Men. Men. Men.

[Eggegg]

4 minutes ago, larrytheimp said:

The woe-is-me-martyr stuff is getting old.  If you want to talk about suicide rates and workplace accidents no one is stopping you. Literally no one here is saying that men's issues aren't worth discussing or that they have nothing to complain about.  

I'm a man and I work in a job that has left me with some pretty serious work caused health problems at a young age.    I'd bet my profession is 95% male in the US.  Male privilege doesn't mean that I'm not affected by breathing in silica dust.  It doesn't mean that suicide isn't a social issue that affects men.  Why dont you actually talk about all this shit you say you want to talk about instead of arguing about men not being taken seriously or denying that things like male privilege exist.  It's difficult to engage with you in more substantive discourse when you're just throwing out strawmen about how no one here thinks men have any problems specific to being male.  

Probably best go back a couple of pages mate.

[mankytoes]

3 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

That, in reality, the “average man” is in no way “oppressed” by feminism regardless of the “average man’s” feelings on that topic.

If you define feminism as "belief in equality of the sexes", this is a feminist thread. Men committing suicide more, men getting harsher legal penalties, men losing custody of their children; all feminist issues. 

We should be working together, not against each other.

[Salome the Persian Witch]

Genuinely, I am passionate about the subject of social and personal empowerment - all told.  My husband, who is doing tons of exploration and research around "men's issues" has come in several times to this thread, and left it because he felt that the disingenuous debate, martyred victimization, and manufactured "us vs. them" mentality degrades a subject which is vastly important.  
Yes, generally speaking, men have not had to question the infrastructure and social systems because they were (superficially) benefitting from how those systems were set up.  What we are seeing now is that, when you get to the heart of it, those systems are just as destructive to those men - just not in the ways one originally would have thought.  It is not (collectively) women's fault that men do not feel they have safe space to talk with each other about real issues.  It is what has been set up expectation wise within the systems.  The whole socialization of boys not showing or processing emotions other than anger, individualist competition, "weakness" silliness is what we call "toxic masculinity" for short hand.  That's NOT what (collectively) women set up - it's a rejection of what is considered "feminine" and reviled. 
YET, that systemic infrastructure has also meant that we have lost "initiation rites" from child into adulthood (for both the adult "masculine" and "feminine" - and I won't even go into the Jungian archetypes of the "anima" and the "animus" - which means we all have aspects of the masculine and feminine within us - and our journey is to try to best balance them - kinda like yin yang, etc.)

Point being - there is tons of phenomenal work out there of men genuinely trying to address the desperate needs that are felt by "the average guy".   The first book I gifted my husband when we were married was Fire in the Belly by Sam Keen.  25 years old now, so a bit dated, but speaking about the importance of authentic, genuine male relationships and connection.  There is also the Good Men Project, a site to initiate international conversation about what it means to be a good man in the 21st century. There's a newer site specifically dedicated to men connecting with other men in North America ManTalks to develop self-aware, high-performing, and impactful men.  And if you're not into all that reading stuff, Trip Lannier has The New Man Podcast: Beyond the Macho Jerk and the New Age Wimp

I feel, if you were being genuine in this topic, @Eggegg, you actually WOULD be talking about the support systems helping the "average guy" to get his needs met rather than turn it into several diatribes against "feminists" who want what you say you want - "equality". 
 

[MercenaryChef]

*sigh*

i suppose i will weigh in.

on a personal level i have really tried to dig into who i am as a person and what my own masculinity means and how i show it to the world and what effects it has on me and on those around me. nobody is trying to devalue men here. we are only trying to actually get at what the true issues men possess, try to process them and try to build something from it. why do i do what i do and feel what i feel? how much of it is tied to who i am as a human being and how much of it is tied to how i feel a man should be?

any man who wants to instead of simply accepting that women have a worse time in our society and instead try to point to our own issues needs to really open up their own mind and get some clarity. women are paid less than us for the same job. almost every single woman has experienced some sort of harassment based on their gender. women are told their entire lives by media on what they should be and how they should look to a degree that often ends in a really horrible inner image of who they are. they are abused and murdered by their spouses and partners at an alarming rate. we are not experiencing any of those things to such a degree. even an 'average man' has a lot more power than an 'average woman.' we all bow to the wealthy and powerful, but among them the men still hold the upper hand. 

take some time and think about your own ideas of what masculinity means to you. think about what you do and what you say and how it affects other men who you are influencing. figure out those issues that you feel men are facing and how to tackle them on a personal level. accept the observations of women of the world on how they see you and your gender. 

this like so many threads over the years i have read have been more about arguing and trying to win the argument than actually having a meaningful conversation. we can either use this forum as a debate club or we can use it to learn.

now, back to our regularly scheduled chat of safe wank spaces!

