBT, were good guys.)
You were way nicer than I was about this article. This article ideological garbage and is polluted with irrational and illogical claims and conclusions almost too numerous to identify.
agreed. MRAs come in many styles - there are the ones shouting 'harridan' 'bitterness' and 'pity us poor rapey men.' The inevitable 'I blame the feminists' aka 'I blame the women' ones. Then there are the ones who give themselves female screen names to go on a woman bashing hunt. All you need to do, men, is ditch the self fraud. Breathe deeply and take it on the chin that the male sex has a lot to answer for. It's called being honest and responsible. You can choose this. It's a good choice. It will make you happier and women and children will thrive on it.
"When I hear that attitude, or sense it’s at work, I begin to wonder what the problem we’re trying to solve here is - is it male unhappiness, or female unhappiness that men refuse to conform to as psychological model that is palatable to women."
wants and needs. Men keep putting their wants before the needs of women and children. Selfish. All about their desires and fantasies. Zero imagination. So there they all are with their screens full of trafficked girls playing with their genitals and fancying themselves fanciable when they are anything but. A depaved goon show Men with zero respect for themselves or anyone else.
' If they 'TRIED sometimes, they'd find, they'd get what they need.'
That fool Jagger sang it. He probably plucked the line from a book of proverbs.
"I celebrate living in a country that we can all have our own opinions. We all see things through our own set of lenses as we should."
Absolutely, oh I'm not suggesting anyone shouldn't have their own opinions. All the better when everyone does. That's the only way to have any kind of productive debate about where the tension and conflict between ideas arises.
Sometimes I find it's not the person with the most logical and reasonable argument that is valued, it's the one that people can relate to better. That's usually not a good thing - but it is what it is.
men hate you too, Amy. Even if you are a man, and my guess is you are, they will hate you, Men hate women then men hate men. Men hate children. They are an absolute hate/murder/death cult. Carry on lying to yourself by all means. It will get you nowhere.
a fan of monsieur le 'pussy grabber' I take it. A fan of a man who thrills to push his way into places where girls young enough to be his grand daughter are stripped off. Shameful so u are! A dicsuker/panderer
my guess is you are a TIM. FYI I am known by this name in my everyday life - just as Elton John is known as Elton and not Reg in his everyday life and just as George Orwell back in the day was known as George and not Eric in his every day life, so stick that in your craw and choke!
bitterness. The taste receptor for bitterness is the same taste receptor for sweetness. Poor poor you. You will never ever experience the truly sweet. Misogynist so u are.
has it occurred to you that women fighting for the safety of women and children are horrified by your woman bashing views? I think it's very likely you are a man sporting a female name. Your agenda is clear. This awful article has woman hater all over it.
let's deal with the raping murdering and child molesting that men do then we can all sit round the camp fire to chat without having to be eternally on our guard.
You Said: "let's deal with the raping murdering and child molesting that men do then we can all sit round the camp fire to chat without having to be eternally on our guard."
Perhaps unbeknownst to you, there are people whose jobs are dedicated to dealing with rape, murder, and child molesting everyday. Human trafficking too.
The notion that one will be able to morally sanitize the entire world of evil acts and bring the numbers of incidents for all of that to zero is some kind of idealistic utopian fantasy.
There is no such thing as living in a world without risk, without corrupt and evil acts, and without bad actors. That's the entire reason that we have systems and people in place who deal with all that now.
Those systems are increasingly ineffective. Endless rape porn and pedophile apologising for a start, and the laws becoming ever more lax regarding arrests and convictions of sexual offenders - men. Increasingly men refusing to be sexually responsible. The idealism is yours if you believe the systems in place are in any way fit for purpose. Fit for male sexual irresponsibility maybe. Not fit for the protection of women and children.
I don't know if I buy into all that. Where I live, sexual offenses are considered the most serious crimes. I think the system works pretty well in terms of punishing such crimes - with the exception of when it's a woman offender who seem to get less time when convicted. As an example of that, a woman who was a teacher only got 60 days in jail after being convicted of molesting a child for 3 years starting when he was 10 years old. 60 days? A man would have got 40 years minimum where I live.
But unfortunately it's a fact that in the UK, less than 2% of rapes reported to the police are prosecuted, and barely over 1% of reported cases result in conviction. While the Crime Survey of England Wales reckons (from questioning people) that less than 50% of rapes are even reported to the police: because the victims feel that nothing will come of it beyond being treated as suspects themselves, in a good old victim-blaming tradition.
So effectively, rape has been legalised.
Legalised by whom? A government composed mainly of male MPs. Which has spent 13 years defunding and closing down the judicial system. And law enforcement by outfits like the virtually all male Metropolitan Police, found to be systemically misogynist, racist and homophobic -- even as newly found Stonewall champion transactivists.
Clearly male violence against women is not a high priority in our society. The relevant stats from the Office of National Statistics and Crime Survey of England & Wales:
99% of sex offenders are male
88% of victims are women.
That's not to to mention the rates of domestic violence and murder.
It's easy to see why men don't like women to talk about this. Not embarassingly oozing with empathy, as this article suggests: but angry and demanding to be taken seriously.
I was trying to explain some of this to my daughter yesterday. One of her friends, a boy, fell of his skateboard and all the girls and his mother (!) crowded round and asked if he was ok. This made him storm off angrily which completely baffled my daughter.
I am baffled too, would be grateful if you could explain in case I have boys in the future :) what would be the appropriate reaction in this situation?
As a father of 2 grown boys, here's what I've tried to do (my wife likely has a different approach)
1) Calmly, causally assess the situation. Do they obviously need comforting (screaming, crying, etc.)? Is there a medical crisis -- not just skinned elbow or even busted lip, but real trauma needing immediate attention?
2) Assuming not, ask them in a concerned-but-not-overly-so voice: "Hey, are you OK?" Do not be the first to make it into a big deal.
3) If they express "I'm OK" -- even if they're obviously not -- don't push too hard. If there is blood, you might say "Hey, we need to go in and get that cleaned up". If they're obviously shaken up, you might say "Why don't you relax for a minute and catch your breath." In some cases, they might want a reason to take a break, but pride won't let them ask for it -- this is a case for the parent to take the lead.
In most cases, the biggest injury is to their pride. Do not embarrass them any more than they already are.
One thought: it’s because the “oh what’s wrong, how can I help, let me comfort you” demands a performance of the hurt person. Very very very few people can both feel/process their feelings AND perform for someone else at the same time. By inserting oneself into the situation immediately (before the hurt person has time to just *experience* and maybe even process their pain, let the adrenaline leave the system, etc.), the interlocutor is (inadvertently) saying “forget your needs and BE something for me [a thing I can comfort that isn’t scary or upsetting to me].”
Being a man (as much as being a woman, though at different times and to different degrees) is constantly being ‘on stage’ and under scrutiny. And most of us aren’t DeCaprio, who can cut himself while the cameras are rolling and keep the scene going.
[To head this objection off at the pass: if you’re thinking “but I don’t want him to/he doesn’t have to perform for me [in that moment],” my initial responses are (1) I don’t believe you and (2) even if you’re the exception I do believe you, it’s just a different way of restating the problem (“I need you to be someone who can my mind and understand my intentions WHILE you’re in pain SO THAT I can comfort you in a form that I’m comfortable with”).]
I didn’t think of that, but you’re right, it’s important to let the hurt person process things first, especially if they might be ashamed of appearing weak. Personally, I don’t feel the need to comfort them to comfort myself, just want to make sure there’s no concussion/fracture and no ambulance/urgent intervention is needed. If it’s obviously just a scratch, I would not make a fuss.
What would be the most considerate way for a mother to assess the damage and show that she’s here for her son when he needs her (because I heard that many boys/men find it hard to ask for help) while showing that she believes he’s strong and capable of solving his problems on his own? Probably depends on the boy’s age, but it would be good to teach him to assess damage himself and not to be afraid to ask for help if it’s serious. Would the boy be less embarrassed to ask for help than to be asked if everything is ok?
There is no ideal answer because a mother's natural instinct is to protect her boy but he's at an age where he wants to be left alone to deal with his pain and embarrassment. I would have checked that there were no serious injuries and then moved on to something else but I understand that is very hard for most mothers to do.
Thank you! I often see that men want to be left alone to deal with stuff, could you please explain the train of thought that is going on in their heads? I understand that it’s important not to help for them to show they are capable of fixing things themselves, but why is it embarrassing if someone asks if everything is ok?
I have felt (?! I mean thought!) for some time now that feminism owes gender-cobblers a debt of gratitude. It has forced us long-term feminists to confront a central truth -- that on the whole, and taking into account pie chart overlaps and bell curves etc -- men and women are very deeply not the same.
The feminist first wave, women like Mary Wollstonecraft and then the Pankhursts, were fighting against the law's refusal to treat women as adult human beings. The law had 1,000 years of chivalrous feudalism at its back -- no-one knew how much of femininity was socially constructed and how much innate. I can see why the first and second waves went all-in on pretending there are no differences and emphasizing the commonality.
But it's time to move on. It turns out men have a deeply programmed need for status and that home-making has a profound social value.
I get intersectionality insofar as it applies to things like racial discrimination and disability. But anything contaminated by Judith Butler's foul gobbledigook isn't meaningful feminism. So I'm dubious about whether that thing that started in the 1990s can be counted as a Third Wave. Instead, it's the regression that a Third Wave needs to confront, based on an understanding that any women's rights movement that continues to underplay biology will look irrelevant and foolish.
Great article. I think the ‘what’s wrong with men’ trap isn’t recognised as such by some women because they’ve lived in that trap all their lives. From the earliest days society is at pains to remind us of everything that is wrong with us and provide the solutions to our flawed bodies and minds at endless expense. And the solution changes every season... The marketing opportunity of men having to change everything about themselves at someone else’s whim is enormous.
Females also have ‘psychological needs related to accomplishment, strength, usefulness and capability;’. If men can successfully push back against the ‘what’s wrong with men’ narrative, they may also start to recognise and push back against the ‘what’s wrong with women’ narrative, rejecting the pornified, corporate vision of what we should look like, how we should behave and what we should say... relentlessly pushed until we don’t know up from down. The greatest failure would be seeing this issue as men v women rather that the wholesale commodification of us all.
