Ignoring boys' emotional needs fuels public health risks

To me it seems quite trivial to create unfalsifiable arguments, for near anything, using extremely nebulous terms like "reducing public health risks." It's not like anybody's ever going to say, "No way man - I really think we should work to increase public health risks!" But what separates science from pseudoscience is falsifiability. So it's only once you break things down into actual, specific, and measurable goals that the conversation can even begin.

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As but one example, the most fundamental component for a society to perpetuate itself is fertility. And so, in my mind, a child's upbringing should absolutely be focused on ensuring this person will be able to both raise and support their own healthy family in the future. Yet of course even this simple goal is going to prove controversial because there's some conflict between it and certain cultural norms. And you'd need to reconcile this in some way that people, independent of worldview, can be generally happy with. I'm not sure this is possible.

It's very hard for people to swallow their pride and admit humility, to say "I don't know" and listen to the experts. I have an immense amount of respect for anybody who does, and it is an example I try to live by (though not always successfully).

1. We don't know as much as people think we do about what constitutes "good parenting". At best, we know some behaviours which are typically harmful (molestation, violence), but everyone already knows that, and the people exhibiting those behaviours need therapy themselves, so a parenting course won't fix that.

2. You're basically turning what is normally considered an innate human right into a privilege for which you need to earn a license. This invites all kinds of abuse (only the right kinds of people get this license!).

Good parenting is foremost about growing up before your kids do.

> How about some minimal coaching so that all parents are aware of the state of the art in child psychology and techniques to do better as parents.

In my country, we had a housekeeping class in school, that taught everything from basic cooking skills, to safety with electrical appliances. There was also a woodworking class, where you were taught how to use various tools correctly and safely. Later, in university, there were courses that concerned things like paying taxes in more detail, employment law and how small businesses work etc.

I think that parenting classes sound like a good idea. It can also help people figure out when they're absolutely not ready for something or are not comfortable with it - like happened to me and getting a driver's license.

So for example, the one for 3,5 years has sections on how to deal with food pickiness, or with excessive preference for one parent.

Historically, the role of the “parentin school” you’re proposing has been played by the family, most importantly grandparents. As we move away as a society from relying on family structures, we need to recognise their utility and find equivalents.

We moved away successfully from family structures in many areas of society: succession of rulers, for example. So this doesn’t need to be a bad thing. But I think the role that grandparents played should be studied carefully when proposing certain types of schooling for parents.

One of the things that Finance people do is force employees to have short computer-based trainings every year. They seem stupid and bother everyone, but I think they are fairly effective (and they've been going on for years, so they must have proven some level of effectiveness).

Health insurance providers could be forced to have parents do a yearly 1-hour training on how to handle kids to enable benefits.

You're not going to solve the biggest problems, just like SEC trainings don't prevent money laundering, but whateveer moves the needle a little bit may be worth doing...

I think it’s a situation where we can’t stop people from having babies so we don’t even attempt to limit.

There have been attempts to prevent births in “undesirable” populations that people thought weren’t capable of properly raising kids. [0]

But unless we’re going to have a super controlled society with forced birth control and abortion, there’s not a qualification to give birth. And developing nations have really low birth rates so anything to further lower birth rates has some negative societal and economic impact.

That being said, there are many free programs available to parents but they have to reach out to find them. I live in a pretty backwards, relatively speaking, state and there were numerous state, county, charity, and religious programs to help with parenting coaching before and after birth.

It does seem like a good idea to add coaching into the maternal health programs to give more education and support to expecting and new parents.

[0] https://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2015/08/14/43208...

What is "state of the art" in psychology? A bunch of irreproducible papers?

Something along those lines, such as cheaper hospital stays or government covering part of childcare or some incentive like that could support what you are thinking. Not required, but a financial incentive. This is especially useful because it targets lower income families, hopefully reducing the correlation from parental income and career/health/etc outcomes.

PS: Smart of you to wear your nomex, this thread is a conflagration.

The issue is that in US driving license is trivial to get and it shows on the roads ( queue explanations that it is just the function of car being a necessity -- true, but irrelevant too the point ). Even if instituted, I don't think people would accept that kind of infringement though I admit this is probably one place, where we should be able to self-regulate ( we clearly can't though and some systems are built for ever increasing population, which is a separate force that would prevent that kind of change ).

In short, I agree. I don't think we are doing it well now.

> Potentially break the cycles of bad parenting

You can't break cycles of bad parenting, because they are 2nd order effects of cycles of trauma. And cycles of trauma have been a fundamental part of human civilization since we've existed. We absolutely should teach compassion, good parenting 101s and basic logistical upskilling as a part of high school for both men and women.

But, expecting humans as a whole to suddenly start acting with decency is not going to happen.

So at first I liked the pushback against toxic masculinity as I didn’t like jerk men. But then the concept expanded to everything. “Mansplaining” isn’t something unique to men, but it’s ok to point out “mansplaining” but not non-men explaining stuff. “Manspreading” is used quite a bit, but there’s a reason why men sit with their legs open so there’s a polite about of space that’s ok for comfort. Etc etc.

