how to get men to support men more?

scrapped_knee · 2022-07-05T22:01:11+00:00

I feel this deeply. I remember one time I tried to explain to my dad about a problem my little brother was too afraid to tell him and I got emotional, (My dad's a bit of an asshole), he told me to stop being sensitive and dismissed the whole thing. Spoke to my bro and told him I was being sensitive.

You grow up learning that you are your only support and the media is painting you out to be the bad guy simply because you are a guy... You start to internalize that thinking and project it onto every fellow you see.

The whole he is bad until proven nice. It really fucks with your mental health.

Jonathanese · 2022-07-06T01:13:12+00:00

I'm not sure if this is how things actually went in Sweden, but here's my understanding of an issue I think they tackled well.

Basically, they saw disparities in wages for the same jobs between genders. In the Anglosphere (US, UK, Australia), this seems to be where analysis stops. But from what I understand, Sweden continued further.

They found that companies were more weary of hiring women in higher positions because they could be taken out for months by maternity leave. Or perhaps to some level that they will have more "womanly duties to the home", though I can't imagine it being that blunt.

But what they also found was that men felt like they had no place at home. That the most valuable way they could contribute would be to stay at work and make more money and not messing things up or having trouble keeping up at home. So they worked the vast majority of overtime hours.

The anglosphere solution would be to tell these men they are "assholes not carrying their weight" and then demand more women's protections.

In Sweden on the other hand (again, only as I've heard it) swapped out the few months of maternity leave for a full year of paid parental leave, to be distributed between the parents at their discretion. The government pays like 70% of the wages so the business only pays 30% of the wages to soften the blow of parental leave. And then they released a series of public service ad campaigns talking about men's value in the home. I at least remember seeing a few, one to the effect of "the most valuable contribution to your family is not your income, it's your presence".

As I understand it, this two-pronged approach of legally protecting women in the workplace and addressing men's insecurities about their value ended up going more smoothly.

Again, let me reiterate that I wasn't there for all of this and I've only gotten bits and pieces of it.

But as I see it, THIS is the sort of gender progressivism we need to see. Most solutions seek to basically punish men for their insecurities as though we aren't as much products of our environment as women are.

Though it was a Swedish group who originally proposed a "man tax" to tax men into equal income with women. It was shot down by Swedish courts on the grounds of discrimination. Anglosphere social justice groups would probably laugh at the idea that discrimination against men could happen at all. I know here in the US, making such a statement would land you a solid "Right-Wing regressivist" label. Even though all I want is progress.

BloomingBrains · 2022-07-06T07:39:57+00:00

Do women even support women though?

As you mentioned, most of the misogynistic tweets (I think you’re referring to slut shaming here) come from other women. Time and time again you see feminists ignoring actual problems women have in favor of talking about non-existent ones. There are even “misogynists” like TJ Kirk that I remember raise more money for womens charity than Anita Sarkeesian.

I’m not convinced feminism exists because of some great kinship between women, but rather as a means of collectively working for their own mutual (but ultimately individual) benefit (aka man hating).

I honestly think men (on average) support eachother more than women do (on average).

maxcorrice · 2022-07-06T02:10:54+00:00

Show the empathy you want to see when you can, and when you can tell them to pay it forward

TwizzyMK · 2022-07-06T06:32:26+00:00

I don't think the solution is for men to try to be more like women - it is a meme that is very harmful to men and a great example is that it is what has screwed the UK education system for every generation of boys since the 80s when they changed it to be more favourable to girls (who were at the time equal to boys). Boys in school are expected to behave like girls and exams now are less impactful to grades than coursework.

At the moment we aren't even allowed to be men. Instead we should be encouraged.

Women have a greater proportion of negative emotion and mental health problems so I would push back and say what they do isn't exactly working for them either. Regardless of their poor outcomes, society is structured in a way that supports what they prefer (talk to a therapist etc.) and most funding goes into social programs that provide support in these 'feminine' solutions that target women, e.g. most programs get funding based on how they explcitely target women.

Stoicism (the philosophy) could be considered a masculine form of self support. And brotherhood and camaraderie is very different to the way women interact and support each other, but almost completely fills the same need. Programs that work for men have them be productive together (creation, construction, or community support) or compete with each other (primarily sport based). We live isolated lives but don't take care of ourselves, and our friendships or social activities lack the elements we need to thrive.

And our government certainly isn't picking up the slack and continues to create policies that prioritise women and girls over boys. They also use the 'protection of women and girls' to pass terribly illiberal policies. But that is a complaint for another day.

RockmanXX · 2022-07-06T16:34:42+00:00

I disagree with the "men are competition" theory. Men don't support other men for exact same reason why Moors don't support the Vietnamese, there's no in-group bias to work with. Vietnamese see themselves as Vietnamese and are busy with their immediate regional concerns and the same goes for moors.

