There exists enormous amounts of ptsd in our world related to trauma at the hands of violent bullies, who are way more likely to be of the male gender. Men have held power over women for eternity. When we talk about trauma and complex ptsd and people’s emotional reactions to it, it becomes easy to believe that until we can decrease bullying and violence we will have a never ending cycle.
100%! Sexism is alive and well in our country and it will take an extremely talented woman to break that barrier and become president some day. But that is not the sole reason Kamala Harris was not elected. The dems bascially ran a candidate that had no chance. I don't know who runs that party, but they do not understand how elections are won. You win elections by letting the people chose the candidate. The candidate must galvanize the voters. The dems did it with Hillary and they did it with Kamala. 'They' decided who the candidate would be. It just won't ever work that way. Had they held some mini debates before handing the candidacy to Kamala, and picked the candidate who most gelled with the dem voters, they would've beat Trump.
The repbubs are a well oiled election machine.....Trump is a master marketer. Dems don't seem to have anything in order, and can't keep the crazy factions down to the bottom of the barrell. I mean, support gays/lesbians etc. but don't make it a major part of your platform. How stupid is that!
I’m not sure I would blame any single item other than Biden who, as head of the Democratic Party, tactically failed by constraining Kamela’s campaign to 3 months, eliminating a primary and the majority of the campaign season to even talk to people. Imagine Buttigieg as anointed runner, with a male VP, does anyone imagine 3 months was enough? Or fair? By definition, Kamala ran a bad campaign, too little too late, and likewise for her prior run.
The campaign literature - “with no men” - suffers from consultancy blah blah. It has all the excitement of hours spent culling photographs from a stock photo service (worse than anything trust me) coupled with statements like “She has a plan”. The first thing that popped in my head was “She bought it at Elizabeth Warren’s Garage Sale”. At least when I was taught marketing decades back I was cautioned to always write “You get” instead of “We can”. That’s another deficit of the 3 month campaign.
As for men - % of men going to college is about the same as it’s been for decades, women graduate more from high school and now that’s reflected in college numbers. Men commit suicide more often in no small part because the population is aging, and older men commit suicide more than almost any other group. I read that Men having sex is as rare as Sasquatch attacks, yet curiously, venereal disease is at a recent maximum. You don’t get syphilis from Xtube or ForFansOnly. Men are actually living longer, wealthier and with more varieties of beer and SUV’s than in history. Yes, there are problems, and there’s a never ending focus on women. So what are men gonna get?
Kamala played it very safe - she’s a litigator, and everything had to be nailed down. There was very poor messaging, but there were only three months. Trump predictably went wild, and the response was to - ? Call him strange? A bully? Vance was strange? He was mean to cat ladies? That’s not presidential campaign material.
And her poor VP guy, like something from a Lifetime Movie, not the strangler but Mr Rogers without the charm or sweater. The male inverse reflection of Sarah Palin. Fifty shades of Grey sold more copies than any other book in the last 50-100 years - 165 million copies. I think 50 Shades of Kamala would have woken people up. Not woke, but shit a brick.
There are a lot of fun crazyish men to proxy for her - if Fetterman doesn’t look like a combo strangler and pro wrestler, I give up. He’s a loose cannon, like Biden was. She could have recruited Joe Rogan who’s hot and weird just by appearing on his show a few times. I’m sure they’re not the only charismatic off-the-rails bald men to use but - 3 months! Peterson, all the crazies. Talk to them.
But only 3 months. Forget it.
The moment we saw Biden on TV, that was it. I knew the race was lost. That man was the face of the Democratic Party, no matter what what happened next.
Not a single photo in the economic agenda was a stock photo. They were all pics of Harris or Walz, usually meeting voters. All the voters were women. There were some girls but no boys. The only man ever in the foreground was Walz.
I applaud your thoughtful approach to the problems men face. My four grandsons always hear from me through your and others' articles. Grandparents can offer a powerful voice.
Here's a story. The Episcopal Church, sometime in the 1970s, changed the rule that only boys could be altar "boys," and serve at the altar (or carry the cross). Now girls could do this, too. So I asked our rector if he wasn't glad about this (he had three girls of his own). He said he was devastated. He said, "if the girls can be servers too, then the boys won't want to." And this was bad, because then he would have little chance to know the boys of his church. He thought it was good for them to serve, which is why he recruited them as soon as they could hold a heavy candle, if they were willing. (And he was a very good influence on my boys, especially the eldest.)
Sad. But kind of the root of the problem, I'm glad you brought this up. We need to figure out why? Why would the boys not want to be altar boys anymore? Why have they been told they can't do the same thing as girls? It's not the girls fault, they should have the chance to have important roles in the church too. The anwer is to change what the boys are being taught. Why would that bother them to work along sides girls? They are going to have to work along side women, so why not start young? You're story is in the 70's so hopefully things have changed, but I think what you illustrated is what is happening to boys. If they can't be treated special, above girls, they melt. I don't get it.
