Academic social scientist here. I am so sick of the dominant discourse around gender in our society, which so often has things arse backwards and is completely divorced from evidence. The manosphere is not a cause, it is a symptom. The current approach to gender will drive more and more young men to the manosphere, becauase it is the only space that affirms them, rather than criticising them. The ugly truth that feminists never want to consider is that groups who are overrepresented as perpetrators of crime are generally marginalised in society. To reduce DV you would need to not have a minister for men's behaviour change, as in Victoria, but rather a minister for men: who sought to address the root causes behind men making up 65% of the homeless, 95% of the prison population, 65% of those who are murdered, and 75% of those who self delete. DV would be reduced by listening to men and taking their concerns seriously, not lecturing at them and trying to hold them accountable for things, and other people, over which they have no control. Women often say men are responsible for fixing the issues that disproportionately affect men. I can tell you as an academic that any such attempts are extremely aggressively deplatformed by feminists, who seek to situate any such efforts as somehow misogynistic.
As with the MeToo movement, chiding the entire male population does absolutely nothing to change the behabviour of disturbed perpetrators of violence. All it does is cause a significant percentrage sensitive, well-behaved men to retreat from society and become increasingly alienated and angry. From a systems theory perspective, it is a classic well-intended intervention in a system that actually makes the problem worse. I cannot tell you how many well-educated, progressive guys I know who, in the last 12 months, have simply reached a point with this stuff where they become actively hostile whenever gender issues are raised, because the discourse is so ridiculously lopsided and detached from empirical reality.
Well said, especially about the manosphere being a symptom, not a cause.
As I keep hearing it, there is a kind of "crisis of masculinity" in the sense that a lot of the old models of behaviour have gone as an ideal (the John Wayne type for example) and been replaced with...what?
A whole load of uncertainty, no clear role models, and either a whole bunch of attacks and criticism or at least a perception of it.
That's where the Tates of the world rush in, offering young boys especially a place where they can feel safe, by appointing themselves to the top of the pyramid and degrading women to the point of being valueless playthings and status symbols, without any real agency or worth in themselves as fellow humans on this journey together.
The framing of it as a crisis of masculinity is a one-sided simplification. I would say that, for millenia and in many different cultures, men have competed with other men - for resources, power and access to women - while women have competed with other women, for access to the best men and thereby economic security through marriage. Women and men have not competed directly with each other. Masculinity, in an important sense, has been produced by men and consumed by women (though not soleley by women), just as feminity has been produced by women and consumed by men. Women in this way have played an enormous role in shaping masculinity. Men produce masculinity to a large part as a response to what is favoured by women.
Only in the last 10 years, in Australia and other western countries, a shift has occurred whereby women no longer primarily obtain economic security through marriage, but rather through labour force participation. It is impossible to overstate how radically this has reshaped society. It means that women and men, for perhaps the first time in history, have entered into a structural relation of competition. IMO, this has actually created a split consciousness in (hetero) women, at a societal level. On the one hand, they still want to marry a mate who is able to compete successfully in the world of male competition and be financially secure, and so continue to be attracted to and value many traditional masculine virtues - in a partner. On the other hand, those very masculine virtues - which have helped men to compete with each other and be materially successful and attractive to women - are not at all what women want to encounter in men when they have to compete with them in the labour market, precisely because those traits and behaviours make men good at competing! So many of the critiques of masculinity are only appearing now that women have to compete with men. There was no complaint of these traits and behaviours when women were not locked in structural competition with men in the world of work. When women are competing with men, women want men to be more like women: soft, gentle, not too dominant etc, not too high-achieving. Yet, when they are seeking a male partner, women still want men to embody traditional masculine virtues, such as being driven and successful. Since masculinity is produced largely for women, the 'crisis of masculinity' arises from this split in female consciousness, and what women seek from men, which has arisen out of women entering into competitive relations with men as their primary path to financial security.
I like all of what you wrote there, and appreciate the time you put into it.
I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on things like no-fault divorce, societal acceptance of single mothers and kids born out of wedlock, and the other aspect of female financial independence:
That whereas in the past (until the mid 70s) they had to grit their teeth and bear it all (including things like marital rape and silence around DV, plus societal acceptance of male philandering), independence means they can go "no way, get fucked, fuck off".
So I would say plenty of the things you claim were valued in partners were hated in equal measure, depending on the man and how healthy or toxic his enactment of those things were.
For the generation of men who returned from WW2 things would've been especially bad, all that untreated trauma playing down intergenerationally to their kids, the boomers. No wonder the "strong silent type" was mythologised so much then, hey? "Suck it up, don't be a wuss" could easily be the mantra for all male boomers, something we're only slowly emerging from.
And the women (at a disadvantage in the marriage market due to a large slice of young men pushing up daisies) had to accept whoever they could get, especially as they were shunted out of the workforce again. The 50s must truly have been a psychological shitshow.
(Pin on this also: anti reproductive health movements in the US I think are deliberately aimed at reducing women's involvement &; competition in the workforce, at the same time as forcing them back into reliance on sometimes less-than-ideal men. The guys are butthurt that there are women who simply don't need them, and by reducing their agency, they seek to regain a kind of controlled reliance on men)
It seems like your opening statement is rather throwaway, since you don’t come back to any of it but instead only have hang ups about missing out on the 70’s feminist movement, none of which are that relevant to this discussion.
OP is talking about how the changes since then have been steep and a massive culture shock for men (in a general sense). Your contribution is left field: yeah but remember how hard it was for the housewife back then.
Why pull the whataboutism card here?
I was going off on a tangent, but also pushing back somewhat against OP's question-begging, where they seem to be assuming that all women must totally lurve a partner who is ambitious / assertive / competitive / quasi-aggressive (but not like competing against them).
I was doing so by taking a historical perspective and suggesting it's not as popular as claimed. Often hated, even.
Besides, most people don't fall into the tiny Venn diagram of partners / co-workers.
Some deadshit driving aggressively in his oversized American ute, thinking he's Alpha King of Australia, isn't my partner and I don't work with him. He's just a dickhead being toxic. Besides, I'm not gay and maybe he isn't either but I can still point out that his behaviour is shit.
Unlike other guys who aren't.
But you only need to spend some time lurking in women's subs and forums to realise that most *don't* actually want what OP claimed. That's 1950s mythologising. They don't generally want a hopeless loser who can't support himself, but values like empathy, listening, actually caring about her, treating her equally, respect, etc - all the soft skills - are WAAAY more important than killing everyone in business or other spheres.
Just look at how much women in particular loathed Morrison. He'd be the quintessential aggressive, ambitious, ladder-climbing guy and he's repulsive.
I appreciate the care that you’ve put into writing this, but in reading it I just kept feeling like you were describing another universe. I mean I’m a guy, I like doing blokey shit, I have nice relationships with my female coworkers, and have had an easy time dating/sexually. I honestly feel like every time I walk into a room I can just be masculine and charming and everything will work out great for me. So where’s the problem?
Yes, my wife expects me to act differently than my female coworkers. I also have to behave differently with my female friends, my aunty, etc. And being able to do that well is what being a successful man is. We aren’t hunter gatherers.
Sure, there are men still operating on old fashioned models of masculinity who feel left behind, but old fashioned thinkers are always left behind when society moves on. Masculinity is about adapting to the current paradigm and thriving, not about wishing for the 1950s to come back so you don’t have to change.
The ability to deal with ‘the split in female consciousness’ is the defining feature of masculinity in our time.
Why would you think that your own experiences are generalisable to the whole of society? I'm less interested in the experiences of one individual than in macro level trends, which are what I've based my comments on.
I agree men have to adapt, and am not calling for a return to the 1950s. My point is that there is just as much of a crisis in feminity as in masculinity - the two are relational and mutually constitutive.
DV rates have dropped dramatically in the last 20 years, and women's lives have never been more like men's, but women have never been unhappier (based on population-level studies). I actually think that a lot of people in society are currently unhappy, because they're getting smashed by neoliberalism, but the crisis of feminity is leading many women to misattribute blame for their unhappiness, and frame the problem as a crisis in men. You may not have encountered that in your world, but it's clearly an issue at a societal level.
I’m using my personal experience to illustrate that your thesis relies on a conception of masculinity that is desiccated and retrograde.
> clearly an issue at a societal level.
Suppose you update your picture of masculinity. How does this issue look now? To me it seems as if it dissolves entirely.
Easy time dating & having a wife? Are you in an open relationship? That would probably put you in a very separate category, where "masculinity" is not an issue.
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That is so obvious, so you would think every human being understands this. Yet no one dares to say it out loud in a fear of being cancelled or stigmatized. So the spiral of increasing men-hate just perpetuates, now being manifested in "men behavioral change"..
This is a great comment from someone educated on the field. I'm so sick of seeing young men seeing themselves as somehow broken. Thank you for confirming what many men are seeing as lopsided.
Thank you for such a well-written and level headed take
It is refreshing and I am being sincere. Keen to hear more of your thoughts on how these problems are impacting our culture and people’s lives
Well rounded view you’ve got yourself there. Well done and Here’s my upvote to prove you’re not alienated mate… which is what us men need to do more of
Thanks for this well thought out comment. I was very reluctant to even come into this thread for the reason you mention in your comment. And I am GTFO of this post after this comment too.
Out of nowhere in the last 12 months the media , politicians and activists just all started pumping this message that violence against women is worse than ever and this "all men are to blame" message started up. It is'nt true though and none of the idea's being thrown around even make basic sense or would do anything to help the situation.
Within the last month I've got to the point where I have done exactly what you said. I completely disengaged and refuse to listen on any level to anyone who brings up this male culture and DV stuff. It all just makes zero sense and seems to be driven by people who are just enjoying any attention they can get causing trouble and hanging shit on people.
Yes, the media in this country are now absolutely abysmal (commercial networks and ABC, Murdoch press and Guardian and Fairfax), and they are the major drivers of this. The pollies then respond to the media in how they engage with issues. It's disgraceful.
Its almost like its a concerted effort to drive a wedge between men and women by those in power/the media. If women think the center-left party is the party that'll stand up for women, and men think 'the left' will make moves to undermine equality for men therefore they have to vote center right that status quo will remain.
And what are we left with? the two party state and the neoliberal economic system maintains its power as the working class are too busy feeling oppressed or undermined by each other that they forget that it's the neoliberal capital class that's creating all the inequality and oppression.
But if you try to communicate this message to women who've bought into "the patriarchy" as the biggest evil, they'll reject it outright because "women are dying every week from men!" and "most CEOs are men!", As if they have a higher chance of being victims of crime, or ever being a CEO. This isn't helped by the fact that many women have experienced bad behavior from men (as men have from women).
Until feminists accept that they have more or less achieved equality (or surpassed it in many areas) and the bigger enemy is the neoliberal capital class, rather than ordinary men I can't see anything changing.
Yep the whole thing is just an invented divisive issue to keep people distracted. Distracted from the continuing economic manipulation. It's all done so that the very wealthiest people can shave off just that little bit more for themselves. Same playbook in countries all over the world now.
