Men Inequality: are men falling behind in society?

[Wyote]

You're not really thinking when you're not considering what can or actually will happen.

Ok, you can be right

 

[Ok08Y567gA]

Ok, you can be right

I don't want to be right; I want to be accurate and reliable.

 

[Wyote]

I don't want to be right; I want to be accurate and reliable.

 

[Ok08Y567gA]

I have a great deal of compassion for men, especially men's mental health and the pressure and stress men carry in society. The way our society works hurts men, too. We need a lot of growth, and we need to find a way to stabilize men's identities and worth.

Men have been at the top in society for a very long time, particularly white men, while others have had fewer rights, both legally and in society, fewer advantages, and fewer resources. As society catches up and people (as a whole) become more equal, those at the top with feel the crunch. As the saying goes, "When you're accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression." This is going to sting more for underprivileged men (for example, poor men) who have never reaped the benefits of the privilege and for people who were told all their lives that they would have certain rewards when they reached each rung on the ladder. (I suggest younger generations who feel this way talk to Gen X about this because we were the first modern generation to do worse than our parents and miss out on the promised rewards.)

This has a lot to do with class, too.

As change occurs, each side pushes hard. Some are extreme, and some overcompensate. This is part of growth. Some liberals are pushing too hard, and some conservatives are pushing too hard. I could dissect and criticize both sides here. The conservative backlash filters into a pipeline of extremely right-wing recruiting, so I'm hesitant to even engage on this topic or give examples of how shaky this period of growth is.

F.D. Signifier often discusses the manosphere and men's issues, so if you're curious check out his YT.

The Digital Galadriel

 

[Anomalous]

This is much more complicated than people think. Feminism no longer seems to have clear or tangible end goal. It just keeps going and there doesn't seem to be any point at which we could ever say the line has been crossed and equality has been achieved. What has happened instead is a kind of virtual feminism that discourages women from getting what they want by means of their own agency.

Both attempt to hold the other accountable by cherry picking the worst or most stereotypical examples to support their presumption. Entitled men not making the effort to actually make themselves desirable, and privileged women with victim complexes simply not making any effort at all.

The current narrative however sides with women by default and the growing attitude is that men are not allowed to suffer because we are in some way indebted to women. I think men are tired of these kind of women and how their voice now dominates every space and invades every aspect of our lives. Men are fatigued. Many of us support women and want to help, but feel prematurely vilified.

My personal fear is that women's desire for men will continue to diminish, because psychologically you have to work for something in order to desire it and that seems to be something women are currently resistant to.

 

[slant]

This is much more complicated than people think. Feminism no longer seems to have clear or tangible end goal. It just keeps going and there doesn't seem to be any point at which we could ever say the line has been crossed and equality has been achieved. What has happened instead is a kind of virtual feminism that discourages women from getting what they want by means of their own agency.

Both attempt to hold the other accountable by cherry picking the worst or most stereotypical examples to support their presumption. Entitled men not making the effort to actually make themselves desirable, and privileged women with victim complexes simply not making any effort at all.

The current narrative however sides with women by default and the growing attitude is that men are not allowed to suffer because we are in some way indebted to women. I think men are tired of these kind of women and how their voice now dominates every space and invades every aspect of our lives. Men are fatigued. Many of us support women and want to help, but feel prematurely vilified.

My personal fear is that women's desire for men will continue to diminish, because psychologically you have to work for something in order to desire it and that seems to be something women are currently resistant to.

I mean how much of this is just weird people on TikTok and Twitter. Serious question. I only see normal, well adjusted men and women in real life. The only time I see the stuff you are talking about here is on social media and that's because it's coming from people who live online and have a distorted perception of reality.

Things sound crazy where you live.

 

[Anomalous]

I mean how much of this is just weird people on TikTok and Twitter. Serious question. I only see normal, well adjusted men and women in real life. The only time I see the stuff you are talking about here is on social media and that's because it's coming from people who live online and have a distorted perception of reality.

Things sound crazy where you live.

I'm not sure. People can put on an act in real life. That can also create a distorted perception of reality.

But yes, social media messes with our heads.

