I'm not sure why this is, but I expect it's because women and girls are now being given equality of opportunity to a greater extent than ever before, and it turns out they're just better at most things in our modern society.
So I'm not convinced that "male inequality" is the best term to describe this state of affairs. When women having more equal opportunities leads to worse outcomes for some men, is that really inequality for the men? Or are we just seeing natural differences play out.
Maybe the future for most men is work where brute force and strength is required, as that's the only edge they really have on women, comparing group to group.
To be a better person I have always had to be surrounded by better people. When those people have been women, my opportunities for improvement are much broader and more comprehensive.
To say that women have made me better is insufficient. I'd offer that women have been critical to making me a more worthwhile human being.
I think "male immaturity" is more apt.
techblueberry•1h ago
I think the term “toxic masculinity” sort if has three different connotations, for some it’s a weapon to attack people with, for some it’s a weapon to be attacked by (both of these things are bad)
But for a lot of people (myself included) it’s an “obviously” useful/enpowering framework for understanding why society rejects certain kinds of men, and why certain societal pressure in men feels harmful to men. The term toxic masculinity isn’t supposed to just describe the behavior on others, it’s supposed to describe the way it is toxic to men themselves!
I do think it’s somewhat time to evolve past the feminism of the past. As someone who read a decent amount of it, I could argue until I’m blue in the face about how it is meant to be inclusive of all people, but sometimes I think a unfortunate truth about society is the cover matters more than the book. Or if you are going to use feminism as the framework, then you have to have people representing all sides of it, and not sort of imbalanced towards just one wave/interpretation/side. And I think that’s hard to do because of the incentives.
WarOnPrivacy•36m ago
Many qualities are not ruined by universal adoption. Kindness, consideration, empathy, patience and understanding built on the above are some.
> I think the term “toxic masculinity” sort if has three different connotations, for some it’s a weapon ... I do think it’s somewhat time to evolve past the feminism of the past.
The notion that men be better has always been a good one. The core of our toxicity is a failure to understand others in a useful, productive and beneficial way. We men are not very far down the road of understanding others. We have not reached some kind of end that would merit turning back.
The origin of calls to turn back reliably come from the small group that is petulant about making meaningful changes. To transition from a small to a loud group, they are compulsively seeding their discontent wherever they can. We can spot where they've found fertile ground by listening for their echos.
But back to us. There absolutely is room for improvement and the way to get there is by adopting kindness, consideration, empathy, etc. For us men, our ability to achieve these things is tied to our willingness to clean up our own house. We are better men when we have ambition that stretches past our base desires and includes what women decide they want for themselves.