Male problems only ever come up as a counter-argument

[Aesir23]

possibly being ostracized by our peers if we don't fit into a stupid overly masculine stereotype, a massive stigma against acting feminine lest we be accused of having the gay

I have to ask, is this really still a thing? I know kids are generally stupid, and therefore playground insults probably haven't moved on much since I left school, but my experience in the UK is that the only people still bothered by the existance of homosexuality are generally either right wing extremist groups, fundamentalist religeous types or the old and unreformed (racism/sexism and all other isms seems to be perfectly acceptable for the over 60s for some reason). I can only think of one friend of mine that has ever actually looked worried about the prospect of going drinking in Manchester's gay village (maybe he did think you could actually catch the gay!) and we went to school over 25 years ago, so we're fast approaching the age where we're allowed to be unreformed old gits!

Is it a UK/US difference? Is it worse now with social media pressures, etc? Am I rambling again?

I apologise for butting in but it does seem to be a UK/NA difference. It's been about a decade since I left school but I remember many boys being downright paranoid about anything that might make them look "gay". I live in Canada so I'm not sure if it's to the same extent in the US but I imagine the differences wouldn't be too severe.

 

[Lightspeaker]

Rape of women by men is a really common crime. Rape of men by women is one of the least common crimes. That's usually the answer you'll get from most people. And they'd be right.

Because someone is a minority (in this case a male rape victim) it means they don't matter then? Okay then.

Come on, don't play that game with me.

What game? That is literally what you said. "Its less common", by definition its a smaller demographic than others. To me you appear to be arguing that its perfectly acceptable for it to be all a big joke as far as society goes, because it effects a smaller number.

If that's not the case then please do go ahead and clarify.

I think you missed the part where the point being made by several people is that the reason it only ever comes up that time is because its not "socially acceptable" to bring it up at any other time.

Please don't speak for me. I didn't miss the point, forget or ignore anything. I reject the premise. People keep claiming it, and they can claim it all they want.

I'm not 'speaking for you', I'm pointing out something you may have missed if you'd only read the OP. If you want to reject the idea that men have societal expectations that make it difficult to discuss issues because of peer pressure then that's up to you. I mean I disagree, but whatever. *shrug*

possibly being ostracized by our peers if we don't fit into a stupid overly masculine stereotype, a massive stigma against acting feminine lest we be accused of having the gay

I have to ask, is this really still a thing? I know kids are generally stupid, and therefore playground insults probably haven't moved on much since I left school, but my experience in the UK is that the only people still bothered by the existance of homosexuality are generally either right wing extremist groups, fundamentalist religeous types or the old and unreformed (racism/sexism and all other isms seems to be perfectly acceptable for the over 60s for some reason). I can only think of one friend of mine that has ever actually looked worried about the prospect of going drinking in Manchester's gay village (maybe he did think you could actually catch the gay!) and we went to school over 25 years ago, so we're fast approaching the age where we're allowed to be unreformed old gits!

Is it a UK/US difference? Is it worse now with social media pressures, etc? Am I rambling again?

I apologise for butting in but it does seem to be a UK/NA difference. It's been about a decade since I left school but I remember many boys being downright paranoid about anything that might make them look "gay". I live in Canada so I'm not sure if it's to the same extent in the US but I imagine the differences wouldn't be too severe.

I think CeeBod is mainly referring to outside of school. When you're an asshole teenager in secondary school I think its still a bit of a thing over here in the UK, at least in the early teens. Outside of that nobody I know gives a damn about whether someone is gay or looks gay or not apart from the small groups mentioned.


Edit: Actually this is all getting rather tiresome. There appears to be quite a few people who outright seem to be denying that a group of people could possibly have important issues and could have difficulty expressing those in society because of societal expectations upon them. To me, that just appears to be a common-sense issue of "of course they do, everyone does" and frankly I can't see that discussion going anywhere good. So I'll take my leave. Have a good day.

 

[Lightspeaker]

Eh, you posted as I submitted that edit so I guess I'll finish with this instead.

Rape of women by men is a really common crime. Rape of men by women is one of the least common crimes. That's usually the answer you'll get from most people. And they'd be right.

Because someone is a minority (in this case a male rape victim) it means they don't matter then? Okay then.

Come on, don't play that game with me.

What game? That is literally what you said. "Its less common", by definition its a smaller demographic than others. To me you appear to be arguing that its perfectly acceptable for it to be all a big joke as far as society goes, because it effects a smaller number.

