Too many men suffering in silence, national health report finds (Canada)
westcentralonline.com
westcentralonline.com
What I really learned from these men is never sign a contract where the other party is incentivized to break it.
https://www.setfords.co.uk/2026/09/01/new-rights-for-cohabit...
At the request of the family law lobby, naturally ...
https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/a-fairer-end-to-...
"The very limited set of protections under the current law can leave cohabitants facing significant financial difficulties when relationships end, which disproportionately affects vulnerable groups such as women, and children..."
Women...so naturally vulnerable ?! In 2026?
All else aside for a second... yes? Women are both physically and economically (primarily when they are stay at home moms) vulnerable. No, that doesn't mean I'm saying that no men are vulnerable at all but averaged out to a population it's clear.
And I don't make a habit of pointing out women's smaller stature to call them vulnerable?? Wtf
It leaves them economically vulnerable. When 100% of the income is going into one person's bank account that means they have the opportunity for economic control over their partner. Their partner does not have savings of their own to speak of. No, healthy relationships do not work that way. But a lot of relationships do.
Also, it's often not "through choice". A lot of the time childcare is more expensive than one parent leaving their job. A lot of families can't afford an alternative.
It's 2026, and women are starting to outearn men in some cities. Why make men the sole breadwinners of the family?
Which would completely ignore the economic imbalance I was talking about, which occurs during the marriage.
> It's 2026, and women are starting to outearn men in some cities. Why make men the sole breadwinners of the family?
Like I said, making a parent a stay at home parent is simply economic reality for many, while the kids are young and childcare is expensive. There’s no reason why that has to be the woman but the data shows that the vast majority of the time it is.
This is especially important if there are children involved in your situation.
The law isn't simply a "default" in this matter that you can opt out of AIUI
From a better write up of this same story:
Young men aged 15 to 24 show concerning trends in their self-rated mental health and rates of mental illness. For instance, between 2012 and 2022:
the percentage who reported "very good" or "excellent" mental health fell from 70% to 52% the percentage who experienced: mood disorders increased from11% to 16% generalized anxiety disorder increased from 4% to 10%
It is absolutely true that someone else's life doesn't define their own future path, but that doesn't mean they don't latch onto those stories and project the negativity onto themselves. One cannot see the future, so it is quite common to look to others to predict what the future may hold. As you point out, the future is often completely different to what you imagined, but it is what you are imagining that shapes how you feel.
Now, to answer your data points regardless - I don't think you understand that divorce isn't in isolation, it obviously affects entire families, including children. So, I wouldn't be surprised if there is more data showing these young boys are from broken homes.
https://www.canada.ca/en/services/health/publications/health...
And in here, you will find:
Men die by suicide at about 3 times the rate of women. Suicide is the second leading cause of death among men and boys aged 15 to 34.
If men and women have meaningful differences then it makes sense to have gendered laws.
I think pandora's box is open never to be shut again on the conversation if we're the same or different.
“They claim men and women are no different apart from their environment” tends to be a claim made by those who can't cope with the singular “they” let alone anything else, who are trying to make those who disagree on such points seem ridiculous.
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[1] particularly in the endocrine system, though in other parts² which might also have an impact on how we react to things and our mental health more generally
[2] it isn't just emotional matters and related coping mechanisms: heart attacks often manifest differently in women, or if not that then the signs are often misdiagnosed, for instance
[3] either for talking about specific detailed differences, or for identifying people in terms of their identity & phycological makeup more generally
no controversy of this in chimps.
no magical evolutionary moment when they became the same in humans.
biologists know this. sociologists start with an unfounded null assumption.
This cuts both ways: you will often see physically emasculated men get treated as if they're not men, to their detriment. Think of less-developed young men being cut from sports teams; they have the same in-built need for physical activity, competition, even some measure of practicing dominance, as larger boys. Deprivation leads to frustration and more.
Have you ever spoken with a woman?
Distinction is always going to be less effective than universally agreed declaration. We can declare: all human beings have equal rights.
Pandora's box is the universality aspect, which must be manifest by those agreeing to declare the nature of ones rights in respect to others rights, both for oneself and for others. This is the reason a distinction-based legal position is poor policy.
We cannot distinguish between a man and a woman if we are agreeing to the universality of their equal human rights.
The we part is the difficult part, apropos pandora's boxes. But ultimately, universality is very empowering to the individual.
