Teachers describe a deterioration in behaviour and attitudes that has proved to be fertile terrain for misogynistic influencers
“As soon as I mention feminism, you can feel the shift in the room; they’re shuffling in their seats.” Mike Nicholson holds workshops with teenage boys about the challenges of impending manhood. Standing up for the sisterhood, it seems, is the last thing on their minds.
When Nicholson says he is a feminist himself, “I can see them look at me, like, ‘I used to like you.’”
Once Nicholson, whose programme is called Progressive Masculinity, unpacks the fact that feminism means equal rights and opportunities for women, many of the boys with whom he works are won over.
“A lot of it is bred from misunderstanding and how the word is smeared,” he says.
But he is battling against what he calls a “dominance-based model” of masculinity. “These old-fashioned, regressive ideas are having a renaissance, through your masculinity influencers – your grifters, like Andrew Tate.”
I’ve always felt like these things are cyclical in a way - just in that people are constantly rebelling against the last generation.
When I went to high school in the early 2010s there was this huge movement of like… positivity and sunshine and wellness and feminism and good times for all. Bob Ross was on everyone’s mind and Pharrell’s “Happy” blasted on the stereo, people wore really bright and mismatched and often gaudy outfits.
This was seemingly “in response” to that mid 2000s emo/grunge/depressed aesthetic which was very dark and moody. And now, in response to that 2010s positivity we seem to get this really jaded, “actually, feminism sucks and becoming a ‘trad catholic’ is chic” movement.
It’s annoying, and I’m sure we’ll see an opposite shift again in 5 years.
Jeez, you must have gone to high school in a rich neighborhood
For most people 2009-2015 or so was an impoverished hellhole. Everyone was recovering from the great recession. Societal outlook was fucking BLEAK.
I did not. You can have poor economic conditions but still a cultural zeitgeist focused more on positivity, inclusion, and “wellness” than usual
Not saying it’s impossible, but I’ve never seen it
How many schools did you sample to come to this conclusion?
I actually agree… We simply ignore the needs of men who are suffering. When was the last time you read a story about a male domestic abuse victim who WASN’T laughed at.
Well, the male domestic abuse victim is probably laughed at, because he is the strong powerful man and should therefore not be able to get abused by the weak woman. The same for male rape victims: man like sex and always want sex and therefore they can’t be raped, because they like it. These stereotypes are a problem and feminism is trying to get rid of them. It will take some time to redefine the societal picture of man and woman.
These stereotypes are a problem and feminism is trying to get rid of them.
Are they though? I’ve never seen any evidence of feminists reining in their fellow feminists
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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/apr/15/gender.politicsphilosophyandsociety
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https://scholarship.law.cornell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2552&context=clr;We
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https://www.feministcurrent.com/2021/07/26/radical-feminism-has-a-humanity-problem/
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https://jacobin.com/2017/07/radical-feminism-second-wave-class
I’m not saying this is representative, mind you, only that criticism of feminists by other feminists (notably for employing damaging stereotypes) is out there if you actually look for it.
I see this on my school campus quite a lot. When the male teachers direct students from using an exterior door, they usually just say ok and then around. When the female teachers are on duty and day the same things, they get verbally abused. If I’m out there with the female teachers, there aren’t any issues.
Sadly, this is even an issue at university. As a lecture assistant I will just get ignored or not taken seriously by some groups of young male students. They will talk loudly, ignore my request to not talk during lecture or exercise. My male colleagues don’t have such issues and it angers me more each year…
So Andrew Tate is a human trafficker scum of the earth, and we are trying to combat his message. That’s alright, I agree, he’s not a disease but a symptom.
Tate is taking an existing problem, which is the fact that young boys feel left out by society at large with feminism being mainstream. Don’t get me wrong, go and empower women, but when boys have “a growing sense that somehow they must be mistreated and hated because they are boys and men” and “some can feel they are being stereotyped, or blamed for others’ actions”, and things like “My son is reluctant to go to school due to bullying by a group of girls, he feels that there is a big power difference in schools, where boys are always punished, not listened to, and not believed.” happen, then that’s a problem separate from the problems that feminism wants to solve.
Telling boys to help solve women’s issues in response to them telling you they have problems of their own is what’s causing this. And it’s either you listening to them, or it’s going to be people like Tate or Trump.
The problem isn’t new at all either. Someone on the right, just figured out how to create the incel culture and weaponize it. It’s sexism all the way down on both sides when there shouldn’t be sides at all. It’s the culmination of the social construct known as gender.
The problem is not just that someone on the right talks to men. The problem is, nobody on the “left” does. Tell me, what is the “left’s” ideal of a happy and successful man?
Freedom from work
Men would have time to make friends, cultivate hobbies, and meet girls if they weren’t working multiple jobs with odd hours or taking as much overtime as they can.
Liberals don’t want to talk about reducing the amount of work men have to do to keep up, though. They only want women to work more!
Yeah, may the almighty line keep going up.
But that’s beside the point, work is one side of it, my point is that there is no “ideal man” picture out there, nothing to aspire to. The ideal male identity is only described in context of how they treat women. Which is important sure, being kind to everyone, but still, what makes a man these days?
Kids are asking these questions, looking for role models, and all they see answering is Tate. Everyone else in the mainstream just tells them that their ideal is “not to be a rapist”.
Why don’t boys look up to their fathers? I’ll tell you! It’s because daddy is always at work.
Girls have the same problem with their mothers also working, but the schooling system has actually (partially) solved the problem. Teaching, especially pre-K, is dominated by women. Even if class sizes are too large for any one female teacher to fulfill the role of a model they still have a huge field to choose from and I think that helps a lot. We need men to become teachers if we aren’t going to liberate men from work.
I get your point. I am not saying I didn’t cry a bit the first time I actually listened to Cats In The Cradle’s lyrics. Or the other times.
Also, I’d rather have my kid have their own role model, not to have to share a government issued one with 30 other kids. Fuck.
In that case, men need to work less so we don’t have to use pre/elementary/middle/high schools to replace the parental figure.
Also maybe abolish the nuclear family and go back the premodern gens (i.e. extended family community) so that boys have lots of men in their family to look up to. Even if they don’t have a dad they might have an uncle, grandpa, or one of their 20 older cousins to look up to.
Women hate it when men have anything to do with young children. Try being a dad and taking your own child to the park in this country. There’s a good chance you’ll have to prove which child is yours to a cop, because parenting while male isn’t acceptable behavior. And you want a man to accept the liability of existing near 30 children that aren’t his, possibly without one of his own around? That’s just asking to get SWATed.
No, society hates it when men have anything to do with young children and we are products of that society. Women didn’t make caring for young children into “women’s work”, society did that. Women didn’t make men having a life outside of work unacceptable, society did that.
Don’t blame women for what is a societal problem. That’s incredibly reactionary.
Although, I’m skeptical that male kindergarten teachers get SWATed all that often at school 🙄