Hi Margaret. Thank you for sharing this experience. I have a son and daughter and have gone through painstaking effort to explain to my wife that boys and girls have to be trained different. Boys need more time to cook and to train and they need male role models more than anything else. The simple fact that we have gotten to a certain period when we have forgotten this amazes and saddens me. I have been following Richard Reeves for years now but I think it just now that he is starting to understand the difference between boys and girls.
When you endorse an article from "girls who code" an organization that gets corporate partnerships to favor women over men in both hiring and internships, that promoted yet again the toxic masculinity explanation for male outcomes, do you really not see a problem? Do you listen to criticism at all?
Richard, insightful as always and thank you for your work and courage. I believe it is time you start speaking about the link between online pornography and the descent of our men and boys. I have heard your reasonings on why you neglected to focus on it in the book (which I purchased and read). We will not be able to move the needle forward with men until we expose online pornography as the primary suspect for mens failure to accomplish and provide through the many life course stages. The dependance on porn hurts men and in turn, women. I am in a social work bachelors program and one of the only men in my program. I hope to one day meet you.
I definitely see the availability of porn as a deteriment. I believe it creates unrealistic expectations of what a 'real' sexual relationship with a woman is like. I see so many male friends, actually many are older, with nothing much going for them, ie. boring job, not atractive, not a great personality...but if they would have realistic expectations on who they could date, they probably could've found love. But they form unrealistic infatuations on young, attractive women...like the server at the restaurant they go to, etc. They even sometimes call that person their girlfriend. Drive by their house a lot. Say if they can't date her, they won't date anyone. And so they don't. Next door might be a very nice woman, much like they are, average looking, not a lot going on, but they could be a great match, possibly. But nope, they both just sit there lonely. Choices I guess.
For my young sons, I'm not aware of their porn tendencies (thankfully), but I do know at least one spends too much time on video games and that has impacted his relationships. He should be a 'good catch'...handsome, decent job, involved in the community, but his video game habits seem to end each relationship. How do we change that?
I am one of the only men in the MSW program I am just about done with. It's a lonely place to be. I am suspicious that porn is a primary suspect for the places men fail. It's not insignificant but see cultural factors that isolate men (work addiction, gender norms, drug use, late stage capitalism, etc.) as far more corrosive for men.
I agree that the factors you mentioned are generally of greater impact, but the main issue with porn is its constant availability without any barrier, coupled with men's loss of status in society. Relationships and dating are difficult. For a lot of (especially younger) guys, it's far easier to stay at home and have a sexual experience with zero input than to go out, struggle with socialising and risk getting hurt or rejected. Considering most men who are seen to be 'average', or lesser even, there's almost no reason to go out and date, go clubbing etc. when what you desire so greatly is at your fingertips on the internet, risk free. I've seen this play out with friends, and myself.
We all know that trying new things and experiencing pain is how we grow. Perhaps this is especially true for young men. But for a lot of young guys I think the feeling is that there's no point to getting out there and risking pain for growth anymore, ultimately leading to social isolation, despair and hopelessness (especially when coupled with the factors you mentioned).
Spot on Eamon - porn does men no favors as you so well point out. (I mostly got stuck there on "primary" threat to men but there are plenty to go around.) As an older guy who dated pre-Tinder then got married my heart breaks for younger men navigating a dating world where they are reduced to a few swiped pixels. Lately I have been fascinated by https://www.datingbyblaine.com/ and her work coaching younger guys on how to date (not just her coaching clients). Her email list is almost like she is running an online men's group at times.
I am a firefighter and most fire departments are mostly male. Guess why? Because it is hard manual labor and dangerous. It is working outside in the extreme heat and cold. It is dirty and messy. It is responding to the worst conditions our fellow man suffers.
99% of the women I work with volunteer to ride the ambulance and exclusively do EMS, especially after they start having kids. Most of them provide excellent EMS care. Most of them are awful at the fire side of the profession. Is that sexist or just nature? I’ll leave that up to you to decide.
Our HR director, a black female of course, is trying to hire any and every woman she can find. Why? Because she wants more women and less men. She has stated that in several meetings I’ve been in. Why wasn’t she written up or fired for those statements? I’ll also leave that up to you to decide.
The purposeful attempt to rewire nature is hurting civilization, specifically men, in the western world. I can’t understand why social engineers won’t focus on teaching people to be nicer and more accepting of each other and stop screwing with what men have to give up in order for women to get ahead of them.