That this expression has become the root of an industry of exploitation (divorce proceedings are a big circus) is clear. Rights are not a constant. They have to be expressed.
Like in vows, maybe.
I don’t even get how I am supposed to hold my partner to the same standards I would hold a close male friend/family member. If I knew a dude who freaked out and yelled/sobbed several times a month over something inane like where to get dinner I would drop them immediately. I have found just using the old adage “happy wife happy life” is most effective, but isn’t that inherently disrespectful? Like “I can’t reason with this person but if I upset them it’s gonna go poorly for me so I better let them have their way!”. The only way my relationship survives is if I have a bit of internalized misogyny and hold her to a different standard than I do myself or another man.
People chafe against things like DEI as arbitrary favoritism completely failing to note that yes, this policy is meant to promote equality, not to represent it. In the case of promoting female stem workers you might say it’s a policy designed to give women equal-ish access to the job market by way of giving them preferential treatment in hiring, to counteract biases of men favoring men during that process.
The ideal outcome of any policy like this is that once the systemic inequity is resolved, the policy can be retired.
> If men and women have meaningful differences then it makes sense to have gendered laws.
This framing of the issue puts the discussion down an awkward rhetorical path that is difficult to recover from.
What if it doesn't matter whether someone looks or acts different; but it matters how society treats them and the outcomes that they face.
Black chess pieces and white chess pieces are superficially, trivially distinct. Yet, the player with the white pieces wins 52% to 56% of the time.
I'm calling it out here because it's a typical technocratic bad-faith argument that I'm personally tired of hearing.
Last week's tragedy here, with a father throwing his two young kids off a roof before jumping himself, has caused our community to focus - at least for a while - on what was missing and what our system did wrong and what could have been sone better to prevent that from having happened.
Maybe men don't have supports until it's rock bottom or too late.
At the same time I don't think there's many men who beleive think the standard of supporting women, and children, early and often, should never be reduced or changed. Maybe it could be expanded.
The bias however is absurdly strong. My first lawyer said I should have taken my ex's offer of slightly less than 50/50. She said that my ex's floor was 50/50 and that if we couldn't show that we could effectively coparent they'd give it to the Mom.
That's exactly what happened and it held through her completely cutting me off from my son. I even went through a modification try and the same Judge upheld the situation.
As a result I haven't spoken with my son in almost 2 years now.
>2 years
Kids need their Dads, and Dads have to be strong as hell for them, even still, in this modern world. I am super glad to have gotten my two giant oafs into adulthood well enough to be surfing the wonders the world has in store for them both .. but yeah, you'll get your ass kicked. Be a kick ass Dad, then.
The most important thing is that your son knows you're there for him as he grows up. Maybe keep a journal, don't stop writing important things to him, notes and ideas from his Dad, for him to read when he gets his own agency over things.
How is it possible? Well, theoretically it's not. The order I got and subsequent denial of modification blatantly violate state law and appealate precedent. But it's all procedural. The standard for the underlying opinion of the judge is that if there is one fact to support that opinion then the ruling is upheld.
So I could have appealed and won. But then I go back to the same judge that doesn't think my kid should have any contact with me and all she has to do is find one fact to support that.
More often a custody order is just a piece of paper. The primary parent can screw with visitation easily and it takes time and money to go to court. The original divorce cost me $100k, another contempt motion $7k, and the failed modification $20k.
Custody ends for Fathers when they give up. I gave up unusually early (which royally pissed off the judge) and this is my punishment.
EDIT: Turns out this is NOT true, or at least, nothing I can find seems to point to it being true. Just habituating with someone for a long time is not enough.
https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/life-events/divorce/famil...
Only a few states have something like the common-law 'marriage' you picture - but it's a really high bar.
There needs to consideration AND usually clear intent to marry (w/ nuance of course);
You can't simply fall into this by happenstance because you cohabitate for {n} amount of years.
California does have a (ever barrowing) Marvin Action.
But it's an incredibly high bar and not family court
You need to prove that essentially a contract exists between the parties; * e.g. consideration *
https://www.wgslawfirm.com/family-law/divorce-mediation/2025...
That's not some "oh, we live together, and under old-timey understandings that means we're married" requirement. That's publicly making a pattern of referring to each other as your spouses, often including at least some public documentation. Common law marriage is much more about protecting people who failed to dot their 'i's and cross their 't's when registering their marriage than it is about surprising a breakup partner with divorce precedings.
