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?

1. Donating to a charity that trys to help prevent suicide in young people.
2. Working in a secondary school in a role which has an element of helping mental health
3. Talking to my own kids about mental health

Yep, couldn't give a monkeys. In fact the only words I can think of is 'get a fucking grip'.

right so you are one person. Are the dads doing this? other men? men who aren't actually tangentially affected by this?

There needs to be more effort. And i want to see men leading that.

There are men that are dads (and some that are not) that are really helping boys (and girls) at the school.

What else can we do but take individual action to help people. I worked for 10 years trying to help women navigate a potentially traumatic experience so i have tried to help women too. Its possible to care about both.

what can we do? what did women do?
Campaign, talk to MPs, get the message out there.

I, and a group of feminist friends, used to spend IWD tweeting resources, statistics etc relevant to women's issues.
Then we added similar for International Men's Day. We got a few men involved, but for the most part it was ignored or belittled. So last year i just stopped because - well i direct my energy towards women's rights.

But what i have noticed is that a lot of men expect these things to just happen spontaneiously. But they don't. What you are doing in your school, @Creepybookworm should be happening everywhere. I hope it sows seeds of success.

I absolutely care about both women and men.Rough sleepers are mainly men ( but not only) Hopefully it won’t ever come to it (please God ) but who will be sent to fight first if military conscription was ever to happen? ( again touch wood and praying it never happens)

I do think it’s harder for women to care when middle aged men aren’t getting stuck in to fix problems.

@Parsleyforme- your brother is a middle aged man, the group with the most power, influence and authority in our society. If he’s just whinging and not making any effort to fix this, then I don’t think it’s terrible for you not to care.

It does feel like this generation of middle aged men are pretty useless- previous generations created social spaces for men. Younger generations have rejected those, but not bothered to replace them and then are now sad they are lonely. Well of course. Your dad’s generation went to the pub/working man’s club/masonic hall/golf club/football etc for the social interaction. You want to spend your leisure time in the gym solo or on a bike ride or run, and you would rather have a glass of wine with dinner at home than in the pub immediately after work - and you’d rather WFH than commute into the office 5 days a week? Ok but then you need to create a new social space to replace what you’ve given up and no you can’t expect a group of women to do it for you.

oh the poor menz, starting all those wars and then making other men fight them....

it isn't as though a) women don't get killed in wars they aren't even combatants in and b) aren'T already in the military (with all the issues that brings)

Rough sleeping is a massive problem. Not helped when people book hotels for them and they are turned away for being rough sleepers. We need to do something about that.

@Brefugee The men who ( hopefully never) would be sent aren’t the men that that started the wars anymore than you or I are bloody Mary or Margaret Thatcher. Those very men in charge have often been democratically elected by both men and women.

I agree with those saying of course they care but they don’t see it as their problem to solve.

I think we can acknowledge a problem and ensure we are not part of making it a problem without taking in the burden of fixing it.

im a carer to my disabled child. Everyone says they care about the disabled but I don’t generally see people campaigning on their access to education etc unless it affects their families directly. It’s just expected the women quit work to care, it’s just expected the women keep the kids if/when the dad thinks this is too hard and funks off. Dad doesn’t turn up to meetings and not a problem mother doesn’t turn up then that’s cause for safeguarding referrals.

my ex who sees his son about every 8 weeks (his own choice!) will moan how hard it is to care for a disabled child. In meetings (when he bothers to attend) about how to support this child half of it will be taken up with ex needing that validation. If I ever make a comment about how hard it is I’m told it’s my responsibility as a parent. I get most of my support and understanding from other women/mothers who can come out with relatable stories when I say we didn’t get to xyz in the meeting because ex dominated moaning how hard his one overnight bimonthly is for him!

men leave long term sick partners at high enough rates it’s part of the training for cancer nurses. Women do not leave their vulnerable or terminal partners like this.

so yes I care about males. My disabled child is male. But I’ve not missed the fact almost all the care staff and support he receives is from women unpaid or low paid. This pattern plays out in most of the families I know.

I won’t make it worse for men. If course I believe we are all equal. But women are already having to support each other, children, elderly relatives and disabled relatives at much much higher rates than the men. With less money, less free time and less physical strength. Men can and should address this issue themselves women have enough to be getting on with

@Brefugee and yes homelessness is a huge tragedy and ime single men are the ones most likely to be sleeping outside.

Yes and no
I work with the homeless services very closely and usually the reasons for them being outside our alcohol and drug related. If anybody new is spotted and they are very quickly, within 24 hours by the local police and homeless services, they can be sorted out and it can be arranged so that they never spend a second night outside
But obviously there are boundaries surrounding that no drink no drugs no Violence and that’s simply beyond a great deal of them for whatever reason reasons.

Stupid comment. Its rich old men (voted in by both men and women) who start the wars and young men - often too young to have even had a say in who is gets to decide on those wars - who are sent to fight them.

Yes I think the no second night on the street is an excellent idea as more than that and people obviously often end up drinking and taking drugs and going generally down hill. Wouldn’t we all ? If there’s only limited emergency places available and both men and women in similar situations needing them I imagine women are sheltered first ? As they would be generally more vulnerable ?

Or nearly every social media platform.
Or any women’s social media page that is talking about being happily single / being a feminist or just existing.
Or any of the many many popular podcast set up entirely to produce hate against women.
Or the many famous public speakers who make their entire career out of being utterly vile about women.

Yeah it’s the angry women on Mumsnet that are causing societal degradation.

I wasn’t planning on to, everyone knows that’s a fringe site though. You expect it

No, not at all because most women will not allow the first night to happen
They will reach out before it gets to that point and this is a game what we find a lot
The men wait for the emergency services to find them and the women are proactive If all things are equal, i.e. no drugs and alcohol or violence

But homeless women are more vulnerable without a shadow with a doubt the only murderer of a homeless person we’ve ever had in the West Midlands was a pregnant female during the pandemic.

Thats fine, as long as you don't expect men to care about womens problems.

Pitting the sexes against each other is stupid and not helpful for anyone. Well done OP.

Even men don’t care about men, if they did they would do what women have done for each other and create support group, charities and set up initiatives which help vulnerable or needy men, help and support other men and young boys, promote independence and self improvement, give young boys good role models to look up to, call out bad behaviour etc. They only bleat on about male issues to blame women and detract from our problems, which are by and large caused by them.

They don’t do a single thing to actually help each other, they blame women for their own awful behaviour and expect us to cater to them and fix their so called problems, which are pretty much all caused by the patriarchy anyway, the main one being they’re losing their male privilege.

So no, I don’t care about men at all.

Well, they haven’t for the last 500 years so I’m sure we’ll manage

Right so you never get any men asking for help as soon as they are made homeless?

Yes they are more vulnerable generally and should be absolutely sheltered to protect them . I would wager though that that means that men come second when there is limited space and are more likely to end up spending more than one night outside with all that entails in the possible spiral downhill

Problem with that is in my experience- most men only care about women’s problems enough to make any sort of effort to fix it, when they personally are effected or they think it will benefit them (eg politicians).

Yet women are expected to not just be aware of men’s issues but do something about it. Men need to fix their own problems, mainly because they created them in the first place.

I can only speak for our district council, but no if we find them they are offered help. There isn’t a limit to the support that’s available. Most nights of the week we have a surplus of spaces rather than turning anybody away.

Providing they follow the rules behave themselves and reach out before it shuts. Again all down to them taking personal responsibility for their situation. Which is where it falls apart.

Even then the police have been known to go out and collected sleeping bags from their own homes to give to these men to keep them warm and dry.