Is this the dark age in masculinity?

This is a most recent and relevant topic of discussion, and so because it affects everyone, this is a safe space to talk about this: WTF is going on? I personally see that we men are at an all-time low in gender relations. And it's not just gender relations, it's media perception, it's basically every day life.

It's not that it's new, but that it's gotten even worse. Men are seen as though they are the embodiment of the world's ills. And in an everchanging world, our own roles are in flux. From the prospective of some, we should open up and be receptive(even though when we do this, said vulnerability is turned against us during a heated moment of an argument.)

Others have said to be more masculine. Yet they also call out 'toxic masculinity' and the want for us to tap into our 'inner feminine'. It's literally the 'make up your mind' syndrome.

And the funny thing is, perhaps they all have a point and it's the nature of many different people to want many different things. But as a result of that, many aimless directions lead to zero direction and one can argue(convincingly so IMO) that quite a few of those crazed shooters or whatever are people who are aimless in this aimless world.

So really, this post isn't aimed at anyone(ironically enough) but rather is an attempt at a open and constructive dialogue with everyone on PF about this social conundrum in Western Society.

 

Toxic masculinity was a primary cause of the original Dark Age.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Ages_(historiography)

Now that we have some CONTEXT above we can examine the OP Title question.

The last sentence of the quoted text above defines the Dark age as being a period of IGNORANCE and ERROR.

What are the KEY elements of the Xtofascist AGENDA?

Ignorance and Erroneous disinformation.

Who are the key PLAYERS in the Xtofascist AGENDA?

Racist white male supremacists.

So the OP's Title is playing the VICTIM card in this regard by attempting to REMOVE the BLAME from those who actually ARE responsible and make them out to be the "victims" instead.

Just as toxic masculinity was a primary cause of the original Dark Age so it is for a potential NEW Dark Age.

But that will ONLY happen if the Xtofascists prevail.

Their BASE is shrinking, their abhorrent legislative policies are being condemned nationwide and their Marmalade Jesus is just one stupid utterance away from ending up behind BARS while he awaits his CRIMINAL trials.

Broadly speaking there are TWO categories of males around theses days, those that embrace candor and honesty and those that embrace toxic masculinity.

If the ARC of HISTORY is to be our guide then the LIBERAL thinkers will ultimately prevail.

 

The question has taken over the internet:

 

Well I do think about Rome every day, but on the other hand I'm watching 'Rome' and 'Domina,' two Rome based TV shows.

 

Just another example of a long list of examples where "white men" are the bad guys.

Ironically you just proved the OP's point btw.

 

Could you survive in the Roman Legion:

 

There is no such thing as toxic masculinity except when a lady holds a door for a guy and that guy slaps her for being so presumptuous.

Welcome to equality!

 

That is simply anecdotal "evidence." I personally never think about Rome, unless I am watching a history program, about it. So, Lil Mike has a good point, about seeing allusions to Rome, commonly in the media. I doubt, though, there is anything new about this phenomenon-- Rome has left a long shadow, across Western history; there has never been anything its equal.The closest that comes to mind, is the shorter-lived British Empire, but for some reason, this has weaker evocations, than does Rome.

Coincidentally, or not, I have just seen two different programs, on two different stations, about Julius Caesar. What was most surprising was that, though both used a group of historians, in helping tell the story, the depictions varied markedly on certain particular points, as well as that each show stressed important points, which were yet absent from the other. Kind of strange, these inconsistencies-- but I digress.

On that note (digression), I have an uncle who was a NYC Police Lieutenant, who I remember sort of idolized the Roman ideal, or fetishized it, I noticed when once arguing with him over his belief that the Roman military tactics made them undefeatable-- despite the fact, of course, that they were, on numerous occasions, defeated. I don't know if this in any way relates to this supposed social phenomenon, but in retirement, he moved from the NY area, out to Oklahoma, and has since become more conservative, now buying in to all the Fox News bullshit.

