Hey, I ain’t complaining about their existance. If they wanna live that way, and aren’t unhappy about it, it is none of my biznay.
I was just reacting to the conversation, in which you were proposing a “solution” to the “probem” (that is, generating more high class jobs), by saying it isn’t the same problem - or maybe not even a problem at all: at least, not to these guys.
According to the link, the Japanese government isn’t happy about it, preferring to have citizens who work (and so pay taxes) and screw, so producing further citizens to work and pay taxes, ad infinitum. But that’s their problem. Or presumably that of their parents - part of the phenom is, allegedly, that these guys are also likely to be “freeters” or “NEETS” - that is, people who are long-term under - or un - employed, allegedly in many cases because they reject the notion of working for a living as a social necessity. One assumes they are supported by others.
I certainly don’t think a lack of “macho” men is a problem, since I don’t find them particularly attractive. I’d prefer someone who plays computer games, myself, as long as he’s not one of those weirdos who plays computer games but doesn’t want his partner to. Fortunately for me, Mr. Neville does play computer games rather than doing more typical “macho” stuff. Sorry Japanese herbivore men: I’m not in the market.
Yeah, I think the Japanese phenomenon is more of a super-slacker issue, than some kind of men-being-emasculated-by-jobs kind of thing.
That said, I do think there’s a sort of adjustment going on in the US at present. Back in the day, men were men, and there were very clear gender roles- men worked outside the house, and in the yard and garage. Women did housework and child-care. In most respects, the women were ostensibly subservient or submissive to their men.
Sometime in the 60s or 70s, the various equality movements more or less changed the landscape, and many (most?) women have careers of their own outside the home, and men are now expected to take a much larger role in things like housework and childcare, and with the change in income differential, the women are not nearly so subservient as they once were.
So there’s a sort of ongoing generational change in what it means to be a man, without the corresponding change in what each gender finds attractive. So men who are sensitive, raise their children well, and do a lot of housework tend to be somewhat derided for being “domesticated”, and women who are go-getters and career focused can be marked as “bitchy” or “manly” or something along those lines.
I suspect it’ll sort itself out in another generation or two, but for Generation X, it’s kind of a perplexing thing, even without the added confusion added by the changing work landscape relative to that of our parents and grandparents.
He wasn’t macho and he only got married when he was 39 and haven’t left a string of mistresses in his wake. Perhaps he wasn’t interested, but if anything that should say something about girls not being that into non-macho men.
Anyway, personally I’m all for other men being effeminate herbivores forsaking female company. More chicks for me.
They may not be into non-macho men, but a non-trivial part of the female population is probably WAY into that conjunction of billionaire and CEO. I suspect the lack of mistresses/girlfriends/partying was more on Gates’ part than the women’s part.
The difference is that in Japan “herbavore men” is apparently a description that embraces a goodly chunk of the young male population and has generated lots of official angst - whereas I never even heard of “MGTOW” until today. I am not convinced this isn’t a super-tiny minority here.
Not really taking a position, here, but just throwing out some women who have founded companies like Jobs/Gates/Musk:
Annie Malone, who founded a multi-million dollar hair-care company (and also donated thousands of to the YWCA and Howard University).
Sarah Breedlove, who founded Madam C.J. Walker Manufacturing Company, another hair-care and cosmetics company. She was at one time an employee and protégé of Annie Malone, and like her a noted philanthropist.
Sara Blakely, the founder of Spanx, which is now a $250 million-dollar hosiery company. Also a philanthropist.
Don’t know how eccentric these women were and are. I have heard an interview with Sara Blakely, and she came across as very level-headed, low-drama person.
those guys weren’t “eccentric,” they are/were assholes. Jobs especially; he was well known for ripping people off and stealing credit for others’ work. then, when he felt others had appropriated his work (actually the work of those under him) he threw legendary temper tantrums. Elon Musk is the same way.
Gaining success by treating people like shit is not something to desire. that so many people line up to worship pieces of shit like Steve Jobs and Elon Musk makes me sick.
women are being aggressively chased out of the tech field. Gamergate should hint at that. and the way the Silicon Valley tech startups act like they’re in a huge frat house should beat that into your head.
Its not sexist and its not voluntary. Its biochemical. Also, a society with a proponderence of weak males is going to be gobbled up by another society of more aggressive males. Caveat: Today the weak have the power to vaporize the planet rather than simply be slaughtered or enslaved.
They’re not really anywhere near the same league. Coco Chanel might have been (but not really), but she was also fairly eccentric I think. It’s also possible that these kind of people are so much outliers that they don’t have much to teach about humans in general.