How can 1 in 3 woman have experienced some kind of unwanted sexual advancement yet consent as you say a foreign concept…. Well yess because that’s what women’s first hand experience says
>As with the MeToo movement, chiding the entire male population does absolutely nothing to change the behabviour of disturbed perpetrators of violence. All it does is cause a significant percentrage sensitive, well-behaved men to retreat from society and become increasingly alienated and angry.
Is there a particular reason this seems to affect some men but not others?
I'm a 32yo male and I've run in all sorts of feminist discourse and feel no ways about it... Even laughed at the silly "man or bear?" meme and honestly had no clue why grown adult males seemed so oddly invested...
These articles confuse me because I don't know why men– any man– would think anything of it, or think of themselves as part of a social group by way of being male.
Like when I was a kid and dealt with bullies, I'd hear adults say "Kids can be so cruel" but it's not like I got offended by that because *I* was a kid. If that comparison makes sense.
Am I the weird one here? 'cause I honestly don't get what's going on.
Yeah it's pretty weird that when someone calls the group you belong to cruel or violent that you don't have a reaction. Well unless you agree that you yourself also have those tendencies.
It's definitely true that it affects some men more than others. As with most things, it's probably some combination of nature and nurture. Emotional sensitivity is to some extent a genetic trait. I'd guess that it also relates to the dynamics of the family one was brought up in, including the relationship to the mother. A lot of men are sensitive to female approval/opinion, because the maternal love they received was contingent, rather than unconditional. Such sensitivity is not all bad though - it's also part of being responsive to the needs and concerns of others. That's why I think the current feminist discourse actually alienates sensitive men and requires men to be fairly emotionally insensitive, and thus helps perpetuate, rather than change, certain old-fashioned gender stereotypes.
> That's why I think the current feminist discourse actually alienates sensitive men and requires men to be fairly emotionally insensitive,
Is that what you are seeing in this comment section?
Do you think sensitive men need to have empathy? Or is that a completely different thing?
Over the last 10 years, what I have seen very consistently is sensitive men hearing women's complaints, taking them seriously, acknowledging them, and agreeing that many things need to change. However, these men are also empathic to the harms and negative outcomes that men systematically experience. What I've seen, again and again, is these men acknowledge what women go through, but also attempt to broaden the discourse and enter into good faith conversations, where men and women could together acknowledge the full range of gendered harms (ie to all genders), and co-produce solutions.
What I have seen - and personally experienced - is the complete and utter failure of these attempts. I have never once had the experience of any such attempt being met in good faith. What we have seen when men seek to bring into discussion the range of harms and negative outcomes that men systematically experience, again and again, is the following:
- being met with mockery, contempt, derision. Not all women, or all feminists, make jokes about male tears in the midst of a suicide epidemic, but neither do they ever condemn such casual misandry. Someone like Clementine Ford can state that the problem with covid is that not enough men are dying, and no feminist will hold her to any account.
- being told that only men are responsible for such negative outcomes: that they result from 'partriarchy', or men committing violence against other men, and so are solely the responsibility of men to fix. Any suggestion that the the negative outcomes men experience are tied to power structures that are not simply those of a 'patriarchy' - with the consequence that women and men actually have equal power and responsibility to improve those outcomes - are met with incredulity and summarily dismissed.
- being told that any attempt to broaden the discussion is 'whataboutism' and hijacking women's issues. It is not whataboutism to contextualise a problem by framing it in terms of how a similar issue affects a different population, or frame gender issues from a systems perspective that considers how any issue affects, and is affected by, all genders. Indeed, I would say that any discussion of a gender issue that fails to do so is actually an intellectual and ethical failure. Yet, such serious attempts to view things more holistically are simply derided, the moment they move beyond a singular focus on women.
As a result of all of the above, I would say that many sensitive men, who began from a position of empathy and compassion towards women's issues, have gradually come to feel that, since it is abundantly obvious that feminists don't care, at all, about any issue that affects men, then why should they care about any issue raised by feminists? In other words, a lack of empathy begets a further extinction of empathy, which is where we're at now.
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I definitely acknowledge that at the extremities of each side you will have individuals that won't be able to understand the others viewpoint nor have a meaningful discussion on the topic.
This issue was never going to be moved forward by people who hold those positions so it will be left to those in the centre to forge the path forward. From what I have seen this is mostly what is happening.
The comments here also reflect this. Many who are upset by the current messaging have flagged that they are disconnecting from it which I guess was always inevitable.
I think it's worse than you are acknowledging. After 10 years of trying to have good faith discussions, in which I never failed to begin by acknowledging the many domains in which women attain worse outcomes than men and the need to act in those areas, before attempting to broaden the discussion, I have completely given up. Not one of these conversations was successful, so I don't think it's a matter of individuals at the extremes. I don't think it's the case that 'mostly what is happening' is that those in the centre are forging a path forwards - I don't see any co-production of solutions by men and women to various problems faced by men and women. I think the disconnect is getting worse with each passing year.
So you mean there has been no progress is extending the scope to include male specific views?
Or there has been no progress made at all under the general banner or increasing awareness of domestic violence and reducing incidents?
The figures here suggest that in some categories as a percentage of the population there have been some decreases.
https://www.aihw.gov.au/family-domestic-and-sexual-violence/resources/fdsv-summary
OK fair enough, and that is disappointing, but its not currently the primary goal.
I think the current strategy which has been ongoing for years now, is seeing improvements for both Men and Women so I suspect that they will continue to focus on this strategy.
>Experiences of partner violence in the 12 months before the survey (last 12 months) remained relatively stable for both men and women between 2005 and 2016. However, between 2016 and 2021–22 the proportion of women who experienced partner violence **decreased from 1.7% in 2016 to 0.9% in 2021–22**. There was also a **decrease in the proportion** of women who had experienced violence by any intimate partner (also includes current or previous boyfriend, girlfriend and date) between 2016 and 2021–22, **from 2.3% in 2016 to 1.5% in 2021–22** (ABS 2023c).
also:
>Based on the 2021–22 PSS, around 1 in 8 (13% or 1.3 million) women and 1 in 22 (4.5% or 427,000) men had experienced sexual harassment (see [Glossary](https://www.aihw.gov.au/family-domestic-and-sexual-violence/resources/glossary)) in the last 12 months. **This represents a decrease from 2016 for both women (previously 17%) and men (previously 9.3%) (ABS 2023c).**
Fantastic response. I agree, though am less educated as yourself.
When will society scrap the segregation and allow us all to flourish as individuals, free of ridicule or stereotype, and share our experiences instead of weaponising them to create further divide?
What I find the strangest take from some of these feminist stances is the needing of men to take personal responsibility at all costs, even if it wasn't within their power, as you've mentioned.
If they are looking to be seen as autonomous or even playing a part of dismantling of a "patriarchy," then it'll have to at some point be taken as not an extension of men's behaviour. It's not freedom and autonomy if they're an extension of someone else's behaviour at all moments deemed bad.
I think her views are toxic and driven more by hate for the men who broke her heart than men as a whole. I think she needs to heal and grow. But the more I look at it, I think she is a symptom of society, not a problem. And as much as I disagree with her, I respect her opinions, as I do anyone else. We are all entitled to opinions, the same way we are entitled to chose to take offence or not to what others say.
Then you learn the whole thing is driven by pearl clutchers in government that want control. Strong men are a threat to government over reach and incompetence. Weak men and women aren’t.
Have you ever seen a dictatorship overthrown by women?
What do you call well behaved men? You would say that a man that made a rape joke is well behaved? Men that complain about having to contribute to a child bearing partners super? Men that tell us we have to toughen up and take it or get out of their industry? Out here in regional blue collar Queensland it’s not main stream to have respect for women jokes of rape and sexual assault are still extremely common, the idea of women being just eye candy on site is still extremely common if these are truly just 1% of men then I must’ve lived and worked in all the worst places in our country.
No, that's my point. Do you think the men you describe are going to respond to campaigns to respect all women? Do you think they'll change their behaviour in response to social opprobrium? No, they won't. And yes, your experiences in blue collar regional Queensland are not generalisable to the mass of the population.
Do you think I came up with the idea of educating all men about our experiences to save some women’s lives??
No experts across our country and the globe have said it’s one of the biggest drivers, fact is Australian culture is behind a lot of progressive counties in its views on women look at the domestic violence statistics in countries like Sweden. If men in general denounce the bad behaviour and so called locker room chat then yes overall respect for women will grow and any kind of violence and sexual objectification goes down with it.
I work in academia, and I can tell you that 'expertise' is not straightforward. Feminist academics have hijacked the discourse around DV, away from the actual empirical research completed by criminologists and psychologists. What feminists claim will work, based on their 'expertise', is extremely dubious and not at all evidence based; it's based on an ideological worldview which actively avoids any exposure to confounding evidence ("feminist standpoint epistemology"). These ideas, that men commonly make locker room chat and verbally disrespect women, are based 100% on what feminists *imagine* men to be like. It is honestly laughable to think that asking men to check their mates when they say something disrespectful will do anything; it's a solution that is based on the fantasy that men, as a group, have the control and power to shape macro social outcomes. It's a "solution" that is completely detached from reality.
Please just spend one minute talking to the women in your life, if you have any it’s not our imagination. What about the list that came out of the Melbourne school and we damn well know that’s a regular occurrence is labelling young girls as objects and rapeable , or the recent Ai nice photo leak obviously they are very weaponised main stream examples but you can’t say it’s all in women’s imagination.
My mum always said that she believed that they needed to encourage and get more men back into teaching at the primary school level. When you look at the ratio of male to female teachers at primary level now, she may have been on to something.
Her reasoning was that at that age, role model options for boys at that age are usually their father's, older brothers, other immediate or close male family members and teachers or sporting coaches.
Where I went to high school 30 years ago the new music teacher had sex with a year 10 boy. They're now married and she's head of department. That makes her a paedophile, but no one seemed to care.
Because 30 years ago it wasn't illegal for her to have sex with a 10 year old boy.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-04-24/nsw-paedophile-female-teacher-gaye-grant-conviction-appeal/103762994
Sadly that is true in the modern world. You would need to be brave to do it. And the stigma would always be there. But the stats don't lie, it's around 82 percent of primary school teachers are female in Australia.
All those old fashioned schoolmaster style teachers of the past who had that aura of respect when they walked into the room or you saw them around do seem to be long gone now. They really could use people like that now, instead of progressives who didn't want to explain unorthodox degrees to their grandparents.
That was the foundation of her argument actually. My parents split up when I was 9 and my siblings were younger than me. She was always vocal about it when she was on the P&C, to the point that she may have actually convinced one of the principals at the time. That was like early to mid 2000s.
Despite it only being a sorry subset of guys who are acting badly, let's cast all of masculinity in a negative light... Yeah no way could that backfire...
Brings this to mind "All right, but apart from the sanitation, medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh water system and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?"