Men see themselves as individuals, we don't see each others as immediate alllies in a similar manner women can. That doesn't mean we hate each other or something, we simply do not view each others as brothers.

matrixislife · 2022-07-06T01:16:04+00:00

Men lack empathy for men because they are the competition, the opponents, or occasionally the enemy.
After a lifetime of having that drummed into you from when you're a kid it's hard to break the habit.
It's that simple, that socially pervasive.

knightfluttershy · 2022-07-05T18:50:03+00:00

EDIT: Why is this being downvoted? I’m not saying this is a good thing (it is NOT) but it’s still true.

The impulse to protect women is an extremely ingrained trait, evolutionarily speaking. I’ll explain why: genetically, men are WAY more expendable than women: say you have a group of ten men and ten women. If 9 men die, the population is still somewhat viable as the ma can just impregnate 10 women, meaning 10 children can be born after 9 months. However, if 9 women die, the group is basically dead as only 1 child could be born after 9 months. This is why there’s suddenly a huge focus on women but men are thrown to the wayside.

There is hope, however, as other evolutionarily ingrained traits can be overcome, such as transphobia. But it requires a LOT of pushback.

ShelSilverstain · 2022-07-06T17:38:08+00:00

Part of the problem is that both reaching out, and helping, are seen as effeminate by society at large

Spirally-Boi · 2022-07-07T23:06:30+00:00

This is actually something that I wanted to make a post about. I once read a quote somewhere that goes like this: "If I feed the poor, I'm praised as an altruist. But if I ask why the poor are starving, I'm insulted and labelled as a communist." Same goes for men. As an attractive, intelligent, confident and kind man, most of the time I open up about my issues in life, even sexual abuse by women, I do get heard. People feel sorry for me and try to console me. However, THE MOMENT I try to help other men, or try to say that this is something other men go through, not just me, suddenly I'm wrong and people dismiss what I say. It's like society is giving me privileges, but reprimanding me when I want EVERYONE to have these same privileges I do.

Now, maybe someone might be confused why I bother being a MRA if I do have all of these rights other men are fighting so hard for. It's because I wasn't always handsome, nor muscular, nor confident. And I still remember how I used to be treated when I wasn't as attractive as I am today (hell, just me letting my hair grow and deviating from the male beauty standard has led to people not treating me as nicely as they used to), and I don't want anyone else, man, woman or anything in between and beyond, to go through the humiliation and rejection I went through. And seeing society treat me good not because of my actions, character or simply because I'm a human, but because I fit social standards of beauty disgusts me.

BadGyalElise · 2022-07-06T04:03:04+00:00

I mean… what did you expect from TERF island ?

To answer your question, the more I browse this sub and read about anarchosocialism and self-management politics, the more I believe the most revolutionary thing to do about men’s empowerment is to… not demand anything of them basically. Literally stopping trying to regulate or control them, radically. That extends to asking them to care for anyone, including other men.

I’ll second what someone else has said in the comments. The most effective way to have men to get more involved in their household and domestic life (and also to alleviate the non-bullshit part of the gender pay gap but that’s not the subject of the minute) is to give them free time and paternity leave. That’s it.

In the meantime, you can and imo should promote cooperation and empathy based life doctrines, but I believe the biggest part of the legwork is done through autonomisation and opportunities for self-determination. I think you can and should also offer alternative perspectives on masculinity may you wish to, but in the same way only as an affirmation of yourself, and therefor others like you, and not as a way to nudge or bend others.

MadBlackGreek · 2022-07-06T02:52:37+00:00

Men aren’t wired for emotions the way women are. Some may see advocacy for men as some kind of “pity”, which is course, a no-no. I still get pissed when I remember when Skippy appeared on “Fresh and Fit” (btw, F those guys, listen to “Man School 202” with Dante Nero), and Myron ACTUALLY tells him, “You live in the West, you don’t have a right to be depressed.”

Cunari · 2022-07-06T15:06:04+00:00

Heterosexual men don’t support each other due to sexual competition(which is why when Ukrainian men are sent to war the first thoughts are ukranian brides). Once men are in relationship then they care more about their family then other men.

Men care about each other as humans not as other men

lorarc · 2022-07-10T22:16:15+00:00

There is a lot on the plate here. I think the first thing to start with is that in traditional gender roles it's men's duty to protect women. In modern view that hasn't really changed, what has changed is how men should protect women. You have to really go against all society if you want to talk about how men need protection

The second thing is that men are expected to be strong, by talking about men's problem you show weakness and that's really bad. A woman showing weakness is supported by both traditionals and moderns, a man is on his own.

And the third, and perhaps most important, is that by talking about men's issues you loose attention of women. And few men can afford that. If I say that men that have problem with dating maybe have some point I loose attention of women. If I say men shouldn't pay for all the dates I loose attention of women. If I say men also can get abused I loose attention of women. The men who truly can afford to loose some attention are those unaffected by those problems and they just don't care because it doesn't affect them and they weren't taught to care.

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