Sexism and Men's Issues

This wasn't an exercise simulating a rape victim being silenced. This was an exercise simulating how women are dismissed when it comes to everyday situations. Imagine being silenced and mocked like your friend was for his rape...only applied to everything. That is what it's like for a lot of women.

And this whole conversation got muddled up because suggested that a "large chunk" of students would be upset by an exercise like this.

Ambar wasn't talking about your friend specifically. He was talking about the supposed "large chunk" of students who would be offended by such an experiment.

Edited by M84 on Jul 17th 2018 at 8:56:34 PM

Disgusted, but not surprised

I see where you're coming from, but my point is that it demonstrably doesn't apply to everything. Could you imagine a man telling a woman, "Put out for me now, or I'll tell the cops you raped me"? No woman would take that threat seriously.

He was in a situation where a woman's word had complete and total power over his, specifically because she was a woman.

On paper, I don't think the experiment was that bad of an idea; it's worth showing men what male privilege looks like from the other perspective. But my friend's frustration with it was completely understandable, and it had nothing to do with his "fragile manbaby ego" or whatever.

Okay, I get that now, but my story only mentioned one man who was offended by the experiment. Hence my confusion.

I love to learn, I love to yearn, and most of all... I love to make money.

Women do have to deal with their rape accusations not being taken seriously. They may not have to go through the exact same thing your friend did, but they do have to deal with assholes who sexually assault them then threaten them into being quiet or else they'll have their reputations dragged through the mud. There's a reason a lot of women who are sexually assaulted don't come forward.

Disgusted, but not surprised

I get that. And it's disgusting when women are victim blamed by their communities just because they happened to be out partying or tipsy or wearing revealing clothing at the time that they were raped. Rape is a fucked up thing for anyone to go through, and it's rarely easy to come forward about it.

But the fact remains that, "Do what I say or I'll tell the authorities you raped me" is significantly less threatening coming from a man than it is coming from a woman. We simply don't treat the two situations with the same degree of seriousness.

Edited by TyeDyeWildebeest on Jul 17th 2018 at 9:50:26 AM

I love to learn, I love to yearn, and most of all... I love to make money.

A man on the other hand is less likely to even say anything at first. They'll just do whatever it is they want to do (groping, masturbating in front of them, outright rape) and then say "Don't say a thing. No one will believe you. I'll just tell everyone you were a slut who came on to me."

Disgusted, but not surprised

Can we talk about "male fragility" for a bit? It's certainly a thing that exists, but the way it's generally talked about is infuriating. The concept is basically that some men (often the most aggressively masculine dudebro types) are actually quite insecure. When their manhood is threatened, they immediately lash out in response, in order to reassert their masculinity.

This absolutely happens and the lashing out often hurts others, particularly women, which is a major problem. But the way people talk about it largely misses the point. People treat it as a justification for mockery — "haha, look at the sad little boy, so fragile, how pathetic."

Here's the thing. Fragile masculinity happens because men are told they must be super manly, all the time, forever or they're worthless losers. Men are strong, stoic, and in control. They are not allowed to be lost, hurt, or sad. They are not allowed to need help or be vulnerable. Men are "fragile" and overreact to slights against their masculinity because an attack on their masculinity is an attack on their value as a human being, and the only acceptable response for men under attack is to hit back.

Attacking someone for male fragility, even if it's true — especially if it's true — is kicking someone when they're down. Not every guy is fragile about their masculinity, of course — some people are legitimately comfortable with and confident in themselves, and when they're attacked they either shrug or just laugh it off. But fragility is ultimately (over)compensation for insecurity — and by attacking fragility, you're just reinforcing the problem. When you make fun of male fragility, you're telling men "your feelings of vulnerability are unmanly and make you a target of mockery".

I'm not trying to excuse bad behavior. If the result of fragility is lashing out against women (or minorities, or other men, or anyone, really) then that's not okay and that sort of thing should absolutely be called out as unacceptable. But attacking men for being hypermasculine in response to an attack on their manliness is pouring gasoline on a bonfire.

