The bit about AGD was also pretty crazy — followed by the bit about men becoming less male. Some fear-mongering there no doubt, but a topic which in this era is more likely to be met with scoffs of “good riddance” rather than alarm bells.
My first thought was that this may also cast light on the rise of the trans rights movement. If men are becoming less male, surely this relates to so many people saying "I'm really a woman trapped in a man's body." or vice versa.
This may also help explain why trans people are so often met with open hostility as "freaks" etc. No, I am not defending their mistreatment.
But given how charged a topic that is, I imagine bringing it up will get my comment flagged to death, not taken seriously.
I'm a fairly traditionally feminine woman and spent a couple of decades as a homemaker and full-time mom. I am routinely met with open hostility from self proclaimed trans activists, feminists, etc.
I personally like "manly men" and that's also not a PC thing to admit to. So I will suggest it isn't just men the world is saying "good riddance" to. It's also women in some sense.
If you want to argue that, please stop and think before dismissively attacking me. People talk all the time about how gender is a social construct and is not merely the bits between your legs. I stayed home with my kids and that had a profound impact on how I think about many things. And the way I think is alien to that of career women and they are frequently openly hostile to it.
> I personally like "manly men" and that's also not a PC thing to admit to. So I will suggest it isn't just men the world is saying "good riddance" to. It's also women in some sense.
I think, in this context, we need better and likely newer vocabulary. I don't believe that others would despise you or any other woman or man or an intersex person or someone in transition for liking certain characteristics (physical and/or behavioral) traditionally and historically associated with men.
The issue seems to be — while we're untangling all the discrimination, stereotyping and prejudices — that the current and older terms (like "manly man") reek of all these negative things that are being questioned (where newer ways are being sought to deal with). The impact of such broad terms is wider than what people may generally think of.
To make a comparison (which may be taken differently by different people), it's like using the "N" word and assuming that even a neutral or seemingly positive reference should be accepted by others.
Language is changing all the time and adapting to the times. In this particular case, I believe we should break down what something like "manly man" means into constituent parts and try to use decoupled (from the original term), yet concise and non-triggering, ways of expressing the same. It may not be easy. It may sound weird at first. But it's something we need as a society.
Lest this be dismissed as "oh, we just need new words to fix the world", I'd like to reiterate that the basis is to allow thoughts to change.
Contrary to popular opinion, manly man and misogynistic asshole aren't actually synonyms.
P.S.: I also believe that short pieces of written words and sentences can be misinterpreted online, and probably malice attribute to where there is none.
What about trans-women that want to be called women? Who see being called "trans" or "man" as an insult?
Isn't this the same kind of gate-keeping as the people who insist trans-women are men?
neither side might accept the new vocab precisely because they are a) reinforcing the old concept, or b) reinforcing an inverted version of the old concepts. Neither wish to create a new category, just define the same old ones.
Hostility towards what? I assume they attack a view you hold, rather than your being a stay-at-home mother.
I've been accused on HN of being transphobic for attempting to speak about women's issues. I don't really care to dig up a whole lot of examples to convince skeptics. I was homeless for nearly 6 years and only asking for help with trying to figure out how to make money online. I got damn little support and was actively dismissed, especially on a different forum that likes to imagine it is female friendly. I don't think it really is.
Anyway, those painful experiences made it quite clear to me that a lot of people literally would like to see me dead. I'm aware that callous indifference isn't something most people will take seriously as a form of attempted murder, so I don't actually want to talk about this. Additional hostile dismissal of my opinions of my experiences won't change my opinions and, ironically, are unlikely to be seen as supporting evidence for my point.
I spent 9 months being extremely supportive of a MtF trans youth in crisis who expected and demanded that I be totally accepting of who and what they were. Then they had a cow and shit all over me for mentioning that "pretty boys" weren't my cup of tea and reamed me out about how that's prejudice.
So their preferences and predilections must be unquestioningly validated. Mine? Just another BS excuse for the individual to heap more verbal abuse on me.
We eventually parted company. Last I heard, they are still telling lies about me to other people.
That's absolutely not the inclusiveness that so many people claim they want. It's hypocrisy. What they really want is to preserve the Lord Of The Flies pecking order where people on top get to shit all over people on bottom, but they want to be the people shitting on others, not the people being shit on.