Cheers Lizzie I'm really happy to get good reactions from women on this I was worried about that
On the "accomplishment, strength" etc point - i always want to qualify everything by saying most men/ women, typically male/ female, on average men are more inclined to do x etc but it looks kind of rubbish in print so for the sake of being concise it's unavoidable to make sweeping generalisations when writing about the topic
It is a helpful read. This is something I'm thinking through a lot at the moment as a mother of sons & someone living - quite happily - in an otherwise male household (even the cat's a bloke). I think mothers-of-boys are a potentially an interesting demographic group. As the average family shrinks to 1-2 children, more & more mothers are mothers solely to one sex or the other, which must impact how they approach these debates. I'm not implying anything as reductionist as "Well mothers of boys are all going to be Team Man in the gender wars , aren't they?", but I'd be intrigued to know what cultural or even ideological differences it throws up? Would I have read that Richard Reeves book if I didn't have sons? TBH probably not.
Really interesting and thoughtful reply, thank you so much. In my own life I have definitely seen a few women shift their cultural views a bit, or at least reconsider them, when they became the parents of boys.
Funny story. On my mom’s side of the family, my uncle was estranged from his three sisters over gender beliefs, dating back to when they were growing up in the 60’s. My uncle was deeply religious and believed women should be subservient to men, so he married a meek woman from church and went on to have four kids, all of them girls... Meanwhile the sisters were of the opposite persuasion, and the two most strongly opinionated of them went on to have all boys. The universe is funny like that sometimes...
Of the three of them that had all girls or boys, none of them are on speaking terms with their oldest (I’m one of them). The uncle died with his daughter still estranged.
The female fascination with male problems still reeks of the biggest problem modern females have with men: a need to control them. An oftentimes subconscious and very well-meaning need to control, in the way we all try to control things we recognize aren’t good and probably should be addressed. Unfortunately, it’s still very much wrapped up in the end result of decades of shifting social dynamics to give women not simply more power, but complete control of social narratives to the point that we are no longer given any sense of personal responsibility or have any grasp on the currency of male sympathy: respect.
Most men don’t want to be fussed over or harassed by women.
They want to feel like men. They don’t need to be analyzed and inspected and sit quietly by while their mommies fret about how to address their behavioral issues. They can rise to the occasion if we just trust their capacity as adults to lead their own lives and (gasp!) lead women and societies well, like they once largely did.
"to give women not simply more power, but complete control of social narratives to the point that we are no longer given any sense of personal responsibility..." while cleverly disguising the unloading of that personal responsibility by standing back and playing the victims of alleged male inferiority and wrong doings.
I would just add that on because that provides the full picture of the rotten ideology here.
I agree, but I thought this was a very solid piece. I don’t wholly agree with the author on every single point, but he makes many very good ones.
Like this one?
"There is no one on earth who is more familiar with how tiresome men are than I am. Nevertheless if you’re committed to knowing them, that’s the position you have to start from: that men are not emotionally maladaptive women and know best how to talk with and to each other."
Why do I have to prepare myself to deal with a tiresome person based only on the fact that the person is a man? I call this kind of thinking atrocious. I will wait to see for myself how the individual interacts. I will restrain from making such generalizations and judgements in advance.
I will wait to see what their behavior and actions are like and then judge from that. That is when I will decide whether I think they are tiresome or not but I won't decide that in advance and just because.
I'm not a fan of most of his points as they do not follow a rational and logical train of thought.
Ironically, you are sort of assuming the converse position that women assume towards men that he is criticizing in this piece -- you seem to have flinched at the first the second anyone suggests that women might be well-intended sometimes and yes, men can be frustrating for women to understand. He’s actually criticizing women for the same reason you would, he’s just being slightly fair for a second before making his point.
Did you read the rest of the sentence you shared? He’s saying that you can’t simply stop at “yeah, men can be tiresome.” You can’t assume men are simply misbehaving women. I think that’s a wonderful point and not saying what you seen to think it’s saying.
Thank you for your remarks. I will just state my default position. I understand his is to make assumptions and generalizations about people based on their gender. There is some use for that but that usefulness is very limited.
EX: Men are physically stronger than women - Generally true enough to be taken as default.
However, one runs into trouble going as far as to generalize intelligence, sense of humor, talent, intentions and or how tiresome or emotionally maladaptive a particular gender is in general. Those and many other things about people transcend their gender and really are irrelevant to whether or not one is dealing with a man or a woman.
It is degrading to men to just default to saying you might as well get used to dealing with a "tiresome" person if you're dealing with men.
By the same token, it is also degrading to women to default to saying they are "emotionally maladaptive" - which, by the way, contradicts his earlier statement generalizing women by default as being helpful and empathetic.
I just don't care for the authors vast generalizations and how he flip-flops on those and even contradicts himself. Are women generally emotionally maladaptive or are they empathetic and helpful? We can't ask him because he's claimed both in the same writing and can't make up his mind which model he wants to go with - but these questions are really just a consequence of the bigger problem and cannot be answered properly anyway.
That main problem starts with the fact that I don't hold value in default generalizations. Default generalizations were used here in an attempt to characterize both genders this way and that way and the other. One person isn't the sole spokesperson qualified to speak on behalf of all women and all men nor to apply sweeping generalizations to them as if they are facts for all of them.
The "what's wrong with men?" question is less about women's empathy than women's frustration. Name an existential threat to our species or our planet that is not driven by men or masculinism? Some of our more "successful" men like Tucker Carlson and Josh Hawley obsess about masculinity because they know they lack it - just like the guys on Twitter who declare themselves "alpha males" definitely are not - because any positive manifestation of the masculine is observed. This obsession with masculinism - the most negative manifestation of masculinity - is what has our society rewarding psychopathy in business and politics, driving the planet to the limits of Her resources and vitality, and the Western world flirting with Fascism. Strong men are bad leaders. Fascism, by definition, is misery for the masses, even if you agree with it. Profit at any cost is exploitation and eventually suicide by our species.
I have a meme somewhere of an older, brightly dressed woman holding a sign that says "Women would carpet bomb the world with groceries" which encapsulates the difference between feminine and masculine orientations. Men are still waging war and capitalism has stores dumping perfectly edible and wearable goods, often new in package, into dumpsters, destined for landfills, instead of donating it or giving it away because that's profitable. We raise enough food to feed the world 7 times over, but we waste 40% of it and we still have people dying from starvation. There are 6 homes sitting empty for every poor sick person sleeping in the streets. Women are managers - we manage not only homes but hospital wards, schools, offices, businesses and budgets of every description and anyone who grew up in a middle or lower class family knows Mom can make a great dinner out of not much at all. The countries who had the lowest infections and death rates during the pandemic were run by women, most notable Jacinda Arden of New Zealand. We want to know "what's wrong with men" so we can fix it!
One last note about men as emotionally unstable women - men like to say women can't be trusted with power because one week of the month we are "irrational." When a woman is menstruating her hormonal balances are at their most similar to the hormonal distribution in men. If women are irrational for that one week, then men might just be irrational all the time.
Name an existential threat not driven by men? What?! We are one species (seemingly about to annihilate all others) and females are just as culpable as males. You sound like the idealistic 19th c suffragists who thought women's vote would end all wars. Ever heard of Margaret Thatcher? Humans are omnivorous, status seeking, and violent and that applies in various degrees to women and men. Trying to create a more just and peaceable society despite our evolutionary tendencies is a laudable goal, but the paradigm of male = bad and female = good is ideological hogwash.
Women are not as culpable as men. We have had no measure of power in modern history (2,000 years) that would have affected the waging of war, the colonization of indigenous peoples, the exploitation of human slaves or the destruction of the environment. Women did not buy and destroy the plans of a car that ran on water or Nicola Tesla's plan to provide free wireless electricity to the whole planet. Margaret Thatcher is the first name brought up to criticize women, never any recognition that she attained that position by acting like a man. There are always collaborators and handmaidens who will earn favor by obscuring the truth about the source of our problems. There are always individuals who are an exception to the overall population. Females may commit war or violence, but those are actions in conflict with Feminist values. The idea that humans are naturally violent is nonsense. That's patriarchal indoctrination that keeps people from demanding better from our leaders, who profit from war and have no desire to turn off the flow of blood money. If people think violence is unavoidable they won't expect peace. Humans were successful as a species because of our ability to cooperate and willingness to make individual sacrifices for the good of the community. We are not chimps. We are not naturally warlike. I never said women were perfect, I said that Feminist values are preferable to patriarchal ones, and I stand by that.
Where to start. How about establishing that historical guilt should not be assigned to anyone based on sex, race or other immutable characteristics? To do so, to point at the supposed evil other, is precisely the root of the violence humans, including women, are so prone to. It's true that women have had subordinate roles for millennia, but there is no evidence that women are more noble than men when they do get in power. You want me to go back to Cleopatra? How many names would you like? Maybe review China's Cultural Revolution and the murderous role of Mao Zedong's wife Jiang Qing. It is comforting to have a world view that simplifies, everything down to good versus evil like your new agey noble savage woke socialist feminist mish mash, but it's misguided at best and very, very dangerous at worst.
What's dangerous is ignoring clear patterns and trends in 6,000 years of history. My view is not black and white, not all good vs all bad - you're projecting that for some reason I don't know you well enough to surmise. I read my response again - maybe you should, too, because it doesn't say what you think it does. The little slurs you slung at me were based on your prejudices except for the Feminist and Socialist labels, which were accurate. "New Agey," "woke" and "noble savage" are Western patriarchal tropes. "New Agey" is an attempt to minimize my idea, and maybe a bigoted swipe at my religion, though it is the opposite of new age; "woke" is absurd because I'm gender critical, but you apparently have a black and white, Left vs. Right world view so that's the box you've put me in (projection?); "noble savage" is a particular slur since I'm Cherokee, though I know you couldn't know that, but that's a paternalist view of indigenous people that has nothing to do with anything I said, either.
I didn't use the word because it can scare people a bit, but the values I described are Matriarchal. That is not patriarchy in a skirt, it's an egalitarian system based on democracy, consensus rule and a gift economy. We need rule by a council of grandmothers. I've been studying this for over 40 years and I know it's hard for a person so thoroughly indoctrinated into patriarchal systems and values to picture it, but there are other, better ways to build a society, share power and responsibility, and distribute resources. The only way to do that is abandon what we've always done and build a different, more functional paradigm.
Exactly. Your reply is a long language lesson I don't need full of personalization (I critiqued your ideas, not you) and identity disclaimers instead of arguments. Usual feminist socialist tropes as I recognized. I'm familiar with arguments that matriarchal cultures were utopias, but there is not enough evidence for that. If you can make a matriarchal commune work, more power to you, but what is more likely is a debacle like the Women's March that falls into infighting. Men without women kill each other too. Maybe you and I would agree there needs to be a balance. God and/or natural selection don't make mistakes, and I agree with you we were designed to cooperate within our group in order to survive. I also believe in the wisdom of grandmothers, who live long lives because they have so much to teach their tribe. "From babushka to babushka" as a Moldovan said to me the other day about a folk remedy. That's not limited to any ethnic group. We all come from wise women.
