It's pretty sad how we're only framing these society-wide issues as gender flaws.
Pick-me girls race to court men -> Fake feminism is making men look foolish
Women quit Instagram over unhealthy beauty standards -> Men have a loneliness epidemic
Doomscrolling is radicalizing/traditionalizing female audiences -> the "manosphere" has corrupted male youth
Maybe these are bigger-scale issues than we give them credit for? It feels like you have to wade through seas of pugilist opinion columns before people admit that it's not a gendered issue.
PaulHoule•5mo ago
Of students I knew from my son's cohort, particularly his graduating high school class I'd say nearly 1/3 identify as incel and 1/3 identify as "non-binary" and I think the psychology of the two are similar and both involve something like a cult conversion.
My son does believe that a man needs to modulate their masculinity a bit to be attractive to young women who've been taught to be scared of masculinity. His heroes are people like David Bowie and Prince and thinks you can be a bit androgynous and still look fabulous and he rejects the non-binary aesthetic which he thinks is being an amorphous blob. He would not buy into the ridiculous stuff that this article is talking about.
I'm sure that young women have trouble too but it looks like there is segregation between young men and women these days a lot like segregation between white and black people today. It's not like there are formal laws that say black people can't live in certain neighborhoods but very few of us live in neighborhoods that are integrated and a 23-something who isn't in college can find there are plenty of places where you can encounter people of the opposite sex who are <13 [1] or >33 and plenty of places you can meet people of your gender who are your own age but really eligible singles are scarce. It's at least partially real in that there was a birth minimum for his cohort, and probably people in that age are at the peak of being isolated by social media.
[1] ineligible
Mr_Bees69•5mo ago
1/3rd of the students are nb!? what school is that, i want to move there
PaulHoule•5mo ago
Ithaca high. That’s not a representative sample but my own N=10 or so of people I knew somewhere between rather well to very well. It is definitely a place where an NB could feel at home but it is also said to be the most expensive small city in the US.
I tend to tell LGBTQ+ people that they should not move here because in doing so they throw away their vote and drive up our cost of living, I think they should go to the bluest corner of the purplest state.
bigyabai•5mo ago
PaulHoule•5mo ago
My son does believe that a man needs to modulate their masculinity a bit to be attractive to young women who've been taught to be scared of masculinity. His heroes are people like David Bowie and Prince and thinks you can be a bit androgynous and still look fabulous and he rejects the non-binary aesthetic which he thinks is being an amorphous blob. He would not buy into the ridiculous stuff that this article is talking about.
I'm sure that young women have trouble too but it looks like there is segregation between young men and women these days a lot like segregation between white and black people today. It's not like there are formal laws that say black people can't live in certain neighborhoods but very few of us live in neighborhoods that are integrated and a 23-something who isn't in college can find there are plenty of places where you can encounter people of the opposite sex who are <13 [1] or >33 and plenty of places you can meet people of your gender who are your own age but really eligible singles are scarce. It's at least partially real in that there was a birth minimum for his cohort, and probably people in that age are at the peak of being isolated by social media.
[1] ineligible
Mr_Bees69•5mo ago
PaulHoule•5mo ago
I tend to tell LGBTQ+ people that they should not move here because in doing so they throw away their vote and drive up our cost of living, I think they should go to the bluest corner of the purplest state.