I hope this is overcompensating for a long time of jerks being jerks but I fear that the bullying resulting from “strength = power” and jocks has now changed to “money = power” and people other than jocks have power.

I go to an esports bar quite a bit and an esports team was there. And they were totally bullying people and it was weird because it was multiple genders and races being total jerks to people. But the bully’s were strong, tall, handsome jocks. They were esports-types. So the jerk dynamic was still there.

I don’t think it’s progress if we end up with the same number of “toxic” jerks.

I do think this can be true while there can also be elements of society that push the other way. Culture is made up of many micro cultures and the kid born in SF will have a different experience than the one born in Mississippi, but we do have bigger issues than people on the internet making fun of mansplaining or something. It’s just too easy to have one’s perception of reality distorted by your perception.

Were they really though? I mean, yes there always were and always will be some abusive men, but men _as a group_ have been more associated with protecting and caring for women than being hostile to them. Until very recently in human history, women actually couldn't physically survive without men - it's only been in the past few generations that the nature of work has changed to where women could actually perform it.

On equality, I find it highly disturbing the current policies have amounted to a zero sum game.

"Toxic masculinity" is self-criticism. We men are harming ourselves, and the article discusses this. For example, "Fathers are also more likely to sing to and soothe their toddler daughters at night when they cry." Both girls and boys have emotional needs, but we're ignoring the emotional needs of boys. We expect boys to be "manly" and "strong", to bottle up any problems and never show weakness. That's toxic masculinity. Toxic to ourselves.

> hyper focus on promoting outcomes for girls while doing nothing of the sort for boys.

I feel this bit of your context inspires some really useful analysis.

My perspective is that we have finished the easy part, having made progress on the most obvious harms. The work that remains is dealing with more deeply embedded issues - and that they are far more subtle and complex. We can see evidence of those issues manifested, when and where there is hostility toward women and for our systems that effectively safeguard them from historical risks.

And as ever, the group with the best insight to puzzle out how to proceed is the group that suffered. I believe this is true, even if they're still working it out (because it is immensely complicated). They will work it out, if we give them enough room and trust to do so.

As far there is an imbalance in fulfilling the needs of children, the most worthwhile solutions should be ones that are loving, inclusive and sow a unanimity that uplifts everyone toward their individual potentials. If girls are in a better place, then bringing boys into into that place seems like what we should try next.

What evidence do you have of this? All my friends who want healthy views of women consider me a valid human being, deserving of respect and care, even though I have a penis. Sure, lots of young men are glomming onto this absurd train of hatred, that women or "femoids" actually naturally enjoy rape and other horseshit, but they are being told this stuff by adult men, who clearly and overtly do not consider women to be equals, or deserving of anything but nonconsensual sex.

How the hell do you blame the toxic masculinity problem, caused by assholes like Jordan Peterson, Andrew tate, Nick Fuentes, "Fresh and fit podcast" etc, on women asking to be treated like people. It is not women driving the hatred against women, it is morally bankrupt individuals quite literally profiting off boys who were never told that they shouldn't be trying to pressure their girlfriend into sex, or kids who have no idea how to treat women being told "here's a simple mental model" that surely explains all their problems, they just have to be fit enough or attractive enough and then they will get the sex they "deserve".

Meanwhile, all these "Manosphere" influencers seem to be really against anyone being gay, or anyone being trans, and also for some reason are great friends with actual neo-nazis, and I don't remember those people being very pro-women's rights.

Perhaps in an American/European centric view of the world. I would heavily challenge/reject that assumption across the globe.

With this movie, the critics could have said the filmmaker, Alex Lee Moyer, avoided the most misogynistic fringe that could be associated with the Men's Rights movement and been correct but that would undermine the safe thing to say, that the _entire_ Men's Rights movement is fringe and misogynistic.

I'm not especially interested in Men's Rights but I thought the movie was a refreshing surprise, commend the risk taken by the creator, and hope people continue to take risks when the evidence leads them into the unexpected.

PS: The film maker went on to make "TFW No GF" which followed and explored lonely, young men. Searching "Alex Lee Moyer", the second result is a Rolling Stone article on this movie with the headline, "‘TFW No GF’ Is a Deeply Uncomfortable Portrayal of Incel Culture". Here are just a couple quotes that show how much bull this director has had thrown her way for her troubles:

> This non-judgmental approach has made many viewers deeply uncomfortable, with writer Eric Langberg tweeting that the film is “one of the most irresponsible docs I’ve ever seen,” leading to a barrage of abuse from incels on Twitter.

> But even if you believe that objectivity is the best approach to capturing a subculture marked by misogyny, violence, and racism, it’s hard to accept the argument that the film’s relationship with its subjects is wholly objective in the first place.

Clearly, how dare she go and explore this sub-culture by meeting and filming some of its members, willing or not, without reminding the audience that these are bad people that say bad things on the internet and laugh at bad jokes.

Try /r/menslib for a healthier discussion that isn’t centred around blaming women for everything.

