If young men want ‘traditional’ gender roles, we need to know why - Kathleen Stock

[IwantToRetire]

Gen Z women and men are growing further apart in their political outlook and aspirations. It is vital the root causes are understood so we can all find common ground

Afew months ago, alongside other proud parents, I sat watching my teenager’s GCSE drama class showcase: a dozen short plays, devised and performed with gusto by small groups of pupils. In terms of theme, there was a definite attraction to the darker side of life; indeed, in nearly every play there was a hair-raising death. Another repetitive strand — at least, in pieces written partly or wholly by the girls — was the shoddiness of men’s behaviour.

One character struggled to find the kettle after his wife had died, having never used it before; another was violent to his family; and what viewer could forget the fiendish theatre manager, forcing dancers to take stimulants so that they could work longer hours? Worst of all, though, was the policeman who was also a serial killer, dramatically strangling his detective wife on stage after she discovered he was the culprit. There were also quite a few impassioned speeches about the prevalence of patriarchy and misogyny in society.

At the final curtain, I looked around at the mild-mannered, supportive fathers in the audience, many of whom had cut work short to be there. What could these men have done to their children, I wondered. Or, more seriously: was it possible to give young women today some awareness of male violence without causing them to write all men off?

Full article at https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/if-young-men-want-a-return-to-traditional-gender-roles-we-need-to-know-why-g3pnmfj56

I disagree with nearly everything she said, but agree this is something that more people need to be talking about.

Or I suspect, as it has always been, women will have to adjust their lives to accommodate intransigent men and boys.

Can be read at https://archive.ph/gGXMV

There is an issue with the way men are portrayed in the media at the moment I think, there are very few representations of "good" men.

When I became a Dad, it really started to bother me how fathers are shown, particularly in TV that kids are likely to watch. We're the Homer Simpsons, the Daddy Pigs, the loveable oafs who are completely incapable of being competent. And that's when we're not completely absent.

I've been watching "Fool Me Once" on Netflix recently, and while I didn't think much of it, one thing that really surprised me was its depictions of fatherhood. One side character in particular is just a really god Dad. He's not perfect. He's grieving, drinking a bit too much, and so makes mistakes, but he's really really trying. And it stood out to me so much because its just so so rare to see at the moment.

It's obviously not women's problem to fix, because largely women still aren't in charge of our film or TV industries, but its a huge part of our culture, and I think it's at least part of the reason that young men are feeling lost at the moment. Because men on TV are either the big action star, the superhero, the rock, or they're the loser the buffoon, the deadbeat. There's no middle ground.

My own son is awful and obviously if I were stupid enough to start a thread about him, I'd be blamed. But I never modelled anything except respect, communication, warmth, support, understanding et cetera. His anger when I tried to limit his gaming shocked me. His entitlement to intimidate me and make demands in the home where I pay for everything shocks me. He has witnessed a single mother work hard as an employee, provide, support and parent. His absolute contempt for me shocks me and I don't know where it comes from. Inside him? from the internet? It's all so weird. I wonder what he'd be like if he'd been raised in the 80s before the internet. (he doesn't live with me anymore).

Some years ago (and it must be getting into decades) when the internet certainly wasn't common but home computing was, I had an acquaitance with a woman through work and was horrified when she broke down in tears.

It turned out she was having virutally the same issues as described by @HappyEDT

Her daily life was a nightmare, and I then got to know other single mothers who had really difficult relationships with their son(s). (Not all but what seemed a majority)

I sort of explained it (to myself) that one of the problems was that even though relatively recent, single mothers were seen as not socially acceptable or in some way a failure. And the sons were embarrased to be a single mother family. Whether they were teased at school or resentful because their father(s) had abandoned them or something else I dont know. But it wasn't the internet.

So again whether men / boys understand expectations as something they are entitled to but women / girls learn early that you have to work (including housework) to earn things.