It's not actually an attempt to create some lovely egalitarian society. It's more like a desire for revenge and that revenge is frequently aimed at individuals who didn't actually harm them.
We were most likely discussing someone who is a member of Hacker News that she wanted to encourage me to marry, never mind that she believed he was married to someone else (according to him at the time, he wasn't married, but he is a family man). So, basically, admitting that I didn't find him repulsive was a good excuse to heap verbal abuse on me. Par for the course for the relationship. There was no means for me to do anything right.
Out of respect for innocent bystanders, such as his children (including one that likely reads Hacker News), I don't want to discuss this any further.
there's nothing political about liking what you like. You don't need to justify yourself, your preferences or their reasonings to anyone. That's half the point of the sexual liberation movement.
> I'm a fairly traditionally feminine woman and spent a couple of decades as a homemaker and full-time mom. I am routinely met with open hostility from self proclaimed trans activists, feminists, etc.
for raising kids? i didn't realize investing in future generations was controversial. You have just as much right to exist and go about your life as they do or anyone else.
It is simply just that it does not require to be a 'manly man' in these days to have the same amount of "success", as it required in the old times. For example, take the whole mating game. Earlier, you had to look good/manly, need some quick thinking, timing and wit to pick up women. But now those things are not so much required.
I think multiple factors have contributed to this. But I think the all encompassing one is capitalism. And things like these are the an emergent result, of trying to maximize profits, and thus it is molding the very source that it generate the profit from, namely the human population. Simply put, much less profits can be made from a manly (manliness being comprised of things like but not limited to, looks, having some individuality, own principles and views and a taste for independence) and intelligent population than it can be made from a feeble/stupid, but heavy earning population. I am not saying that there is some conspiracy that is trying to accomplish this. But it might be a case of a death by a thousand paper cuts. I mean, like every time you try to sell something to the public, by social conditioning, you might be inadvertently contributing to things like this...
It isn't evidence that my thoughts are nutso and irresponsible behavior.
This is pretty obvious without any research (papers). The difference between my generation and our children is already staggering in this regard. Not sure if that's just change in culture or physiological though; maybe a bit of both?
A couple days ago I shared a NYT article with my wife because it was such a strange window into evolving gender standards [1] and the next day a friend of hers shared another story which took it to a whole new level [2].
I could not help but tie it all together in my mind with TFA and dropping testosterone levels, but god help me for admitting it here.
[1] - https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/07/style/modern-love-he-aske...
[2] - https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2018/06/imagining...
Makes me a little ... queasy.
FWIW I’m not particularly bothered by the concept that a little kid may want to wear dresses. It’s just the tone in the story seems a bit ... not reputable.
Take myself for example, and imagine what that mother would have thought: Up until ~14 I wore various old shirts from my parents to bed and on weekends, which were long enough to look like a dress on me, but it had nothing to do with liking dresses. It had to do with regular clothes being too stifling to be comfortable on the weekend, pajamas being too warm, and me not having confidence to just go around in only underwear.
Kids don't put themselves in news articles. It's the parents who do it, but they always say the child spontaneously behaved that way.
Said every parent about their children's generation since the dawn of human civilization..[0], [1]
0. http://mentalfloss.com/article/52209/15-historical-complaint...
I see that young people today are absolutely behaving different than my generation but also than my parents and grandparents and great grandparents. I mean to say that my father, grandfathers and great grandfathers were all rather similar while they are all really different than the current generation. I think I like the current situation better. But yes, this needs solid studies if someone someone would be interested in finding the cause; not guessing or speculation.
I'm not sure about that. The Internet "manosphere" (for lack of a better term; consider it the all-encompassing phrase for both harmless and not-so-harmless subcultures like weightlifting, PUA, redpillers, the alt-right, etc.) seems more obsessed with masculinity than anyone I can recall seeing in previous decades. "Plastics in the water are destroying men" has been a ha-ha-only-serious topic in those circles for a while now and this will only solidify it. For better or worse, there are enough people concerned about this stuff that I doubt it will get handwaved away.
Just a hypothesis, could make for interesting research.
joeytcheng.com