I'm a student of history too. I'd suggest reading novelist Doris Lessing's autobiographies, particularly about the era when the idealistic socialists were learning of the horrors of Stalin and attempting to reconcile reality with their ideology. She was leery of ideological zealotry ever after, and today's socialists would be wise to take note.
men endlessly whinge about the appalling reputation they've earned for themselves as a sex category and denying every fact and stat put before them.. If men don't like their reputation for sadism rape pedophilia and all the rest then it's up to each man to individually distinguish himself from the crowd not to whine for an eternity about women seeing the sorry state they are in and abhorring it. There was one man talking real sense on twitter on the 15th - I'll post what he said here as ridiculous male pride (you've got little to be proud about) blocks out any voice that's female -- here you are. Take it from him then,
Olorogun
@Okkevwe
·
Jul 15
Just look at the imbeciles in the comments. It's not just the men who carry out the actual violence. It's also the fools that misdirect & obfuscate whenever women speak out.
The problem is much bigger than individual abusers. There is an entire system upholding the violence.
You Retweeted
Olorogun
@Okkevwe
·
Jul 15
One man will commit a rape, but he is emboldened by rape culture and is defended by a multitude of rape apologists. At this point, it is no longer a "one man" thing. It never is.
This is something every woman knows. We see it here daily. You are just invested in not getting it.
Olorogun
@Okkevwe
·
Jul 15
We've seen countless times when men rally around an abuser who they don't even know. Yet, when a woman says men are trash, those same clowns will start crying.
This isn't just about individual abusers. This is about a culture that even "regular" men contribute to.
Olorogun
@Okkevwe
You people keep crying about "generalisations" and "not all" whenever women protest against the violent misogyny they face daily.
Yet, for every man that does the act, there's hundreds more who either defend him, play "devil's advocate," or engage in victim blaming & gaslighting.
There, stick that in your whingey wind pipes and choke on it. He he. A man said it!
A big part of it is when men hear about rapes, murder, atrocities, they register it as "people" being violent instead of "men" being violent. They don't see the structure of male power that supports them because it doesn't bother or hurt them. Only the most unself-aware or privileged women can ignore it. Men are in the habit of "going along to get along" in most cases where other males are concerned and in their minds, one crime by a woman anywhere excuses crimes by men everywhere because "women do it, too" in spite of the fact that the vast majority of violent acts are by men.
I don't hate men, I hate patriarchy. Congratulations on being the guy who always shows up and calls a woman a misandrist if she dares criticize the male power structure. You guys never disappoint.
"I don't hate men" Just shows how long suffering you are. God knows they've earned any hatred and contempt thrown their way. No one would blame someone living under the Nazis in WW11 for saying they hate the nazis. It can be reframed religiously as hate the sin and not the sinner. But it's still a feeling of hatred.
there is absolutely no valid reason not to despise men. Despicable creatures. Raping murdering lying cheating and brutalising children. The TWAW bunch are a gift in one sense. They are a living demonstration of manhood as it is. Cheating at sports, lying, delusional, murderous, perverted, paedophilic. There is absolutely no reason for women not to despise men with all their hearts. If they hate evil then it is the only right thing to do,
Also, I understand your point theoretically about how all of the biggest problems facing the world are because of “masculinism,” but wanted to point out that someone who felt the opposite of what you do could invert your point and say that all these problems are reaching a crescendo because of the eclipse of traditional masculinity. I don’t think either are true, but an argument at the level of abstraction of “toxic masculinity is causing capitalism and global warming,” is mostly just a Rorschach test for what people already believe. It’s fundamentally unprovable and nobody who isn’t already inclined to think that’s true is going to take it at face value (similar with the hypothetical counterpoint).
Strong Men, like Putin, Stalin, Mussolini - I was talking about Fascism. Sorry if I wasn't clear. I wrote a big response but it veered off topic, so I'm going to post the rest of it on my Substack page under "What's wrong with men?"
If, as you say, Tucker Carlson and Josh Hawley lack masculinity, what is masculinity, then? You both attack it and claim two figures you dislike lack it in the same breath, so I’m very curious.
masculine means raping cheating abusing women and children. The women hate you with good reason. The female appeasers say they don't but only becausse they are scared or currently trapped by your violence. Men are sub standard. The Y is degenerate.
I differentiated between masculinity and masculinism, which could also be called toxic masculinity. Hawley and Carlson write books and do TV rants about men not being manly enough. Both are insipid little weasels who actively work against women's rights, against social programs, against efforts to address climate change and other environmental causes. The most positive expression of masculinity would include being supportive of women and women's rights, being committed to responsible business practices, advocating for peace when possible (sometimes it isn't,) working to create a robust social safety net and caring what happens to people and the planet.
Ok, you want the esoteric basis? I believe it because I believe humans are a part of a larger body called earth, or Gaia, who is a part of the one body that is the Living Universe and humans need to live in harmony with Gaia or Her immune system will eliminate us. Patriarchy is an exploitative system that abuses Nature, women and children and defines masculinity in terms of war and dominance. I define positive masculinity as being in a healthy, harmonious relationship with women, children and Nature. Being strong but not domineering; protective, but not possessive; innovative but not greedy; working for sustainability instead of exploiting resources. Machismo is bullshit.
I don't see why masculinity would be advocating for women's rights. It would be advocating for men's interests, just as feminism is advocating for women's. You have your team, we need to build ours.
I actually would support peace (who dies in wars?), a more robust social safety net )(who winds up sleeping on the street?) and regulating climate change (get some of those nerdy engineers working on that instead of data-mining my web data). Natural disasters are bad for everyone.
Because a positive manifestation of masculinity would not be threatened by women or believe them to be inferior. They'd know that society suffers when it oppresses over half it's potential. You've had your "team" all along. Men caring only about the issues or interest of men is patriarchy and toxic masculinity. Did you miss the part where I said real masculinity is a good thing?
I mean, I don't think you're inferior; you're good at different things, and that's on average; there are very masculine women and very feminine men. +1 WIS, DEX, and CHA, -2 STR and -1 CON, if I wanted to make a very nerdy joke.
But after four and a half decades of life, I think men and women have different group interests; there are many things that are better for one group that are worse for the other. (There are others that are good or bad for both, but they don't tend to get fought over.) Guys like Hawley tend to just favor rich men at the expense of everyone else (though some women preferring a patriarchal dynamic are along for the ride); feminists fight for women at the expense of men. Lower-tier men, nobody gives a rat's behind about.
Give me an example of feminists fighting for women at the expense of men, please? Are you familiar with the saying that when one is used to privilege, equality can feel like oppression?
The best thing any woman can do is to say no to men and to keep on saying it. We take responsibilty for bad choices - Women, so many, voice how they wish they'd heeded warning signs and got out quick instead of trying to make the best of a bad job and holding on hoping to change him. Usually because of sexual bonding and hoping the mind and spirit will follow. Trying to form a relationship based on sexual chemistry without waiting to see if the guy was honest.. And women pay dearly for any time they kidded themselves. So many women bringing up children alone carrying the burden of two parents. Women often don't want to wait around to find someone suitable - they want to start a family and have a partner to be with. Honest men are rare and honest women are not an attractive option to men. Men want flattery and cosplay. Women are better off keeping their integrity and rejecting sex, because really all that is on offer is a sleeping partner. And not a faithful one either. So many women are married but their 'husband' is not married to them. Men are a dreadful disappointment. Honest marriages, real marriages are rare. Most women have partners who are wedded to internet porn fantasies and to their own comfort.
The honest women are real feminists. And there is nothing more horrifying and terrifying to men than women who tell them the truth
Know what, Morgaine - the fact that MRAs and female, probably TIIMs, women haters have been so attracted to commenting on this piece of writing says it all. I have no idea in what spirit Glinner flagged it up. For a joke! To stir! Your guess is as good as mine. The only reason I even bothered to read it was the recommendation from him. It's a disgraceful piece of writing..
You know, you're saying what I basically believed in my teenage years. I worked very hard to be sensitive and read all kinds of lefty stuff and make space for women, etc. Then when I wanted to date I had to go do the old traditional masculine thing (or nobody was interested). Problem is, women may protest the guys carpet-bombing the world, but most of them (*not you*, obviously) still want to sleep with them.
War's actually declined, BTW, Putin's little dick-waving notwithstanding, if only because everyone knows the next big one would be nuclear, and there'd be no more territory to gain. I'm actually a pretty big peacenik--it's men who die in wars, after all.
'it's men who die in wars.' Tell that to all the women and children civilian casualties of every war. 3 women die a week - murdered by a male - a male partner usually. When war comes you can bet there will be mass rape. All this denial of male responsibility. Consult the stats.
Women are just as indoctrinated to patriarchy as men. Men fight and die in wars, but women and children suffer, too, and have little influence in starting or ending them. I'm glad we can agree that war is bad for everyone.
Yeah, I'm more of a disgruntled ex-liberal than a real conservative. I don't hate gay people, I'm fine with abortion, and I'd pay higher taxes to have national healthcare. I am not really typical of anyone though, and don't speak for anyone but myself.
Sounds like you're a reasonable person. I think putting people in boxes marked Left & Right is exacerbating our political problems. The irony of Universal Healthcare is it would actually cost less to cover everyone for everything, including dental, vision & hearing, than we pay now. We're the only developed nation that doesn't have it.
"I have a meme somewhere of an older, brightly dressed woman holding a sign that says "Women would carpet bomb the world with groceries" which encapsulates the difference between feminine and masculine orientations."
So, presumably, most of the women who are serving in the military generally have resentment for their occupation. Is that what you're asserting? I think it's inarguable that masculine aggression is more obvious and prominent in the current state of geopolitical affairs, but the illustration you're providing is literally about malevolent intent versus benevolent intent. That's a dangerously untrue assertion, and it perpetuates this simplistic idea that matriarchy would be the cure for all of our ills simply because it is the ostensible antithesis to the p-word.
For me, the broad difference between men and women can be much more accurately described through some dichotomy "intellect" and "feeling." Of course, when over-applied, this dichotomy obviously becomes stereotypical, and in many instances it's not obvious what actually distinguishes the intellect from feeling. But if we are dealing in thought-cartoons here, I think a much more realistic picture -- in terms of negative inclinations -- is the masculine tendency to work oneself to death in the name of efficiency or innovation. Perhaps the image you offer could be turned around to show a group of women rowing across a river because they are simply uninterested in building a bridge/railway across it. This is a more nuanced picture, one of pros and cons, because it shows how a concern for environment also delimits certain technological infrastructures catering to convenience. Women are, of course, responsible for many innovations, but I just don't see a collective of women being unified by technological obsessions -- for better or worse.
