Philip Zimbardo (hat tip to William for linking it), who also did the Stanford Prison Experiment, has a TED talk about the demise of guys: decreases in educational achievement and increases in social awkwardness. He ends up blaming it a lot on porn, the Internet and video games, which I think is a simplistic solution. After all, people may retreat into video games and the Internet as a consequence of decreased educational achievement and increased social awkwardness; it’s not a one-way thing. However, I do think the video is interesting to watch, if for nothing else than his interesting presentation of the facts.
Alas a Blog and Fathers and Families cover California’s Alternative Custody Program, which allows non-violent offenders who are the primary caregivers of children to live at home wearing an ankle monitor. However, despite gender-neutral language in the legislation, it is currently only implemented for women. Yes, really.
The Internal Acceptance Movement, a Tumblr devoted to good body image and self-acceptance, has a rant about unrealistic standards men face to get laid by large numbers of women. My favorite line: “If I have a son someday, I would rather he be intelligent, kind, thoughtful, independent, creative, interesting, funny, insightful—a million things, before fuckable and desirable in bed.”
Danny begins a Gender Symmetry Checklist. It’s a good start to understanding how gender roles hurt everyone.
Holly Pervocracy (a NSWATM contributor) continues to have one of the awesomest blogs I’ve ever read. Most on-topic for NSWATM is her post about false rape accusations sorts out some of the problems that cloud the issue of rape accusations. Also, her Cosmocking this month contains Cosmo’s brain-breakingly awesome statement that slut-shaming is for skanks.
The New York Times says that same-sex schooling hurts everyone. Turns out, once again, men and women are far more similar than they are different. In fact, same-sex schooling actually increases the amount of gender-stereotypical behavior for both genders.
Former NSWATM contributor/dude who has distanced himself from us, GodlessAltruist, has started a Masculism reddit. It already has linked me to some great content: Rise of the Zeta Male’s review of a book about abused men; a petition to the White House to ban routine non-therapeutic infant circumcision; a news story about the Republican debate crowd that booed a gay soldier.
And, finally, the Samuel L Ipsum generator. Whoever made this should get over here and marry me.
Ozy:
I am not saying romantic relationships aren’t important. I’m saying it’s silly to base your self-worth on whether you’re desirable because a large portion of whether you’re desirable is whether you’ve happened to meet the people who desire you.
I’m understanding you but I think this is the (probably irreconcilably different for me) part where I get tripped up. I know you don’t mean any ill will when you call it “silly” but to me that’s just what it sounds like. I suppose I’m best off just leaving this topic as it.
@Danny, And I really mean that speaking as a person who is very unsuccessful in sex and romance. As for the comparison to the blackjack player things like that sound, again, like the person that’s “loved and lost” telling the person whose “never loved” at all that sex/romance aren’t that big of a deal. There is always luck involved in dating, unless 100% of the population you are into desires you. Let’s say that Chris is desired by 10% of the population they desire, while Pat is desired by 1% of the population they are into. Both of them require… Read more »
Hmm, I think you misunderstand me, Danny. Relationships are incredibly important and romantic relationships can be one of the greatest joys and sources of meaning in life. It is not fair that people are deprived of relationships, sometimes for their whole lives. …and, at the same time, a lot of how romantic relationships form is luck. I’m not more attractive now than I was this time last year, but last year I was single and this year I have four partners. Why? A bunch of random coincidences. Happening to room with so-and-so, happening to go to a particular party, happening… Read more »
Ozy: I understand that a lot of people here don’t find the idea of self-acceptance resonanting with them, and that’s okay. However, there are other people who find the idea of self-acceptance (though I usually frame it as self-love and self-compassion, I presume we’re getting at the same ideas) incredibly healing, including me, and I don’t think it’s right to erase those people either. For me, self-acceptance is a radical act. I’m genderqueer, I’m pansexual, I’m crazy, I’m socially awkward, I’m bony, I’m radically gender egalitarian, and those things are okay. They are a part of me. No matter what… Read more »
add r/masculism to the reddits list while you’re at it…
I think that lack of self-love is a result of lack of “romantic/sexual” external love, much more often than the other way around.
As a young teenager I didn’t love myself less than any of my classmates loved dthemselves. If anything I was maybe just a little bit more wary about other peoples’ feelings.
And I’ve seen more than enough of dysfunctional and/or self-hating people having loving and caring partners, families and friends to know to know that you absolutely nont have to love yourself to be loved by others.
I don’t actually disagree with anything Hugh Ristik has posted here. I think that it took Internal Acceptance for him to be able to have the insights he had into himself and his situation, and make the changes he did. But that Internal Acceptance is only maybe visible against what it would mean to lack it, an experience I hope he never had. Probably “try to get yourself to Internal Acceptance” is not actionable advice, in the way we usually think of actionable advice. “Don’t treat people in such a way that could reinforce their tendencies to self-hatred” is, on… Read more »
People seek acceptance and confitmation in fields they are not so good/secure at. One can derive it from strong sides up to a certain point. Metaphoricaly: if you use one well too much, it drys out one day and you get ony mud and sand instead of clean water. From my experience: I started to hate compliments about my intelect.