 

[mintoots]

What has happened instead is a kind of virtual feminism that discourages women from getting what they want by means of their own agency.

Can you further qualify this for me?

 

[mintoots]

Sometimes things work the way they do because it's necessary to get a certain result or the best result

Yes, and I hardly think gender has anything to do with it if not perhaps as a motivating force borne out of oppression. It just so happened that history does tell how people were put into boxes because of gender constructs that have been proven over time as unnecessary. One of my overarching intents in starting this thread is in inviting readers to rethink these constructs. Something of an imagination exercise.

 

[Ok08Y567gA]

Yes, and I hardly think gender has anything to do with it if not perhaps as a motivating force borne out of oppression. It just so happened that history does tell how people were put into boxes because of gender constructs that have been proven over time as unnecessary. One of my overarching intents in starting this thread is in inviting readers to rethink these constructs. Something of an imagination exercise.

I think for the initial development of certain things like Christianity, science, mathematics, and philosophy within western culture it does given that the Ancient Greeks were fairly patriarchal and superficial in comparison to modern western societies and the Ancient Hebrews were fairly patriarchal and legalistic. The origin of things often differs in their nature from the meaning and realities that things take on overtime; critical theorists think the origins cannot be separated from the existence from a moral standpoint which may be fair but the soil which some of our greatest edifices of society like science and medicine grew out of are highly gender conscious and oppressive societies, yet these edifices collectively benefit our existences. Perhaps gender is an outdated construct or development for many under our modern conditions of existence where war, feminine, plague, disease, conquest, and death are less consequential to every day, day to day, realities and wealth and infrastructure are more abundant. Yet, before there were social justice warriors there were prophets, apostles, and reformers. Historically, our moral sense of justice and the pursuit of justice as a societal good is very Platonic, Judaic, and Christian. We may rethink the constructs, but oftentimes history is ironic in the sense that the worship of gendered gods and a gendered inspired God, lead to a world where gender is no longer significant to understanding the character of a person or why something happens. I don't sit in any camp on any contemporary issue, so I'm not disagreeing as much as I'm trying to give push back on the idea that in a material world you can divorce the conditions of the development of things from their existence. I think this is why Critical Theorist in academia inspired by the Frankfurt school and indirectly by Marx are anti-Christianity, anti-science, anti-evidence, anti-gender, and anti-rationality, because one can't cleanly separate them from their development under certain cultural historical conditions that they deem as essentially immoral. Further, happenstance in terms of development shouldn't be conflated with inconsequential. For instance, it's happenstantial that oxygen is abundant in our atmosphere, but we exist and can live as we do because of this happenstance. I don't think you will agree with the ideas in this video, but watch it so you can get a different vantage of genders role in history and the development of things:

 

[Ok08Y567gA]

Yes, and I hardly think gender has anything to do with it if not perhaps as a motivating force borne out of oppression. It just so happened that history does tell how people were put into boxes because of gender constructs that have been proven over time as unnecessary. One of my overarching intents in starting this thread is in inviting readers to rethink these constructs. Something of an imagination exercise.

On the functioning of science, I don't think it matters if men, non-binary, or women do it as much as personality, character traits, and cognitive ability is what matters, but I don't think one will be able to completely divorce the likelihood of the prominence of certain outcomes from genders as even if in modernity people don't believe in the binary of gender our evolutionary history selected for members of our species under the paradigm of mammalian male or female and this and its consequences won't be erased in a matter of centuries purely due to contemporary material conditions, political goals, and abstract notions.

 

[Matty]

I went to a boys only school. My class topped the state in several stem subjects.

If boys are "falling behind" it may just be that as an average, boys have different learning styles to girls, and mixed schools may be trying to encourage girls in stem, by adopting teaching styles suited to girls.

Anyhow, the male gender and sex are both associated with stoicism, so we'll keep our difficulties to ourselves.

 

[Ok08Y567gA]

 

[philostam]

Yes, and I hardly think gender has anything to do with it if not perhaps as a motivating force borne out of oppression. It just so happened that history does tell how people were put into boxes because of gender constructs that have been proven over time as unnecessary. One of my overarching intents in starting this thread is in inviting readers to rethink these constructs. Something of an imagination exercise.