For the record I had heard this from a lawyer, not some random person.
My father's last "marriage" was like this. After several divorces he was dead set on never getting married again, made sure only his (or her) name was on any purchases, and made sure his friends knew the situation. After a messy breakup where he discovered she had been diverting money for drugs and hiding bills, her lawyer managed to convince an Alabama court to find a common law marriage. Not long afterward she ended going to prison for arson after setting aflame some of my father's personal and real property in piques of spite. I think those felony convictions happened prior to or at least concurrent with the common law marriage proceedings.
Of course, his real mistakes occurred before he ever started cohabitating. Common law marriage rules were far down the list of wrong turns. But in any event, ironically a few years later Alabama abolished common law marriage.
I've seen first hand where spouses of equal education and opportunity are treated as traditional values applied.
And nearly always it's the male that has to take a second job/cash in their retirement to meet societies demands.
So there is some variability, and of course in my case it was a "happy path" scenario where both me and my ex-wife mutually wanted the divorce.
But by default you have to pay spousal support regardless of how well-off your partner is. The assumption is that women will be worse off after a divorce financially. Which is really not a contemporary point of view to make as a blanket statement.
This, a thousand times.
And I say that as a man who has lived in multiple countries in my lifetime, raising my family, through thick and thin.
>mens mental health
I no longer see it as a man problem, its a we problem.
You only get to choose either:
* Partial Community of Property - the default: applies only to property acquired after the marriage; in case of divorce only that property is split 50/50
* Universal Community of Property - applies to all property before and after the marriage; in case of divorce all property is split 50/50
* Separation of Property - no property is shared at all; in case of divorce nothing at all is split. If you want buy and share property you have to do it explicitly. This is also mandatory in cases where one of the spouses is 70+ years old
Divorce is much less litigious here. It's basically impossible to lose all of your assets. It works the same for men or women.
There are some of the same issues in custody law as in North America but from what I read it still seems way better than in the US.
I would be really surprised if the US didnt have these options too…
Just living together, informally, is already enough for the woman to take half your assets as it's already considered `Partial Community of Property`.
I can't think of anything where Brazil is generally superior to the US in terms of law.
Legally, people are marrying a law in their place of residence, marriage is a contract and agreement with the government.
Through a marriage to the government's law first, two people are married in the eyes of the law.
The first time I came across this it made me wonder how much people are aware of this central, third party in between the two people in their marriage.
Of course you do. As you even point out yourself, you marry the government, which is people.
> The first time I came across this it made me wonder how much people are aware of this central, third party in between the two people in their marriage.
Considering that the traditional marriage process involves two people standing in front of representatives of the government and declaring promises to them it seems like it'd be a bit hard to miss? I suppose if others also don't realize that government is people then they might not realize what the people in the audience are doing? But, then again, given that the two people prepared to make those promises are usually responsible for inviting that audience to the wedding you'd think they would have questions about why they are there otherwise?
What do you expect when most men have been priced out of a happy life? What do you expect when most men are villainized in the stories that dominate narratives in modern media? What do you expect when men are uniquely dehumanized and calling men less-than is okay regarding height, looks, money, or outward masculinity? If anything I am surprised that the numbers indicating suffering in silence aren't worse.
I strongly believe (or hope) that in the future the idea of viewing everything through a lens of group theory and identifying who has privilege and who suffers the most in terms of stereotypical cohorts, which is the dominant medium for attributing blame in society at large now, will be viewed by future societies with disdain.
That may well be true, but its also true that the main victims of that violence are "white, cis men"
But people love to lump other people together by shallow characteristics because looking at individuals is hard, and looking at systems individuals live in.
It's a zero-sum game. Everyone, and I mean everyone, is pursuing power. Power means different things, in different contexts, but it always gets back to power.
The most obvious form of power is resources and money. But there are so many other forms. These identity and gender issues we've seen over the last 10 years have absolutely, undoubtedly been at the core about one thing: power.
Now before you get all upset, pursuing power isn't always a bad thing. If you've been historically marginalized, aren't you within your right as a human being to seek equality? The question really is in how you do it, and who suffers as a result, and how far you take it. It's very easy to swing the pendulum back too far, and end up in a society that may or may not be any better but just different.
Declaring "the west gone" is something better left on a reactionary platform like X, rather than something like Hacker News.
