I’ll candidly assume that this is not a rhetorical question aimed at making me pass as a spoiled child, as is frequent with leftism:
- AOC, known as “the squad” (!), has claimed the Congress has too many white males. President Macron said the same about the US tech sector, and he’s not even part of the extremists, so this issue permeates society. Basically everyone says white men should be fewer of them. This is a direct threat.
- Feminism was supposed to give women more place at work and give family a better representation of both genders at home. What happened: Men can’t apply for some jobs anymore; while men are assumed to not merit to see the children by default at home. This has been going on since the 1980 in every developed country, moreso in France and US, a little less in Sweden. Judges and lawyer family courts are often 100%-women (80.2% in the profession).
- We helped women when they were 38% of the university students. But they crossed the 50% in 1990. Men now represent 39% of university students. Do we help them? No, we drop help programs. And Sweden also dropped equality programs the moment men were in need.
This is what various groups have been militanting for years, but they were harassed into submission by the left (from Facebook’s pro-left censorship at the time, to directly burning their cars or killing their dogs, and of course cancelling conference centers for men support groups which they presented as extremists - which is true, men are angry).
How is Trump helping?
- His program basis is based on a meritocratic econonic theory (that does not favour women, which is all the left complains about), but, granted, elected presidents generally implement another program, and Trump isn’t helping much,
- Men thrive in both meritocracies and in the wilderness/lawlessness, because they work more. To this, Trump has choosen the latter. The more economic crisis there is is, the weaker the government, and the more women will need men. Given the left’s program is “let’s take men’s/white’s people money”, the scorched earth is the best situation.
Granted, it would be nicer if leftists didn’t hate white men’s guts so much that they could listen to them when they make reasonable demands such as equity in family courts or meritocracy at the workplace. Barring being sensible…
If you are eating too many carbs and you go to the doctor and he says "you should be eating way less carbs", he is not necessarily telling you to quit all carbs from your diet cold turkey.
It is safe to say that men are ~50% of any country's demographics. If you find any position of power and prestige where they are over-represented, it is safe to assume that there is an imbalance. People will come up with excuses for such imbalance, but one cannot deny that there is such an imbalance there.
this is called Identity Politics.. basing your judgement of other adults by their demographic classifications.. Replacing skills-based and merit-based promotion with "balancing" is racist and sexist in a polar opposite way from the historical trajectory. This parent statement is part of the unrepentant position of many in the USA. This position lost at multiple levels in a massive open election in the USA.
It is actually the opposite. I assume there is no inherent reason why people from other demographics with the required skills and merit cannot be found. Otherwise, there must be a reason why they can’t, and people who think that the current imbalance is perfectly good must have a pretty reasonable explanation to that. Do you have any?
So will the government mandate that 50% of stay at home parents be men?
Because as the other poster pointed out, if you push men out of the workplace and out of family life (by favoring custody for women) you just end up with a bunch of unemployed idle men, which is a recipe for revolution.
And if 50/50 is the goal, where is the government push for more men in places where they're underrepresented, like university students, nurses, teachers?
I can’t reply to your other comment for some reason.
You got me, I did not express myself well. I should have said “working people”. I framed it as a women’s issue since you said that the solution to that would be forcing men to trade places with them.
Re: the fact that bringing up men’s issues is kind of taboo to the left, it seems more of a language problem. If you frame it as a “war on men”, that will turn people off. If you say: “look, there are many bright young guys who could be on college that are otherwise deciding to look for work because the economy is not so great”… Maybe people will listen.
Edit: maybe they will reply “EKSUSE MEE??? WHY NOT WOMEN???”. That is obnoxious, I get it. But do they have a point? If you think so, concede. If you do n’t think so, I would like to know more about it. That is what politics is about.
About 40% of male domestic violence victims who seek help are accused of being the abuser.
Completely coincidentally I'm sure, the federal law on domestic violence is called the "Violence Against Women Act", which furthers the bias that men can't be victims.
How would you improve the situation for male victims without making people on the left hate you?
The same people who say that "firemen" is sexist, will hypocritically say that the naming of the law isn't sexist.
Well, certainly not by threatening to cut funding of humanities research grants. Otherwise they won't be able to conduct research such as this one... But I digress.
The "Violence Against Women Act" is from 1994. Most statistics of that time pointed to a disproportionate amount of women being victims of domestic violence in comparison to men. I tried to find more recent statistics, but this is a very serious topic, so it deserves to be treated with more caution. Also, this is one of the reasons why I think it should not be used as a "war on men" talking point. Do we want to solve the darn problem or use it as a weapon against political opponents?