A bit like the often referred to reason why having introduced course work to be taken into account for exam results, it was taken out because too many young women were getting top marks, an young men were no longer the high achievers. ie women learn early that you cant just wing it at the last moment, but have to plan, put things in place, because if you dont no one else (except maybe your mum) is going to do it.

And even now it seems that women are being told, by KS in my reading of her article, should tone down what they want and can do, because men take it as them being told they cant.

It is a very strange and seems to be a deeply entrenched response going back decades if not centuries. Men / boys seem threatened by women suceeding, whereas women accept that men and boys can suceed and think maybe I could as well.

Why is that?

And just to add of course you or anyone can start a thread about having a terrible relationship with your son. I dont think anyone of FWR would blame you. Anymore that they blame mothers who post on here about their child/ren claiming they are trans.

I think you will find it is not uncommon.

And not of course in anyway suggesting this is the case here, but in fact there is an increasing number of DV cased that are a son abusing their mother.

I actually really liked this article. I am not sure whether or not I agreed with it fully, but as a mum of a boy (like Kathleen stock herself), I did welcome the discussion.

I think that it is true that female liberal perspectives are automatically assumed to be "good" in many elite spaces at the moment - I imagine that KS is also referencing the trans debate in this one (where "be kind" seems to trump rational behaviour) whereas a male conservative perspective would be considered somehow unfeeling or inferior. It's helpful to point out that neither are necessarily based in objective truth and might be grounded in feelings or psychology.

And that the liberal female point of view SOMETIMES throws the baby out of the bath water (dismissal of marriage in some quarters being quite a big one - yes, totally fine to dismiss it offhand as patriarchal and outdated, but it remains the best practical way for many women to ensure that their kids remain provided for if their relationship breaks down and still seems to produce better outcomes for children, unfashionable as that might be - if you are wealthy enough for it not to matter for you or someone for whom it would be less of an advantage, of course do what you like, but for women who intend to have kids as a class, it's currently a plus)

I don't think that what KS is saying is that we need to assume men are right to gripe and women need to sort men out, but rather that we (as a society, men and women) shouldn't label men who are struggling with their identity "emotional and angry" and dismiss them. Women, after all, have had to deal with being called "hysterical" for having an opinion and we all know how that feels!!

I think that there is a generation of young(ish) men who have seen traditional fatherhood modelled to them (or not at all) and so are struggling to understand what their role might be. Many of the dads in popular culture are oafish and less capable than their female counterparts but are the providers - strip away the provider bit and honestly they really are not that appealing. Young men know this but they don't know what they are supposed to be. I don't think that KS is saying that we females should centre them or weep for them, but that society needs to find a better way of discussing and modelling what good positive manhood looks like.

I think it is to do with power and hierarchies. As women progress their reliance on men is lessening to the point where men are facing a huge crisis of identity. Before a man’s status was always based on his place in the hierarchy. A growing son with an absent father may challenge the mother through dominance to take his ‘rightful’ place in the domestic setting, filling the shoes of the father. For a young man, the instinct to do this (and I do believe that competition in men is instinctive whereas in women it is more choice driven) must feel confusing and mixed with testosterone and will lead to emotional outbursts.

I have been mulling over whether the feminist view that the patriarchy exists to subjugate women to the benefit of men is at all correct. It sounds very conspiratorial. The patriarch evolved as the most effective way of making society operate and function, hence the roles we all were supposed to fit into. Now that the patriarch has delivered success on many levels (despite its unfairness, exploitation and destruction it has served to provide us with modern day capitalism that has taken more people out of poverty globally than any other system and has effectively led to women’s liberation) we face new challenges and these challenges require a new order, perhaps an order that is more collaborative and not as competitive. We no longer rely on muscle power to build and cultivate the world we live in. Women are no longer tied and oppressed through their biology. It seems to me that women are grabbing the bull by the horns and are exceeding even their own expectations whereas men are feeling inadequate on many levels compared to their forefathers, who automatically had respect and power afforded to them just for being male.