Most PEOPLE are being priced out of a happy life. I'm not aware of any "man tax" men are having to pay when they go out to eat, or when buying groceries, or renting/paying their mortgage.
Your anger is misplaced. You we're raised to believe that a mans job was to earn a high enough income to provide for their family, and now that shit is expensive, that perception society forced unto you makes you feel like a "failure". You're not a failure, you're just someone living in a capitalist society.
>What do you expect when most men are villainized in the stories that dominate narratives in modern media?
Most men are not being made up as villains. This reads like your algorithm/news feed is trying to enrage you.
Are there idiots out there who are attributing the wrongdoings of certain men, and/or the issues of men as a whole to individuals? Yes, but that some idiots voice their opinions on social media is nothing new, nor is it unique to men to be unfairly judged on the internet. Every demographic has bullshit thrown their way these days.
I think I need that on a T-shirt.
It's also a reason why the West is failing, but certainly not the only one. Social Welfare states like Europe are burning, since it was never sustainable.
America is fighting among itself, because there is no Asabiyyah (social cohesion), and the wealth inequality (wealth pump) is growing massively.
Compare that with China or Singapore, where social harmony is perhaps the most important thing in their society, food is subsidized, education as a high priority, their laws are punitive, infrastructure is extremely new, etc.
[1] To head things off, I’m fine, thanks to a few sessions of therapy a few years back
I have a feeling this comment will not sit well with you but I am very much willing to engage this in good faith. I don’t see what you’re seeing. There are definitely domains where different genders have the advantage, but to act like the law as a whole benefits women over men…that dog don’t hunt IMO
Education, there is a stronger argument there (re admissions and such, not safety). I agree that has gotten messy as hell at the very least.
Workplace, similar to my issue with the law claim.
This phrase has quite a few baked in assumptions which attempt to shut down debate before it even begins. I suggest using a different phrase to make it clearer what you're actually talking about.
As for georgeburdell thinking women are more advantaged against men, he should do some experiments applying to jobs with equivalent credentials as a man vs a woman, both in child bearing years. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that the average man in that age range will need or ask for fewer days off than the average woman.
The men would get the benefit of spending time with their newborn children in a way they cannot do today, while their significant others get the benefit of another person available to help them out full-time through the child's early months. The cherry on top is that businesses would be far less able to view women as men who take more time off.
This is the most plausible hypothesis, judging revealed preferences by the outcomes.
It's not the most plausible hypothesis. Men are more likely to own firearms than women are, therefore they're more likely to attempt suicide by firearms.
hanging/strangulation (9,164, 49%);
self-poisoning (4,098, 22%);
jumping/multiple injuries (2,423, 13%).
All three are equally available to men and women and anyone else.
In terms of rate, male suicide rate 17.2 per 100,000. Female suicide rate of 5.4 per 100,000
London has the lowest overall rate of just 7.3 per 100,000, 65% of the national rate. North East being highest at 14 per 100k.
The highest population group being Males aged 50-54 years, being 27.9 per 100,000
Wales is even worse, with Males aged 45-49 years being 32.3 per 100,000, and overall 21.6 (male) // 7.5 (female)
Generally the worse the economic opportunities, the higher the rate. Middle aged men are most at risk, men in general are at high risk, and guns have nothing to do with it
The sex difference in completed suicides is nearly universally 3-to-1 to 4-to-1.
It also may be down to what was available to them at the time. There’s a famous case study where a lot of women in the UK were dying by putting their heads in the oven and gassing themselves in the 1950s. The UK government changed the formulation of gas that was being piped to homes and the suicides stopped. If those women really were dead-set on suicide, they would have just chosen a different method.
What people who’ve never had extreme depression might not realize is that in those low moments it feels like you will always feel this way and it will never ever change. Then you wait an hour or so and the feeling passes. So a person may not feel suicidal 24 hours a day, only at specific moments. But in those low moments, the chances of suicide dramatically increase and as the UK case shows, accessibility to quick suicide methods makes a big difference.
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[1] Speaking as one who did some decades ago, as irritating as life is right now I'm glad I bucked the trend of any “men have a higher 'success' rate” stat.
[2] Sometimes my nerd side takes control and empathy takes a back seat.
It's like the difference between killing yourself drunk crashing your car into a pole vs winding up in a wheelchair because you crashed into everything of value on the street before hitting the same pole slower.