 

[Darth Richard II]

OK I've complete lost track of what the fook is goign on in here so HERES A FUN VIDEO YAY

 

[TerraPrime]

On 12/9/2017 at 4:00 PM, MercurialCannibal said:

 

this like so many threads over the years i have read have been more about arguing and trying to win the argument than actually having a meaningful conversation. we can either use this forum as a debate club or we can use it to learn.

 

It's been difficult since when I started using the internet. My earliest experience with men's issues started with meeting a small group of men who are reactionary anti-feminists, and it was confusing as hell because the problems they identified are genuine (higher suicide rate for men, being ruled against in family courts for custody, lack of emotional bonds in healthy venues) and yet, their answers (feminists forced this onto us) were all wrong and horrible. 

 

As it turns out, that's about the average quality of conversation for men, by men. Homosexuality, for instance, was nearly banned in all those venues, as an approach to re-evaluate masculinity that is rooted in heteronormative sex. 

 

So, I agree with you that there are currently many opportunities being wasted. But, I also think perhaps things are getting better compared to 25 years ago. I think there are better traction on some topics, like abuses against men by intimate partners. So, there's hope. Nevertheless, I think if we want to make something useful, we will have to do it in spite of the reactionary anti-feminists, and not because of them. 

[Kalbear]

On 12/9/2017 at 2:42 AM, mankytoes said:

I've read a lot about Japan, and I respect their culture. Now you're saying we shouldn't talk about it because their skin colour is different. Fuck that. I've grown up around plenty of people who want everyone in their own little box because of the colour of their skin.   I'm not accepting that. 

Literally @Eggegg is saying precisely do not do that, with women talking about men.

 

[TerraPrime]

17 hours ago, Kalbear said:

Literally @Eggegg is saying precisely do not do that, with women talking about men.

 

Besides, I wasn't telling mankytoes to not talk about Japanese culture. I was telling him that his conclusions about the reasons behind the apparently high rate of male suicide in Japan are wonky, daft, and based on a misunderstanding of the cultural artifacts. 

[mankytoes]

22 hours ago, Kalbear said:

Literally @Eggegg is saying precisely do not do that, with women talking about men.

I know people are trying to put me and him as some kind of team, but if you read our posts we (respectfully) disagree on a lot, he's much more of a traditionalist than me. I don't really get how that's a response to what I wrote, am I responsible for him? 

4 hours ago, TerraPrime said:

Besides, I wasn't telling mankytoes to not talk about Japanese culture. I was telling him that his conclusions about the reasons behind the apparently high rate of male suicide in Japan are wonky, daft, and based on a misunderstanding of the cultural artifacts. 

I know, you weren't the one accusing me of "whitesplaining". Your arguments didn't all make a lot of sense (if someone just thought seppuku meant suicide, they'd probably call it Hari Kari), but they weren't the ones that really irritated me, though you did seem overly snippy.

[Kalbear]

41 minutes ago, mankytoes said:

I know people are trying to put me and him as some kind of team, but if you read our posts we (respectfully) disagree on a lot, he's much more of a traditionalist than me. I don't really get how that's a response to what I wrote, am I responsible for him? 

You're not, but when you respond that way to one person but not another it gives the impression of bias. 

 

[mankytoes]

40 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

You're not, but when you respond that way to one person but not another it gives the impression of bias. 

Well I think a lot of people are guilty of this divisive way of thinking, on here and in general, I'm not here to point out every single example. I was responding to comments specifically about my racial background. 

I've been accused of dominating threads by posting too much, maybe with some justification, so I'm not going to try and argue with every single person, I mainly stick to people who reply to me. 

If that's the biggest flaw in what I wrote, I think I'm happy with that.

[TerraPrime]

4 hours ago, mankytoes said:

I know people are trying to put me and him as some kind of team, but if you read our posts we (respectfully) disagree on a lot, he's much more of a traditionalist than me. I don't really get how that's a response to what I wrote, am I responsible for him? 

I know, you weren't the one accusing me of "whitesplaining". Your arguments didn't all make a lot of sense (if someone just thought seppuku meant suicide, they'd probably call it Hari Kari), but they weren't the ones that really irritated me, though you did seem overly snippy.

To be accurate, nobody told you to shut up. They just pointed out how daft your responses are on the subject. The injury that you're experiencing is no less valid for its distance from reality, however. 