I am glad that Harris lost because her lack of messaging and policy was eclipsed only by her outward disdain for men. Nature has spoken!
Former EMT here so have seen what you are describing. Also seen single men and those without kids given less desirable shifts than women with child care responsibilities. Could never decide if I was just supposed to suck that up. (Not a librarian just a Gen X white dude with an undercover avatar.)
Society is a web of mutual obligations. I think we are obliged to value the needs of children.
One terrible thing about modern society is how much people focus only on what they are owed by society, and how little they consider their responsibility to others.
My grandson was like that. His parents brought me to an open house when he was in kindergarten to see what I thought. (It was actually in The Netherlands.) All the other children were sitting nicely in a circle for story time, except for my grandson. He was listening, but also rolling around on the floor. a ways away from the story circle. He had a summer birthday, and afterward, I said, "Redshirt him." And when they came back to the US, they put him into kindergarten, again, and he was fine in school after that. He's now at Bard and loving it.
How can anything be sexist when sex is fluid anyway, right Demotards? Perhaps when I began typing this I was a man but mid sentence became a woman, and only God knows what I was by the end of the comment.
I went to a gigantic Arlington Virginia high school in the late 1950s. The class presidents were always boys. At graduation the valedictorians and salutatorians were almost always boys, The Honor Society was mostly boys. The Key Club was mostly boys. Boys were the leaders, confident and proud (as far as I could tell). Now I look at the local paper photos and all these places are held, if not completely by girls, mostly by girls, with one or two lonely boys in the back row. Even the girls' sports teams do better than the boys'. After raising 3 boys myself and having a grandson, it seems to me that the boys in the past few generations have done this to themselves, chiefly through abdication. Could someone please explain to me why I am wrong about this?
I don't know that minors have enough autonomy to abdicate. This year our rural grocery store had 4 foot banners of the top 20 high school graduates in this years class above the registers. 18 girls and 2 boys. I am proud of the girls and heartbroken for the boys. Also concerned for the heterosexual girls who will be peerless when they enter the relationship market.
Big Pharma did it to the boys by allowing a Kindergarten or First grade teacher suggesting that "gee, Johnny may need to be evaluated b/c he can't sit still in circle time. He may have ADHD." The parents are stressed that Johnny will fall behind so takes him to the pediatrician. And then the pediatrician prescribes meds for normal boy behavior. And then by the time the boy is in middle school or highschool, his brain is completely rewired (drugged up) and checked out of being an active participant in school. Mind you, many kindergarten and first grade teachers - how many of these women already have older boys of their own? I'd like to see the stats on that.
30% of boys in public school are on meds. It's not the fault of the boys. It's our fault for doing these things to them and expecting them to behave like girls at 4 yrs old. The school system today (especially elementary school) is not structured for boys.
No, the boys didn't do it to themselves - feminism did it to boys and men. And, the Democrats are all in with feminism. On Democrats.org, look at the "who we serve" page. You will see that they serve women, but not men. Democrats have told men to buzz off for the last 30 years. They funded women's health, but ignored men's health. They created the Violence Against Women Act, and ignored the fact that women batter men as often as the converse.
Obama made changes in Title IX that denied college men Due Process rights in feminist kangaroo courts on campus. College men flooded suicide prevention lines then. (You realize that men account for 80% of suicides?). Betsy deVos, under Trump, restored Due Process rights to college men, but Biden promptly reverted them back to the travesty that Obama created.
Back in February, Biden gave $100,000,000 of taxpayer funds to a White House initiative for women's health research, and ZERO dollars to men's health.
Hopefully these explanation help you see why men rejected the Democratic Party and their decades-long misandry, and voted for Trump.
I'm a middle aged white dude finishing up a masters in social work and at the center of election fallout on campus this week. I'm such a unicorn I'm virtually invisible in classes full of young angry feminist progressives - like a New Republic reporter at at Trump rally. I'm not that affected by the hateful rhetoric I hear from my classmates like "we don't need anymore opinions from straight white men". I can get why they are angry when they look at the make up of congress. What worries me most is the faculty influencing them and how out of touch they are. We are not rational creatures who feel as much as emotional creatures who rationalize. Feelings are strong and ration is at a premium. The pundits are too objective and the activists too reactive. I'm still finding my middle ground on gender politics but can say I started graduate school as a feminist and have moved to the right under attack.
I've been a registered Democrat for over 35 years and have committed a good deal of the last two years of my life to this exact concern. I wrote a book called "How Democrats Can Win Back Men" and the Substack blog "Men and the 2024 Election" urging Democrats to better appeal to men, while still supporting women. I'm hoping this election will serve as a wake-up call, because yes, it's not just four years, it's the coming decades that could be shaped.