So you're saying that what was played out in history was completely random, and given a n number of re-trials, it could've played out another way? For example, that men would stay home and women would be out and about doing things?

Even if the only reason for male 'oppression' was the fact they were physically stronger, that's still a very good reason. Power projection matters to people, but also to animals and other living things.

 

[Anomalous]

Can you further qualify this for me?

Feminism was originally a movement, but the system got its claws into it and commercialised it. Now it will remain for as long it continues to be profitable and young women are taken in because it bolsters their insecurities.

The media doesn't necessarily want real equality if it cannot profit off of a world in which men and women actually care about one another.

 

[Sidis Coruscatis]

If people are adapting in a way that is not going to long term help with survival, when that is realized it'll revert back to whatever did enable survival.

I'm not worried that reality isn't self-correcting. I'm worried how much damage will be done in the meanwhile. It's easy to sit back and and think in abstractions when we are not currently in the free fall that follows the experiment. I imagine the concentration camp prisoners weren't particularly comforted by the thought that Nazi ideology is unsustainable.

This is highly debatable in that religion has also succeeded to ostracize and exclude, which in its essence is difficult to interpret as good. Good by what standards? The interpretation of good is relative. What technology allows is a more rational construct of good. I am returning to the balances of nature. I am of the opinion that we can potentially compute goodness as that which allows the sustainability of healthy paradoxes.

You are prevaricating. Inserting relativism into the conversation is meaningless and self-defeating. If it is reasonable to appeal to relativism now, it will be reasonable to appeal to it later, as the interpretation of any data relies on our perception. It corrodes any notion of reason. How can we debate something when you refuse to put down a standard that coordinates the discussion? The only mediating force in such debate is coercion and power. This is how every real engine of oppression is created.

How can technology bring a rational concept of good when you don't know what it is that you are aiming at? What are you comparing it with? It's as if I randomly started pressing piano keys in hope that eventually I will play the Moonlight Sonata without knowing what the Moonlight Sonata sounds like.

Look, every rule is exclusionary and ostracizing in some way. Again, what is the contrast? Has there ever been a prescriptive system that didn't fundamentally limit our liberties? If I want to achieve mastery in anything, I have to set my attention in a way that will suppress my contradicting desires and impulses and limit my freedom in all kinds of unpleasant ways. This limitation is what offers meaningful decision making. I'm not sure what makes you think that this new good would produce any other consequence. Are you going to enforce it? Then you have reformulated tyranny. And if it wasn't enforced, then nothing would change because the promise of a better way is clearly not enough to remove the cardinal sins and base desires from people.

Similarly, it is difficult to talk about economic and societal opportunities from a rational, policy-making, decision-making enabling purview when we are only revolving around the experiences embedded in individual perspectives.

Yes, that's exactly right. But I am not the one doing that. It's those obsessed with inclusion and day-to-day minor oppression who have to fraction out the injustices down to the individual level and then take every single one into account to concoct the desired system of complete equality. It's literally impossible.

The attempts to reduce offensive speech mirror this perfectly. If I am talking to one person, we may be able to set specific boundaries to our speech. But what if I am talking to five, ten, or a hundred people? The limitations start growing so rapidly and exponentially that we are left with nothing to say. The complexity of such a system becomes incomprehensible almost instantly. What you are ultimately trying to do is remove suffering as the basic condition of life.

 

[mintoots]

So you're saying that what was played out in history was completely random, and given a n number of re-trials, it could've played out another way? For example, that men would stay home and women would be out and about doing things?

Yes. Supposing biology had a role to play in the evolution of the construct, it was hardly the most deciding determinant. It was always a power struggle, in my view. Women attempted to grasp that power in multiple ways be it intellectual, physical, or something else. The Dahomey Warriors are a good example.

Power projection can also come in many forms. The feminine energy itself is a form of power. What were the driving forces behind disallowing women as priestesses during the medieval era when other earlier societies honored them? The power struggle was never just exclusive to men, even if all other genders were conceptually playing it behind curtains.

