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Huh? The whole point is masculinity has evolved - and it no longer is confined to set stereotypes (in the same way femininity has evolved). Unlike the past, it’s now acceptable for a man to be compassionate or caring - while at the same time embracing his emotional or physical strength (just as women may do), or his ability to provide (which a woman may do as well). This is a good thing; and real men are not threatened by it, because healthy people are confident in who they are (despite stereotypes). Men and women can be jerks - it takes a lot more than one’s gender to define a person.
That said, Jowel, I think you are confusing (what you perceive as) ‘male rights’ with defining masculinity - past, present, toxic, or otherwise. At the end of the day, you seem to be speaking to spreading knowledge/awareness about men’s health. I’m not stating that’s not a good thing - just having difficulty with the tie-in to ‘masculinity’ (and I don’t believe we are being ignored by society).
Other than the last point about certain issues related to mens' health not being ignored, I think we agree on everything else you're saying here.
Quote:
Originally Posted by RamenAddict
Men have few health disparities... women typically take much longer to be diagnosed for deadly issues because many studies in the past have been on men and women might present differently with the same symptoms. Women often get written off as having anxiety or a mental health issue when it is really something physical. Why do you think there are all these campaigns about getting women to recognize heart attack risks. It is because they are diagnosed later and their symptoms are often not associated with a heart attack until it is too late.
There are also campaigns for men’s health. As I pointed out earlier Movember https://us.movember.com/ is pretty huge. I have known men who have participated for years.
I'm not disputing women's health issues being written off as anxiety at times, and think that's really poor practice and unfortunate when it happens. What I still can't get my head around mens' lifespans continuing to lag behind women by several years. I think it's important for both men and women to lead long and healthy/happy lives but men keep lagging behind. Also, the "Movember" campaign sounds like a good step for men, along with the other campaigns that are well publicized for women. Maybe it's a regional thing and the news outlets in my area cover these issues inadequately versus some other areas. I keep up with local media pretty closely and I never hear that talked about.
Other than the last point about certain issues related to mens' health not being ignored, I think we agree on everything else you're saying here.
I'm not disputing women's health issues being written off as anxiety at times, and think that's really poor practice and unfortunate when it happens. What I still can't get my head around mens' lifespans continuing to lag behind women by several years. I think it's important for both men and women to lead long and healthy/happy lives but men keep lagging behind. Also, the "Movember" campaign sounds like a good step for men, along with the other campaigns that are well publicized for women. Maybe it's a regional thing and the news outlets in my area cover these issues inadequately versus some other areas. I keep up with local media pretty closely and I never hear that talked about.
The squeaky wheel gets the grease. Women are out there and talking about women’s health issues and taking part in doing something about it. Men don’t want another guy sticking their finger up his butt, or groping his genitals... Ewwwww! that’s gay! My mom is a cardiologist and she said that her worst patients are men in regards to following a healthy lifestyle, taking their medication and following up with their doctor.
My b/f is an Oral surgeon and he says men are more afraid of pain than women, and more likely to let something go longer before seeking medical treatment. I know a guy who had a hernia for years. It caused him a lot of problems, but he didn’t get it repaired until it became an urgency. They fixed it as an outpatient procedure.. it took about an hour, 3 days of taking it easy and not lifting over 25 pounds. A week later you’d never know he’d had a medical procedure.
The notion that society sees men as disposable or not worthy and cater more to woman’s health issues than men’s is false..
Other than the last point about certain issues related to mens' health not being ignored, I think we agree on everything else you're saying here.
I'm not disputing women's health issues being written off as anxiety at times, and think that's really poor practice and unfortunate when it happens. What I still can't get my head around mens' lifespans continuing to lag behind women by several years. I think it's important for both men and women to lead long and healthy/happy lives but men keep lagging behind. Also, the "Movember" campaign sounds like a good step for men, along with the other campaigns that are well publicized for women. Maybe it's a regional thing and the news outlets in my area cover these issues inadequately versus some other areas. I keep up with local media pretty closely and I never hear that talked about.
