Scorned by whom? I spent most of my twenties not being able to get a date; I felt rejected by the women who weren’t interested in dating me, but not scorned by any individual or group. I was in the “unhappily single” group, but the reaction was more surprise that this decent looking guy they worked/went to school with couldn’t get dates. My parents refused to believe I was asking women out but usually being rejected. If they’d seen the obvious “deer in the headlights” look I had anytime I asked someone out (or the obvious nervousness in my voice if it was by phone) they wouldn’t have been surprised. I was even anxious when I called my future wife after she’d approached me (I was afraid she’d lost interest after spending a couple of hours with me the day after we met, which is something that had happened a few times before). I may have misinterpreted what you wrote; if so I apologize.
I posted this clip as a joke but then saw it was posted on some sort of incel YouTube channel. So now it just sort of feels creepy.
By social media, which is a constant barrage of images telling young men and women what their lives should look like. You can’t really compare it to the environment you and I grew up in.
If men want to be included and have equal opportunities as women, I think they should push for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion policies and groups. (Also known as “DEI”)
These policies are designed to help people feel included in the same way as anyone else, and allow for members to share their experiences with others and to provide support for each other.
I think perhaps more importantly they find themselves scorned in the real world. Lack of jobs or friends or romantic partners.
The main difference from the environment we grew up in (which I assume is “pre-social media”) is that it’s a lot easier for people who are either shunned or choose to sequester from society to immerse themselves in online entertainment and social media. And because it’s all online, it present a fictional world full of people misrepresenting themselves.
Back in the day, you tend to get bored pretty quickly by yourself, forcing you to go out where people were.
I see what you’re saying. Almost all my friends, both male and female, were in relationships. That was hard enough. People in my profession (librarian) tend to be pretty skeptical about what’s online, so I’m pretty confident if I were. The age of my kids (26 and 28) I would still feel rejected but not scorned. I’m thankful my baggage doesn’t seem to have transferring to my kids; my daughter is married and my son m is engaged to a woman he’s been with for 7 years. I did go out some, but there were definitely times I was too depressed and discouraged to drag my ass out of my apartment.
Moving this discussion here:
“Busting your balls” as a young male behavior. Definitely occurs cross culturally. Different rules but there.
Usually outgrown fairly early in adulthood.
Is it a negative “toxic” masculinity, or something we should accept as male play across cultures?
I mean, teenage girls also verbally put each other down. And less affectionately than teenage boys. It just has different names based on the sex of the person doing it.
Very much so. And generally not a joke in the form of an insult. My impression is that in girls it is very not play. It is not part of bonding together as in group. If there is laughter it is more commonly laughter at, not with. It is aggression, dominance, and frequently declaration that the target is even not part of the group.
The old boy girl stereotypes do hold I think: that boys often literally fight and the rapidly get over it, and girls hold grudges with social exclusion forever. Obviously I lived the boy side. Literally met a new kid and never mind why we decided to fight with another kid, Tony, refereeing our rassling “fight” … after: “you fight good”, “you too”, “wanna come over to my house after school?” “Sure.” Best friends rest of childhood. We still see each as couples now. Retired corporate lawyer. Neither of us tough stereotype models of '50s style masculinity. He’s more a musical theater guy.
I think my common model of consent applies here: if everyone is good with the ball-busting, and it doesn’t lead to permanent damage, then that’s fine. But if it turns into something closer to hazing, or one-way attacks, or social exclusion for not going along with it, then it becomes “toxic”.
I identify as non-binary in part because while being raised male I was constantly under pressure to change myself in negative ways in order to conform socially.
I’ve been pondering this a lot recently and I don’t think the “Male Inequality Problem” is particularly new, nor is it limited to the economic plight of working class men.
I think the classic example is the plight of Al Bundy from Married With Children (or any similar male character).
