A growing network of online communities known collectively as the “manosphere” is emerging as a serious threat to gender equality, as toxic digital spaces increasingly influence real-world attitudes, behaviours, and policies, the UN agency dedicated to ending gender discrimination has warned.
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You are making an excellent point right up until your last paragraph. What 15 year old boy wants to be Mr Fucking Rogers? Sure, maybe they want to be him in like 40 years (but only the version of him who was secretly a marine sniper covered in tattoos everywhere his sweaters hid). What does a 15 year old boy who is vulnerable to the manosphere want? He wants to get paid and get laid.
Trying to shove a 15 year old’s raging hormones and desire for rebellion and independence into a Mr Rogers box will only lead to… more rebellion. Give the kids role models who are good people, who also succeed at things they care about.
You do realise that the behaviour you’re describing is largely programmed, yes?
Apart from the urge to blow loads everywhere
I don’t understand how you think they would not want to be Mr Rodgers? It’s not in their biology. They look for role models and only grifters pretend to know how to get girls. It’s so idiotic. Mr Rodgers gets girls. If they only understood that truth they would flock to imitate him
Men are often failed, that’s totally true. They’re also harmed by patriarchy eg being told to “man up” leading to them not seeing a doctor, work on themselves etc.
Ive read up on this and I’m a DA outreach worker so I have experience. A common theme with the Manosphere is blame shifting, and refusing to take action on their issues. Their mindset is wrong, and they don’t help themselves.
Yes and also that men are evil. Literally that they feel excluded and scared to participate because of their gender. They don’t dare talk to girls. Because of the other assholes that ruined it. They are told it’s what women like. It’s not true. But these are the ones being caught in the net. Not the asshole, but the timid ones.
Not false at all but a big part imo is also learned, it’s like if I have 10 problems, 5 of which are totally my fault, and the only one talking about the other 5 says “ALL your problems are not your fault.”
It’s like one person actually fully reflected their experiences back to them, but then peddled a ton of lies along with it.
Interesting you should mention this because other than more suicides, this is the #1 reason why the average lifespan of men is less - procrastination of serious symptoms which are initial warning signs that become fatal illnesses.
Yep exactly and men’s health matters
The problem with this is that it cedes all conversations about personal responsibility to the bad actors. I have a very similar story to you in terms of being an ideal candidate for manoshpere recruitment but understanding that it is bullshit. So why didn’t we fall into the trap? All these men have the same access to information. Many of them are actually quite privileged as well. What other area of society to we see an adult throwing a childlike tantrum and immediately turn to “well obviously society has failed them.” Do we say that about “Karens” making a scene? Do we say that about athletes who get DUIs?
Honestly I don’t feel like society has failed me at all. I think that’s a very fragile cop out for very fragile assholes. To me it evokes the idea that men should be coddled as society reconciles the consequences of centuries of patriarchal injury. The same people who will be all “we’ve failed men” will turn right around and say that the homeless person is clearly there because they are lazy, or that black neighborhoods have higher crime because black people are naturally violent.
It’s called emotional intelligence. It helps you not fly off the handle when minor bad things happen. Having the same reaction to a franchise movie being bad as someone totalling your car is not good, yet it’s all too common
To be fair, ghostbusters 3 was really bad.
Or the new star wars “movies”
I like how both of you knew what I was referring to :)
I can see that parents failed young men and the education system failed young men. But these men aren’t entitled to a woman or a high paying job. And quite frankly they probably aren’t capable of those things or they would be solving their own problems instead of blaming women for them
Manosphere men fall pray to the XY problem: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XY_problem?wprov=sfla1.
They demand the X which is a girlfriend and money in order to solve problem Y which is a lack of social connectedness and decreasing standards of living.
They believe themselves entitled to X because of that. Actually, everyone (including Manosphere men) is entitled to a solution to Y which affects everyone appart from the bourgois (who still lack social connectedness) but the solution to that is Z which is a wholesale restructuring of our society and economy to one that is maximally democratic and socialist.
Was with you until that last bit. I’m not opposed to democratic reforms or testing socialist ideas piecemeal. But massive restructurings of society towards utopia have… a history…
[Hint: lots of people die]
Not necessarily. Lots of people haven’t died in Rojava or in the areas of Southern Mexico controlled by the Zapatistas. Authoritarianism was the problem with restructurings you allude to, not socialism.
Lots of people die in the United States as it is. Homelessness is rising drastically. How long until you’re next to be put out onto the street? Your employer can’t wait until they can automate your job and fire you.
Also, the United States has a long history of carrying out genocide even prior to Gaza. Odd given your fallacious implication that capitalism is peaceful
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indonesian_mass_killings_of_1965–66
Top tier whataboutism.
Anyway, my point is that any time someone says “I know exactly what I’m doing. Follow me in my massive restructuring of society!” The results typically land somewhere between a massive waste of money for unappealing infrastructure, to everyone dies in war and starvation. The particular political bent doesn’t matter. Restructuring a society is like cutting all the leaves off a tree so you can put them where you think they should go.
The current structure of society is wrong and is extremely harmful. Oligarchy is an abomination which produces terrible outcomes.
You wouldn’t choose this system in a vacuum. Therefore, the system must be fundamentally altered. To oppose this restructuring is both cruel and irrational. It is the epitome of letting the perfect be the enemy of the good - you’re so afraid of change that you’d rather keep an evil system in place.
Such paralyzing cowardice is not reasonable, and it is even less reasonable to feel smug about such cowardice. If you are going to protect this harmful system, then the more appropriate emotion to feel is shame.
Problems is also that you can’t help people that don’t want to be helped. Since accepting help means for these young men that they have to accept that they themselves are partially to blame for their situation. Yes society has failed them but they have failed themselves as well. They have to own up to their own failures and not just put all the blame on the rest of the world.
I know some young men that haven’t gone full mgtow manosphere yet. And even at that point it’s hard to help them. When you reach out they basically reject it. You can basically see in their eyes that they rather want to stay in the bubble and gaslight themselves than to accept the truth and get help. It’s much easier to blame everyone else than to take responsibility.
Sounds like they need the shit slapped out of them.
Maybe they should just take the advice that we’ve been giving to women and minorities for the last 100 years and tell them that if they want to succeed they should just fucking work harder at it.
If a dam is leaking, smacking it and tell it to be more ‘dam-like’ will only break the dam eventually. For the people drowning, “the dam should have held, because that’s what dams do”
For people who want to improve our world, the goal needs to be defined as reducing gender conflict by increasing mutual gender respect. These words you’ve shared do not invite respect, but conflict. It is a phrase of someone who does not offer support, but demands submission.
Now it’s easy to reply “yes, I am demanding that men to stop killing women, and if that’s “submission”, so be it”. It’s of course a correct position.
But it would not be what you said. And there are a thousand ways to twist that phrase to deepen the conflict, out of context, or even subverting that context. And the conflict then only depends.
Resentment is a knife. It’s a tool of division, not unity. We should not use it to divide people by gender.
Succeed at capitalism? That’s a fool’s errand. Better to point them to the real enemy which is the bourgeoisie and the real solution which is for the working class to form democratic organizations aimed at overthrowing the ruling class and form worker led democratic ways of organizing society.
I did it. Lots of people I know did it. The main trick is cutting toxic people out of your life, moving to a better place, and making new friends who are also dedicated to succeeding.
Tell that to a child slave in a cobalt mine.
Being “dedicated to succeeding” is a one-way ticket to burnout.
Yep, and this is how marginalised communities are formed. Same with the text below.
And is why both POV are bad and should be removed from Lemmy. The owners of such communities get off on having their own army, not that they think they’re helping the cause.