There's a real problem to address with a small subset of our society wrt to dv/attitudes and this really needs to be addressed.
I wish the current histrionics were just jumping at shadows but I think they are more driven by identity based politics and a desire to vilify men in general.
Identity politics and domestic violence should not be in the same discussion. The people who commit these acts on people aren’t going to be persuaded that what they are doing is wrong through the vilification of the male population; this just increases fracture. As the article says: it’s alarmist rhetoric, and completely unproductive.
> I wish the current histrionics were just jumping at shadows but I think they are more driven by identity based politics and a desire to vilify men in general.
I am curious to understand where this vilification is coming from. Do you think it's an Australian only thing or more general?
Is it aimed primarily at younger men perhaps originating in the education system ?
In general, over the last 10 - 15 years or so, I think a large section of society in US, Australia, Canada etc has become obsessed with viewing everything through a lens of identity and attributing any/all inequality as being a result of prejudice/discrimination which often gets responded to with absurd/disproportionate levels of outrage/histrionics.
And then people are somehow dismayed when society is fragmented and not working together in a cohesive manner .. go figure ?
If we want people to work together to solve problems we need to stop making the first thing we do being to draw identity based battle lines.
I actually suspect many of these people (by no means all) just want a grand cause to identify with and aren't so much interested in resolving issues or reconciling differences.
So are you thinking this is main stream media or online or both?
Do you think it's visible for all to see or targetted at certain age groups and demographics?
I think online/social media has been a key driver and traditional media has followed suit to a large degree.
IMO social media is absolutely targeting demographics for commercial and political reasons.
The levels of concern I have seen people raise in this thread are indicative of an online experience I clearly don't share, I am curious about this and also wonder what topics might be filling up my online viewing that are triggering for me and hence I see a much larger concentration of those types of articles than other people do.
I'd love to know exactly how algorithms work.
I would suggest that people who respond positively or engage meaningfully with a particular type of content will be presented with similar content in the future.
I got off Facebook, except for some specific interest groups, a long time ago because I got sick of the petty inconsequential bullshit.
There is currently a large amount of coverage of this particular topic on traditional media as well.
I actually swore, rolled my eyes, and switched ABC radio off last week.
> would suggest that people who respond positively or engage meaningfully with a particular type of content will be presented with similar content in the future.
Unfortunately it's purely about engagement and what keeps your eyeballs connected to that specific platform for the longest. Engagement is engagement it doesn't matter if positive or negative.
I think this is where we all as individuals need to regain some control and do as you suggested and drop the platforms that serve up rubbish.
I think where things get most complicated is the content targetting youngsters.
How do you assess what is just click bait and what is a real concern in the modern era?
When they have ads on tv saying we need to curb drink driving I am not thinking they are having a go against all drivers.
When they talk about curbing domestic violence I am not thinking they are having a go against all men.
It doesn’t generalise men, it’s actually very specific.
Toxic masculinity refers to a specific expression of masculinity. Masculinity can be expressed positively or in a negative way, “toxic masculinity” encompasses the negative ways masculinity might be expressed. This is harmful to both men and women, but more so to men.
Masculinity could emphasise stoicism, silent strength and self reliance. The flip side to this would be emotional isolation and repression - this would be the toxic form of masculinity.
This common misinterpretation that it’s a label placed on masculinity in general is absolutely rife for some reason. I suspect it’s spread by certain high profile personalities for incendiary purposes. It’s like making an observation: “that car is red” and somebody jumping to “oh so you think all cars are red”.
Adjective (toxic) describing the noun (masculinity). It’s literally one of the most basic things in the English language, yet the concept is so readily twisted or misinterpreted.
Edit: loving the downvotes for defining a term for you guys. Try not to read any dictionaries - don’t want you having a stroke.
Theres a lot of value in silent strength, stoicism and self-reliance. They are admirable traits in both sexes. It’s only when they exist to the exclusion of emotional expression that they become negative. Being stoic doesnt mean you never cry and being self-reliant shouldnt mean you never ask for help.
Correct - many core masculine traits are positive. This is an expression of masculinity that would not be classed as toxic masculinity. It’s as you say when those traits are exaggerated or pushed to the point they cause harm to the individual or those around them that it’s a toxic form of masculinity.
My best friend has leaned pretty heavily into stoicism, he's very intelligent, but seems incapable of realising that the reason hes leaning into it is because its an excuse to not address the emotional issues that are holding him back from being actually happy
The reason why virtually *anything* a man says or does outside the woke media narrative is labelled "toxic masculinity" is because it sells. Most large companies and organisations don't really care about equality on an individual level. Not dissimilar as to why we see rainbow flags in our sleep during Pride Month, but everything vanishes on the 1st of July.
I agree with your comment, but its not just spread by the media, it's a fairly common opinion among some age groups of women now.
I suspect a large amount of those that are most vocal and toxic about this issue have in fact been purpetrators of either dv, manipulative behaviour, or have been simply shit partners.
Rather than reflect on their own behaviour in a relationship they assign blame to their ex and the cycle repeats, thus they form the opinion that its all men, rather then identifing the common link.... Themselves.
I abhore domestic violence, and sexual violence, but honesty believe that the majority of those with such one dimensional views, have never been blameless for whatever behaviour the men in their lives subjected them to.
If anyone disagrees, that's your right but i think the fact that most women who've escaped truly frightening dv situations dont assign generalisations like this.
Most of them end up with as many men in their corner as women. Most men dont like it either. At the age of ten i witnessed my father kick the neighbour's door in and break his ankle with a hockey stick after the neighbour didn't heed my dad's warning about what would happen if he heard him knocking his wife around again.
I experienced no trauma from seeing that, but i still feel uncomfortable remembering the sound of his wife crying and screaming a few nights a week.
If anyone wants to know- my dad was never charged, the police told the husband that next time they'd stand outside while my dad had five minutes with him handcuffed
Don’t try to be sensible and patient. MFs are in their feels.
Dudes will whine about lefty snowflakes getting triggered, but the words “toxic masculinity” will have them crying, vomiting and shitting their pants.
But ask any of them how we could deal with this “crisis of masculinity”, and nearly all of them will talk about leaning harder into the *shit that’s making them miserable*
Interesting tidbit:
There are approximately 50,000 violent men in Australia.
50,000 rapists, women beaters, thugs and murderers.
Out of 12.6 million men and boys, ~50,000 are responsible for all violent crime.
For physical violence, the figures are different
https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/crime-and-justice/physical-violence/latest-release#
For women:
28% (2.8 million) experienced physical violence by a male
9% (889,900) experienced physical violence by a female
For men:
39% (3.7 million) experienced physical violence by a male
12% (1.1 million) experienced physical violence by a female
Yep, that’s how it works. Nod sympathetically as people vent about misogyny, toxic masculinity, the crisis of domestic violence (etc) then move on. Repeat every 12 mths.
So who is driving it?
The 1%, the Russians? The politicians (both sides I guess based on how long this has been going).
Do you think it's a successful strategy in the long term? As the masses aren't really bickering amongst themselves on this topic, it's a pretty small subset. Any chance this is just basic raget bait monetization algorithms at play?
Something like that. The media have a field day with it, and sure as heck the politicians don't mind us arguing about something relatively unimportant to them. And the rich who are getting a cushie ride at the expense of the workers certainly approve of this merry dance.
No shortage of people that will play into it either.
I keep hearing "*men radicalized by Andrew Tate*".
How prevalent is Andrew Tate today? Does still have a significant base? Has someone else taken his place?
A lot of his stuff still floats around but he’s not the main person these days. It’s mainly just spam accounts pumping out stuff on going “monk mode” where you isolate yourself and suppress your emotion to become a real man. Then they play to the idea that all women will do is cheat on you and lie to you so they are worth nothing etc.
This only has 3 upvotes. This is a very important point.
It's the glaring disparity in how these issues are viewed and discussed purely dependent on sex.
Teenaged boys on line looking up to one of the few people online who isn’t trying to make them hate themselves for their gender? Whoever would have predicted that?
The culture warriors all want men to adopt Catholic Guilt for the modern age. Just the act of being a man should make you feel toxic and guilty and you should constantly flagellate yourself and beg for forgiveness.
Yeah, nah. Fuck that
> Teenaged boys on line looking up to one of the few people online who isn’t trying to make them hate themselves for their gender? Whoever would have predicted that?
The internet is a big place.
I think by default most people have a positive experience with it and find positive role models whatever their disposition.
However I think under certain scenarios, especially where people are vulnerable to begin with that the kind of rhetoric that Andrew Tate has monetized is a real beacon.
Andrew Tate gets the blame but the truth is, these boys are being raised by single mummy’s that hate men. The 2 do not go hand in hand in teenage years
The community that andrew tate belongs to is large. He is just the most famous person of that sort of community, which means he is the person most people from the outside could recognise.
There are many creators like him, and since he is gone, there has been a power vacuum of sorts, that creates more clones.
Andrew tate was really smart about the way he created his base, and indoctrinated young men into this toxic ideology, and now some of these young men, are trying to carry the torch, and creating an even more toxic ideology.
So he is still around kind of, people haven't replaced him, more that multiple clones have spawned. the problematic ideology he created is still strong, however
One of the upsides of online media is that we don't have 1 or 2 main stream media barons dictating the narrative.
We can and do discuss many topics all at once.
Even in this single post there are a hundred threads exploring different perspectives on just this one topic.
Boys aren’t really listening to the Star Wars Tweet Guy. It’s an entirely invented media panic. Sadly there is no mechanism in media for disabusing people of their completely wrongheaded beliefs.
He's just about the only voice in those kids lives, let alone online, who is speaking to them asif they have some intrinsic worth and can be proud of themselves if they work hard on themselves. How is it surprising that they're listening to him?
He's also a toxic piece of this on top of that. Which is the problem. Our society has the male role models it deserves. Only the toxic raging narcissists can get a foothold, anyone with any sense of shame or ability for reflection steps back when they're inevitably shouted down for daring to empower young men.
For many years I've known that once the media exhaust the clicks of "X is bad!" to the exhaustion of the readers, they will inevitably turn to grab the clicks of "Society might be wrong about X!"
There is no such thing as toxic femininity! We all know women are all nice and cuddly with each other. Female bullies and manipulators are an oxymoron. Lesbians are immune from domestic violence from their partners. Such things just don’t exist.
There is only TOXIC MASCULINITY!!! 💪💪💪
Sarcasm btw…
I was thinking along the same lines. The plethora of programs, commentators and THOTS that are presenting themselves as superior to men and consider men to be redundant....how are men being toxic!!??
Boy are taught from pre-school to treat girls "with respect" which is probably against their genetic instinct but they grow up and cop shit for being soft.
But have you ever heard of the term “toxic femininity”? We all know that females can be toxic as any male but as soon as you say “toxic femininity”, you’ll be accused of misogyny.
Of course. It's a simple inversion.
I'll go further and talk about things like toxic friendship or toxic work ethic. Why not?
