That’s sort of the conundrum, isn’t it?
I think what people want is for men to have positive qualities like bravery, honesty, honor, trustworthiness, etc. Not for men to be harmless.
Despite certain men in this thread bristling at being avoided, almost no one wants to be harmless. Most of us want to be powerful, and that includes the possibility of harming someone.
You can’t be so naive that you have never heard of the concept of a black, Muslim, or immigrant get annoyed when a person perceives them as a threat and avoids them. That very scenario has already recently been laid out in this thread.
If you can’t wrap your head around why someone might have life experiences that would make them more vulnerable to this than you, then you obviously have put zero effort or thought into it. God, I wish I were still as naive as you are.
Moderating:
You can make your points without becoming personally insulting to another poster. The above is engaging in a personal attack. Don’t do this.
Not all scenarios are equivalent. When I’m walking my dog, neighbors will cross the street to avoid us. They’re crossing the street to avoid potential harm. Should I be offended?
The focus on avoiding sexual assault is missing the bigger picture. It’s more likely a woman will be harangued by a comment or a stare. Are they allowed to cross the street to avoid a “smile” comment?
I wonder how much of this comes down to the fact that women are more risk adverse than men.
Example .. I’m walking down the street in my familiar neighborhood, heading home. It’s getting dark and the there aren’t a lot of other people around.
A few blocks ahead I notice a group of men loitering in front of a storefront that I know is empty. So I cross the street before I get to that block, and I’m on the other side of the street as I pass the storefront. As I pass, I realize my fears were unfounded, the men were a group of construction workers who had been working with the new owner to outfit the store.
I’d still cross the street if I encounter the same situation again. I understand that risk of anything happening to me is very low, probably less than 1%, but it’s not zero, the things that might happen to me if I were wrong could be VERY BAD, and the extra time and energy that I expended crossing the street is negligible. It’s not that I’m scared, and I’m a woman that would pick the man over the bear without hesitation - but it’s just common sense.
And it’s nothing personal against any of those men, but they are absolute strangers that are nothing to me, I don’t feel compelled to prove that I trust them and they have no reason to take it personally, because I don’t know them.
People of all genders can and should have those virtues.
Trustworthiness requires being trustable not to do harm unless actually required.
People who might do harm because someone wants to keep reasonable space from them are not trustworthy.
Consider crossing the street as a form of a test. If g-you take it visibly badly — crossing after her and speeding up to follow more closely, for instance, or catcalling — g-you’ve failed; whether or not g-you intended physical violence, g-you’ve shown g-you’re a person to be avoided. And maybe she needs to be ready to run, or to get her hand on mace or a knife, or to duck into an open store, or to get on the phone to 911; none of which she needs to do if you continue quietly on your side of the street at your original pace.
That’s the old snopes boards g-you: stands for you meant in general, not you personally. Yous or y’all doesn’t seem to me to fit here.
I haven’t read the whole thread, but in response to the OP, ISTM that this is yet another example of how entrenched cultural systems and institutions usually don’t stick around to serve the well being of people in general, but rather often serve as tools and weapons for the powerful to divide and conquer and control. The patriarchy, in this case, obviously does tremendous harm to women and girls, but also does great harm to men and boys in many ways, and it has actively sabotaged the ability of boys and young men to navigate today’s society of social media, attention, widespread sexualization, occupational and financial instability, and much more, in a healthy and beneficial way. This can make them easy prey for manipulators and grifters and worse.
Like racism, antisemitism, misogyny, etc., the patriarchy ultimately serves the wealthy and powerful and the status quo of “rich get richer, everyone else struggles for peanuts”, very broadly speaking. All IMO.
Also, people cross the street for all sorts of reasons. Turning that way at the next corner, wanting to get a better look at something on that side, better sidewalk, avoiding a noisy dog. It might not be about the person behind them at all.
So again
Long time standard is for men to be recognized as powerful, ideally brave etc., but not harmless and not all of them the good guys (which is why we need the heroes). Nothing in women having caution around the unknown man is inconsistent with that standard. Nothing being uprooted.
Well of course. I don’t know why anyone would think that behavior is acceptable.
I can think of all kinds of incidents where I’ve been out and some guy gets all butthurt because some woman isn’t interested in him and responds with inappropriately aggressive behavior. I don’t really get it. Like are you (g-you) actually trying to attract women by acting like an asshole or are you acting like an asshole to women to show them what an asshole you can be?
I don’t know? Are people actually proposing anything other than giving @puzzlegal elevator space?
No. But you were explicitly objecting to some unnamed disruptions:
So I am a bit confused.
This.
To be honest so am I. I’m not sure why you are so focused on one specific comment. This thread has been going on and on about women being scared of men. Other than not catcalling women or creeping up on them (which AFAIK no one was supposed to be doing anyway), I’m not sure what other actions we men are supposed to take to make women feel more comfortable nor what that has to do with the “male inequality problem” of men feeling lost or disconnected from society.
