what are the grievances with the "male loneliness epidemic"? [close this topic maybe?]
from Mighty@lemmy.world to nostupidquestions@lemmy.world on 24 Aug 17:51
https://lemmy.world/post/34915468
from Mighty@lemmy.world to nostupidquestions@lemmy.world on 24 Aug 17:51
https://lemmy.world/post/34915468
[edit: I thank everyone for their comments and time. A lot of very interesting opinions and view points. Unfortunately also a lot of things that went away from the actual answer. So I’m thinking maybe this thread can be closed without deleting it?]
The more I hear people talk about it who aren’t cis-het men, the more I hear criticism about the concept. But so far, I’ve only heard people say that it’s stupid, that it’s not a thing, that it’s men’s own fault etc. But I’ve yet to understand where that criticism comes from. I don’t want to start a discussion on whether or not it’s real or not. I just want to understand where the critics are coming from.
#nostupidquestions
threaded - newest
I do think it’s fair to describe it as a men’s issue. Because its usually describing loneliness caused by a disconnect with the image of masculinity you’ve been taught, and that which you actually exhibit. Everyone struggles with loneliness, but this is a specific kind of loneliness that is worth discussing in isolation.
My main issue with it is how a lot of men seem to think its referring to women not wanting them. It’s a very easy term to feed their persecution complex.
Ah that last part makes sense as a criticism. Yes, I guess incels have taken this term to defend their sexism
I disagree with the sentiment that it can’t be a useful term simply because you haven’t found a peer reviewed study describing the phenomenon. I would like to see more research be done, but that doesn’t change the fact that I’m seeing the issue directly in front of my eyes.
I think it’s important to note the incels often mean “the women I think are hot won’t fuck me”
They could find a girlfriend if they improved their personality or lowered their standards but they don’t want to do that.
I’m a recovering drug addict. Nobody wanted to help me, rejected by everyone who wasn’t a recovering drug addict.
I got out of the loop.
“It’s actually good to not receive help as an addict”
That’s… silly lol. Where did you pull that idea from?
It’s different because physical addiction is harder to deal with, you can die lol
I was also homeschooled in the Texas countryside as a kid… I understand being lonely… addiction is harder.
Can you describe what you mean by “disconnect with the image of masculinity you’ve been taught”
That is a very interesting statement but does not align with how it’s been described to me which is men can’t get laid and are horny and give up on women and just watch porn
Do you think it’s because the are conditioned from birth that being married, or having many successful relationships with woman will make them wealthy and happy?
Gay dude here, it seems to be. We have the loneliness epidemic here too, but we’re actually organizing and fighting it, because we’re used to do that. Our cishet counterparts are definitely not equipped to do that. Women are socalized much earlier than boys, and they’re taught that the social order is theirs for keeping. Girls are simply raised to be better at this. By the time men realize what’s happened with the natural funneling of friends through the parenting years - usually those late 20s and early 30s where it suddenly starts to become really difficult to overcome the friendship hump.
I can’t comment on the whole incels taking hold of this concept, because it’s something I’ve just had explained to me in the past week. I can definitely see the gender/sexuality lines on this in real life tho (I started and run a nonprofit to create community for GBT+ men in my state).
It has very large implications on society, many of which in contradiction with established progressive policy.
So it’s easier to ridicule and/or downplay, than to apply compassion, and change course.
I feel like that’s a easy statement for people to upvote. But I don’t really see an answer to the question. What is the course? Change what? And what established progressive policy?
Not trying to antagonise you at all. Just trying to dig deeper
From the feminist side, there’s a lack of empathy towards men because “they did it to themselves” and from most other camps it’s “men are supposed to be tough, stop being a pussy”.
though a sizable amount of feminists instead characterize men as also victims of the patriarchy, a system they didn’t choose to be part of
I can’t say I’ve encountered that. I don’t doubt there are reasonable feminists out there but the ones I’ve encountered have been the “all men are trash” type.
In feminist scholarship it tends more towards the "we are all victims of patriarchy" stance. Most my friends are academics so they tend to lean the same direction, though not always.
You might not be identifying reasonable feminists then, because the “men are trash” ones are more visible. You’re probably surrounded by feminists and encountering them all the time, but unless you’re asking them their stance about reproductive rights or equality in parental leave or something else in conversation you wouldn’t know it.
On the flip side, I have never encountered this, and would probably say that roughly 95% of the people I know and interact with are feminists.
It's worth emphasising that concerns about male mental health in large part comes from feminism. Feminism is not inherently man hating, and research of gender dynamics through the lense of feminism is what made it possible to observe how patriarchal structures in society harm not only women, but also men.
It's kinda like how a marxist will tell you that even rich people are happier in egalitarian societies: Capitalism hurts everyone, including the ones seemingly profiting from it. In the same way, feminism gave way to the insight that patriarchy hurts everyone, including men.
That said, you're not wrong that here is a (perhaps more popular rather than scholarly) feminist critique of male grievances. Feminism is a bunch of different things, and there's a bunch of contradictions between different understandings of feminism.
Not too weird then that people end up hating the whole issue. Some feminists hate it because it's sympathising with the oppressor or whatever, while anti-feminists hate it because they see it as soft feminist bullshit or whatever. Having a nuanced opinion about anything these days is difficult.
Very true. I realise I should have picked my wording better in my original post that was meant to be little more than a quick summary. When I said ‘feminist side’ I did not wish to refer to all feminists but specifically the new generation type otherwise known as the ‘feminazi’ or ‘those loud unempathetic bitches you see on Tiktok’.
Yeah, I got what you meant - it's a word that takes on a billion different meanings. I just find it to be important to push back against the strawman whenever I see it, as I'm not gonna let a bunch of dumb kids raised by a social media algorithm ruin feminism for me. Get off my lawn etc.
Very much that. Didn’t answer you at all.
To actually answer your question, people who don’t believe in the Male Loneliness Epidemic (MLE) think a lot of the “epidemic” is just shitty men complaining that nobody wants to be around them instead of doing any self-reflecting and changing their own shittiness. It’s tied to the incel movement (which is why you’re getting a lot of very snippy responses imo lol).
Plus, a lot of the champions of the MLE are insufferable dudes who maybe are lonely not because of some societal epidemic but maybe because they’re just fucking assholes?
Personally, I have no idea if there’s truly a MLE. I think a lot of it really could be asshole men online complaining that nobody likes them without recognizing that it’s their own actions causing their own loneliness. I also think it could just be the internet is ruining any sense of community and togetherness, and men are being vocal about it and tying this loss of community to men specifically, but idk, I feel like there isn’t some special issue of loneliness targeting men rn.
Do you think people are born as “fucking assholes”, or shaped that way by their environment?
That question being:
To repeat my answer: It comes from a lack of empathy, as it’s easier to downplay a problem than to take it seriously.
Whenever a statistic isn’t fair towards a group, be it income, housing, … corrective measures are being implemented. Unless that group is men, such as the homelessness, suicide, incarceration, lower education, … Then it’s seen as “normal” due to “toxic men”.
Wealth redistribution would fix pretty much all social and economic issues
That’s the course if people want a clear one to an equal society
Cis men have been, and mostly continue to be, the most privileged group in western society. So it’s easy to dismiss anything negative that affects them.
Two criticisms that come to mind are:
(Before you hit reply please remember OP didn’t ask for an discussion on if these are real or correct - just what some of the criticisms are. I’m not saying I buy into either of them.)
Interesting. I’m not sure if that really answers my question. That is you saying it’s their fault for being lonely, yes? And yes, I agree, we men should definitely educate ourselves and better ourselves wherever possible. But would that mean that there’s no systemic issue and it’s “just” men being dumb?
so by the same logic that you judge all these lonely men are at fault for being lonely, it’s your fault for consistently seeking out the ones with massive red flags.
Remind me never to employ your services lol, your “I’m better than you losers” attitude cannot make you effective at matchmaking.
Most of the criticism of it I've seen is about how the concept's been warped to mean women aren't putting out enough for specific men. Other people will also point out that modern society is isolating in general. People who aren't men who are experiencing loneliness might have some skepticism about the idea it's a man specific issue.
There's also some wariness because topics about issues men face can translate for some men into a violent rage towards women. As seen with the involuntarily celibate movement.
People of all types can take genuine grievances and find a target to take it out on. Like income inequality translating to hatred of immigrants. And violence towards them. When you're the mistaken target of those grievances, it can be simplest to want to get away from the conversation unless the person starting it is clear they aren't targeting you.
Those are my guesses as to why people are skeptical.
https://www.npr.org/transcripts/1263527043 Some discussion in here about the topic, but also criticisms of the topic.
https://trinitonian.com/2025/02/14/unpacking-the-myth-of-the-male-loneliness-epidemic/ This opinion article criticizes how influencers drive the conversation, to its detriment.
https://www.fridaythings.com/recent-posts/male-lonliness-crisis-incel-men-friendship-mental-health This person brings up the idea that women are wary of the idea because it seems like they'll be expected to individually solve it regardless of their own wants and needs.
Thanks! There’s not that many answers here to my question, just a lot of comments on the thing itself not about the criticism. So thanks for those sources.
It's difficult to discuss this issue, because loneliness is so personal. This all is.
I'm glad you asked the question and are trying to genuinely understand where critics are coming from. All of this (like, society) is a mess and we've all been hurt and it makes doing better a struggle because, how do you see anything past the pain from your own wounds?
When I was very young, my father would hit me for crying, so when I was a little older, hearing that little boys weren't supposed to cry just made me go "me neither." But (without justifying my father) understanding that he did it because society and his own parents fucked him up on this issue, and his parents were fucked up by their parents, makes it possible to envision a way things could be different.
Not everyone gets past that hurt, though. Like a young man abused by his mother dismissing the idea of misogyny. The statistics are just statistics. The memories of that pain are visceral and real.
