It is nonsensical because all your verbiage does nothing to negate the fact that many many men have, and always have had, high social-verbal ability.

Waffle away all you like, you still make no sense at all.

Can you think of any reasons why there might be more men who are prominent poets, other than their inherent superiority? I can.

I think there are differences in trait and aptitude distribution between men and women, with a huge amount of overlap and exceptions, and that these differences are a product of both nature and nurture. Then how those differences get expressed in society is socially mediated.

What about that do you find “nonsensical”? Why?

A bit reductive no?

Mothers who work can be available, and those who stay at home may not be competitive and over schedulers.

I can provide samples of both! 😁

I totally agree with @RoastBanana

Exactly, has happened time after time. Women used to be heavily involved in IT. I remember male managers being traumatised at being asked to use a keyboard (typing). It works in reverse when women become a significant number wages and status fall and there is male flight. (Men still get the top jobs though eg teaching]

Yes, possibly. Or become frustrated and dangerous.

'mens' lower social-verbal ability'

poets novelists

such a nonsensical assumption

Did anyone here see the Harris/Walz approved ad campaign for men ahead of the American election? This was to counter the toxic masculinity of the likes of Trump on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast.
It was full of men (apparently) saying to camera:
"I'm a real man, but that doesn't mean I feel uncomfortable in the company of women"
"I'm a real man, but that didn't mean I feel ashamed I cried when my baby was born"
Etc etc.
I always thought if the left could combine this ad with the Sadiq Khan "Maaate!" video, they could alienate every man to MAGA and Reform.

We were having a pretty good natured and useful conversation about the degree to which mens' lower social-verbal ability was like a physical difference, or like maths, etc. The train of which (and the reason I preferred the maths example) was that people who are poor at maths are not incapable of improving, i.e. it's not impossible. We both seemed to agree that the maths example was reasonable, and differed in our interpretation of what that meant for men and how much they can 'just change'.

I then had a different conversation with a different poster who took exception to my claim about current affairs, which you also commented on.

You then commented to say my view on men was "patently ridiculous, frankly".

Your engagement since the the 'patently ridiculous' post has been with a series of claims that I've never made and don't believe, and which you must surely recognise as straw men, given the maths example we discussed at the start.

Characterising my position as that men are "incapable of social-verbal communication", then later "men are somehow incapable of learning to communicate their feelings and be emotionally expressive".

I set out my claim from the outset, which is nothing like the ones in those two paragraphs. I gave an example (maths) that shows why I think they are capable and can learn

I've even tried repeatedly to point out where you've overstated what you are objecting to (e.g. 10:40 "This really isn't my claim. My claim (which I thought I'd been quite specific about in my early posts) was that men can do this [...])

You've really not wanted to hear that, because you want to have an argument with an imaginary position.

You did indeed let yourself get side-tracked by this strong claim about "incapable" that I haven't made, not from the outset of this thread. Just as you don't like excuse-making, I think you need to realise that this one is on you.

My impression as a parent is that there’s a huge problem in terms of the way we expect young males to behave. When my partner (now in his 60s) was 16 he was messing around on motorbikes, repairing things, playing team sports and most importantly in doing those things hanging out with older men who gave him a sense of what it might mean to be a man, a ‘way of being’ that went beyond watching porn & buying things to encompass making things and understanding how things work & supporting others in practical ways.

My own sons on the other hand have been subject to continuous assessment at school from y10 onwards, NEAs, GCSEs over 2 years, AS levels, then A levels. They’re expected to study mandatory topics in which realistically most teenage boys will have no interest at all (stand up unseen poetry at GCSE) while being discouraged from practical studies. In their little spare time, they’re mostly staring at phones (despite my best efforts) imbibing consumer culture - both because phones are addictive, & because there’s little else for them to do - the men who once ran football clubs and took lads to motorsport are home themselves looking at their phones.

Our expectations of young men are completely at odds with the human evolutionary processes that have shaped their bodies and minds - and yes, to a great degree, those expectations in schools, in terms of what & how they learn, are feminised- so it is no wonder what emerges is often septic and unhealthy. A boy who finds a strong active male role model nowadays is unusual.

Women remain explored and sexualised & brutalised - perhaps in some ways more do than ever: and at the same time being a young man is hard. Two nasty things can be true at once, unfortunately.

They are only bad on a societal level if they are untrue. If you believe in biological determinism obviously you will consider it harmful to deny that it exists and tell people who have 'noticed' it that they are wrong.
However if you don't believe in biological determinism you will think that challenging boxing people into a set of expectations based on sex, (which invariably results in a poor deal for those of the female sex) is a good thing. And that those who 'notice' that women are better at baking than chairing a board are simply displaying confirmation bias.