The patriarch evolved as the most effective way of making society operate and function, hence the roles we all were supposed to fit into.

Are you kidding?

Effective?

Its because the patriarchy is such a hoplessly ineffective system as it doesn't benefit society as a whole that we are now in the mess we are in.

And if anything has made men the problem they now are.

We dont need this sort of MRA narrative as being presented as natural, and it is this narrative that has made (some) men so useless.

The biggest outcome of the WLM was the male backlash.

Women niavely thought men would see that women wanted changed and would join in and find ways to be part of the change.

But they didn't. They stuck their heels in and refused to make any real accommodation of treating women as equal.

Since the backlash in fact most surveys find that men are if not at least as sexist as they always were are now worse, and women are now trapped into being not only econimical independent but also still expected to do all the work at home. And men just dont notice.

And if anything it seems that violence against women has got worse, not only in the home, but condoned and celebrated in culture. And spread via the internet

So Andrew Tate as a role model and the increase in incel culture epitimises men putting their foot down, going all sulky and saying no we aren't going to play by your rules.

Its a clear message that women involved in WLM were hopelessly optimistic that men would willing help bring about equality whether in the home, at work or in social norms.

What are other people’s thoughts about this phenomenon contributing to the declining birth rate. To me it seems obvious that a factor in women not bearing as many children on average is connected to the fact that there is a disconnect in the expectations of many men for what to expect in a relationship with the expectations many women now have.

In essence - the disparity and negative toll on women is so bad over a whole population that women are saying that it’s better to not be part of it at all and as a result fewer children are produced.

My personal experience is of a relationship with a man who shares the load equally. But I know many women, some friends and family included, are not in that position at all. One friend is so disillusioned with her saying and relationship experience she has decided to pack it in.

I’m not saying this is the whole reason for the birth rate declining, just a piece of the puzzle.

@IwantToRetire

Hmm, the claim that domestic violence is worse than it has ever been really isn't borne out in fact. Of course, there are fewer barriers to reporting than there once were (my own grandmother stayed in a relationship because there was nowhere to go and there was no question of her reporting her husband to the police), but this really isn't true.

And @IwantToRetire, can you point to these surveys that say "men are as sexist as they once were"? This seems totally implausible to me, frankly - just taking as one example, 75 years ago many men truly believed women couldn't and shouldn't run marathons.

Yes, there are lots of problems in the world, but I don't think this kind of hyperbole does us many favours

you have certainly read a lot into my post which I don’t think was particularly controversial or extreme.

it’s a bit sad if you throw around Tate and MRA accusations just because someone looks at the world differently to you.

quite immature actually

Reading this thread I get the impression that a number of women think men should be remodeled and remade into a version that women think they want. What about what men want? As the two sexes, it's always going to be a dance between us of compromise as noone is perfect and what women and men want can be quite different. Also, a huge reason for the disruption of sex roles in society is not just down to the rise of Feminism, but fundamental changes in the economy. While jobs that many working men did (and most women didn't want to do) such as mining, heavy manufacturing and ship building have steeply declined, white collar, educational and medical jobs have all increased in a service economy, which tend to more attractive to women at a time that women have been entering the workforce and gaining higher education.

However, what women find sexually attractive in men hasn't massively changed, they still want physically fit, independent, ambitious, kind and generous men who can provide. Women don't generally find men who are very similar to themselves as sexually attractive. It's those women and men that reproduce that will form the future society and it's now those who are most liberal that are the least likely to have kids. I think the patterns of human behavior that produce the most kids will continue, whatever the philosophy and theories we hold. I still see religious and more traditional family structures around me as being the most stable with larger numbers of kids. If we can't find a way to remake the family in a way that appeals to men and women, then people will stick with what has worked (with all it's imperfections). Obviously if very egalitarian couples only have 1 kid (or none) while a religious couple has 3 or 4, the future is much more likely to be socially conservative.

@IwantToRetire is literally going to be having a meltdown after that @Queenmaker.

