The Sorry Lives and Confusing Times of Today’s Young Men

2012-07-16T07:25:37+00:00

That article could be summed up as "men aren't behaving the way we want them to, obviously there must be something wrong with them".

It's the female equivalent of the fat guy sitting in his Mom's basement saying "I'm not dating any models, obviously there's something wrong with those stupid bitches".

Hach8 · 2012-07-16T08:34:41+00:00

These articles and this new meme of "men aren't man enough" that is going around lately is fucking ridiculous. It's the blatant misandy of our culture coming through, the idea that even feminists are citing these things like, "Why aren't men living up to the ideal that 'the patriarchy' pushes onto them?!"

Yet we live in a world where men are treated like shit, like criminals, denied support, ignored in school, and constantly derided by feminists and to a lesser extent, women.

A famous feminist (Gloria Steinem) once said "A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle." Well, feminists, guess what - it works both ways. A famous writer once said (actually, Chuck Phalaniuk) "We're a generation of men raised by women, I'm wondering if another woman is really the answer we need."

It all comes down to: 1. treat a segment of population like shit 2. be surprised when they don't meet your expectations as adults

These articles are so fucked up and it is hypocritical for feminists to keep citing stuff like this.

2012-07-16T05:39:31+00:00

..What a shocker, the article is written by a woman.

AvgGuy101 · 2012-07-16T15:04:15+00:00

Whine, whine, whine... young men aren't doing what we want!

Blah, blah, blah... young men need to man up!

Really? Why? What's in it for them?

Isn't it funny to see all of these articles and then to see the politicians plans to provide even more incentives and freebies to bring even more females into college while doing absolutely nothing to help boys and young men?

Isn't it just hilarious to hear young women whining about the shortage of young men who want anything to do with marriage after their mothers, aunts and older sisters have dragged men through the so-called "family court" system?

Sorry ladies but if you value marriage then it is up to you to prove that it is worthwhile for men. The ball is in your court.

2012-07-16T09:52:37+00:00

This article is so ridiculous. Women have numerous advantages at all levels of education. These are not nebulous "parts of women education culture." They are scholarships and programs that openly exclude men. There are easier standards in many fields. Women businesses get priority. I wonder why young women are doing better than young men?

If you want people to turn out equally the only thing to do is actually treat them exactly equally. No more social engineering.

ThePigman · 2012-07-16T06:31:13+00:00

"Sociologists cite five “markers” or “milestones” that have traditionally defined our notion of adulthood: finishing school, moving away from the parental home, becoming financially independent, getting married, and having a child."

Apparently sociologists are idiots. Apart from financial independence none of that has anything to do with adulthood and everything to do with obedience - learn what we want you to learn, then become a wage slave and produce children so we can repeat the pattern ad nauseum.

You want an honest definition of adulthood? Start with psychological, emotional, and intellectual independence - anything else is just piss sold as rain.

2012-07-16T23:19:26+00:00

I'm sure I won't run into much disagreement at all here when I say that this article was not very good. One problem I had with it was seemed to portray all young women as successful, motivated, and the ones out there accomplishing awesome things and the vast majority of young men as failures at life who do nothing but eat, sleep, play video games, watch television, watch porn, and soil their pants. Of course, the 50% of women aged 18 through 24 and the 10% of women aged 25 to 34 that still live at home with their parents is conveniently never mentioned in this article; neither is the fact that the 59% of men aged 18 through 24 also include college undergraduates living in the dorms (http://www.census.gov/newsroom/releases/archives/families_households/cb11-183.html).

So armed with a few raw percentages (59% of men aged 18 through 24 and 19% of men aged 25 through 34) of young men that live with their parents, a few anecdotes about three young men who, to be blunt, really have not gotten their act together, and some brief mentions about young women who are more put together and are out there starting their careers and looking for a man to marry, the author jumps to the conclusion that young men today have "sorry lives" and are "confused". First, what these young men that are living at home with their parents are doing and how long they live with their parents would be much more informative of what exactly was going on. I cannot find information on this, but I am sure that the proportion of men that the author of this article considers "the Classic All-American Guy, Circa 2012", namely those not looking for a job, mooching off their parents, and spending their days playing video games, watching porn, and partying with their friends, is significantly lower than 19%. Committing the sin of citing personal anecdotal evidence, I have known a number of young men who lived with their parents at one point, yet only an idiot would consider these guys "failures at life". For example, I have a friend who moved back home with his parents from the west coast, after a relationship crashed and burned and after leaving a job where he was miserable; six months after he moved in with his parents, he started his current job, and five months later, after saving enough for a security deposit and a few months worth of rent, he moved into his own apartment. He's doing well at his job, and got glowing reviews during his last evaluation. Then there's me; I lived with my parents for four months in 2004. If you had just spent one day with me in July of that year, you would have immediately placed me in the same category as Connor or James from the article. I took two hour naps in the afternoon, played several hours of video games each day, and spent the rest of the time socializing with friends and family. But what you probably wouldn't have known from that is that I graduated from university in May of that year, and I was going to start graduate school in September; I was living at home, doing nothing, because I knew that would be the last time in a long time I could do that. After I left for graduate school, I got my PhD five and a half years later, and then moved to Washington, DC for a great new government job in cancer research.

And then the author does another thing that many articles of this type, such as Hanna Rosin's horrid article on the "end of men", do: glossing over, or ignoring completely, the men who actually are doing well. The author makes almost no mention of the 81% of young men between the ages of 25 and 34 that are out there on their own; that is not really a number that indicates the young man who spends his days sitting on his parents' couch doing nothing is the new "Classic All-American Guy". Nor does she discuss the men that did in fact launch successful careers (you don't have to look very hard to find these men; they're everywhere).

But what I disliked most about this article was how, even from the first paragraph, it became a whine-fest about the scarcity of "quality men". Women complaining about the lack of "quality men", men complaining about the lack of "quality men", women complaining about the lack of "quality women"... it all gets very tiresome after a while. My favorite response to this complaint? "Yes, there are plenty of quality men (women) out there. It's just that none of them would ever want to date you."

G-O · 2012-07-16T07:19:54+00:00

Oh look. It's another one of those articles. No, I didn't read it, but I know everything it has to say(and towards which audience it was written).

chavelah · 2012-07-16T12:25:24+00:00

I thought it was a good point that families used to be larger, and young adults were incentivized to find their own place. We have four kids and started young, and the explicit plan is to have everybody out the door before we turn 50. Our kids share bedrooms, etc.

My in-laws parented in the opposite style (2 kids in their 30s, big house, separate bedrooms and bathroom, etc. etc. ) and their other son didn't move out on a permanent basis until he was 27.

MockingDead · 2012-07-17T17:01:21+00:00

Men are growing up. An adult is supposed to be a (relatively) rational animal. In today's western society, playing video games and avoiding dating, marrying, and raising a family is most safe option available for men.

primaloath · 2012-07-16T09:58:19+00:00

The article is not worth commenting on.

Title	The Sorry Lives and Confusing Times of Today’s Young Men
Author	BIGTEXT
Upvotes	19
Comments	22
Date	July 16, 2012 5:18 AM UTC (14 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/MensRights
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/wmohv/the_sorry_lives_and_confusing_times_of_todays/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/MensRights/the-sorry-lives-and-confusing-times-of-todays.1017843 https://theredarchive.com/post/1017843

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