A place to share screenshots of Microblog posts, whether from Mastodon, tumblr, ~~Twitter~~ X, KBin, Threads or elsewhere.
Created as an evolution of White People Twitter and other tweet-capture subreddits.
Rules:
Related communities:
This is not my personal opinion, I know Gen Z men who voted for Harris. But the voter demographics really speak for themselves, and maybe now people will look at the radicalization of young men as a serious (but solvable) issue.
I’m a gen z male, raised in a far right Republican household. I’m a social democrat. I am progressive.
Good on you. No group is a monolith
There is a lot to be said here. I'll use my own experience as an example.
I'm a millennial male who had a terrible time as a young adult through my mid 30s. I grew up in a fairly religious/conservative area of the US, and I didn't have the ability to even start questioning that before my college years because literally everyone I knew was either a vocal supporter of or tacitly accepted that cultural status quo. Mental health issues were either not discussed or not recognized in any serious fashion. It wasn't until my late 20s that I finally understood that I had severe depression and anxiety and sought help, despite suffering from it since my early teenage years.
Socially, I never felt like I was cool enough or good enough. I didn't understand women, and the endless series of rejections and confusing encounters only served to erode my low self confidence further. I had no idea what a healthy relationship looked like because my parents were just going through the motions at that point, and the relationships I saw in TV shows and movies were incredibly shallow. The few people I considered friends did not support me in any positive way. I eventually kicked them to the curb, preferring solitude to being the butt of their jokes.
I was a prime target for recruitment for the alt-right: depressed, alone, disaffected, and ready to lash out. The only thing that kept me from going in that direction was a keen sense that the rhetoric was bullshit and its leaders only cared to take advantage of the rank-and-file to accumulate money and power. Many people I knew were not so perceptive and became victims of that movement.
My only saving grace was that I had a decent job with healthcare benefits, which allowed me to get the therapy I needed to overcome these challenges. Again, most people I knew did not have such resources. Nearly a decade later, I am now a family man with a wife and child. I am far happier than I have been at any other point in my life. Despite that, there is still plenty I don't understand. I don't have a good grasp of what positive masculinity looks like. I cannot point to anyone who has served as a good, male role-model in my life. I still don't have any close male friends with whom I can share my feelings and challenges.
However, I do understand how easily young men can be swayed to far-right crusades. Social media warped my view of reality, and it's far worse now than it was 10-15 years ago. Moreover, there is no alternative to far-right echo chambers for young men to commiserate and get help. Those spaces simply do not exist on the left. If you dare to complain or vent, you will immediately be told your problems don't matter and called a misogynist. I can readily call multiple conversations I had with liberals and feminists who rejected my problems, even being told that I was "living life on easy mode" because I was a man.
For all the women who are reading this, I get it. As a man, I don't have to worry about the government meddling in my bodily autonomy. For the most part, I don't have to worry about walking alone at night or being accosted or raped. I don't have to worry about being taking seriously at my job or being passed over for promotions because of my gender. However, none of that negates the challenges that young men are facing. Their gender does not save them from broken homes, abuse, mental health issues, a bad job market, degrading standards of living, student debt, double-standards, confusing and contradictory narratives surrounding dating and relationships, etc. Yes, privileged men with no right to complain do exist, but they are an extreme minority. The vast majority of young men are in a bad place, and the only people reaching out to help have ulterior motives. If you want things to change, try having some empathy. Maybe you will get empathy for your problems in return.
If you want things to change, try having some empathy. Maybe you will get empathy for your problems in return.
Funny a man has said this twice this week. Women have higher EQ than men in general - how do you think they developed this?
Extending empathy to men is not what helps men feel empathy, though. That’s not how empathy is developed. If it was, movie actors and kings etc who have empathy extended to them constantly, would be the most empathetic people on the planet. Yet they are the least empathetic.
The thing that gets men to feel empathy, is the man feeling empathy. It’s like a mental weight - you have to choose to lift it. I can’t make you do that by rolemodeling. You have to actually take time and do the work. Actually sit down and think and perspective take without projecting or objectifying. Just radical acceptance. You have to do that work. Your comment asking women to once again bear your emotional burden of empathy is silly. We can't. It's a skill you gotta develop. And the sooner you do it instead of thinking it's women's work (which is why you just asked us women to be empathetic - our assumed role), the sooner the world is less shit.
And only then can you be truly caring, empathetic, or a feminist - by examining your own actions as a man. It’s great to allow men to have a sense of community outside of toxic masculinity, but this isn’t how men develop empathy or Feminism and that’s weird to phrase it like that,as if it’s valid for men to punish women by removing rights, voting for Trump, removing empathy, and not being prosocial. In fact, that’s quite controlling and abusive.