If we think broadly about who cares about whom, it goes like this:

* Men care about women because they want to mate with them,

* Women care about women because it's in their own best interest to look after each other (men only care about them for selfish reasons),

* Men don't care about men because it's not in their own best interest to do so, in fact it's advantageous to defeat other men,

* Women don't care about men because it's not in their own best interest to do so.

Essentially, women support each other, men compete with each other.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WMuzhQXJoY

In modern society we're normally conditioned to avoid confrontation, but it's the best way to initiate a proactive solution.

And I doubt I was the only divorced father with shared custody.

There is a general corruption of the concept of masculinity in American culture. It’s similar to what’s happened to the symbol of the American flag, but more insidious.

When I say masculinity, or masculine values, what do you think of? When you think of someone who values their masculinity, who do you perceive? Now do the same for femininity. Which model is healthier?

Men and women have, on average, physiological differences. These differences are pronounced in puberty. That’s when these frameworks matter the most; they thus must be embedded in childhood. There is no right answer, I think, but there are right questions that boys dealing with a burst of testosterone should ask themselves. That we’ve ignored or even repressed that seems to link both failures in boy and fatherhood.

It also seems to naturally extend to trans and non-binary kids, another situation we are culturally bankrupt in addressing. Boys understanding and speaking to their feminine sides is, ironically, a classically masculine strength in the way women understanding and acting on their masculine sides is, traditionally, a classical sign of motherhood and through that feminine strength. (The linking of feminine strength and motherhood is obviously dated, though as someone who lives in bear and moose country I can see why it was originally embraced.)

I think this is important because the "absent father" is often used as an excuse, when it rather represents the last breached line in a long list of failures of society, which have ripped boys from the men who would look after them.

(I admit that there's likely some who won't like hearing this, as it cuts against the grievances of those who find pride in specific fatherhood ("I will raise MY child.") and see society's manner, or the dissolving of the nuclear family into a larger community unit, as working against that.)

I didn’t quite believe it at first. Over time it has become abundantly clear. Boys without dads, not even someone to step in to support them, are often swimming upstream at best.

Where would we even start? The only circumstances where we could hope to do anything at all are those where it's either not a problem, or is still only a minor one... if daddy's doing 20 for murder or dealing at the kilo level, are we supposed to let him out so he can sing lullabies?

There exists an entire class of problems that people only seem to comprehend the causes of once those same problems have escalated far beyond the capacity for comprehension to allow us to fix them. Perhaps the universe hates us. Or maybe we just deserve it.

Of the divorced couples I know with children, the mothers were awarded custody in every single case, often over the strenuous objections of the fathers and other family members like grandparents (and in one case, even in the face of documented abuse by the mother).

I feel like studies on the effect of children who grow up with a missing parent need to somehow control for couples who split because of mental health issues. Otherwise, it's studying not the effect of the absent parent, but the effect of the behaviors of the parent who was granted custody, and some of those behaviors may strongly correlate with not being able to maintain a marriage or other partnership.

Interestingly, only a few years ago, Bill Cosby himself made an impassioned plea to address these issues. He saw it a lot.

The first time I had a heart-to-heart with my father, the center of my chest felt viscerally tender.

Mother stole a car and sold it to pay for a cocaine addiction. Father was such a workaholic that he simply marked her behaviors as "strange"... like her taking phone calls into a closet.

After the divorce my father had custody and remarried to continue his absence. (Normally left before I awoke, and I went to bed before he returned. He was even normally late for family dinners on holidays. When he was home, he was sleeping or watching TV)

Sometimes stepmother would return from work and vomit anger onto me and my stepsister. (Only about 2 years ago I realized it was Verbal Abuse)

Re-encoding memories was crucial for my awareness, and mental-emotional progress.

It's challenging at first, but after processing a few traumas, now when a deeper layer surfaces, I know I can immediately bring it to a therapeutic resolution.

"It's never too late to have a happy childhood."

Of course, this already implies problems with people with non-traditional orientations and identities. But I wouldn't regard those as the main problems. They even seem somewhat easy to overcome when compared to the usual sexism in Poland.

I find sexism in Poland to be a very different thing than sexism in Germany for example. With regards to both genders. It is more reciprocal, with more obvious sexism against man than in germany. It would be a too big subject, to even outline it here.

Are people as glued to social media in EE as they are in the US? Have they had a #metoo movement? How about religious zealots?

Granted, in UA it goes a long way to face your own existence in war to clear the mind of certain topics.

I’m guessing though there’s some event UA has or hasn’t experienced that helps explain the difference-possibly many. US contends with a lot of guilt around the past as something like societal psychological trauma. Guilt and sexual repression are bigger in the US than elsewhere.

Edit-note, the metoo movement had a strong legal component replete with legal, criminal consequences. That would tend to compound the effects, yes?

Also, re: "men are men and women are women" -- how are LGBT rights doing in Ukraine outside of Kyiv these days?

If the terminally online people that lose sleep over Tate could stop equating somebody disagreeing with them with that person being a piece of irredeemable human dogshit, he would be a nobody.

Instead, boys are discriminated against academically, emotionally, in terms of support and scholarships and these people who are in charge of starvation are shocked, shocked! when a guy like that appears to meet their needs.

