Rolling Maleness and Masculinity Discussion Thread

*there

Maybe you guys need a men only thread so you don't have think harder about all of this. I'll respect that boundary.

Further segregation. The American way.

i think we're just at an impasse and it's fine. for the record, and not that it matters, i was never trying to minimize gender inequality. but i do think there is an issue where men have a hard time forming lasting friendships with one another, both anecdotally from my experience and i've read studies that suggested this, i.e. https://www.salon.com/2013/12/08/american_mens_hidden_crisis_they_need_more_friends/

so i was trying to talk about this in light of an article about isolated men joining online hate groups and getting radicalized and in the worst cases going out and hurting women. i don't have any special amount of sympathy for these guys but i do think they are like, an extreme version of a larger mental health crisis built on the alienated way we live now.

I've said several times before that I wish the women on the board posted more (and that more women would migrate over here) but it never hurts to say it again.

So anyway, in case one was wondering why some of us are uncomfortable with all straight men hanging out in groups it's because of this dynamic (the rich guy angle is just a variation). There have been a lot of recent discussion/articles about things like "rape trains" as well. And this goes back to men who wouldn't think of participating in terrible behaviour who will engage when in a group with other men.

― Yerac, Thursday, December 13, 2018 1:13 PM (forty-four minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Speaking even as a wite dude, no one makes me as uncomfortable as a group of wite dudes who clearly apply the concept of manspreading to the full range of their life endeavors, who give off a sense that they're all-too-aware that they could probably get away with most things.

the premise that all men are in fact the problem, including us

as definitions of problems go, this one seems so extensive as to make it impossible to use as the basis for any solution at all. if "all men are the problem", then "the problem" is coextensive with our identity as men and to solve this we must no longer be men, but something that falls under the category of not-men.

personally--and not that it matters--most of my closest friends are women and i always thought it was weird because the dudes i have been friends with seem not as good at keeping in touch. i also am not good at it. so i think this could be a problem in masculinity worth discussing.

xp to myself

& peace yall

no discussion whatsoever of our collective awfulness?

afaict the problem is that whenever this might come up it is immediately buried under a string of "NOT ME" posts

unlearning the patriarchy is a lifelong process, any man who immediately claims "I'm not sexist" in the face of generalized criticism probably has more work to do than someone who says "I still have things to learn and being less defensive helps me do that"

it's a p sad day when people wield guilt towards other posters on a messageboard in which barely anyone knows much about anyone else, seemingly for disagreeing with them. it isn't as if all women agree about everything ever said. many women would disagree with the hashtag slinging or the self-pity going on here - many feminists.

it's also sad people generally posting in good faith are reduced to citing jobs and coworkers etc in response to rhetorical traps/hashtags and p much bad faith posts, when the only acceptable response to the people making those posts would, i think, be 'i am sorry' or 'i agree'.

and even typing this is to be instantly challenged/examined etc because obv nobody could actually believe in equality and a better world and not verbatim agree with anyone who self-appoints as an unimpeachable guardian of the same.

i don't know how people are so certain that their way is the right way. it must be nice.

as definitions of problems go, this one seems so extensive as to make it impossible to use as the basis for any solution at all. if "all men are the problem", then "the problem" is coextensive with our identity as men and to solve this we must no longer be men, but something that falls under the category of not-men.

― A is for (Aimless), Thursday, December 13, 2018 12:09 PM (four minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Hey, this is actually true, tbh!

it's so easy to not be a man, you just stop and boom

I often think to myself, do men know that it's all optional, they don't have to do that

As I recall, the time-honored alternative is to become mice.

Sure, whatever, you’ve got any number of options

fwiw it was not my intention to be defensive or join a defensiveness chorus or whatever, I had hoped my studying-at-the-strip-club anecdote was merely passably amusing.

I think there's something tricky at work here where of late we've been primarily discussing a particularly awful social phenomenon (incels) that almost none of us has any direct relationship with, culturally speaking. I actually do hang out with a dece number of younger men thanks to left activism-y shit but in those spaces, ime, outright toxicity *tends* to be a little more isolated and therefore able to be called out (though of course there are plenty of examples where this has not been the case.) I think many of us resort to rewinding our clocks and thinking about our individual experiences and behaviours because we're trying to understand this level of reaction that incels exhibit

unlearning the patriarchy is a lifelong process, any man who immediately claims "I'm not sexist" in the face of generalized criticism probably has more work to do than someone who says "I still have things to learn and being less defensive helps me do that"

― sleeve, Thursday, December 13, 2018 2:09 PM (nine minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

OTM. Your identity isn't going to crumble to the ground if you maybe stop and ponder your privilege in lieu of letting your instadefensiveness off the leash.