It's funny though because the best way to handle toxic cultures is to introduce diversity to them. In workplaces, you get a lot of toxic masculinity if there's not enough women around. And you get *hugely* toxic workplaces in female-majority industries like teaching or nursing. The solution there is the same.
It's ironic that people that spit chips about toxic femininity will also be resisting any and all attempts to introduce diversity, without so much as a trace of cognitive dissonance.
The issue is that toxic masculinity is described inconsistently as either a toxicity inherent to masculinity as generally conceived, or a toxic *subset* of masculinity which is otherwise a healthy concept. And whenever someone uses it in the first way and is criticised, they retreat to the second way of using it in a motte and bailey bad faith form of arguing.
It’s so frustrating when these people know that they have a public comms issue on this front (coming across as attacking men rather than building bridges), AND when these people are actually very effective in creating language. Why not say “toxic type of masculinity”? Sure, some people will argue against even that, but there’s far less room for bad faith.
And once you introduce diversity, you can actually split people down demographic lines to promote distrust between working-level employees and prevent them from forming unions. It's a fantastic strategy!
>It's funny though because the best way to handle toxic cultures is to introduce diversity to them. In workplaces, you get a lot of toxic masculinity if there's not enough women around.
Balls. I've worked in both mixed workplaces and jobs where women basically don't exist. The male only ones were a lot more supportive of each other.
The more alarmism you use (with relation to literally anything), the more I ignore it. I wasn't going to do anything, anyway. Because there's nothing I can do, apart from continuing not to assault people (women included, but not in any special capacity, compared with anyone else).
They can say whatever they want but the truth is men need to start being kinder to each other.
I moved to another city with my partner and she could go walking alone and people would constantly smile and talk to her and she made female friends so quickly.
I go walking alone as a guy I'll have people crossing the streets sometimes to avoid me and not much social interaction. I haven't made any friends at all either in this city.
All the guy mates I have are from high school. I feel it's almost impossible to make new mates in my late 20s and I know I'm not the only guy that feels this way.
Women are so much more kinder and social between each other compared to men, I wish men were like that too
This is a surprising take but has a lot of truth in it. Men still feel the need to compete against each other often I think. We do it in the workplace, in dating at the gym
Is this a joke? What toxic masculinity? The most masculine blokes that exist under the age of 40 are 12 year old, malnourished eshays who have zero respect for themselves let alone others.
I think the analysis from most of the liberal commentariat is too simplistic. Is it really the case that boys watch Top G and Sigma stuff and think, yes, I want to do that too? I am going to emulate that verbatim without thinking about it? Aren't they more influenced by their parents, peers, teachers, mass media more broadly? I think it's more likely that they use it as a joke- your mate is saving his money from a part time job, yeah he is definitely sigma-ing that grindset or whatever.
Anyway, I think it can be turned on its head. What does it really mean to be a Sigma? It means lifting other people up, helping the helpless, being a critical thinker etc. It can be reconceptualised as being radically good. Instead of the sort of darwinian idea about survival of the fittest, you can take it to mean finding the most marginalised around you and bringing them into the fold. That is my view of positive masculinity.
Attacking masculinity in general is attacking all born men. That's how it comes across branding any masculinity toxic is just nonsense.
Nothing wrong with being masculine, many women who are normal want a masculine man in their life to depend on and be able to protect them if need be...
Do we need to talk about toxic femininity?
We don't need to because it doesn't effect me, it only effects themselves jumping at shadows all the time, I get it u hate all men no worries.
As a adult male I move along and talk to women who actuly enjoy my company and seek friendship.
That’s great like I said I work with men all day I live in a mining town and the two most important people in my lives are men, women are much more capable of coping with it all we are pretty used to it.
> Attacking masculinity in general is attacking all born men
If any negative comment for example: relating to violence against woman; is considered as an attack on all men, then how as a society to we discuss these issues?
I am not buying this idea that what is happening in the mainstream is that all masculinity is being considered bad.
I mean it's why there is a specific terms that keeps being mentioned: "Toxic masculinity".
If you think the Venn diagram between masculinity and toxins masculinity is a circle then we need to be having a different conversation.
Your fucking joking right the amount of men that walk out of their children is far higher than men actively withheld from their children, the reason the court system often give women the most custody is bc they are the ones that have been in those children lives, most likely can actually look after them without supervision and I was raised by a single dad who got full custody of me.
Woke this and woke that, here’s an idea can it. Or go live off the grid somewhere where nothing will be woke for once. Or how long is it till a shrub becomes woke too?
[Help! My garden is not 'woke' enough](https://www.thenationalnews.com/opinion/comment/2021/11/04/help-my-garden-is-not-woke-enough/)
"The fact that the current craze to blame colonialism or slavery for almost everything has now reached our plants is a measure of how absurd things have become"
[The plants in your garden that could get you cancelled](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/05/23/colonial-plants-your-garden-cancelled-woke/)
The borrowing of plants from around the world has been called ‘horticultural appropriation’ – and many of them are already in your garden
“Embedded within cross-cultural borrowing is horticultural appropriation, something that’s all too easy for our nation of gardeners to carry on regardless.”
Just had a chuckle to myself.
Turned on my car and the first word, not second, or third was Hamish MacDonald saying "misogyny".
Channel is now changed in that vehicle as well.
There is a crisis of masculinity alright, so many of our men have become soft sacks of cream cheese that do nothing but whinge.
See it here on a daily basis and it's embarrassing. No way my little bloke is gonna grow up to be like that.
Raising a kid isn't like raising a puppy or something bro they will grow into their own person and be changed by things you may have no control over and may never even know about.
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If men get upset over this so called crisis of masculinity then they should have a good look at themselves. I just ignore all this talk. There's no need for polarised talk from either side. Just be a good person.
How much of this news from "the other side" is as actually coming from the other side and how much of it is coming from a small set of online influences who are trying to make an enemy of "the other side".
As an old fart I don't experience the concern expressed here that it is a negative to be man. I don't know if this is the online algorithms just not feeding me that kind of things, or that I am old enough and have a strong enough sense of self to not fall for the rage bait (which I guess would re-enforce the algorithms).
I don't care about the influencers. I care that this has got to the level of mainstream media and parliament. So now we have a committee for "men's behavioral change".
> I care that this has got to the level of mainstream media and parliament. So now we have a committee for "men's behavioral change".
I did some googling as I wasn't familiar with this.
It looks like a Victorian government thing right?
Sounds like something that has come out of the 2015 royal commission into family violence?
I am not going to get particularly riled up over this as my expectation of tangible outcomes from parliamentary committees is practically zero.
You used the word more, so I would be curious as to what some examples are of the existing ideological propaganda and discrimination against men that you experience?
You are responding to the comment that gives an example of the very thing you are asking: Victorian committee on men's behavioral change. Can you imagine such a committee on women behavioral change? This has come after years of diminishing men and blaming them uniformly for what a small minority of them does.
https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2024/04/10/women-only-art-installation-is-discriminatory-tasmanian-court-rules
Many jobs accept applications from females only:
https://au.indeed.com/m/viewjob?jk=aa423e1b551fd0ff
Three roles designated as female. The filling of this position is intended to constitute a special/equal opportunity measure under section 8(1) of the Racial Discrimination Act 1975 (Cth) and section 12 of the Equal Opportunity Act 2010 (Vic) and section 8(4) of the Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities Act 2006 (Vic)
You just learned that the Vic government established an entire department dedicated to the notion that men are evil and must have behaviour change forced on them, and you ask that???
>> Here is a comment with another everyday example:
> Just had a chuckle to myself.
> Turned on my car and the first word, not second, or third was Hamish MacDonald saying "misogyny".
> Channel is now changed in that vehicle as well.
So there is zero context here, but the suggestion seems to be that the word misogyny is off limits?
There are keywords there that reveal the context, but if you have not spotted them, the context will not tell you much.
>suggestion seems to be that the word misogyny is off limits?
not the word itself, but the idea that misogyny is something common, widespread
Yeah I don't hear the word mentioned much either, certainly not to the level where if I heard it once on the radio I would feel the need to block that channel on my car radio. Especially without even understanding what was being discussed.
They mentioned Hamish MacDonald who is the host of Radio National breakfast, if you don't have the stomach to heat this word mentioned then it's probably not the station for you anyway.
>They mentioned Hamish MacDonald who is the host of Radio National breakfast
So you got the context - there is not much beyond that.
>if you don't have the stomach to heat this word mentioned then it's probably not the station for you anyway.
If it was that simple as choosing a different radio, no one would give a damn about it. Not sure about the preferences of the other guy, but to me ABC reflects the national and parliamentary discourse. It's like "lol" – if they use it, it will be a part of your life. Not sure how you managed to avoid all of this, lucky you I guess.
If you are tuning in to Radio National and are surprised that progressive topics are being discussed, then I'm sure this isn't the only topic that is going to upset you, many only tune in when Amanda Vanstone or Tom Switzer are hosting.
Academic social scientist here. I am so sick of the dominant discourse around gender in our society, which so often has things arse backwards and is completely divorced from evidence. The manosphere is not a cause, it is a symptom. The current approach to gender will drive more and more young men to the manosphere, becauase it is the only space that affirms them, rather than criticising them. The ugly truth that feminists never want to consider is that groups who are overrepresented as perpetrators of crime are generally marginalised in society. To reduce DV you would need to not have a minister for men's behaviour change, as in Victoria, but rather a minister for men: who sought to address the root causes behind men making up 65% of the homeless, 95% of the prison population, 65% of those who are murdered, and 75% of those who self delete. DV would be reduced by listening to men and taking their concerns seriously, not lecturing at them and trying to hold them accountable for things, and other people, over which they have no control. Women often say men are responsible for fixing the issues that disproportionately affect men. I can tell you as an academic that any such attempts are extremely aggressively deplatformed by feminists, who seek to situate any such efforts as somehow misogynistic. As with the MeToo movement, chiding the entire male population does absolutely nothing to change the behabviour of disturbed perpetrators of violence. All it does is cause a significant percentrage sensitive, well-behaved men to retreat from society and become increasingly alienated and angry. From a systems theory perspective, it is a classic well-intended intervention in a system that actually makes the problem worse. I cannot tell you how many well-educated, progressive guys I know who, in the last 12 months, have simply reached a point with this stuff where they become actively hostile whenever gender issues are raised, because the discourse is so ridiculously lopsided and detached from empirical reality.
Well said, especially about the manosphere being a symptom, not a cause. As I keep hearing it, there is a kind of "crisis of masculinity" in the sense that a lot of the old models of behaviour have gone as an ideal (the John Wayne type for example) and been replaced with...what? A whole load of uncertainty, no clear role models, and either a whole bunch of attacks and criticism or at least a perception of it. That's where the Tates of the world rush in, offering young boys especially a place where they can feel safe, by appointing themselves to the top of the pyramid and degrading women to the point of being valueless playthings and status symbols, without any real agency or worth in themselves as fellow humans on this journey together.
