Discussion on masculinity

[PGP]

A very interesting discussion on masculinity and the challenges and issues for men today. 

One of the guests in Jordan Peterson and he would be a good guest to have on the show on these issues IMO.

Hits on alot of important points and interpretations.

 

[PatrickC]

Yes, Jordan was frankly a star in this discussion. As for the rest, well.. they probably need to get out from under their mothers apron strings.

[luxfelix]

I found Jordan Peterson's example of wider gender preference gaps in egalitarian countries a compelling support for his insistence at the end to let people decide for themselves (regardless of whether these decisions are influenced by biology, culture, etc.).

 

Does anyone else get this feeling that this whole men vs. women thing (I could be exaggerating) is just another attempt to divide and conquer? 

[PatrickC]

Does anyone else get this feeling that this whole men vs. women thing (I could be exaggerating) is just another attempt to divide and conquer? 

 

Oh for sure. Those in power want people at each others throats of course.

 

Jack Donovan talks about this in his book, 'The Way of Men'. Whilst I don't share Jack's apocalyptic view of the future. He certainly has an insight into masculinity that is all too often scoffed at these days and at society's peril.

 

"...One of the reasons the topic of masculinity has always been so confusing. Is that people in power have always exploited the natural desire of men to be seen as masculine. They use the idea of masculinity to manipulate men, to get them to sign onto their own agenda...

 

...Today people that don't want men to act like men are doing the exact same thing. They say that men are insecure, that they're afraid of women, that they're afraid of change. This is just another trick, another way to say that, men who don't do as their told, are weak, inept or cowards" ~ Jack Donovan

 

 

[Mister Mister]

it gets really fascinating around 42' mark, when the fellow with the white hair and beard challenges Jordan for his "hostility towards feminism" indicative of "fear and anger about a loss of control".  Then he really made my jaw drop when he said "you don't arrive at truth by [saying things which may be uncomfortable to people].  You arrive at truth by consensus"  wtf????!!!

  First of all, he avoids Jordan's very well-stated point about how the bottom of society is populated mostly by men, for which no one has any sympathy.  But his point about the fear and anger about a loss of control" seems like total projection to me.  It's certainly true for a lot of men in the MRA circles.  But it is also certainly true about feminists.  There was an old saying among feminists, "make the personal, political", in other words, project your anxiety and dissatisfaction on all of society, all of the world (its interesting how one major theme of FDR is about the exact opposite, making the political personal).  but the victimhood hysteria, for example the implication that teaching women self-defense is rape-enabling, suggests a feeling of powerlessness in their own lives that they want to project onto all women, and men for that matter.

 It gets even more strange when he suggests that any man who says any truth which makes people uncomfortable, is doing it to dominate people, and that truth is arrived at by consensus.  Really fascinating...and scary

[J. D. Stembal]

I fully intend on watching the entire video at some point, but I'm a little thrown off by the title, "Singing the Masculinity Blues." I get a strong reaction to painting masculine issues as a malaise or a funk out of which we can simply will ourselves. Feminism is nothing less than an ideological assault against us.

 

 

...the victimhood hysteria, for example the implication that teaching women self-defense is rape-enabling, suggests a feeling of powerlessness in their own lives that they want to project onto all women, and men for that matter.

 

Rose,

 

Can you elaborate the self-defense equals rape-enabling perspective? I've never heard that one before. In college, I took a Judo class with an instructor who also taught a female focused self-defense class, and there were a number of female students in the class I was taking. The instructor was a man and I recall he made fun of the girls on his other class for not taking self-defense training very seriously. I'm not sure why someone would take a self-defense class and not take it seriously, but he seemed to think that was the case.

[Mister Mister]

I fully intend on watching the entire video at some point, but I'm a little thrown off by the title, "Singing the Masculinity Blues." I get a strong reaction to painting masculine issues as a malaise or a funk out of which we can simply will ourselves. Feminism is nothing less than an ideological assault against us.

 

 

 

Rose,

 

Can you elaborate the self-defense equals rape-enabling perspective? I've never heard that one before. In college, I took a Judo class with an instructor who also taught a female focused self-defense class, and there were a number of female students in the class I was taking. The instructor was a man and I recall he made fun of the girls on his other class for not taking self-defense training very seriously. I'm not sure why someone would take a self-defense class and not take it seriously, but he seemed to think that was the case.