 

You can see this quite clearly in a series of documentaries on YouTube called tales from the street.

The narrator interviews mostly homeless drug addicts and ask them the basic questions about how they got there and what their plans are and so forth...

In the comments section people always seem to have far more sympathy for the female homeless drug addicts. Not so much for the males.

 

The only time I think of Rome is when it's brought up by someone else irl or in a movie/tv show.

 

Interesting and, perhaps also timely Opening Post. I was going to say, and still will, that you exaggerate how low the public opinion of men has become-- if it's so bad, how come we have only elected men as our national leader (which tradition looks to be continuing, in the upcoming election)? Yet, it may, nevertheless be, as you call it, an "all-time low." And still we get better pay than women, are still more likely to be promoted into managerial positions, and so on. IOW, relative to the way women have been treated up through now, this may a new low for men, though we still have more than equal rights. Another way to look at that, would be as part of a gradual shift towards treating women closer to being equals, as opposed to how they have been treated historically, up to the present. It only feels unfair to those who expect the way things were in the past, to continue-- but those past dynamics were in no way fair to women. We only started allowing them to vote, a hundred years ago! So as they move closer to equal status with men, this necessarily means that men lose some of their privileged status.

Sure, there are elements of maleness that now get picked on, by women-- that any of us imagine that it has not previously been socially acceptable for men to verbally (and sometimes physically) degrade women, only shows our myopic male self-absorption.


Look at the following statistics:

*sexual assault victims are 9% male, and 91% female; perpetrators, btw, are 99% male.

* 1 in 6 American women have experienced either a rape (14.8 %) or an attempted rape (2.8%). By comparison, 1 in 33 men (3%), have suffered from a rape or attempted rape.

*Worldwide, 30% of women have experienced sexual violence. That is a horrendous reality!

*The closest we come to "closing the gap," in this country is that 43% of men report having experienced sexual harassment. And that is bad. But 81% of women report having experienced it-- and this is now that things are way better for women, than they were just a few generations ago. I've seen a T.V. commercial from the 1960s, that showed a man yelling at his wife, in an abusive way, as if it was perfectly normal & unremarkable! So, while it may indeed, be tougher being a man these days, it's still nowhere near as tough as it has always been, being a woman.


<Google Snip #1>
What are the statistics of men sexually assaulting women?

An estimated 91% of victims of rape & sexual assault are female and 9% male. Nearly 99% of perpetrators are male. 1 This US Dept. of Justice statistic does not report those who do not identify in these gender boxes.
https://supportingsurvivors.humboldt.edu › ...
Sexualized Violence Statistics - Supporting Survivors
<End Snip #1>


<Google Snip #2>
What are the odds of a woman being sexually assaulted in the world?

30% of women have experienced intimate partner violence or non-partner sexual violence. That's 736 million women around the world. Source: WHO global prevalence estimates of combined prevalence estimates of intimate partner violence (IPV) and non-partner sexual violence (NPSV), for women aged 15 and above.Sep 30, 2022
https://genderdata.worldbank.org › ...
Violence against women and girls – what the data tell us
<End Snip #2>


<Google Snip #3>
Every 68 seconds another American is sexually assaulted. 1 out of every 6 American women has been the victim of an attempted or completed rape in her lifetime (14.8% completed, 2.8% attempted). About 3% of American men—or 1 in 33—have experienced an attempted or completed rape in their lifetime.
https://www.rainn.org › statistics › s...
Scope of the Problem: Statistics | RAINN
<End Snip #3>


<Google Snip #4>
What percentage of women have been sexually harassed?

Nationwide, 81% of women and 43% of men reported experiencing some form of sexual harassment and/or assault in their lifetime.
https://www.nsvrc.org › questions
How common is sexual harassment
<End Snip #4>

 

This is partially my fault, but I wouldn't correlate social and political interactions with this topic. I largely did so only as it regards that we could all discuss it openly. But as far as socio-ramifications of positions being held, I can only speak for myself but I have never voted for someone based on how they looked, what their pronouns were, or what religion they held.