Before marriage, Al was a popular athlete in high school. His life followed a fairly typical trajectory of meeting a woman, marrying her, and raising a family. He works a job he doesn’t particularly like so his family can enjoy a safe, secure lifestyle in a nice home in a Chicago neighborhood. Aside from some casual drinking with his male friends and a penchant for strip clubs, he doesn’t partake in drugs or appear to have many vices. At worst, he has a tendency to get involved in mostly harmless hair-brained schemes to improve his family’s standard of living or increase their station a bit.
And how is he treated? Al is disrespected by his wife and kids continuously. He is largely treated as a joke or a loser. And why? Because his stay at home wife aspires to an even more leisurely and affluent lifestyle?
And I’m sure anyone can name at least a dozen or more similar “hapless doofus husband” stock characters.
There is still very much a dynamic of the man needs to be “self-assured, consistent, reliable, protective, safe, and a predictable, provider” with the woman providing support. But when the woman is also providing and maybe the man is perceived to be less reliable as a provider (whether or not it’s true), that can create tension in the relationship.
A lot of it is psychological, not reality. For example my wife gives me all sorts of passive aggressive shit for going to a professional networking event in the city last week. And yes, part of it is social and it’s not “required” like work is. But networking is a big part of how I find work as a consultant. But in my wife’s mind, it’s just frivolous BS while her work trips to Vegas, New Orleans, and other major cities is a major pain in the ass because she hates travel and “spends the entire time working” (even though she always comes back telling me about their team dinners and how her boss always seems to drink too much and nearly severely injure himself all the time."
Anyhow, I don’t know if one side or another is more “inequal” but it seems in general there is more an attitude of “I don’t need a man/woman because I don’t want to deal with their BS.”
The ur-Al Bundy (middle-class suburban schlub who peaked in high school, driven to constant simmering annoyance by his wife and kids) was Harry “Rabbit” Angstrom from John Updike’s “Rabbit” novels.
The entire MGTOW movement is how to avoid being Rabbit / Bundy.
The movement itself is very much mean-spirited and reactionary in tone. But the underlying idea isn’t and the result doesn’t have to be so.
I think we can all agree as people that any person of any gender trapped in a dead end relationship of unrewarding drudgery is having a sucky existence. And might better have avoided that trap if only they’d known more before they went down that path.
Rigid ideas about sex roles or life paths may produce less confusion and aimlessness in the young, but they also produce more middle-aged folks living lives they don’t much like which don’t much fit them.
Thank goodness I was a pathetic High Schooler then!
Bundy and Rabbit were fictional characters, caricatures, set ups from forever (“take my wife …”)
Which isn’t to say there are men like that, but if anything fewer of them as there are fewer of those unequal man as put upon breadwinner households.
Yep. Truer words were never spoke.
About Al Bundy: I don’t really think we can determine cause and effect here. Is Al an abrasive jerk because people disrespect him, or do people disrespect him because he’s an abrasive jerk (and they’re jerks too)? I can easily imagine a much nicer Al married to a much nicer Peggy, with the exact same backstories, living happy, contented lives. Only that way, there wouldn’t be a show.
Some people are just assholes, no matter what lives they live.
But I think it’s fair to say the disrespect runs both ways. Al is just as dismissive of his wife and kids as they are of him, and the whole dynamic becomes a feedback loop that the show uses for humor.
What interests me is how that fits into a broader media pattern. Over the last few decades, TV dads have increasingly been written as childish, incompetent, or perpetually wrong — basically the designated punchline.
And that matters. It’s not just a comedic archetype — decades of portraying fathers as incompetent or immature have shaped cultural expectations about men’s roles in families. Media doesn’t just reflect attitudes; it reinforces them, and that feedback loop influences how society evaluates men as partners and parents.
To be fair, that shift was partly a reaction to the earlier era of hyper‑idealized fathers — the calm, wise, endlessly patient figures from shows like Leave It to Beaver, Father Knows Best, and even later examples like Family Ties. Those characters were so unrealistically perfect that the pendulum swung hard in the opposite direction.
Modern Family had good dads.