I’m not sure if this is intended as ragebait or you wanted to pull readers in but please for the love of god stop saying the cure for men’s problems is feminism. Its the most performative male thing ever.
This guy does not get it. He will never reach the average man with his message. It is a similar to the redpill message but worded in a worse way and has tons of political baggage shoved in.
Its so reductive to say “just care” as if lonely men are going around having all these social interactions but the problem is that they aren’t caring hard enough. Bro the problem is they are NOT having social interactions. Saying “you just need to talk with your partner about the division of house hold labour” or “have you considered watching over your friends children?” they dont have a partner, they dont have friends thats why they are lonely. “You just need more free time” free time won’t do shit they have enough free time thats not the issue.
We’ve been told that anything outside of going to work or optimizing ourselves by lifting weights, sitting in ice baths, and pounding creatine isn’t worth much. That caring for others isn’t a “productive” or “efficient” use of our time. That someone else will always end up doing it. That we’re not supposed to do it because women are naturally, biologically designed for it and we’re not (which is untrue). That if we do it, we’re less valuable, like a woman, less of a man.
No we havent. No one has ever said this. I hate this stupid meme that men are raised as souless golems. Every man enjoys being around people and laughing. Everyman enjoys having a relationship. The problem isnt that they dont value it or “society has told them they can’t”. The problem is they not comfortable enough to put themselves out there and expose themselves to the social risk that comes with making friends or dating.
because saying stupid crap like ‘feminism is the answer’ is easy. ‘just follow these simple steps and your it will all be magically fixed!!’
fixing real social problems… are very very hard. and pointing out the legit real problems… and people don’t want to do the work. the problems are decades in the making and deeply entrenched in the culture and the economy, and most people are totally allergic to the solutions.
amen for poitning out the sexist biases of these articles. men are not ‘less than’ by default. or ‘less than’ for not adhering to some social ideal that we must all be happy success machines. god forbid we just be average and content.
This reeks of the same type of stuff as “just get outside to cure your depression” or “have you tried just not thinking like that?” for mental health issues.
If someone could be reached by telling them “just reach out, its that simple”, they weren’t the ones we need to be reaching. For sure it’d help, and there may be some people this resonates to. If so, great for them. But we have a major problem with isolated men, and those usually aren’t ones who this will be helpful for, any more than an article addressing the mental health crisis by saying “just try more” solves that problem.
I think we need to be reaching out, but IMO the focus isn’t on using words that are incredibly loaded, particularly for those people we’re trying to reach and connect with. Those of us who are doing better should be reaching out, like the author said, and making those connections, but that won’t solve this loneliness crisis.
like any social issue, reaching out isn’t doing shit. you can’t ‘reach out’ to the homeless really.
what you need to do is change the material conditions such that homelessness isn’t an appealing option… you have to give people opportunity. and we are living in a society that is destroying opportunity and then shifting the blame back on individuals for being ‘failures’ for not somehow squeezing blood out of a stone.
Amen
Dang, the post struck a cord didn’t it? Feminism has done more for me than any “men’s rights activism” will ever do.
The problem is they not comfortable enough to put themselves out there and expose themselves to the social risk that comes with making friends or dating
Speak for yourself. I have plenty of friends and family so I’m not “alone”, but I cannot have a conversation with my dad about how he’s really doing because “men don’t speak about feelings”.
Dang, the post struck a cord didn’t it? Feminism has done more for me than any “men’s rights activism” will ever do.
Yes i care about the topic, sue me. Ok its cool that feminism has done that for you but thats not relevant and it still sucks as a message when trying to reach men.
Speak for yourself. I have plenty of friends and family so I’m not “alone”, but I cannot have a conversation with my dad about how he’s really doing because “men don’t speak about feelings”.
Damn that sucks, well as the author says, you should just care more. Have you tried talking to him about the division of household labour? Maybe ask him to volunteer at your socialist action group? How about explaining to him that he needs feminism so he can talk about how he really feels. Yeah that is sure to get him to open up.
I’m gonna armchair pysc for a sec and diagnose that he probably doesnt trust you and doesnt want to share his feelings with you because you won’t let it go and will nag him about it for the rest of his days. Its little to do with society restraining him.
stop he’s already dead
“Your dad won’t communicate openly because nagging” lol good one, top shelf bait
It is if you ignore the first half of the sentence.