They do, although I think I have noticed that you don't seem to see the same kinds of manly men writing things as we used to. My grandfather was a manly man, and a writer and poet, and I'm not sure I can imagine him in journalism today the same way he was in the 60s to early 90s.

But it seems to me it's in interpersonal relationships that men are struggling. So not about capacity so much as environment?

In my work I have really noticed a lack of young people reading, of both sexes, but boys more than girls. I think that is a factor for sure in terms of emotional range.

I think its impossible to say that biology predisposes us to certain interests and skills because we have not been able to conduct studies on unsocialised human beings, so can never consider difference in a way that is uncontaminated by socialisation.
Your point about AI is an interesting one. However, should it be the case that the biggest threat is to the value of male coded work, rather than this result in the elevation of women by way of their representation in roles that are now deemed valuable, I think it is more likely that men will suddenly decide they too had the required skills for those roles all along, move into them, and turn them male coded.

Your plan won't work if men and women do in fact have some degree of biologically based difference in this area. You can try and socially engineer that stuff out, but it takes a lot of effort and isn't usually very effective.

And then where are you - just telling people who notice that they are wrong, even if they aren't? That's quite authoritarian and post-truthy. Or maybe they can notice but have to keep quiet to be socially acceptable? Same thing.

Or is the idea to convince ourselves that what we want to be true is true, and just suppress noticing things that don't seem to fit our approved narrative?

These all seem like extremely bad ideas on a larger social level and I would say that they are the kinds of approaches that have fucked up a lot of left wing parties in the UK and elsewhere, notably the Democrats in the US are totally fucked by that kind of mindset on issues.

Me: Whereas men are not incapable of sharing their emotions with people should they wish to, and I don't think there's any evidence that men are innately worse at social communication.

You: Introducing irrelevancies that I let myself get bogged down in, plus a total lack of proof that men are innately worse to any significant degree.

This is a great example of why women shouldn't bother with men's issues. They'll pick an argument, get sidetracked, insist it's your fault, and then claim that they basically agree with what you originally said, despite not initially doing so. And they won't help themselves one bit.

but poets

and novelists

Why are we being asked to pretend emotionally literate men don't exist?

such nonsense

My feminist foundation in the 1970s was about liberation. Égalité is a very slippery concept as is fraternité. Neither of them ever offered much if anything to women, as a glance in the direction of 2020s France will demonstrate. Anyone banging on about equality as an aspect of feminism is at best naive.

I don't think I buy the idea that men can just be like women emotionally if they want to. I think they are differernt and that's ok. I don't think the answer is to make men behave more like women.

I suspect that on average men do relate to things like friendship differently, they manage their personal relationships differently, their companionship looks different. But I also think that there have been times in the past where there were better opportunities for them to develop relationships in a way that suits their psychologies. And for various reasons those areas are less available now.

That's partly of course because a healthy social network is less available for everyone. And most demographics are struggling.

Not being a man I can only observe what I see in the men around me, but I've noticed a few things about seemingly successful male friendships and relationships. A big one to me is that they often don't revolve around just getting together to visit or talk, which is often how I visit with my friends. We decide to have a visit, meet up, maybe we do something or maybe we just have tea and chat.

Men on the other hand seem to have the activity first, and the companionship is built around that. So maybe they meet up with a buddy to help him move his car or to watch a sporting event, or they go to a meeting for volunteer firefighters. I know a group of men who work monthly together at a soup kitchen. Some workplaces also serve that role, and I think that was more true in the past. When I was in the military it still functioned that way to a large degree.

Relationships seem to come out of these kinds of structured activity and may involve some personal talk, but it's typically way more restrained that what women talk about. But I don't think that means it isn't supportive.

Anyway - there has been a major lessening of all people involved in social institutions like volunteer organisations, sports teams, churches, and social clubs. So that I suspect affects men a lot. And I think maybe workplaces are less useful in many cases for forging deep friendships, people don't spend as long in the same workplace, and for most it's not like they are farming, or down the mine or on a fishing boat, where you really depend on those around you to have your back.

Hang on a minute. Talking of irrelevant sidetracks:

You first mis-understood my claim that "men tend to be more knowledgeable about current affairs than women" as a claim that "men tend to be more knowledgeable than posters on MN" and took exception to it. Any going round in circles wasting time was entirely self-inflicted at that point.

You posted a single study and demanded an apology from me, while complaining about the dangers of poor research practice.