Well you can be an eccentric asshole. Regularly bawling your heart out at business meetings certainly sounds rather eccentric to me. But in any case it’s no different from all the asshole artists, scientists, leaders, etc. I expect that, rather than it is the assholeish that is directly responsible for their success, it is side effect of some of the traits which otherwise helps propel them to success: the aggression, risk taking, the single mindedness, the ego the size of a planet. Reasonable people adapt to the world, unreasonable people want the world to adapt to them, We need unreasonable people. Without Jobs/Musk no Apple/Pixar/Tesla/SpaceX. They have made a lot of people very rich, hundreds of thousands have been employed by them, and millions/billions of others enjoy their creations. They’re assholes but we need them. But I doubt the next Jobs/Musk is found amoung the herds of grasseaters.
I doubt that is the case, in fact I know it is not the case with any of the companies I’ve been involved with (IT can be kinda brutal though, for both men and women) - but the thing with startups is that if women want to found an IT startup which isn’t run like a frat house, they could go right ahead and found such a company. There must be something else stopping them. Probably a lot of it is due to the balance of testerone and oestrogen regulating such things as willingnes to take risks.
I’m sorry, what exactly is “effeminate” about the things you are describing? How are these particularly feminine traits? Or are you just comparing people to women as a general insult?
I think this is what is bothering me about this whole debate- why can’t we just call slackers “slackers”? Why do we have to compare them to women? It doesn’t even make any sense.
Well it says so in the OP: “and becomes more female like…” Apparently there’s also another Japanese word for them “ojo-man” - girly men. And their main interests seem to be with things like cosmetics, beauty products, etc. Traditionally considered female interests. They display traditional female traits, but since they’re not females they’re described as effiminate. This I believe is the correct word for it (Dict.: (of a man or boy) having traits, tastes, habits, etc., traditionally considered feminine, as softness or delicacy.) One blog had them described as “metroseual without testosterone” so emasculated could be another term to use if you don’t like effeminate.
But do you see the difference between “liking makeup” and “living a hedonistic lifestyle without ambition or aspirations”?
One of them is related to things associated with women, the other really isn’t. Even in the least flattering stereotypes about women, we generally aren’t associated with lives of comfortably disconnected self-indulgence.
I dunno. I guess I’m okay with you saying that you don’t feel they are masculine enough, but I’m not comfortable with “woman like” being a catch all for traits you don’t happen to like. As a woman, I don’t think I embody everything that is wrong with kids these days.
Yes, well liking makeup (&etc.) is what makes them girly and effeminate. Having no aspirations and ambitions comes beyond that. It’s far from ideal if a large percentage of men take over traditional female traits (or rather abandom traditional mascule ones), but I guess it’s possible also for a man to be effeminate like some gay guys seem to be, and still have aspirations and ambitions in life that extends beyond consumption, and as well a pursuit of meaningful committed relationship with other people. I’m not too impressed either with boys that spend their life playing X-Box games or World of Warcraft. We all gotta try to reach out to each other and otherwise leave a meaningful mark.
I don’t think that effeminacy(?) has anything to do with it; some of the most career-minded and overally competent people I know are flamingly effeminate gay men, who are also civil engineers, medical administrators, some kind of engineering researcher, and similar careers. A couple of them are even married to each other.
Conversely, the gaming world seems to be somewhat hyper-macho, as if it’s dominated by 12-14 year olds, which isn’t the case. And yet, I get the impression that a lot of other players do almost NOTHING else but play Call of Duty, or Battlefield, or Titanfall, or whatever their game is.
I was hoping this thread would go off into another direction than it has taken. I would like to examine equivalent behaviors that human males have used to win mates instead of fighting that you might see in many other animals. Humans can demonstrate power and thus strength by aquiring things, they can also demonstrate this by commanding attention when they speak. Successful demonstrations of power are reaffirmed by other males or females showing them respect and not invading their space. I believe this or lack of this is largely responsible for the amount of testosterone and other important hormones we generate.
If society and the workplace today offered fewer opportunities for successful demonstrations of power it could lead to a culture of less dominant males and all the side affects associated with this. The computer and gaming industrty has been so successful I believe because it has simply given more opportunities for success. The mixture of hormones generated by these virtual successes may not be the same as males would tradtionally be exposed to through more traditional routes to success such as becomming very good at a trade or business venture.
Tey tend to produce " rushes" or floods of energy which can be quickly depleted through losses then rapidly rebuilt at a pace not resembling anything in reality. The products of these types of successes would most likely not be anything of much use a a real society.