The male preoccupation with what we might call "thing-ness" is, I think, the reason why we are able to have this communication at all right now, in this point in time. On the other hand, there is an obvious intensifying preoccupation with "feelings" in educational institutions and academia now which has created an essentially hysterical domain and led to a downgrade in intellectual rigor. I would actually posit that the endless bickering which hinges upon immediate emotional responses to a mass of petty disputes we see on social media is a classically feminine negative trait! So I think we need a more inclusive picture here of sexed phenomena when talking about any of this in order to make sense of it.
Please remember that it was women in WW11 who were adept at codebreaking. Intellectual dexterity. Rigor strikes me as a stiff word. Couples well with the word mortis.
It's all about application. Discipline is a positive value in the context of building and achieving goals, and you can't have discipline without some amount of rigor. This should be a discussion about polarities and how to find balances among them. If we're going to fearfully throw out rigor because of its proximity to the stiffening of a dead body, we might as well regard our own skeletons or the frames of buildings with contempt. The fatal end-point of rigor is what Wilhelm Reich wrote about in The Mass Psychology of Fascism, but the fatal end-point of looseness is a cowardly personality which bows to everything and is incapable of achieving anything.
I know you’re not. I was explaining how rigor and looseness represent polarities with equally negative and positive potentials. You regarded my use of the word “rigor” as inherently negative, and adjacent to morbid qualities. That’s a simplistic comprehension.
Women are capable of as wide a spectrum of values as men. I'm sure female soldiers do not resent the power structure, though that structure often does not protect them from rape or prosecute their rapists if they are attacked. Do you think women are incapable of logic or innovation? A woman wrote the code for the first NASA mission. Women, including actress Hedy Lamar, created the technology for cell phones. Feelings vs. Intellect are stages of moral and ethical development that are not determined by sex. Patriarchal values and matriarchal values are not opposites, they are different structures entirely. Patriarchy is competitive and hierarchial, with elite classes exploiting the lower classes. Matriarchy is egalitarian, cooperative, resources would be fairly distributed so that while there might still be some with wealth, there would be no one without food or shelter.
I agree that academia is far too based on feelings and is failing to teach critical thinking, to encourage debate of controversial topics and is contributing to the polarization in our society, but again, that's not about values, it's about intellectual development and maturity which are not determined by sex. We use stereotypical definitions of masculine and feminine for discussion, but those feelings and behaviors are found in both sexes.
"Do you think women are incapable of logic or innovation?"
I kind of anticipated a response like this, even though I never suggested anything of the sort. Where do you think I was saying or even implying this? What I wrote had nothing to do with totally ruling out capacities. It's about considering patterned behavior as manifestations of the inclinations as expressed through psychobiology.
"Patriarchal values and matriarchal values are not opposites, they are different structures entirely."
You write this, but then you explicitly, qualitatively pit one against the other, with the former being Bad and the latter being Good. That's literally a case of opposites. And the problem with thinking like this is that it categorically rules out the possibility that we are living through an era not just of patriarchy but of *tyrannical* patriarchy, with minor elements of tyrannical matriarchy. These sorts of debates aren't going to go anywhere if we're setting the masculine impulse up as destructive and the feminine impulse as constructive. Ideally, society is cooperative: both patriarchal and matriarchal. This is the same problem as when we make masculinity the equivalent to *toxic* masculinity (which, actually, I do not think has been that well-defined).
I got the idea when you compared thinking to masculinity and feeling to femininity. Your love of polarity is an element of patriarchal Dualism. You're interpreting everything as good or bad. Life is more complex than that. It's not divided into nice, even numbers or elements or female/male. Stop picturing a Yin/yang symbol and picture a pentacle - a dynamic blend of elements alive and in motion. Stop thinking "balance" because what that really means is conflict and stagnation. "Harmony" is a combination of elements each in proportion best suited to enhance the function of the whole. I'm talking about a system that is more functional than the system we have now. One that includes egalitarian rights and benefits. One that eschews hierarchy, elitism, dominance and oppression. One that values peace, human life, fairness and honor. One that values children enough to feed them, house them, defend them from poverty and war. The idea that you think a society can be both matriarchal and patriarchal shows you have no concept of what the words mean. Matriarchy does not exclude masculine values, it puts them in harmony with the system. It empowers all citizens. Patriarchy is based on hierarchy and dominance, with the spoils going to the elite class at the top who rule over the lower classes by violence. That is what we have now and it's only working for a handful of billionaires who have hoarded such vast stores if money and power they don't know what to do with it. There might be wealth in a matriarchy, but it wouldn't be so disproportionate and it certainly wouldn't be garnered through wage slavery, exploitation of workers and resources, and it wouldn't be doing for obscene subsidies and profits what government could do with less expense and more efficiency & justice.
You want a definition of toxic masculinity? Entitlement, violence, dominance, valuing brawn over brains, rewarding psychopathy as success or cleverness, selfishness, disdain for the weak, for women and children as well as the planet itself. The idea that an "Alpha Male" is anything but an entitled clown with no self-awareness and no regard for others.
When did I claim to be a Goddess? Women are every bit as flawed and human as men. Women simply have not had equal power in society and therefore are not equally responsible for its ills.
I'll agree with you on one thing only. I can't stand that goddesses rubbish. Sacred castes & sacred cows. No way! Anyone claiming higher divinity is a red flag. The internet is chock a block with web cam traders claiming goddesshood. Embarrassing. Even more embarrassing to hear it from otherwise enlightened women.
I see the Living Universe as a Goddess, but but I don't consider myself any more a Goddess than any other woman. I never made such a claim, but it doesn't surprise me to hear a male accuse me of it, because in his mind, any woman who considers herself equal is stepping above her station.
Don't waste your breath on them. they are not serious. Just foolish entitled men doubling down on the lies they tell themselves so that they can continue taking zero responsibility for their actions. Pity their wives or gfs. You can see from what they are writing here that they are MRAs. Rape culture.
Do you think an exception can be made to the point about the therapeutic mindset being alien with cognitive behavioural therapy? Particularly the kind which focuses on the rational and recognises its roots in stoicism
Look at old videos of Albert Ellis, who had a very sarcastic midcentury New York Jewish affect (think Mel Brooks). He would tell people their thinking was 'screwed up' and life was 'tough shit'. I guess it might be too wordcel-y for some, more physically oriented guys, but I think at least some verbally oriented guys might like it.
Hi, Christine Emba here ! (Long-read author, lol). This is a very good piece, and thought-provoking, and I don’t totally disagree. Will likely return to comment *at length* but just want to register that I’ve read it and appreciate it!!
My phone is undergoing some kind of identity crisis and so I hope what I write here is coherent .
Love this article/essay/piece! Yeah it seems that women especially have an inability to accept that boys and girls are different.wmy husband is the head of our family. In fact for every successful marriage I know, this is true. That’s not to mean he doesn’t try to coordinate plans or doesn’t take into consideration my feelings but we are a team. There’s a reason that children who grow up in home where there is both mother and father are usually more balanced, have better self esteem and are less inclined to see the opposite sex as some kind of adversary. That’s not to say that bad, abusive parents are better than a single strong and loving one.
My late husband (an Irishman)) had an ineradicable belief that in all contentious situations if only I would take the trouble to explain his point of view to his daughters they would certainly come round to his way of thinking. I think he thought that the reason I didn't argue much with them was because I was always able to persuade them of the rightness of my positions, whereas in fact it was just that I knew that whatever I said they were always going to make up their own minds, so I didn't ever try to heart-to-heart them. That was the length and breadth of all my 'empathy'.
One of the best examples of this I can recall is Ben Sixsmith's piece about how he had an eating disorder, but was repulsed by the idea of resolving it through therapy, and instead resolved to do so by toughing it out on his own. Although he'd still be atypical for a man in both having an eating disorder and writing an essay about it. Unfortunately, I can no longer find it online.
Regarding your statement, why do women like the “What’s Wrong with Men” discourse so much, and why do men like it so little?
I actually take issue with women who are so big about bashing on men. Good heavens. We women are not perfect and we as a culture have pushed men to the outer edges of society. We have mocked them, belittled them and basically said "you aren't needed." But in the next breath we are also saying "You should do more. Why don't you do enough? You don't make me happy."
I'm tired of women talking about "what's wrong with men." Instead how about we stay reflective of ourselves, and look at men, eager to celebrate what they have done right?!
And how about us Millennial Women and anyone who wants to join us start speaking up more to the bitter feminists: you've had your turn. The 'I am woman. I can do all things' brand stinks. It's not fun. And it is not enough. Men ARE needed. Women ARE worthy of respect. And one cannot operate without the other for a healthy, prolific society. Men deserve a seat in our lives and they are an important formula to making the world go round. I want to tell the bitter feminists, leave the men alone and let's get back to having men AND women both in the conversation with dignity and honor.
Why do men not like hearing what's wrong with them? I don't know, why does *anyone* not like hearing what's wrong with them? It feels bad.
For that matter, I think women who write magazine articles are more enamored of that stuff than women in general. My pet theory is it's kind of a matter of self-interest. ("If you would persuade a man, speak of Interest, not Reason," to quote Ben Franklin.) Who's overrepresented in the media? High-verbal-IQ, neurotic straight women (who are among the less attractive types to men, and hence have dating problems), lesbians (for whom weakening men weakens competition for the much larger bi female pool), and gay men (who have their own interests). All of those groups either benefit from less manly men or are angry they can't get any.
(What, you thought I was going there? Nah, I think Beck and Ellis, who invented CBT, were good guys.)
Well-said.
You were way nicer than I was about this article. This article ideological garbage and is polluted with irrational and illogical claims and conclusions almost too numerous to identify.
agreed. MRAs come in many styles - there are the ones shouting 'harridan' 'bitterness' and 'pity us poor rapey men.' The inevitable 'I blame the feminists' aka 'I blame the women' ones. Then there are the ones who give themselves female screen names to go on a woman bashing hunt. All you need to do, men, is ditch the self fraud. Breathe deeply and take it on the chin that the male sex has a lot to answer for. It's called being honest and responsible. You can choose this. It's a good choice. It will make you happier and women and children will thrive on it.