I had to scroll too far to find this answer.
this is it in a nutshell. Men clearly experience loneliness, what’s problematic is the way “male loneliness” has been weaponized against women, as if it’s not a byproduct of patriarchy but actually a result of women’s neglect (or worse, an insidious assumption that women have an obligation to date men because they are lonely).
Dunking on young men is in vogue and socially acceptable.
They won't pass reverse gender or race litmus test...
As a male who grew up around males, men are men’s worst enemy.
Wait until you find out how young women interact with each other 🤭
This is not a gender issue, it is a maturity thing
Not arguing anything otherwise, I completely agree, but women aren’t the reason men are suffering.
In a greater context sure, but no, men are the reason.
That’s a different conversation entirely.
Yeah, there are psychopaths in the world, that’s not a male centric thing, it’s an always has and always will be thing, but it doesn’t account for every problem men inflict upon men and if they didn’t exist this issue would still be prevalent, you don’t have to be a fucking psychopath to fall victim to toxic masculinity and false expectations of media and society. Again, that’s an entirely different conversation.
You want to have a different conversation, go have it with someone else, this is all completely irrelevant to what I was saying.
im one of those people who does not know what cis-het means? As far as I can tell cis means typical or normal or such.
Cis effectively means not-transgender, so born as exacly the same gender you identify as. ‘Het’ then means heterosexual, making cis-het someone who is either completely male and into women or completely female and into men.
I have definitely heard cis in terms of cognition so I don't think its specific to sexuality.
It is a prefix that isn’t specific to gender (I don’t know of a particular use in sexuality though that doesn’t mean there isn’t one), but in other uses that I know of, it isn’t used by itself as a descriptor of an aspect of a person’s identity, but as part of some other word. It basically means the opposite of trans (as a prefix, so not just “cisgender means someone that isn’t transgender”, but anywhere that the prefix trans- could be used, for example, when talking about spacecraft visiting the moon, the space farther away from earth than the moon is is sometimes referred to as translunar space, and conversely, the space between the earth and the moon can be called cislunar space). In general, if one is talking about people, especially if it’s just used by itself with nothing else attached, it just refers to everyone other than transgender people.
Similarly, carbon=carbon double bonds in fatty acids can have the free hydrogens either on the same side or on opposite sides of the double bond, and are known respectively as cis or trans fatty acids.
Cis means same as opposed to trans which means opposite it’s commonly used to describe the shape of molecules in chemistry but is also used to say if a persons birth sex is the same (cis) or different (trans) then their gender
Het is short for hetero which means different vs homo which means the same so if you had homogenized milk it’s all uniform and the same vs a heterogenous mixture which would have some areas of extra fat. Those are used as hetero and homo sexual where a homosexual likes people of the same sex and heterosexuals like people of the opposite sex
So a cis het male is a dude whose not trans who likes banging chicks
Yeah I think its just im not in the group that uses the latin term and expects it to have gender meaning. I swear I have heard it used in terms of cognitive type. Anyway Im good in terms of this conversation and will get use to the lingo over time.
I was just as confused when I first heard the terms lol
Some is valid. Men aren’t taught how to make and maintain emotionally open friendships, with men or women. It’s seen as weak or weird to cry on front of your bros when you’re sad. This leads to loneliness. This is real.
Some is not valid. Men claiming that they’re not getting laid and it’s women’s fault is bullshit. Or that women have impossibly high standards and are gold diggers. It’s nonsense.
The problem is that the “women hating incels” have coopted the term, and their garbage deserves to be mocked.
If this was true... Why is this an issue only now?
Or all these men were lonely in the closet?
I would guess it has something to do with the loss of third places.
That's definitely a factor... Suburban experiment is objective failure on many levels but it has also to do with cost of being out.
Can't go to bars or restaurants anymore. Shit is too expensive for normal income person to sustain in any meaningful way.
Also, DUIs but that ties into first point.
It’s not an issue only now. But we’re more isolated than before because we lost our third spaces and communities. Bunch of lonely wolves.
Yep. Robert Putnam’s book “Bowling Alone” turns 25 this year, and it’s as relevant as ever.
Its gotten worse because women are no longer forced to stay in or get into shitty, unfulfilling marriages. Men before had guaranteed companionship in the sense that it was societally and financially expected for a woman to stay in a relationship and provide emotional (and physical) companionship. With women becoming more independent, they’re able to leave abusive situations or to avoid getting into them in the first place.
Therefore, if men are not socialized to maintain friendships and no one is being forced to emotionally support them anymore, then they are lonely.
A lot of social organizations that men had used started dying. I have a friend who runs a freemason lodge and he struggles to get people to join. Other similar social clubs have also fallen by the wayside. Similarly the decline of long term geographic community has been brutal and people are less likely to get to know their neighbors or become regulars at the local bar.
I see a lot of talk about how women’s liberation and the power to leave a bad marriage has been a component, but I suspect otherwise, having grown up with parents in a failing marriage. I strongly suspect that what a lot of these lonely men need is friends and community in a way that even a loving wife won’t cut it, much less a cold and distant wife and resentful children.
It’s easier to not care about a guy’s mental health when he’s married, even if it’s a shitty marriage. How can he be lonely if he has a wife, after all?
I’m happy for divorces. I’m happy for the increase in male loneliness BEING NOTICED. It used to just be the guy would work all day, or drink himself to death silently, to avoid the issue.
But the next step has to be for guys to be open to make emotional friendships.
Yeah as a woman I see a certain portion of men who seem to want to push resolving male loneliness onto women. But like, we genuinely can only help here. If men want advice from women on how to make friends and find community, we can do that, but like, even if the friends a man makes are women we didnt fix his loneliness, he went out and made friends and was vulnerable and supportive and got supported in kind.
And that’s why the incel culture is so popular. Anytime you have a hard problem, and pitch that it’s someone else’s responsibility to fix, people will love that.
Poor people " just need to work harder", immigrants " just need to come in the right way", women " just need to be less picky", and I don’t have to change or help.
The sheer number of men who suddenly have no support in their life because their relationship has ended, that soon struggle with suicidal thoughts should really point to the first thing you said. Men and women are socialized differently as children and this is one of the most common results when we reach adulthood. It will take an enormous shift in society and ingrained values to fix that
That second point, yeah, women don’t need to get married to survive now. My grandmother couldn’t have her own bank account when she was a young adult, and banks would have laughed her out of town if she wanted a mortgage. My parents got married young because that was still kind of expected, especially in rural America. I haven’t dated in years, because it’s frustrating, and I have been able to, and lucky enough, to buy a home on my own finances. That’s not high standards, it’s just that I didn’t need to get hitched to have financial stability
Do men really not have any friends? I just moved to a new country and made like 5 close friends in the first few months, so that blows my mind in a sad way
I’m not a cis man, but every man I’ve dated has had “friends”, but not people they can really talk to. Like, one guy I dated had a really big social circle and they regularly had gaming events. But he didn’t text or talk to anyone outside of planning and going to those events. Others had maybe one friend that they hung out with outside of work.
It is sad. And it was jarring when I was young, because I had lots of friends I could turn to on a bad day or for something more serious. It makes me so angry with “the patriarchy”, because it isn’t just keeping women down, it’s also hurting and sometimes killing men.
I had a cat die a very painful and sad death right in the veterinarian’s parking lot. I was completely devastated, but my poor boyfriend kept trying to hold back his tears because he “needed to be strong” for me. Bitch no, cry with me, that was super heavy. I’m going to carry that death with me until I die, and not just because my cat didn’t deserve that. It’s not fair for men to have this expectation that they need to hold back expressing emotion so they appear strong. (that particular ex also has a fear of dying, so he really needed to and should have felt free to express himself at that time)
I agree, I wish more men would realize that feminism also benefits men. Even things as small as being able to freely express yourself are hurt by the patriarchy
Men suffer under patriarchy, bro. It isn’t women exploiting your insecurities to sell you magic pills and creams for a bigger dick and more testerone, masculinity retreats, or super secret techniques for making them drop their panties.
Okay, let’s spell it out.
Women don’t benefit from patriarchy. So you are saying that men don’t benefit from feminism.
Male loneliness is a bad thing. Something that doesn’t benefit men. This is caused by feminism which men don’t benefit from. Right? That is what you’re saying … Hard to know. You said so little and so shocked that people misunderstood you.
Feminism advocates for the equality of women and men in politics, economics, social, and interpersonal relationships. If women are treated in these areas (politics, economics, social, and interpersonal relationships), then men have equals to relate to, communicate with, and build community with. This is a benefit to men.
This is going to sound ridiculous, but I believe the perceived etymology of the word ‘feminism’ hurts the intent of the movement.
The word seems to imply that women should be put first, not as equals. Think of ‘nationalism’, those following that put their nation first, sometimes to the point of being derogatory to other nations.
So when uneducated hear the word feminism they may think it’s an ideology of putting women first to the point of being derogatory to men.
It doesn’t help that some people misuse it that way either
pragmatically, most men and most women, who are feminists, think women are superior to men. and you’ll notice their arguments are all about how men should be more like women, and never women should be like men.
Yes, because most cis het women in this situation would have rejected him. I have been there. I was dumped by a 5 year girlfriend over the death of my father. She was disgusted with my ‘whining’ and thought it was pathetic that I was sad/struggling with it. I’ve never met anyone in my life besides my sister/brother/parents who wasn’t disgusted by expressions of sadness, let alone tears. Almost any girlfriend I had, if I was in any kind of emotional distress, ended the relationship almost immediately thereafter because they don’t want to be with someone who is ‘weak’ and has emotions. And they always say it’s ok. They might let you cry. But they are viscerally disgusted with you afterwards.
I’m so are you went through that. I remember how surprised my then-boyfriend was when he had a bad day and I helped him out, listened to him, and did not hold it against him. He was utterly shocked, while at the same time he had been helping me deal with much heavier shit that was impacting my daily life…
This ideal that men are 100% tough sucks so much.
