Just seen a post where the question was asked "What do men do that is a turn-off?" and the first reply is "Being men".
I guess the author (a friend who seems otherwise intelligent and insightful) would chide me for not being able to take a joke. Can we imagine the reaction if a man posted the same question about women? I've been seeing this sort of thing a lot recently. Basically men are just always wrong. Nothing about them is good.
Ok so the rationalisation would be that men have all the power/privilege and should be able to take this sort of thing on the chin, or we have all this confidence/ego - we should be cut down to size, or even - since we're all guilty or complicit in violence and abuse we deserve abuse back.
The problem with this, as I've been saying over and over, is that men aren't really like that - some are - to be sure, but a very high % of the men I've known in my life have been anxious/insecure, low self-esteem/confidence, on low income and holding down hard manual jobs - plus often somewhat neuro-atypical and introvert, plus not being allowed to talk about their feelings or ask for help. Knowing what it's like to actually be a man (in my 'lived experience') most men don't feel powerful - no matter how much women see us that way. A minority of men are violent criminals, and another minority are wealthy and powerful, but most of us are neither. But I've said all this...
So I'm wondering what effect my friend thinks being told over and over that you're a waste of space has on young men? Her answer I guess would be that they should change to suit women - do as you're told - don't be A Man. Women apparently want men to not be men, or to only be men the way women like.
Now I've had as much trouble as anyone with traditional masculinity - it's pretty crude and noisy a lot of the time - hard and competitive, and I don't fit in. But is it 'bad' or just different? It can be incredibly irritating for sure, but is it actually wrong? or is it just a different culture? If it does get violent - sure - call the police - but if not? Isn't it just part of the diversity of human behaviour?
Feminism - when I first became a fan - back in the late 70s - was all about equality of rights and opportunities, which I still support totally. Now it seems that feminism is about women picking men up on every tiny thing that displeases them and calling it 'misogyny'. Now it seems to be about contempt for the other sex. I would have thought that women, of all people, would know that that's not a good way to go.
What are young men supposed to do about this? Just submit and do as they're told? I can't see that happening. People aren't like that - they hate being told what to do. My guess is they'll get angry and rebellious - as women did before them. Most of them i guess will go "Well if you think everything we do is shit, why should we even try to be better? Why should we care about what you think? F'ck you!" So now we have the Manosphere...
I was always hoping that, as women gained more power and wealth (and apart from those two minorities it's pretty close now), we'd be able to communicate and negotiate better - that men and women would be able to work together as equals. Apparently not. It all just makes me incredibly sad...