MOD NOTE: Please note the following part of the forum rules:
The initial OP posted below covers it well enough: the premise of this thread is that men's issues exist. Don't bother posting if you don't believe there is such a thing.
Here's hoping this isn't considered too redundant. I've noticed that our existing threads about sexism tend to get bogged down in Oppression Olympics or else wildly derailed, so I thought I'd make a thread specifically to talk about discrimination issues that disproportionately affect men.
No Oppression Olympics here, okay? No saying "But that's not important because women suffer X which is worse!" And no discussing these issues purely in terms of how much better women have it. Okay? If the discussion cannot meaningfully proceed without making a comparison to male and female treatment, that's fine, but on the whole I want this thread to be about how men are harmed by society and how we can fix it. Issues like:
- The male-only draft (in countries that have one)
- Circumcision
- Cavalier attitudes toward men's pain and sickness, AKA "Walk it off!"
- The Success Myth, which defines a man's desirability by his material success. Also The Myth of Men Not Being Hot, which denies that men can be sexually attractive as male beings.
- Sexual abuse of men.
- Family law.
- General attitudes that men are dangerous or untrustworthy.
I could go on making the list, but I think you get the idea.
Despite what you might have heard about feminists not caring about men, it's not true. I care about men. Patriarchy sucks for them as much as it sucks for women, in a lot of ways. So I'm putting my keyboard where my mouth is and making a thread for us to all care about men.
Also? If you're male and think of something as a men's issue, by golly that makes it a men's issue fit for inclusion in this thread. I might disagree with you as to the solution, but as a woman I'm not going to tell you you have no right to be concerned about it. No "womansplaining" here.
Edited by nombretomado on Dec 15th 2019 at 5:19:34 AM
Sweet Baby Ray's is delicious, it doesn't need to prove anything.
Are we talking social norms or stereotypes or tropes here?
I do see that Men like Meat and Women like Chocolate as a thing, but I have never encountered the idea that men aren't supposed to like sugar before.
Professional Writer & Amateur Scholar
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
Oh God, right wing circle and food...
I remember how they were (and some still are to this day) really paranoid about how tofu and anything involving soy are making men more effeminate...while selling supplements that supposedly counteract that...only to be revealed that those same supplements often also contain soy material as well.
Like, shit, if soy has such powerful ability to change men into women, male to female gender reassignment surgery would be unnecessary.
Edited by dRoy on Mar 20th 2024 at 10:53:20 PM
I'm a (socialist) professional writer serializing a WWII alternate history webnovel.
Having abnormal levels of estrogen can cause problems without causing a sex change.
Visiting from the Hoag Galaxy
Yeah, but like...soy doesn't do that. Humans don't process phytoestrogens that way.
The point is that a lot of the definitions of "manly" are weird and arbitrary and don't make any sense, but a lot of men take it as gospel. Like, some men think owning more than one pair of shoes (with maybe work shoes as an exception) is feminine. There's men who think wiping their butt is unmasculine. And as we're increasingly seeing, there's men who think being in a healthy relationship with a woman is "gay" and unmasculine.
These things don't need devil's advocating or explanations when they're transparently stupid and wrong.
Not Three Laws compliant.
There are some bad ideas out there. They usually have to be addressed one by one, and a replacement has to be offered. Also name calling and insults aren't helpful. People don't listen to people who they think hate them.
Visiting from the Hoag Galaxy
...are you talking to me there?
And, I have to be honest, replacements aren't always the best idea. Like, if you think it's unmasculine to properly take care of your hygiene, that's an actual serious problem and it's not one you can just replace, the guy is actively endangering his own health by acting like that. If someone told me they acted like that and I said that was gross, I would be fully within my rights to say so. And like, what would you even replace that with? It's just a bad behaviour that needs to stop.
Not Three Laws compliant.
Professional Writer & Amateur Scholar
...Jesus freaking Christ, do those kind think leaving brown stains in their underwear is manly?
I'm a (socialist) professional writer serializing a WWII alternate history webnovel.
"REAL MEN BEAR BEING STINKY" is something these type of men would say.
I don't know what you mean by replacements. Taking care of yourself is manly. A man isn't afraid to get messy, but he cleans up after himself.
Being a man is about ceasing to be a boy, it is about taking care of things and getting it done. That is the idea of manhood that we need, and stands in competition with all these cheap substitutes.
he/him
You could switch that to genderless language and it works just as well as a general description of adulthood, imo.
Industrious Incisors
One observation I can make is these criteria for manliness tend to be either superficial (like not liking sweets) or actively harmful (like the hygiene stuff). Really says a lot about the kind of people who buy into that.
Relatedly, those kinds of people don't respond well to attacks on the criteria.
SoundCloud
It would make more sense to me if what makes a good man is just what makes a good adult. I find being a good adult is about understanding, cultivating and properly applying your strengths, managing, reducing, and improving upon your weaknesses, and fulfilling your responsibilities to yourself, your social circle and your society. Anything not related to that, have fun with in moderation. Just seems like things would be better if these things aren't gendered, just part of being human. That or have our understanding of gender be much more fluid.