The first half of the sentence doesn’t make it any less stupid, nothing will
Cut away the fluff of the article, and what they’re actually saying is: interact with your community and help out your friends more. I think this is good advice for women too, it would probably be good for me.
Couldn’t agree more. I have very loose friendships with old high school buddies and we rarely hang out. My wife however is doing something with her friends 2-3 times per week, having “women only” retreats, calling them almost daily, buying them birthday gifts even if they live out of state, and so on. She’s infinitely more connected to a community than I am and for some men I think it’s a real challenge to put themselves out there and to try and build up that trust and dependence to a certain degree. Men like to think we’re Batman: we want a bare minimum of relationships so they can’t be used against us.
I was going to say there are many flavors of feminism from basically communism to gloria stienman. The interact with your community and help everyone to do well is the type that jives with me. hull house style.
those things aren’t automatic wins. your community/friends can be ungrateful and abusive people who simple taking advantage of you and don’t offer you anything back, or worse, tell you your contributions aren’t enough and you need to give them more.
yes in an ideal world you would volunteer and it would create a positive feedback loop. but that is not often the case. lots of volunteer communities are shitty, exclusionary, and exploitative. personal/community relationships may leave you worse off than you were.
and socially isolated/emotionally vulnerable people are way more likely to fall victim/be targeted by exploitative groups.
for sure yes. There’s no magical solution to loneliness.
From the article:
Not the feminism aimed at merely—in the words of psychology professor Darby Saxbe—"emulating men and outcompeting them on the terrain they have constructed.” Not the feminism the late bell hooks called “trickle-down theory: the [flawed] assumption that having more women at the top of corporate hierarchies would make the work world better for all women, including women on the bottom.”
No, the feminism that fights for a society where everyone of all genders has more time and energy to care about people outside of work.
Reject Pop/Girlboss Feminism embrace Gender Liberation!
Trickle-down feminismis an ingenius way to describe that whole subject ngl.Isn’t that egalitarianism?
It feels like it’s repackaging feminism into something it is not.
You are 10 years late into the “repackaging”. At some point you need to admit that no, it’s about equality.
Is there an accepted definition for feminism or is it a case of “we love this thing so everything good with the world is feminism”? I mean is Christmas feminism? People get together and care for their fellow people? Is X factor feminism? Everyone gets around a TV set and cares for their favourite acts.
I appreciate those 2 points are ridiculous and intentionally so. The point being definitions are important. If you cannot define something, its everything and nothing all at once. To many, feminism seems to come across a little cultish and becomes very easy for folk to highlight examples that ridicule it. Before long, no one would admit they are or support it. That’s the real danger.
To be fully clear, I think feminism is very important and is needed to resolve many ills in this world, but the way it’s used leaves absolutely confusion. I don’t think anyone outside online activists understand it.
Ugh lost my first version of this comment so sorry if this is terse.
Asking for one definition of feminism is nonsense. Some words have multiple definitions that is simply the reality of language. You don’t need a unifying definition of landscape that includes both a natural view and the aspect ratio or printing format. Feminism is a school of critical thought, a field of academic study, and a group of different political movements that largely originated in the first.
I think laypeople are confused about feminism in part because they have been misled to be confused about feminism by conservatives, and in part because feminism is a movement that has had multiple generations of thought.
At its core, I would say that feminism is the idea that by examining society through the lens of gendered interactions we can change those interactions to make society a more just and fair place, but definitions of feminism are a matter of academic debate.
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MGTOW
I did this but didn’t ever really think of of it as that. I got divorced and decided I didn’t want to ever marry again. Fifteen years later I’m still doing my own thing. I don’t hate women but I don’t want one in my life or my house. I still have my kids even though they are grown and that is more than enough family for me. I have one friend who I call a brother and the rest are just people I get along with. One lives less than five minutes from me and has not came by my house ever. Every time I see him he invites me to come by and I do the same. I might visit him again if he ever thinks enough of me to visit me. I stay busy at home for instance last night I built a little siren whistle in cad like they used to put in cereal boxes. I’m gonna print it out tonight and test. I know that sounds boring to many but its fun for me. I’m happier now than I was fifteen years ago.