The Democrats ignored men, and have been doing so for decades. They funded women's health, but ignored men's health. They created the Violence Against Women Act, and told men that tried to present the evidence that domestic violence was equal between the sexes at VAWA public hearings to just shut up. In February, Biden gave $100,000,000 to a White House women's health program, and ZERO dollars for men's health.
When the Democratic leadership saw that they were losing men, they doubled down on the misandry and called male Trump voters "misogynists".
Even James Carville spoke up about how the Democrats were ignoring men. He was told to back off, that the Democrats were now the "women's party". I would say that the Democrats sealed their fate for decades in this last election.
Unfortunately, I agree -- in my book I created 2 possible futures for the next 20 years; a good scenario called "The All Demographic Strategy", where men would be welcomed, and the "Democratic Disconnect" scenario, when men were ignored. The results of 2024 are worse than my "Democratic Disconnect" scenario for the 2024 election which doesn't bode well for the next 20 years.
And you're right about Carville -- he is the one Democratic insider who has actually called them out on this.
Yes, Carville indeed called out the Democrats to stop alienating male voters. They rebuffed him, and told hi the the Democrats were now "the party of women".
I am a Dem. I identify as a traditional liberal with both progressive and traditional values. Two years ago I found your book. I have been sharing your book and American Institute For Boys and Men with my clients, Dem friends and my son and daughter. Our way out of this polarization that weaponizes the feminine/masculine is relationship. Every time I heard/read the terms "toxic patriarchy" and "toxic masculinity" I challenged that with two ideas - 1.) We adults are modeling healthy relationships for our children. Our children have brothers, uncles, fathers and friends. What about healthy patriarchy and healthy masculinity? We are mothers, we have brothers, we have husbands, coparents, friends, - what are we doing? How are we serving young people regardless of gender if we are sh*t talking them and the men/boys they love at the same time? And here was my least popular idea among my women . LOL this one got almost no traction. #2.) We women need to discuss our toxic feminine. It is time for us to look at our part in this relational problem/solution. The part of the definition of the toxic feminine that is under discussed is how we express aggression through "relational bullying" and the more covert strategies of, guilting, complaining, comparing, lying, denying, feigning innocence, just to name a few. (Rachel Simmons in her first two books before (IMO) her organization was split/hijacked by woke ideology). Social media was the perfect platform for this and it is why girls suffered more in that arena than boys did. (Jonathan Haidt). I am hoping that our culture is ready for #1 - and that AIBM gets some MAJOR traction now. In the meantime I will not shut up about #2. As women we need to knock it off with blaming. We need to get down and Jungian, work on our own feminine shadow, quit blaming men and drop our Handmaids Tale delusional fantasy that we are still being oppressed because that blinds us from real repression. We can focus on both girls and boys without harm to either.
As a female having worked in a manufacturing setting, I have a different view. The good 'ol boy network was in plain view. Women who used their sexuality to gain favor with management at all levels prospered. At a basic level, many men there felt a sense of entitlement, to occupy any space at will, to demand or deny favor / inclusion/information as their ego dictated. It was a shock to me, as I'd treated people equally, with deference and respect.
You are not a liberal like any I've associated with. Slamming "woke" is your tell. If you want more specific instances of what it's like as a woman who is not allowed to have personal safety boundaries in a male- dominated environment, let me know. There are many of us.
That "your body, my choice" mentality did not come out of nowhere.
I for one am sooo sick of toxic feminism. It has hijacked all my mommy social media groups. Years ago, the groups were mostly to give tips on raising kids, best child products and programs. All the posts lately have been mothers complaining about their husbands and thinking about divorce. And of course, the commenters are only the ones that support divorce and getting rid of him. Hardly anyone proposes working together for the betterment of the family and kids, and also looking at one's own behavior that contributes to the breakdown of the marriage. How is that good in raising children? The number one Adverse Childhood Event that is damaging to kids is DIVORCE.
Marriage shouldn't be a battle. Relationships aren't a battle that are supposed to be won. When men and women can't work together, there are only losers on both sides.
I hear you loud and clear. Social media has disinhibited women and has brought out some of the worst in us. I find us all more civil and able to listen in person. Sadly these face to face groups are harder to find now. They do exist and I encourage the families I work with to find in person play groups or create your own. Like any group there are guidelines and protocols.
Young men and women (but mostly men) have been impacted by DEI either actually or in their own assessment and I know from my own kids this really burns them up. But not as much as legacy admissions.
Agreed Jeff - I know a fair number of young men in the trades and watching student loan forgiveness for their college age counterparts basically made their decision for who to vote for.
There exists enormous amounts of ptsd in our world related to trauma at the hands of violent bullies, who are way more likely to be of the male gender. Men have held power over women for eternity. When we talk about trauma and complex ptsd and people’s emotional reactions to it, it becomes easy to believe that until we can decrease bullying and violence we will have a never ending cycle.