Depends. I find making new friends very difficult because I don’t have many of the same interests and the rest of the people that I naturally get exposed to via my kids, wife or life. I work from home and don’t have much time for social hobbies. I go to concerts sometimes but I really struggle to make conversation with strangers. I can see how someone like me would end up being lonely for a long time.
Social hobbies are where it’s at. I’ve never met anyone meaningful at a concert. Hobbies (and activism) though, all the people all the time.
“Don’t have much time”… I guess it it’s important to you, you should figure out how to make time for it
Having a 6 and 8 year old is very time consuming! The good news is I have 2 nights a week of D&D which gets me a bit of social time. Though not face to face.
True that.
Just getting in to TTRPGs properly. It seems like a way to really solidify friendships, rather than to find new ones. But that’s still very valuable!
I’m having trouble making friends. There is one guy sort of near me and we do things here and there, but he and his wife are about to move. Most of my other friends live far away.
I don’t have a lot in common with the people I work with, or live near, and I don’t have much energy to do things outside of work. There is more that I’d say but I’m acutely aware / paranoid that some ai tool is reading all of our comments and building profiles on us. I’m trying to build a better life and find more communities where I feel welcome, but it’s slow going. Maybe that explains it somewhat?
Maybe you could tell us how you made 5 close friends in a new country.
I knew of one person here prior to moving though we never actually met beforehand. Also met up with an internet friend at some point.
Aside from those two, my partner and I searched for community events and went to quite a few. Met a lot of people there. Community events are honestly a fantastic jumping off point. Ideally things where you actually get a chance to talk to people, check out local bars’ socials to see if there’s anything.
Also made one or two friends randomly just hanging at a park.
The trick is that after you meet someone, you have to make an effort to see them again. Once you have a few close friends it’s easier to get invited to other things.
That follow up is brutal and crucial.
Tbh, while I could start drinking more again just to meet people, bars are expensive these days. I can’t afford friends nor dates. Unless maybe I only eat ramen forever.
Finding someone romantic/friends is difficult when you haven’t fully AA quit drinking, but you’re also disillusioned with hammered bar culture and driving drunk and don’t want to do that anymore, and also would rather spend your money on not $10 Evan Williams and gingers all night when they don’t even have the good Evan which only costs like $30 for a giant bottle.
Not her but I am a woman who moved across my country and made friends within a few months. It’s social hobbies and active participation in subcultural events. I love bicycles, years back I got into volunteering at a bicycle repair cooperative, it made me some casual friends with whom I hung out working on bikes every other week. When I moved I found one to volunteer at again, though I haven’t started yet. Similar social hobbies/volunteering are great. And for subculture stuff, its just that that’s a really great way to find casual hang out events if you have a subculture you’re interested in. I know goths all over have bar nights, as do plenty of other communities. It just serves as a really quick and easy “hey we have this in common” starter.
When in doubt, look up events happening in your area and check out any that interest you. Chat with folks when you’re at them.
Nothing else you said matters apart from this. You can’t really make friends when you refuse to do anything where you would meet people or turn colleagues into friends.
I am the exception that proves the rule in a way. I am EXTREMELY open with my mental state and emotions. If I have known you for more than a few hours/days (or even minutes if there’s a connection of some kind) I will gladly explain to you exactly how badly I crave the sweet embrace of death. How long I have felt that. Why I feel that.
Men react in strange ways to that.
Women react in what you would probably call a predictable way. They are concerned, try to ask for reasons and offer comfort.
Men are sometimes curious, but most often, they just say, “same.” There isn’t always discussion about it after that but I don’t really meet men who have not considered suicide. It’s so pervasive.
Nope. Not as we age. All my friends moved away, started families, or changed to the point we have nothing in common anymore.
And once you are 30+ it’s really really hard to form close friendships. At best you get to form very tangential/shallow ones. I am 40 and I haven’t met anyone who has become my friend for well over a decade. The last friend I formed was like when I was 32.
I really don’t think age has much to do with it. I’m finding it easier in my 30s than my 20s since people are more adult and less likely to play stupid games
speak for yourself. my experience is it’s way harder and people are way more stupid and judgemental. nobody cared what car i drove. now people find out I ‘only’ own a Honda and they want nothing to do with me anymore because i am ‘not doing well in life’ if i don’t own luxury car.
It doesn’t sound like you’re surrounding yourself with the best people. They sound quite superficial if all they care about is perceived status
Where are these mythical best people?
Because literally everyone I’ve entire life I’ve met, cares about superficial stuff like status and material things. Every friend, every girlfriend, every family member. People admire you if you have money, and hate you if you don’t.
At some point, I got quite some worried/pitiful look because i didn’t own a car but only a (non-motorized) bike. People are weird!
In the other hand, I got along with people wanting to make our own “bike gang”, aka commuting to work together.
Ok now that I know my terms I am apparently a cis-het man and don't feel this and don't know anyone who does so its a bit hard to know how or why it may be happening. I am older though so is this possibly more prevalent in an age group? Although also im an introvert so don't need all that much people interaction to not feel lonely.
Its deff a thing in Millennial age groups too but it is really about 20s something age group.
It is notale specific. It is symptom of poor socio economic co conditions and infrastructure designed for suburban trash lifestyle
Robert Putnam wrote an influential essay called “Bowling Alone” about the weakening social institutions in American society, and the accompanying rise in loneliness. It was published in 1995 and eventually adapted into a full length book published in 2000.
It’s not new. But the trend lines that could be seen in the 90’s have only gotten worse, as we’ve lost or weakened many of the social institutions that used to keep us grounded in our communities.
When people have created a narrative that "white x y z men" are responsible for all the evil in the world (I'm exagerating, but you get my drift), it creates a very difficult situation when those people are facing some serious difficulties. The intellectually lazy thing to do in that case is to brush it off or minimize it, like in the ways you've described. And unfortunately, that's the route those same people will take, since identity politics are intellectually lazy (and lacking compassion, but that's another story).
The unfortunate part of it is that the right has taken advantage of that wide open flank, which is one main reasons we're in this current clusterfuck.
The comment section here speaks for itself.
These idiots are still doing the culture war when we should be fighting the class war.
Blaming a bunch of 20s something losers for "patriarchy" is peak useful idiot behaviour.
That flank. Sigh. I remember the turn after Occupy. It went from economics to being cool to just broadly bash men. I specifically remember outspoken, angry women at marches and protests and was like wait, where did the economics go? Like 60% of Republicans wanted wealth reform during occupy. It unfortunately coincided with really great–though apparently transitory–improvements in lgbtq rights. It was so weird to me that self-labeling “feminists” were suddenly talking like it was a zero sum game; for women to rise and improve and build and grow, men had to be put down. That is of course the language of someone seeking power, a charlatan, but it became quite normal. Even questioning the broad criticism of men wasn’t appropriate in “liberal” press or circles for a good decade. The whole "yeah but bashing men isn’t right/fair or clumsy” finally started working into the Atlantic, NYT and other large publications in 2023 but the damage had been done.
It of course drove lots of men right to the tall radio, podcasters–and those were young adults then–i can’t imagine what it was like growing up since then as a young person with the normalization of some of this stuff.
It was all intentional. It sounds like a conspiracy theory but these elites have access to how many decades of psychological research (or their employees do at any rate) to be used in marketing to make people think and feel WHATEVER THE POWERFUL WANT to an extent. that’s what marketing is:manipulations. Most of it is used to drive capital upwards. But it can be easily subverted to distract and deflect attention from those at the top. Media would spin pieces about male aggression, algorithms would make sure they get into the right feeds.
It’s all absolutely psychopathic. When done on an entire population, it doesn’t matter if it doesn’t work very well or works great (people are amazingly easy to manipulate) the average will be a noticeable shift in the direction they intend. Over years, we get fascism. Yaaaayyy…
Good dog
Ouch you got me
Hell yeah fight that culture war!
I think a lot of it comes from the fact that in incel spaces, it’s a lot of grievance and blame by men who were raised believing the world owed them certain things. And now they’re finding out that it’s really hard so rather than look inward at how they can be better and work within the circumstances they’re in, they blame wokeism and women’s empowerment for denying them their entitlement.
Dark Brandon on youtube has been doing an awesome series on incels that’s definitely worth watching. I recommend this video not just for anyone interested in incel culture, but literally anyone interested in WTF has happened to the world in the last 40 years - www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBAX4Wi1iNM&list=WL&index…
Imo the whole incel thing is a symptom, not the cause. Many men feel lonely, lost, and useless in today’s society. Without a proper support network and raised to hide away our emotions, many of us don’t have the proper tools to tackle this monster. Then, conveniently, there are these people who tell you that none of it is your fault. That it’s not you who needs to change or improve yourself, but society that went wrong. That it’s the “woke people” who paint you as a villain, that it’s the women who deny you the “right” to a relationship .
Many men are looking for answers. And the whole incel alt-right pipeline gives easy answers. It blames everyone else. And when you’re already in a dark place, tired and lost, it can be hard to resist. Not that I want to excuse incels in any way, they’re dangerous and we have every right to vilify them. But imo they’re not the cause, just a symptom of the broader issue. And to prevent more incels from appearing, I think it’s time they men’s mental health is taken a bit more seriously. Society needs to adapt, starting from how boys are raised.
You’ve put the carriage before the horse. Incels become incels because they’re lonely/can’t speak to girls/etc. They blame the girls for this rather than try to understand why girls ignore/avoid them, usually because they are the stereotypical incel.
Also the “incel-to-trans pipeline” has too much smoke to not be a fire. It’s a “legit” path for many deluded incels.
Man Carrying Thing has a sketch on male loneliness epidemic. Someone tries explaining social issues to a guy who doesn't care about anyone but himself but starts to listen when he hears the word "male" added to them. Male lonliness, male climate change, male war. The guy now cares deeply about these social issues (because they affect him) except he thinks all the problems are caused by women not sleeping with him.
“male climate change”?
Is that what you call it when you shrink up because it’s cold?
