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Comment by twh270 | Hacker News Reader

Yup. I've had many conversations about this topic with my son (and on occasion some of his friends -- both male and female), since he was in middle school (a decade ago). They're well aware of how men are portrayed versus women.

We've transitioned from "A women's place is in the home (barefoot, pregnant, and cooking a delicious meal for her husband)" to "A woman's place is whatever she wants, and men are the reason for everything that's wrong with the world today". Whether it's world war or a bad relationship or choosing the right car.

It's not a binary decision, people. We don't need to decide which gender/sex is "better" or "more right".

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Moving discourse to social media and click bait has destroyed so much nuance in all discussions. Everything is black and white now, every issue is just a war between 2 sides and you're either "with us or against us".

Social media makes its money on outrage so that's what they're optimizing for. Ban or regulate advertising (which will make it less profitable) and other, less toxic business models will come up.

Yes, this is group psychology. Only individuals can really be rational. Once individuals form a psychological group, individuality is lost, rationality is lost with it and everything is controlled by the emotions of the group.

The group has no room for anything really but for the extreme emotional reactions of in-group/out-group psychology and you see this playing out in our society because of social media.

There is literally no room for nuanced discourse between individuals with the way our social media platforms are structured. Individuals will not drive engagement the way groups do.

I think its mostly groups on social media. Some groups can be rational, like a jury, or a committee full of intelligent people. But for them to be rational, there has to be the correct incentives and culture of discussion (i.e. no social media algorithms, or divisive politics).

“Madness is something rare in individuals — but in groups, parties, peoples, and ages, it is the rule.”

― Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil

Well, decades ago, men did run the world, to all intents and purposes. They're still in most positions of power (politics ceos etc), most things are designed by men, etc. This doesn't mean that it's the fault of every single man, any more than as a Brit who benefits from a legacy of empire that I'm personally responsible for whatever massacres. You can be aware of it without taking the blame.

There is a subtle difference between "men did run the world" and "women didn't run the world". The first one skips over all the men that also didn't run the world.

The point is more that men were the assumed default. Ambition was seen as healthy and positive in men and negative in women (the word “bossy” comes to mind). Large parts of the world and some parts of western societies still see it that way, as a sort of natural imperative.

So the average man certainly had more of an advantage. But there are lots of other factors of course, then and now. Class, race, disability status…

I often wish the public face of feminism was more intersectional. Unfortunately we get undifferentiated pop/choice feminism instead. I’m as tired of it as the next person, considering it usually ignores trans issues (beyond maybe some lip service) all together.

Also I feel like this entire thread seems to ignore the economic component of this discussion. Women are stagnant too. Our system is crumbling, and young people without access to generational wealth are suffering, there is no good path into the middle class anymore, so why bother at all? That is the main takeaway.

I do feel like some of the terf tropes come from people building straw men because they don't like the idea to start. "Maybe we should all be nicer to each other, by the way this group has these problems" doesn't really make news, whereas "politician says all men are rapists" immediately gets outrage shares.

>Women are stagnant too. Our system is crumbling

Absolutely. Through all the stats and pronouncements that make it seem as if women are all powerful and are gaining economic and moral power, it's true only on the scale that is dwarfed by the patriarchal capitalism that is taking everything. For all of us who work hard and take home so little compared to those who hoard so much, we take the bait that the conflict is between us and ourselves, not us and them. Orwell write SO well about this in Animal Farm.

So punish them instead of the young! Drain their bank accounts and fire the CEOs. Why is the focus on blaming the young and the innocent?

Punishing the most vulnerable individuals of a group because of the collective sins of that group, we may as well feed males lead until they're out of the game, it's only really one step further than subjecting them to systemic discrimination. JUSTICE!

An interesting part of this conversation is that there are strong subtexts that often have more weight than the actual words in driving how people actually answer.

Scott Alexander as a nice rationaliization of this dynamic

https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/05/12/weak-men-are-superweap...

Really useful link, thank you. It's useful to consider these things when having online discussions.

Yeah it's what I find wrong with the way we fix / correct social issues like this. I m a white male european who emigrated to an asian former colony, and while I never heard or supported racism, misogyny, colonisation, white supremacy, nazism and all these things, I'm often associated with them :D

It's fair I guess so I apologize for what I represent to all these people who had oppressed ancestors, but I'm not sure they're actually resolving much of what people who looked like me did to them: poverty, lack of empowerement, inability to operate in a modern world etc, they can spend their time making me acknowledge my associated responsibility but I wish they'd just let me help instead :D

I remember telling a "philipino" (culturally/parents born there) born in the country that I was an immigrant here, he could not even compute it. He felt HE was, while obviously he was born here and a full right citizen, while my associated identity made him believe I was a sort of powerful lord instead of the scraping by immigrant I am, who has mostly the right to shut up and be useful... in HIS country. It's just weird.

Dreading this when my sons grow up.

“Hey, society and the media and politicians, institutions have all decided your nature is a problem and that you are assumed guilty, to be viewed with suspicion at all times. Oh and for some reason, you should still want to support this structure with your hard work and taxes, and shut up and never mention it.”

Honestly - I don’t know why I would tell him he should accept this society, why he shouldn’t move to another country and why he should stick around. It isn’t showing any signs of changing.