If that's not the case then please do go ahead and clarify.

You then equated less common with "Don't matter" and claimed that I said male issues don't matter.

That game.

In which case my initial point still stands and I really don't know where you're going with the "less common" argument. Just because its less common for one group doesn't make it acceptable. Nor does it make it acceptable for it to so consistently be the punchline of a joke or a source of 'celebration' (in a "good for him!" way).

Frankly I'm unsure where you're trying to go with the "its less common" argument. But that doesn't matter much now. Have a nice day.

 

[Rebel_Raven]

Yeah, it's always bothered me that the male problems are generally only saved as ammo for "special occasions" like any problem concerning women. Not just feminism, and stuff, but representation, and when they try and do something. Basically any time anyone ever complains about anything related to women. I see it a lot when the issue of women's representation in videogames pops up. I've seen it get so bad as to totally derail things.

If it really bothers them, they should do something about it. There's gotta be a breaking point where the people who refuse to complain can't take it anymore, and will actually try to solve their problems.

What? Do they want the vocal people to champion them and ignore their own problems, or something?
As much as I hate it, people can't fight on every front and solve every problem all at once. It takes passion, and intensity to really help the fight, and that's generally reserved to what's near and dear to them.
In the long run, it's possible that solving the problem the complainers have might have a ripple effect, and solve male problems, but people are short sighted, maybe?
It's also kinda hard to fight for people that really wouldn't do the same, or worse, be part of the problem in fighting the process in the first place.
It's not like we don't care about other problems, it's that we feel we have key issues to deal with first.
One problem doesn't counter the other, either. It doesn't make it go away or be any less important.

Maybe there's jealousy involved towards the vocal people that can at least speak up about their own problems without having to jump on others complaining about their own problems? That these talks persist despite the sort of stuff that generally seems to shut down male problems?

The internet is an ideal place to talk about it, and like a lot of the people complaining about women problems, people concerned with male problems must be persistent, and strong, and keep at it as well. They can't let themselves be shut down. I mean it's a universal problem. People try to shut down concerns over women's issues a lot, but that doesn't really stop people from talking about them, so why should it be any different for male problems?

/sleepy rant

 

[Dragonlayer]

Because, as was proven in this thread within thirty minutes of the original post, nobody cares in the slightest about problems and solutions in any social justice issue online, they just want to butt heads with the eternal opposition and win arguments.

Not really. I remember see just the opposite on this sight a few times in fact. Someone made a thread about a guy having to deal with false rape claims, and every other comment was about how actual rape is more common. Someone talked about how there's no battered men's shelters every replay to that guy was about how battered women's shelters are more important.

My guess is that you're looking for that, and you know what they say? Life is like a box of chocolates you're only going to remember the taste of coconut.

Which goes with my point quite nicely. Also, for all the presumably male individuals who do complain on this site about male problems, its very rare for an actual male problem help thread to appear and when it does, it lasts for maybe two, three pages at best. Of course, that could be because everyone goes into those threads simply to say "NU UH! MY SIDE HAS IT WORSE!".

 

[Zacharious-khan]

I think a lot of the issue is that rightly, men feel like we should just deal with our problems. Personally i don't like to burden anyone else with any of my problems because if I have the capacity to deal I feel almost morally that I must. Probably all that shonnen manga.

Feminism has basically served it's purpose (in the first world) and been taken over by vocal anti-males and greedy self-serving women.

That is not remotely true.

It's almost entirely true.

 

[1981]

Well...I feel like crap now.

Surely there's something to be gained by talking about it. At the very least it'll end with some people actually knowing what the hell is going on.

I'm sorry, it wasn't my intention to make you feel like crap. I just think it's not a big mystery that people like to make themselves feel/seem like they're in the thick of a "struggle" when they're not. These days we have people inventing those fights, just to be a part of them. It's not a mystery though, it's just grotesque.
[...]

It is important to distinguish real issues from made-up ones. They are a thing. I've seen how invented traumas can nearly ruin people's lives. And even if it's real, you shouldn't get so hung up on it that it makes you bitter, because that won't help anyone.

 

[Neonit]

Well, i seem to recall that there were multiple attempts to discuss male problems here, on this very forum.
IIRC it started as a discussion about male problems, and then quickly (as in, on the first page) progressed into "women have it so much worse, stop whining" "you are just doing it to shut up the discussion about female problems". And to be fair, i think it was mostly white knights who did it, not the women (but it was long ago so i could be wrong)

So yeah, id say "Male problems only ever come up as a counter-argument" is kinda BS.