I once saw a gif on Reddit of a little girl being forcibly kissed by a little boy (both about 6), and she shoved him off and he looked sad. The entire thousands of comments focused on the little boy's first rejection. No one even noticed it was the little girl’s first sexual assault. She even wiped the kiss off, reminiscent of victims cleaning themselves after assaults.
When I pointed this out, people were angry. How dare I suggest that little boy is a monster. But I wasn’t. I was entirely focused on the little girl’s experience and I wasn’t advocating for anything relating to the boy. In fact, I think an appropriate “punishment” would be to explain to him to not touch people without asking etc. And that’s it. I just wanted to see her experience and make sure she was okay. Her situation is more important and critical in this moment than the little boy's. But these men heard 'sexual assault,' and instead of empathizing with the victim, they empathized with the assaulter, so much so they started defending him from a nonexistent attack. Do you not see the clear problem here? Do you see the issue?
But men were so unable to extend empathy to a girl, to a woman, that they literally couldn’t absorb this information or perspective take as her. It was impossible for them to imagine what she felt like. This was like 3 years ago. It was astonishing. No, men do NOT empathize with women. Men empathize with themselves as an idealized version of who they would be as a woman - that’s projection by definition and is entirely how they feel entitled to control women and objectify them.
half joke first. nobody's trying to meddle in our bodily autonomy, yet.
edit: i havent looked too close at it but the mensliberation space on lemmy.ca may interest you? cancermancer down bellow has a rec for r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates that looks to have another good perspective in the topic. so im sticking it right here with the other.
I'll try to approach the topic from my perspective as well. my gender has never really be part of my internal view of myself. but it is an inescapable part of how other people will see me, and the rules are always whatever the other person wants. so maybe not the poster child for speaking on masculinity. i'm literally the default charater generator in every videogame, but it's just a hallucinating meat suit.
talking about gender concepts and social roles was a norm growing up because i did that growing up in the weird outside groups the christian kids chased. any reference to maculinity was done at me as an attack, even when i was doing it according to the rules. i agree, there are few places for young men to explore their way out of those strict views. especially in the early years. i've often seen them jump straight into spaces meant to be safe for people who've had not great experiances with the topic, especially women. and press other people to do all the work, explain things to them and navigate their often* harsh language. and i get it. when you've only ever been allowed to express 3 levels of the same emotion, it's gonna be rough sorting that out.
it's going to be on people who have worked their way through that mind set to make those places for kids to start the process. most importantly, people who share their experiance and perspective. yes folls like me can and really need to come in there and talk openly. but my own experiance is never going to line up in a way that will connect with those kids. even when i look exactly like our experiance should line up.
...if theres more spelling mistakes then there are more spelling mistakes. fuck it thats too much text for a phone
Bodily autonomy? What's this scar on my cock again?
Have also heard people talking about giving men vasectomies at 16 (people who don't understand they can't actually be undone)
FWIW I've only seen that used to illustrate how ridiculous it is that we find it essentially normal to have laws controlling what women can do with their reproductive systems but not men. I've not seen a single credible example of someone seriously suggesting this.
This. Men are more often victims of violent crime, homelessness, mental illness, suicides, do worse in school, incarceration, die in wars, work dangerous jobs. Classic male institutions, structures, and spaces don’t exist anymore like they used to.
Add to that that men showing emotions is still seen as weakness.
These issues aren’t addressed or even mentioned.
Men are more often victims of violent crime, homelessness, mental illness, suicides, do worse in school, incarceration, die in wars, work dangerous jobs.
The victims of other men. That's the joke of it all. And the folks screaming loudest about being victimized are inevitably the ones quickest and most eager to take their own pound of flesh at the first opportunity.
Add to that that men showing emotions is still seen as weakness.
Primarily among other men. This isn't a gendered issue nearly so much as it is a socio-economic hierarchy. The "excess males" problem is what's driving the violence, the poverty, and the declining health. Young men are pressed into the social hierarchy by their elders, often from an extremely young age, through physical, emotional, and sexual violence. They climb the social ladder by proving their tolerance for abuse by those above, while exhibiting a sufficient capacity for sadism on those below. Anyone who cannot endure the abuse and find their own cohort to abuse in turn becomes the social excrement that the system exudes.
This is literally "The Patriarchy" that feminists rant about and seek to abolish. But efforts to abolish the system invoke its most violent tendencies. The result is a youth population that is selected for the most sniveling and cruel to lead it into the next generation.
When Terry Crews came out about his sexual assault. So many men publicly derided him. I felt so bad for Terry.
For the record, fifty cent, Vlad from VladTV, DL Hughley were those that made fun of Terry and some even insinuated he was possibly gay.