It sickens me, I don’t believe in my own country anymore.

Taking a victim stance isn't helpful.

Whoever you are and whatever you do, there's always going to be some group that doesn't like you or "your kind". Running away doesn't teach your kids how to face this; it just changes where they'll face it.

You’re right. Our society is rewarding those who claim victimhood above those that overcome which is worrying.

Leaving the country now potentially makes them the target of the anti-expats group.

It's the chicken egg problem. Woman birthed man. Who's to blame?

In all seriousness, if we are to succeed as a society, then ignorantly maintaining what are mostly over generalizations and stereotypes related to gender is a failing proposition. And that involves anything that existed pre-the-whole-world-is-now-connected.

That means

> It's not a binary decision, people. We don't need to decide which gender/sex is "better" or "more right".

But, for most of our parents it was binary and decision was obvious.

People fantasize about going back to that. Even the young kids, Gen Z, which is most concerning. Something alarming is that this comes from a feeling of helplessness. That and similar feelings explains the increase in massacres, hatred, and even why terrorists traditionally came from countries in turmoil. The kids need to be feeling hopeful not helpless.

That and similar feelings explains the increase in massacres, hatred, ...

Violence has been falling substantially in the US:

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/11/20/facts-about...

The time series in your link end in 2019, when the trend of falling violence has ended. There has been a huge, unprecedented spike in violence in 2020, and this new normal has wiped decade or two of previous gains.

Do you think that could be an outlier?

No, because if you look at data, there has been clear inflection point around Memorial Day last year that shifted us to new regime of higher violence that seems to persist instead of subsiding.

Right at the height of Covid. I'm willing to bet it will be back where it was when this is all over.

You say that, but bias is absolutely rife still.

In commercial and entertainment media, it’s the woman in the kitchen, buying the groceries, raising the children, and holding down a 80 hour week job at her law firm. The man is playing ball in the yard, or is doing business in a suit. He definitely expects dinner to be on the table when he gets home from his 1950’s day job.

Then there’s other people. Women get asked “when are you having a baby” and “why is your husband so thin don’t you feed him”, and men get “so what do you do?”.

Women are now in the position where they are expected to do all of the things a woman would traditionally do, and hold down a career. The expectation of men has barely shifted - I know precious few guys who do all the cooking and cleaning and child rearing.

Today, today it's culturally acceptable to ridicule, scorn, and otherwise attack men and manhood; to portray men as arrogant, abusive, and controlling. The word 'masculine' is now a derogatory term that means the same thing as 'toxic'. "Men are trash".

The message is that to be a man is to be lesser, or irrelevant, or harmful to society. That there's something shameful about being a man.

"There's nothing wrong with taking men down a peg or two; after all, they rule pretty much everything". Yeah, now what about the overwhelmingly vast percentage of men who will never have a management position or hold office? Whose life is just mediocre? Is it also okay to tell him he's toxic trash?

And sure, the proper response is "don't listen to the garbage". Doesn't mean it's okay to spew garbage.

As for entertainment media, it's a shit-show on both sides -- women and men are both horribly stereotyped.

> The word 'masculine' is now a derogatory term that means the same thing as 'toxic'.

This whole comment was BS, but I’ll focus on one example. This is the exact opposite of the truth, “toxic masculinity” is a common phrase because “toxic” is an adjective that is seen as *adding significant information to the description which is not already present in ‘masculinity’”.

If masculinity were viewed as inherently toxic, “toxic masculinity” wouldn’t be a needed phrase.

"When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. 'That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3' can be shortened to '1 + 1 is 2, not 3."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

That is a load of bullshit. The phrase is used to shit on all things that make men, men. If it was really a technical term to describe the bad components of masculinity, then there would be an equivalent in terms of femininity, since there are aspects of femininity that can be construed as toxic. I would go out and a lim, and suggest that being overly passive, passive aggressive, and backstabbing are all aspects of femininity that could be considered toxic. You could also consider the perverse side effects of the women are wonderful effect to be toxic femininity It is dressed up in academic language to mask its misandry.

> The phrase is used to shit on all things that make men, men.

No, its not, and if you think the things it targets “all the thing that make men men”, you have a very sick idea of what being a man is.

> If it was really a technical term to describe the bad components of masculinity, then there would be an equivalent in terms of femininity, since there are aspects of femininity that can be construed as toxic.

The equivalent is, as one might expect, “toxic femininity”. While it gets less attention, the attention it does get is from the exact same people who care the mosf about toxic masculinity.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/sex-sexuality-and-ro...

Please don't do flamewar like this on HN. You normally do an excellent job of avoiding that, even on difficult and divisive topics, so I'm dismayed to see the lapse and I hope it's not a sign of any development in that direction.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

You broke the site guidelines here. I understand that the topic is provocative and people have good reasons for their strong feelings, on all sides; that makes it more important, not less, to follow the site guidelines. If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules, we'd be grateful. Note these:

"Please don't fulminate."

"When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. 'That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3' can be shortened to '1 + 1 is 2, not 3."

"Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive."

"Toxic masculinity" does not mean "masculinity is toxic". The term was invented by a men's rights activist.

And this is why we have declining population growth

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