Edited by NativeJovian on Jul 17th 2018 at 10:27:12 AM

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

In this case male fragility is more about men who resent anything implying they had a leg up to get where they are. Kind of like how some people bristle at the idea of white privilege.

Disgusted, but not surprised

If they meant "male privilege", then it would have made more sense to say that instead of "male fragility", which is a different thing entirely.

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

One manifestation of male fragility is a negative reaction to being called out on male privilege.

And yes, it gets particularly unpleasant when this intersects with white privilege, leading to White Male Fragility. Racism and sexism.

Edited by M84 on Jul 17th 2018 at 11:26:31 PM

Disgusted, but not surprised

In this specific case male fragility is referring to the fragility of a rape victim when placed in a situation where they are depowered, so I don’t really thing we should be shitting on someone for being fragile.

“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran

Except that wasn't what Ambar was referring to when he first mentioned male fragility. He was referring to the hypothetical "large chunks" of students who would supposedly be offended by such an experiment. Who presumably are not rape victims.

Yes, there's some confusion here since the original post was about a rape victim. That's due to someone else arguing that these sorts of experiments should never be done because "large chunks" of the students would be offended.

Edited by M84 on Jul 18th 2018 at 1:06:58 AM

Disgusted, but not surprised

I also think that the general idea of this experiment sounds like one that probably should be done for/to a large number of guys. While it did have unfortunate consequences for one person in the class, and I am sympathetic to his suffering, I'm with Ambar that most of the guys in that class had probably never experienced this kind of societal block.

That’s the epitome of privilege right there, not considering armed nazis a threat to your life. - Silasw

In my experience, when guys want to reassert how Masculine and Manly they are, it usually means people like me are going to suffer for it. I was in a situation like that in a LARP where this one guy was always feeling down and bad about his lack of masculinity, and kept constantly trying to prove it. And he did this by taking it out on everyone around them.

Sure you shouldn't kick people while they're down but it honestly isn't that clear cut. Often times its frustration that you have to walk around on eggshells, so that someone isn't hurt by you being "better" than them.

Read my stories!

To give perspective, there were 8 guys in that class. I was the only one who had any real issue with it (or at least was the only one who expressed it). 6 others actually had nothing positive or negative to say. The only other guy who had any thoughts on the matter came from the perspective of being a member of the LGBT, who felt further marginalized by the exercise.

It has its merits, but I personally did not get any new perspective, and my other classmates didn’t either. Maybe if done on a larger group?

^ I am the afformentioned friend, by the way. Pleasure to meet you all. These kinds of topics are very important/topical to me, and appreciate the well thought out discussions.

I agree entirely. People should not have to suffer because of someone else's fragility. But the fragile person is also suffering. The situation sucks for everyone, and the solution is to teach people that there are better ways to deal with their suffering than lashing out at others, not to mock them for needing an outlet for the pain they feel.

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

Yeah that’s the inherent issue with the experiment, it’d be cool for say me (a strait, white, cis, middle-class, man who has never been subject to serious abuse) to be put though, but you run into the issue that you’re not just doing it to people like me, you’re also doing it to the minority kids, the LGBT kids, the kids who’ve suffered abuse.

I suspect that the teacher’s heart was in the right place, but oppression isn’t just a binary based on gender and issues arise when people forget that.

I know that because I know Amber, but it got awful close there and I think it’s worth reminding ourselves that when we treat male fragility as a negative that deserves to be mocked (instead of as something that some people are, often for good reason) we’re becoming part of the problem.

Edited by Silasw on Jul 17th 2018 at 8:38:03 AM

“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran

Yeah, it's all in how you discuss it. I see too many casual comments about "male fragility" on social media that have an unnerving sense of punching down. "Hahaha, men are so fragile and weak! We should ridicule and humiliate them for it!" The reason they got to be that way is not really a laughing matter at all. You don't have to pity them or excuse their behavior, but at least show some understanding of the bigger picture, and target the body of your ridicule towards the unwelcoming environment that shaped them to be that way in the first place.

So, I've had something on my mind for a while that's really bothered me and this seemed like the best place to put it.