I do not care if you have a penis, or breasts and an uterus. All I care about is that your views align with mine, at least enough that I feel you'd be good at making decisions and therefore you are qualified for the position. That's all a meritocratic person sees in a candidate.

I do not see social equity, I will never see social equity. If women occupy 100% of the positions, it will be because women are best suited for that role. Vice versa for men. As far as governing positions are concerned, I want only the best of the best.

Luckily and fortunately, talent and ability is not limited to such binary choices, but instead women and men of repute have been found throughout our history. The same BTW exists with regard to race, classism, etc. I want only the best of the best. I don't care if you're a Christian, a Catholic and maybe, just maybe I could stomach a Muslim/Islamic[Though incredibly doubtful because in this, is the only example of a group ideology that is so inherently anti-western that inevitably, when given power in a western country they would like to unwestify it. I don't even blame them, if we in the West were in an eastern country, we would un-eastify it]

Anyway, vastly off topic so I'll TLDR this section and repeat myself: Talent and ability, not your identity matters in occupying the seats of political power. I am not Joe Biden. I do not govern by percentages.

Now, to address the rest of your post which can basically be summarized as "Sexual violence is more prevalent against women then men, so therefore it's still awful for them/okay for negative male stereotypes to exist."

This is the true definition of fruit from the poisonous tree. Just because women face more sexual violence than men, does not mean that it is alright to be violent against men or to stereotype men, anymore than the in verse would[not] be true. It's also particularly low hanging fruit.


But in addition to that, it doesn't take into account male on male crimes, violence, etc.[yeah, shocker, men can be *******s to other men. In many cases, worse than women]. I can't say I feared a woman, but there is a reasonable fear that men possess.]

That said, I judge men and women on an individual, case by case basis. Again, I'm not like Joe Biden. Numbers don't sway me. Experiences do.

 

I think the answer is to reject the entire concept as a meaningless societal construct based on a desire to maximize procreation. At least for the sake of establishing any real meaning to the word. Gender is useful in sort of short listing a set of personality traits. When it becomes something that you constantly aware of and considering you're likely overthinking it. Most if not all people have a few toxic personality traits. Attempting to understand them, and making adjustments in the interest of self improvement doesn't change or have anything to do with sexuality, and I feel like the concepts are severely conflated too often.

.

 

So why not become female - it's the latest rage among leftists.

 

Yeah . . . like if we just ignore biology and reality long enough they will all go away. That way we can all live in fantasyland.

YeeeeaaaAAAAHH!

 

That is all Putin has ever wanted.

upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cd/Homicide_Victims_per_Year_by_Country_and_Gender.svg

Your "women are the victims of violence" schtick ignores reality.

Women have the easiest lives in every country. That's the reality. Ok - maybe not Tonga, Japan, and Iceland but those are fringe cases.

 

Very true, and at the heart of the problem, aggravated by the growing phenomenon of people believing that they should have everything the way they want it, no need to compromise.

 

Apologies for cherry-picking your post, but this statement stood out to me as an example of how even those men who respect women and support/promote us often slap us unintentionally, simply by not thinking about the words they use.

Men allowed us to vote? Sorry, but they by and large did no such thing. It took women many years of fighting, marching, and getting locked up to finally get the 19th Amendment passed.

Just sayin'.

 

Men need to do something different — it doesn’t matter the metric used from rapes to child molestation to murder to violent crime to general crime

Men are the culprit in 89-99% of these cases

What you are seeing is the explosion of free information available to people — this wasn’t around when women were subservient housewives and just hid their abuse.

Maybe women should run things?