In the past we had large wars, harsh labor, that killed off men, but not today. There's roughly 5% males born than females. India and China have aborted 10s of millions of female babies. In the Western world, massive numbers of men (from low to high skilled) have move there. So here we are, men everywhere, roaming around grocery stores trying to talk to women, 70 to 80% of the population on dating apps are males, bars are filled with men. It's not a good time to be a low status man.
Men and women are far too picky compared to the past. That's why they die alone. It's that simple.
There's nothing wrong with this if it means you're happier than being stuck in a relationship you don't want, but you can't have it both ways.
Most people reading this know exactly who they'd be with if they just said yes to their options. Not liking your options is vastly different from having no options at all. Your options can change if you make the change within as well. The fact that this is such a modern and loud problem also points to the lack of competition you'd face compared to the past. We've overcomplicated this beyond belief. That's not nature's doing.
What does this mean? Just lower your standards and there's a woman out there for you?
It's been a long time since I was single, but I never felt like that. I worked at a job with a bunch of other men and didn't have a lot of social outlets that involved women. My candidate pool was close to zero. I eventually recognized this and found ways to broaden my pool, but it wasn't easy.
I'm only speculating that I think the past used to be (a lot) worse. Competition was higher across the board for significantly worse options across the board.
So much of the modern era is defined by the desire for social change, but nobody seems to pause and think what that must mean regarding the perception of their options (and themselves). It means even your worst option today probably isn't that bad or is already more similar to you than you want to believe. I think this all boils down to mortality. Other people change slower than you have time for, so on some level you do have to either compromise or make your own changes at the pace you prefer. You can't spend life looking at the rear view mirror and a horizon that never comes.
A casual look on social media tends to confirm that the same people not liking their options also think they were "born in the wrong era" or similar.
Also, dating apps are pointless. Go volunteer for a community organization or join a pickleball league. Don't force it.
I remember reading something about mental health in Iceland being much more even between men and women due to less perceived stigma and more equality, leading to men seeking help.
It's 26%women/19%men some mental health issue and 7%women/4%men serious mental health issue
It could just as much be the case that men are diagnosed at a lower rate because they seek out care less often (many studies point at this being true) or that men who do seek care are not diagnosed at as high of a rate despite having the same symptoms (men report higher rates of dissatisfaction with mental care, and other studies show gender bias in diagnosis - men get told to "man up" in so many words-, or men get misdiagnosed because symptoms for the same mental illness vary between men and women)
Eliding or obscuring the act of operationalization leads to reification - treating concepts like real tangible things. I wish reification was taken as seriously as our taboo of anthropomorphization. It happens way more, and sneakily smuggles in human values into the sciences. In some ways it's unavoidable, but being opaque about it and doing it without knowing is a sin.
There were only 12 very vague questions - and none actually asked the respondent about how they felt personally: "Where do you believe stereotypes about masculinity primarily come from?"
Only about 2/3 of the respondents even identified as male - this isn't a serious study of how men themselves feel. It's more of a survey about the public perception of men.
Few are even reading the article. It's mostly a way to start a discussion and vent.
That is what "deep-seated cultural issues" means. Some subset of the population aren't seeing a problem with their own behavior. They see nothing that needs addressing. The rest have to learn how to put up with or avoid them.
So no, they can't change the world, but sometimes they can plant a seed.
Maybe you can you disambiguate your phrasing here. Which do you mean?
1.There is a MALE mental health problem -- some mental health problem wholly or partially unique to men
2. There is a mental health problem observed among men
If #1, where is the evidence? A men-only survey can't show it. If you surveyed left-handed people and 30% had anxiety, that doens't mean there is a left-handed anxiety problem.
If #2, we agree on what the research shows, but it brings your original point into question: "Isn't recognizing there is a problem the first step on fixing the problem?" Which problem are we recognizing? Labeling a general problem a male one assumes a diagnosis, which points the search for causes and fixes at men when nothing in this report shows that's where they are, and other available information shows worsening mental health in women as well.
It starts with an objective report on reality
It's like taking your blood pressure or blood sugar, it starts with data in health
This is public health and this report is the measuring instrument
Which one was it?
To be sure, not referencing mental health here but rather virtually any issue institutions claim to care about.
Yeah, getting any external help is difficult. Need some inner source some way, accepting some level of 'flaws'.
Like maybe https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/healthy-livi...
