I really should know the difference, LOL.
So the trend (at least in Japan?) is that the next generation of young males are growing up to be eunuchs, and the general response is that this is a good thing.
It’s bad because a dynamic well-functioning society and culture requires men with typical masculine qualities (like stoicism/aggressiveness/competitiveness etc.) just as much as they require women with traditional female qualities.
And Japan doesn’t seem to be doing so well to put it mildly. A stagnating economy now well into its third decade, birthrates so abysmal that its like a large portion of the people have completely lost all faith in a future, the countryside is supposedly pretty much degrading, innovation seems to have moved to S. Korea, etc. Japan just doesn’t seem like where the future is happening, like it did in the 80s.
Whether herbivore men is to some extend causing this or they are a product of the stagnation is another matter. I mean the whole thing with the wife taking the pay check and giving him a weekly allowance is obviously bullshit. They need to man up and tell her it’s not the way things are going to be.
Why?
It doesn’t sound like the wife taking the paycheck and giving him an allowance means the guy isn’t dominant enough. It sounds like an extension of the pretty typical domestic arrangement where the husband makes the money and the wife runs the household. If the household is entirely the woman’s domain, she’d need the paycheck to budget. It sounds like a situation that’s more equal, where both pitch in, would lead to more equality, actually. Typical gender roles are what lead to situations like the woman “taking” the paycheck.
Because as much as the words “toxic masculinity” gets thrown around, we as a society/culture in general and (most) women in particular actually require and desire those traits in men. Being aggressive, taking risks, being analytic, emotionally strong, being brave and bold - some time foolhardy, competitive, single minded, etc, Some or all of those traits are a necessity if you seek to create an environment where new ideas are thought out, innovative & disruptive companies founded, provocative art created, bold leaders emerge. History and mythology are full of example, From Achilles to Columbus to Caravaggio to Steve Jobs/Elon Musk, When taken to the extreme it makes for some not so nice men, but we need them all the more. To save us from cultural and economic stagnation.
It also drives much of the male-female attraction, which leads to relationships – and supposedly eventually procreation, something which Japan doesn’t seem to do so well on. And which incidentally, the US is sorta also plummeting at. Girls in general are just not that much into demure and passive men. There’s also apparently a whole movement brewing in the USA called MGTOW, which seem to be mirror of the herbivore. I just don’t think we’re meant to be alone. If society/culture set up an environment where men and women can no longer find each other, there’s something very fundamentally wrong.
Well men should never accept a role as children or servants in their own house. Gotta man up, take control. It’s also something I as an outsider observe in the USA, where the wife sometimes overbearingly allow their husbands and his interests a “man-cave,” and all the commercials of silly husbands, etc. It may be a cultural thing that doesn’t translate well, but I don’t know why American men stand for it, and it doesn’t seem particular healthy for either sex.
I’m not sure those traits necessarily have to accompany masculinity, though. Plus, I think the way we look at men vs. women is a little biased. You’re describing Steve Jobs as this tough, innovative, awesome guy, but a woman who did the same thing as he did probably would be dismissed as an overemotional, manipulative bitch. If a woman cried at the drop of a hat, there’s no way she’d get far…but when Jobs did it, it was all good.
But it’s that idea of “manning up,” of such extreme gender roles that leads to stuff like man caves or a woman completely running the household. If both men and women worked and divided up household duties more equally, the idea of a woman taking the man’s paycheck wouldn’t make sense, because she wouldn’t need it.
There is a term " power is our dilemma". Power is a relative thing that can be had by either sex.
Power can be had by latching on to other powerful people or by recognition through our works. Power is influence and it is also relative. Power is the tail that wags the dog.
Lack of influence amoungst our peers, in the workplace, at home all lead to feeling of being powerless. If we loose in our struggle to gain influence we have lost the fight and like the lion our testosterone goes with it. We can insist on battling for influence in a field where we have no chance of gaining any or we can seek out a medium where our chances for success are greater. I believe this is how men maintain their sexual equalibrium.Having sex and procreating are two different (albeit connected) things. Access to birth control and family planning decisions have much more to do with birth rates in first world nations than “people don’t boink any more”.
This is exactly why the whole “herbavore man” thing in Japan is so very odd and singular. Allegedly, it is about guys who simply can’t be bothered with boinking.
Simply put, and assuming there is any truth in it, this isn’t really a trend I can see happening much outside of Japan.
As for the rest of it - I would agree that society requires stereotypically masculine traits such as aggression, etc. There is no need for such traits to be restricted to males, though. Also, there is no need for man or woman who expresses those traits to express them in all areas of life. It is perfectly possible for a man or woman to be agressive in business or the arts, and yet take a more submissive role in their personal relationships - or vice versa.
These herbivores have certainly found a way to be men without any of those traits. But can’t say I’m very impressed. An effeminate hedonistic lifestyle without aspirations or ambitions or the desire to enter into any kind of emotional binding relationship with women, let alone one night hook ups. Barely a step up from the other odd Japanese lifestyle of the shut-ins.