 

*You misinterpreted my argument, which was not that anything is, "therefore... OK." I was saying: If you think that men have any significant reason for making such a big deal about this, take a look at the way women have been treated ALL ALONG; give that some consideration, as well-- FINALLY! If a male wants to start fighting against all negative gender stereotyping, now that he feels himself as on the receiving end, for a change, then it is hypocritical to begin that fight, with male stereotyping. Women still suffer from stereotypes: for example, the sexually promiscuous, single woman who is too irresponsible to use birth control, because she just figures that she'll abort her pregnancies. Have you ever alluded to that stereotype? Are you going to consciously, now that you've "seen the light," that gender stereotypes are bad, stop using that one, about women wanting abortion rights, because they just can't keep their legs closed?

Though I had been drawn to answer your OP for a different reason, which I was going to get to, in my second reply, I see that I need to follow up on what I would've expected, should be an acknowledged truth, that women still get the worst of it. So here is more on the way gender stereotyping negatively affects women, by influencing their self-image, from a young age, onward:

<Snip>
Women make up more than half of the labor force in the United States and earn almost 60 percent of advanced degrees, yet they bring home less pay and fill fewer seats in the C-suite than men, particularly in male-dominated professions like finance and technology.

This gender gap is due in part to “occupational sorting,” with men choosing careers that pay higher wages than women do, labor economists say. For example, women represent only 26 percent of US workers employed in computer and math jobs, according to the Department of Labor.

New research identifies one reason women might be shying away from certain professions: They lack confidence in their ability to compete in fields that men are stereotypically believed to perform more strongly in, such as science, math, and technology.

Women are also more reluctant to share their ideas in group discussions on these subjects. And even when they have talent—and are actually told they are high-achievers in these subjects—women are more likely than men to shrug off the praise and lowball their own abilities.

This weak self-confidence may hold some women back as they count themselves out of pursuing prestigious roles in professions they believe they won’t excel in, despite having the skills to succeed, says Harvard Business School Assistant Professor Katherine B. Coffman.

“Our beliefs about ourselves are important in shaping all kinds of important decisions, such as what colleges we apply to, which career paths we choose, and whether we are willing to contribute ideas in the workplace or try to compete for a promotion,” Coffman says. “If talented women in STEM aren’t confident, they might not even look at those fields in the first place. It’s all about how good we think we are, especially when we ask ourselves, ‘What does it make sense for me to pursue?’”
<End>

https://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/how-gend...n-s-less-than-br-greater-than-self-confidence


The point, in what I have thus far read, is that the stereotyped attitudes we all grew up with (see examples, above) are both exaggerations of the truth, and are used to stifle girls' self-confidence, while of course promoting confidence, in boys. But how does that stack up, to having an adult male having to hear that masculinity can be "toxic?" (That question, btw, is meant to be read with a sarcastically mocking tone).

Don't misjudge that I am unable to be sympathetic to male concerns (I am a man, myself, after all). I will just have a hard time doing that, with someone who wants to shrug off the harsher stereotypes which women have been suffering under, forever, in order to just especially focus on the bruised male ego. Your conceding that women have always gotten, and are still getting the short end of the stick, in this regard-- as opposed to claiming that men are being targeted way worse than women; or that you wish to be gender-neutral-- yet, that this leads you to dismiss statistics about women being raped and physically abused, to prioritize insults cast at men by some feminists, or relatively mild stereotyping, by the media, of male over-aggressiveness-- would aid in allowing me to make that transition, in good conscience. Otherwise, I am more likely to see a sole focus on what men have to contend with, in our present day, as bitch-whining. As your reply, itself, suggested: stereotyping applies to both genders, so it would be disingenuous to act as if anti-male stereotyping could be sequestered away from any consideration of stereotyping which goes in the other direction. That all said, here is a little more from the article:

<Snip>
Women are less confident than men in certain subjects, like math
In a study for the journal article Beliefs about Gender (pdf), Coffman and her colleagues asked participants to answer multiple-choice trivia questions in several categories that women are perceived to have a better handle on, like the Kardashians, Disney movies, cooking, art and literature, and verbal skills. Then they were quizzed in categories considered favorable for men, such as business, math, videogames, cars, and sports.

