Great article. I really appreciate that this community generally seems to be able to share articles and engage in discussions about issues facing men without demonizing other groups in the process, at least as far as I’ve seen on my feed. It’s refreshing.
a change-maker might … repeat and properly attribute a comment a woman made at a meeting that was ignored
Inclusivity benefits men as well as women.
I’m a soft spoken dude - my female boss stopped a meeting where I was being spoken over. It helped my status in the org because it indicated I have useful things to say, and consensus-by-volume doesn’t work.
Depends what you mean by stoicism, but i think worrying about the things you can control and letting go of the things you can’t (and being able to tell the difference) is important in anyones life, not exclusively masculinity
At least in Germany, especially here in the eastern part where right-wing radicalisation is very prevalent, the lack of adequate street-work (in this sense) and youth centres offers is discussed as a contributing factor. More generally/systemically, I’ve seen arguments that the sudden and wholesale disappearance of previous social structures that engaged youth[1] left the space open for neo-Nazi groups to basically be “the people who are there, who give us something to do and a reason to do it”.
As to what that kind of street-work looks like, even if not offered at nearly enough capacity, here’s an example. It ranges from organising leisure activities to helping kids who have trouble with the law - so that neo-nazis aren’t the ones who are the first to offer their help and win their trust.
[1]: Such as the Protestant Church and the state-controlled youth organisation of the GDR - reminder: what was previously keeping kids engaged doesn’t have to necessarily be good. Something bad can be replaced by something also bad. The point is to replace it by something good.
I think it is getting better. I have a "Boys Get Sad Too" hoodie (recommend them wholeheartedly) and so far I have gotten only positive comments, even from people where you might not have expected it.
When I see a gay men acting up like the stereotypical gay, I feel like they are acting it up in the same way when I see a very macho hetero man, or a very stereotypical feminine women. I don’t feel like they are genuine, it almost feel scripted to me. Could it be that it feels more genuine to them ? I’m projecting my bias here obviously.
I’m not sure how common my own experience is, but I’ve lost most of my friends from group toxicity. Not to have a messiah complex, but the whole reason my “friends” hung out for years was because of me and my parties. I stopped having parties and we were still just as close. As soon as I settled down with someone out side of the group, a few of them started causing problems to the point that I disassociated from the group.
Last year my wife and I went to a BBQ (that I had to be persuaded to go to by my wife, who took the brunt of the bullying) where they apologized for how they treated us. We thought everything was good. It came to light that we were not invited to their big get together this year. Then it was clear they were purposely excluding us from a ton of things. No one wished me a happy birthday, though they knew when it was, and my “best” friend regularly travels a hundred miles to another friend’s house that is 10 miles away, but I haven’t seen him since his birthday, which I traveled a hundred miles away for.
It’s sad feeling the bridges are burned, but I would much rather spend time with my family than the friends that justify hurting my family.
True male friendship is paradoxical, in that it is intimate without intimacy. Men neither touch each other physically nor discuss anything directly – what is said out loud is trivial and everything important is unspoken. If a subtext is identified, it’s quickly ignored before moving on, since no man wants to turn a subtext into an actual text over a few beers.
Is that true male friendship, though? Taking that flaky relationship and labeling it true friendship might be a contributing factor to see them not surviving the many ebbs and flows of life. My best friendships, the ones that are alive and well, are exactly NOT like that.
Of course it's Crowder at the forefront of this - the narcissistic manchild who was caught on-camera being such a vile piece of shit to his eight-month-pregnant then-wife that even his biggest simps couldn't pretend that it was defensible.
The article feels likes it’s missing the mark a bit.
Stoicism is not about repressing emotions or performative masculinity, but rather about examination and self improvement. Steven R Covey is a good example of modern stoicism. You can still feel deeply and act accordingly, but that doesn’t mean that one is reactive and emotionally impulsive.
The article focuses on sexual abuse, but being a police officer offers many paths to abuse and lawbreaking, and a group of people who will back your bullshit until it starts to affect their privilege. It's not hard to figure why police act with disregard for the law: It's rarely applied to them, and not to the extent it's applied to non-police people.
If you have to keep muttering to yourself that, “I’m a manly man”, hang fake testicles from your truck, or wear a t-shirt proclaiming yourself an, “alpha male” I’m going to see you as a scared little boy trying to convince yourself more than you are trying to convince others.
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