I feel attacked!
Much of our media depicts men in successful relationships, handsome, with a good circle of friends, decent jobs etc.
Guys see this and think there’s something wrong because their reality isn’t matching that media.
It’s more exciting to think you’re observing a widespread social phenomenon than to admit your expectations were shaped by fiction.
Hot take: healthy relationships, having friends, having a job, and taking care of yourself are pretty normal.
Not having some of these things is fine. But if you feel like you hopelessly can’t get one or more of them, then that is a legitimate problem in your life, and it is completely normal to feel bad about that.
Lots of guys are held back by looks and/or confidence.
Yeah? I mean, this is factually true, but I’m not sure why you are bringing it up.
Sure, it’s common to have healthy relationships, friends, a job, and take care of yourself.
However, it’s also common to endure brief or extended periods of not being able to do these things for a whole variety of reasons. It might be illness, caring for loved ones, children, loads of things.
Six figure income, six feet tall, six inch dick.
Anything less than that, and you are no longer a man!
“It’s stupid, it’s not a thing, it’s men’s own fault”
So as someone who recently learned my gender identity is demiguy, I can say it is and isn’t a thing.
Masculinity as a whole is a toxic concept in my book. A man is stoic. A man is strong, capable, and will put up or shut up. A man is attractive if he looks strong, acts strong, drives strong trucks, enjoys strength based sports, is emotionally strong, and essentially a lifelong warrior. A man can do anything he needs to by himself. A man can change if he needs to. A man has rough hands. A man dresses prepared. A man does not have too much emotional intimacy. A man is vulnerable only to the extent that he doesn’t appear weak.
All of those statements apply to the criticisms. It is stupid. Men aren’t socializing with hardly anyone. It’s hard to when you have to do the mentioned statements. It is a thing. Men do not have friends to call and shoot the shit with. Men are annoying when we text too much. Sharing real feelings is weakness. It is men’s own fault. It’s the nature of the characteristics of manliness.
The unfortunate side effect is that Incels have coopted it to defend their misogyny, and women who all have significant reason to be angry at this see it as terribly offensive.
To me? Yeah. I’m lonely. But it’s mostly because I didn’t understand who I was, and I didn’t have groups to fit in with. I like wearing tailored suits, but I love having soft hands. I like lighter clothing, cuddling, playing silly games with children, lavender and vanilla scented candles and candle lit baths.
But men can’t share any of that with each other even if they identify as men. Women are the only link to “softness” they experience. This leads to a compounding problem. Men need to accept that they will be alone unless they can connect on something OTHER than STRENGTH.
Cis man here.
It’s an issue. It comes in lots of different colors and flavors but it all stems from social issues.
There’s lots of reasons, some men were never taught about social relationships, men tend to generally be less interested in social interaction thus giving them less experience, some men are ostracized when talking about their social struggles, and these are on top of preexisting environmental factors and preexisting mental conditions.
At this point it’s important to say: it’s not a contest for genders. Trans people have it hard, nb people have it hard women have it hard. It’s just that this is one of the rare times men’s struggles are not addressed properly.
I can tell you I probably have about 50 men in my life that I ko and wo are nice but if I had to talk to a man about my struggles socially, there are 2 men.
Now couple this with the fact 90% of men I had deeper conversations with told me they are struggling with depression and some of them having suicidal ideations, it is fair to assume we have a problem.
For me, the depression is always exacerbated by social isolation. It makes sense - not getting some feedback from other people can get you into crazy headspaces and there are thinking patterms that literally make you hurt yourself just to make it stop.
There’s another aspect: we are social creatures and as soon as you don’t get enough “social exposure” it’s harder to learn social cues and “get the vibe”, and other people notice. So the more you isolate, the harder preceding social interaction become and the harder it is, which in turn incentivizes isolating. A vicious cycle.
Now not everyone has these issues and I would never say that it’s the most important issue in our current society but every time I hear suicide statistics by gender it really puts into perspective that we should get to know those people who we have failed.
One thing I also wanna address is the idea that “men are never taught how to socialize”, because I think it implies a lot of things. First, I’m sure a lot of men are not, but a good number of men are. I was for example. It didn’t help, but that was never the issue for me. Second, it implies men want to be taught. I spoke to a group of 2 men and 2 women with mental disabilities about if they ever considered complete social isolation. The men said yes and the women said no. I think this is really significant and can give insight into why this is affecting men more than other genders. I would infer from this that women always see the benefit in social interaction, and men pursue social interactions rather as a means to an end. This might be a stretch but this supported by other observations of friends and family.
This topic is really important and I hope it gets talked about more - for the benefit of everyone who wants to see people become happier. The men affected by loneliness, as well as the people who deal with them.
Is that the case, because they are men, or because they are afraid?
Piggybacking on this comment: it’s incredibly rare for men to get approached, it’s incredibly common for women to get approached.
Both of these situations have downsides, but right now we are talking about men, so let’s ignore the downsides for women right now.
If you are the one who has to approach somebody if you want to start up any kind of relationship (from casual acquaintance to friend, to romantic relationship), that means you will be on the receiving end of rejection, by definition. If you are in the “approaching” role, and you’d reject somebody, you just don’t approach them. So by definition, it’s quite rare when being approached that you are rejected by the person who approached you.
So while women have to reject a lot of approaches they don’t want, men get rejected quite often. A socially inept woman is a wallflower, a socially inept man is a creep.
If you have been rejected too often (and maybe too harshly), this might easily turn into a sour grapes situation (“I can’t do social interaction, so I don’t want social interaction”) due to fear of rejection.
What you are raising is a very delicate subject but let’s call it what it is: dating sucks. No matter your gender, there’s hurdles, it’s just really hard to find someone who’s putting effort in. If you’re a woman, it’s because lots of people matching you will be absolute garbage. A friend showed me who was writing her and most of it was weird and creepy. If you’re a man, it’s hard to find someone who wants to write with you period. And any other genders deal with an equally limited dating pool.
It makes sense, it’s statistics, mathematically plausible, but damn it sucks. Unfortunately I think we are at the point where these conversation are bound to get eroded by inflammatory rhetoric. So these nuanced discussions are things for the future.
Totally, dating sucks for all genders, no question about that. The issues are just different and pretty much mirrored.
Yeah, that’s exactly it.
That’s also not wrong.
Tbh, I think the most important thing (not only in regards to dating but in regards to society at large) is to counter the individualization trend. It just makes people very lonely in general. It separates young men from resources needed to develop into more socially acceptable people, it separates people from their support groups in general and it just makes things really hard for everyone who’s not perfectly well adjusted for the individualist life style.
men can be very social and still get nothing but negative feedback from others.
a big part of this is that men are rarely given positive feedback in life from anyone. with maybe the exception of your work where your ‘feedback’ is your pay raises/promotions.
personally in my life, when good stuff happens… people arne’t happy for me. They are often jealous or hostile. Most of my exes would downplay my successes. “oh you got a $5000 raise, why wasn’t it 10,000” etc. It really sucks the joy out of life to be around that type of thing. it’s also why i’m way happier being single and limiting my socialization… because i’ve stopped getting constantly negative feedback from other people even when it should be positive. i’ve also had so much more success the past few years due to that.
and frankly, most of the ‘social cues’ and ‘vibe’ that i’ve dealt with in my social groups is all negative crap. i’d rather remain ignorant of it than join some group where we circlejerk how great we are and complain about how awful everyone else is. i used to do a lot of volunteering and a lot of that stuff just devolves into people who want to do nothing and virtue signal.
I don’t understand how it’s just “male loneliness epidemic” in the first place. It’s illogical.
That said, when I started to be more open to the girl I liked, she ghosted me, and it seems that she doesn’t even want talk to me anymore. It would be much easier if I got some feedback what I did wrong, but I guess it’s just men who need to be more open and communicative, not women.
She realised she wasn’t interested in you sexually, that’s all.
I don’t know, maybe. Still frustrating as hell.
Young internet men when they discover there are actually more kinds of attraction than just sexual and the reasons for people’s behavior can’t be easily summed up with generic, thought-dismissing lines meant to pander to cynicism.
<img alt="" src="https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/bc9988cf-07c6-4436-9b4b-de1f05443722.jpeg">
It’s really been strange to me that my whole life people have insisted that it isn’t possible for men and women to be friends and that every relationship there has to be either sexual or sexually motivated.
I’m a bit of an odd ball in that I am straight, male, cisgendered and have basically always felt better hanging around girls since I was a child. However, I never felt like I could just have girls and women friends though because inevitably it would be implied from some direction that I actually just wanted them sexually.
I’ve also met very few guys that weren’t into talking about sex and women as soon as there were no women around, and I’m just plain uninterested in talking about sex with other guys.
So, instead now I’m married and I basically talk to no one.
My husband is similar to this. We only hang out with our family these days.
I was unsure when we first started dating, and he seemed to only have a couple female friends. But he introduced me, and they were lovely. He never sexualized women, never pressured me for sex, and feeling unsure soon wore off realizing he was extremely loyal after not long.
He’s withdrawn quite a bit since getting sober and older. I hung out at a small party one of his friends was having. He didn’t want to/couldn’t go, so I went.
Everyone was kind of dumb, they only talked about other people they knew, and told drunken stories about being drunk before- it was boring. I’m understanding why he withdrew from the crowd.
One guy showed me a tiktok of some Ai looking lady who recovered from drug addiction, praising her, this person he never met, telling me how good she looked now, clearly super excited about it (drunk af), all while his girlfriend sat right there. We’re all mid to lat 30’s. He acted like he was 15. I couldn’t handle it lol. The only friend I liked was his old BF, a girl who is like a sister to him. She doesn’t drink. This girl said she was drinking white wine, before I left for the night I put the wine I brought for her in the fridge, I saw her bottle not even cracked open and laughed. Anyway.