I think they are still trying to figure this out. Keep in mind that this is a trend in almost every society once they reach the point that they aren’t dying in childbirth. The main difference is that in some countries the gap is pretty small and in other countries it is larger. For example, the gap in Russia is huge (more than 11 years). This is true for developed and developing countries. https://data.oecd.org/healthstat/lif...y-at-birth.htm
It seems like there are a lot of different factors causing the discrepancy. Certainly some can be attributed to lifestyle, but each country is going to have different lifestyle issues. You would still expect that there would be some countries that had men living longer, but that is not the case. I just don’t think science has figured out why yet. Of the oldest living people in the world, the vast majority are women.
Location: As of 2022….back to SoCal. OC this time!
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Quote:
Originally Posted by KazChasey
Masculinity is about reflecting your godly nature, in whose image you were made. God is Truth, Love, Faith, Strength. God is a Creator. Men who reflect that... Honest men, strong men, men who stand for truth and honor, men who are loyal and care for their flock, men who create, who build something tangible out of nothing... Those are masculine men
THAT'S what masculinity is.
Flocks & godly nature are religion...not masculinity...
I think a masculine man is strong physically & emotionally....doesn't act all "silent" & "absent". I can't count the amount of friends I have who complain about their bfs & husbands who don't communicate....& hide behind the strong silent man persona. Masculine men, IMO, know how to communicate & open themselves up in relationships. Masculine men stand up for what they believe & know what they want & go after it. I also think masculine men protect.....it might be silly, but if a snake crawls into my open purse on the ground while I am sitting with a glass of wine outdoors....I expect the manly man by my side to come to my rescue...Lol, cause I'm calmly getting up (or maybe not so calmly) & walking away.....
Extremely feminized. The number of men who don’t seem traditionally manly at all is rather shocking, but not a big deal. It becomes a big deal when these idiots throw around terms like “toxic masculinity,” which is a joke. There’s nothing toxic about masculinity, it has led to many or most of the greatest achievements of mankind. It should be celebrated. We live in a society that doesn’t ever want to say, “You’re a man, lift some weights, take advantage of being strong and being emotionally stable. But nope instead “it’s ok to be 400 pounds! It’s ok to be weak! It’s ok to cry over everything!” No, it’s not ok. It’s weakness and weakness shouldn’t be celebrated, it should be condemned. Tolerance of weak behavior encourages more weakness and that’s just not something we need.
I agree with you but I don't really mind the feminization of men. It makes me look even better and thins the competition. Are soyboys beneath me - yes, but that's not altogether a bad thing.
If masculinity is in turmoil, it's not because of any "pressure" for boys/men to act like men.
Mod cut.
Masculinity isn't toxic. The problem is that some think that it is. All one has to do is consider how boys are treated in public schools, with hand-wringing female teachers following them around at recess. Boys who [gasp!] act like Tom Sawyer will be medicated to suppress that independent streak. Boys are treated like defective girls. Even subjects once of interest to most boys are downplayed in favor of those of interest to girls.
Stop drinking the Kool-Aid. There is no toxic masculinity.
Last edited by PJSaturn; 04-18-2019 at 08:36 PM..
Reason: Political commentary.
If masculinity is in turmoil, it's not because of any "pressure" for boys/men to act like men.
[Snip.]
Masculinity isn't toxic. The problem is that some think that it is. All one has to do is consider how boys are treated in public schools, with hand-wringing female teachers following them around at recess. Boys who [gasp!] act like Tom Sawyer will be medicated to suppress that independent streak. Boys are treated like defective girls. Even subjects once of interest to most boys are downplayed in favor of those of interest to girls.
Stop drinking the Kool-Aid. There is no toxic masculinity.
No one is saying that masculinity in itself is toxic, not at all. But when you look at the cases of men who are struggling with dating, and their reaction is to shoot up a public place to punish women, surely you can agree that's not quite a healthy way to cope with his emotions. There are many ways that society can do better by boys and men, but shrugging and saying "boys will be boys" isn't it.
In a sense, suicide goes beyond masculine, feminine, whatever. It's not even so much about what makes a person (male or female) worthy of esteem per se. The issue is about how society values certain traits and the types of human beings who have them - especially when it comes to disvaluing a trait (i.e. scorn a trait or someone who has the trait). Even though I see "masculine", "manly", etc ultimately as a label, it is important to bring up to the extent that society socially obligates men to have certain traits usually labeled as "masculine" - social punishment of which is being castigated, scorned, ridiculed, snubbed etc. for that reason of lacking those traits alone.