"When I hear that attitude, or sense it’s at work, I begin to wonder what the problem we’re trying to solve here is - is it male unhappiness, or female unhappiness that men refuse to conform to as psychological model that is palatable to women."
wants and needs. Men keep putting their wants before the needs of women and children. Selfish. All about their desires and fantasies. Zero imagination. So there they all are with their screens full of trafficked girls playing with their genitals and fancying themselves fanciable when they are anything but. A depaved goon show Men with zero respect for themselves or anyone else.
' If they 'TRIED sometimes, they'd find, they'd get what they need.'
That fool Jagger sang it. He probably plucked the line from a book of proverbs.
ps - fulfillment is a better word than happiness
Troll? Female solipsism? Both?
I can't possibly tell, but I'm sure if you talk (even) more, it will become clear.
no point wasting words on you. Tell the truth to men and they start spitting venom. Men will be men, eh!
Exactly.
Thank you.
I celebrate living in a country that we can all have our own opinions. We all see things through our own set of lenses as we should.
"I celebrate living in a country that we can all have our own opinions. We all see things through our own set of lenses as we should."
Absolutely, oh I'm not suggesting anyone shouldn't have their own opinions. All the better when everyone does. That's the only way to have any kind of productive debate about where the tension and conflict between ideas arises.
Sometimes I find it's not the person with the most logical and reasonable argument that is valued, it's the one that people can relate to better. That's usually not a good thing - but it is what it is.
Can you give us an example?
Are you asking me? Example of? Where women need to chill and men rock or?
You should read Victoria Smith’s Hags
men hate you too, Amy. Even if you are a man, and my guess is you are, they will hate you, Men hate women then men hate men. Men hate children. They are an absolute hate/murder/death cult. Carry on lying to yourself by all means. It will get you nowhere.
LOL. God bless you. Oh you who hide behind fake names.
I'm not confused about who I am. I am proud to be woman and proud to support men.
May God bless you with ears to hear and eyes to see! Praise God we live in a wonderful land of the brave and the free!
a fan of monsieur le 'pussy grabber' I take it. A fan of a man who thrills to push his way into places where girls young enough to be his grand daughter are stripped off. Shameful so u are! A dicsuker/panderer
my guess is you are a TIM. FYI I am known by this name in my everyday life - just as Elton John is known as Elton and not Reg in his everyday life and just as George Orwell back in the day was known as George and not Eric in his every day life, so stick that in your craw and choke!
bitterness. The taste receptor for bitterness is the same taste receptor for sweetness. Poor poor you. You will never ever experience the truly sweet. Misogynist so u are.
has it occurred to you that women fighting for the safety of women and children are horrified by your woman bashing views? I think it's very likely you are a man sporting a female name. Your agenda is clear. This awful article has woman hater all over it.
let's deal with the raping murdering and child molesting that men do then we can all sit round the camp fire to chat without having to be eternally on our guard.
You Said: "let's deal with the raping murdering and child molesting that men do then we can all sit round the camp fire to chat without having to be eternally on our guard."
Perhaps unbeknownst to you, there are people whose jobs are dedicated to dealing with rape, murder, and child molesting everyday. Human trafficking too.
The notion that one will be able to morally sanitize the entire world of evil acts and bring the numbers of incidents for all of that to zero is some kind of idealistic utopian fantasy.
There is no such thing as living in a world without risk, without corrupt and evil acts, and without bad actors. That's the entire reason that we have systems and people in place who deal with all that now.
Those systems are increasingly ineffective. Endless rape porn and pedophile apologising for a start, and the laws becoming ever more lax regarding arrests and convictions of sexual offenders - men. Increasingly men refusing to be sexually responsible. The idealism is yours if you believe the systems in place are in any way fit for purpose. Fit for male sexual irresponsibility maybe. Not fit for the protection of women and children.
I don't know if I buy into all that. Where I live, sexual offenses are considered the most serious crimes. I think the system works pretty well in terms of punishing such crimes - with the exception of when it's a woman offender who seem to get less time when convicted. As an example of that, a woman who was a teacher only got 60 days in jail after being convicted of molesting a child for 3 years starting when he was 10 years old. 60 days? A man would have got 40 years minimum where I live.
But unfortunately it's a fact that in the UK, less than 2% of rapes reported to the police are prosecuted, and barely over 1% of reported cases result in conviction. While the Crime Survey of England Wales reckons (from questioning people) that less than 50% of rapes are even reported to the police: because the victims feel that nothing will come of it beyond being treated as suspects themselves, in a good old victim-blaming tradition.
So effectively, rape has been legalised.
Legalised by whom? A government composed mainly of male MPs. Which has spent 13 years defunding and closing down the judicial system. And law enforcement by outfits like the virtually all male Metropolitan Police, found to be systemically misogynist, racist and homophobic -- even as newly found Stonewall champion transactivists.
Clearly male violence against women is not a high priority in our society. The relevant stats from the Office of National Statistics and Crime Survey of England & Wales:
99% of sex offenders are male
88% of victims are women.
That's not to to mention the rates of domestic violence and murder.
It's easy to see why men don't like women to talk about this. Not embarassingly oozing with empathy, as this article suggests: but angry and demanding to be taken seriously.
That's great, Conor. Makes me want to give you a hug.
I was trying to explain some of this to my daughter yesterday. One of her friends, a boy, fell of his skateboard and all the girls and his mother (!) crowded round and asked if he was ok. This made him storm off angrily which completely baffled my daughter.
Great example, Oh I recognise that! It takes a lot of thinking to even be able to articulate why that’s the reaction
bad manners are always baffling to those with good manners.
I am baffled too, would be grateful if you could explain in case I have boys in the future :) what would be the appropriate reaction in this situation?
As a father of 2 grown boys, here's what I've tried to do (my wife likely has a different approach)
1) Calmly, causally assess the situation. Do they obviously need comforting (screaming, crying, etc.)? Is there a medical crisis -- not just skinned elbow or even busted lip, but real trauma needing immediate attention?
2) Assuming not, ask them in a concerned-but-not-overly-so voice: "Hey, are you OK?" Do not be the first to make it into a big deal.
3) If they express "I'm OK" -- even if they're obviously not -- don't push too hard. If there is blood, you might say "Hey, we need to go in and get that cleaned up". If they're obviously shaken up, you might say "Why don't you relax for a minute and catch your breath." In some cases, they might want a reason to take a break, but pride won't let them ask for it -- this is a case for the parent to take the lead.
In most cases, the biggest injury is to their pride. Do not embarrass them any more than they already are.
One thought: it’s because the “oh what’s wrong, how can I help, let me comfort you” demands a performance of the hurt person. Very very very few people can both feel/process their feelings AND perform for someone else at the same time. By inserting oneself into the situation immediately (before the hurt person has time to just *experience* and maybe even process their pain, let the adrenaline leave the system, etc.), the interlocutor is (inadvertently) saying “forget your needs and BE something for me [a thing I can comfort that isn’t scary or upsetting to me].”
Being a man (as much as being a woman, though at different times and to different degrees) is constantly being ‘on stage’ and under scrutiny. And most of us aren’t DeCaprio, who can cut himself while the cameras are rolling and keep the scene going.
[To head this objection off at the pass: if you’re thinking “but I don’t want him to/he doesn’t have to perform for me [in that moment],” my initial responses are (1) I don’t believe you and (2) even if you’re the exception I do believe you, it’s just a different way of restating the problem (“I need you to be someone who can my mind and understand my intentions WHILE you’re in pain SO THAT I can comfort you in a form that I’m comfortable with”).]
I didn’t think of that, but you’re right, it’s important to let the hurt person process things first, especially if they might be ashamed of appearing weak. Personally, I don’t feel the need to comfort them to comfort myself, just want to make sure there’s no concussion/fracture and no ambulance/urgent intervention is needed. If it’s obviously just a scratch, I would not make a fuss.
What would be the most considerate way for a mother to assess the damage and show that she’s here for her son when he needs her (because I heard that many boys/men find it hard to ask for help) while showing that she believes he’s strong and capable of solving his problems on his own? Probably depends on the boy’s age, but it would be good to teach him to assess damage himself and not to be afraid to ask for help if it’s serious. Would the boy be less embarrassed to ask for help than to be asked if everything is ok?
There is no ideal answer because a mother's natural instinct is to protect her boy but he's at an age where he wants to be left alone to deal with his pain and embarrassment. I would have checked that there were no serious injuries and then moved on to something else but I understand that is very hard for most mothers to do.
Thank you! I often see that men want to be left alone to deal with stuff, could you please explain the train of thought that is going on in their heads? I understand that it’s important not to help for them to show they are capable of fixing things themselves, but why is it embarrassing if someone asks if everything is ok?
Pretend not to notice - or dont fuss about and move on.
I have felt (?! I mean thought!) for some time now that feminism owes gender-cobblers a debt of gratitude. It has forced us long-term feminists to confront a central truth -- that on the whole, and taking into account pie chart overlaps and bell curves etc -- men and women are very deeply not the same.
The feminist first wave, women like Mary Wollstonecraft and then the Pankhursts, were fighting against the law's refusal to treat women as adult human beings. The law had 1,000 years of chivalrous feudalism at its back -- no-one knew how much of femininity was socially constructed and how much innate. I can see why the first and second waves went all-in on pretending there are no differences and emphasizing the commonality.
But it's time to move on. It turns out men have a deeply programmed need for status and that home-making has a profound social value.
It's time to build the Third Wave.
We're actually on our fourth wave of feminism.
https://www.vox.com/2018/3/20/16955588/feminism-waves-explained-first-second-third-fourth
I get intersectionality insofar as it applies to things like racial discrimination and disability. But anything contaminated by Judith Butler's foul gobbledigook isn't meaningful feminism. So I'm dubious about whether that thing that started in the 1990s can be counted as a Third Wave. Instead, it's the regression that a Third Wave needs to confront, based on an understanding that any women's rights movement that continues to underplay biology will look irrelevant and foolish.
looks like many haven't even encountered the first rung.
Great article. I think the ‘what’s wrong with men’ trap isn’t recognised as such by some women because they’ve lived in that trap all their lives. From the earliest days society is at pains to remind us of everything that is wrong with us and provide the solutions to our flawed bodies and minds at endless expense. And the solution changes every season... The marketing opportunity of men having to change everything about themselves at someone else’s whim is enormous.
Females also have ‘psychological needs related to accomplishment, strength, usefulness and capability;’. If men can successfully push back against the ‘what’s wrong with men’ narrative, they may also start to recognise and push back against the ‘what’s wrong with women’ narrative, rejecting the pornified, corporate vision of what we should look like, how we should behave and what we should say... relentlessly pushed until we don’t know up from down. The greatest failure would be seeing this issue as men v women rather that the wholesale commodification of us all.