Respondents were asked to estimate how many questions they answered correctly on tests, and to guess the performance of a random partner whose gender was revealed. Both men and women exaggerated the actual gender performance gaps on average, overstating the male advantage in male-typed domains as well as overstating the female advantage in female-typed questions. And in predicting their own abilities, women had much less confidence in their scores on the tests they believed men had an advantage in.

“Gender stereotypes determine people’s beliefs about themselves and others,” Coffman says. “If I take a woman who has the exact same ability in two different categories—verbal and math—just the fact that there’s an average male advantage in math shapes her belief that her own ability in math is lower.”
<End Snip>

Hopefully, I have made my point, which will allow me to move on into something closer to what you may have had in mind. To dispense with your reply's other misconception, or garbled argument, though, that **it somehow adds to the validity of the male argument, that the perpetrators of most of the sexual violence against males are not women, but rather other males:
1) that, firstly, makes no sense, as a reason to dismiss discrimination against women; and
2) secondly, I did actually bold that statistic, in my previous reply-- that even though 9% of the victims of rape & sexual assault are men, the perpetrators of these crimes against both genders, are 99% male-- because, silly me, had thought that this makes men look worse than women, on that score, and maybe even justifies some of the criticism if "toxic masculinity."

 

I'm an American voter, who cares about American issues. Why do I care about the Russian dictator?

 

The Sexual Revolution and its consequences. Men have shifted away from the morality that was enforced through law & society to people such as Tate as the glorified example as to what a man should be. Women have shifted into the realm of being "experimental" (whores) and have racked up triple figure body counts before they've reached their mid twenties. Society cannot blame women for making men into what they are now so all they can do is attack the whore creators but, instead of targetting figures such as Tate exclusively they blanket the men entirely. In the same vein of other sacred cows within society women have been elevated upon a pedastal where to challenge, criticise, or question them is to be mysognistic. The men that are countering the negative behaviors of women are labeled toxic and the men that are indeed toxic which create bad women are labeled toxic yet, venerated by degenerate men and sought after by women. Even further the men who've stepped away from society (volcels and to some degree incels) are against labeled as toxic because society has degenarated. What are men meant to do? The only realistic options are either A) Surrender entirely to the Social Marxist sex revolution and become degenerate beasts B) Step away from society entirely and still get blamed C) Take action against it to the point society reverses from Social Marxism D) or become "women" emasculating & castrating themselves because society pressures and influences them into that insanity.

 

Technically speaking, yes, men "allowed" women to vote. Remember, men held all the power and women couldn't have done a thing without em. There were also tons of women who didn't want the right to vote because they believed voting held certain responsibilities that they did not want... such as signing up for the draft. Which funnily enough, they still do not have to despite men still having to.

Yes, women fought long and hard for the Right to Vote. There is no discounting that fact. And I for one am glad they did. But you also cannot discount the fact that men had the ultimate say.

 

Whores? Misogynist much?

How about E) Try for emotional maturity and control and behave like grown-up, civilized men, and F) Stop judging women based on double standards.

Few women ask for more than that.

 

How is it misogynistic? Women who sleep with countless men have been labeled as whores or prostitutes throughout history. Just because the sexual revolution creating Marxists has run rampant doesn't mean the labels no longer exist because they wish to rewrite history.

E) E is simply option A under the guise that surrendering oneself to whatever the sexual revolution wants is civilizing even though it only breeds whores and whore creators. The other option for this option E is option D which means the men evisecrate themselves because society has normalized the idea of male castration & emasculation as a way cooperating within this idea of "civilizing".

F) I judge both sides because the men who sleep with many women are degenerates and whore creators. They're an element which was spawned from the sexual revolution which has done nothing but taint women and in many ways ruined them. Which I labeled as such in that paragraph.