I've worked at a movie theater for over a year now and when the last Fifty Shades came out, we had a lot of pretty terrible female visitors. One of my co-workers that works in the box office was repeatedly harassed by older women. They'd come up to him and catcall, tell them to hurry and print their tickets because they were "horny", call him suggestive names, etc.

What bothered me the most was how he didn't want to tell anyone because he didn't think it was worth reporting. I told him it's not okay when guys do it and it's not okay when women do it, but he kept brushing it off and saying that it didn't matter anyway because no one would do anything about it.

A fellow female co-worker went as far as saying "Oh, they're just out having fun." No. They don't get to harass people because it's a Girls Night Out. That's bullshit.

It's been months since Freed left theaters and I'm still extremely pissed about the situation.

"In 900 years of time and space I've never met anyone who wasn't important."

@ratluck1: Hey, fancy seeing you here! Didn't know you were a troper, too. I'm sure you'll be able to contribute a lot to this thread.

@Zanthype: As you should be. It's been great to see women speaking up about sexual harassment in the past year or so, but men need to start doing it too. It's part of the reason I was so pleased to hear Terry Crews speak out.

I love to learn, I love to yearn, and most of all... I love to make money.

Terry Crews coming forward was absolutely wonderful to see. As someone who’s experienced/witnessed a lot of unwarranted sexual harassment and assault by both sexes towards both sexes, it’s nice to see a prominent male figure coming out with it, despite the stigma of being less of a man because of it.

The professor that did the experiment could have (and I'm assuming that they didn't) issued a forewarning to the students a week or so in advance, and maybe offer that students could opt out with an explanation why the student decided to if the student wanted to share.

And as for the terms "toxic masculinity" and "male fragility", I always thought that the former referred to the construct of masculinity, and how it harms and benefits certain groups of people while informing broader mentalities in society, while the latter is what happens when those who benefit some way from toxic masculinity get incredibly defensive when someone challenges the construct in any way.

Edit: And when men who are "pathetic" (as in not masculine enough), I always see "beta male" or some type of gendered or homophobic insult thrown around to demean those men. I haven't really seen "fragile masculinity" used in those cases.

Edited by Kakuzan on Jul 18th 2018 at 3:05:05 PM

Don't catch you slippin' now.

Obviously are not the same words, but Beta Male and Fragile Masculinity both imply weakness for a failure to be a Real Men TM.

Technically, Toxic Masculinity is depending of a lot of constructs, usually the negative ones. For example, a male leaving their family can be considered both manly (males are free to do what they want) and unmanly (how he dare to abandon his family! He isn't a real men!).

And yeah, Male Fragility is a mockery to that type of person. That is the issue, the term is a literal joke.

Edited by KazuyaProta on Jul 18th 2018 at 3:22:39 AM

Watch me destroying my country

^It's really not, though. It's definitely colored with a bit of sneering, generally when the person involved is being misogynistic or homophobic, but "fragile masculinity" is meant to highlight how strictly toxic masculinity constrains men - to the point where you see things like guys posting pictures of sunsets captioned "I'm not gay but this is beautiful". It points out how very little deviance is allowed from the tough-guy image, by pointing out how ridiculous it is that people who subscribe to toxic notions of masculinity feel the need to say 'no homo' before saying a nice thing for a friend, or joke about having to punch a wall to feel manly again after seeing a cute kitten.

"Fragile masculinity" doesn't mean men are fragile. It means "what is this kind of masculinity worth if it can't bend to allow even a single instance of appreciating something beautiful or soft or cute?"

Edited by RedSavant on Jul 18th 2018 at 8:46:14 AM

It's been fun.

Fragile masculinity is supposed to be an androcentric critique of a idea that has harmful effects on people. Where it becomes an issue is when you have enough knowledge to invoke the term, but not enough to avoid framing your critiques as an attack or mock the very people who are most directly affected by it. It's not meant to be viewed as a sign that men are (socialized to be) inferior so those of us who aren't men can feel smug about ourselves.

Edited by AlleyOop on Jul 18th 2018 at 9:06:34 AM