It was a simple question because the statement seemed so … odd. Men don’t need to anything about it. They have the option of giving an unknown woman space in a secluded area but no requirement to do so.
That said a theme you’ve had in this thread is bemoaning how things have changed. That men and women, you think, don’t know how to act around each other anymore, “society that has lost basic interpersonal skills”, and some rug has been pulled out from underneath men’s feet society wise.
So I think the comment suggests that you think society has been uprooted? That women wouldn’t have answered similarly to the bear in the woods question 50 or a hundred years ago?
Is that not the premise of the entire thread? The OP posted a link to an article that describes how men are feeling lost and uncertain about their roles in modern society. A major component of “being a man” IMHO is how one forms relationships with women. I think it’s a complex issue with multiple interdependent factors, so forgive me if I haven’t had the time to put together a coherent and comprehensive thesis. (I don’t mean that sarcastically, it is something I actually consider and take seriously not just in my own personal life by how I want to raise my son (and daughter for that matter) to be successful in todays world).
The best way I can describe my view of the subject is through the lens of the Barbie-heimer phenomenon a few years back. Because I think the Barbie and Oppenheimer movies provided kind of a decent perspective of the sort of societal problems people face (probably why those films were so successful).
From a male POV, Oppenheimer represents a sort of idealization of what men want to be like. Flawed, but ultimately competent and moral men fighting to accomplish something important in pursuit of a morally unambiguous right and just cause (fighting Nazis). They make difficult moral choices. They deal with bureaucracy and politics and bullshit like everyone else. Maybe they sometimes act in ways that are inappropriate or illegal or amoral. But there is a greater purpose to what they are doing.
In contrast, Ken is probably more representative of a lot of men in the modern world. In contrast to characters like Allan or Aaron Dinkins who understand that they are not considered highly competent or capable “alpha males” in their world, Beach Ken has lived his entire life believing he was living it according to the standards of what his society expected him to be. Much in the same way an actual IRL man might grow up with the expectation he should be strong, employed, etc, etc.
The thing is, Ken’s world is complete bullshit. Whether the Barbies run it or the Kens, they are all just “playing work” in some construct created by a bunch of doofus materialistic Mattel executives for reasons they don’t really understand.
I think there are a lot of parallels with how men IRL feel. Like they were told “pursue this career” or “study these skills” and that should give you a stable, normal life. Except every few years, it seems like everything changes and there are new rules to follow. And it wouldn’t be that bad, except they are constantly bombarded by online social media lifestyle videos showing all these dipshits who sort of just fell into making fortunes with social media lifestyle videos.
So what happens? Men become lost and confused and don’t know what path they should be taking. So they become vulnerable to personalities who feed them red pill bullshit that if they following their ideology and buy their books and subscribe to their feeds they can drive a Bugatti and make a million dollars and attract all the women. Or they just check out and smoke weed and fill their day consuming media. Or both.
But I do think a lot of young people have lost the skills for talking to and interacting with other people IRL, particularly of the opposite sex. I didn’t have dating apps when I was single. I had to go to where single people hung out and introduce myself to women I was interested in. If most of your dating is through apps, then you are suddenly in a market where now you are competing with the entire internet. It’s easy to develop a mindset that unless you are in that top 0.1% that checks all the boxes, then you don’t matter and I think that’s the mentality a lot of people have.
From your point of view. You don’t speak for all males - certainly not me.
While dating apps serve a valuable purpose, and i know lots of people who have used them successfully, i hear that they are rather dehumanizing for both sexes. Men get a huge amount of rejection, and women get a huge amount of abuse. I have a gay male friend who says his profile specifies that he doesn’t want dick pics who gets tons of dick pics. It’s just rough.
The article made some broad claims that are part of a popular narrative, but one that simply is not accurate.
As pointed out earlier in the thread the inequality is not an uprooting of society, or that men as a group overall are feeling lost and uncertain. It is a crisis for those without college educations, who are increasingly male as more women get higher degrees than men do. Non-college educated women are just as lost and uncertain. It is gender associated education gap.
All the Ken stuff? It is playing with dolls, not reality.
Young men want to find partners, eventually start families, and be good husbands and fathers. Not be the relationship challenged Oppenheimer. Or a preening Ken.
If you are an educated young man honestly that is not too hard to do. You are who those increased numbers of educated young women are looking for. Better yet if you have a job (or prospect to have) that pays more than theirs does. Your family may not start for a while because your partner has a career to get established in first, and it may be one kid rather three by the time you start, but you are the limited supply for an increased demand.
But if you don’t have a good education? The partner market is tighter for you. Being able to afford to move out of your parents’ house may be a challenge let alone starting a family.
Women are not more afraid of unknown men in secluded areas as threats than they ever were. Maybe less I’d WAG. Society hasn’t been uprooted to respect women’s feelings.