Cheers Lizzie I'm really happy to get good reactions from women on this I was worried about that
On the "accomplishment, strength" etc point - i always want to qualify everything by saying most men/ women, typically male/ female, on average men are more inclined to do x etc but it looks kind of rubbish in print so for the sake of being concise it's unavoidable to make sweeping generalisations when writing about the topic
It is a helpful read. This is something I'm thinking through a lot at the moment as a mother of sons & someone living - quite happily - in an otherwise male household (even the cat's a bloke). I think mothers-of-boys are a potentially an interesting demographic group. As the average family shrinks to 1-2 children, more & more mothers are mothers solely to one sex or the other, which must impact how they approach these debates. I'm not implying anything as reductionist as "Well mothers of boys are all going to be Team Man in the gender wars , aren't they?", but I'd be intrigued to know what cultural or even ideological differences it throws up? Would I have read that Richard Reeves book if I didn't have sons? TBH probably not.
Really interesting and thoughtful reply, thank you so much. In my own life I have definitely seen a few women shift their cultural views a bit, or at least reconsider them, when they became the parents of boys.
Funny story. On my mom’s side of the family, my uncle was estranged from his three sisters over gender beliefs, dating back to when they were growing up in the 60’s. My uncle was deeply religious and believed women should be subservient to men, so he married a meek woman from church and went on to have four kids, all of them girls... Meanwhile the sisters were of the opposite persuasion, and the two most strongly opinionated of them went on to have all boys. The universe is funny like that sometimes...
Of the three of them that had all girls or boys, none of them are on speaking terms with their oldest (I’m one of them). The uncle died with his daughter still estranged.
such a con - appropriately named
This is good, each sex needs to cut the other some slack. Face to face and shoulder to shoulder - perfect.
YES!!! Grace, grace, grace!!
I'm not cutting any slack with these goons trampling on the safeguarding of women and children.
The female fascination with male problems still reeks of the biggest problem modern females have with men: a need to control them. An oftentimes subconscious and very well-meaning need to control, in the way we all try to control things we recognize aren’t good and probably should be addressed. Unfortunately, it’s still very much wrapped up in the end result of decades of shifting social dynamics to give women not simply more power, but complete control of social narratives to the point that we are no longer given any sense of personal responsibility or have any grasp on the currency of male sympathy: respect.
Most men don’t want to be fussed over or harassed by women.
They want to feel like men. They don’t need to be analyzed and inspected and sit quietly by while their mommies fret about how to address their behavioral issues. They can rise to the occasion if we just trust their capacity as adults to lead their own lives and (gasp!) lead women and societies well, like they once largely did.
"to give women not simply more power, but complete control of social narratives to the point that we are no longer given any sense of personal responsibility..." while cleverly disguising the unloading of that personal responsibility by standing back and playing the victims of alleged male inferiority and wrong doings.
I would just add that on because that provides the full picture of the rotten ideology here.
I agree, but I thought this was a very solid piece. I don’t wholly agree with the author on every single point, but he makes many very good ones.
I agree, but I thought this was a very solid piece. I don’t wholly agree with the author on every single point, but he makes many very good ones.
Like this one?
"There is no one on earth who is more familiar with how tiresome men are than I am. Nevertheless if you’re committed to knowing them, that’s the position you have to start from: that men are not emotionally maladaptive women and know best how to talk with and to each other."
Why do I have to prepare myself to deal with a tiresome person based only on the fact that the person is a man? I call this kind of thinking atrocious. I will wait to see for myself how the individual interacts. I will restrain from making such generalizations and judgements in advance.
I will wait to see what their behavior and actions are like and then judge from that. That is when I will decide whether I think they are tiresome or not but I won't decide that in advance and just because.
I'm not a fan of most of his points as they do not follow a rational and logical train of thought.
Ironically, you are sort of assuming the converse position that women assume towards men that he is criticizing in this piece -- you seem to have flinched at the first the second anyone suggests that women might be well-intended sometimes and yes, men can be frustrating for women to understand. He’s actually criticizing women for the same reason you would, he’s just being slightly fair for a second before making his point.
Did you read the rest of the sentence you shared? He’s saying that you can’t simply stop at “yeah, men can be tiresome.” You can’t assume men are simply misbehaving women. I think that’s a wonderful point and not saying what you seen to think it’s saying.
Thank you for your remarks. I will just state my default position. I understand his is to make assumptions and generalizations about people based on their gender. There is some use for that but that usefulness is very limited.
EX: Men are physically stronger than women - Generally true enough to be taken as default.
However, one runs into trouble going as far as to generalize intelligence, sense of humor, talent, intentions and or how tiresome or emotionally maladaptive a particular gender is in general. Those and many other things about people transcend their gender and really are irrelevant to whether or not one is dealing with a man or a woman.
It is degrading to men to just default to saying you might as well get used to dealing with a "tiresome" person if you're dealing with men.
By the same token, it is also degrading to women to default to saying they are "emotionally maladaptive" - which, by the way, contradicts his earlier statement generalizing women by default as being helpful and empathetic.
I just don't care for the authors vast generalizations and how he flip-flops on those and even contradicts himself. Are women generally emotionally maladaptive or are they empathetic and helpful? We can't ask him because he's claimed both in the same writing and can't make up his mind which model he wants to go with - but these questions are really just a consequence of the bigger problem and cannot be answered properly anyway.
That main problem starts with the fact that I don't hold value in default generalizations. Default generalizations were used here in an attempt to characterize both genders this way and that way and the other. One person isn't the sole spokesperson qualified to speak on behalf of all women and all men nor to apply sweeping generalizations to them as if they are facts for all of them.
The "what's wrong with men?" question is less about women's empathy than women's frustration. Name an existential threat to our species or our planet that is not driven by men or masculinism? Some of our more "successful" men like Tucker Carlson and Josh Hawley obsess about masculinity because they know they lack it - just like the guys on Twitter who declare themselves "alpha males" definitely are not - because any positive manifestation of the masculine is observed. This obsession with masculinism - the most negative manifestation of masculinity - is what has our society rewarding psychopathy in business and politics, driving the planet to the limits of Her resources and vitality, and the Western world flirting with Fascism. Strong men are bad leaders. Fascism, by definition, is misery for the masses, even if you agree with it. Profit at any cost is exploitation and eventually suicide by our species.
I have a meme somewhere of an older, brightly dressed woman holding a sign that says "Women would carpet bomb the world with groceries" which encapsulates the difference between feminine and masculine orientations. Men are still waging war and capitalism has stores dumping perfectly edible and wearable goods, often new in package, into dumpsters, destined for landfills, instead of donating it or giving it away because that's profitable. We raise enough food to feed the world 7 times over, but we waste 40% of it and we still have people dying from starvation. There are 6 homes sitting empty for every poor sick person sleeping in the streets. Women are managers - we manage not only homes but hospital wards, schools, offices, businesses and budgets of every description and anyone who grew up in a middle or lower class family knows Mom can make a great dinner out of not much at all. The countries who had the lowest infections and death rates during the pandemic were run by women, most notable Jacinda Arden of New Zealand. We want to know "what's wrong with men" so we can fix it!
One last note about men as emotionally unstable women - men like to say women can't be trusted with power because one week of the month we are "irrational." When a woman is menstruating her hormonal balances are at their most similar to the hormonal distribution in men. If women are irrational for that one week, then men might just be irrational all the time.
Name an existential threat not driven by men? What?! We are one species (seemingly about to annihilate all others) and females are just as culpable as males. You sound like the idealistic 19th c suffragists who thought women's vote would end all wars. Ever heard of Margaret Thatcher? Humans are omnivorous, status seeking, and violent and that applies in various degrees to women and men. Trying to create a more just and peaceable society despite our evolutionary tendencies is a laudable goal, but the paradigm of male = bad and female = good is ideological hogwash.
Women are not as culpable as men. We have had no measure of power in modern history (2,000 years) that would have affected the waging of war, the colonization of indigenous peoples, the exploitation of human slaves or the destruction of the environment. Women did not buy and destroy the plans of a car that ran on water or Nicola Tesla's plan to provide free wireless electricity to the whole planet. Margaret Thatcher is the first name brought up to criticize women, never any recognition that she attained that position by acting like a man. There are always collaborators and handmaidens who will earn favor by obscuring the truth about the source of our problems. There are always individuals who are an exception to the overall population. Females may commit war or violence, but those are actions in conflict with Feminist values. The idea that humans are naturally violent is nonsense. That's patriarchal indoctrination that keeps people from demanding better from our leaders, who profit from war and have no desire to turn off the flow of blood money. If people think violence is unavoidable they won't expect peace. Humans were successful as a species because of our ability to cooperate and willingness to make individual sacrifices for the good of the community. We are not chimps. We are not naturally warlike. I never said women were perfect, I said that Feminist values are preferable to patriarchal ones, and I stand by that.
Where to start. How about establishing that historical guilt should not be assigned to anyone based on sex, race or other immutable characteristics? To do so, to point at the supposed evil other, is precisely the root of the violence humans, including women, are so prone to. It's true that women have had subordinate roles for millennia, but there is no evidence that women are more noble than men when they do get in power. You want me to go back to Cleopatra? How many names would you like? Maybe review China's Cultural Revolution and the murderous role of Mao Zedong's wife Jiang Qing. It is comforting to have a world view that simplifies, everything down to good versus evil like your new agey noble savage woke socialist feminist mish mash, but it's misguided at best and very, very dangerous at worst.
What's dangerous is ignoring clear patterns and trends in 6,000 years of history. My view is not black and white, not all good vs all bad - you're projecting that for some reason I don't know you well enough to surmise. I read my response again - maybe you should, too, because it doesn't say what you think it does. The little slurs you slung at me were based on your prejudices except for the Feminist and Socialist labels, which were accurate. "New Agey," "woke" and "noble savage" are Western patriarchal tropes. "New Agey" is an attempt to minimize my idea, and maybe a bigoted swipe at my religion, though it is the opposite of new age; "woke" is absurd because I'm gender critical, but you apparently have a black and white, Left vs. Right world view so that's the box you've put me in (projection?); "noble savage" is a particular slur since I'm Cherokee, though I know you couldn't know that, but that's a paternalist view of indigenous people that has nothing to do with anything I said, either.
I didn't use the word because it can scare people a bit, but the values I described are Matriarchal. That is not patriarchy in a skirt, it's an egalitarian system based on democracy, consensus rule and a gift economy. We need rule by a council of grandmothers. I've been studying this for over 40 years and I know it's hard for a person so thoroughly indoctrinated into patriarchal systems and values to picture it, but there are other, better ways to build a society, share power and responsibility, and distribute resources. The only way to do that is abandon what we've always done and build a different, more functional paradigm.