You only need a few people to feel whole I find. My husband and his parents are great. That party felt like torture to me. But the tiktok guy and his gf were telling me about thier pool club. The play pool in the community a lot, and its definitely their third space. I may have found him dumb, but they had a whole crew of folks in their built community. I did compliment that. You gotta build the life you want.
Yeah, somehow that’s a thing, “…and we got so wasted!”. Being somewhat of a lush myself, I am sitting there drinking heavily listening to these stories and want to blurt out, “I’m getting wasted right now just to deal with having to listen to this.”
I’ve found that nonsexual friendships between the sexes aren’t usually possible in practice. It’s not because it’s necessarily the case that all friendships are based upon sex, but instead because someone somewhere (most often outside the relationship) will eventually believe that, and it will lead to drama that degrades or ends the underlying friendship.
Lol yeah, she recently got divorced and her husband was accusing her of cheating/sleeping with every man in the group, my husband included. I laughed when she told me, he’s the one who got a girlfriend within two weeks of the separation, she’s still single and focused on her children/work, even a year later.
It is rare, but I could tell she was just a friend. She’s just the only one who survived the friend group 20 years. It did cause a riff once in the beginning, I pretty rudely asked him why he didn’t have male friends in a fight. He was upset, and just shouted how everyone he was friends with back then went down shitty roads: drugs, suicide, prison, or women beaters, the few ladies he still knew from the group were the only ones who didnt fall into chaos. He really painted the picture for me so I could understand his pov. I’ve never worried since, and I’m better friends with them now anyway, he really has reclused himself, but he keeps in touch with his family and has their support.
He is happy as he could be given you know, life’s continued beatings. The only reason he didn’t fall to chaos himself, which he nearly did, he says, is because he’s always had his father’s support. He says I gave him reason to get sober, but his father absolutely saved his life multiple times over the years by being there for him.
I dated someone who was friends with thier now married ex. I tolerated it, and I trusted her, but I didnt trust him. I wanted to leave him, but he wouldn’t let me, and none of my efforts worked. Finally, after some time I managed to find support so I could leave him. He broke down, it was a whole thing, but he said to me one fight, I can’t love you because I’m still in love with her. Then.why.wouldnt.he.let.me.leave. ugh. I used to get lectures from him on love and loyalty, and he dropped that bit, I laughed in his face when he said it.
I will say its much easier to become an introvert when you are living with someone you trust and love. Outside validation becomes moot. Finding someone like that, is a very lucky thing, And often a treacherous road, for everyone, sex/gender non comforming alike, there isn’t discrimination in the pains of finding a person right for oneself.
Yeah it’s a fair criticism, we don’t have much information. “Being more open with” might be code for unloading emotional problems onto which might be a reason to ghost a potential friend. They might have been hit by a bus etc.
But ime ghosting typically happens to men and women when the other person was considering you as a potential sexual partner and has decided not to pursue it further.
With other kinds of relationships they usually fizzle out rather than suddenly disappear.
Well, even that is just an assumption.
We’ll never truly know unless they say it.
You didnt do anything wrong if you were being yourself. I know it sounds corny but just being the best version of you is the best thing you can do, and if someone ghosts you like that they did you a favor. You dont want to be with someine like that; you just eant to be with the idea of the person you thought they were.
Still a bummer, but dont let a jerk define who you are.
I’m a very fluid person. So I think I have great inside in the differences between genders and sexualities in loneliness.
A lot of it have to do with “be approached”.
As a woman presenting person a get approached a lot, a lot of people I don’t know want to talk with me. It’s ridiculously easy to make new acquaintances and friends. Everyone wants to talk and be around you.
As a male presenting person I also get approached a lot when I’m in “gay spaces”. Again it’s impossible to be alone unless I voluntarily would want to.
Yes, these two have the handicap that a lot of approaches are “sex related” of by people wanting sex. But not all of them, among so much approaches there’s always some that doesn’t just want sex.
Then, as a male presenting person in not gay spaces and even more so in straight spaces. I don’t get approached, never, at all. Zero people talk to me just because they want to be near me. If I want to meet somebody I always have to be the one initiating the approach.
In my experience this is the root of the issue. And the experience that most people complaining about “male loneliness” are talking about.
There are other type of loneliness. As a Queer I’m quite familiar with loneliness related to being different, and people literally hating you for what you are, or not accepting you. But that’s a different thing. The male loneliness is that feeling of having the burden of all your relationships in your shoulders, knowing that if you don’t go after people people won’t ever go after you. And that can be devastating with time. Because your self worth get tanked, specially if you are introvert and have a hard time approaching people.
I suppose it won’t end until it get normalized to approach cis men the same way it’s normalized in the other situations I talked about. The reason of why people don’t approach cis men as easy can be discussed, I get that there’s a fear/danger factor in approaching a cis male, specially after being approached by so many menacing people in your life. But still, I do think the root of the issue is that. And there’s also de commodity of knowing that you don’t need to approach a cis man because some will approach to you regardless, so you don’t even need to try. I’m the first guilty of it. I don’t approach men either, I always wait for them to approach me, because I know they will, so why bother approaching? I suppose there’s a great imbalance. Maybe if men would go into strike and refuse to approach people the balance would be restored, who knows.
After reading most of these comments I’ll have to say this comment resonated the most with me. It’s exhausting to always be the one who needs to put in effort to talk to new people, and then you need to maintain it pretty much one sidedly as well, you end up just giving up on it and looking more for good friends to rely on than romantic things.
I’ve heard from female friends that there are women also dealing with this so it’s not a uniquely male thing, but social norms have sadly made it so and it really gets to you as a guy when you’re not also being pursued by people. I’ve seen some nice clips tangential to this asking women when was the last time they bought flowers for a guy and some of them couldn’t think of an instance.
It’s rough out there, and unless you’re at the top of your game (mental health wise) it’s a huge struggle, and with the economy as it is a lot of people people sadly are having a tough time dealing with it, but as you say women are usually better trained to work together on this stuff, whereas guys largely aren’t and suffer alone as a consequence.
I’m lucky to have some good male and female friends I can open up to, but I definitely feel like the exception on that.
One of my female friends bought me a cake in college for my birthday.
Only person who ever bought me a cake for my birthday my entire life (other than parents a s child). No other friend, or girlfriend, ever did that for me. Most of my girlfriends ‘gifts’ to me was usually something they wanted for themselves, like buying me fancy towels so they could use them in my bathroom.
No, that’s not it. You are seeing your experience (and the experience of people around you, all living in the same society at the same time) and extrapolate that to the “very human nature”.
Just go back 50 years and you have all these structures making it easier for men to keep contact. You had fraternities, churches, unions, clubs, associations and so on, all designed to pick up young men, give them structure, give them contacts and help them being part of something bigger. All that failed some time in the 70s or 80s with the individualism movement that valued individualism over every kind of group.
If you go back even further, social structures were even stronger, with even things like arranged marriage being commonplace in many societies. In societies where that was common, there was no expectation at all that a young cis man would have to approach women at all.
Don’t extrapolate your experience to all of human-kind. It is almost never correct.
Certain = most. And you might have misunderstood what survivorship bias means.
Human nature is evolutionary.
Never say never.
Hey look at this guy! He’s met every human that’s ever existed, ignored all the times that humans have been good and caring, and has decided that we’re completely cooked!
But for real, I get that misanthropes are “in” right now, but if you look for the helpers, you will generally find them. Most people in the world are not out to cause pain - actively malicious people are rare. We just focus a shit ton of our attention on them.
Is saying “not everyone is shitty” toxic positivity? I’m not denying the presence of malicious humans, but the first step to becoming a bad person is believing that everyone else is too.
What’s your end goal here - what are you trying to communicate? Just that the world is bad and people should agree with that fact and do nothing?
I don’t really mean to say that you can’t express your feelings on the Internet or that they aren’t valid, but I do just want to kinda poke people who seem to be in this “people are awful” mindset and point out that our psychology and our information ecosystem are all heavily biased towards the negative, but it’s not the complete picture.
Evolution is not our friend. Evolution favours reproductive fitness, not happiness. Happiness is just one of many tools in the toolbox for getting us to reproduce.
The current situation with low birth rates due to the availability of contraceptives is a temporary blip. Right now you can witness a wide range of forces arrayed against that status quo. Note that for humans, evolution operates not only at the genetic level but also at the cultural level since parents can pass their culture on to their children.
We’re witnessing a major backlash and reaction against secular liberalism, a return to authoritarianism and a revival of religious membership. Religion has always been one of the most powerful of evolution’s cultural weapons for increasing reproductive fitness.
I don’t know if I’ve ever seen it put so succinctly. Maybe this isn’t everything, but it is the root of the feeling for me. I’m constantly reaching out and checking in and it’s more rare for the reverse to happen (though it’s really important to notice when it does, which is something I’m trying to do more now).
Yep. It’s also incredibly draining to have to do all the work. Nobody will ever reach out to you first. You must always be reaching out.
I gave up on romantic relationships mostly, because I was doing 90% of the work. And if I wanted a break, I was told I was being a ‘not a real man’. I bought a house and got pets. My pets don’t demand I do all the work for them. They actually communicate and appreciate.
This is so incredibly accurate
As a cis het man, the “male loneliness epidemic” is more a collection of symptoms of multiple problems without one source.
Those who claim a single source usually point to women because they’re a misogynist grifter looking chasing clout or to sell a scam course / supplement.
So without further ado, here’s my non-academic (and probably ill-informed) reckon based on conversations from online and IRL, lived experiences, and perceived societal norms. Have your large pinch of salt on standby.
Understandably, women have been socialised that if a man is showing emotion then that could turn into frustration and anger and so then they either have to risk taking on unpaid emotional labour or remove themselves from the situation. So sometimes you get this scenario where women want men to be more emotionally open but then recoil when they do because subconscious alarm bells start ringing that “you’re in danger” because there’s a decent chance that they could be.
Thankfully this is changing with younger generations, but it will take a generation or two.