 

This became an issue when in some beauty pageant, one of the contestants, Miss Nevada I think, who was a 4th degree black belt in Judo, was asked about the issue of rape.  Among other things she mentioned that women could be taught to defend themselves.  There was a huge backlash by feminists, accusations of victim-blaming, rape-apologizing, and touting the now cliched "OR WE COULD JUST TEACH MEN NOT TO RAPE!!!" which is so idiotic and ignorant of the causes of violence I don't know where to begin.  Julie Borowski and other conservatives who have argued that gun ownership can allow women to protect themselves from rape have met with similar reactions.

 

 My take on it, is that if women can actually do something in their lives, learn self-defense, learn to spot predators, identify potential rapists to other women, remove themselves from potentially dangerous situations, take a stand against child abuse (which is the real way to teach boys not to become violent men), etc., they don't need to whine and complain and appeal to the massive political/academic machine of modern feminism.  So they need to promote a hysteria of powerlessness, which I suspect comes from a deep personal feeling of powerlessness.

[J. D. Stembal]

Thanks for the input, Rose. I've heard of victim-blaming before, but rape-enabling threw me off. It is counter-intuitive to say that being able to disable an attacker with your bare hands is enabling rape. It prevents or deters the crime from happening.

 

I'm fully supportive of firearm rights because they also clearly prevent crimes, directly and through a halo effect. I have noticed, however, that women generally have an irrational fear or suspicion of firearms. Even if they claim to be pro-gun, they wouldn't think of owning or carrying one. I took my ex-girlfriend to the range a couple times, and she was very good at it. Her accuracy is much better than mine. I told her that we should go shopping around for a piece for her to carry and she made a bunch of excuses about money and time. Apparently, she had enough time and money to research about solar panels to get a government subsidized ten year lease for installing them on the roof.

 

I only know one woman who owns a handgun, but she doesn't carry it. It's just a range recreation tool for her right now.

[PGP]

That is an excellent point RoseCodex. If all women had a gun and a black-belt, it would make things exponentially easier for men IMO. The risk of offending or "creeping-out" or making feel-unsafe of women has alot of men walking on eggshells and it's not good because it is the good and just decent men who will feel this way, not the rapists and other scum.

[PatrickC]

it gets really fascinating around 42' mark, when the fellow with the white hair and beard challenges Jordan for his "hostility towards feminism" indicative of "fear and anger about a loss of control".  Then he really made my jaw drop when he said "you don't arrive at truth by [saying things which may be uncomfortable to people].  You arrive at truth by consensus"  wtf????!!!

 

Actually it is after that 42 minute mark that we understand the degree to which some men have the capacity to self loathe their own gender.

 

Michael conflates 'competition' to that of war. Adam wisely points out that war was often never a choice for men. We also see the absurdity of (heroic) single mothers being compared to that of veterans of war by Todd.

 

When Jordan brings up the 'Wordle' designed by Facebook and the word shopping seemed to be the most popular word used amongst women. Russell laughably then says, "Do they (women) have to be". Which is just Russell's way of avoiding the truth about gender differences. This ignorance is further extrapolated by Michael when he claims that "gender generalisations" poison our thinking. 

 

Finally Russell explains that he lives in a world where masculinity doesn't matter to him. Thus asserting that it shouldn't matter to other men. I just have this image of Russell having his balls held in a vice like grip by his female colleagues.

 

Michael and Russell are why men are singing the masculinity blues.

[Mister Mister]

Thanks for the input, Rose. I've heard of victim-blaming before, but rape-enabling threw me off. It is counter-intuitive to say that being able to disable an attacker with your bare hands is enabling rape. It prevents or deters the crime from happening.

 

 

Just to clarify, they don't say learning self-defense is rape-enabling, but that encouraging women to learn self-defense to prevent rape is apologizing  for rape.  The same is true if you advocate teaching women to identify dangerous people and situations - a recent promotion of a nail-polish which detects the (extremely rare) date rape drugs in drinks triggered the same reaction.  Of course a man who rapes a drunk woman is despicable and guilty of a horrible and violent crime.  But to ask if she could have identified a dangerous situation and removed herself is actually empowering women, not blaming anybody.

 

Just like when you buy a home-security system people say you are apologizing for theft.  WHY DON'T WE JUST TEACH MEN NOT TO STEAL!!!!  Or markers that detect fake money are apologizing for counterfeiting.  WHY DON'T WE JUST TEACH MEN NOT TO COUNTERFEIT?!!!  It's so ridiculous when you apply a little thought to it.  But no one wants to be thought of as a rape apologist, so as an emotionally reactive shaming tactic it is very effective.  But you have to wonder about their motivation.  I think that subconsciously they must want to keep women thinking of themselves as victimized and powerless, leading them to "need feminism" and all its political power and academic influence.