OTM. Your identity isn't going to crumble to the ground if you maybe stop and ponder your privilege in lieu of letting your instadefensiveness off the leash.

― Home Despot (Old Lunch), Thursday, 13 December 2018 20:23 (one minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

why must it be a tenet of your own self-flagellation that all others accused must also confess

does that not somewhat spoil the purity of yr noble sacrifice like

I think many of us resort to rewinding our clocks and thinking about our individual experiences and behaviours because we're trying to understand this level of reaction that incels exhibit

Correct.

xpost I issue no directives, my brother. Feel free to eschew my hairshirt.

idk man others on this thread didn't seem chill with people momentarily forgetting to check their privilege

I think many of us resort to rewinding our clocks and thinking about our individual experiences and behaviours because we're trying to understand this level of reaction that incels exhibit
Correct.

― pomenitul, Thursday, December 13, 2018 8:30 PM (four minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Agree, and this happens frequently and I said so several days ago: I think posters itt have been doing an ilx speciality, which is, in seeking to understand, are looking for commonalities with the phenomenon. This often results in a) ppl being less critical of the problematic thing, and b) over-identifying with criticisms of the problematic thing. Like, "Oh now we're vilifying all socially awkward young men who feel unattractive? I had that experience and it scarred me so maybe we should be more sympathetic to men who self-identify with this hate group, maybe if we just understood them more..." and so on.

NOT that men don't suffer or don't deserve mental health or don't need community, and NOT that falsely masculinized roles and expectations aren't harmful to men's health (they 100% are). But those things can be (are!) true and at the same time it can be true that no one needs to over-identify with fourchan incels or whatever who are attracted to hate groups who are being discussed at the time.

It's been invoked already itt, but I really cannot stump hard enough for group therapy/couples counseling in helping to resolve these issues. Its inordinately helpful in learning to own your own butthurt.

xp -- terrific post, IO

any man who immediately claims "I'm not sexist" in the face of generalized criticism...

Sexism is not a state of being, but a quality that can inhere in a thought or action. While very few men (or women) would be able to draw this distinction, there is a somewhat instinctive tendency to react against it, just as there is an instinctive reaction among men to rebel against assertions that "all men are alike" coupled with the assertion that their likeness consists of something immoral or unpleasant. This is on a par with young boys asserting that all girls have cooties.

It is easy to feel the injustice of being existentially in the wrong. But it is perfectly fair and right to call out particular statements or actions as sexist, by connecting them to wrong assumptions or harmful consequences.

I often think to myself, do men know that it's all optional, they don't have to do that

― I have measured out my life in coffee shop loyalty cards (silby), Thursday, December 13, 2018 8:17 PM (thirty-three minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Like yo.

no one needs to over-identify with fourchan incels or whatever who are attracted to hate groups who are being discussed at the time

I completely agree with this. I'm just not convinced that it's what happened itt. Correct me if I'm wrong (and I mean this sincerely – perception does matter here), but most male posters who reminisced about past situations resembling inceldom came to the conclusion that despite whatever external factors may have contributed to their (self-)loathing at the time, sooner or later came the acknowledgment that they were very much to blame, which is precisely what incels are unwilling to do.

tbh when ppl say "oh you can just opt out of manhood" I just....have no idea what that means, practically speaking

Correct me if I'm wrong (and I mean this sincerely – perception does matter here), but most male posters who reminisced about past situations resembling inceldom came to the conclusion that despite whatever external factors may have contributed to their (self-)loathing at the time, sooner or later came the acknowledgment that they were very much to blame, which is precisely what incels are unwilling to do.

― pomenitul, Thursday, December 13, 2018 8:56 PM (three minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I think that started to happen and yes, that's a good thing. But it's exhausting for women (and several women said this on the other thread) to wade through this process every single time. It's not a remote logic problem being considered and turned this way and that, that we can consider without personal involvement. We feel it like a punch in the gut or a tidal wave of nausea. We have been harassed, stalked, assaulted, blamed, not believed, insulted, ignored, and taken our broken selves to therapy or whatever, and gotten our shit back together. And we are trying to tell men what is up. And we get: "This is exactly the same as telling girls they have cooties."

Claro. I see how it is.