This is the main reason I pass off an “I’m fine” to friends and family because they’d try and suggest solutions to the problem rather than just listen.
Again, this is changing in society but these kinds of changes are slow.
This hasn’t improved and will likely only get worse as late stage capitalism squeezes out anything that is unable or refuses to make more and more profit per quarter.
The social networks get far more engagement from posts that make people angry and therefore their advertising revenues increase.
Similarly, the dating monopoly Match Group, has realised that having more men than women on the platform means these men will spend money on these platforms for a chance at matches. So they purposely profile men who are likely to pay for things like “super likes” etc. and do nothing to make the experience more pleasant for women.
This isn’t anything new by the way, it’s the same reason some clubs make guys pay on the door and women get in for free, and it’s the same reason why there’s more female sex workers than male sex workers.
Men are willing to pay many and women don’t have to, but women have to put up with a lot of entitlement from the men who have paid for matches / to get into the club and be constantly fending off attention from men they don’t wish to reciprocate the attention to.
Without third spaces for general socialising, the only place to interact with potential partners is paid and will therefore skew financially in favour of women at the cost of their peace-of-mind.
I’m not cold approaching anyone when I go out because I don’t want to interrupt their precious free time they get in between the grind of life. I don’t want to interrupt them socialising with their friends or be creepy on the dancefloor by getting in their personal space, or even glancing over too much.
So I stay at arms length, avoid eye conta
I’ll be your friend; you can actually discuss things well 💜
There is one source.
I recommend reading nurturing our humanity. Primates have two observable social systems. And they both exist in all societies along a spectrum.
Domination and partnership.
The more domination based a society, the more everybody suffers. Including those higher in the social hierarchy.
Working class men, they are in a strange place because they have hierarchical status based on gender but not based on economic class. This makes it difficult for them to find solidarity with women. And thus more lonely in a system of loneliness.
Communists would blame capitalism of course, and they’re not exactly wrong because capitalism is a domination-based system. Marx called this phenomena alienation.
Feminists would blame patriarchy, and again they are not wrong it is a domination-based system.
So on and so forth, but we can take a step back and look at ourselves as apes and see domination is the problem. The will to power.
Buddhism calls this energy Mara, and would call the partnership energy Buddha nature.
It’s all the same thing, it’s a strategy apes use to relate to each other and survive. Partnership is a better strategy. Assuming your goal is the health of society and the planet rather than personal gain.
I can only suggest reading some of “The Way We Never Were”. It’s a look at society and how it actually was vs the manufactured versions people today use to weaponize the whitewashed past as some sort of ideal. It’s not a psychological book or a deep analysis of society at all, but one of the things that struck me about it that relate to social circles and how it applies to men in particular is the loss of “the village” and the damage “self reliance” - the isolation of the American Family Unit by making it the Family Vs The World - has done to society and the ability of people to form steady social groups outside of work. This, and the need to constantly change jobs to move ahead financially also keeps people on unsteady ground with relationships.
Good, succinct explanation. There are some people dropping their life stories in this post, which should be a barometer for just how lonely everyone really is.
But yes, this. It’s all socio-economic. It’s capitalism ruining our world by forcing us to serve the system instead of having a system that serves us. It has been like this a long time, but if unmanaged, allowed to grow and consolidate beyond just the interests of a few companies here and there and allowed to turn into an all-consuming monster that takes away our politics, our social lives, our hopes and dreams, you end up with a very miserable population.
Yes, it’s “divide and conquer” on a grand scale. Because we don’t have groups we’re never strong enough to rebel.
The only thing essentialist about us (and the only other explanations are essentialist) is that we’re highly social creatures, the point that we literally die without social contact like a goddamn lovebird or guinea pig.
The primary thing that’s gotten in the way of our social life of the past is the rampant increase in “luxuries” such as single-family homes, personal cars, computers that keep us inside, and the vast array of conveniences that let us survive with clicks and phone calls with strangers.
At its heart, it’s not complex. We buy things that are sold to us to give us the illusion of comfort, but comfort is not good for us, having community is what’s good for us and makes happier and have more balanced perspectives, and we’re suffering massively and experiencing national divisions because we don’t have a sense of community broadly.
Already lost me there.
There hasn’t been a real “communist regime” there have just been a lot of dictators and despots using the label, and if you know history you should know this, otherwise it’s weird that you think the only alternative to life-destroying capitalism run amuck is straight up cartoonish, hollywood-invented, jump-suits and tank-parades-communism.
However I have traveled the actual REAL world and there are many, many countries where people do not prioritize throwing money at corporations and care about their communities and each other and they are much, much happier with less distractions, less luxuries, fewer stressors and more social engagement, and in many of those places they also have free healthcare and public transportation. You know, socialist policies that help people not have to struggle so hard to survive every day so they can spend time with their friends and family.
No, that’s a dumb fucking reply. I am saying that people were not happier under dictators, that’s not exactly gymnastics. Meanwhile, there are countries here and now on earth that have higher happiness levels who are more focused on community and culture and have social safety nets to back it up. That’s my point.
That’s a great point.
I think its pretty hypocritical for anyone who isnt a male to have an opinion on the validity of an experience they cant possibly have unless they transitioned.
Its like me having an opinion on have a period.
I’m more of a comma or interrobang kind of guy‽
And yet, your sentence ends with…
duly noted, fixed!
but I know who I am (or at least so I think) so now it just looks weird to me.
Particularly when so many trans men who have lived as women previously have come forward to validate how much more isolated men feel.
I’ll disagree a little here.
My wife’s had surgeries from men that know waaaaaay more about her period than she does.
That being said, they went to school for a decade and have another decade of experience learning specifically about a topic. They aren’t just some random business student that dropped out 2 weeks into semester one and writes their theses via comments.
Small but important caveat. Otherwise 100% agreed. I have no ideas on periods because I’m not a woman or a Dr.
Yeah I also disagreed, I’ve read some very compassionate takes on men’s situation written by academic feminists.
Bell hooks the will to change for example. Women can be experts on gender, and how systems of domination effect everyone. Men included.
Yet, men have dictated women’s bodies for centuries. Nah, you can shove that view up your ass.
I reject your opinion. Men shouldn’t be dictating women’s bodies and women shouldn’t be dismissing men’s feelings. Two wrongs, etc etc, I shouldn’t have to explain this to an adult.
Agreed, but as long as countries are ran by old white men, it’ll never change.
brb going to use this as my defense for being an asshole to women. It’s expected of me.
You’re cleared to grab 'em by the pussy, chief.
Germanys longest chancler was a woman, Merkel. The EU is lead by a woman The head of the UK and Commonwealth was a woman and lets not forget PM Thatcher or Ms Salad Truss Italys PM is a woman, so is Denmarks and latvias Germanys parliament president is a woman The leader of europes biggest fascist partys in italy, france and germany are all woman.
What gender one is doesnt matter. Its the policies. Though yes woman get the short end of the stick by old peoples preference of leadership.
Also why bring the colour of the skin into play? For europe alone: guess what ofc its mostly going to be “white” people running their nations. Same in sub saharan africa its all black people. And guess what japan is run by japanese.
Though i am guessing you are american and therefor segregation by race runs deep in your mind since childhood.
Agreed.
“MEN IN THE PAST DID BAD, SO ALL MEN FOREVER GUILTY”
What a well reasoned argument.
I am currently a men, am I bad?
Are you a men? Are you bad because of it?
If not, by virtue of being a not-men are you good?
Generalisation of a such large group of people. Love it.
What would you say if i say “black people are bad”? Because there are also a lot of bad black people out there
If you were to say “black people are bad” then the rebuttal typically becomes “due to established power structures, white men can’t be oppressed, therefore I can say what I want about them”.
I think it’s hard to have a reasoned discussion where you say “all men do X” because for every X, there’s probably a bunch of exceptions. There is a great amount of variance in male behavior.
Exactly
It’s original sin, just by gender. I think people underestimate the harm in painting all men with the same brush. Once the conversation morphs from “I hate this thing some males do” and changes into “I HATE MEN” you can’t have a productive conversation.
people who think that all men are underdeveloped cretin sex-monsters. they don’t acknowledge that they are people/individuals.
only women get that status in their minds. Increasingly, as a man, i find it harder and harder to find people of any gender/sex who don’t want to lecture me about my maleness and how evil it is. Shit’s weird. fewer and fewer people care to see me as a person.
especially on the dating market. holy moly… the horrible hate so many people have towards men there is wild.
Its the classic negative feedback loop.
All you hear about is bad people, doing bad things, because normal, sane, respectful, law abiding people don’t make news because who is going to make headlines like “NORMAL PERSON RESPECTS OPINION AND DOESNT HAVE A TANTRUM OVER BEING DISAGREED WITH”
So people with low critical thinking skills and an aversion to regular thinking just leap to “ALL X ARE BAD, NO EXCEPTIONS”
And that gives them a higher position?
Taking your argumentation into another context but keeping the same intention: europeans had colonialised africa for over 100 years, means they cant critisise the africans nations politics?
“X did z to y so y can talk freely about matters that affect only X but x not about y”
On the other hand, belle hooks’, The Will to Change, is one of the most compassionate and understanding takes on the subject.
So she has an opinion on the validity of the experience, and it is that capitalism and patriarchy is alienating for men, just like it is for others. Especially working class men.
Nurturing Our Humanity, co-written by a female author, uses system science and primatology to validate what men experience in domination based societies.
I know your point was more long the lines of critics shouldn’t criticize things that they don’t understand, but there are a lot of feminists that do understand and have an informed opinion, because they study how these systems of domination affect everyone, not just women.
It’s socially acceptable to hate and be biased against men. Especially white men, and especially working-class white men.
It’s not so socially acceptable to hate on wealthy white men. The point is you have to become a wealthy white guy, or get bent.
You will also notice the discussion is frame that any man who isn’t independently wealthy is a failure at life and undeserving of friendship/love. The advice is always ‘get rich and get fit’ as if that is the solution to your loneliness. It isn’t.