If someone asked me an obscure sin, something that went unrecognized but was none the less heinous, I would say that attempting to inculcate the innocent with self-loathing, to saddle them with Original Sin, and to more or less attempt to have that hatred internalized, that would be a mortal sin, if for no other reason than there's simply a finite capacity you can find in humanity for that self-abnegation and past that point, one or more will snap, will turn on you, and it will always be in a way you most dread. Most dread because these ground-down types will have an endless flood of hearing the particulars of what another would like that they can simply do the opposite.

Yet Tate seems to promote strength, power, and confidence as silver bullets for all ones problems -- mixed with a lot of get-rich-quick BS that boils down to "pay me to teach you to selling teaching to others". And this from a guy who got rich pressuring women into camming and taking a huge cut.

Boys and men need nuanced male role models (even modestly flawed), not one dimensional grifters.

I'm not really sure how you got that from the article, practically the entire piece is citations of how boys are different from girls, just not in the way that we think they are culturally.

Perhaps you're referring to the line

> Fathers and mothers use far more emotionally rich language with toddler-aged daughters than sons, for instance. Fathers are also more likely to sing to and soothe their toddler daughters at night when they cry.

I interpret this as a call to resist specific gendered parenting behaviours that propagate harmful norms. Not that gender should be excluded from consideration.

Just as society has historically dissuaded women from pursuing stem it has historically dissuaded men from growing emotionally. We've started to tackle that first element but I truly believe that the second one is the next breakthrough. As it is, men like Andrew Tate are trying to fill that void. I think this is because we as a society have failed to lift up boys and give them healthy role models

The only shocking moment I had was taking a Women Studies course in my sophomore year of college… as I felt my childhood lacked this tension, it would be helpful to uncover blind spots. In particular I remember we had a 2 day discussion on the harmful impact of the Cosby Show on society (both race and gender relations) and the other male member of the course piped in with what I felt was a well reasoned comment. He was eviscerated in such a manner that it was apparent our presence was not welcome. I kept my mouth shut the rest of the course. It was certainly educational.

Education (and a lot of other parts of society) has(ve) left men behind, and it starts in the childhood and never stops.

I worked in a place a long while ago, being the only male in that department.

Everyone was nice and we did our jobs.

Over time I discovered 'rumors' about me from people outside the department. I'll call these people, the observers. They had no interactions with our team, aside from seeing who worked in our office as they walked past.

It was quite concerning that people would assume the situation meant anything but myself working with a team of peers.

Society is losing some of the toxic masculinity because women are achieving leadership positions and have legal remedies available to them when men behave inappropriately. Parents are attempting to intervene appropriately.

Besides, the default state of raising a boy in the United States is to abuse the child.

Feelings? Not valid. Keep them to yourself. (This is how I ended up with depression at age 8 when my folks used me as a pawn in their religious dispute while my sisters sat there, oblivious)

Pain? Not real. And even if it is, don't show weakness. (This is how I ended up with a burst appendix during a wilderness hike in the Boy Scouts)

Your role? Provider. If you aren't providing, why are you even breathing? (This is the cause of a lot of breakups)

Everyone knows that these are more or less true. It's something that should resonate with people regardless of their political affiliation. And every bit of it is emotional abuse. None of it is about "being a man or learning to be a man." There's nothing more dehumanizing for a child than to be told that their thoughts and feelings don't matter and that their reason for living is to work until they can't anymore.

People here are explaining why fathers are being emotionally unavailable to their sons.

It's not a mistake, and it's not neglect. The fathers aren't idiots or abusers.

It's to train the son to be able to function in a world that doesn't care and will never care about his feelings, his pain, his safety, or his life. A world where all acceptance and love is conditional on being useful to someone else.

The fathers understand that showing weakness or needing emotional help as a male simply makes people distrust, reject, abuse, and abandon you. We've all had this experience over and over. They care about their sons, so they try to teach them the easy way, before the world teachers them the hard way.

It's "the talk" for boys.

She was a little offended by the question (itself interesting), but said it was just her and the medical staff. No other support people. She thought my grandfather was at the hospital, but wasn’t sure.

My grandfather was the epitome of "manliness". Blue collar worker. Hunter. Army service. My mother and her sisters have vivid memories of him singing to them.

Something is honestly sick with so many families in this country. Men have been caring for their children for millennia. It's what separates humans from the lesser beasts.

By comparison in my wife's "backwards" country, the female relatives of the woman in labor are traditionally not allowed to attend labor. Sure, the men weren't allowed to see the baby for forty days, but thats to protect the newborn from dirty ruffians who'd spent all day wrestling hogs and ploughing fields. All the men of this society - regressively conservative to a tee - Ive met are far more involved with kids than your average modern day phone addicted westerner.

Nor are fathers, generally, cold and uncaring for their children in classical literature outside very militaristic societies. Curiously enough, you mention "100 years ago". Those fathers were literally shell shocked.

