Discussion: What country do you live in, and how healthy/toxic are the perceptions of masculinity and the relations between men and women?

dungeonmonkey69 · 2023-11-05T23:08:11+00:00

Australia. Normally pretty egalitarian. Women are expected to pull their own weight as adults and accept accountability rather than the American mentality of having their cake and eating it too of all the perks of equal rights but none of the responsibilities (men still expected to pay for everything etc). There's an infestation of US style feminism in both academia and government here to various degrees but no where near the extremes of America or the UK. Lots of push back on it and people tend to be more focussed on class politics when times are tough as general public treats identity politics as luxury beliefs which we only bother to address when times are tough. Young men definitely do cop it pretty bad from a female dominated education system here and I think it's a universal across the western world of having awful women running HR departments in workplaces, however, we do have stern anti discrimination laws so it's a lot harder for companies or organisations to implement quotas or affirmative action hiring policies etc.

MonkeyCartridge · 2023-11-05T21:08:45+00:00

Well the thing about the USA is that we demand men be extra masculine, and then get mad that men are extra masculine.

When men soften up and refine enough to no longer be considered problematic, they are also no longer considered sufficiently manly.

Like IDK if you have seen Avatar: The Last Airbender, but consider Zuko: He wasn't ruthless enough for his dad, but he was too problematic for other people simply because he was from the fire nation.

And while he was trying to sort out his identity, there were literally people who hated him because he was fire nation, and didn't respect him because he was banished from the fire nation. As far as they were concerned, he was an asshole because he was a firebender, but weak because he left.

I feel like that's exactly the state of masculinity in the USA.

In fact, the main reason people trusted Jeong Jeong was because he was a firebender and hated firebenders. Sound familiar?

Troll4everxdxd · 2023-11-06T01:03:24+00:00

I'm from Argentina, we are pretty advanced and progressive on the "eradicating misogyny" department in comparison to many other countries in Latin America.

That being said however, the feminist movement in here is pretty insincere, hypocritical and subordinate to the current ruling political party, being selective on their demands to incarcerate and hold powerful men abusing women accountable: They are pretty vocal about it when the male offender isn't a political ally of the ruling party, even to the point of kind of skipping due process. But the second a member of the ruling party is accused and prosecuted (for example an ex governor who allegedly SA his niece, or a political militant who raped a teenager after "buying" her to her own mother) they are completely silent.

They have also pushed for laws making homicide of women at the hands of men an aggravating factor on itself, and they have rejected attempts at making violence against men at the hands of women visible.

As for gender roles and all of that, we are rather advanced in acknowledging all kinds of abuse against women, but rather underdeveloped in doing the same for men. Recently a male celebrity called Luciano Castro pointed out the double standard of a man suggestively touching a woman in public and a woman doing the same with a man, and it caused a rather polarizing reaction, mostly from women: Some of them mocked him, whatababouted with women's problems, and invalidated the subject all together; others praised him for speaking up about that subject.

Another thing that happened recently was the case of a 14 year old boy being raped by his 30 something female teacher. The defense of that teacher tried to exonerate her by saying that since the kid had an erection, it led the woman to believe that there was consent. While the argument was initially dismissed as the BS it was, it was eventually considered when the case went up to a superior tribunal, and the sentence for the rapist was reduced.

I'd say there's an underdeveloped but nascent awareness of men's problems in Argentina, which will hopefully gain strength with time.

Unusual_Implement_87 · 2023-11-05T22:54:23+00:00

To be honest never in my life have I ever experience any gender expectations other than when I'm around my religious friends and their families. I don't conform to any masculine expectations and it's not something I worry about or even think about. However online there is so much discourse and discussion about it.

Crimblorh4h4w33 · 2023-11-05T20:56:36+00:00

I'm in South Africa, and gender perceptions here generally range from healthy to mildly negative towards masculinity. Gender Based Violence in South Africa is treated very seriously. Unlike the US, we're also a wayyyy more dangerous, with violent crime and rape at levels second only to Brazil, so a negative view towards masculinity here isn't as unreasonable as the feminist brainrot in the US is. Traditional gender expectations still hold ground, and women aren't treated that much better by the state than men are.

I will say, though, that young men are still very much neglected. Growing up even in post-apartheid South Africa, I as a man could tell that women were encouraged to do things and be helped more than men are, particularly in education, we're just kinda left to do whatever because the boomers here for some reason believe we just benefit from being men. We aren't as polarized along gender lines as the US, so even if it is unfair to men, we kind of act like it's reasonable and not a big deal. Part of the faux-resilience this country likes to act proud about in order to cope with our leaders screwing us over.