Well most serious work injuries happen to men, but if we had a "Work Safety For Men" act I bet you'd call that sexist. A law that fails to protect male victims of violence is equally sexist.
The double standard is very visible. Maybe you should just admit that the left is blatantly the "party of women's interests" and give up on gaining men's votes.
This policy was very effective, in the first place. I could eyeball a 70% reduction in the period between 1972 and 2019.
Can it be reduced it even further? Probably.
Would I find it off-puting if any piece of legislation is eventually passed that addresses a hypothetical issue that is disproportionally faced by men and helps reduce it even further? Certainly not.
(I, for one, would approve of the "No More Balls Stuck in the Cogs Act".)
The left believes that any metric where women are worse off needs urgent attention, and any intervention must prioritize women.
But any metric where men are worse off can either be ignored, or fixed with an intervention that is either gender neutral, or preferably, prioritizes women again.
Yes, that sounds like the perfect conversation starter.
If that doesn't work, which I believe is highly unlikely, maybe try incorporating elements of speech as those found in this right-wing publication, the World Socialist Web Site: https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2024/02/27/hefl-f27.html
Oh, my bad. I thought that the names and pictures of the deceased 66-year-old man and 16-year-old boy would be enough.
I guess we can brush this one under the carpet, right? Nothing to see here. Workplace fatalities are a serious issue, but not so serious to you that it is worth bridging that gap. Maybe I’m wrong. Feel free to correct me if that is the case.
On the other hand, I acknowledge that men are disproportionately affected by this issue and that it deserves serious attention from both left and right. I would wholeheartedly support their demand of better working conditions from their employers and representatives, and advise them to contact the media so that the general public can be informed of that and, who knows, maybe support unionization if their demands are not met. Do you think this is a reasonable stance, or do you see any problems with that?
Also, are you available to organize so that we could bring some consciousness to the public about how men are disproportionately affected by workplace fatalities in developed countries? The condition being that we first agree on the causes leading to it.
We could start with the resources we have already found on the Internet. I can pay for the domain if you are interested.
> So will the government mandate that 50% of stay at home parents be men?
Well, obviously not. But there is always the caveat that suggesting government providing adequate child care to working women is communism of whatever. Is it feasible to have some compromise here?
> And if 50/50 is the goal, where is the government push for more men in places where they're underrepresented, like university students, nurses, teachers?
This sounds like a perfectly legitimate ask if young men do really care about it. Why not contact your local representative and explain the issue in an articulate manner?
> government providing adequate child care to working women
You see this is the bias on the left, that everything must be framed as "for women". If the childcare is only for "working women", will a single dad not be able to access it?
Why not government providing adequate child care to working people?
> Why not contact your local representative and explain the issue in an articulate manner?
I do, but your have to admit there is a chilling effect in left wing spaces where openly supporting men's issues makes you very unpopular.
> The more economic crisis there is is, the weaker the government, and the more women will need men
So, to put a finer point on it - you decided that aiming to destroy the United States, and the Pax Americana underlying western civilization, was an appropriate response because AOC and Macron (who represent "everyone", in your apparent media diet) hurt your feelings. As a fellow man, this is just pathetic and entitled.
There have always been groups in society you cannot criticize. There has always been groupthink bullshit that you just smile and nod, and then later share your real thoughts with your trusted close friends. The growing prevalence of talking about men's rights issues was the painstaking path to them getting better - there are some pretty harsh biological reasons why custody courts are slanted towards women, right? If you really wanted to phrase this in terms of "men", then maybe you needed to listen to your fellow wiser men telling you to hold your nose and vote conservative/democrat instead of lashing out with histrionic destruction. Alas.
You’re forgetting that the previous government was losing at least 2 wars (in Ukraine and against Houties) and destroying the United States - trying to jail political opponents, subverting elections, destroying the country’s borders, erasing meritocracy, instituting censorship and ignoring Supreme Court rulings.
Those topics weren't in the scope of the original discussion and I'm not really interested in litigating partisan entertainment propaganda based around taking shreds of truth (at best) and blowing them out of proportion.
The large scale facts are that under the previous administration we had working relationships with our allies, mostly functional executive agencies (aka law enforcement), and the US (ie USD) was seen as a source of stability. Meanwhile the current administration's actions are indistinguishable from a foreign power doing its best to destroy our country - we are now isolated from our allies (and even seen as hostile!), the ideal of rule of law has been replaced by brazenly corrupt rule by law, and we're staring down dedollarization.
It wasn't rethorical and I appreciate your extensive answer. Being male myself, I can relate to some of the points you made. But I don't feel threatened. I guess there is a wide range of the meaning of this word, but I would describe it as perceiving a danger to ones life, livelihood, happiness or something. I did not experience any more disadvantages from being male than being young or old, short, brown-eyed, not too smart, overweight etc.