100%! Sexism is alive and well in our country and it will take an extremely talented woman to break that barrier and become president some day. But that is not the sole reason Kamala Harris was not elected. The dems bascially ran a candidate that had no chance. I don't know who runs that party, but they do not understand how elections are won. You win elections by letting the people chose the candidate. The candidate must galvanize the voters. The dems did it with Hillary and they did it with Kamala. 'They' decided who the candidate would be. It just won't ever work that way. Had they held some mini debates before handing the candidacy to Kamala, and picked the candidate who most gelled with the dem voters, they would've beat Trump.
The repbubs are a well oiled election machine.....Trump is a master marketer. Dems don't seem to have anything in order, and can't keep the crazy factions down to the bottom of the barrell. I mean, support gays/lesbians etc. but don't make it a major part of your platform. How stupid is that!
The man problem was Joe Biden.
I’m not sure I would blame any single item other than Biden who, as head of the Democratic Party, tactically failed by constraining Kamela’s campaign to 3 months, eliminating a primary and the majority of the campaign season to even talk to people. Imagine Buttigieg as anointed runner, with a male VP, does anyone imagine 3 months was enough? Or fair? By definition, Kamala ran a bad campaign, too little too late, and likewise for her prior run.
The campaign literature - “with no men” - suffers from consultancy blah blah. It has all the excitement of hours spent culling photographs from a stock photo service (worse than anything trust me) coupled with statements like “She has a plan”. The first thing that popped in my head was “She bought it at Elizabeth Warren’s Garage Sale”. At least when I was taught marketing decades back I was cautioned to always write “You get” instead of “We can”. That’s another deficit of the 3 month campaign.
As for men - % of men going to college is about the same as it’s been for decades, women graduate more from high school and now that’s reflected in college numbers. Men commit suicide more often in no small part because the population is aging, and older men commit suicide more than almost any other group. I read that Men having sex is as rare as Sasquatch attacks, yet curiously, venereal disease is at a recent maximum. You don’t get syphilis from Xtube or ForFansOnly. Men are actually living longer, wealthier and with more varieties of beer and SUV’s than in history. Yes, there are problems, and there’s a never ending focus on women. So what are men gonna get?
Kamala played it very safe - she’s a litigator, and everything had to be nailed down. There was very poor messaging, but there were only three months. Trump predictably went wild, and the response was to - ? Call him strange? A bully? Vance was strange? He was mean to cat ladies? That’s not presidential campaign material.
And her poor VP guy, like something from a Lifetime Movie, not the strangler but Mr Rogers without the charm or sweater. The male inverse reflection of Sarah Palin. Fifty shades of Grey sold more copies than any other book in the last 50-100 years - 165 million copies. I think 50 Shades of Kamala would have woken people up. Not woke, but shit a brick.
There are a lot of fun crazyish men to proxy for her - if Fetterman doesn’t look like a combo strangler and pro wrestler, I give up. He’s a loose cannon, like Biden was. She could have recruited Joe Rogan who’s hot and weird just by appearing on his show a few times. I’m sure they’re not the only charismatic off-the-rails bald men to use but - 3 months! Peterson, all the crazies. Talk to them.
But only 3 months. Forget it.
The moment we saw Biden on TV, that was it. I knew the race was lost. That man was the face of the Democratic Party, no matter what what happened next.
That was the man problem.
Not a single photo in the economic agenda was a stock photo. They were all pics of Harris or Walz, usually meeting voters. All the voters were women. There were some girls but no boys. The only man ever in the foreground was Walz.
I applaud your thoughtful approach to the problems men face. My four grandsons always hear from me through your and others' articles. Grandparents can offer a powerful voice.
Here's a story. The Episcopal Church, sometime in the 1970s, changed the rule that only boys could be altar "boys," and serve at the altar (or carry the cross). Now girls could do this, too. So I asked our rector if he wasn't glad about this (he had three girls of his own). He said he was devastated. He said, "if the girls can be servers too, then the boys won't want to." And this was bad, because then he would have little chance to know the boys of his church. He thought it was good for them to serve, which is why he recruited them as soon as they could hold a heavy candle, if they were willing. (And he was a very good influence on my boys, especially the eldest.)
Sad. But kind of the root of the problem, I'm glad you brought this up. We need to figure out why? Why would the boys not want to be altar boys anymore? Why have they been told they can't do the same thing as girls? It's not the girls fault, they should have the chance to have important roles in the church too. The anwer is to change what the boys are being taught. Why would that bother them to work along sides girls? They are going to have to work along side women, so why not start young? You're story is in the 70's so hopefully things have changed, but I think what you illustrated is what is happening to boys. If they can't be treated special, above girls, they melt. I don't get it.