> I was not prepared to hear over and over from men how the women — the mothers, sisters, girlfriends, wives — in their lives are constantly criticizing them for not being open and vulnerable and intimate, all the while they are standing in front of that cramped wizard closet where their men are huddled inside, adjusting the curtain and making sure no one sees in and no one gets out. There was a moment when I was driving home from an interview with a small group of men and thought, Holy shit. I am the patriarchy. Here’s the painful pattern that emerged from my research with men: We ask them to be vulnerable, we beg them to let us in, and we plead with them to tell us when they’re afraid, but the truth is that most women can’t stomach it. In those moments when real vulnerability happens in men, most of us recoil with fear and that fear manifests as everything from disappointment to disgust.

I posted this on HN before, and out of the woodworks came all the anecdotes of bad reactions to male vulnerability. I strongly advise other men to not discuss their feelings in depth with any woman they have romantic interest in, and possibly women in general since I've seen mothers similarly affected.

(I'm not saying this is specific to boys, don't read too much into pronouns.)

And why the article's guide point is 'Encourage them to share their struggles — with you, of course, but also with other trusted adults, a therapist or even friends.', not 'Encourage them to share their struggles with all their acquaintances'.

Basically you get answers like:

“Man up”

“Grow a pair”

“Boys don’t cry”

“Life is harsh, get used to it”

Last but not the least: “psychologists are for weak people with mental problems, not for you”.

Two more observations again based on my life experience:

1. Weakness is generally accepted in girls/women, largely acknowledged and supported. Can’t say the same for boys/men.

2. Often times I’ve been said the above phrases either by girls/women of my same age or by people like teachers/educators.

Basically you end up appearing weak, sometimes get mocked, and in general you’re better off shutting up and keeping stuff inside. Over the years I’ve developed quite a cynicism, that I acknowledge and that (sadly?) works fairly well.

In his excellent review [1] of Nostalgia Critic's idiotic, embarrassing and awful review of The Wall, Dan Olson points out that much of the part of the film that Doug makes fun of is specifically the main character being told to hide/suppress emotion and struggling with that and failing.

In other words, the "satire"'s primary take is basically that men showing feelings is being strictly something to be mocked.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rokAtlFGa7Y

Ideologies are not something you are, people are not patriarchy-ists. Ideologies are something you do, which means people act in a patriarchal way, likely based on ideological reasons, often without ever consciously thinking about the underlying ideology. To better understand patriarchy, what are some examples of people "doing" patriarchy?

How do I test if something is patriarchy?

People without good enough “father figures” turn out emotionally volatile. I see it in myself, and I see it in others. Sometimes, emotions should be observed and not yielded to. “Toxic masculinity” is just taking this to the extreme of disregarding all emotions. “Toxic femininity” is just yielding to all of one’s emotions. It mirrors the narcissist:BPD relationships (absent, cold, and self-absorbed man; next to the hysterical, ever-present, and needy woman).

A healthy person has cultivated both aspects of themselves in moderation (learning to listen to and identify one’s emotions, and having the good judgement to know when they should and shouldn’t be allowed to continue) — this is usually best done by emulating others with this healthy outlook, most commonly with a healthy mother and father (but with the dissolution of gender norms, gender doesn’t matter on the surface, so long as the people involved have nurtured both parts well).

The best way to raise boys is in a village with all sorts of people to learn from. The worst way is to neglect them and let them figure out life for themselves.

That would stand if you considered every guy talking shit about their father as "bad" men, regardless of how they behave otherwise.

I agree having a settle relationship with one's father is better, but people with legitimate grief against their father and having objective disgust about what they did as human beings shouldn't be a disqualifying situation.

I'm also a bit perplexed by the opposition between hating someone and accepting them. You can acknowledge what someone did for you, see where they come from and accept they are who they are, while hating their guts.

At 5yo, he threatened to take me to the sheriff's and adopt me out because I was "horrible".

Was told constantly to "man up", and ignore any sort of emotions I was having.

He also beat me. Naturally, that was perfectly acceptable in the 80's, even in public. Instead, it was called "spanking".

He would buy toys, then take them away to take a hammer to them, or otherwise destroy them in front of me.

Told me that I'd never amount to anything and that I should just join the military cause thats where stupid people go.

Anything bad that happened to me was always my fault. Didn't matter what it was. My fault.

It also didn't work out that my mother was/is an enabler and a narcissist (and, well, abused by him too).

I don't care what people call this. Patriarchy, etc. Those're just labels. But did they hurt me until I figured out how to undo the damage of childhood? Damn straight they did. And I wont perpetuate these abuses on any other.

And I've met people like you, motohagiography , that defend these sorts of abuses as the general mantra "man up". I find defending obvious assaults and child abuses to be disgusting.

And, well, burying my dad did finally put a nail in that coffin, so to speak.

Are their children supposed to "accept" him regardless, and feel bad about themselves if they can't?

I won't pretend to know her family struggles, but the public lynching of present fathers is becoming a strong dark theme.

And "Praise them when they ask for help. Encourage them to share their struggles — with you, of course, but also with other trusted adults, a therapist or even friends."

And the article is full of links like this: https://www.irp.wisc.edu/resource/involved-fathers-play-an-i...

which suggests:

- Positive engagement: Involved fathers directly interact with their children in positive ways, including caregiving such as changing diapers and shared activities that involve play.