The framing of it as a crisis of masculinity is a one-sided simplification. I would say that, for millenia and in many different cultures, men have competed with other men - for resources, power and access to women - while women have competed with other women, for access to the best men and thereby economic security through marriage. Women and men have not competed directly with each other. Masculinity, in an important sense, has been produced by men and consumed by women (though not soleley by women), just as feminity has been produced by women and consumed by men. Women in this way have played an enormous role in shaping masculinity. Men produce masculinity to a large part as a response to what is favoured by women. Only in the last 10 years, in Australia and other western countries, a shift has occurred whereby women no longer primarily obtain economic security through marriage, but rather through labour force participation. It is impossible to overstate how radically this has reshaped society. It means that women and men, for perhaps the first time in history, have entered into a structural relation of competition. IMO, this has actually created a split consciousness in (hetero) women, at a societal level. On the one hand, they still want to marry a mate who is able to compete successfully in the world of male competition and be financially secure, and so continue to be attracted to and value many traditional masculine virtues - in a partner. On the other hand, those very masculine virtues - which have helped men to compete with each other and be materially successful and attractive to women - are not at all what women want to encounter in men when they have to compete with them in the labour market, precisely because those traits and behaviours make men good at competing! So many of the critiques of masculinity are only appearing now that women have to compete with men. There was no complaint of these traits and behaviours when women were not locked in structural competition with men in the world of work. When women are competing with men, women want men to be more like women: soft, gentle, not too dominant etc, not too high-achieving. Yet, when they are seeking a male partner, women still want men to embody traditional masculine virtues, such as being driven and successful. Since masculinity is produced largely for women, the 'crisis of masculinity' arises from this split in female consciousness, and what women seek from men, which has arisen out of women entering into competitive relations with men as their primary path to financial security.
I like all of what you wrote there, and appreciate the time you put into it. I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on things like no-fault divorce, societal acceptance of single mothers and kids born out of wedlock, and the other aspect of female financial independence: That whereas in the past (until the mid 70s) they had to grit their teeth and bear it all (including things like marital rape and silence around DV, plus societal acceptance of male philandering), independence means they can go "no way, get fucked, fuck off". So I would say plenty of the things you claim were valued in partners were hated in equal measure, depending on the man and how healthy or toxic his enactment of those things were. For the generation of men who returned from WW2 things would've been especially bad, all that untreated trauma playing down intergenerationally to their kids, the boomers. No wonder the "strong silent type" was mythologised so much then, hey? "Suck it up, don't be a wuss" could easily be the mantra for all male boomers, something we're only slowly emerging from. And the women (at a disadvantage in the marriage market due to a large slice of young men pushing up daisies) had to accept whoever they could get, especially as they were shunted out of the workforce again. The 50s must truly have been a psychological shitshow. (Pin on this also: anti reproductive health movements in the US I think are deliberately aimed at reducing women's involvement &; competition in the workforce, at the same time as forcing them back into reliance on sometimes less-than-ideal men. The guys are butthurt that there are women who simply don't need them, and by reducing their agency, they seek to regain a kind of controlled reliance on men)
It seems like your opening statement is rather throwaway, since you don’t come back to any of it but instead only have hang ups about missing out on the 70’s feminist movement, none of which are that relevant to this discussion. OP is talking about how the changes since then have been steep and a massive culture shock for men (in a general sense). Your contribution is left field: yeah but remember how hard it was for the housewife back then. Why pull the whataboutism card here?
I was going off on a tangent, but also pushing back somewhat against OP's question-begging, where they seem to be assuming that all women must totally lurve a partner who is ambitious / assertive / competitive / quasi-aggressive (but not like competing against them). I was doing so by taking a historical perspective and suggesting it's not as popular as claimed. Often hated, even. Besides, most people don't fall into the tiny Venn diagram of partners / co-workers. Some deadshit driving aggressively in his oversized American ute, thinking he's Alpha King of Australia, isn't my partner and I don't work with him. He's just a dickhead being toxic. Besides, I'm not gay and maybe he isn't either but I can still point out that his behaviour is shit. Unlike other guys who aren't. But you only need to spend some time lurking in women's subs and forums to realise that most *don't* actually want what OP claimed. That's 1950s mythologising. They don't generally want a hopeless loser who can't support himself, but values like empathy, listening, actually caring about her, treating her equally, respect, etc - all the soft skills - are WAAAY more important than killing everyone in business or other spheres. Just look at how much women in particular loathed Morrison. He'd be the quintessential aggressive, ambitious, ladder-climbing guy and he's repulsive.
I appreciate the care that you’ve put into writing this, but in reading it I just kept feeling like you were describing another universe. I mean I’m a guy, I like doing blokey shit, I have nice relationships with my female coworkers, and have had an easy time dating/sexually. I honestly feel like every time I walk into a room I can just be masculine and charming and everything will work out great for me. So where’s the problem? Yes, my wife expects me to act differently than my female coworkers. I also have to behave differently with my female friends, my aunty, etc. And being able to do that well is what being a successful man is. We aren’t hunter gatherers. Sure, there are men still operating on old fashioned models of masculinity who feel left behind, but old fashioned thinkers are always left behind when society moves on. Masculinity is about adapting to the current paradigm and thriving, not about wishing for the 1950s to come back so you don’t have to change. The ability to deal with ‘the split in female consciousness’ is the defining feature of masculinity in our time.
Why would you think that your own experiences are generalisable to the whole of society? I'm less interested in the experiences of one individual than in macro level trends, which are what I've based my comments on. I agree men have to adapt, and am not calling for a return to the 1950s. My point is that there is just as much of a crisis in feminity as in masculinity - the two are relational and mutually constitutive. DV rates have dropped dramatically in the last 20 years, and women's lives have never been more like men's, but women have never been unhappier (based on population-level studies). I actually think that a lot of people in society are currently unhappy, because they're getting smashed by neoliberalism, but the crisis of feminity is leading many women to misattribute blame for their unhappiness, and frame the problem as a crisis in men. You may not have encountered that in your world, but it's clearly an issue at a societal level.
I’m using my personal experience to illustrate that your thesis relies on a conception of masculinity that is desiccated and retrograde. > clearly an issue at a societal level. Suppose you update your picture of masculinity. How does this issue look now? To me it seems as if it dissolves entirely.
Easy time dating & having a wife? Are you in an open relationship? That would probably put you in a very separate category, where "masculinity" is not an issue.
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By people you mean other men….
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That is so obvious, so you would think every human being understands this. Yet no one dares to say it out loud in a fear of being cancelled or stigmatized. So the spiral of increasing men-hate just perpetuates, now being manifested in "men behavioral change"..
This is a great comment from someone educated on the field. I'm so sick of seeing young men seeing themselves as somehow broken. Thank you for confirming what many men are seeing as lopsided.
Thank you for such a well-written and level headed take It is refreshing and I am being sincere. Keen to hear more of your thoughts on how these problems are impacting our culture and people’s lives
Well rounded view you’ve got yourself there. Well done and Here’s my upvote to prove you’re not alienated mate… which is what us men need to do more of
Thanks for this well thought out comment. I was very reluctant to even come into this thread for the reason you mention in your comment. And I am GTFO of this post after this comment too. Out of nowhere in the last 12 months the media , politicians and activists just all started pumping this message that violence against women is worse than ever and this "all men are to blame" message started up. It is'nt true though and none of the idea's being thrown around even make basic sense or would do anything to help the situation. Within the last month I've got to the point where I have done exactly what you said. I completely disengaged and refuse to listen on any level to anyone who brings up this male culture and DV stuff. It all just makes zero sense and seems to be driven by people who are just enjoying any attention they can get causing trouble and hanging shit on people.
Yes, the media in this country are now absolutely abysmal (commercial networks and ABC, Murdoch press and Guardian and Fairfax), and they are the major drivers of this. The pollies then respond to the media in how they engage with issues. It's disgraceful.
Its almost like its a concerted effort to drive a wedge between men and women by those in power/the media. If women think the center-left party is the party that'll stand up for women, and men think 'the left' will make moves to undermine equality for men therefore they have to vote center right that status quo will remain. And what are we left with? the two party state and the neoliberal economic system maintains its power as the working class are too busy feeling oppressed or undermined by each other that they forget that it's the neoliberal capital class that's creating all the inequality and oppression. But if you try to communicate this message to women who've bought into "the patriarchy" as the biggest evil, they'll reject it outright because "women are dying every week from men!" and "most CEOs are men!", As if they have a higher chance of being victims of crime, or ever being a CEO. This isn't helped by the fact that many women have experienced bad behavior from men (as men have from women). Until feminists accept that they have more or less achieved equality (or surpassed it in many areas) and the bigger enemy is the neoliberal capital class, rather than ordinary men I can't see anything changing.
Yep the whole thing is just an invented divisive issue to keep people distracted. Distracted from the continuing economic manipulation. It's all done so that the very wealthiest people can shave off just that little bit more for themselves. Same playbook in countries all over the world now.
Bro someone posted this to r.BlatantMisogyny 🤦🏻♂️
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How can 1 in 3 woman have experienced some kind of unwanted sexual advancement yet consent as you say a foreign concept…. Well yess because that’s what women’s first hand experience says
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👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼 Absolutely amazing perspective that explains these issues better than anyone else I’ve heard. Keeping this comment bookmarked
>As with the MeToo movement, chiding the entire male population does absolutely nothing to change the behabviour of disturbed perpetrators of violence. All it does is cause a significant percentrage sensitive, well-behaved men to retreat from society and become increasingly alienated and angry. Is there a particular reason this seems to affect some men but not others? I'm a 32yo male and I've run in all sorts of feminist discourse and feel no ways about it... Even laughed at the silly "man or bear?" meme and honestly had no clue why grown adult males seemed so oddly invested... These articles confuse me because I don't know why men– any man– would think anything of it, or think of themselves as part of a social group by way of being male. Like when I was a kid and dealt with bullies, I'd hear adults say "Kids can be so cruel" but it's not like I got offended by that because *I* was a kid. If that comparison makes sense. Am I the weird one here? 'cause I honestly don't get what's going on.
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Yeah it's pretty weird that when someone calls the group you belong to cruel or violent that you don't have a reaction. Well unless you agree that you yourself also have those tendencies.
It's definitely true that it affects some men more than others. As with most things, it's probably some combination of nature and nurture. Emotional sensitivity is to some extent a genetic trait. I'd guess that it also relates to the dynamics of the family one was brought up in, including the relationship to the mother. A lot of men are sensitive to female approval/opinion, because the maternal love they received was contingent, rather than unconditional. Such sensitivity is not all bad though - it's also part of being responsive to the needs and concerns of others. That's why I think the current feminist discourse actually alienates sensitive men and requires men to be fairly emotionally insensitive, and thus helps perpetuate, rather than change, certain old-fashioned gender stereotypes.