 

But it seems that at this point, you're more interested in enumerating the unfairness you're made to experience in this thread than on the topics themselves. And you're dragging the thread along with you in this uninspiring road trip. 

[Stego]

It's Tommy this and Tommy that, and Tommy, "How's Your soul?"

But it's a thin red line of heroes when the drums begin to roll.

 

 

[Mlle. Zabzie]

26 minutes ago, Stego said:

It's Tommy this and Tommy that, and Tommy, "How's Your soul?"

But it's a thin red line of heroes when the drums begin to roll.

 

 

I have been watching Ken Burns' WWII documentary (I'll do Vietnam next).  I've got my issues with Burns as a pure historian, but either he or the person he partnered with is really gifted at eliciting and editing powerful oral histories.  I've made it to the Battle of the Bulge/Ardennes and how the folks there (many of whom never expected to be in combat) responded.  Powerful stuff.  Not always heroic, but the stories are more powerful for their honesty.

[Eggegg]

On 10/12/2017 at 11:26 PM, TerraPrime said:

So, I agree with you that there are currently many opportunities being wasted. But, I also think perhaps things are getting better compared to 25 years ago. I think there are better traction on some topics, like abuses against men by intimate partners. So, there's hope. Nevertheless, I think if we want to make something useful, we will have to do it in spite of the reactionary anti-feminists, and not because of them. 

I agree that the state of these conversations is pretty horrific and there are a lot of groups out there giving a bad name to anybody even discussing mens issues. To be an MRA in most peoples minds means that you are a violent sexist and anti feminist, but that certainly isn't true of everyone. There are many groups out there that are genuinely interested in many of the issues i've highlighted.

But you also have to question why those RedPill / MRA sites get so much traction. I think its because it taps into the sense that while its important for men to adapt in the 21st century to the new normal, men also don't want to lose what makes them men, they don't want to feel ashamed of it and they don't like feeling like they are the bad guys in every scenario.

Its interesting that @Salome Sand Witch recommended https://goodmenproject.com/ as a site that is doing men's issues correctly. The founder of that site, Tom Matlack left a while back and has since been replaced by a woman, and the readership is supposedly heavily female. Matlack wrote a piece entitled Being a dude is a good thing in which he felt that men were feeling blamed for being men, and that what women really wanted was for them to be more like them. 

Quote

But my basic point is that many men, I think, feel blamed for being simply men. That their most basic instincts are twisted around to torture rather than celebrate who they are.

Matlack was heavily attacked by feminists after writing that and subsequently left the site and deleted his twitter. The site is now derided by MRAs as being a feminist mouthpiece and by feminists as a rape apologist site. 

Basically the discussion on both sides a is very difficult one to have because men want to be able to discuss their issues but at the same time don't want to feel ashamed for simply being men, or to be told that the solution to their problem is to be more like women.

I'd hope for more sites like this for instance: http://www.inside-man.co.uk/  which is one of the few balanced sites I know of that deals with issues such as suicide and depression without falling too heavily on either side.

 

[Darth Richard II]

OK, this is not sarcasm or an attack in anyway here, but I think you need to read up more on the MRA movement, cause you seem to fundamentally misunderstand the whole thing, because they certainly are extremely anti-feminist and maybe not VIOLENT sexists, but they are sexist on an Olympic level.

[Centrist Simon Steele]

On 12/9/2017 at 10:19 AM, Eggegg said:

Probably because, I wasn't saying that feminism is oppressing men. Thats the mischaracterisation here. 

Look, this is a thread 'supposedly' to talk about mens issues and rights, and what has mostly happened has been that a number of posters have come in with sarcastic comments, dismissively call men fragile or playing the 'whataboutism' game for discussing issues that predominantly affect men. There is a high level of hypocrisy here, imagine a feminism thread where someone went in, told women they were being fragile and tried to deflect the topic every time it was one they didn't want to talk about. I'm in fact sure its probably happened, but it wouldn't be tolerated. Why should it be different if its men? Because men are supposedly stronger and should 'man up'?? Because men don't have anything to complain about ( Which seems to be an insidious underlying belief behind many peoples comments so far)

I'll say it again, if we are going to be pushing for an equal and fair society, then we need to highlight all the areas where our current society is unfair and try and fix them, not excluding some issues because they don't fit the nice tidy narrative. 



 

I thought a lot of good things were clarified in this thread. But I also see, and this is becoming more apparent as I get older, that any time a group of people being held back starts to assert their rights, we see the dominant group begin to act wounded/attacked. We all have our problems, and it may be true that men have a lot startling statistical overlaps in depression, suicide, murder, etc., but I'd say that's a product of how men have been running things since forever.