I think the broader point is that both genders have seen a decline in mental health over the same time period. Scoping by gender is a choice. One I am highly suspicious of when people are happy to chime in with their change suggestions.
One of the consequences is that - while all of my issues have underlying biological causes (and thus, I can see specialists to mitigate that, somewhat) - I've been on a waiting list for ADHD now for 3 years, with no idea when I'll actually be able to see anyone. Thankfully, otherwise, my cPTSD - I got enough tools in the year after the diagnosis that it's no longer - most of the time - causing any trouble.
Now I was homeless when I started (this IS related to me being able to get help) - but those paths are not easy to get through. That help has been inaccessible to me since I stabilized my housing and employment situations.
So yeah, I'm not surprised. I've met a LOT of people who need more help than they could get ... providing they were open to reaching out. This is entirely related to "homeless epidemic". Mind "shortage of work", "cuts by companies who moved their offices south of the border" are related to this, too.
Try solving a difficult problem that has more meaning other than trying to form a problem that is easier solve.
does this fact change anything about your claim that those two things are "causing" the increased male suicide?
Why would we question their feelings??
Male loneliness is a symptom of community breakdown along with growing economic expectations from institutions (corporations and government) that rely on them for revenue and labor.
Smaller local communities do value men’s contributions, but those have been liquidated in favour of Institutional Liberalism.
So as a man, you now *have* to live as an individual. The state is hostile to your interests, the market is hostile to your interests, and, as a group (not individually), women are hostile to your interests.
But as a man you can define your own worth apart from social validation, find other like minded men for camaraderie, and still lead a meaningful life.
As a man, I find those cultures just as vexsome as the cultures of isolation and anomie. Men talking one-on-one or up to three-four people have a good dynamic. But when men assemble into larger groups and a public male society, they inevitably talk about football, fucking women, toilet humor, and other inane things. Also, a pecking order is always established in large male groups, and men on this neurodivergence-heavy site are likely to be at the very bottom of it. Be careful what you wish for.
A $500,000 total comp engineer with a wife and a house in California set to retire at 50 vs a $60,000 bar tender in Ohio with a hotter wife and muscles. Who's higher in the chain? Genuine question
We're more than just a body (physical) and a mind (soul), but also spirit. Spirit in the sense of conscientiousness from the divine, or a sense of awe of the foresaid.
And it goes without saying, if you are disabled you will miss out on a lot, often we are just trying to not make it any worse.
I think this is an intuitive reaction. It's like being grossed out by dog poop on the ground. You feel the disgust first, and although an evolutionary psychology explanation for that disgust may be true (eg, "you have evolved disgust for dog poop to prevent illness and infection) intellectualizing it further would be totally superfluous. People experience the proximate cause for these sort of evolved behaviors, even when they intellectually know better. If you think you're above this sort of reaction, try "choosing" to be attracted to an 80 year old woman.
E: I am so baffled how the HN community could be so very anti-female here that they would advocate for this sort of commentary by downvoting.
You invalidated a lived experience that a lot of people can confirm by telling someone that their feelings are so unrealistic that they need therapy.
> But, you're making sweeping generalizations about ~50% of the world's behavior
sounds a lot like "not all (wo)men"... yeah, but enough of them for many men to have learned to be cautious around vulnerability with women. Its the same thing as guys who don't understand the man vs. bear thing.
There are subcultures in which men showing vulnerability are considered bad. But in those subcultures, men are just as mean to other men as women are. And women embracing this are usually not very "empathy this" and "acceptance that" towards anybody.
There is definitely a part of feminist culture is openly aggressive toward men in general while being "empathy this" towards women. But they are usually way more aggressive towards cocky men than weak men.
The only woman who actually cares for me has been my mother.
Not a great example. Elderly women may not be your thing, but nursing homes are apparently hotbeds of STDs. There's someone out there for everyone.
- Currently, the dominant ideology is that there is a victim hierarchy, and if you're in the wrong group (ie, you're privileged) then your opinions and needs don't matter. Moving away from this sort of identitarianism would one important step.
- I think it's important to try to understand why male socialization has fallen apart. (statistically, yes, I'm sure a lot of you still socialize) It's clearly a gendered effect, and I'm genuinely not sure what a reasonable explanation would be. (your comment, men supporting men would play nicely here, although I'm not sure how we make that happen.)
what are non-anecdotal things that support the idea, "When [women] see a weak man, what they feel is disgust."
do men demonstrate the same "disgust" when _they_ "see a weak man"? why or why not?