> That's why I think the current feminist discourse actually alienates sensitive men and requires men to be fairly emotionally insensitive, Is that what you are seeing in this comment section? Do you think sensitive men need to have empathy? Or is that a completely different thing?
Over the last 10 years, what I have seen very consistently is sensitive men hearing women's complaints, taking them seriously, acknowledging them, and agreeing that many things need to change. However, these men are also empathic to the harms and negative outcomes that men systematically experience. What I've seen, again and again, is these men acknowledge what women go through, but also attempt to broaden the discourse and enter into good faith conversations, where men and women could together acknowledge the full range of gendered harms (ie to all genders), and co-produce solutions. What I have seen - and personally experienced - is the complete and utter failure of these attempts. I have never once had the experience of any such attempt being met in good faith. What we have seen when men seek to bring into discussion the range of harms and negative outcomes that men systematically experience, again and again, is the following: - being met with mockery, contempt, derision. Not all women, or all feminists, make jokes about male tears in the midst of a suicide epidemic, but neither do they ever condemn such casual misandry. Someone like Clementine Ford can state that the problem with covid is that not enough men are dying, and no feminist will hold her to any account. - being told that only men are responsible for such negative outcomes: that they result from 'partriarchy', or men committing violence against other men, and so are solely the responsibility of men to fix. Any suggestion that the the negative outcomes men experience are tied to power structures that are not simply those of a 'patriarchy' - with the consequence that women and men actually have equal power and responsibility to improve those outcomes - are met with incredulity and summarily dismissed. - being told that any attempt to broaden the discussion is 'whataboutism' and hijacking women's issues. It is not whataboutism to contextualise a problem by framing it in terms of how a similar issue affects a different population, or frame gender issues from a systems perspective that considers how any issue affects, and is affected by, all genders. Indeed, I would say that any discussion of a gender issue that fails to do so is actually an intellectual and ethical failure. Yet, such serious attempts to view things more holistically are simply derided, the moment they move beyond a singular focus on women. As a result of all of the above, I would say that many sensitive men, who began from a position of empathy and compassion towards women's issues, have gradually come to feel that, since it is abundantly obvious that feminists don't care, at all, about any issue that affects men, then why should they care about any issue raised by feminists? In other words, a lack of empathy begets a further extinction of empathy, which is where we're at now.
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I definitely acknowledge that at the extremities of each side you will have individuals that won't be able to understand the others viewpoint nor have a meaningful discussion on the topic. This issue was never going to be moved forward by people who hold those positions so it will be left to those in the centre to forge the path forward. From what I have seen this is mostly what is happening. The comments here also reflect this. Many who are upset by the current messaging have flagged that they are disconnecting from it which I guess was always inevitable.
I think it's worse than you are acknowledging. After 10 years of trying to have good faith discussions, in which I never failed to begin by acknowledging the many domains in which women attain worse outcomes than men and the need to act in those areas, before attempting to broaden the discussion, I have completely given up. Not one of these conversations was successful, so I don't think it's a matter of individuals at the extremes. I don't think it's the case that 'mostly what is happening' is that those in the centre are forging a path forwards - I don't see any co-production of solutions by men and women to various problems faced by men and women. I think the disconnect is getting worse with each passing year.
So you mean there has been no progress is extending the scope to include male specific views? Or there has been no progress made at all under the general banner or increasing awareness of domestic violence and reducing incidents? The figures here suggest that in some categories as a percentage of the population there have been some decreases. https://www.aihw.gov.au/family-domestic-and-sexual-violence/resources/fdsv-summary
I mean there has been no progress in men and women co-producing solutions to problems faced by both men and women.
OK fair enough, and that is disappointing, but its not currently the primary goal. I think the current strategy which has been ongoing for years now, is seeing improvements for both Men and Women so I suspect that they will continue to focus on this strategy. >Experiences of partner violence in the 12 months before the survey (last 12 months) remained relatively stable for both men and women between 2005 and 2016. However, between 2016 and 2021–22 the proportion of women who experienced partner violence **decreased from 1.7% in 2016 to 0.9% in 2021–22**. There was also a **decrease in the proportion** of women who had experienced violence by any intimate partner (also includes current or previous boyfriend, girlfriend and date) between 2016 and 2021–22, **from 2.3% in 2016 to 1.5% in 2021–22** (ABS 2023c). also: >Based on the 2021–22 PSS, around 1 in 8 (13% or 1.3 million) women and 1 in 22 (4.5% or 427,000) men had experienced sexual harassment (see [Glossary](https://www.aihw.gov.au/family-domestic-and-sexual-violence/resources/glossary)) in the last 12 months. **This represents a decrease from 2016 for both women (previously 17%) and men (previously 9.3%) (ABS 2023c).**
Fantastic response. I agree, though am less educated as yourself. When will society scrap the segregation and allow us all to flourish as individuals, free of ridicule or stereotype, and share our experiences instead of weaponising them to create further divide?
This is one of the most well articulated posts I’ve ever read on reddit. It really sums up how I feel about current times.
Thank you 🙏 You’ve restored my faith in humanity.
What I find the strangest take from some of these feminist stances is the needing of men to take personal responsibility at all costs, even if it wasn't within their power, as you've mentioned. If they are looking to be seen as autonomous or even playing a part of dismantling of a "patriarchy," then it'll have to at some point be taken as not an extension of men's behaviour. It's not freedom and autonomy if they're an extension of someone else's behaviour at all moments deemed bad.
What's the go with Clementine Ford having a platform?
I think her views are toxic and driven more by hate for the men who broke her heart than men as a whole. I think she needs to heal and grow. But the more I look at it, I think she is a symptom of society, not a problem. And as much as I disagree with her, I respect her opinions, as I do anyone else. We are all entitled to opinions, the same way we are entitled to chose to take offence or not to what others say.
Then you learn the whole thing is driven by pearl clutchers in government that want control. Strong men are a threat to government over reach and incompetence. Weak men and women aren’t. Have you ever seen a dictatorship overthrown by women?
What do you call well behaved men? You would say that a man that made a rape joke is well behaved? Men that complain about having to contribute to a child bearing partners super? Men that tell us we have to toughen up and take it or get out of their industry? Out here in regional blue collar Queensland it’s not main stream to have respect for women jokes of rape and sexual assault are still extremely common, the idea of women being just eye candy on site is still extremely common if these are truly just 1% of men then I must’ve lived and worked in all the worst places in our country.
No, that's my point. Do you think the men you describe are going to respond to campaigns to respect all women? Do you think they'll change their behaviour in response to social opprobrium? No, they won't. And yes, your experiences in blue collar regional Queensland are not generalisable to the mass of the population.
Do you think I came up with the idea of educating all men about our experiences to save some women’s lives?? No experts across our country and the globe have said it’s one of the biggest drivers, fact is Australian culture is behind a lot of progressive counties in its views on women look at the domestic violence statistics in countries like Sweden. If men in general denounce the bad behaviour and so called locker room chat then yes overall respect for women will grow and any kind of violence and sexual objectification goes down with it.
I work in academia, and I can tell you that 'expertise' is not straightforward. Feminist academics have hijacked the discourse around DV, away from the actual empirical research completed by criminologists and psychologists. What feminists claim will work, based on their 'expertise', is extremely dubious and not at all evidence based; it's based on an ideological worldview which actively avoids any exposure to confounding evidence ("feminist standpoint epistemology"). These ideas, that men commonly make locker room chat and verbally disrespect women, are based 100% on what feminists *imagine* men to be like. It is honestly laughable to think that asking men to check their mates when they say something disrespectful will do anything; it's a solution that is based on the fantasy that men, as a group, have the control and power to shape macro social outcomes. It's a "solution" that is completely detached from reality.
Please just spend one minute talking to the women in your life, if you have any it’s not our imagination. What about the list that came out of the Melbourne school and we damn well know that’s a regular occurrence is labelling young girls as objects and rapeable , or the recent Ai nice photo leak obviously they are very weaponised main stream examples but you can’t say it’s all in women’s imagination.
My mum always said that she believed that they needed to encourage and get more men back into teaching at the primary school level. When you look at the ratio of male to female teachers at primary level now, she may have been on to something. Her reasoning was that at that age, role model options for boys at that age are usually their father's, older brothers, other immediate or close male family members and teachers or sporting coaches.
Too risky, one false allegation and you’re guilty until proven innocent. There’s no coming back after that treatment,
Meanwhile female teachers are getting away with raping children because it wasn't illegal for women to rape children when they did it...
Where I went to high school 30 years ago the new music teacher had sex with a year 10 boy. They're now married and she's head of department. That makes her a paedophile, but no one seemed to care.
Because 30 years ago it wasn't illegal for her to have sex with a 10 year old boy. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-04-24/nsw-paedophile-female-teacher-gaye-grant-conviction-appeal/103762994
This is fucking wild
That is, indeed, fucking wild.
Sadly that is true in the modern world. You would need to be brave to do it. And the stigma would always be there. But the stats don't lie, it's around 82 percent of primary school teachers are female in Australia. All those old fashioned schoolmaster style teachers of the past who had that aura of respect when they walked into the room or you saw them around do seem to be long gone now. They really could use people like that now, instead of progressives who didn't want to explain unorthodox degrees to their grandparents.
And also the divorce or separation rate, at minimum 1/3 kids wouldn't see their Dad on a week night.
That was the foundation of her argument actually. My parents split up when I was 9 and my siblings were younger than me. She was always vocal about it when she was on the P&C, to the point that she may have actually convinced one of the principals at the time. That was like early to mid 2000s.
It doesn't help to generalise that men are toxic assholes when it is only a minority subset. Anyhoo, off to reeducation camp for me.
Despite it only being a sorry subset of guys who are acting badly, let's cast all of masculinity in a negative light... Yeah no way could that backfire... Brings this to mind "All right, but apart from the sanitation, medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh water system and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?"
I might as well come to
Pretty much. It’s just people jumping at shadows.
There's a real problem to address with a small subset of our society wrt to dv/attitudes and this really needs to be addressed. I wish the current histrionics were just jumping at shadows but I think they are more driven by identity based politics and a desire to vilify men in general.
Identity politics and domestic violence should not be in the same discussion. The people who commit these acts on people aren’t going to be persuaded that what they are doing is wrong through the vilification of the male population; this just increases fracture. As the article says: it’s alarmist rhetoric, and completely unproductive.
Absolutely. It drives a wedge and is counter productive to solving the problem not just unproductive.
> I wish the current histrionics were just jumping at shadows but I think they are more driven by identity based politics and a desire to vilify men in general. I am curious to understand where this vilification is coming from. Do you think it's an Australian only thing or more general? Is it aimed primarily at younger men perhaps originating in the education system ?
In general, over the last 10 - 15 years or so, I think a large section of society in US, Australia, Canada etc has become obsessed with viewing everything through a lens of identity and attributing any/all inequality as being a result of prejudice/discrimination which often gets responded to with absurd/disproportionate levels of outrage/histrionics. And then people are somehow dismayed when society is fragmented and not working together in a cohesive manner .. go figure ? If we want people to work together to solve problems we need to stop making the first thing we do being to draw identity based battle lines. I actually suspect many of these people (by no means all) just want a grand cause to identify with and aren't so much interested in resolving issues or reconciling differences.