FWIW I never had issue with romance/friends most of my life. But I have had them the past 5 or so years. I’m a middle-class white guy and my social interactions are falling apart. Esp when people find out I don’t fit the archetype of ‘rich white guy’. I’ve had so many people be friendly to me and then they find out I don’t own a home/drive expensive car/etc and they immediately stop interacting with me, because all they want from me is money. I’ve also been accuse of various forms of bigotry more in the past few years when previously I never dealt with that ever in my life.
I think it’s mostly just the ill-affects of social media and people’s warped expectations. I know a lot of people living good lives… men and women both, but they always depressed and angry because they aren’t millionaires. And frankly I find that attitude alienating and it also makes me want to isolate, since so much of what new people I meet talk about is their anger at not being wealthy. And if you ever question this or suggest maybe life isn’t so bad? Well you’re clearly a bigoted proto Nazi…
It wasn’t like this 5-10 years ago. I feel like I got my first taste of ‘men are awful’ social media fueled BS in the 2010s. Now it feels like that’s just he default belief of most people. It’s really hard for me to find a lady romantic or unromantic, who just wants to constantly shit on men generally. And to find men who also don’t shit on other men. And everyone where i live is in this weird scramble to distance themselves from whiteness and masculinity.
For me, I am feeling less and less lonely the more I am alone. Mostly because my perspective isn’t the same as most people’s. I am very happy and comfortable and appreciative and that doesn’t vibe in a world full of very bitter people who think if you don’t subscribe to theri flavor of bitterness, you’re a traitor. I recently bailed on some of my volunteer/community orgs because they have been consumed by judgemental nasty people and they were making me depressed being around people who just want to be miserable and pissy all the time and blame white men for their own personal failings. My favorite is the gender-skeptical types working in low-wage jobs and being angry at ‘white men’ for preventing them from having stable jobs… but the truth is these people are totally unreliable and would be horrible at professional work. They are their own worst enemy.
…what
here on lemmy it’s super popular. but the average person admires wealthy people and if you shit on them or critiize them they will just accuse you of being jealous of their success.
most people want to be rich they see a CEO and they wish to be like that. They don’t think it’s bad.
Bootlickers always there to support some random rich dude..
Its fucking wild.
Even women who hate normie men, will deff bite their tongues
Yeah i don’t live on lemmy. And i’m not talking about lemmy.
There’s basically a lot of modern “feminists” who have decided that two wrongs make a right.
It’s good that women feel comfortable expressing themselves and trying to dismantle the patriarchy since it hurts us all. But many of them don’t stop there and end up crossing the line into misandry and blind hatred of men.
This results in these “feminists” saying some pretty bigoted shit like “white men can’t experience racism and sexism” as well as harassing men for seeking support.
This group mocks the male loneliness epidemic out of spite like other bigot groups.
The “white people” idea has some merit when you consider that whiteness has usually been an arbitrary group of races and cultures that define the dominant group in western society. The whole “Italians and Irish weren’t once considered white” thing.
Obviously individuals can experience hardship and you might even argue that preferring non-white candidates or other affirmative action is harmful (I’m not going to, but you can).
My position on this is that everything is a patch on fundamental inequality and I’d rather just get to anarcho-communism so we don’t have to solve 100 individual problems caused by historical racism and the capitalist machinery that lets that manifest as unjust distribution of wealth.
Regardless of age and gender and familial success in past generations we should all be equal.
(I’m not gonna argue that either)
Well, if any caucasianswanna experience a taste of racism/discrimination, just head down to certain areas of Richmond, BC Canada
Signage only in Chinese (violates language laws)
Restaurants that won’t even acknowledge your presence (if non Chinese)
Realtors that won’t show you housing (if non Chinese)
But if course nobody will do anything because to address the issue said seem… racist.
And that’s the funny thing. Because people at the top of the racist pyramid generally share the same skin color, ethnicity and/or pants-contents as you, you get to be grouped in as “the oppressor”. Even if you share a lot more in common with victims of the same system, complaints are met with decision and ignored.
That’s because it’s easier to divide and conquer by skin and gender to hide the real class war that exists.
Yeah, I agree. Wealth redistribution would fix most social and economic problems overnight.
Anarcho-communism is the way.
A big problem here is that not everyone has a common definition for racism and sexism. Some definitions take existing power structures and historical context, and others don’t. A discussion about this topic should be started with what specifically each participant believes these terms mean. Otherwise you have two people talking about “sexism” but they are just talking past each other because they lack a shared understanding of the term as it is used.
Usually, only bigots want to redefine the definitions of racism and sexism.
It’s pretty easy not to be a bigot if you aren’t an asshole.
they are well-defined terms.
where people argue about it is who can be racist/sexist. a lot of people think it can’t exist against white men or form minority group to minority group. most of the people thinking this way are clueless white people trying to score virtue points. in those people’s minds being sexist against men is a positive thing.
truth is sexism/racism is rampant everywhere. and in some societies its far worse than it is in the USA/Europe.
YOU might think they are well defined terms, but there are people claiming with a straight face that “race X can’t be racist, because racism needs power structures” or all this other exceptionalism. They use every definition but the one in the dictionary.
I’ve seen three sides to it.
Side 1: “boo hoo nobody will fuck me because I don’t think other people should have rights”
Side 2: not having strong friendships/relationships because our society is built around capitalism, cars, and social media (this obviously applies across genders, this side therefore is a generalized loneliness epidemic, not a male gendered one)
Side 3: men get socially punished for being vulnerable
In my mind only the second & third side is worth listening to.
Side 2 has not actual relevance to the problem itself. These societal tropes are not why men are having a hard time finding women. It’s just a societal trope posing as an explanation.
Side 3 is the only relevant issue. Men are constantly told they need to be more vulnerable or their masculinity is toxic, and yet when they express themselves vulnerably, they’re punished for it.
The issue, as I see it, is that some advocates of the “toxic masculinity” narrative often don’t fully acknowledge the ways in which women can also reinforce those same patterns.
A deeper concern is that many feminists present themselves as speaking on behalf of all women, when in reality most women don’t identify as feminists. As a result, what’s being represented is more of a particular set of progressive gender beliefs than the broader experiences of women in general.
To be clear, I actually agree with many feminist perspectives overall. However, I find that the movement’s messaging is often counterproductive—it can come across as unnecessarily divisive and, at times, dismissive of men. Because of this, even when the arguments are largely valid, they struggle to gain wider support.
Side 2 is very relevant. If you are lonely you get easily into very terrible sides of society and mindsets. I speak from experience. If you dont have a sense of belonging you also have no sense of self, but then come people that tell you to have a part in their group because of race, religion, nationality, or any other extremist reason.
Fair enough, I should have been clearer. I recognize that social isolation has deleterious effects on people. The part I was dismissing was the attribution to capitalism. Capitalism does not cause this effect. Other factors are responsible.
Capitalism does though. Atleast to an extend. Car centered city though that kills social connections a lot!
No. That is not an effect of capitalism. That is just a fact of rural living. God, Lemmings love to blame capitalism for everything.
What made the car industry big? What convinced them to tear down everything and make everything cardepended? Why does the oil and car industry lobby so hard and spread missinfo about public transport and closer living together?
Dude, seriously, calm down and connect with reality a bit more. Not everything is a conspiracy.
Would you accept “under-regulated capitalism” or “capitalism treated as an ideal rather than a tool” as a more specific root cause?
No, because it’s just not related to capitalism at all. Lemmings love to blame capitalism for everything, and you see it in every bad thing in the world.
Not sure I agree with that. I don’t have much sense of belonging but I know exactly who I am. If anything that’s why I usually feel like I don’t belong.
feminist has never been a coherent set of beliefs of messages. it’s a clusterfuck of viewpoints. many of which are contradictory.
especially 3rd/4th wave stuff that is mostly about social norms. earlier feminist was focused on political goals.
I think there is definitely a male loneliness epidemic but I think there is also an equally bad female loneliness epidemic that nobody talks about enough
Relevant
Modern online incel and radfem movements were created to pit them against each other and prevent them from uniting and creating positive social change.
Created by whom? I’m actually curious.
I can’t prove anything, but:
What I have laid out is not proof that today’s billionaires are directing their staff to verbally attack minorites at any opportunity.
But it certainly is something to think about next time a vicious rumor about a minority group comes along.
Edit: Yes. I do understand that neither men nor women are minorities. But there’s still enough differences to allow pushing a divisive narrative, which I suspect is enough reason for certain motivated people.
And to the “could just be a shitty set of incentives” argument. Fair enough. It could be. It’s highly suspicious, but it could be.
Woah, I thought you were talking about a conspiracy of wealthy people that are pitting the sexes against each other. That is interesting and I want to study this some more.
Somehow you ended on wealthy people hating on minorities. Let me make this clear. This happens all the fucking time. Even our POTUS is guilty of this multiple times with instances like the Central Park Five.
I mean the whole anti-woke movement is just a bunch of rich racist assholes pushing a toxic message.
I’m not the original person you were speaking to but this is a good example of systemic issues. You don’t need individuals to be racist or sexist or conspire to do bad things if there’s a systemic trend that people in powerful positions are a homogeneous class with their own relatively aligned interests and social circles.
Billionaires don’t know poor people, billionaires are usually white men, billionaires have similar self interest. Billionaires wield a huge amount of power. BOOM. systemic racism and sexism without requiring everyone to scheme and coordinate.
This is why liberals fixate on gender and race representation in higher positions, and this is why I and other leftists just want to dismantle unbalanced power structures that give billionaires everything and allow them to exist.
Eliminating billionaires would do far more to harm fascism than all the DEI initiatives combined.
100%, liberals won’t let go of the root causes of the problems and will keep patching and reforming and patching and reforming all the while every little crisis brings fascism back from the shadows
themselves
I think what’s happening is:
40% of men are good people
40% of women are good people
The remaining 20% are pieces of shit that demonize and demean the other sex, which has caused the 80% to become scared and reclusive.