However, for some strange reason, the West refuses to use dialectic materialism to explain when times are bad, when males feel lonely or face increased suicide rates.
material conditions explain everything, both when times are good, and when times are bad.
The solution is to obtain (via any means necessary) better material conditions, which might include redistribution by force or political action
It would not surprise me to see protesting over this, as has been similarly done in the past. The person who organized a men's-support-group some years back in Canada, if I remember right, ended up committing suicide after it was forced to be shut down by protestors.
That is just tragic :(
"My God, it is intolerable to think of spending ones whole life, like a neuter bee, working, working, & nothing after all. No, no won’t do.
Imagine living all one’s day solitarily in smoky dirty London House. Only picture to yourself a nice soft wife on a sofa with good fire, & books & music perhaps. Compare this vision with the dingy reality of Grt. Marlbro’ St. Marry — Marry — Marry Q.E.D."
I have seen and experienced this myself: in one past company, the HR person openly held the view that if a woman accuses a man of "harassment", it's probably true. In other words, HR itself operated with an attitude of 'guilty until proven innocent' against men.
I was once personally accused of "racism" against people of my own race (but across a political divide) by a former female colleague who was of a different race altogether. Thankfully, this was over LinkedIn chat outside of work where we also worked for different employers. I shudder to think what would have happened if this had been inside a workplace.
I don't blame women at all for this. I don't believe women are perpetuating this OR benefitting from this. This is a worse situation for everyone.
[1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35598742/
[2] https://www.cdc.gov/suicide/data/index.html
[3] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11225381/
As a nit in an area where words matter, the title's phrasing of "Too many men suffering" implies that there is a correct number of men that should be suffering.
We all suffer, 100%, but some of us are able to choose the suffering as opposed to having it thrust or fall upon us.
Being healthy is suffering the exercise. Being unhealthy is suffering without.
Fixing this will require us to have tough conversations about what it means to be a "man", and to also engage in analysis of the material conditions that ALL people are currently facing in modern society.
I did a yearly career counseling/updating session with a guy a month ago who's "long term goal" was to buy a dog. A dog needs a yard. A dog needs an owner who is home regularly. So he figured that in the next 10 years he might be able to get a small house and switch to a job with more regular hours. THAT is where depression starts. A good man with a good job and all he can envision for himself is maybe... one day... if he saves every penny... he might get to adopt a puppy.
The answers are not in more government-sponsored therapy sessions. The answer is to improve jobs, to give the working man a future to look for.
I'd argue there's room for men's issues under (4th-wave, intersectional) feminism. The patriarchy mostly benefits a few at the top, but it has also privileged men disproportionately over at least the last few millennia and if we want to have a real conversation about it we have to have a common set of agreements on which to advance that conversation. We're not there yet as a society, we don't have the language or concepts to make this work on any side of the issue. I guess I'm arguing that some people actually do, but it's where we get into areas of gender deconstruction that start raising sharp objections, which is also part of the semantic-linguistic trap.
Good luck with that.
Pull up freedom house and pick any country rated 15 to 60 and see if you like it. Within 3 or 4 you will think, this place is awesome.
"Traditional Masculinity" is just in general maladaptive in the current age.
Is it better to go unreported if the alternative is that an LLM was used in the articles creation?
Yet.. they say a man's worth is "not" the value they put in the bank account.
2) What's deadly about this space is that surveys can be toxic.
Too often, it's researchers looking to slowly understand things, have people open themselves up, then leave them like that, for little to no progress in 5-10 years.
That kind of system needs supply, no?
3) I have heard from some men that sometimes there can be things that only other men understand. That can be similar to women's health issues can be understood differently, or men can feel more comfortable with other men.
4) It's important for authors to try and be aware of their own unconscious biases. Much like medicine is horribly behind at understanding women's health (for example, women hearts are not the same as men's), it means the inverse can be true too, beginning with asking men.
That's not what is meant by "economic cost". Helping young men feel better early long term is obviously better and cheaper for society than letting them grow up and live a whole life where they suffer and hurt themselves or others.
Nothing about this is surprising or unknown. We know how to prevent and treat despair-related lives. It's a political choice that most of the world has insufficient or even broken (mental) healthcare. We could choose to vote differently, but we don't.