I didn’t say Jobs was awesome. In fact he was probably something of an asshole with lots of problematic things like being cold and over competitive, single minded, risk taker, etc. But good thing he was an asshole, because without him there would have been no Apple and perhaps no Pixar. And those two are awesome.
Haven’t really anything to say about the crying bit. Men at these levels operate by different rules than the rest of us. Other men can’t be seen sobbing their heart out either. Good thing too. Would be hard to manage a company where people would be so caught up in the own emotions.
No, my point is that if a woman acted like Steve Jobs, many would probably say that women aren’t cut out for that aggressive role, because she’s just too emotional. But when a guy acts like that, he’s a single-minded risk taker who played by his own rules.
Success creates it’s own reason. If a woman was as successful as Jobs she could sob her heart out and do all kinds of odd things without anybody blinking an eye. I can’t come up with a successful woman who has created companies like Jobs/Gates/Elon Musk/etc. (all of them odd in their way) but I’m sure if a such exists she’d be eccentric in some way too.
Incidentally I’ve been involved with IT startups for some years. The whole tech startup scene seems almost completely vacuumed from any female presence. So for all that men have laid down, women doesn’t seem to have taken up the mantle of aggressive risk taking and single minded drive.
The array of traits and personality characteristics and behaviors, priorities, expressions, nuances, etc etc that are called “masculine” either do or do not contain some that the species benefits from people having. If it does, it does not matter if the individuals expressing them have dicks or not. Nor does it matter if the people with those sexual bits express those characteristics less than they used to if enough individuals (with cocks or with vaginas or whatever) do so overall.
If a lot of female-bodied folk are sexually attracted to people for exhibiting those traits, as some have stated, it remains true that a lot of other female-bodies folk are not; but ignoring the latter for a brief moment, the male folk, the ones who are exhibiting less of this trait, can either choose to try to cultivate that trait in greater measure in order to be more likely to be chosen, or, collectively in the aggregate, can sort of shrug and figure the female ones will just have to select from what’s avaiable if they want to hook up in one sense or the other, which is how many males respond to other notions of what women would find attractive in men and wish more men would do, etc.
(If you poll the women, you find some affirmation for bold deliberate aggressive heroic whatever, but it’s balanced by a lot of affirmation for a guy who will cook and do the dishes and will be a good listener).
Anyway, to the overall notion that male people “should” exhibit traits that female people are not expected to? Fuck that sexist shit.
I agree men should not accept a role as children or servants in their own houses. I agree they should man up, take control. I agree with your take on commercial and media culture as well.
As for the question: the typical (and I didn’t say “every”) American divorce looks like this: the wife gets the house, the car, and the kids. The husband moves into an apartment, and pays child support. If it’s not an outcome you want, divorce may not be a good option if you’re a man. And if you don’t want divorce, you’re better off not arguing. And if you don’t argue, you may wind up looking like someone who doesn’t stand up for himself: in other words, like the men you’re talking about.
Au contraire - I had it applied to me in 1989.
Testosterone and sperm counts in the West have been dropping for decades. My guess is pollution, maybe endocrine inhibitors, or something else that disrupts male sexual development.
Add in post industrial malaise, the internet for social fulfillment and escapist fantasy (plus easy access to pornography) and it’s easy to see why men can just tune out, especially beta males who would get shut down anyway.
After Presidential elections, men who supported the losing candidate have a dramatic decrease in testosterone.
I would almost bet that if a profile was run on men whose testosterone levels were below average it would show that these same men were lacking a place in their lives where they felt influential, or at least recognised as being a viable part of something.
I think there’s a happy middle somewhere in between dick-waving and dick inverted inside the body.
Why, Rune, do you think these “good” traits would need to be the domain of men? And why do you assume that what people find attractive is not influenced by society? Because, the difference in the ideal man (and ideal woman) in different countries shows this is not true?
I’ve mentioned before my gay friends who didn’t know he was gay. He was a complete ladies’ man, despite being quite stereotypically effeminate in the stereotypically gay way. He had women constantly asking him out–and he would date them for a couple weeks, break up with them, but they’d still be gaga for him.
So our own culture already is attracted to “effeminate” men. And you don’t even have the birth control argument, where it changes who you want to date. (As these were teens who did not do birth control. One of his “girlfriends” wound up getting pregnant, even. Around here, we don’t abort, and we don’t do teen birth control.)
I’m sure there is a an effeminate man somewhere in a town in Minnesota which is really good with the girls. In fact I’m sure there are many of them all around. It’s just not the general trend of it, and it never has been and it never will be, because a good deal of our sexual attraction is based on biology.
The traits (what’s with all the quoting?) are certainly not the exclusive domain of men, but they are in general much stronger in men men. Testosterone alone will increase your level of aggression and risk taking.
There’s actually an amusing survey somewhere which concluded that women are more attracted to manly men when in their fertile period (& effeminate elsewhere). They, or their biology, wants a manly man to father their children and an effeminate man to raise and provide for them. Those who wants to be the effeminate cuckold “father” can sign up for a darwin award.