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Bold of you to assume only teenage girls do. I know guys in their late 20s to early 30s (with university degrees!) who follow and agree with the likes of Andrew Tate or other such scammer nutjobs of the manosphere.
From what I saw, my take is that such people are like that due to lacking support. They lack a supporting family unit(poor relationship with their parents), they lack a caring social group(isolated, introverts, very few friends), they lack a caring mentor to show them the way on how to get out of a rut and improve their situation, so end up pray to easy manipulation of these fake gurus who help them fill that void.
Au contraire, this is now a popular content vertical/subculture- "tradwife" is the keyword you need to dig this stuff up.
I'm an American in my 40s. I've never seen "glorification of scams" in any mainstream culture and can't really think of any subculture where that would be the case... maybe used car sales, crypto or drug dealers or something?
I've also never seen any sort of "hyper-masculization" shown in a positive light in mainstream culture. I've always been pressured by society to present as less masculine and it's common to see masculinity referred to as as "toxic" and equated with negative traits or externalities. In fact, it's an entirely one-sided debate at this point. Suggesting any positive aspect of masculinity is considered sexist, misogynistic and unacceptable among the people who's opinions carry power in society. Negative aspects of masculinity are of course strongly encouraged, reinforced and amplified.
Some very popular movies that come to mind (Some of these may not be intended to be glorifying scams, but to many unsophisticated viewers, they absolutely are):
- The Social Network
- The Wolf of Wall Street
- Uncut Gems
- The Godfather
- Scarface
- Ocean's Eleven (and Twelve and Thirteen)
- Emily the Criminal
- I Care a Lot
- Nine Queens
- Punch-Drunk Love
> I've also never seen any sort of "hyper-masculization" shown in a positive light in mainstream culture
More movies!
- The Godfather (again)
- Pulp Fiction
- Fight Club
- American History X
- Gangster Squad
- Django Unchained
- Expendables
- Every Fast and Furious movie
- (Nearly?) Every Arnold Schwarzenegger movie
> it's common to see masculinity referred to as as "toxic" and equated with negative traits or externalities
I think this is (usually?) a misunderstanding. People refer to toxic masculinity, a set of problematic behaviors some men exhibit as part of attempting to appear "manly" that includes traits such as: homophobia, glorifying unhealthy habits (e.g., drinking like a man, don't cry like a woman, mental health issues depicted as "weakness", etc.) They're not referring to masculinity, itself, as being toxic.
Yes, toxic masculinity ≠ masculinity. Broadly speaking, toxic masculinity has to do with behaviors that are deleterious to the one behaving that way, others, or both. Nobody is going to claim for example that a man’s efforts to be a warm, supportive father who strives to be his family’s rock (a pretty traditional male archetype) are toxic.
This isn't really broadly true. Women in their early age are just as varied as the rest of us. I know women who were raised in a setting where they were expected to be parents (cleaning, cooking, looking after the younger siblings) and so naturally never learned healthy boundaries, and thought looking after a manchild was normal. I know women who were raised in a setting where abusive men were also normal and so they accepted romantic abuse. I know women who were simply alone and didn't have support systems to help them through the isolation and financial constraints that is entering an abusive relationship by men who promised traditional breadwinning homelives.
It's dismissive to wave off an entire gender this way and not consider all the ways we already dismiss women. Of course, if women are constantly exposed to men lambasting them for being 20 year old sluts as a category, how do they enter healthy sexual relationships with men?
Many middle-aged women I know remain attracted to the same type of men. It often works out poorly for them, but they still don't seem to learn new preferences.
I know of far too many arsehole guys that never lack for a girlfriend.
Smart, attractive, caring women that don't seem to be able to choose a worthwhile guy. And I know of too many women that can't extricate themselves after they are entrapped by some arsehole.
I don't have much of a theory of why, but one pattern is often a taking guy and a giving woman.
I don't know enough gay men or women to have noticed similar patterns within my gay acquantances.
The other odd thing is that I have some caring male friends who would make fabulous husbands (and fathers), however they are not snapped up by women. It appears to me that their positives are not valued - and perhaps they are judged too harshly by their flaws (goofy, overweight, bad teeth, crappy job, whatever).
It isn't just young women. Women in their 30's, 40's, 50's still often make the same choices. They seem to remain attracted to the same type of guy, but may avoid entrapment through a variety of mental gymnastics (or plain celibacy).
(Re-edited for clarity).
Perhaps you should start off by assuming women are people with free will, and afterwards take a long hard look at why people tend to prefer partners that "please" them over those who instead have nothing to offer and try to use economic stability as leverage.
If they offer stability, they hardly offer nothing. Why is it okay to leverage your looks and personality, but not stability? I personally really like that my wife is stable, it's something really valuable that she brings to my life.
You're somehow assuming that those who are attractive and have something to offer in terms of romantic relationships have an exclusive monopoly on economic stability.
> Why is it okay to leverage your looks and personality, but not stability?
You can try to leverage anything you'd like. Hell, pick up juggling and work on that too. The point is that you are not entitled to a spouse just because you hold a job, and if you are a lousy person then don't be surprised when you repel people. You don't own people and you are not entitled to abuse others by holding your income over them. If you want paid services, hire someone. In the meantime, don't be surprised that people with free will opt to stay with people they actually like and stay away from creeps who think they are entitled to other people.