Exactly. Your reply is a long language lesson I don't need full of personalization (I critiqued your ideas, not you) and identity disclaimers instead of arguments. Usual feminist socialist tropes as I recognized. I'm familiar with arguments that matriarchal cultures were utopias, but there is not enough evidence for that. If you can make a matriarchal commune work, more power to you, but what is more likely is a debacle like the Women's March that falls into infighting. Men without women kill each other too. Maybe you and I would agree there needs to be a balance. God and/or natural selection don't make mistakes, and I agree with you we were designed to cooperate within our group in order to survive. I also believe in the wisdom of grandmothers, who live long lives because they have so much to teach their tribe. "From babushka to babushka" as a Moldovan said to me the other day about a folk remedy. That's not limited to any ethnic group. We all come from wise women.
I'm a student of history too. I'd suggest reading novelist Doris Lessing's autobiographies, particularly about the era when the idealistic socialists were learning of the horrors of Stalin and attempting to reconcile reality with their ideology. She was leery of ideological zealotry ever after, and today's socialists would be wise to take note.
Supporting social democracy does not make one a Stalinist.
men endlessly whinge about the appalling reputation they've earned for themselves as a sex category and denying every fact and stat put before them.. If men don't like their reputation for sadism rape pedophilia and all the rest then it's up to each man to individually distinguish himself from the crowd not to whine for an eternity about women seeing the sorry state they are in and abhorring it. There was one man talking real sense on twitter on the 15th - I'll post what he said here as ridiculous male pride (you've got little to be proud about) blocks out any voice that's female -- here you are. Take it from him then,
Olorogun
@Okkevwe
·
Jul 15
Just look at the imbeciles in the comments. It's not just the men who carry out the actual violence. It's also the fools that misdirect & obfuscate whenever women speak out.
The problem is much bigger than individual abusers. There is an entire system upholding the violence.
You Retweeted
Olorogun
@Okkevwe
·
Jul 15
One man will commit a rape, but he is emboldened by rape culture and is defended by a multitude of rape apologists. At this point, it is no longer a "one man" thing. It never is.
This is something every woman knows. We see it here daily. You are just invested in not getting it.
Olorogun
@Okkevwe
·
Jul 15
We've seen countless times when men rally around an abuser who they don't even know. Yet, when a woman says men are trash, those same clowns will start crying.
This isn't just about individual abusers. This is about a culture that even "regular" men contribute to.
Olorogun
@Okkevwe
You people keep crying about "generalisations" and "not all" whenever women protest against the violent misogyny they face daily.
Yet, for every man that does the act, there's hundreds more who either defend him, play "devil's advocate," or engage in victim blaming & gaslighting.
There, stick that in your whingey wind pipes and choke on it. He he. A man said it!
A big part of it is when men hear about rapes, murder, atrocities, they register it as "people" being violent instead of "men" being violent. They don't see the structure of male power that supports them because it doesn't bother or hurt them. Only the most unself-aware or privileged women can ignore it. Men are in the habit of "going along to get along" in most cases where other males are concerned and in their minds, one crime by a woman anywhere excuses crimes by men everywhere because "women do it, too" in spite of the fact that the vast majority of violent acts are by men.
Oh yes you are. Women are just as wicked and powerful as men in their own domains.
Again. Not a goddess. Sweetie.
reply - no, a human. Unlike you.
Of course, there's always at least one overt misandrist who has to take these discussions as an opportunity to rant.
I don't hate men, I hate patriarchy. Congratulations on being the guy who always shows up and calls a woman a misandrist if she dares criticize the male power structure. You guys never disappoint.
You hate men. You make up "patriarchy" to hide that fact. But you are that emotionally greedy and manipulative harridan. That's you.
This article brought out the MRAs - and their female supporters. I'm annoyed for getting stirred by this piece of writing. It's empty. A pot stirrer.
"I don't hate men" Just shows how long suffering you are. God knows they've earned any hatred and contempt thrown their way. No one would blame someone living under the Nazis in WW11 for saying they hate the nazis. It can be reframed religiously as hate the sin and not the sinner. But it's still a feeling of hatred.
there is absolutely no valid reason not to despise men. Despicable creatures. Raping murdering lying cheating and brutalising children. The TWAW bunch are a gift in one sense. They are a living demonstration of manhood as it is. Cheating at sports, lying, delusional, murderous, perverted, paedophilic. There is absolutely no reason for women not to despise men with all their hearts. If they hate evil then it is the only right thing to do,
How are strong men bad leaders?
Also, I understand your point theoretically about how all of the biggest problems facing the world are because of “masculinism,” but wanted to point out that someone who felt the opposite of what you do could invert your point and say that all these problems are reaching a crescendo because of the eclipse of traditional masculinity. I don’t think either are true, but an argument at the level of abstraction of “toxic masculinity is causing capitalism and global warming,” is mostly just a Rorschach test for what people already believe. It’s fundamentally unprovable and nobody who isn’t already inclined to think that’s true is going to take it at face value (similar with the hypothetical counterpoint).
Strong Men, like Putin, Stalin, Mussolini - I was talking about Fascism. Sorry if I wasn't clear. I wrote a big response but it veered off topic, so I'm going to post the rest of it on my Substack page under "What's wrong with men?"
If you're trying to claim you're not a misandrist, you might want to pick another title. ;)
The title comes from the OP to which I was responding.
Fair enough.
If, as you say, Tucker Carlson and Josh Hawley lack masculinity, what is masculinity, then? You both attack it and claim two figures you dislike lack it in the same breath, so I’m very curious.
masculine means raping cheating abusing women and children. The women hate you with good reason. The female appeasers say they don't but only becausse they are scared or currently trapped by your violence. Men are sub standard. The Y is degenerate.
I am a woman.
I differentiated between masculinity and masculinism, which could also be called toxic masculinity. Hawley and Carlson write books and do TV rants about men not being manly enough. Both are insipid little weasels who actively work against women's rights, against social programs, against efforts to address climate change and other environmental causes. The most positive expression of masculinity would include being supportive of women and women's rights, being committed to responsible business practices, advocating for peace when possible (sometimes it isn't,) working to create a robust social safety net and caring what happens to people and the planet.
That sounds like your own political ideals, how is that intrinsically tied to masculinity, and by what standard?
Everything here is someone's political ideals or opinions. I explained my standard. Yours may vary.
Certainly you could still answer why you believe masculinity is defined by those terms though, couldn’t you?
Ok, you want the esoteric basis? I believe it because I believe humans are a part of a larger body called earth, or Gaia, who is a part of the one body that is the Living Universe and humans need to live in harmony with Gaia or Her immune system will eliminate us. Patriarchy is an exploitative system that abuses Nature, women and children and defines masculinity in terms of war and dominance. I define positive masculinity as being in a healthy, harmonious relationship with women, children and Nature. Being strong but not domineering; protective, but not possessive; innovative but not greedy; working for sustainability instead of exploiting resources. Machismo is bullshit.
I don't see why masculinity would be advocating for women's rights. It would be advocating for men's interests, just as feminism is advocating for women's. You have your team, we need to build ours.
I actually would support peace (who dies in wars?), a more robust social safety net )(who winds up sleeping on the street?) and regulating climate change (get some of those nerdy engineers working on that instead of data-mining my web data). Natural disasters are bad for everyone.
Because a positive manifestation of masculinity would not be threatened by women or believe them to be inferior. They'd know that society suffers when it oppresses over half it's potential. You've had your "team" all along. Men caring only about the issues or interest of men is patriarchy and toxic masculinity. Did you miss the part where I said real masculinity is a good thing?
I mean, I don't think you're inferior; you're good at different things, and that's on average; there are very masculine women and very feminine men. +1 WIS, DEX, and CHA, -2 STR and -1 CON, if I wanted to make a very nerdy joke.
But after four and a half decades of life, I think men and women have different group interests; there are many things that are better for one group that are worse for the other. (There are others that are good or bad for both, but they don't tend to get fought over.) Guys like Hawley tend to just favor rich men at the expense of everyone else (though some women preferring a patriarchal dynamic are along for the ride); feminists fight for women at the expense of men. Lower-tier men, nobody gives a rat's behind about.
Give me an example of feminists fighting for women at the expense of men, please? Are you familiar with the saying that when one is used to privilege, equality can feel like oppression?
That's exactly the kind of female "take" that this article is about.
You consistently advocate a "women are perpetual victims of men from time immemorial" stance.
You will blame men for everything. No matter what. You will take zero responsibility for anything women do.
The best thing any woman can do is to say no to men and to keep on saying it. We take responsibilty for bad choices - Women, so many, voice how they wish they'd heeded warning signs and got out quick instead of trying to make the best of a bad job and holding on hoping to change him. Usually because of sexual bonding and hoping the mind and spirit will follow. Trying to form a relationship based on sexual chemistry without waiting to see if the guy was honest.. And women pay dearly for any time they kidded themselves. So many women bringing up children alone carrying the burden of two parents. Women often don't want to wait around to find someone suitable - they want to start a family and have a partner to be with. Honest men are rare and honest women are not an attractive option to men. Men want flattery and cosplay. Women are better off keeping their integrity and rejecting sex, because really all that is on offer is a sleeping partner. And not a faithful one either. So many women are married but their 'husband' is not married to them. Men are a dreadful disappointment. Honest marriages, real marriages are rare. Most women have partners who are wedded to internet porn fantasies and to their own comfort.
The honest women are real feminists. And there is nothing more horrifying and terrifying to men than women who tell them the truth
Know what, Morgaine - the fact that MRAs and female, probably TIIMs, women haters have been so attracted to commenting on this piece of writing says it all. I have no idea in what spirit Glinner flagged it up. For a joke! To stir! Your guess is as good as mine. The only reason I even bothered to read it was the recommendation from him. It's a disgraceful piece of writing..
You know, you're saying what I basically believed in my teenage years. I worked very hard to be sensitive and read all kinds of lefty stuff and make space for women, etc. Then when I wanted to date I had to go do the old traditional masculine thing (or nobody was interested). Problem is, women may protest the guys carpet-bombing the world, but most of them (*not you*, obviously) still want to sleep with them.
War's actually declined, BTW, Putin's little dick-waving notwithstanding, if only because everyone knows the next big one would be nuclear, and there'd be no more territory to gain. I'm actually a pretty big peacenik--it's men who die in wars, after all.
'it's men who die in wars.' Tell that to all the women and children civilian casualties of every war. 3 women die a week - murdered by a male - a male partner usually. When war comes you can bet there will be mass rape. All this denial of male responsibility. Consult the stats.
