I would suppose so. That’s why I wouldn’t do it. And why I can’t understand why anyone would do that if they have a daughter. It makes no sense to me.
LOL, I’m not trying to accomplish anything. I’m wondering why people would care if strangers think they aren’t masculine or whatever?
And the reason I’m saying this is because this thread makes a lot of assumptions about “men”. Not “some men” or “many men”. Men, as a whole. A group of which am I part. So the topic covers me. And I say it doesn’t apply to all men. Because not all men care what other men think of them. And not all men care if people see them crying, or God forbid, have more than one emotion or reaction at a time.
So, change the topic to “I’ve notice a lot of men who do…” something. I probably wouldn’t even reply to the topic. Or I’d just call those types of men morons. Don’t start a topic accusing all men of doing something and expect no pushback from men to whom your generalizations do not apply.
Glad things have worked out for you, but to me your post reads like someone telling an alcoholic that being sober is easy, you just don’t drink! Duh!. Or telling someone with depression that they should just stop having sad thoughts, easy-peasy!
I think all men deal with toxic masculinity with varying degrees of success. Maybe no big deal for you, but some certainly find that pressure very heavy.
The point, though, and what this thread is IMO fundamentally about, is that the societal pressures in question are applied to all men.
There are no stereotypical social “rules” saying “Some Boys Don’t Cry”, “Some Men Don’t Wear Pink”, “Don’t Act Like A Girl If You’re One of the Subset of Men Who Shouldn’t”, and so forth. These conventional “rules” are targeted at all men, at men as a group.
If your misunderstanding was just that you didn’t realize the OP and other posters weren’t in fact asserting that all men are equally affected in identical ways by these societal pressures applied to all men, okay then, glad we’ve now got that cleared up.
And it was answered - some people have a hard time ignoring persistent mockery and abuse. That’s why mockery is still a thing - because it works. Okay, sure, you have a diaphragm of steel and are untroubled by mockery and physical persecution. Good for you. You are praised. But to deny that it’s a thing that happens at all is folly.
It’s like that? Conforming to “society” telling you what you need to do to be masculine is is the same as a disease that you have no control over? That seems strange to me.
Playing devil’s advocate, society telling you something means that the majority of society believes it. (Otherwise we can’t really regard it as a societal message. I could get into examples of these but that would be for another thread.)
So by definition most people follow what society tells them. And some people face not only generalized social pressure to conform, but direct pressure from peers and family. I’d consider that a “struggle”.
Although I completely agree that we should discourage “women as vending machine” paradigms across the board, I’m not sure teaching from fundamental ethical principles is the solution, at least in terms of getting results. I think vanishingly few parents are teaching teenage boys this girls-are-vending-machines model of behavior. It’s not something that’s taught, it’s something that’s intrinsically driven by the absurdly powerful desires to have sex when you’re a teenager.
A teenage boy’s dominant motivations and thoughts revolve around sex, to a degree that is frankly unsettling, so they are naturally and strongly motivated to figure out what DOES get you success in that realm, by observation and by experimenting with various personas, behaviors, fashion, or what have you. I think that optimization is largely what drives the “vending machine” paradigm, not anything explicitly taught by parents or society. If you have ONE problem that you really really care about solving and think about hundreds of times per day, you may naturally start to think of it in reductive terms. But the thing is, you’re never going to get rid of that desire in teenage boys - it’s innate. They will always have this ONE problem they really really care about solving and think about hundreds of times per day, and thus there will always be some tendency to simplification towards a “vending machine” model - which could be as benign as “dad, what do women want? What makes a man attractive to women?”
You say we should be teaching kids based on fundamental ethical principles, which is a nice thought, but when the principles run up against the kid’s observed empirical reality that jocks/manly men/whomever get a lot more girls and enjoy more success in this one area that is probably the single most powerful, important and frequently recurring drive in the teenage boy mind, reasoning about the ethics of various masculine behaviors doesn’t have much hope.
So at core, it’s a peer-group problem, driven partially by cultural and social factors and likely partially by innate built-in preferences. And by the time they’re teens, their peer group is way more important in terms of establishing normative behaviors than their parents, so I’m not sure all the fundamental ethical principles in the world are going to help much.
So then the problem from the end-results perspective is that a more successful way you could try to change toxic masculinity behaviors in teenage boys is by harnessing that powerful drive, and tell them that girls wouldn’t like that, but will like x,y,z nice, normative behaviors instead. This blows “well, let’s think about this from ethical first principles” out of the water in terms of motivation and results, so I can see why parents or society may try to put that message through that channel.
Now they’re intrinsically motivated to do x,y,z and may put in an effort…and indeed, it seems a few posters on here basically got that pitch and actually acted on it. But it too failed in the face of the kids’ observed empirical reality, either because not enough parents and teens are on the bandwagon, or because the teen world is a more hobbesian microcosm of the adult.
But I don’t think you’re ever going to be rid of teenage boys, and indeed, men in general, wondering what women want and what makes a man attractive to women. Which when framed in a certain reductive light is back to “what token makes this vending machine give me candy?” After all, it’s innate.
Why one or the other? It’s arguably “hardwired” to treat others like things. It’s inarguably the case that we culturally enhance, enforce, and reinforce this.
Your point is simply causal oversimplification, we are talking about social problems and the actions of individuals will always differ and you will find an exception.
I would ask how you self justify ignoring the power structure by simply stating that you don’t do it personally.
I would argue the “but I’m not sexist” perfectly explains sexism is a problem in America. Sexism isn’t merely a set of feelings one individual has towards another, but also the systematic effects, benefits and costs. By dismissing the problem you still suffer and benefit from the broader issue. This denial is an enabling.