Women asked for some basic goddamn respect and when they got “uppity”(because us men weren’t listening) they really got a “you were mean to me so I’m gunna elect Hitler again”. Millions of people alive today want women strip women of the rights they fought for and women are supposed to be polite about it?!
It’s crazy how weak they are and I’m sad sharing a gender with them.
More like men don't want to elect someone who actively and publicly tells them they're the problem based on a minority that believe those things
A not-insignificant number of men are the problem. Where are you seeing the democrats saying this so blatantly? I haven’t seen it yet and would love to know where it’s coming from.
It's just right wing propaganda.
Because the Republicans succeeded at fully killing education. It's dead.
I guess the lonelyness epedemic plays a part in it which hits younger people harder then older ones and mans stronger then woman.
Indeed, and it’ll get worse. Plenty of women (on popular dating sites, at least) have already been swearing off dating Republicans. Now, with a higher likelihood of a national abortion ban, don’t be surprised if straight women become even choosier. After all, every man we think of sleeping with must now also be viewed as a potential father.
Forget about casual flings or one-night-stands. Why would I risk a lifetime of supporting an entire human being just to have one night of fun?
And that’s only for straight women. Bisexual/pansexual women can choose to straight up stop dating men entirely.
In a lot of ways, lonely young men who voted for Trump just shot themselves in the dick.
You mean to tell me that using birth control or even practicing abstinence is the best way to avoid getting pregnant and removes the need to use abortion as birth control?!
And that perhaps having reckless one night stands all the time is risky and probably not a great idea?!!
As a zoomer that's old enough to be working class now. Man, my childhood was fucked. At school, being a right wing troll was the norm, at least for boys. I was too.
The worst part is no-one cared, fucking "they'll grow out of it" and now everyone is suddenly in shock. When I talk about it to my friend today he's even in fucking denial about it, "Oh they didn't actually mean that, it was all jokes".
And our education system doesn't do anything to combat this shit either. Quite the opposite, the dogmatic authoritarian approach schools take coupled with zero-tolerance policies pretty much ensures people shouting this hateful shit get away with it.
After all saying "Hitler did nothing wrong" only gets annoyed looks, gets completely brushed off as "edgy" or something. But then when someone points out that person's shit, suddenly that's an attack???
"Oh they didn't actually mean that, it was all jokes".
Because those were jokes.
The problem we have today is not that it was socially acceptable to be a psychopath online in 2014. The problems are, in my opinion:
The right-wing shift is part of a global failure of established governments.
Get that logical crap out of here!!
Because the democrats haven't made a serious appeal to them in a decade. We need to turn bell hooks into actionable political messaging.
Maybe because one political party despises them and wishes for "the bear"?
White women as a majority still voted for Trump. Why just blame men?
The result of telling women they could vote for someone their husband didn't vote for was the right flipping out and essentially calling them property. How likely do you think speaking up is when you are stuck financially to someone who sees you as a servant rather than a person?
Lmao so women have no agency?
Fucking spare me. You're a miserable sap that can't stop slinging shit/blame 😂
They have it all they want, I'm going to guess a lot just don't want to deal with a pissed off significant other. Would you?
Calm down and make some limited amount of sense and try to make a point.
The main source of this recent trending fascism, anti-scientific thinking and so on is social media or the web in general. To resist or refute the mass of false information and find out what's likely true and what's not, requires education, literacy, media competency, things like that. I guess current generations are lacking this so they fall easy prey to "funny" fascist memes, fakes and rhetoric, then vote for rightwing extremists, destabilizing their own country as a result, not realizing that this leads to big disadvantages for everyone including themselves. We failed to protect these younger generations from misinformation, and now they are turning the world into what they are misled to believe is true.
We used to have relatively high living standards in the Western democracies. This will soon all crumble and we (most people who aren't rich) will suffer from it, regardless of who you voted for. And on top of that, climate change will finish us all off, because battling that isn't even on the radar for those fascists because they don't even believe in it. So instead of doing too little, we'll do literally zero and even accelerate the problem, meaning it'll affect us all much sooner already and with higher intensity.
So enjoy your still existing relatively privileged life while it still lasts. It's ging to get much, MUCH worse before it's going to be better again. Buckle up and prepare yourselves.
Lemmy right now is saltier than the earth of Carthage after the Roman's victory.
Are you surprised? America just voted away all its freedoms and democracy
There is no war but class war.
The culture wars are about the class war indirectly. Women are famously the first large underclass, worse than workers who don't own the means of production: workers who don't even own themselves, workers who do a second shift at home which goes unpaid and unrecognized in pensions and healthcare.
Failure to understand how these are connected translates into failure to achieve solidarity.
thumb war