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Whereas if women mention that they are untrusting of men, nobody will bat an eye.

I don't bring this up casually, either. From the sound of it, the OP got the bad and sadly usual end of how the divorce industry and legal system disenfranchise men as a general tendency. The first time it really happens to you is kind of an eye opener. Mistrust is earned, after all.

> Whereas if women mention that they are untrusting of men, nobody will bat an eye.

Well, clearly you and I will. Give it time and keep talking about it. In the aftermath of MeToo, feelings are still running high, but I think we'll see things balance out in the long run.

>'untrusting of women' is an alarm bell that makes me think you see women as a class rather than humans, this should be an alarm bell for you too to realise that generalisations about groups of people are always a bad idea.

Humans tend to generalize as a survival mechanism, if I get hurt in a situation or by something like X then the next time I am in a similar situation or meet something like X I will not trust it.

Unfortunately if you get in a really damaging situation with someone of the opposite gender it can kick this survival mechanism in gear and you become untrusting of them. I've had a similar situation and it sucks, especially if you meet someone you like but your whole mind and body says "not that again!"

> generalisations about groups of people are always a bad idea

I broadly agree with the rest of your comment, but this part is utterly untrue. It's only the wrong generalizations that are harmful.

FWIW, the rest of your comment is kinda a broad generalization about westerners.

This is pretty spot on. I grew up in an orthodox religious home where a sense of community was a given. I'm no longer part of that community and I feel it.

Regarding not trusting women, I think I don't trust because I don't understand. Of course this applies to romantic connections to women. I don't inherently distrust all women.

Probably what he really means is untrusting of committed relationships like marriage, or marriage as an institution.

Which is completely normal if you got divorced and got a visitation schedule where you don't get to see your kids often.

On top of that, alimony and child support can ruin a person.

It may then be better to say you are untrusting of the family court industrial complex, that is set up to contain the social contagion of the former family unit and to extract as many resources as possible from the carcass as it splits into two taxable households.

It’s very common that a man end up with little time with the kids as the family court system is stuck on 1950s assumption around the woman being a housewife, and because a woman usually marry up also a huge bill every month. I’ve seen people driven near bankruptcy from it.

This is a great podcast for those unaware of how dangerous it is when your family enters the family court system

https://youtu.be/9S60kJA6tic

A long legal battle with your spouse is mutually assured destruction.

The key question to ask yourself is "how does this benefit my kids?"

For the people planning to get married, understand that 50% of marriages end up in divorce of separation, and the median duration is about 8 years. You usually not have much to win by getting married. Plus, divorce rates tend to go up.

If you are already married and plan to stay married, watch this video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eyty0xb7IMM

Yes, and the wife is usually naive to the predatory nature of the institutional players. The ex-wife in the attached podcast got a nudge from a social worker that she may get full custody if there was abuse involved, so she spend 1.5 million of their common resources and is now 450k in debt to her lawyer on what turned out to be a provably false accusation.

His story is more common than what many may think as many women believe she can get full custody by accusing the man of violence or abuse. And too many drain family finances on a lottery bid for that even when there is concrete proof she lies.

Surely it isn't in the best interest of the state to allow families to destroy themselves in such a manner!

I suggest just watching the podcast I shared. This was a disappointing insight to me as well, but I've heard this from so many now and seen it personally that I must just accept it as truth. You can find many other resources on the topic.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9S60kJA6tic

I think this is a good thing to be aware of but I don't think it has to be all-or-nothing.

There is a landscape of tribes to become aware of, and there's space for clouds of "familiar travelers" to move in and out of relation with these tribes dynamically. I would also advise that, rather than finding a tribe and staking the bulk of one's identity and relationships with that tribe, one works to form a constellation of relationships that constitute something like a personal tribe.

In other words, I don't think we need to move backwards to something, but that we can be more creative about how we get our needs met. Realizing that society isn't set up to meet those needs is an important step.

I think a key part of a tribe is the interconnected-ness of the graph. E.g., I find that if I have five friends none of which know each other, it’s nice, but doesn’t feel like a community/tribe. There has to be mutual connection to feel like a tribe.

it's not about women as a class, but about forming a deep connection to someone (regardless of gender or it being a romantic connection or not). when you have a bad experience like divorce or a breakup or a "betrayal" of a friend who you trusted but who decided to unfriend you over some issue, then that can lead to loosing trust.

it takes a new relationship to overcome this and that's difficult when past experience hampers your very ability to form that relationship.

PS: This may sound weird, but I've heard a lot of folk in western, urban (isolationist) environments explain how the recent Disney/Pixar movie 'Encanto' has moved them deeply because of it's depiction of strong community. If you have not seen it, check it out and see if the lifestyle depicted there in the background to the story calls to you, it might be a good test to see if this is what you're craving or if it's something else.

Overall I agree with your analysis.

Isn't the deconstruction of the family also due to collectivist, anti-individualist ideologies? Gender politics where everyone is a member of a class rather than an individual human can divide us. Instead of looking towards a religious community, family or other cultural institutions for moral guidance or support, modern society looks increasingly towards state institutions.

Maybe the state is increasingly looking to put itself between people and their societies?

I don't know many with a lot of trust or love for the government, but I regularly see those same people fall for coercion / manufactured consent that creates a bigger nanny state.

> in the last 30 years those family islands have been actively broken down by our quest for individualism and personal identity

Agree with most of your comment but I feel this is less about "our quest" as it is societal/economic pressure to not have children and push women to work vs focus on raising a family.

> Ps: 'untrusting of women' is an alarm bell that makes me think you see women as a class rather than humans, this should be an alarm bell for you too to realise that generalisations about groups of people are always a bad idea.

I may be wrong but reading OPs post led me to believe he is a straight male and does not feel like a relationship with the opposite sex is a good idea right now. I don't believe this is sexist or an over-generalization, just that he is currently not in the right mindset to be able to open up/trust members of the opposite sex. And that's ok. It will eventually pass.

It is an adaptation to look at the similarities of which humans gave strife and the incentives available to that group of humans.

It is also inaccurate. So we can approach this with empathy when someone admits it, otherwise there are a bunch of men's rights groups that are not interested in pursuing a collaborative approach with all humans, looking for people exactly like OP.

I think the causation is that in the west, people pursue different kind of lives and interests. This makes it harder just to naturally belong to a community around you when your values/interests/work differs so drastically. In the more “tribe” societies people don’t move around and they have more things they share with everyone in the tribe.