Social media makes it seem like the percentages are flipped but they are not!
The numbers are made up but you get my point.
they both exist. but the male one makes people angry so it gets more engagement. it’s also framed as ‘men are losers who need to do better in life’
the female one is often framed as ‘women are too successful for men’.
the truth is there is a huge gender disparity emerging in certain demographics. my own included. most single women I meet in my 30s/40s are living radically different lives than the men. and frankly i haven’t had a relationship in half a decade because none of the women I meet anymore have anything in common with me, and often they view our differences in a very negative light. 10 years ago those differences were seen as positive.
there are also no common spacers for us to mingle anymore. esp not as equals.
I felt all bitter like you did but I met a girl recently who completely stole my heart, they do exist for sure
Very good point about common spaces. The best we got in north america is basically just the mall at this point
Also there are no safe spaces for men outside of wilderness and AA meetings hahaha
Am I bitter that we are entering a recession? Or is it just a fact of the world?
Can we please leave gender war slop back at the old site please?
Who says this? I am not a cis-het man and have not heard the criticism. I thought it was a known thing? Are you literally hearing it doesn’t exist, or is it more like they need to suck it up and/or that they are losers that need to go outside?
If it’s the second, that’s sexism. That’s where it comes from. Illogical ideas about men. Believe it or not, we have not overcome that yet. People have very twisted ideas about how men and women should behave and feel.
Oh my god STOP WITH THE GENDER DEBATES
I have no idea but thought I’d throw out that, as a 58yr old cis white guy I’ve never been lonely in my life, i have literally no idea what that’s like and don’t get involved in hypotheses about it all because I have nothing to bring to the debate. I do find human behaviour interesting (and mostly bizzare) though.
The more time I spend with people the more I crave being alone but that’s a different thing.
I now live on the edge of a tiny village in the middle of no where Australia and lived in a small cottage off grid in the bush for 10 years previously bit alos loved in an apartment in the sky in a largish city.
One thing I noticed, I found the car free existence ina city bought me into contact with people all the time, even walking you’d see people people and say hello. Stop at a crossing and have a small conversation occasionally etc. i even said hello to women and was never called a pervert ;)
On a related note, I wish we would acknowledge that men socialize different and that guys doing stuff together is therapeutic. Ruminating on emotions can have a negative effect in men, while work therapy can be much effective that talk therapy.
that would be acknowledging that men and women are different and that’s bad in 2025, apparently.
I think it has to do with the death of 3rd spaces which used to be an outlet for socialization. But as a man, I’m also not lonely. I have friends and acquaintances and I get to go outside sometimes.
This right here. But even for our parents this is true.
I remember back when we could easily get some beers and sit at the local park or at the riverbed. But now? Everything’s private property and the bars are way too expensive to spend 5 hours in. I don’t know the last time I played Billard - or even have seen a pool table itself.
In the 2000s I could go out drinking for an entire night for like $20. Or I could hang out in a cafe with a sandwich and a coffee for $10.
Now two beers is $25 and that’s an hour if you nurse them slow. Wanna hang out for 2+ hours anyplace? Goign to cost you probably $50-100. Even bowling a frame is now like 75/pp in my city
I think part of it also depends on were you live. Just as a personal experience I live in a very rural part of northern Nevada, I’m born a raised here. The population is about 4k and honestly I would say 90% of the population are hardcore conservatives. Even as a kid I knew that I didn’t fit in with anyone else. I would usually just keep to myself all throughout school and even now as a 42 year old man I barely speak to anyone. It is lonely but the alternative is a no go for me especially now with politics being such a big part of peoples identity.
Being a man is tricky. Full grown males can be physically dangerous and I think there is a subtle undercurrent of worry with all men they may be dealing with a hostile moron, or a worry someone may try to assert dominance. Men are organically closed off past a certain age because of this.
Men also experience allot of these weird power dynamics growing up. Both men and women kind of seek to control and bully youger boys and men until they come into their own…and suddenly they are grown and terrifying in some respects and everyone magically backs the f*** off. The threat is gone but the history is still there and it closes men off emotionally.
A lot of people can’t see things from any perspective beyond their own limited worldview. If they don’t experience a problem, it doesn’t exist or it’s not that bad and everyone should focus on their problems instead or if they are experiencing something it must be happening to everyone. I think this is causing a lot of the conflict around this issue. There is also the fact that a lot of the men complaining about this issue come at it not so much as “I’m lonely” but as “I’m not getting laid”. Which loses them a lot of sympathy.
Or it’s more about the inability to form community/family units that are so essential for human flourishing. For men and women both. And yet we have created all these biases and expecations of each other that handicap people from connecting.
I had no issue with connecting with most people I met 10+ years ago. But now it’s a struggle to even have a polite conversation with anyone under 50 for me, because their brains are so warped and they can’t take anything as is. I’ve had so many innocuous comments blow up in my face by younger folks who just leapfrog to the worst conclusions. For example I love reading classic literature… a lot of older pre 20th century stuff. That used to be something people admire. Now I get a lecture about how it makes me racist/sexist because the authors back then were all racist and sexist and if I am reading it i’m endorsing those views.
It’s insane. All the sudden my harmless hobby is now evil. I am also into cycling and I can’t talk about that now without being lectured or told how problematic it is for me to enjoy it. 10 years ago people would go ‘oh, that’s cool’. Now everything is a ‘problem’.
100% that is the root of the loneliness epidemic and I agree that there is a problem. I was just trying to stick to answering OPs question about why we see opposition to the concept.
It’s also an issue to have this form of generation fight. We as older men, also have an obligation to question the old ways and listen to the young people. Because yes, a lot of it is a problem. And refusing to see the problem doesn’t make it not a problem. It just makes you part of it. Doesn’t make you evil to consume certain things. But it doesn’t help if you’re not compassionate with the current views and the emotions of the younger people around you. Most people don’t even want to make anyone stop doing something, but they’d be happy to know that you’re questioning it.
No we don’t. I am an older man and I am dealing with all this nonsense myself. the old ways were objectively better for connecting and forming relationships. The new ways only foster shallow connections. I’d rather live in analog reality than some delusional social media bubble also.
Yeah…we are so well connected and socialised. The old ways have really proved themselves…
people want to be well connect and socialized generally are.
those who don’t, aren’t.
It’s an individual choice.
the only big difference is how much internet content is anti-male and how many sad dudes internalize it.
I kind of assume it’s the juxtaposition of “I as a white man have immense social privilege” with “I can’t get anyone to play with me”. Like, other people are worried about being abducted on the street and you’re sad you can’t play basketball with your bros?
The sadness of loneliness can be real but in contrast to other things it can feel like it needs to be triaged into a lower priority. And then some men lose their shit over that, which makes people take them less seriously.
most white men don’t have much social privileged.
it’s only the top 5-10% who have the privledge
For example, white men will generally have an easier time in public spaces. Police and shops are less likely to bother them.
privilege doesn’t mean “you have a yacht” or “you’re rich”
and if you’re black/Hispanic and you dress in a suit they won’t bother you either. esp if you hold yourself like a rich douchebag
but if you’re white and tattooed and look homeless, they will totally bother you.
It’s about class. class trumps race and sex, everytime.
Please go read en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_privilege and the related articles, such as en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intersectionality
No. I have a minor in gender studies. You can pretend Wikipedia is some sort of definitive source of truth all you want because it fits your simplified narrative of race and sex.
Reality is far more complex than that though.
I don’t believe you. Sorry.
I don’t believe you. Not sorry.
Both is kinda true. Yes, a poor black man will be worse off than a poor white man and a middle-class black man will be worse off than a middle-class white man and so on.
But a poor white man will be worse off than a middle-class black man and a rich white man will be better off than a middle-class white man.
That’s what intersectionality means: All these things stack together instead of wiping eachother out.
If intersectionality wasn’t a thing, then any black man will always have less privilege than any white man, no matter any other circumstances. And that’s obviously crap, considering that clearly someone like Barak Obama or Will Smith has much more social privilege than any random white homeless guy.
Men, by and large, create toxicity within their own circles. Male culture has a lot of issues and a lot of unrealistic expectations are put in men in US society. Some external, but the majority come from inside. The whole alpha male culture bullshit that permeantes it. There’s a lot, and I mean a LOT of good that can come from healthy male culture. But right now it’s like men have a branding issue where the loudest among them are also the worst (the Andrew Tates of the world).
I’d say there’s some unavoidable bias there. If we judge the dominant masculine culture by the degree to which people emphasize masculinity then of course the loud ultra masculine people will seem like the representation.
Lots of men out there just being men
True. But nobody cares about them because they aren’t bothering anyone. But they do get lumped in with the controversial men.
Like I don’t have much of a clue about Tate or any of that stuff. But if I tell people that then I’m guilty of ignorance or something and I need to ‘educate’ myself about that stuff so I can… denounce it? Because apparently just not knowing or caring is complicity or something.
It’s true that men as a broad group have a duty to confront and correct that behavior within their social groups and families etc. and that might be where that sentiment is coming from, but we live in a world where people can and do live in bubbles.
No. We don’t. We don’t have a duty to do anything anymore than women do.
Other people’s ignorance isn’t my obligation to fix. It’s their own. I am not responsible for other people’s behavior and anyone who blames me for it is an asshole. Guilt by association is a fallacy.
If you’re not calling out that kind of behavior when you encounter it among your social group then you are definitely complicit. Is it a morally corrupt position? Not necessarily, but you’re complicit and you’re enabling it.
Calling out shitty behaviour gets you shitcanned from the group. It doesn’t change the behaviour. Do you socialize much? You don’t make friends or get popular by calling out bad behaviour. You get ostracized. The rest of the group calls you an asshole and circles the wagons and enables the behaviour further.
ok, keep your asshole friends and be associated with them I guess? point proven?
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