Seems to me the best one can do is to take that as a given, be vigilant and to be constantly interrogating one's choices, language and behaviours - past and present - and accept a certain amount of oscillation/fucking up. Fwiw, my post about the strip club was implicitly an 'I've been shit; I'm trying to be better' post. And probably an 'ooh, look what I've seen' boast. I dunno.

In telling men what is up after your having been harassed, stalked, assaulted, blamed, not believed, insulted, and ignored, are you telling them that all men are alike in harassing, stalking, assaulting, blaming, not believing, insulting, and ignoring women? If so, I submit this is unjustified. If not, then you have misunderstood what I wrote.

xpost I don't think there was any contention about that^^^. Personal experiences are fine in trying to understand incels if that's your methodology. But If a person has in the back of their minds the epidemic of men murdering or raping their wives and partners and strangers on the street and how victims of sex trafficking will get longer sentences than men who rape, Trump Kavanaugh Bolsonaro etc etc it's irritating to constantly and excessively come across hurt man feelings if some generalization about the awfulness of men is expressed, such as, men in groups sometimes do terrible things they wouldn't do by themselves and thus men in groups can be terrifying for some people. Apply that to virtual men in groups, the incel community/doxxing/online mob mentality etc.

xpost what inorbit just said.

And we get: "This is exactly the same as telling girls they have cooties."

You can make a valid point without deliberately misquoting me.

apropos of nothing, I would just like to point out that ILX thread search results for "girls" (I was looking for that girls room thread ref'd above) are pretty horrifying. Early 2000s seem like the definite low point.

Do you feel like male ILX posters are generally oblivious to the gender-specific issues you face as women (not trolling, once again, it's a genuine question)? I personally draw a distinction between 'addressing men in general (i.e. more or less half of the world population, which does indeed tend towards the despicable)' and 'shooting the shit with 2018 ILX dudes/lads'. Not to say we who haunt these pages are utterly devoid of misogyny (that would be absurd), but I don't think it makes sense to thrust the burden of male representation so thoroughly upon us. I would be more supportive of generalizations about men in another context (in most other contexts, actually), as a matter of priority.

tbh when ppl say "oh you can just opt out of manhood" I just....have no idea what that means, practically speaking

― resident hack (Simon H.), Thursday, December 13, 2018 12:57 PM (twenty-four minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Here are some cool practical ways to stop being a man that I've tried to do since I decided I didn't need to front like I was a man

0. Stop being a man
1. Talk quieter
2. Adopt more compact body language
3. Shave your face
4. Listen to women
5. Dress provocatively
6. Focus on being nonthreatening to those around you in public
7. Identify miscellaneous social scripts of masculinity you've adopted and stop doing them
8. Strengthen friendships with non-men

Patriarchy survives only as long as it continues to coerce perfectly ordinary people into being men

silby do u think that some ppl are born men and it isn't a choice and if not how do you account for transmen? similar question re performativity. i see a whole bunch of problems w/ your argument here that i wonder if you've thought through at all?

0. Stop being a man
1. Talk quieter
2. Adopt more compact body language
3. Shave your face
4. Listen to women
5. Dress provocatively
6. Focus on being nonthreatening to those around you in public
7. Identify miscellaneous social scripts of masculinity you've adopted and stop doing them
8. Strengthen friendships with non-men

check check and doublecheck!
https://proxy.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=http%3A%2F%2Fimg3.wikia.nocookie.net%2F__cb20140528231244%2Fgameofthrones%2Fimages%2F8%2F81%2FVarys-Profile-HD.png&f=1

are u guys taking silby's posts literally cuz I detect some humor there, maybe that's just me

mea culpa if he's just taking the piss

I mean number 5 and 6 seem pretty contradictory...

also lol this thread, prior to it I thought silby was a woman and Yerac was a man

live and learn I guess

lol

I've thought about all this a lot actually but thanks~ xp

so can u explain or

I'm always both joking and not joking

I'm not really competent to address the relationship of trans men with cis masculinity but it's been brought up itt before in response to my posts. I think that in a world without gender-based oppression, which is what we're all working towards, the category of "men" wouldn't exist, and that people who are trans men now will be freer in that world too.

I typed and erased like a dozen potential responses to that list which means this is an excellent time to bounce.

it seems like you're suggesting that ppl who identify as male are identifying with oppression and that without oppression there'd be no men but i think this is *&*problematic*&* for many ppl and despite what i think is yr good intentions in promoting it maybe deserves a rethink but ya know keep on joking/not joking you devil you ;) xp