 

 It's pretty tragic when you think of its effects on the female psyche - I have a roommate who has at times expressed a lot of anxiety and paranoia about predatory men.  At the same time, it seems to me that she has a pattern of being attracted to men who are not violent necessarily, but at least cold and dishonest.  She has confessed to wanting to save or improve them, to melt their icy hearts with her feminine warmth, to turn the Beast into a Prince with True Love's Kiss.  These relationships have ended badly of course, and now she just seems genuinely bitter, and will openly say she "hates men".  I objected, probably the first time she has seen a man stick up for their gender, asking "I'm a man, do you hate me?" and she went into a kind of dissociative state, accompanied by what seemed like a childlike alter ego, responding with something like "no you're my friend, that doesn't count".  Anyway sorry to go into a rant about a personal situation but my point was that the feminist narrative of perpetual victimhood seems to provide damaged women with an ideological drug, to relieve their anxiety over bad relationships with men in their life, to project their personal issues onto SOCIETY, PATRIARCHY, and other abstractions (note how for my roommate, "men" was an abstraction removed from the reality of a real man in her life who isn't predatory or dishonest) at the expense of self-knowledge and personal growth.  "Make the personal political" is a call for victims to offer themselves up as sacrificial objects to a predatory ideology

[PatrickC]

I'm conscious this topic has diverged somewhat from the OP's initial discussion, but I think RoseCodex raises an important issue that faces a lot of young women today. I recently listened to this young ladies experience of Sam Pepper which apparently turned into Sam sexually assaulting her by exposing his penis to her. Now for the context, she chose to go to a strangers house (after drinking) to crash for the night and when invited by Sam to share his bed she didn't refuse. She even decided that cuddling (Sam a complete stranger) as being appropriate and innocent. She was then surprised by what later Sam decided to do.

 

What's particularly interesting about this video is that she goes into detail about some of her families history. Her own mother married a child molester that molested her sister (Annies Aunt). Her grandmother upon being told by her daughter claimed that her sister was merely looking for attention. It was only after he molested girls outside of the family that people eventually believed her Aunt. Do I see a pattern occurring in Annies family history? Indeed I do.

 

I have a lot of sympathy for Annies history, but she is definitely using this, 'don't blame the victim' mantra as cover for her families history and indeed she is potentially (unconsciously) inviting future predators into her life, by claiming cuddling with strange men to be innocent. This is a particularly vile consequence of modern feminism that allows abused women to be further abused in my opinion.

 

[hannahbanana]

Just to clarify, they don't say learning self-defense is rape-enabling, but that encouraging women to learn self-defense to prevent rape is apologizing  for rape.  The same is true if you advocate teaching women to identify dangerous people and situations - a recent promotion of a nail-polish which detects the (extremely rare) date rape drugs in drinks triggered the same reaction.  Of course a man who rapes a drunk woman is despicable and guilty of a horrible and violent crime.  But to ask if she could have identified a dangerous situation and removed herself is actually empowering women, not blaming anybody.

 

I've noticed multiple times that there is just no winning with many feminists - even if you say you're on their side and try to improve many of the dangers that are touted by feminists, they will still find *something* wrong with it (like your example of the nail-polish). I've asked many times, "just what do feminists want from me, and from society?" and I honestly can't find an answer, short of someone to demonize and blame. For example, there are sex-positive feminists, who think women should be prostitutes or strippers if they want, and then there are sex-negative feminists, who call that objectification. And that's just one example. I bet if you asked a feminists what a perfect world would be for them, they would have either no answer, or it would be so far removed from reality that it's just dogmatic babble.

Anyway, I know that was off topic from this thread, but seriously it's been bothering me for so long.

[Mister Mister]

I've noticed multiple times that there is just no winning with many feminists - even if you say you're on their side and try to improve many of the dangers that are touted by feminists, they will still find *something* wrong with it (like your example of the nail-polish). I've asked many times, "just what do feminists want from me, and from society?" and I honestly can't find an answer, short of someone to demonize and blame. For example, there are sex-positive feminists, who think women should be prostitutes or strippers if they want, and then there are sex-negative feminists, who call that objectification. And that's just one example. I bet if you asked a feminists what a perfect world would be for them, they would have either no answer, or it would be so far removed from reality that it's just dogmatic babble.

Anyway, I know that was off topic from this thread, but seriously it's been bothering me for so long.

 

 

 Yes, it lacks any consistent goals, any explanation of rational virtues that we can live by, and any falsifiability.