I then gave you a meta-study of 106 surveys that supported my position, even once the methodological issue you'd highlighted is considered. I refrained from citing studies that support my claim until after I'd managed to find decent meta-studies and had a chance to consider if your claim that removing 'don't knows' eliminate the effect held up. It didn't hold up, and I shared my source.

Then you picked exaggerated claims I hadn't made to argue against, even when I'd from the outset made clear I wasn't making any such claim (e.g. that men are "incapable of sharing their emotions" that you are still straw-manning with).

We then get onto nature-nurture, where you demand that I "prove" my position that it's both, while declining to "prove" yours.

You then re-state your claim as a much, much narrower one than you have been making through this thread (the claim that "men are not emotional retards, evolutionarily incapable of communicating their feelings to others") and one that I have explicitly, from my first or second post, made clear I agree with.

Then got cross because I agreed with you!

I don't think you need much help from me to waste your time.

Basically I think society is fucked if we continue to value the wrong things.

Yep, totally FUBAR.

I think men are split into two groups. The aggressive alpha types and the more sensitive arty, poetic types. The alpha males can be toxic and look down on more sensitive men. The Alphas are unhappy in their own way and not in touch with their own emotions or the emotions of others. The more sensitive men are unhappy because they feel looked down on and attacked (sometimes physically) by other men.
Going off at a tangent, I think sometimes the guys who think they "feel like a woman" and get drawn into trans culture are these more sensitive men (obviously not the AGPs). I guess fathers should be teaching their sons to be more in touch with their emotions, but often they don't have emotional intelligence themselves.

I don't know how this can be solved, not by women though. Although it has to be said that women can be bloody awful too. I've never felt "the sisterhood". Mums bringing up ND girls often see this starkly, women who don't fit the mould are often viciously excluded too.

Society as a whole now values monetary success, two parents working, family time is not valued. You only need to read the threads on MN to see how little having a parent at home is valued (and that parent doesn't have to be the Mum). I don't think emotional intelligence is learnt being in a nursery from 6mths old. Probably not a popular opinion.

Basically I think society is fucked if we continue to value the wrong things.

It's a useful distinction but where it doesn't work is that both can be true at different levels.

e.g. I think at macro level, the first description is closer to the truth (there are broad differences, when looked at in broad population terms).

At individual level (i.e. what roles could/should someone do), the second one is crucial, i.e. breaking down barriers.

When we break down individual barriers, we shouldn't be surprised to see the big macro divides reinforce rather than weaken. (Could go either way, depending on what other forces were in place before we broke the barriers).

I think we should do both. I genuinely think the first analysis is the right one at macro level, and we should try to elevate female-coded roles, and the second is right at the individual level, we should break down barriers.

I also don't think that the first approach is never going to stick. Or rather (perhaps more depressingly), I think relative value of the roles can change, but is largely shaped by big forces beyond our control.

In a violent, dangerous, manual society/situation, I think men's roles are likely to be more highly valued. I think a more 'civilised' context relatively favours women, trait-wise. Obviously this is painting with a very broad brush. But let's say (total hypothetical example) AI replaces the currently most-high-status, most-male occupations like engineering, coding, finance, etc. What can be automated gets devalued. I can see (as a possibility, not a prediction) that men's status might end up structurally devalued very significantly. If what matters, and what gets remunerated, is what can't be automated, then human connection, emotional intelligence, network-building, and also in-person services like caring, could be the last remaining island of value, which would reverse the sex-status gradient.

The general consensus is there the roles that have been assigned to women and men since the year dot apparently.

@TheywontletmehavethenameIwant
If women are carers and men are providers

Where is this assumption coming from? That doesn't sound in any way like utopia to me, and certainly not a place I would be able to thrive in.

I don't want to get embroiled in this but...
If the data one is studying is flawed to begin with - such as survey questions being framed around issues that men are more likely to find relevant than women, which has been noted as an issue - I find myself wary of the results.
I entirely agree particularly as in this kind of study you will find many more that show no convincing difference filed in desk drawers.

Then why on earth did you disagree with me, and push back at me, when all I said to you initially was this:

But in regards to your last three [paragraphs], I think that's because women are actually physically smaller, weaker, and less athletic than men, as a demographic. They are incapable of running faster. Whereas men are not incapable of sharing their emotions with people should they wish to, and I don't think there's any evidence that men are innately worse at social communication.

(You have yet to produce evidence that men are innately worse to any significant degree, btw.)

You've been talking in circles, introducing entirely irrelevant analogies and claims, avoiding proving anything, and generally wasting my time. I feel disinclined to waste any more on you.