• cheery_coffee@lemmy.ca
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    1 year ago

    It seems like the common thread is men not feeling like their problems are heard.

    The internet and decline in friendship are partly responsible, but men’s groups that tried to form in my town had police called on them and the fire alarms pulled, and people with megaphones would yell over them and they got doxxed and harassed.

    I know that these “feminists” were a small group and thought that these men getting together was going to hurt them, and some of the men were shitty, but they ended up silencing men online and off so that only the scummiest people became the ones standing up for men’s rights, so now that’s who the majority voices are.

    Men do have serious issues: there’s parental rights and family court, there’s still the breadwinner expectation and unemployed men find themselves divorced at high rates, men taking parental leave are punished by fewer and worse job offers, the education system isn’t serving men well (as evidenced by both low achievement and high rates of medication), and men largely don’t see the point of pursuing higher education. There’s also addiction and suicide, the lack of support networks, feeling excluded from safe places in the way women’s shelters exist (these used to exist commonly in communities, without being toxic “boys clubs”). I’d bet a lot of men have gotten in trouble for pouring their feelings out to a partner too, I have, it hurts.

    Those are all real and big problems, on top of the existing problems for everyone of life getting more unaffordable, good paying jobs being hard to find (long gone are the factory workers supporting a family of 6).

    What these influencers are peddling are: easy answers (that are also largely wrong, things like blaming women), an easy to identify with ideal (the strong alpha male with cash and toys and hot girls and no fucks to give), selection bias/self made man bias (in truth nobody is self made), and an approachable “I have the answers, and you can too if you listen to me” persona.

    I don’t know what the answer is, but I’d bet that working on addressing these issues (especially education and finance) for younger men would dry up the audiences of these influencers.

    People don’t have hope for the future, and it’s killing them .

    Edit: I should clarify I’m all for feminism, I’m egalitarian, the “feminists” alludes to the small group who pretend to be for women but they’re actually just anti-men. Almost all feminists and women are not in that group, they’re the female incel equivalent.