These traits, the opposite of "manly" traits, include weakness, timidity, low dominance skills, social or mental incompetence, dependence on others, or anything suggesting a lack of control over his own destiny (yes, females do get castigated if they have these traits, too. But the OP is about these traits as applied to males, especially in regard to high suicide rates in geographic area with a history of celebrating male power traits).
So what about these traits that are ascribed the opposite of "manly" ones (I'm not talking societally-ascribed "feminine traits". I'm talking about traits that peg a man as "unmanly" in the "rob him of his man card" sense)? First, I can say that I have seen many otherwise sensible people (again, male and female) who display near-maniacal contempt for people who have these traits - especially males who have them. It's as if they have less contempt for males found guilty of low to mid-level misdemeanors than they do perfectly law-abiding males who are weak, timid, broken-spirited, or otherwise low in social dominance skills. If this is an exaggeration, it's not by much ("major felon" or even "moderate (so to speak) felon" [/i]would[/i] be an exaggeration, I grant).
Anyone who has more contempt for the weak, timid, or otherwise of low-dominance for that reason alone is frankly clueless about what the proper role of scorn is. Reasonable scorn is limited to use against people who deliberately set out to hurt, harm, or demean others outside reasonable and proportionate defense, retaliation, or punishment; or against people who have a conscious willful indifference to the essential physical or emotional well-being of others. Merely being weak, timid, or otherwise poor in social dominance skills is not even such an attempt at all, nor does it mean the said kind of indifference to others' well-being. Therefore, those shortcomings are no legitimate reason to heap contempt or belittlement onto someone. After all, inability to stop a bad thing is not condoning or letting a bad thing happen. Nor is inability to do a good thing an intent to not do that good thing.
Even if the social pressure to do so is in decline, there's still a lot of pressure for men to conform to a "heroic warrior" archetype - one still very much beloved by society, I presume because people love to hear a great story with a triumphant ending, good triumphs over evil. Then when we as a society see cases where a good man is crushed by evil, we become disappointed or even angry that life didn't imitate art or our dreams. So we castigate the man as needing "manning up" at best, or strong ostracism at worst. This is an irrational reaction that places an unreasonable burden on men who for some reason or another can't live up to our hopes and expectations, many of the latter are themselves unreasonable anyway.
So with so many men so often put under enormous pressure to be a "hero warrior" battling their circumstances and even more so expected to triumph so convincingly, is it any wonder a lot of men snap under the pressure and take the ultimate final action? Given all this, society needs to meet men with suicidal tendencies at least half-way and start to realize that this cultural ideal of a "manly hero-warrior" is as much a fantasy as are women who are "tens" in physical appearance, feminine charm, brain caliber, cooking skills, and career success all at the same time. The sooner mainstream society grows out of this, the less bad it will be for so many men (and women, now that I brought up the analogous ideal female, updated to 2019).
If you think that's really how mainstream society actually is, you're not in mainstream society.
If masculinity is in turmoil, it's not because of any "pressure" for boys/men to act like men.
[Snip.]
Masculinity isn't toxic. The problem is that some think that it is. All one has to do is consider how boys are treated in public schools, with hand-wringing female teachers following them around at recess. Boys who [gasp!] act like Tom Sawyer will be medicated to suppress that independent streak. Boys are treated like defective girls. Even subjects once of interest to most boys are downplayed in favor of those of interest to girls.
Stop drinking the Kool-Aid. There is no toxic masculinity.
Yes, there is toxic masculinity, but we've always known what that is, and we've always recognized it.
Start with prison culture. Go all the way down to the cultural mythology of schoolyard bullies, evil gunslingers, et cetera.
We've always known the difference. Healthy masculinity has always had at its core "protection of the weaker." Toxic masculinity has always had at its core "exploitation of the weaker."
Healthy masculinity has always had at its core "protection of the weaker." Toxic masculinity has always had at its core "exploitation of the weaker."
I agree with this, in a roundabout way; but it calls for the interpretation of motive (and an assessment) - which, at the end of the day, is more about a person’s mind rather than a ‘masculine characteristic’.
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I keep up with local media pretty closely and I never hear that talked about.