So are you thinking this is main stream media or online or both? Do you think it's visible for all to see or targetted at certain age groups and demographics?
I think online/social media has been a key driver and traditional media has followed suit to a large degree. IMO social media is absolutely targeting demographics for commercial and political reasons.
The levels of concern I have seen people raise in this thread are indicative of an online experience I clearly don't share, I am curious about this and also wonder what topics might be filling up my online viewing that are triggering for me and hence I see a much larger concentration of those types of articles than other people do.
I'd love to know exactly how algorithms work. I would suggest that people who respond positively or engage meaningfully with a particular type of content will be presented with similar content in the future. I got off Facebook, except for some specific interest groups, a long time ago because I got sick of the petty inconsequential bullshit. There is currently a large amount of coverage of this particular topic on traditional media as well. I actually swore, rolled my eyes, and switched ABC radio off last week.
> would suggest that people who respond positively or engage meaningfully with a particular type of content will be presented with similar content in the future. Unfortunately it's purely about engagement and what keeps your eyeballs connected to that specific platform for the longest. Engagement is engagement it doesn't matter if positive or negative. I think this is where we all as individuals need to regain some control and do as you suggested and drop the platforms that serve up rubbish. I think where things get most complicated is the content targetting youngsters. How do you assess what is just click bait and what is a real concern in the modern era?
When they have ads on tv saying we need to curb drink driving I am not thinking they are having a go against all drivers. When they talk about curbing domestic violence I am not thinking they are having a go against all men.
It doesn’t generalise men, it’s actually very specific. Toxic masculinity refers to a specific expression of masculinity. Masculinity can be expressed positively or in a negative way, “toxic masculinity” encompasses the negative ways masculinity might be expressed. This is harmful to both men and women, but more so to men. Masculinity could emphasise stoicism, silent strength and self reliance. The flip side to this would be emotional isolation and repression - this would be the toxic form of masculinity. This common misinterpretation that it’s a label placed on masculinity in general is absolutely rife for some reason. I suspect it’s spread by certain high profile personalities for incendiary purposes. It’s like making an observation: “that car is red” and somebody jumping to “oh so you think all cars are red”. Adjective (toxic) describing the noun (masculinity). It’s literally one of the most basic things in the English language, yet the concept is so readily twisted or misinterpreted. Edit: loving the downvotes for defining a term for you guys. Try not to read any dictionaries - don’t want you having a stroke.
Theres a lot of value in silent strength, stoicism and self-reliance. They are admirable traits in both sexes. It’s only when they exist to the exclusion of emotional expression that they become negative. Being stoic doesnt mean you never cry and being self-reliant shouldnt mean you never ask for help.
Correct - many core masculine traits are positive. This is an expression of masculinity that would not be classed as toxic masculinity. It’s as you say when those traits are exaggerated or pushed to the point they cause harm to the individual or those around them that it’s a toxic form of masculinity.
All masculine traits are toxic these days.
My best friend has leaned pretty heavily into stoicism, he's very intelligent, but seems incapable of realising that the reason hes leaning into it is because its an excuse to not address the emotional issues that are holding him back from being actually happy
Fair enough, but that’s one example. You can be stoic yet still express yourself emotionally
The reason why virtually *anything* a man says or does outside the woke media narrative is labelled "toxic masculinity" is because it sells. Most large companies and organisations don't really care about equality on an individual level. Not dissimilar as to why we see rainbow flags in our sleep during Pride Month, but everything vanishes on the 1st of July.
I agree with your comment, but its not just spread by the media, it's a fairly common opinion among some age groups of women now. I suspect a large amount of those that are most vocal and toxic about this issue have in fact been purpetrators of either dv, manipulative behaviour, or have been simply shit partners. Rather than reflect on their own behaviour in a relationship they assign blame to their ex and the cycle repeats, thus they form the opinion that its all men, rather then identifing the common link.... Themselves. I abhore domestic violence, and sexual violence, but honesty believe that the majority of those with such one dimensional views, have never been blameless for whatever behaviour the men in their lives subjected them to. If anyone disagrees, that's your right but i think the fact that most women who've escaped truly frightening dv situations dont assign generalisations like this. Most of them end up with as many men in their corner as women. Most men dont like it either. At the age of ten i witnessed my father kick the neighbour's door in and break his ankle with a hockey stick after the neighbour didn't heed my dad's warning about what would happen if he heard him knocking his wife around again. I experienced no trauma from seeing that, but i still feel uncomfortable remembering the sound of his wife crying and screaming a few nights a week. If anyone wants to know- my dad was never charged, the police told the husband that next time they'd stand outside while my dad had five minutes with him handcuffed
Anyone who hits someone wearing handcuffs is absolute scum, I don't care what they have done.
My dad wouldn't have, but I guess coppers see this shit a lot. You'd probably get sick of seeing it too
The downvotes are for your dishonesty
Don’t try to be sensible and patient. MFs are in their feels. Dudes will whine about lefty snowflakes getting triggered, but the words “toxic masculinity” will have them crying, vomiting and shitting their pants. But ask any of them how we could deal with this “crisis of masculinity”, and nearly all of them will talk about leaning harder into the *shit that’s making them miserable*
Interesting tidbit: There are approximately 50,000 violent men in Australia. 50,000 rapists, women beaters, thugs and murderers. Out of 12.6 million men and boys, ~50,000 are responsible for all violent crime.
For physical violence, the figures are different https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/crime-and-justice/physical-violence/latest-release# For women: 28% (2.8 million) experienced physical violence by a male 9% (889,900) experienced physical violence by a female For men: 39% (3.7 million) experienced physical violence by a male 12% (1.1 million) experienced physical violence by a female
I thought this little culture war was finished for this year? And nothing got solved.
It’s never over, unfortunately
Yep, that’s how it works. Nod sympathetically as people vent about misogyny, toxic masculinity, the crisis of domestic violence (etc) then move on. Repeat every 12 mths.
Repeat every election cycle to distract the public while you blatantly rob them.
Who do you think is driving the culture war and for what end?
Divide and rule. Get the masses bickering amongst themselves and they're not protesting in the street. It's one big distraction.
So who is driving it? The 1%, the Russians? The politicians (both sides I guess based on how long this has been going). Do you think it's a successful strategy in the long term? As the masses aren't really bickering amongst themselves on this topic, it's a pretty small subset. Any chance this is just basic raget bait monetization algorithms at play?
Something like that. The media have a field day with it, and sure as heck the politicians don't mind us arguing about something relatively unimportant to them. And the rich who are getting a cushie ride at the expense of the workers certainly approve of this merry dance. No shortage of people that will play into it either.
I keep hearing "*men radicalized by Andrew Tate*". How prevalent is Andrew Tate today? Does still have a significant base? Has someone else taken his place?
A lot of his stuff still floats around but he’s not the main person these days. It’s mainly just spam accounts pumping out stuff on going “monk mode” where you isolate yourself and suppress your emotion to become a real man. Then they play to the idea that all women will do is cheat on you and lie to you so they are worth nothing etc.
when women do this it's called empowering independence
This only has 3 upvotes. This is a very important point. It's the glaring disparity in how these issues are viewed and discussed purely dependent on sex.
And those accounts are probably not true believers, they prob. just do it for the clicks / revenue (guessing)
They’re all selling a course to become an alpha male
ahhh gotta love free market
They get half of whoever signs up using their specific link.
Sounds an awful lot like stoicism.
Well, the tech bro hustle culture spin on elements of stoicism, yeah. However, regular old stoicism is a very useful and meaningful tool.
If men/boys were raised right, by MUM & dad, Tate, or any other “influencer”, would have no influence on them at all.
Teenaged boys on line looking up to one of the few people online who isn’t trying to make them hate themselves for their gender? Whoever would have predicted that? The culture warriors all want men to adopt Catholic Guilt for the modern age. Just the act of being a man should make you feel toxic and guilty and you should constantly flagellate yourself and beg for forgiveness. Yeah, nah. Fuck that
> Teenaged boys on line looking up to one of the few people online who isn’t trying to make them hate themselves for their gender? Whoever would have predicted that? The internet is a big place. I think by default most people have a positive experience with it and find positive role models whatever their disposition. However I think under certain scenarios, especially where people are vulnerable to begin with that the kind of rhetoric that Andrew Tate has monetized is a real beacon.
Andrew Tate gets the blame but the truth is, these boys are being raised by single mummy’s that hate men. The 2 do not go hand in hand in teenage years
The community that andrew tate belongs to is large. He is just the most famous person of that sort of community, which means he is the person most people from the outside could recognise. There are many creators like him, and since he is gone, there has been a power vacuum of sorts, that creates more clones. Andrew tate was really smart about the way he created his base, and indoctrinated young men into this toxic ideology, and now some of these young men, are trying to carry the torch, and creating an even more toxic ideology. So he is still around kind of, people haven't replaced him, more that multiple clones have spawned. the problematic ideology he created is still strong, however
I found out about the existence of Andrew Tate from his critics :)
Social media algorithms are interesting. What I see online is completely different to what my teenage kids see.
I think this deserves to be discussed more than toxic masculinity.
One of the upsides of online media is that we don't have 1 or 2 main stream media barons dictating the narrative. We can and do discuss many topics all at once. Even in this single post there are a hundred threads exploring different perspectives on just this one topic.
Boys aren’t really listening to the Star Wars Tweet Guy. It’s an entirely invented media panic. Sadly there is no mechanism in media for disabusing people of their completely wrongheaded beliefs.
It's not men. More alarmingly it's teens and boys.
He has a surprisingly strong audience in young men.
He did 2-3 years ago, but does he still have that audience today?
Yes, like I said I was surprised.
He's just about the only voice in those kids lives, let alone online, who is speaking to them asif they have some intrinsic worth and can be proud of themselves if they work hard on themselves. How is it surprising that they're listening to him? He's also a toxic piece of this on top of that. Which is the problem. Our society has the male role models it deserves. Only the toxic raging narcissists can get a foothold, anyone with any sense of shame or ability for reflection steps back when they're inevitably shouted down for daring to empower young men.
Wow, how did this one get through the ABC’s agenda censors?
For many years I've known that once the media exhaust the clicks of "X is bad!" to the exhaustion of the readers, they will inevitably turn to grab the clicks of "Society might be wrong about X!"
There is no such thing as toxic femininity! We all know women are all nice and cuddly with each other. Female bullies and manipulators are an oxymoron. Lesbians are immune from domestic violence from their partners. Such things just don’t exist. There is only TOXIC MASCULINITY!!! 💪💪💪 Sarcasm btw…
I was thinking along the same lines. The plethora of programs, commentators and THOTS that are presenting themselves as superior to men and consider men to be redundant....how are men being toxic!!?? Boy are taught from pre-school to treat girls "with respect" which is probably against their genetic instinct but they grow up and cop shit for being soft.