Motanul_Negru · 2023-11-06T09:19:52+00:00

Romania.

It's pretty damn toxic and old-school here.

Feminism has made some inroads especially in the cities and with younger generations, but it's far from as dominant in the west, and the most shameless men still feel pretty free to pull some serious nonsense, at least in blue collar jobs. Rich men are no more or less brazen than anywhere else, as far as I can tell.

As the Tater-tot made infamous, law enforcement against sex offenders is... lax, to say the least. If they can slip beneath notice or afford the bribes, at any rate.

As for the rest of us, well, it's traditional gender roles all the way, except that most women will give you a hard time if they think you're not helping out enough around the house.

There's a word from the Russian mob's jargon, "frayer," IIRC the direct translation is "outsider" to the criminal underworld, which basically means an ordinary Joe who's regarded as a loser and a sheep to fleece. Spelled with an i instead of the y, it's penetrated the Romanian language heavily since before I was born, and it basically means anyone who's not at least a selfish, thieving dick who gets away with it more often than not.

The attitude is if you're a "fraier" you deserve to be exploited and have the people who "know how to handle themselves" wipe their feet on you. And if you're a male "fraier" you either won't have any success with women or they will, or should, cheat on you with a 'real man'.

Edit: I should note, this is urban Romania. Rural I'm not so familiar with but it can go from the same as the urban to the early Middle Ages.

Also, homophobia, antisemitism, antiziganism and anti-anything-LGBT are rampant here.

ArmchairDesease · 2023-11-06T14:21:58+00:00

Italy is a gerontocratic country with a large middle-class population for which gender issues are completely outside the radar.

Huge "women-are-wonderful" effect at all levels of society. A lot of self-deprecation from guys.

Actually "le donne hanno una marcia in più" ("women have something extra") is such a common and widespread phrase that's almost a meme at this point.

The only feminist battle regularly on the political table, as far as I'm aware, is violence against women (which is of course the most uncontroversial and bi-partisan gender issue). There are also some other minor battles around "quote rosa" (pink quotas in public jobs) and VAT on tampons.

The idea that gender issues could also involve men is generally considered comical.

thithothith · 2023-11-07T01:00:45+00:00

Philippines, in my mid 20's

The "two" (they're really not all that different) major factions still exist. Feminism, mostly in people my age or younger, and traditionalism, which feels like its more due to religion here than anything else, at least for the few younger people who haven't adopted feminist ideology, but I might be off on that. Was never a roman catholic, but damn is it prevalent here.

Let's see.. as far as politics goes, I would say politicians are either shamelessly tradcon, or socially apolitical at best. Im inferring this from how Im sure we dont have anything remotely resembling egalitarianism in politics, but I don't really follow the scene. Just like everywhere else, "gender issues" colloquially means "women's issues", which means both corporations and politicians and everyone else can safely advocate for them without compromising how one side views them

Were basically a nascent US, I'd say, at least when it comes to solely social ethics. All the media younger more affluent people consume here is english movies and english television, and being feminist is sold as being for equality and ethics, and people just eat it up. An ex of mine literally told me theyve been feminist their whole life cause they were told it meant "for gender equality" at a really young age and never gave it a second thought. The name is "feminism". I mean.. cmon, at least look at why the name contradicts its own self assigned definition..

My sister and a lot of my close friends are more involved feminists, who read the literature, and talk about intersectionality, and "believe women", and theyre not rare either. Just so much oblivious social ethics that work backwards from a conclusion, and I kind of try not to talk about it, because I imagine it'd be like trying to convert a theist off of their beliefs

curoku · 2023-11-05T21:10:57+00:00

I’m from the US, but I would be really curious to hear from people on this subject coming from the nordics, because throughout my travels in Europe the women from there have seemed the least like the women from the US in this regard. I suspect it happens in every culture to an extent but I do not know.

Title	Discussion: What country do you live in, and how healthy/toxic are the perceptions of masculinity and the relations between men and women?
Author	Dashing2025
Upvotes	31
Comments	22
Date	November 5, 2023 2:13 PM UTC (2 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates/comments/17ocszt/discussion_what_country_do_you_live_in_and_how/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates/discussion-what-country-do-you-live-in-and-how.1237565 https://theredarchive.com/post/1237565

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