The point is as always: damned if you do, damned if you dont. We men are simple, basic creatures, because we are unable to talk about our feelings. But when we do try to discuss our feelings, we are weak, whining, and need to shut up. Id guess others are taking the same solution as me - only speak about your feelings with your (very) good friends. Preferably males, because they are more likely to understand.

 

[2012 Wont Happen]

The only political/ideological group which I ever see consistently bringing up problems men face such as lowered sense of self-worth from not fitting an overly masculine stereotype, feeling shoehorned into gender rolls with which they don't personally feel comfortable, lack of support for male victims of domestic abuse and rape, and high suicide rates which accompany all of these issues are feminist activists. The violent death part is more generally acknowledged and bemoaned across "left" ideologies, particularly as it pertains to black men, but is certainly acknowledged by feminists quite often.

It is, accordingly, incredibly ironic to me when anti-feminists try to bring these things up to shut down feminists. One can't shut someone down by highlighting something they already actively oppose, all it does is derail a conversation about other problems which also exist. Although, when anti-feminists reference "problems facing men" in response to feminist arguments, it is quite often less highlighting the legitimate issues men face and more complaining about the loss of power to the generally dominant class inherent to the process of another class of the same category moving towards equality, which is less ironic but much more asinine.

 

[runic knight]

I would guess because it's also a stereotype that men shouldn't talk about their problems.

It sounds a little like a whiny child to me, "why are women get all the attention? We have problems toooo", yeah of course you do but look at the state of the imbalance.

I think these two quotes quite neatly sum up the answer to your OP here. The first one describes the reason, the second one provides an example of the kind of attitude described in the first.

Men are not "socially allowed" to publicly discuss their problems. Not by other men and not by women; its not the done thing (which is absurd, but that's the way it is). This creates a painful and uncomfortable situation for those who are upset and unhappy and unable to talk about it. So when problems are brought up for women there's a level of resentment and frustration at being unable to talk about it, which is why it is brought up then. And then its dismissed as 'butting in', despite the fact there is no other place to ever bring any of it up. You translate that as being a counter argument to silence people; I look at it as a cry for help, because there's nowhere for people to talk. And then they get ridiculed for it.

The whole feminist joke about "but men" is extremely toxic to this as far as I'm concerned, because its silencing voices that are never normally able to find an outlet. Because, again, men aren't allowed to talk about their problems.

There was a cracked article today about rape in the US military. Women are more likely to be raped than men but there are more rapes of men than of women because of the demographics. So you'd think it'd be fairly easy to find a man who had been raped in that environment. And yet the article only talked to a couple of women...because they literally couldn't find any men willing to talk to them about their experiences. Men aren't "allowed" to talk about things like that.

Worth adding on, issues that face one gender can face both, even if not to the same percentage. I am sure part of the resentment and frustration regarding those "butting in" is that the problems and solutions talked about are clearly from a singular gender perspective, despite not being singular gender issues. Rape affects both genders, but is exclusively talked about and treated as a single-gender issue, up to and including demonizing the other gender as the inherent attacker.

This, especially when added to the outright hostility at times in responding to people pointing out that they are not single-gender issues, only further breeds the problems. It isn't just that men aren't allowed to not talk about issues because of social stigma, it has evolved into an outright shaming mechanism for complaining about anything relating to their gender. Not surprising then that can even result in the gender being demonized as the source of so many problems in such an environment, problems that the gender deals with as well.

There is a limited amount of resources to deal with problems facing people in society, that inherently creates a competition between groups who want their problems addressed first. Honestly, I think tackling issues as universally as possible, and then working to dial in specifics on case by case basis as needed would be the best way to nip most of the problem in the bud. Rape isn't a "woman" issue, it is a human one. Countless issues are. Why try to tackle the issue halfway?

 

[beastro]

So why the Hell is all of this only ever brought up to shut up someone else up? Seriously, I rarely see anyone saying ANYTHING about this stuff is when someone else is trying to talk about their problems (Yes I'm talking about feminism here, but I'm trying to avoid it talking about it because mentioning it always causes the argument to be derailed). And that drives me insane. Logically I thought that the people who bring them up as counter-arguments would really be invested in male problems, but when there isn't a discussion about feminism going on, they never really get brought up.

Because it's weak to complain too much about your problems and respectable to continue on dealing with them quietly.

This is the main problem I have with MRAs. They simply want to play the same game radical Feminism is doing and turn men into victims as well when we're not.