Hi Margaret. Thank you for sharing this experience. I have a son and daughter and have gone through painstaking effort to explain to my wife that boys and girls have to be trained different. Boys need more time to cook and to train and they need male role models more than anything else. The simple fact that we have gotten to a certain period when we have forgotten this amazes and saddens me. I have been following Richard Reeves for years now but I think it just now that he is starting to understand the difference between boys and girls.
When you endorse an article from "girls who code" an organization that gets corporate partnerships to favor women over men in both hiring and internships, that promoted yet again the toxic masculinity explanation for male outcomes, do you really not see a problem? Do you listen to criticism at all?
Your thesis is still essentially the toxic masculinity thesis to describe male psychology though, even if you advocate for different wording.
Richard, insightful as always and thank you for your work and courage. I believe it is time you start speaking about the link between online pornography and the descent of our men and boys. I have heard your reasonings on why you neglected to focus on it in the book (which I purchased and read). We will not be able to move the needle forward with men until we expose online pornography as the primary suspect for mens failure to accomplish and provide through the many life course stages. The dependance on porn hurts men and in turn, women. I am in a social work bachelors program and one of the only men in my program. I hope to one day meet you.
I definitely see the availability of porn as a deteriment. I believe it creates unrealistic expectations of what a 'real' sexual relationship with a woman is like. I see so many male friends, actually many are older, with nothing much going for them, ie. boring job, not atractive, not a great personality...but if they would have realistic expectations on who they could date, they probably could've found love. But they form unrealistic infatuations on young, attractive women...like the server at the restaurant they go to, etc. They even sometimes call that person their girlfriend. Drive by their house a lot. Say if they can't date her, they won't date anyone. And so they don't. Next door might be a very nice woman, much like they are, average looking, not a lot going on, but they could be a great match, possibly. But nope, they both just sit there lonely. Choices I guess.
For my young sons, I'm not aware of their porn tendencies (thankfully), but I do know at least one spends too much time on video games and that has impacted his relationships. He should be a 'good catch'...handsome, decent job, involved in the community, but his video game habits seem to end each relationship. How do we change that?
I am one of the only men in the MSW program I am just about done with. It's a lonely place to be. I am suspicious that porn is a primary suspect for the places men fail. It's not insignificant but see cultural factors that isolate men (work addiction, gender norms, drug use, late stage capitalism, etc.) as far more corrosive for men.
I agree that the factors you mentioned are generally of greater impact, but the main issue with porn is its constant availability without any barrier, coupled with men's loss of status in society. Relationships and dating are difficult. For a lot of (especially younger) guys, it's far easier to stay at home and have a sexual experience with zero input than to go out, struggle with socialising and risk getting hurt or rejected. Considering most men who are seen to be 'average', or lesser even, there's almost no reason to go out and date, go clubbing etc. when what you desire so greatly is at your fingertips on the internet, risk free. I've seen this play out with friends, and myself.
We all know that trying new things and experiencing pain is how we grow. Perhaps this is especially true for young men. But for a lot of young guys I think the feeling is that there's no point to getting out there and risking pain for growth anymore, ultimately leading to social isolation, despair and hopelessness (especially when coupled with the factors you mentioned).
Spot on Eamon - porn does men no favors as you so well point out. (I mostly got stuck there on "primary" threat to men but there are plenty to go around.) As an older guy who dated pre-Tinder then got married my heart breaks for younger men navigating a dating world where they are reduced to a few swiped pixels. Lately I have been fascinated by https://www.datingbyblaine.com/ and her work coaching younger guys on how to date (not just her coaching clients). Her email list is almost like she is running an online men's group at times.
I am a firefighter and most fire departments are mostly male. Guess why? Because it is hard manual labor and dangerous. It is working outside in the extreme heat and cold. It is dirty and messy. It is responding to the worst conditions our fellow man suffers.
99% of the women I work with volunteer to ride the ambulance and exclusively do EMS, especially after they start having kids. Most of them provide excellent EMS care. Most of them are awful at the fire side of the profession. Is that sexist or just nature? I’ll leave that up to you to decide.
Our HR director, a black female of course, is trying to hire any and every woman she can find. Why? Because she wants more women and less men. She has stated that in several meetings I’ve been in. Why wasn’t she written up or fired for those statements? I’ll also leave that up to you to decide.
The purposeful attempt to rewire nature is hurting civilization, specifically men, in the western world. I can’t understand why social engineers won’t focus on teaching people to be nicer and more accepting of each other and stop screwing with what men have to give up in order for women to get ahead of them.
I am glad that Harris lost because her lack of messaging and policy was eclipsed only by her outward disdain for men. Nature has spoken!