The Draftsman of Doom
Admittedly, I think if you are a mature adult, you know that eating junk food on a regular basis takes its toll, and the taste isn't necessarily worth the damage.
Doesn't take a "man" to figure that out.
Edited by SkyCat32 on Mar 20th 2024 at 12:13:32 PM
Feels good, don't it?
If being mature is understanding what are unhealthy habits, you would also include drinking, smoking cigars, having lots of unprotected sex, and eschewing a diet heavy in vegetables as behaviors an adult would understand as harmful and unhealthy. But these behaviors have been viewed by especially toxic men as either virtues to be praised or just the nature of being a man so it shouldn't be resisted. Being against sweets for these type of people is not really rooted in mature outlooks and rational consideration of risk, it's irrational and emotional backlash against being considered womanly.
The Draftsman of Doom
To be fair, some people of any gender have difficulty metabolizing vegetation. People are not a monolith. Even an excess in vegetables is not necessarily a good thing.
I'm not saying never consume things that are harmful, I'm saying you should be aware of the consequences and accept them if you make those choices.
There are a fair amount of women who do fine on NSNG, too. Don't act as if it's just "toxic masculinity".
Edited by SkyCat32 on Mar 20th 2024 at 1:10:25 PM
Feels good, don't it?
Toxic masculinity is what we're discussing and the eschewing or promotion of behaviors purely based on that. Saying that knowing risks and still participating based on risk benefits priority or not engaging in behaviors that are considered generally healthy for personal medical reasons (not getting vaccinated due to being immunocompromised as a non-food example) is not relevant to the current conversation. We're not discussing people who have to have restricted diets to isolate a food allergy, we're talking about certain subgroups of men who call the one guy who decided to have a spinach salad instead a Big Mac a gay soy boy. Like when a group of my co-workers incredulously question my choice of getting a veggie burger, they're not doing it out of concern for my health, they're doing it because they view a non-meat burger as unbecoming.
The Draftsman of Doom
Fair enough, but that doesn't make what I said any less valid.
Feels good, don't it?
Like reflections in the glass!
Regarding men and food. I'm reminded of a Sponge Bob scene from the salty spittoon episode where a guy proves his worth for entry by mentioning eating a bowl of nails (and clarifying that he omitted the milk). While female Sandy Cheeks earned entry into the establishment, Sponge Bob himself was not and the Spittoon itself and the Weenie Hut Jr's. Establishments nearby seemed to be coded along similar lines. The Salty Spoon being a grimy place while the others were more colorful and sweet looking (there is some irony in the name of Weenie Hut Jr's given the hot dog terminology and that extras resembling the meaty food appeared in those places in the episode)
My point being that the episode has some coding that reinforces both Real Men Hate Sugar and Real Men Eat Meat here and the episode itself is about the sponge's desire to be seen as manly. So it is germane to that topic (though I am willing to move the topic to the politics in media thread if you want to continue this train of thought)
...Jesus freaking Christ, do those kind think leaving brown stains in their underwear is manly?
The reason given is they think wiping too deeply with Toilet Paper is gay. I think they're afraid that too much anal stimulation will turn them gay.
Meanwhile, I'm old enough that my doctor routinely checks my prostate now.
Edited by TriggerLoaded on Mar 20th 2024 at 8:33:03 AM
Don't take life too seriously. It's only a temporary situation.
Professional Writer & Amateur Scholar
I mean, yeah, that much is kinda obvious?
I'm just frustrated and curious how else would they take care of the matter, like what, are they just gonna stain their underwear...?
I'm a (socialist) professional writer serializing a WWII alternate history webnovel.
Surrounded by weirdoes
For how they are afraid of getting something down there, they sure have a stick shoved deep on their asses.
Wake me up at your own risk.
Best Post Ever.
The Draftsman of Doom
I have repeatedly had the thought that it sucks that adults (and in some really unfortunate cases, children) are prevented from obtaining lifesaving medical treatment/forced to carry to term in many places. I also thought it would suck if men were forced to fertilize. Well, apparently, some men have been denied vasectomies that they wanted despite the whole "patient's body, patient's choice" thing.
According to Brit Dawson in this article
:
Given that there have been lawmakers, who have forced sexual abuse survivors to pay child support to predators when the encounter has resulted in a child, and given the overreach of certain states, when it comes to out of state medical treatment, I wouldn’t put it past certain lawmakers to force men to donate sperm against their will, just to stick it to the men who are willingly getting vasectomies in response to Roe being overturned. At the very least, I would be unsurprised if they demanded spousal consent for vasectomies like they do for hysterectomies, just to make things more difficult.
Edited to be more identity neutral.
Edited by SkyCat32 on Mar 21st 2024 at 10:47:54 AM
Feels good, don't it?
I hate gender stereotypes relating to food. Always feels like I'm being indirectly mocked because of it. Despite being a man, I don't drink (hate the taste of alcohol) and only drinks I tolerate are very sugary ones when someone thinks they found a drink I'd actually like. Also don't consume a lot of meat and quite enjoy the taste of Tofu. It seems a lot of the mocking comes from more right wing circles who are more likely to enforce standard gender roles and want people to do the considered normal presentation.