Women are just as indoctrinated to patriarchy as men. Men fight and die in wars, but women and children suffer, too, and have little influence in starting or ending them. I'm glad we can agree that war is bad for everyone.
Yeah, I'm more of a disgruntled ex-liberal than a real conservative. I don't hate gay people, I'm fine with abortion, and I'd pay higher taxes to have national healthcare. I am not really typical of anyone though, and don't speak for anyone but myself.
Sounds like you're a reasonable person. I think putting people in boxes marked Left & Right is exacerbating our political problems. The irony of Universal Healthcare is it would actually cost less to cover everyone for everything, including dental, vision & hearing, than we pay now. We're the only developed nation that doesn't have it.
"I have a meme somewhere of an older, brightly dressed woman holding a sign that says "Women would carpet bomb the world with groceries" which encapsulates the difference between feminine and masculine orientations."
So, presumably, most of the women who are serving in the military generally have resentment for their occupation. Is that what you're asserting? I think it's inarguable that masculine aggression is more obvious and prominent in the current state of geopolitical affairs, but the illustration you're providing is literally about malevolent intent versus benevolent intent. That's a dangerously untrue assertion, and it perpetuates this simplistic idea that matriarchy would be the cure for all of our ills simply because it is the ostensible antithesis to the p-word.
For me, the broad difference between men and women can be much more accurately described through some dichotomy "intellect" and "feeling." Of course, when over-applied, this dichotomy obviously becomes stereotypical, and in many instances it's not obvious what actually distinguishes the intellect from feeling. But if we are dealing in thought-cartoons here, I think a much more realistic picture -- in terms of negative inclinations -- is the masculine tendency to work oneself to death in the name of efficiency or innovation. Perhaps the image you offer could be turned around to show a group of women rowing across a river because they are simply uninterested in building a bridge/railway across it. This is a more nuanced picture, one of pros and cons, because it shows how a concern for environment also delimits certain technological infrastructures catering to convenience. Women are, of course, responsible for many innovations, but I just don't see a collective of women being unified by technological obsessions -- for better or worse.
The male preoccupation with what we might call "thing-ness" is, I think, the reason why we are able to have this communication at all right now, in this point in time. On the other hand, there is an obvious intensifying preoccupation with "feelings" in educational institutions and academia now which has created an essentially hysterical domain and led to a downgrade in intellectual rigor. I would actually posit that the endless bickering which hinges upon immediate emotional responses to a mass of petty disputes we see on social media is a classically feminine negative trait! So I think we need a more inclusive picture here of sexed phenomena when talking about any of this in order to make sense of it.
Please remember that it was women in WW11 who were adept at codebreaking. Intellectual dexterity. Rigor strikes me as a stiff word. Couples well with the word mortis.
It's all about application. Discipline is a positive value in the context of building and achieving goals, and you can't have discipline without some amount of rigor. This should be a discussion about polarities and how to find balances among them. If we're going to fearfully throw out rigor because of its proximity to the stiffening of a dead body, we might as well regard our own skeletons or the frames of buildings with contempt. The fatal end-point of rigor is what Wilhelm Reich wrote about in The Mass Psychology of Fascism, but the fatal end-point of looseness is a cowardly personality which bows to everything and is incapable of achieving anything.
Who is making a case for looseness. not me.
I know you’re not. I was explaining how rigor and looseness represent polarities with equally negative and positive potentials. You regarded my use of the word “rigor” as inherently negative, and adjacent to morbid qualities. That’s a simplistic comprehension.
no, i was taking an angle on the word rigor, that's all. Bloody hell you guys and the pomposity. stop it.
Women are capable of as wide a spectrum of values as men. I'm sure female soldiers do not resent the power structure, though that structure often does not protect them from rape or prosecute their rapists if they are attacked. Do you think women are incapable of logic or innovation? A woman wrote the code for the first NASA mission. Women, including actress Hedy Lamar, created the technology for cell phones. Feelings vs. Intellect are stages of moral and ethical development that are not determined by sex. Patriarchal values and matriarchal values are not opposites, they are different structures entirely. Patriarchy is competitive and hierarchial, with elite classes exploiting the lower classes. Matriarchy is egalitarian, cooperative, resources would be fairly distributed so that while there might still be some with wealth, there would be no one without food or shelter.
I agree that academia is far too based on feelings and is failing to teach critical thinking, to encourage debate of controversial topics and is contributing to the polarization in our society, but again, that's not about values, it's about intellectual development and maturity which are not determined by sex. We use stereotypical definitions of masculine and feminine for discussion, but those feelings and behaviors are found in both sexes.
"Do you think women are incapable of logic or innovation?"
I kind of anticipated a response like this, even though I never suggested anything of the sort. Where do you think I was saying or even implying this? What I wrote had nothing to do with totally ruling out capacities. It's about considering patterned behavior as manifestations of the inclinations as expressed through psychobiology.
"Patriarchal values and matriarchal values are not opposites, they are different structures entirely."
You write this, but then you explicitly, qualitatively pit one against the other, with the former being Bad and the latter being Good. That's literally a case of opposites. And the problem with thinking like this is that it categorically rules out the possibility that we are living through an era not just of patriarchy but of *tyrannical* patriarchy, with minor elements of tyrannical matriarchy. These sorts of debates aren't going to go anywhere if we're setting the masculine impulse up as destructive and the feminine impulse as constructive. Ideally, society is cooperative: both patriarchal and matriarchal. This is the same problem as when we make masculinity the equivalent to *toxic* masculinity (which, actually, I do not think has been that well-defined).
I got the idea when you compared thinking to masculinity and feeling to femininity. Your love of polarity is an element of patriarchal Dualism. You're interpreting everything as good or bad. Life is more complex than that. It's not divided into nice, even numbers or elements or female/male. Stop picturing a Yin/yang symbol and picture a pentacle - a dynamic blend of elements alive and in motion. Stop thinking "balance" because what that really means is conflict and stagnation. "Harmony" is a combination of elements each in proportion best suited to enhance the function of the whole. I'm talking about a system that is more functional than the system we have now. One that includes egalitarian rights and benefits. One that eschews hierarchy, elitism, dominance and oppression. One that values peace, human life, fairness and honor. One that values children enough to feed them, house them, defend them from poverty and war. The idea that you think a society can be both matriarchal and patriarchal shows you have no concept of what the words mean. Matriarchy does not exclude masculine values, it puts them in harmony with the system. It empowers all citizens. Patriarchy is based on hierarchy and dominance, with the spoils going to the elite class at the top who rule over the lower classes by violence. That is what we have now and it's only working for a handful of billionaires who have hoarded such vast stores if money and power they don't know what to do with it. There might be wealth in a matriarchy, but it wouldn't be so disproportionate and it certainly wouldn't be garnered through wage slavery, exploitation of workers and resources, and it wouldn't be doing for obscene subsidies and profits what government could do with less expense and more efficiency & justice.
You want a definition of toxic masculinity? Entitlement, violence, dominance, valuing brawn over brains, rewarding psychopathy as success or cleverness, selfishness, disdain for the weak, for women and children as well as the planet itself. The idea that an "Alpha Male" is anything but an entitled clown with no self-awareness and no regard for others.
You're not goddesses, Morgaine. You're really not. You shit out your backsides and it smells just like when men do it.
When did I claim to be a Goddess? Women are every bit as flawed and human as men. Women simply have not had equal power in society and therefore are not equally responsible for its ills.
I'll agree with you on one thing only. I can't stand that goddesses rubbish. Sacred castes & sacred cows. No way! Anyone claiming higher divinity is a red flag. The internet is chock a block with web cam traders claiming goddesshood. Embarrassing. Even more embarrassing to hear it from otherwise enlightened women.
I see the Living Universe as a Goddess, but but I don't consider myself any more a Goddess than any other woman. I never made such a claim, but it doesn't surprise me to hear a male accuse me of it, because in his mind, any woman who considers herself equal is stepping above her station.
Don't waste your breath on them. they are not serious. Just foolish entitled men doubling down on the lies they tell themselves so that they can continue taking zero responsibility for their actions. Pity their wives or gfs. You can see from what they are writing here that they are MRAs. Rape culture.
Now I'm trying to work out why the author liked this comment.
This is a great essay. (Thanks to Notes for me finding it)
thanks for reading!
Do you think an exception can be made to the point about the therapeutic mindset being alien with cognitive behavioural therapy? Particularly the kind which focuses on the rational and recognises its roots in stoicism
Yeah it's a good point, I have found CBT moderately helpful from time to time
Look at old videos of Albert Ellis, who had a very sarcastic midcentury New York Jewish affect (think Mel Brooks). He would tell people their thinking was 'screwed up' and life was 'tough shit'. I guess it might be too wordcel-y for some, more physically oriented guys, but I think at least some verbally oriented guys might like it.
Hi, Christine Emba here ! (Long-read author, lol). This is a very good piece, and thought-provoking, and I don’t totally disagree. Will likely return to comment *at length* but just want to register that I’ve read it and appreciate it!!
That’s great Christine, thanks
There's no crying in baseball. That's it. All you need to know.
Great article thank you writing. Lots of truth here.
Fantastic to hear Martin, thanks for reading
My phone is undergoing some kind of identity crisis and so I hope what I write here is coherent .
Love this article/essay/piece! Yeah it seems that women especially have an inability to accept that boys and girls are different.wmy husband is the head of our family. In fact for every successful marriage I know, this is true. That’s not to mean he doesn’t try to coordinate plans or doesn’t take into consideration my feelings but we are a team. There’s a reason that children who grow up in home where there is both mother and father are usually more balanced, have better self esteem and are less inclined to see the opposite sex as some kind of adversary. That’s not to say that bad, abusive parents are better than a single strong and loving one.
Exactly. We’re just different, and what’s more, that’s totally OK.
My late husband (an Irishman)) had an ineradicable belief that in all contentious situations if only I would take the trouble to explain his point of view to his daughters they would certainly come round to his way of thinking. I think he thought that the reason I didn't argue much with them was because I was always able to persuade them of the rightness of my positions, whereas in fact it was just that I knew that whatever I said they were always going to make up their own minds, so I didn't ever try to heart-to-heart them. That was the length and breadth of all my 'empathy'.
That was the parenting approach mine took with me funnily enough “Fight the ocean and drown”!
One of the best examples of this I can recall is Ben Sixsmith's piece about how he had an eating disorder, but was repulsed by the idea of resolving it through therapy, and instead resolved to do so by toughing it out on his own. Although he'd still be atypical for a man in both having an eating disorder and writing an essay about it. Unfortunately, I can no longer find it online.