- Accessibility: Involved fathers are available to their children even when not directly interacting, such as cooking while the child plays nearby.

- Responsibility: Involved fathers take ultimate responsibility for their child’s welfare and care, including participating in decision-making regarding child-rearing and ensuring that children’s needs are met.

Actual emotional support can take a lot of different forms. I'd say that it includes someone recognising the emotions you're having, not judging them, not stopping you from expressing them, and talking about the emotions afterwards if you're up for it.

Mentorship and emotional support can have significant overlap.

To expect otherwise is to expect a fish not to be wet.

Take care.

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2015/nov/17/row-after-...

> A row has broken out at York University after plans to mark International Men’s Day on Thursday were cancelled following an outcry from staff and students.

There is a big rift in feminism which feminists seem loath to acknowledge, preferring instead to claim that it isn't real, it's made up by anti-feminists, and it isn't important even if you can point to actual evidence. Well, it's real, it's important, and despite the posturing, we aren't all ignoring it.

More:

https://time.com/3432838/emma-watson-feminism-men-women/

> Just in the past few days, many feminist commentators have taken great umbrage at suggestions that soccer star Hope Solo, currently facing charges for assaulting her sister and teenage nephew, deserves similar censure to football player Ray Rice, who was caught on video striking his fiancée. Their argument boils down to the assertion that violence by men toward their female partners should be singled out because it’s a bigger problem than female violence toward family members. Meanwhile, in Watson’s native England, activists from women’s organizations recently blamed the shortage of services for abused women on efforts to accommodate abused men (despite the fact that, as Guardian columnist and blogger Ally Fogg demonstrated, even the lowest estimates of the prevalence of domestic violence against men suggest that male victims are far less likely than women to get help).

Dating is much the same: the majority of the hetero/bi female dating pool selects in favour of features that are often red flags for toxic masculinity. This gets better as one gets older, mercifully, but gender is a verb as well as a noun, and men and women alike aggressively gender one another and unwittingly punish people who deviate from the rules.

Still, at least we're talking about it. Previous generations succumbed badly to gender essentialism - "men are from Mars" and that stuff - and as ever, left a mess for the next generations.

Entire entertainment genres are built around portraying men as inept fools who can be looked down upon by the opposite sex. Seinfeld is one of the few sitcoms where a female character is as flawed as the men. You couldn't even do that show today.

"Trans rights are human rights!"

Okay, fair enough. Then a few metres later, in the same colour and obviously by the same person:

"Kill all men!"

People will say "yes, but it doesn't mean literally kill all men", and of course it doesn't. But it's not exactly positive, is it?

They are often more than happy to confide in what they think of ------------ when they feel they are in a safe space. A friend of mine, who is half-black, but passes as a white guy gets way more of that than he should in North Carolina [1].

[1] It really helps that he's working in a profession that is majority-team-red. Some people really can't help but run their mouth when they think they are preaching to the choir.

Public opinion oversimplifies things to good vs bad and works like a pendulum, and I just hope it doesn't swing too much in the opposite direction. If people saying "men suck" is a temporary by-product of addressing systemic gender inequality then that's a price I'm willing to pay. I've benefited plenty from the power of average white male mediocrity.

For example, a man could allow himself to be triggered into rage. And afterwards there will be no visible signs it happened within him.

But his wife could've been around him, and now she has purple bruises.

External signs are more easily measurable, and therefore reported more, therefore readers assume the most affected.

If the man had internal bio-signals measured, such as HRV, blood pressure, etc, you'd see the effects even BEFORE that of a beaten wife. (Of course there are also long-term health issues for being a slave to rage/anger/frustration)

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/09/young-men-...

https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2021/10/08/the-male-...

https://www.wsj.com/articles/college-university-fall-higher-...

Women are now more dominant in universities today than men were in the 1950-70s

There's an article I can't find that specifically documents how douchy fratboys are having the time of their life due to the surplus of women and dearth of men in college now.

What a bizarre thing for them to say. In my experience, psilocybin mushrooms are absolutely amazing for mental health. I think that everyone should take mushrooms at least once a year to clear out the cobwebs.

History, just like nature, is almost completely random and "unfair".

Although I don't agree with everyone here, I see a lot more nuance and reasoning behind a lot of the discussion here. It overrides the overall MSM/social-media picture that says there is only one right answer and all who question it are evil.

His tone has become more and more aggressive, now he’s just a shadow of himself, drowning in hatred and paranoia. That’s sad because 10 years ago he sounded like a reasonable guy with sane advices. He was saying stuff like "the battle between his and evil starts in oneself. We all are capable of the worst and we must fight it inside ourselves." Now he just considers he’s 100% good, right on everything, he’s oppressed and his "attackers" are evil. What a letdown.

Take as one point the fact that boys brains develop slower and later into life than women. Should then boys be competing against women of the same age given what we know?

Take as another point the decline in physical activity in schools and the reduction is recess time. Does this negatively impact boys more than girls? I think so, but it hurts then both to be sure.

