As a leftist I really don't like all the hype around the perceived "masculinity crisis", as it has made popular some of the biggest internet charlatans to date, like Andrew Tate and many more so called "self-help" gurus who aim their testosterone-ridden arrows at an increasingly large group of young men who feel left behind by modern society.
source: YouTube
The reason why I and so many more leftists shy away from this discussion is that we clearly still live in a male dominated society. It isn't called the "patriarchy" for no good reason after all. That doesn't mean, however, that there are no problems faced by the male population that are specific to our time. Feminism and female liberation have been successful. Very successful even, and that's a good thing. But it's also true that men are having a hard time adjusting to this rapidly changing situation. A few examples from a 2020 "Psychology Today" article:
The problems appear early, as girls outperform boys throughout the school years. College ranks, once dominated by men, are now majority female, as men's educational attainment increasingly lags behind. Men's troubles extend beyond schooling. "Men commit 90 percent of homicides in the United States and represent 77 percent of homicide victims," writes Stephanie Pappas in the APA Monitor. "They're the demographic group most at risk of being victimized by violent crime. They are 3.5 times more likely than women to die by suicide, and their life expectancy is 4.9 years shorter than women's."
source: Psychology Today
The fact of the matter is that what it means to be a man has changed rather rapidly over the past decades. The traditional defining traits for masculinity, like toughness, competitiveness, dominance, aggression and physical strength are losing ground, especially in the realm of economics. We're increasingly living in a post-industrial society, which means that men's primary biological advantage over women, their size and strength, plays a much smaller role now. Traditional female traits, like social intelligence, open communication and the ability to sit still and focus, are valued much more in the post-industrial economy.
As a leftist I can't leave out the fact that capitalism has worsened the male fate significantly as well. Industry hasn't disappeared; it's just been moved to low wage countries. Women don't always choose to leave the house and join the workforce; stagnation of wages relative to inflation has more often forced them into the workplace. Capitalism, the eternal quest for more profits, has eaten away at men's traditional role of breadwinner significantly. Progressives and feminists only provide the icing on that cake, to the detriment of male psychological well being. And don't get me wrong here: it's a good thing that women are now free to choose whether they want to build a career of their own, because in the old days they were just as much forced into a marriage with a breadwinner for the lack of that choice. And if our society values independence and self-reliance, you know, the whole "bootstraps" thing, more than anything else, how can we deny 50 percent of the population striving for that goal?
There's no denying statistics; men, especially middle-aged and young men, are increasingly unhappy with their lifes. They've always been the prime victims of "diseases of despair", drug overdose, suicide, and alcoholic liver disease, and those numbers are increasing. Self-reliance and emotional repression are correlated with increased psychological problems in men such as depression, increased stress, and substance use disorders. When we speak of "toxic masculinity", we're not just talking about the harm it can do to society, but to men themselves. And that's where right-wing self-help online gurus go wrong: they almost always respond in a typically male and aggressive way when the term is used, as they see it as an attack on themselves. The sad truth is that they perfectly illustrate with that reaction how harmful this behavior is to themselves and the wider society alike.
So there is a male crisis, but much of it is self-inflicted. There's no stopping society from progressing, so we men have to adjust. The alternative is a retreat back in time that would force the 50 percent of the population that's just now catching up with us. I know that many conservatives would like nothing better than that and there's a real danger they might get what they want, because we are leaving a lot of young men behind. If we leftists leave those young male souls in the care of the Jordan Petersons, Andrew Tates and Ben Shapiros of this world, we risk many of them falling into the rabbit-hole of far right or even fascist ideologies. It's going to be difficult though; everything, from the capitalist economy to online dating platforms, is conspiring to chase these young men into the welcoming arms of the gurus who offer simple solutions to this complex and multifaceted problem. That's the hallmark of all right wing and conservative solutions by the way.
So please watch the below linked video explaining some of the modern trends that put men in a place they're not used to occupy. It's true that when you're accustomed to privilege, equality can feel like oppression. We're still a male-dominated society, and I don't see that changing soon. But that's mainly because men dominate the upper echelons of society; on the lower ranks, in everyday jobs and in education, women are not only catching up, they have surpassed the men in many fields. And it's the everyday life that gets exaggerated online as well. Leftists like myself think it's too early to speak of a true crisis here, but there are problems, there's no denying it. We have to take the incels seriously, they need to be talked to intelligently, not by some Andrew Tate who fools them into thinking there's a way back to the old days when women were barefoot and pregnant.
Male inequality, explained by an expert | Richard Reeves
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