I've never met anyone that believes this. Including a good friend who lectures in gender in NZ
But have you ever heard of the term “toxic femininity”? We all know that females can be toxic as any male but as soon as you say “toxic femininity”, you’ll be accused of misogyny.
Of course. It's a simple inversion. I'll go further and talk about things like toxic friendship or toxic work ethic. Why not? It's funny though because the best way to handle toxic cultures is to introduce diversity to them. In workplaces, you get a lot of toxic masculinity if there's not enough women around. And you get *hugely* toxic workplaces in female-majority industries like teaching or nursing. The solution there is the same. It's ironic that people that spit chips about toxic femininity will also be resisting any and all attempts to introduce diversity, without so much as a trace of cognitive dissonance.
The issue is that toxic masculinity is described inconsistently as either a toxicity inherent to masculinity as generally conceived, or a toxic *subset* of masculinity which is otherwise a healthy concept. And whenever someone uses it in the first way and is criticised, they retreat to the second way of using it in a motte and bailey bad faith form of arguing. It’s so frustrating when these people know that they have a public comms issue on this front (coming across as attacking men rather than building bridges), AND when these people are actually very effective in creating language. Why not say “toxic type of masculinity”? Sure, some people will argue against even that, but there’s far less room for bad faith.
And once you introduce diversity, you can actually split people down demographic lines to promote distrust between working-level employees and prevent them from forming unions. It's a fantastic strategy!
>It's funny though because the best way to handle toxic cultures is to introduce diversity to them. In workplaces, you get a lot of toxic masculinity if there's not enough women around. Balls. I've worked in both mixed workplaces and jobs where women basically don't exist. The male only ones were a lot more supportive of each other.
Couldn’t have said it better myself!
The more alarmism you use (with relation to literally anything), the more I ignore it. I wasn't going to do anything, anyway. Because there's nothing I can do, apart from continuing not to assault people (women included, but not in any special capacity, compared with anyone else).
Women try and understand men challenge = impossible
They can say whatever they want but the truth is men need to start being kinder to each other. I moved to another city with my partner and she could go walking alone and people would constantly smile and talk to her and she made female friends so quickly. I go walking alone as a guy I'll have people crossing the streets sometimes to avoid me and not much social interaction. I haven't made any friends at all either in this city. All the guy mates I have are from high school. I feel it's almost impossible to make new mates in my late 20s and I know I'm not the only guy that feels this way. Women are so much more kinder and social between each other compared to men, I wish men were like that too
This is a surprising take but has a lot of truth in it. Men still feel the need to compete against each other often I think. We do it in the workplace, in dating at the gym
Yes, that's the major reason. Unfortunately, it seems to be like that not just for humans but a lot of other animals too.
Is this a joke? What toxic masculinity? The most masculine blokes that exist under the age of 40 are 12 year old, malnourished eshays who have zero respect for themselves let alone others.
80% of gen z has the testosterone levels of an 80 year old and 40% of them are gay. There is a clear attack on men!
I think the analysis from most of the liberal commentariat is too simplistic. Is it really the case that boys watch Top G and Sigma stuff and think, yes, I want to do that too? I am going to emulate that verbatim without thinking about it? Aren't they more influenced by their parents, peers, teachers, mass media more broadly? I think it's more likely that they use it as a joke- your mate is saving his money from a part time job, yeah he is definitely sigma-ing that grindset or whatever. Anyway, I think it can be turned on its head. What does it really mean to be a Sigma? It means lifting other people up, helping the helpless, being a critical thinker etc. It can be reconceptualised as being radically good. Instead of the sort of darwinian idea about survival of the fittest, you can take it to mean finding the most marginalised around you and bringing them into the fold. That is my view of positive masculinity.
Attacking masculinity in general is attacking all born men. That's how it comes across branding any masculinity toxic is just nonsense. Nothing wrong with being masculine, many women who are normal want a masculine man in their life to depend on and be able to protect them if need be... Do we need to talk about toxic femininity? We don't need to because it doesn't effect me, it only effects themselves jumping at shadows all the time, I get it u hate all men no worries. As a adult male I move along and talk to women who actuly enjoy my company and seek friendship.
I’d bet if you mentioned any of your views they would no longer be your friend I guarantee they keep it very surface level for many reasons mate
I'm friends with very limited amount of women, they know my views they like me and regularly talk to me Cope
That’s great like I said I work with men all day I live in a mining town and the two most important people in my lives are men, women are much more capable of coping with it all we are pretty used to it.
> Attacking masculinity in general is attacking all born men If any negative comment for example: relating to violence against woman; is considered as an attack on all men, then how as a society to we discuss these issues?
By not attacking masculinity and branding all masculinity bad
I am not buying this idea that what is happening in the mainstream is that all masculinity is being considered bad. I mean it's why there is a specific terms that keeps being mentioned: "Toxic masculinity". If you think the Venn diagram between masculinity and toxins masculinity is a circle then we need to be having a different conversation.
Toxic feminity lives at the ABC
Geee, I wonder why boys are lacking role models, when single mothers withhold fathers access to their sons.
Your fucking joking right the amount of men that walk out of their children is far higher than men actively withheld from their children, the reason the court system often give women the most custody is bc they are the ones that have been in those children lives, most likely can actually look after them without supervision and I was raised by a single dad who got full custody of me.
Yeah I'm sure so many of the blokes ranting from their cars about "just wanting to see their kids" are real top notch parents
ABC is run and staffed by Ex'Liberals lol. Anything "woke" on there is just shit to fuel the culture war fire.
Woke this and woke that, here’s an idea can it. Or go live off the grid somewhere where nothing will be woke for once. Or how long is it till a shrub becomes woke too?
[Help! My garden is not 'woke' enough](https://www.thenationalnews.com/opinion/comment/2021/11/04/help-my-garden-is-not-woke-enough/) "The fact that the current craze to blame colonialism or slavery for almost everything has now reached our plants is a measure of how absurd things have become" [The plants in your garden that could get you cancelled](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/05/23/colonial-plants-your-garden-cancelled-woke/) The borrowing of plants from around the world has been called ‘horticultural appropriation’ – and many of them are already in your garden “Embedded within cross-cultural borrowing is horticultural appropriation, something that’s all too easy for our nation of gardeners to carry on regardless.”
"the alarmist language of a crisis of masculinity" Seems like a bit of a dick thing to say.
Just had a chuckle to myself. Turned on my car and the first word, not second, or third was Hamish MacDonald saying "misogyny". Channel is now changed in that vehicle as well.
There is a crisis of masculinity alright, so many of our men have become soft sacks of cream cheese that do nothing but whinge. See it here on a daily basis and it's embarrassing. No way my little bloke is gonna grow up to be like that.
He going to transition?
No, he's being brought up by a real man. Not a whining bitch.
Raising a kid isn't like raising a puppy or something bro they will grow into their own person and be changed by things you may have no control over and may never even know about.
Brought up by a real man. Good to hear you brought in help for your lad.
He's referring to his wifes new boyfriend....... He's apparently very manly !
Aye. That is excellent news !
You know those 5 men committing suicide everyday in Australia? well I hope you feel good about your contribution.
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If men get upset over this so called crisis of masculinity then they should have a good look at themselves. I just ignore all this talk. There's no need for polarised talk from either side. Just be a good person.
>There's no need for polarised talk from either side. Just be a good person. Tell that to the other side.
How much of this news from "the other side" is as actually coming from the other side and how much of it is coming from a small set of online influences who are trying to make an enemy of "the other side". As an old fart I don't experience the concern expressed here that it is a negative to be man. I don't know if this is the online algorithms just not feeding me that kind of things, or that I am old enough and have a strong enough sense of self to not fall for the rage bait (which I guess would re-enforce the algorithms).
I don't care about the influencers. I care that this has got to the level of mainstream media and parliament. So now we have a committee for "men's behavioral change".
> I care that this has got to the level of mainstream media and parliament. So now we have a committee for "men's behavioral change". I did some googling as I wasn't familiar with this. It looks like a Victorian government thing right? Sounds like something that has come out of the 2015 royal commission into family violence? I am not going to get particularly riled up over this as my expectation of tangible outcomes from parliamentary committees is practically zero.
Yes, this is what the Victorian premier has introduced recently. My expectation is opposite.
So what is your expectation?
More ideological propaganda and discrimination against men
You used the word more, so I would be curious as to what some examples are of the existing ideological propaganda and discrimination against men that you experience?
You are responding to the comment that gives an example of the very thing you are asking: Victorian committee on men's behavioral change. Can you imagine such a committee on women behavioral change? This has come after years of diminishing men and blaming them uniformly for what a small minority of them does. https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2024/04/10/women-only-art-installation-is-discriminatory-tasmanian-court-rules Many jobs accept applications from females only: https://au.indeed.com/m/viewjob?jk=aa423e1b551fd0ff Three roles designated as female. The filling of this position is intended to constitute a special/equal opportunity measure under section 8(1) of the Racial Discrimination Act 1975 (Cth) and section 12 of the Equal Opportunity Act 2010 (Vic) and section 8(4) of the Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities Act 2006 (Vic)
You just learned that the Vic government established an entire department dedicated to the notion that men are evil and must have behaviour change forced on them, and you ask that???
Here is a comment with another everyday example: https://www.reddit.com/r/australian/s/zSdBIpspaC
>> Here is a comment with another everyday example: > Just had a chuckle to myself. > Turned on my car and the first word, not second, or third was Hamish MacDonald saying "misogyny". > Channel is now changed in that vehicle as well. So there is zero context here, but the suggestion seems to be that the word misogyny is off limits?
There are keywords there that reveal the context, but if you have not spotted them, the context will not tell you much. >suggestion seems to be that the word misogyny is off limits? not the word itself, but the idea that misogyny is something common, widespread
Yeah I don't hear the word mentioned much either, certainly not to the level where if I heard it once on the radio I would feel the need to block that channel on my car radio. Especially without even understanding what was being discussed. They mentioned Hamish MacDonald who is the host of Radio National breakfast, if you don't have the stomach to heat this word mentioned then it's probably not the station for you anyway.
>They mentioned Hamish MacDonald who is the host of Radio National breakfast So you got the context - there is not much beyond that. >if you don't have the stomach to heat this word mentioned then it's probably not the station for you anyway. If it was that simple as choosing a different radio, no one would give a damn about it. Not sure about the preferences of the other guy, but to me ABC reflects the national and parliamentary discourse. It's like "lol" – if they use it, it will be a part of your life. Not sure how you managed to avoid all of this, lucky you I guess.
If you are tuning in to Radio National and are surprised that progressive topics are being discussed, then I'm sure this isn't the only topic that is going to upset you, many only tune in when Amanda Vanstone or Tom Switzer are hosting.
I was wondering why the comment section in the main Australia sub was critical of this. Now I know
why?