To find it hard to care about men's issues

[Parsleyforme]

Men's cancer, diseases and suicide I do care about, but I am really struggling to care about the other modern problems of modern men.

My brother says that the modern men of today are very confused about who they should be and how they should act and that is giving them all identity crises and/or midlife crises, depending on their ages. Things like they get told that men as a whole are bad, they don't know who they are as a man anymore, they don't know how much they should show their feelings, they feel guilt even if they're a good man, they don't know what they're supposed to bring to relationships anymore etc. etc.

I'm finding it quite hard work enough to be a woman without having to worry about or really hear about men's issues as well. And I'm actually quite frustrated that I'm being expected to provide a understanding and sympathetic ear. I went to a girl's school and when I left Barbieland I had to pretty quickly catch on that lotss of men are creeps and women aren't actually at the top of any industry or even their own relationships. It actually angers me a bit that I'm expected to feel something for the men who are feeling unsettled when all we've really managed is to get them to stop wolf-whistling at us or sacking us if we get pregnant.

AIBU to feel like this? WIBU to say I don't really have the bandwidth (read:patience) for this and maybe he should talk to some men who can empathise rather than a woman?

Huh? The main threat to young men’s wellbeing is toxic masculinity itself, not the backlash against it.

Men aren’t committing suicide in droves because they’re being told men are bad or they’re having a mass identity crisis; they commit suicide because the same patriarchal society that crushes women makes it very hard to be a man that doesn’t fit the mould, and the age-old mantra of ‘boys don’t cry’ prevents them talking about their problems and seeking help.

The idea that the real problem is the very mild correction of the male dominance that has been in place for millennia is laughable.

An intelligent strong woman is quite capable of rising to management positions and running companies in today’s western eorld. Are you suggesting that they be swayed away from that because men tell them to be home makers? That makes woman sound easily influenced and weak when they are not. We all make our choices and maybe ( this would be my case) many women prefer life balance, so don’t want to work all the hours of the sun in a stressful job. Women have agency and can choose these days . We’re not living in the 1950s.

You could easily have given a couple of examples in the time it took to write that long post!

obviously they are going to rise above it as women always have had to but the fact that these stupid people feel they have any kind of right to express themselves on the subject is staggering.

who exactly are we talking about that says these things? Anyone in the corporate world would surely know that they’d loose their job /career for a comment like that? Comments don’t hold strong women back anyway, it’s demeaning to woman to even think that.

My son decided to have some counselling about some dating problems. He then came to the conclusion that it has something to do with me his mother! Well I soon put him straight and said it was his fault not mine. He fell out with his last girlfriend because she was too needy. When I asked what he meant by that it was because she asked him to walk her to the toilets in the dark when they went clamping!

oh you’re brave 😅

Yep just like women men as a gender are capable of amazing things and awful things too

Just clarifying this - women attempt suicide more than men, it's just that men (who attempt it less) are more likely to die?

A kind of good example of men being confused no?

And is cheating morally wrong? 😅😅😅😅

Yes.

Sure, just like men feeling the same about women are not being unreasonable either.

Another thing- it is incredibly easy to find evidenced examples of misogyny, both individual and societal. It seems less easy to find examples of misandry. Important also to remember that the patriarchy is damaging to men as well as women.

Yes - women apparently tend to choose less lethal methods (eg overdose). Some people say it’s because women consider who will find the body, misogynists say it’s because women are just attention seeking. As has been implied in this thread actually.

There are countless number of issues in the world. As the quote goes - the good thing about everything being so fucked up is that no matter where you look, there is great work to do. I do think those working in this, and many other areas, are admirable. That doesn't mean we need to be part of it - I don't think any person can actually care about all of them and it'll only harm us if we try.

It's not unreasonable to put your energy and care where you want to - especially as the source for being to care is your brother who reads like he's just dumping onto you rather than looking for solutions or really any support. As many said, it would be very different if it was a son who had been harmed and was looking for guidance and help.

I think it's better when people focus their efforts in the areas for the causes that matter to them rather than trying to cover everything. I don't think it helps when people are either pushed to try to cover everything. I also don't think there is a need to be antagonistic towards causes even if we don't care about them. While it may feel good, there is little benefit in treating others who care about a different cause as if they're taking away from one's own.

I view it like this - I don't really care about issues in my birth country, I left over twenty years ago, the writing was on the wall there well before then, I know others who left who are doing great work to help out.. I'm not going to shite on those who do, I'm not going to point out to them that the country has caused a lot of its own problems as they're very aware and we're all very aware that the ones suffering the most are the ones with the least power with little involvement in making the problems that are currently harming them - I don't have to care or get involved, I might change my mind later, but I'm not going to be guilted into doing so, and I can still see that the work is there and I'm glad others are trying to find out what can be done to make the world better in that way while I try in other ways. I can understand everyone has suffering in their lives without feeling the need to be the one to try to fix it or even to get emotionally involved in it. I'll only spread myself too thin and drain myself to be of any good to anyone.