Someone else here asked why a mens issue would also affect adolescents? Simple: Adolescents, naturally including boys, are the heaviest consumers of 'social media', and are thus most heavily exposed to it. The rest of us are mostly exposed to the second-order effects, namely misandric culture and institutional misandric bias which seems to be powered by the same memetic toxicity that we've witmessed on SoMe the past two decades.
Men and boys are thinking and feeling beings, too.
So it's no surprise that young gullible persons (both men and women), after that insane propaganda campaign that commences with kids at a young age, eventually got convinced all men were worthless pigs.
And now, cry me a river, there are national health report findings saying that "too many men suffer in silence".
Maybe it's time we look out as to whom are the actual people responsible for this state of affair?
You cannot spit in the air and expect it to not eventually come back in your face.
P.S: as a sidenote and very, very, very interestingly these same movements that describe men as pigs turn a complete blind-eye to actual patriarchal societies and religions, which is honestly quite shameful.
Nobody cares about anyone else hardly at all in Canada.
Male / Female ... makes no difference.
If you can't cut it, there's the street bub. Enjoy your tent and/or shelter ridden by gangs and bedbugs.
This is getting really tiring and it's frankly a shame to see the inexorable slide of HN into a sexist echochamber. The irony of it is, I'm pretty sure that a large part of self-victimising posters in this thread were complaining about the SJW oppression olympics just five years prior.
I get where different kinds of bigotry come from; when things get bad, outgroups are always going to be blamed and scapegoated, whether racial or class-based. Yet there’s something inherently obscene about blaming women for the social issues modern society faces. How bad things must be for someone’s designated oppressor outgroup to constitute 50% of the population, people who resemble them and face largely the same problems? Seriously, do all these people who make sweeping generalisations and talk about “women” as some kind of monolithic entity ever actually talk to women or have female friends? It’s bizarre.
The root of problem is that you don't find it inherently obscene to do the same to men.
That's literally all it is. If you think women are worth more than men you are, in a system of equality, objectively wrong.
If you want women to be socially worth more than men, what are you going to give men to uphold that deal? Because the longer you answer "nothing, fuck you", the worse this gets.
2) There sure are a lot of people in these discussions who come ready with their diagnosis for men. It's quite the entry-point.
3) Bring back the Boy Scouts
By now I would've hoped the conversation have moved from re-recognizing the problem and iterative solution seeking?
Silent suffering of this cohort have for the last maybe 10 years been too profitable segment to milk out of, to actually try to solve the underlying issue. (manosphere for example being one of the vicious extractor of this suffering)
The solution have always had some alignment with the observation that for guys, a sense of belonging, purpose, (and if younger) guidance and healthy rawmodels have been important. It warms me to see how some local efforts have addressed this. How much lively the surrounding became when they installed a free-to-use outdoor gym and football courts, for people to mingle. (and for the older cohort, Frisbee golf court apparently).
It doesn't help that when this conversation comes up, people start to project a lot and inevitably people will start to bring up women (in antagonistic tone) creating a cesspool of bitterness to hijack the conversation.
Predictably, many of the comments here are already about women
it's like talking about feelings in math
i fail to see where preconceptions about past aeons fits into a report about statistics, feel free to clarify, ideally with numbers
Thanks for letting us know explicitly what people like you are about.
And, the audience that ends up sharing this misandric memery is generally not receptive to nuanced, reasoned argument to the contrary once hooked.
Yeah I think everyone can kinda tell lol
I'm still not sure if your profile and website are satire or not. A bit too on the nose (typical big-3 U.S. city liberal selfhating millenial white "male-feminist" who likes nerdy things like Star Trek and virtue signalling online, it checks every box lol)
> I'm thrilled to have to clean up the boomer's messes but we don't get to choose what we inherit unfortunately
The vast majority of Women's Suffrage occurred multiple generations before boomers were even born, how is this their issue either? Arguably they're the ones that kept in motion how things are now, in that the dynamic has been totally reversed.
> and yes, we do have to pay the debts of our ancestors whether we like it or not.
What debt, exactly? And how is flipping the discrimination 'paying it back'? Is the expectation that we keep the women-only programs and opportunities for an Aeon to "cancel out" the Aeon of "male dominance", despite the fact that it doesn't (and can't) impact those who supposedly benefitted during that time (as they're dead)?
I think you'll find that predictably, "revenge for the original sin of your ancestors" is not a super popular concept among young people who never even lived to experience those supposed benefits.