The sample size here, 136, is not bad at first glance, many studies get published with smaller ones. It's large enough for the purposes here, but you'd definitely want to replicate the experiment a few more times.
Another rule that I use myself is, "multiply p by 10." In other words, a p-value of 0.05 is as good as a coin toss. This sounds outrageous, but seems consistent with reality.
https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/1lbwkdh/...
As much as it has gone out of fashion, the masculine and feminine are ever-present parts of the human psyche and human experience, which is why they can be found and understood across cultures, space, and time. Carl Jung and others who explore archetypes and symbols understood this well. You can't ignore a fundamental component of the human experience and expect your philosophy/worldview/politics succeed long term.
I think this strongly depends on your reality and perception.
How is masculinity commonly understood and what examples do you have of the left and democrats not making space?
On the other side, how can you not see examples of toxic masculinity demonstrated from prominent Republicans including the president?
What would you say is the Democratic or progressive view of masculinity and where does it fit in the progressive or liberal worldview?
As a former Democrat, that's not a question I can even begin to answer, because I don't think Democrats,liberals, or progressives see any value in or a role for masculinity. Simply pointing to the other side and saying, "there's some bad guys over there" is not a meaningful retort.
Personally, I don’t see Democrats talking about masculinity that seems to be an obsession of the right.
I think it’s a meaningful because some of the people talking about masculinity and how the Democrats or the liberals want to take that away or get rid of it have often been the worst examples of it in my opinion. I also think it’s worth noting the leaders of political parties and how they themselves represent the values they claim to be fighting for.
From that perspective, the problem isn't that Democrats have the wrong messaging about masculinity. It's that neither major US party offers politics centered on workers' material interests. Both parties abandoned class-based politics in favor of cultural appeals.
If you're a young man struggling economically, being told you have "privilege" feels disconnected from your reality of declining wages and diminished prospects. But the socialist response isn't "better messaging about masculinity," it's organizing workers to gain power over their economic conditions.
It can be about toxic masculinity, racism, misogyny, homophobia, whatever. I think that these are all real things and important to address, but participating in make-wrong and alienating fellow leftists, while completely dismissing non-leftists as inhuman, is self-defeating.
I like the idea of “call-in” vs “call-out” culture. By inviting other people to the table in a private setting and opening a dialogue to discuss the experiences of marginalized people - or any individual’s need for accommodation - rather than scolding people in public for not adhering to in-group norms that may be completely opaque to outsiders, you change the dynamic. And just by relating to people as people, in more intimate and personal settings than online anonymous forums or a standoffish workplace culture, we take down some of the walls that seem to separate us.
I think you're right that it's wrong to hate on boys (and the men they grow up to be) for wanting to mold themselves into society's current reflection of what a man is.
It's often said that the Left has a branding problem - and that a lot of the Left's stances are too cerebral for the sound-bite and gossip culture we have lived in since forever (and that has gotten more extreme in the world of micro-form content). I think that's correct.
I think there is much to be said about the Left doing a poor job right now of separating and giving strong examples of toxic and non-toxic masculinity - I do think the Left is getting way better at that now, with some very left-leaning men, who DEEPLY fit the Masculine Archetype starting to reveal themselves - there's a specific Afghanistan Vet running for office whose name escapes me that comes to mind; and also that one guy chopping wood.
I think a reasonable argument could be made that, at least in relative recency, Masculinity has been experiencing the kind of transition that Femininity went through in the 80s - a complete reversal and even rejection or hatred of recently feminine roles[0]. I've heard that women were hated for wanting to be stay-at-home mothers, like they were rejecting the progress that had been made. Recently, we've started to reverse that again and now a woman can be anything she wants, including a CEO and a stay-at-home mom, without being ostracized (as much) or hated for her choices. We'll get there with men, too, I hope. At least, we will in some circles.
I also think that the Right (and especially the Alt-Right Pipeline) are taking advantage of the framing and blurring of Toxic Masculine traits vs. Non-Toxic Masculine traits. Even the wording: "toxic v non-toxic" puts the negative as the stronger term and the positive only as a negation of the negative. And this conflation and attack reads *very* well for anyone that struggles to find acceptance in both their community and within themselves.
It's not just that, either, it's the whole culture. I'm sure we've all seen the stories of men who, when they do open up to a woman they thought was safe, the woman reflects that she doesn't feel "like he's a man anymore" and so even in places people think should be safe, they have working examples (either in video or in personally lived experiences) of when that DOESN'T work, and the contradiction and pain is exacerbated.
Being accepted for who you are is really, really hard. The generational trauma of a great grandfather who was told by his father to not show emotion, and then carried that same emotion down through the lineage gets us here. The orator who uses their platform to blames others and then how those negative feelings permeate generation after generation. Pain is continued through so many through-lines. And underneath it all, unique people with different life-starting circumstances and different wants and desires just want to be able to be who they are - or who they *want* to be, and there's always someone, somewhere, that tells them what they want is wrong. That person gained their perspective through the same hell and is probably facing the same pain, possibly without even knowing it. And so the cycle continues.
[0] I don't like using the word "Traditional" because gender roles are very fluid and our "Traditional Gender Roles" is mostly a myth that was basically from the post WW2 period through the Vietnam War.
When I was in my 20s, I started really working out. This in turn opened my eyes to bodybuilding, fitness, and such. I became engaged in that, and the bodybuilding/fitness scene / community is (or at least used to be) very right leaning. Echo chamber of bro-science and populistic rightwing ideology.
“Weakly affiliated Democrats had basal Testosterone levels 19% higher than strong Democrats and all Republicans.”
So it's not as simple as "more testosterone means more Republican".
It looks weird to me they don't report how age behaves across groups and don't correct for age in baseline comparisons.
So,... Republicans are reported as having basically the same T?
watwut•1h ago
Or more realistically, lets wait whether it will be reproduced.