Former EMT here so have seen what you are describing. Also seen single men and those without kids given less desirable shifts than women with child care responsibilities. Could never decide if I was just supposed to suck that up. (Not a librarian just a Gen X white dude with an undercover avatar.)
We have a social obligation to suck it up because society should value children.
Do you feel that we should Dan?
Society is a web of mutual obligations. I think we are obliged to value the needs of children.
One terrible thing about modern society is how much people focus only on what they are owed by society, and how little they consider their responsibility to others.
Thanks Dan I appreciate your clarification as so many comments here seem made with ironic intent.
My grandson was like that. His parents brought me to an open house when he was in kindergarten to see what I thought. (It was actually in The Netherlands.) All the other children were sitting nicely in a circle for story time, except for my grandson. He was listening, but also rolling around on the floor. a ways away from the story circle. He had a summer birthday, and afterward, I said, "Redshirt him." And when they came back to the US, they put him into kindergarten, again, and he was fine in school after that. He's now at Bard and loving it.
How can anything be sexist when sex is fluid anyway, right Demotards? Perhaps when I began typing this I was a man but mid sentence became a woman, and only God knows what I was by the end of the comment.
Will this kind of reply win people over, or will it only alienate them?
I went to a gigantic Arlington Virginia high school in the late 1950s. The class presidents were always boys. At graduation the valedictorians and salutatorians were almost always boys, The Honor Society was mostly boys. The Key Club was mostly boys. Boys were the leaders, confident and proud (as far as I could tell). Now I look at the local paper photos and all these places are held, if not completely by girls, mostly by girls, with one or two lonely boys in the back row. Even the girls' sports teams do better than the boys'. After raising 3 boys myself and having a grandson, it seems to me that the boys in the past few generations have done this to themselves, chiefly through abdication. Could someone please explain to me why I am wrong about this?
I don't know that minors have enough autonomy to abdicate. This year our rural grocery store had 4 foot banners of the top 20 high school graduates in this years class above the registers. 18 girls and 2 boys. I am proud of the girls and heartbroken for the boys. Also concerned for the heterosexual girls who will be peerless when they enter the relationship market.
Big Pharma did it to the boys by allowing a Kindergarten or First grade teacher suggesting that "gee, Johnny may need to be evaluated b/c he can't sit still in circle time. He may have ADHD." The parents are stressed that Johnny will fall behind so takes him to the pediatrician. And then the pediatrician prescribes meds for normal boy behavior. And then by the time the boy is in middle school or highschool, his brain is completely rewired (drugged up) and checked out of being an active participant in school. Mind you, many kindergarten and first grade teachers - how many of these women already have older boys of their own? I'd like to see the stats on that.
30% of boys in public school are on meds. It's not the fault of the boys. It's our fault for doing these things to them and expecting them to behave like girls at 4 yrs old. The school system today (especially elementary school) is not structured for boys.
No, the boys didn't do it to themselves - feminism did it to boys and men. And, the Democrats are all in with feminism. On Democrats.org, look at the "who we serve" page. You will see that they serve women, but not men. Democrats have told men to buzz off for the last 30 years. They funded women's health, but ignored men's health. They created the Violence Against Women Act, and ignored the fact that women batter men as often as the converse.
Obama made changes in Title IX that denied college men Due Process rights in feminist kangaroo courts on campus. College men flooded suicide prevention lines then. (You realize that men account for 80% of suicides?). Betsy deVos, under Trump, restored Due Process rights to college men, but Biden promptly reverted them back to the travesty that Obama created.
Back in February, Biden gave $100,000,000 of taxpayer funds to a White House initiative for women's health research, and ZERO dollars to men's health.
Hopefully these explanation help you see why men rejected the Democratic Party and their decades-long misandry, and voted for Trump.
I'm a middle aged white dude finishing up a masters in social work and at the center of election fallout on campus this week. I'm such a unicorn I'm virtually invisible in classes full of young angry feminist progressives - like a New Republic reporter at at Trump rally. I'm not that affected by the hateful rhetoric I hear from my classmates like "we don't need anymore opinions from straight white men". I can get why they are angry when they look at the make up of congress. What worries me most is the faculty influencing them and how out of touch they are. We are not rational creatures who feel as much as emotional creatures who rationalize. Feelings are strong and ration is at a premium. The pundits are too objective and the activists too reactive. I'm still finding my middle ground on gender politics but can say I started graduate school as a feminist and have moved to the right under attack.
I've been a registered Democrat for over 35 years and have committed a good deal of the last two years of my life to this exact concern. I wrote a book called "How Democrats Can Win Back Men" and the Substack blog "Men and the 2024 Election" urging Democrats to better appeal to men, while still supporting women. I'm hoping this election will serve as a wake-up call, because yes, it's not just four years, it's the coming decades that could be shaped.