@IwantToRetire

And also "made men the problem they now are"? Women have had years of oppression, but this is extremely unhelpful rhetoric, frankly. Yes, men as a class are the violent ones and there are many negatives to living in a world build by men for men.

BUT, we should also admit that some of the structures of society originally aimed to protect women (from men and, more negatively and unforgivably, from perceived female limitations). Many women did and do want to be able to stay at home to raise children - part of the gender pay gap is accounted for by the fact that many women do WANT this. True choice would be to allow them to do it or to drop back and to come back to a career without too great a penalty rather than only offering them "working just like a man" as the only option. And to celebrate men doing it too.

I do feel that some of the talk of absolute equality has done a disservice to both sexes. It has perpetuated a bit of a myth that women can have it all - as Laura Trott said very recently, you definitely can have a career and a family, but you have to be comfortable with the level of sacrifice in both spheres (time with kids vs time working - it does not make you a bad mum for wanting to work full time - different women will weight and balance the need to be with their kids differently and that is ok, but of course working full time will likely mean less time with your kids!). This has lead, of late, to a really negative discussion around motherhood led by those who really truly believed it - look at motherland, hilarious, yes, but also, frankly fucking off-putting. And on here, being a SAHM is often derided even apart from the (very reasonable) discussion of the question of women potentially being economically exposed, with comments about SAHMs being uninteresting drudges, basically. Speaking as a magic circle corporate lawyer, I wish I had listened less to the career stuff and had my kids in my late twenties rather than early thirties - would have been the death knell to my career, but what a blessed relief to be part of a unit that isn't just about you all the fucking time and to make the most of the energy I had at that point in my life - I'm not supposed to say this, though, as it is bad feminism :)

Women are of course totally capable of being equal to their male counterparts, but this doesn't mean that they are necessarily absolutely the same or should be. Maybe, creating a world in which we have to pretend that we are (because saying that they are not has generally been used to suppress women) is hindering progress, in terms of celebrating some more "female" characteristics (eg discussing the positives of risk aversion to boards, to conflict resolution processes etc) and in creating space to celebrate and understand difference, and to discuss maleness in a more nuanced way than simply "patriarchy - bad". I know that my husband operates under different domestic and social expectations than I do, which can be irritating, but I also know that if one of had to die he would sacrifice himself for me and our kids without a second thought.

Male-dominated society is not just about violence keeping women down, it is also about the reality of living in a pre-contraception world in which, frankly, women's biology kept them very busy and often shortened their healthy lives. Women in the west don't live in that world any more - that should be of benefit to women and men. Why does it have to come at men's expense? Why can't we discuss this more positively?

@Dargawn 😁

@BritishBeatleMania

I agree with this. But also, as I have said below, I actually think that some of the expectations women have been sold have been a bit unrealistic, hence the backlash.

👏

*So again whether men / boys understand expectations as something they are entitled to but women / girls learn early that you have to work (including housework) to earn things.

A bit like the often referred to reason why having introduced course work to be taken into account for exam results, it was taken out because too many young women were getting top marks, an young men were no longer the high achievers. ie women learn early that you cant just wing it at the last moment, but have to plan, put things in place, because if you dont no one else (except maybe your mum) is going to do it.*

The counterpoint is that no-one could ever get a good mark in a traditional exam (O-levels, pre-reform A-levels) without a relatively deep-seated subject understanding, which would require study and work. So “winging it” just doesn’t cut it as a performance explanation, and framing it in these terms shows some significant biases.

One of the general drivers over the introduction of coursework was that it had a role as a participation award, designed to reward children who were compliant and agreeable, to compensate for lack of ability, to allow anyone taking part to get some kind of grade (versus, for instance, an O level). Is this a good idea? That’s a complex question, but it’s important not to treat educational theory and practice as a neutral phenomenon.

quite immature actually

Says someone who cant be bothered to answer the points.

You keep going on as though everyone is talking about equality.

I keep talking about change.

That is the issue. Women realised through the pill as much as women's liberation that they could lead a different live.