Edit: I really would like some of these downvotes to vent to me why you downvoted my statements. I need a good laugh.
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At least I know where I stand with my cats.
A emergency food source when you kick the bucket? Mine isn’t waiting and occasionally will just gnaw on me.
Maybe the cure can start with fucking paragraphs?
Holy fucking shit dude.
Same. Life is just happy and peaceful alone. Relationships and friendships just invite drama, controversy and misery into my life. And I spent my life pursing ‘community’ and relationships thinking one day i’ll get what I want otu of them… and that day was never coming, never going to happen. I was never going to be loved, accepted, or appreciated for all my efforts. All that happens is endless criticism of how you aren’t doing more, and how your sacrifices and efforts and accomplishments are the ‘bare minimum’.
Why would anyone want to live like that? It’s an abusive way to live your life. Turns out being alone means the abuse stops. Turnings out when you put your energy into yourself… you feel good. You get healthy, you enjoy life, and if you aren’t constantly being shamed by others… you stop feeling shame. I have been single and alone for 5 years… i am fitter, healthier, wealthier, and i get to pursue my passions without harassment and shame about how ‘stupid’ they are from other people.
But sadly ‘society’ doesn’t understand this. That the ‘bargain’ society used to offer me is now no longer giving them what they want. And they would rather just double-down on shame and harassment of men as being ‘unmanly’. Of feeling like any social interaction I had required me walking on eggshells and be hyper vigilent, because if i offended or upset anyone I’m a terrible awful wretched person. It’s totally absurd way to live life. I’d rather be happy and isolated than miserable and ‘involved’ in society’s bullshit rat race misery contest that it calls ‘socializing’, where no matter how much you do or achieve, it’s never enough because someone else has more than you and you should feel awful about it.
I cook/eat what I want, went I want. I do what I want when/if I want to do it. I wear what I want, buy what I want, and it’s awesome because I can do all of this without constant negotiation and negative feedback about how my choices that I make are ‘impacting’ or ‘hurting’ or ‘disappointing’ everyone else. Like I drive a base level hatchback car… it’s great, i love it. But apparently this ‘upset’ my exes/friends/etc because it showed I have ‘no ambition or self respect’ or something. F that noise.
If you don’t mind my asking, where do you live? It baffles me that people would get upset over what car you drive.
Boston MA. full of ‘progressive’ liberals who hate anyone who isn’t part of the economic top 10% and engages in conspicuous consumption. my car is also not luxury priced hybrid or EV, so I’m clearly a loser POS who wants to ‘destroy’ the environment.
and when i tell them my car gets 40mpg, more than most hybrids do, they just tell me to f myself and i clearly love big oil.
I also own a condo in a 130 year old building. Get told what a ‘shithole’ it is… because it’s not 2000sq ft modern luxury crap construction.
Everything is appearances. Nothing is truth or substance.
if it’s 130y old it probably is a shithole tbh
try living in a new ‘luxury’ building where the walls are paper thin, you can hear your neighbors business, and it’s falling apart because it’s made of the cheap shoddy materials. but it looks all shiny and nice!
plaster is quiet as fuck and old brickwork lasts forever.
oh for sure, especially boston. bunch of cheap shit thrown down by private equity REIT’s just price gouging yuppie college kids/families fir every $ they can.
idk though, the century old buildings always seem to have mold/airflow issues ime.
i don’t live in a wet environment. zero issues with anything in the 6 years i’ve lived here than old appliances needing to be replaced when they break.
Boston: The people? Rough. The weather? Also tough. Rent? High.
But the food? …Also bad.
J/k man, hopefully people can eventually understand that you recycling/maintaining a high mpg car is way more effective than buying something new under the guise of efficiency.
i love the weather and the rent is affordable to me. the people used to be awesome before all the tech yuppies moved in with their endless agonizing about how hard their lives are.
Same out here in California, sadly.