Here is a challenge, name a popular movie where the male actor “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes” which which is not perfect and re-enforces these stereotypes is still one of the more “respectful” explanations.
Can you show common a male equivalent? Can you even think of movies where the male lead treated the women in his life with respect and didn’t force himself on her to *teach *her to love him?
Most movies don’t even meet the low bar of the Bechdel Rule let alone to even allow this type of interaction.
While I don’t watch every movie, I cannot think of an examples where the man wasn’t required to be a white knight or sacrificial lamb to “save” someone to win their affection or to demonstrate value through shallow displays of wealth.
IMHO women get the far worse end of this construct, but men aren’t shown as winning people over due to their shared world views, mutual respect and a desire for an equal partner.
All of this is possible even if most of the traditional gender roles are maintained, so please don’t take this example as an example where I am saying men have to be emasculated to move forward but please do address the mutual lack of real respect and individuals value as humans.
Eradicating all sexism or racism or … won’t happen realistically, tempering the effects without destroying individuality is the goal. Skin color and gender will almost always be viewed as a differentiator and I don’t need to resort to a value judgement on the reality that those differences exist to address the issues with the systemic powers that result in societal wide negative results.
As a less politically charged topic just consider the impact of typical roles and men’s help‐seeking behavior even with doctors. A significant loss in length and quality of life is experienced by a lot of men due to the perceived weakness in help seeking as an example. Most modern research tends to point to this being a large contributor on the huge differences in suicide completion as an example.
While I would hope that any person who is trying to do the right thing would try to be a better parent, that is just not sufficient in and of itself if the other interactions in ones lives are also not evaluated and directly addressed.
If I recall correctly (it’s been decades since I saw it), they ended up together when they realized they had shared world views, mutual respect and a desire for an equal partner.
Exactly. *All *men are exposed to the factors driving toxic masculinity – some just let it slide off their backs, some get caught up in it, some laugh at it or defy it, some struggle with it, some seem completely immune, some embrace and double down on it, some pick and choose which parts they view as significant, some deconstruct it, some just become so jaded to it it fades into background noise, etc., etc. But the factors that can build up the toxicity are there and are real.
And some of the comments in earlier posts, reflecting incredulity that these gender expectations are still being inculcated, betray a bubble effect. No, it is not the 1950s, it’s 2018 and in many places boys and young men are stillexperiencing the influence of those factors. Be glad if in the environment you live there has been progress (if in fact there is and it’s not just a veneer) but don’t get complacent.
Yes, that statement means that these cultural gender stereotypes are targeted at ALL men. It does NOT mean that all men are equally affected by them in identical ways.
I’m not sure why you’re having such a hard time understanding this.
Sorry if it wasn’t clear, but when I talked about what “we” are “teaching boys”, I didn’t mean only the moral precepts that parents explicitly teach to their sons. I mean all the social and cultural ways that we as a society reinforce the notion that boys are supposed to “get girls” romantically/sexually for their own gratification and social validation, and prescribe some particular behavior(s) as a strategy for “getting girls”, rather than encouraging boys to view girls as individual human beings in their own right.
As andros noted, it’s doubtless “hardwired” in all human beings to some extent to treat other human beings like things that exist for our own gratification. Look at the way babies and toddlers, for instance, frequently demand that other people cater to their needs and wants with no thought for how the other people might feel about it.
But usually, children are supposed to outgrow that selfish instrumentalist view of other people as they get older. Except in the case of boys “getting girls”, where society still encourages boys to view girls impersonally as a puzzle to be solved or obstacle to be overcome in order to get something they want.
If this is doubtless and hardwired can you provide reference? Neurodevelopment of empathy seems pretty critical to all social mammals.
In general anti-social behavior where older children have little empathy and concern for the feelings and wellbeing of others, as well as a lack of remorse and guilt are generally considered serious developmental disorders in my experience.
Empathy and sympathy do develop later in childhood but I haven’t heard a claim that they are universally ignored and it would seem like that would be problematic in a social animal, particularly in the small groups that we spent most of our history living in.
Not sure I’m understanding you. What’s wrong with the (as it seemed to me) uncontroversial remark that it’s doubtless hardwired in human beings to some extent to have a selfish instrumentalist view of other human beings, based on the instinctive selfish instrumentalism we constantly observe in very young children?
AFAICT nothing that you said about the normal development of empathy and sympathy in older children contradicts what I said. Fortunately, the extent to which it’s hardwired in us to treat other human beings as instruments of our own desires is not naturally very large.
Not speaking for andros, but just wondering, as I did back in post #80, if you have paid any attention to the documentation of “toxic masculinity” influences presented very early on in the thread, e.g., in posts #6, 14 and 22.
Please re-check those links and come back if you still wonder how it is that “we culturally enhance, enforce, and reinforce” the tendency for boys to objectify girls/women.
That is, are you confused in general why a species of social monkeys like humanity would have members who care about their status in their social group?
Or do you understand in general that social animals tend in general to care about their status within their social group, but just don’t understand how that caring transfers to caring about the specific status conferred on men by acting in socially-accepted “masculine” ways?
I will point out that in our culture, individuality is a highly-valued behavior especially for men, who adopt stances of strong individuality in order to display strength. I want you to imagine what it’d be like to say, in public, that you care about what your peers think of you, and that you modify your behavior in order to earn the approval of your peers. Would that make you feel vulnerable? Weak? Unmanly?
There may be a deeper reason why you’re so strongly signaling your defiance of social expectations.