This is one of his arguments but is this actually true? Who is teaching them that? While we expect better from our kids than the last generation, mums are not all misandrists passing this on to their toddlers or teens.

Just like mums are not all misogynists teaching their sons that girls are just there to take care of them, not all mums are misandrists telling their sons they are bad for being boys - it's not all on mums. Cultural learning comes from many angles and sometimes just from the attitudes in the environment.

I was once at a school doing a focus group discussion on safeguarding, and as part of the discussion, one Y9 boy nervously spoke up that everything to do with wellbeing at the school was aimed at girls, that he felt that there was an attitude that boys are just a problem that need to sort themselves out or at most, that they should sort it out through football - and not all of them like football. All 12 student - even split evenly between girls and boys - adamantly agreed that this was an issue. It was one of the best conversations we had with the kids came from that as we dug into what they thought was needed and the issues between the sexes in the school, including that a lot of sexual harassment going on was more same-sex harassment, particularly girls on other girls, but also boy on boy, but that it was getting ignored.

This was discussed with the Safeguarding Lead who made all the right noises - and turned around and made 2 more wellbeing groups for girls.

A couple years on, same school, struggling with boys doing far less well than girls and struggling with engagement. Their only group that was wellbeing focused that boys could access was still only the weekly mixed sex football lunch club, with occasional half-terms with a boxing coach that was invite only. I was aware of girls having been given permission to change in the disabled toilet rather than in the girls' locker room as a way around the harassment going on, but still no changes in the policy or in how it was being documented (it was documented as bullying, only boy on girl was documented as sexual harassment). The kids literally gave them a blueprint and they ignored it. I can only guess as to the reasons for that.

I've also heard 8-10 year old boys include in their description of men "they just want to hurt girls and women". It's getting there fairly young.

I imagine both sexes have a sense of whether they are a good person or a bit of a shit bag.

Some of the worst people in the world think they are great. I personally think no person is objective enough to know that there are a good person, it's something only others can determine, and I view anyone who says they are a good person with immediate suspicion as IME they tend to excuse any shite they do with their supposedly good intent rather than care about the impact.

Most men don’t give a shit about women’s issues, even the big ones, so of course YANBU.

What a fantastic level headed post. A lot of the posters here could learn a lot from such a reasonable and balanced approach.

Like the middle classes as a whole should just acknowledge the benefits being born so has bestowed and continues to bestow on them? Not likely to happen either. Things just don't work that way. It's human nature. In general the old adage of you catch more flies with honey, is more likely to work with changing minds.

The school description is quite heartbreaking. Thankyou for describing it so well. No wonder some men feel lost.

Because they don't show who they really are,often until after children. I thought I knew this man, 20+ years in my social circle. I was wrong. This is not uncommon.

'If you have been so harmed that you can no longer feel human emotions towards other people, you need to be kept away from others and in therapy. You shouldnt be having relationships and definitely not raising or educating boys. You are a danger to them.

Was this directed at me? I have not I have displayed Incel like behaviour for asking that men in general, support the women in their lives?

What an extreme reaction to an ordinary yet every day experience.

Agreed.

It's contradictory to wang on about male violence but then also about how privileged men are. How can they be so privileged if they're the main victims of this male violence which we're led to believe is the scourge of female existence? Like, 70% of murder victims are male and they're twice as likely to be attacked by a stranger.

But similarly women commit more DV than men. However, we focus on the female impact because it's women who are getting killed more often, as with men in the suicide example.

Because I know somebody will ask for a source, google the 'Partner Abuse State of Knowledge'. It's the world's biggest DV metastudy to date, undertaken by over 100 academics from 20 universities in UK/US/Canada alongside DV charities/orgs. They read over 10,000 DV studies and closely analysed 1,400 peer reviewed studies, extrapolating the data. It's been mentioned on here before but people don't like to talk about it.

There are also loads of studies conducted all over the world over the last 50 years evidencing the same. Only government crime stats disagree, putting female perpetration at 42%. DV charities claim men report abuse much less than women for fear of being separated from their children or made homeless, and also because they don't like being seen as weak. Mankind have done loads of research on this and state that men are 2.4x less likely to report abuse to the authorities.

Not an MRA. I just don't like this divisive narrative as somebody that works mainly with men and finds most to be decent, even if they might make the odd sexist joke. They'd risk their lives to save mine and have demonstrated this in a few of the near misses I've had over my years working in construction. I doubt most feminists would risk their lives for a man tbh.

Can post loads of studies from a previous thread if people want but not doing that at 3am after an evening shift.

@GaIadrielmost people wouldn’t risk their lives for any other person-and fortunately very few of us are ever called upon to. It seems a pretty strange metric to judge feminists by!

Men are expected to let women and children go first in an emergency. You only have to see the small boat threads to see that when a woman dies but the men all make it there is outrage one of them didn't give up his spot for her or make sure she survived at their expense there is outrage.

I doubt a feminist would pipe up with "no! I deserve to die as an equal!"

if that is true, it’s another reason the patriarchy is bad for men too! It’s not feminists who made up these ridiculous rules of chivalry.