"You know that black glass rectangle in your pocket? How about a new one, with 4 cameras instead of 3? Only $8500!!! "
" Man I can’t believe I only got a $20k raise this year, how am I supposed to afford my Tesla cyberdump?? "
… Etc
yep. here it’s mostly agonizing about their 20K vacations not being fancy enough.
i don’t think i’ve ever spent more than 2K on a vacation.
The cure for male loneliness is a better economy, as in improving their material conditions. not ideology.
What if I told you that feminism is part of a better economy?
yeah, sure. Feminism is a magic catch all for everything that’s good.
Feminism is a force for good, but it’s not a magic fucking word that fixes everything.
Glad we agree.
I like turtles.
reading bell hooks doesn’t make people’s paychecks get bigger. more competition and opportunity for jobs and job growth does.
“More competition” lol
It sounds like you understand.
Christopher Hitchens’ (fixed, apostrophe due to comment) on The Empowerment of Women: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdJ1XlhhV9A
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No it isnt. Community existed before capitalism and will exist after, too.
men aren’t allowed into communities unless they economically benefit that community.
please go join a community, stand around, do nothing productive, and see how welcome you are there.
stand around, do nothing productive, and see how welcome you are there.
I think you and i have different definitions of “joining a community.”
Verifiably false but sure, pal, embrace your negative view on life if you want—i hope it works out for you. However, nobody else needs you to spread it and you’re actively making situations worse by doing so.
i’m not your pal, buddy.
You know there’s community built around things other than productivity, right?
Stop going to capitalistic places. OFC the “community” at the climbing gym would be organized around things you have to pay for. OFC a game shop would prefer if you were a customer ontop of a participant. etc etc.
what non capitalistic places are there then, pray tell. outside of religious organizations?
Don’t have a dog, do you? A local library? A lake? Go fishing, read a book, walk your dog. If you can’t find “non-capitalistic” spaces, then it’s you.
those all require fees to use. library card costs money, using hte library space, money. fishing licence, money. dog, lots of money. my dog costs me about 2 grand a year for vet, food, and licenses. absolutely none of them are free.
so many of the posts here come across like you all have no real world experience…
Says the person that’s buying library cards…
The ones not ran by a corporation? Try finding meetups through various forums or apps and whatnot. Find a group doing things you want to do. Lots of places have casual hiking groups for an example. Of course what is available will depend heavily on what people around you are doing.
Religous groups can be an OK community, but of course dealing with all the BS gets old real fast.
Best thing to do would be to make friends that you can do your own stuff with, though of course that requires making friends first.
all my friends ever want to do is go out and spend lots of money. weird how that works.
even the ones i met from ‘free’ events.
Find better friends? Shouldn’t be hard to find people that basically only ask for BYOB.
That’s putting the cart before the horse. These fuckers voted to destroy the economy.
It’s a struggle. I try to do this with my union hall. Try and get out there and make connections with people. It comes a little easier when you’re thrusted into social interactions ,because of your children, as a parent.
It’s so much easier to just disassociate.
easier, or more rewarding?
connections with people aren’t very enjoyable when they are shitting on you and harassing you for your identity not being ‘progressive’ enough. a lot easier to dissociation and enjoy your life on your own without constant harassment for things beyond your control, like being a man.
I’ve been known to talk ideology at gatherings (I assume that’s what you meant by progressive). Maybe that’s why I don’t get invited to many parties lol.
My only point being that you have to show up to those gatherings anyway. It’s still a chance for valuable human connection, in my opinion. The only thing you can control is the way you react to that harassment.
yeah and for a man the best way to react is to remove yourself from the community.
Did you put effort into creating that mass shooter aura or does it just come naturally?
You gotta find ways of disguising it though. Fuckers get allergic reactions to words that sound all pink coded and woke
But “feminism” implies things are worse for women. I don’t think they are in my country. Egalitarianism is what I’m fighting for.
I’m shocked to hear women are not worse off in any country at all! Where is this magical place?
Brief scroll shows he thinks this is true of Canada
Using no true Scotsman type arguments to define gender equality is distractingly bonkers. Otherwise, well written and interesting read.
Always has been!
It would be nice if we could set aside our petty differences to build towards a sustainable future for all. I believe that would fix most of our current problems. But that gets in the way of profits or whatever.