The Democrats ignored men, and have been doing so for decades. They funded women's health, but ignored men's health. They created the Violence Against Women Act, and told men that tried to present the evidence that domestic violence was equal between the sexes at VAWA public hearings to just shut up. In February, Biden gave $100,000,000 to a White House women's health program, and ZERO dollars for men's health.
When the Democratic leadership saw that they were losing men, they doubled down on the misandry and called male Trump voters "misogynists".
Even James Carville spoke up about how the Democrats were ignoring men. He was told to back off, that the Democrats were now the "women's party". I would say that the Democrats sealed their fate for decades in this last election.
Unfortunately, I agree -- in my book I created 2 possible futures for the next 20 years; a good scenario called "The All Demographic Strategy", where men would be welcomed, and the "Democratic Disconnect" scenario, when men were ignored. The results of 2024 are worse than my "Democratic Disconnect" scenario for the 2024 election which doesn't bode well for the next 20 years.
And you're right about Carville -- he is the one Democratic insider who has actually called them out on this.
Yes, Carville indeed called out the Democrats to stop alienating male voters. They rebuffed him, and told hi the the Democrats were now "the party of women".
I am a Dem. I identify as a traditional liberal with both progressive and traditional values. Two years ago I found your book. I have been sharing your book and American Institute For Boys and Men with my clients, Dem friends and my son and daughter. Our way out of this polarization that weaponizes the feminine/masculine is relationship. Every time I heard/read the terms "toxic patriarchy" and "toxic masculinity" I challenged that with two ideas - 1.) We adults are modeling healthy relationships for our children. Our children have brothers, uncles, fathers and friends. What about healthy patriarchy and healthy masculinity? We are mothers, we have brothers, we have husbands, coparents, friends, - what are we doing? How are we serving young people regardless of gender if we are sh*t talking them and the men/boys they love at the same time? And here was my least popular idea among my women . LOL this one got almost no traction. #2.) We women need to discuss our toxic feminine. It is time for us to look at our part in this relational problem/solution. The part of the definition of the toxic feminine that is under discussed is how we express aggression through "relational bullying" and the more covert strategies of, guilting, complaining, comparing, lying, denying, feigning innocence, just to name a few. (Rachel Simmons in her first two books before (IMO) her organization was split/hijacked by woke ideology). Social media was the perfect platform for this and it is why girls suffered more in that arena than boys did. (Jonathan Haidt). I am hoping that our culture is ready for #1 - and that AIBM gets some MAJOR traction now. In the meantime I will not shut up about #2. As women we need to knock it off with blaming. We need to get down and Jungian, work on our own feminine shadow, quit blaming men and drop our Handmaids Tale delusional fantasy that we are still being oppressed because that blinds us from real repression. We can focus on both girls and boys without harm to either.
As a female having worked in a manufacturing setting, I have a different view. The good 'ol boy network was in plain view. Women who used their sexuality to gain favor with management at all levels prospered. At a basic level, many men there felt a sense of entitlement, to occupy any space at will, to demand or deny favor / inclusion/information as their ego dictated. It was a shock to me, as I'd treated people equally, with deference and respect.
You are not a liberal like any I've associated with. Slamming "woke" is your tell. If you want more specific instances of what it's like as a woman who is not allowed to have personal safety boundaries in a male- dominated environment, let me know. There are many of us.
That "your body, my choice" mentality did not come out of nowhere.
I for one am sooo sick of toxic feminism. It has hijacked all my mommy social media groups. Years ago, the groups were mostly to give tips on raising kids, best child products and programs. All the posts lately have been mothers complaining about their husbands and thinking about divorce. And of course, the commenters are only the ones that support divorce and getting rid of him. Hardly anyone proposes working together for the betterment of the family and kids, and also looking at one's own behavior that contributes to the breakdown of the marriage. How is that good in raising children? The number one Adverse Childhood Event that is damaging to kids is DIVORCE.
Marriage shouldn't be a battle. Relationships aren't a battle that are supposed to be won. When men and women can't work together, there are only losers on both sides.
I hear you loud and clear. Social media has disinhibited women and has brought out some of the worst in us. I find us all more civil and able to listen in person. Sadly these face to face groups are harder to find now. They do exist and I encourage the families I work with to find in person play groups or create your own. Like any group there are guidelines and protocols.
Young men and women (but mostly men) have been impacted by DEI either actually or in their own assessment and I know from my own kids this really burns them up. But not as much as legacy admissions.
Agreed Jeff - I know a fair number of young men in the trades and watching student loan forgiveness for their college age counterparts basically made their decision for who to vote for.