 

[Cowabungaa]

In academic circles these topics too are part of feminism's bread-and-butter, so no worries there.

Of course, social discourse is another matter, and here polarization still keeps us from banding together under the common goal of weeding out bad shit for everyone involved. Because come on guys, how can you be even reasonably against that? Problem being of course that these topics are often not talked about in a reasonable fashion.

The question of course is; from where does meaningful change regarding these topics really come from? Academics really gunning for positive change probably can't get around 'the public' at large. Because without plunging down into reductionism; society is the public and change within it affects us all and has to come from us all.

 

[Abomination]

Because presently the solutions presented by feminism reek of affirmative action.

Highlighting that it isn't all rainbows and lollipops for the other side is used to dissuade the implementation of affirmative action.

At this moment in time men and women are equal under the law. The only situation where it is not true is in unique biological aspects to either sex such as child rearing and cervicalrostate cancer fund allocation ratios.

From a social perspective men still come out on top more often than women but from a LEGAL perspective it's the other way around.

The pendulum was far in favour of the male side in the past but it's now hurtling towards the female side and there's concern it's going to keep swinging further still.

 

[one squirrel]

Because men mostly try to overcome problems without bothering others too much. Therefore, it's only natural for them to be the ones pointing at their own issues only after being told how bad others have it.
The proposed solution for everything "learn to talk about yeer feels!" is just one little part of the bigger problem that is the increasing glorification of femininity and demonization of masculinity in our culture, and thus I strongly dislike it.

But probably men should really learn to complain more, would probably an eye-opener for some.

 

[Thaluikhain]

There is a limited amount of resources to deal with problems facing people in society, that inherently creates a competition between groups who want their problems addressed first.

Disagree there, rights aren't zero sum game. Now, plenty of people are invested in not having other's problems talked about, but that's not usually because it helps them gets theirs solved.

Rape isn't a "woman" issue, it is a human one. Countless issues are. Why try to tackle the issue halfway?

Because society views the issue very differently for men and women, though, requiring different solutions. Male prison rape, for example, is viewed very differently from the rape of women in society in general.

Having said that, there's no reason why attempts to deal with all aspects of the issue can't be made simultaneously, they'd just require different solutions.

 

[Major_Tom]

That's because the so-called MRAs don't actually care about men's problems, they just want to ***** about feminism.

 

[KissingSunlight]

Let me throw out another reason why men talk about their problems as a counter to feminists' complaints. It is to offer perspective on the issue.

To avoid getting into a quagmire of a hot button issue, I am going to use the movie Knock Knock. I had disagreed with the movie critic on this site a few times. In recent months, he claimed that No Escape and The Green Inferno were racist. So, I was surprised he gave an Eli Roth movie a positive review. The movie is about a married man who is home alone for a week. Two women came up to door and asked for help. They came in and seduced the guy. Then these women spent the rest of the movie torturing the man for having sex with them. Since this movie critic was so concerned about political correctness, would he liked this movie if the genders were reversed? If two handsome men seduced a lonely housewife, and spent the rest of the movie torturing her for her infidelity. I can imagine he would be complaining about it being about slut shaming and maybe claiming that the men raped the woman.

The problem that most people have with political correctness today is the hypocrisy. Something is a serious issue when it involves women. However, it is totally a distraction to the conversation when men complain about dealing with the same issue.

 

[Cowabungaa]

3. The academic world is overly connected to feminism, meaning people who deal in men's rights must do it on their own.

Except that academic feminism deals with problems like toxic masculinity too as it covers a broad spectrum of issues related to gender roles. So no, it's not the academic world you should look at for this problem, it's civil discourse.

 

[Phasmal]

I think the problem is that being a man, and Being A Man are two different things, if you follow me.

You can physically/mentally be a man and that's just who you are, but then society has this idea of A Man that all men have to apparently be. It's actually very limiting.
I can say `just don't care about what people think` but sometimes it's not that easy, especially when men are brought up with a strict idea of who they are supposed to be.

Unfortunately when people try and change this, the reaction can be quite strong. You often get push-back like `what's wrong with being a traditional man?` - nothing. But the thing that is wrong is assuming that every man has to be that way.

I do think it's very related to feminism and women's issues. Not in a `us-vs-them` way, but in a `one thing affects the other` way. I think it'll be a lot better when we can all collectively get over our gender roles pigeon holing people.

Forgive me if this doesn't make very much sense, I'm sick.