Maybe it's something that female administrators and teachers fail to understand. Or rather, willfully ignore trying to push a certain (extremely liberal) agenda on captive boys.

It would also explain the current epidemic of ADHD and especially ADHD medication prescribed to young boys.

Girls, on the other hand, get told their body is flawed. Gotta constantly be on a diet, and spend like an hour a day on beauty stuff.

We are all victims of society.

This is also far from the case.

Something I think people miss sometimes is that there’s a big market for messages loudly affirming girls’ identities and choices because things are not, in fact, going that well.

I really doubt this describes the experience of 90% of people on this planet.

I remember this. I wasn't old enough to join up, but I'd not have.

It was widely ridiculed at the time, and most folks didn't really respect it.

It wasn't the MRM that killed your movement; it just never took off, and was never really positively received by wider society.

"Farrell is widely considered to be the father of the men’s rights movement. In a series of books published since the 1980s, he has made the case that the primary victims of gender-based discrimination are men—casualties of a society that relies on their sacrifices while ignoring their suffering. He blames this phenomenon for a litany of woes, from the plight of blue-collar workers to the state of veterans’ health care and rising suicide rates among young men. Many of today’s men’s rights activists view Farrell’s 1993 book, The Myth of Male Power: Why Men Are the Disposable Sex, as their touchstone, and the online forums where they congregate are steeped in Farrell’s ideas"

[1] https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/01/warren-farrell-...

I'm a man who's currently deeply lonely, depressed, and struggling with poor self-esteem. I hear feminists talking about "toxic masculinity". But none of what they say feels applicable to me. I've never been violent; I'm currently trying therapy for the third time; and I can't remember even a single time when someone told me to "man up". So, while I'm sure toxic masculinity is a real problem for some men, I don't feel like it's the issue that's hurting me personally.

The issues that do feel like they're hurting me personally are things like:

* Negative stereotypes of men as incompetent, boorish, etc.

* The widespread attitude that "men suck"

* The stereotypes of socially awkward men (like me) as gross/creepy/neckbeards/etc.

* Difficulty navigating expectations around how dating and relationships are supposed to work, especially as a socially awkward man

The feminist movement does a great job of addressing the issue of toxic masculinity. But when it comes to the issues I listed above, many feminists don't take them seriously, and some feminists are actually making them worse:

* A feminist in this thread making excuses for the "incompetent, boorish dad" stereotype in media: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36473710

* A feminist in this thread making excuses for saying "men suck": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36474484

* That time when a socially awkward man talked about his feelings (https://scottaaronson.blog/?p=2091#comment-326664) and a feminist said some extremely toxic things in response (https://web.archive.org/web/20150113081455/http://www.rawsto...) (Yes, that controversy was eight years ago, but it's really stuck with me)

Now, I'm definitely not trying to say that "feminism is terrible" or anything like that. Feminists are fighting the good fight on many gender-equality issues. Feminism arguably deserves credit for why I never had to struggle with toxic masculinity, and I'm grateful for that. But at the same time, there are unfortunately some really shitty people in the feminist movement, and they're are causing real harm to people like me. And my experience has been that the feminist movement defends and enables those people, rather than letting them be held accountable.

So my reaction to the article is: I know toxic masculinity is a real problem, and I'm glad feminists are fighting against that problem. But the problems that are hurting me personally are different from toxic masculinity, and unfortunately some feminists are actually exacerbating my problems. So, when I hear feminists blaming most/all of mens' problems on toxic masculinity, that actually feels to me like it's derailing the conversation from the issues that are most important to me.

I hope my perspective helps you see another side of the issue.

Step one is building the future you want to see. Step one isn't waging a cultural battle.

A well articulated alternative might even sap the wind from it's sails. But if you want to wage war without anything else to offer them... you'll just be entrenching the status quo.

Connecting to men might require discussing sore cultural subjects with a bit of impropriety. The problem for you, is that all the people willing to say "fuck good taste" aren't following it up with the message you want.

Have you been to Ukraine?

It's because men are physically stronger than women. That's it. That's all it is.

Every study I've seen on the subject has said that children of same sex parents, including having two mothers, do as well or better than their peers across any metric of wellbeing or success.

The Americas has strong, persistent matriarchies. And even Sparta had a politically-active group of heiresses who rivalled the Kings for power.

> All children need fathers

> Father[s] have an authority no mother can have

> There's a reason virtually every culture is patriarchal. Patriarchy exists in service of the common good

Really?? Where's the research that supports any of this? If you're going to make charged statements like this, you better at least bring some research to the table.

Let's all take a good long hard look at ourselves. Just because we might feel frustrated, or displaced, or ignored, doesn't mean that we (and I'm talking to the men on this site who upvoted this comment) need to abandon the truth-seeking parts of us that desire the gold standard of logical, evidence-supported arguments. If you blindly support any statement in favor of "your side" just because it feels good to you emotionally, regardless of how speculative or questionable the reasoning is, then you have little right to criticize the "other side" for doing the same.