@humbition Internal Acceptance means accepting the person who you are, who feels those things — and accepting, in fact, a lot of validity to those feelings, in terms of the real situations to which they apply. But who are you, in the first place? If my younger version had to tried to “accept who he was,” then he would have accepted a lot of insecure, limiting, and resentful notions that he thought were essential to himself. Personally, I think people’s self-concepts are highly influenced by other people’s perceptions, so I am worried that “accepting who you are” would lead many… Read more »
@humbition Well, there is a toxic way that self-help is sometimes presented in this society, and it is very common, and it goes like this. “If you work real, real hard on yourself you can stop being the defective type of person that you are.” I agree that this is a toxic attitude. But the flipside is also toxic: “if you work on yourself, it means admitting that something is defective about yourself.” Personally, I believe that I’m an awesome person now, and I believe that I was awesome even before I started learning social skills. In the past, I… Read more »
I agree with many of the criticisms of the IAM post. In my view, sex and relationships are sort of like money: – Some people can cope just fine without any of them – Having more of them isn’t always better – Being able to have a certain amount of them is necessary for decent quality of life for most people So the IAM post sounds a bit like saying: If I have a son someday, I would rather he be intelligent, kind, thoughtful, independent, creative, interesting, funny, insightful—a million things, before being good at making money That seems like… Read more »
humbition: as I said to Ozy, I think I see what you wanted to say, and it is a kind thing, I agree that self acceptance is important, and may very well help a lot of people. However, the way you wrote your rant pressed several big red buttons for me because: 1)You assumed men looking for sex and relationships are doing it to “up their score” rather then because they want to feel loved, or are looking for long term nice people whom they can *also* have sex with. This links to the meme that “men are trolls” because… Read more »
What Ozy said.
I do want to be clear that I wasn’t opposed to the idea that being interesting/intelligent/creative/etc. is better than being fuckable, if those were somehow mutually exclusive. It’s just, they’re not; they’re actually very closely tied to each other. Casting them in opposition just isn’t accurate.
Lol, Yep. 🙂
Are you answering my question with a question? 😉
Nope, but are you saying it only comes from within?
Are you arguing that “better” is only a judgement that can come from outside rather than inside?
But I think once we determine this – it is no failure to cast away the pieces of ourself that we don’t want, and strive for a better version of ourselves.(Darque)
Im curious, if it is only you judging how do you know its better?
I understand that a lot of people here don’t find the idea of self-acceptance resonanting with them, and that’s okay. However, there are other people who find the idea of self-acceptance (though I usually frame it as self-love and self-compassion, I presume we’re getting at the same ideas) incredibly healing, including me, and I don’t think it’s right to erase those people either. For me, self-acceptance is a radical act. I’m genderqueer, I’m pansexual, I’m crazy, I’m socially awkward, I’m bony, I’m radically gender egalitarian, and those things are okay. They are a part of me. No matter what our… Read more »
Self acceptance is overrated. It’s an abdication of personal choice and responsability when the going gets tough. Harder than self-acceptance, and more rewarding, is working hard at the kind of internal and external change we need to become who we want to become. Naturally, we should be very critical of our vision of “ideal” self, and determine if it is really what we want. But I think once we determine this – it is no failure to cast away the pieces of ourself that we don’t want, and strive for a better version of ourselves. A life without love, for… Read more »
humbition: Internal Acceptance means accepting the person who you are, who feels those things — and accepting, in fact, a lot of validity to those feelings, in terms of the real situations to which they apply.
Frankly, this is just gibberish. Get some sleep.
JM, of course, it’s something. It is special and worthwhile. I would be a hypocrite to say otherwise. As are many other things in life. Such as a tenure-track position in an academic field of choice. Not everyone who is scholarly, and intelligent, and contributes to learning, gets one of those. Some continue to contribute, even though there are those who treat them as lesser. It’s not that I don’t value romantic/ sexual love. I value and appreciate it. It’s that I don’t think it’s right to consider it to make up my own value. But then I am part… Read more »
humbition (again): I cannot speak for anybody’s else’s experience, but what you said matches what I lived. To name just one aspect of it: the authority figures in my youth promised overwhelming social violence over “harassment,” without ever clearly delineating what constituted harassment or not, and never so much as describing a single example of an appropriate romantic or sexual display. At the same time that it was clear that “harassment” was only something that boys could do to girls, they were telling us that boys and girls were “equal” (isn’t that a mind fuck?) So young me figured that,… Read more »
humbition: I guess I had always been taught that sexual/romantic love was something… I don’t know, special. Like it was something more than the sum of the friendship part and the sexual/romantic part. If it’s not, as I (probably wrongly?) think you are implying, I guess I could eventually learn to live with that, though part of me can’t help but feel it’s a damn shame.
Miseducation, and thanks typhonblue for the perspective, though she is not at fault for the use I make of it: Sexually, our culture teaches that men should be agentive. Men are considered agentive by default, but also the sexual culture seems to desire men to be hyper-agentive. Non-sexually, our culture’s image of “good,” particularly for subordinate and young people, is anti-agentive. “Good” not just for women means going along with the teacher, the supervisor, the company, the boss. We still run our education according to the old industrial model to make good assembly line workers, never mind the loss of… Read more »