Feminism was originally a movement, but the system got its claws into it and commercialised it. Now it will remain for as long it continues to be profitable and young women are taken in because it bolsters their insecurities.

The media doesn't necessarily want real equality if it cannot profit off of a world in which men and women actually care about one another.

Media does make a profit out of many things, but I also think feminism is a cause based on some valid historical precedents.

Similarly, young men also have insecurities and they are also equally taken in.

It's literally impossible.

The academia, as well as many different sectors, do work closely to getting closer. If achieving the goal itself is impossible, there's no reason to cease the attempt to get closer particularly when not trying to get anywhere feels equally pointless. Between these two directions, the one which attempts to move specifically has a higher potential for value, plus life therein is likely more entertaining.

What you are ultimately trying to do is remove suffering as the basic condition of life.

You have to substantiate this for me. Please elaborate point by point.

 

[mintoots]

I'm worried how much damage will be done in the meanwhile

However, life is a set of moving puzzles. Is it really possiblr to just stop in the name of perfect assessment?

prevaricating

No. I believe you were on a tangent and I responded to it, but yes it is a discussion of powers and religion is a big player in that.

I'm not sure what makes you think that this new good would produce any other consequence. Are you going to enforce it? Then you have reformulated tyranny. And if it wasn't enforced, then nothing would change because the promise of a better way is clearly not enough to remove the cardinal sins and base desires from people.

I was seeking out a discussion based on the topic, which you dabbled into with a reference to what is good. I responded to you as you mentioned that.

My goal for discussion isn't rational in that I was not nor am I still intentionally looking to mold a specific set of opinions. My goal was to seek, hear, observe, and encourage others to join me in my reflection. The method is casual and incremental. I sought this as a conversation, not essentially a debate so there is no standard necessary other than sticking to the general sphere of the subject matter. There are no rigid outlines to play this by. I appreciate your contribution.

Look, every rule is exclusionary and ostracizing in some way.

Sure, and mostly it is because it is necessary like making theft illegal, for example. But does the formation of the gender construct truly have to be enmeshed in that legality?

There are rigid laws, and then there are norms, or maybe even just manners. These things vary in their degrees and therefor vary in the extents of their exclusion as well. Indirectly, I am also questioning those. This is an even further off tangent altogther but just to point out an example, who is to say that eating with a knife and fork is more classy than eating with a chopstick or one's hands? If there is no true substantial value in those differences, then what's the point in being mad about being different at any point on the spectrum? It matters where the subject matter lies on that gradient. Is gender akin to theft in the gravity of its offense to society or is it closer to being just a way of life? And so, how must we structure our current society in view of that?

 

[Sidis Coruscatis]

I'm trying to give push back on the idea that in a material world you can divorce the conditions of development of things from their existence

Exactly. The modern understanding of identity has much to do with it.
Apropos:

We can't separate our identity from what our bodies symbolize. The consequence is alienation from the social purposes that our material conditions play an inherent role in.

 

[mintoots]

it's happenstantial

This is generally applicable, sure. Although not yet entirely understood, there is also some scientific and mathematical computation to those happenings. This is how I pulled technology as a tool of analysis into this conversation as outlined in my responses to @Sidis Coruscatis. Ever since Greek thinkers, we have continued to analyze the mechanisms of the universe, including the world. We are uncovering now that women and other genders were likely capable of thinking even in a patriarchal society. Sure, biological sex is a factor into the playout of those happenings but also not in all cases. We are much closer today to interpreting the networks of these happenstances in that we even dare to dabble into predicting these happenstances using a rational scientific structure. I think that's pretty awesome. In the context of daily life as we have lived it and continue to do so, I want to reflect on the necessity of gender boxes in living.

Edit: to add: the evolution of gender roles is also very different in other parts of the world. Bits of Asia took on a more patriarchal view when the westerners came in. The same of gender boxes. Many indigenous communities respect the transcendence of feminine and masculine energies throughout bodies, like the Mentefuwaley. This is the value in @John K 's point of geography also being a factor in this.

And also, yes, here in this thread, I am playing around those constructs and just wondering abouy their utility.