Here's the steelmanned version of the ideas you're saying are causing issues:

- Instead of defining men / women, think of each human as a person. There are no strong men, sensitive boys, intelligent women, vulnerable girls - there are only strong people, weak people, hard people, soft people. Our job as society is to compassionately accept people as they are and encourage them to be their best authentic selves, instead of arguing there is some role they must force themselves to fulfill because they were born with a set of genitalia, because this promotes individual happiness and is the kind thing to do.

- People's virtues are learned, not innate. Independent people can learn to accept help. People who are unsure of themselves can gain confidence. People are allowed to be vulnerable, but also to have the space to find roots, solidarity, strength and growth. Roles that traditionally would have gone to someone with a penis - head of household, soldier, provider - are achievable and manageable by anyone, because the virtues needed to hold those positions are learnable and not rooted in biology. The same holds in reverse - roles that would traditionally have been held by women are open to everyone.

- People should be given freedom to flourish as they best see fit. They have rights to their bodily autonomy, securing their financial futures, achieving scholastic pursuits, respect and equality for their contributions, and more. Historically, this has not been the case, and this does not just apply to women's rights here - it applies to anyone who has had these opportunities denied.

- Some human but deleterious attributes we should all grow beyond. Brutishness is an excellent example - as is shallowness, closed-mindedness, entitlement, ignorance, greed, dishonesty, and more. Some attributes are contextually awful - being stoic, for example, is a boon when you need to handle stressful situations, but it can also manifest as a lack of empathy for other's emotional lives.

Note that none of these are attacking masculinity - if anything, point two contradicts exactly that, literally anyone can learn the virtues associated with masculinity and is why trans men are supported even conceptually. Rather, point four holds - there are a subset of awful virtues that are unacceptable or contextually awful from anyone that have been attached to being a man, such as entitlement to sex, resorting to anger in lieu of healthy expressiveness, and assuming they must shoulder all burdens instead of being allowed to seek help. In other words, mainstream movements are attempting to abolish toxic masculinity, not masculinity itself.

You discuss the emotional needs of boys and girls as being different (which may or may not be valid, depending on the best available evidence), but then you argue that treating boys like girls is not the right thing to do, which is not what anyone is proposing at all. Again, the idea is that people are people, not their bodies. Girls and boys are people, capable of feeling, wanting and expressing the full range of emotions. People want to treat children in ways that allow them to be emotionally expressive and mature adults.

Further, when you talk about the patriarchy, you are again not taking point one and two into account. Nobody wants authority, strength, boldness, vitality, etc. to go away - these are all great virtues. Rather, they want the idea that these qualities are somehow gendered to go away. If you want strong leaders, find them in both genders. Additionally, historically, the patriarchy you are discussing has tended to enshrine point four virtues rather than eliminated it - it's the same system that inflicted foot binding tortures, made Indian women throw themselves into funeral pyres when their husband passed, allowed female infanticide to flourish, and so on. These are all terrible things and bundled into a parcel of ideas about what men "should" be: not just protectors, but architects of their offspring / wives / sister's fates. We have managed to overcome many of these core underpinning beliefs, but there still remain a lot that should not go unchallenged.

So, respectfully, I would ask you to at least attack the right thing. It is possible your value systems are opposed to all the points above, and that's fine. But if a value system has to reach towards attacking strawmen of other viewpoints, then it is not a good sign that that value system has been arrived at fairly.

That doesn’t mean I’m a robot without feeling. Doing your job isn’t “toxically masculine”.

Growing up I was raised in all the bullshit about not crying or never appearing “weak”. It turns out bottling all your emotions isn’t a super healthy thing. Even worse when you don’t gain the meaningful perspective of understanding the implications of them because you’re conditioned to pretend to ignore them.

Men are emotional creatures whether some of them want to admit it or not because they’re human.

Cleaning human shit for a living or part of your living doesn’t change that no matter who you are.

If so, then we're in trouble.

How are they (the boys?) being characterised as women?

Who is claiming that men need to be treated like women?

Why are you so concerned by femininity?

To argue that stoic fathers tend to produce better sons requires evidence. We might ask, "Better for what?" Better to be a disposable cog in a rich man's machine, perhaps? There's quite a bit of evidence that stoic fathers produce sons with emotional problems. There is quite a bit of evidence that expecting fathers not to express intimacy with their sons is destructive for both. There's quite a bit of evidence that men who don't understand their emotions and have not been supported in expressing them safely tend to act out in dangerous ways.

Yours is a recipe for an exploitative, dangerous world. Intersectional feminism offers a path toward a safe, loving, and moral world.

This reads like satire. "ChatGPT, please write a paragraph that embodies the concept of toxic masculinity."

I'm becoming a father in a few months, so I've spent this entire year reflecting on the fathers I know - strengths, weaknesses, things to emulate and things to avoid. Every one of the "good fathers" in that reflection is someone whose child would go to him for emotional support.

It's astounding to me that anyone could believe it's possible to be truly masculine while neutering one's experience of human emotion. Being too afraid of emotion to ever express it, and making your child suffer for your fear, is cowardice, not masculinity.

Fathers should absolutely be there for emotional support, especially for small kids.

Also, distant mothers are not a modern creation, there have always been distant mothers.