And your reasonable demands...are you seriously at a workplace where meritocracy is lived? Ever? Out of the many different non-meritocratic factors that come into play in a workplace, being male certainly was never in the top 10 for me. If anything it was an advantage. I'm sorry if you had different experiences. It's not true, where I live, that men can't apply for certain jobs, and I doubt that is the reality for you. The usual term is "everything else equal, a female candidate will be preferred", which is just an encouragement to women to apply. If you want the male candidate, you always find a reason that he is not equal to the female applicant. So if you have the feeling that you didn't get a job because you are male - perhaps it was because the female candidate was better.
And those recurring "leftist", "leftism" references make your statements a bit biased. The time to put everything in left and right categories is somewhat last century. It's all more complicated than that. Nobody hates you because your male and white. But it sure sounds a bit whiny what you are complaining about - imagine you'd be black and female, you really think you would be in a better position, you would have an advantage then? Come on.
The left’s arguments are unfortunately a collection of your argument: Refuting entirely-developed speeches because of a single sentence missing one word.
Trump and meritocracy? You are insane. Oh, Hegseth the wife-(and alcohol-)abusing TV-presenter should be in charge the world's most powerful military? Brett Kavanaugh, who in the balance of probability did assault that woman, should be forced into the supreme court (even blocking the FBI investigation)? You're just going to excuse these flaws away, aren't you?
To be honest, this thread has shown what weak fragile egos some white men have. So your kind has had it easy for centuries. Yeah, probably the rhetoric that's made you "the enemy" is really dumb (hey it poisoned the mind of the richest man in the world, for one), but what do you expect, mollycoddling?
Hah, maybe the whole (white) world should have a truth-and-reconciliation committee, where men are invited to discuss their privilege, and what can be changed to make an equal world. (Actually not just white, men all over the world have had this tyranny. Then again maybe it's just the animal/biological nature that we shouldn't just suppress). But even with "committee", there'll be weak egos screaming about the tyranny against them. A bit like states wanting to hide away the civil war from their education, or not even allowing discussion about systemic racism or "critical race theory" (uh oh sorry if that triggers you, if I were mocking you I'd call you a snowflake now).
My wife likes to tell me that she'll know when feminism has succeeded when the US Supreme Court is all women. I tell her that I'll know when feminism has succeeded when the military is all women.
I do admit the existence of insanely moronic arguments that are sometimes made. "As a woman you have to vote for Hillary because she's a woman.". What a dumb argument, that's still identity politics. If the choice was between someone like female Sarah Palin that wants government control of women's bodies, because she thinks the Bible should trump the constitution vs. a man who would respect the separation of church and state (e.g. the catholic Biden who nevertheless supported Roe v. Wade), would a woman have to still be obliged to vote for Palin?
The power is right there, ready to be taken. Contrary to popular belief, you don’t have to wait for the “white man” to grant you more power. But, to do so, you will need to risk more than your online reputation.
Huh, let's just forget that women had to e.g. fight for the right to vote, or the whole civil rights movement... OK, fine, it's 2025, and let's see, is the discrimination that's in people's heads about "what's normal" totally gone? I can admit that if you ask me to imagine a CEO, I'd imagine a middle-aged white man, am I the only one? And what does this image of normality do to the idea of who will be picked for a particular job, by a group of people?
Yeah if I'm looking for a caretaker for my child, a male candidate would also make me go "Huh, interesting". Women have the advantage for this job, and men have it for the CEO job, I wonder which job is more powerful in the world (if we don't pull out a philosophical idea of "powerful"...).
The reason that military forces tend to be composed mostly of men is for two very practical reasons:
1. Men are on average physically stronger than women, and at their peak are physically stronger than is possible for any woman. This is more useful in a combat situation.
2. Women's bodies are specialized for pregnancy and childbirth. Without women providing this essential function, the next generation of humanity would not exist. By contrast, men are more disposable because all they do is provide the sperm.
A society where almost all women have been killed in battle cannot effectively repopulate, as there is a bottleneck of pregnancy: it is a long process that - excluding relatively rare cases of multiple births - requires one woman per newborn to conduct. A society where almost all men have been killed can repopulate much more rapidly, as it only takes a small number of men to fulfil the male reproductive role of providing sperm.
In fact the existence of sperm banks makes the widespread obliteration of males even less of a risk to the survival of humanity. Plus there is a promising subfield of stem cell research on growing viable sperm from female cells, which would remove the reliance upon males entirely.
Could you please explain what that threat is exactly, and what kind of “concessions to white males” you would have in mind?