But they made no effort to change.

As to violence against women, it is not only happening in the home and on the streets but celebrated and spread by both main stream and social media.

The grossly graphic images that are distributed via the internet and in many instances targetted at individual women.

Yes men have always been violend that's why claiming the patriarchy was sucessful is just nonsense. Next think you'll be saying that colonialism was a sucessful system because it brought railways to India whilst ignoring the far larger societal damage of exploitation, racism and supression.

ie men had the opportuniey in the 70s and 80s to actively work with women to change society. But they didn't they reacted negatively and we headed into the era of macho culture celebrated by movies, music and so on.

Just to repeat - men had the opportunity to actively think about change they might want but they just didn't.

They sat back whilst women went out to work and expected them to come home and still do all the domestic chores. (Anyone interested can easily find by searching the internet for surveys that show women still do the majority of the work in the home.)

There used to be Men Against Sexism Groups, where is there anything like that today. In liberal circles many white people will actively engage in thinking about their racism. But ask any group of liberal men to think about their sexism and they will just not acknowledge there is a problem.

Not sure I'm totally sold on this coursework suiting girls/sudden death exams suiting boys more....I am elderly and took my 11+ in the 1950s. Girls were, even then, excelling boys in the exam to the point where they required a higher mark to be accepted into grammar school so that the boy/girl ratio in those schools remained roughly 50/50 as oppposed to 60/40 ish. A quick google will confirm the accuracy of what I am saying.

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2024/feb/01/gen-z-boys-and-men-more-likely-than-baby-boomers-to-believe-feminism-harmful-says-poll

Yes I have heard this too about the 11+, that although intended to provide opportunity it was also manipulated.

The change to course work was more recent https://www.theguardian.com/education/2009/aug/27/maths-gcse-coursework-dropped

Sorry should have added to last post, all these are generalisation and not applicable to everybody.

For instance (and yes I am a female) I "winged" it through most of my exams, and only to aware that as an individual I did / do not have the discipline to do preparatory or course work.

But have found out all to often that out in the real world this is a disadvantage, but as some of us probably know from workplaces, this often doesn't hinder some men from getting ahead.

There’s quite a bit of academic research to support your view; exams have always benefitted children who are perceived as lower achieving, but could show their abilities through (relatively) objective measurement. In the nineteenth century the performance of girls in the College of Preceptors exams played an important role in shaping perceptions of female academic ability. The same was true of Britons from ethnic minorities in the twentieth century.

I suspect that relative performance between the sexes in exams now probably has no relation to “sudden death” performance, more to other factors.

What is missing from this discussion is a reality check on what humans are.

Pretty much all anthropologists and biologists conclude that at least 50 percent of men would be rejected by women who don't see them as good partners and wouldn't have sex with them, in history and in traditional societies.

That's not a good situation because it will cause war among the men as they compete for women.

We all have far more female ancestors than male because so many men didn't reproduce. Men will go to war for other thigs too of course.

So what I'm saying is that the traditional set up is great for men, and marriage is encouraged to tame men into being less violent, and trap women into domisticity so they are too busy to have other men while making life more cushy for the husband.

Jordon Peterson talks about this and said he concludes that he doesn't see a better way for society to be run than the traditional family because if women rejected the massive amounts of undesirable men, the rejected would cause terrible trouble. It's better if that substandard man has a woman. But what about the woman?

Aggression and violence are natural drives, much more pronounced in males. Amazing we don't properly acknowledge this.

Historical social studies have shown that monogamous societies are the most stable and most productive.
Younger societies are more violent, which isn't so surprising as you have comparatively more young men. It's another reason to explain the harshness or earlier societies.

If that theory is true, then it will only be solved by a few generations of strict female mate choice. If men who can't find any women who want to reproduce their genes are simply issued a woman anyway against her wishes, that society will continue to have men who can't find any women that want to reproduce with them, forever, and will have to keep forcing women to have sex with those undesirable men, forever.