This article made me sad. Not because it was mean or at some level wrong but because I feel that while it touched on the core issue here, it missed the chance to directly confront it. Here is an example.
"The infrastructures of intimacy — slowness, curiosity, accountability — have been eroded by haste, convenience and a kind of sanctioned emotional retreat."
I loved her writing but I really wished she had gone on to ask "Why?" Why have men retreated as she says not with hostility but with indifference?
I'm in a decades long loving marriage and have a bunch of loving kids who all want to get married and raise their own families. I am proud as a father to have been a good role model in that manner. I married a woman who was sure she never wanted to marry or have kids. We were married just prior to what I feel was the popularization of the term "toxic masculinity" first coined in the 80s to name (and counter?) the rise of the men's metal health movement. A movement that I freely admit has hyper-toxic off-shoots today.
Here is the thing though. For a generation boys and men have been told that masculinity is toxic not that some extreme elements and fringe behaviors are toxic just as some fringe beliefs of many sub-cultures are toxic but all masculinity. We were told that women didn't need men and in fact preferred if we did not interact with them at all under almost any circumstance. Girls were better off in gender segregated classrooms, boys needed to be medicated at school just to be teachable. Women just wanted to go out in public and do their own thing without being "creeped on". Are there creeps out there? Is sexual assault a problem, sure, absolutely but again, the message from society was not that fringe inappropriate behavior was toxic, but that everything male was toxic.
So, what did men, particularly the "good" ones, do? They retreated, not with hostility but indifference. The last thing "good men" wanted was to offend or be label as a toxic problem. Since any interaction with a stranger was bad and sometimes you needed a written contract to kiss after a date, good men got the message and heeded it. I'm not saying an unwanted kiss is a good thing, but what was the larger message being sent to the "good guys" who might actually care how women feel? The message to those "good guys" was "we don't need you, we don't want you around, you're disruptive in the classroom and at work and we would all be better off if you did not exist.".
One of the more positive vestigial remnants of the men's mental health movement teaches/talks about Stoicism. The retreat of men from social places and society is not due to a desire for haste or convenience. It is a stoic reaction to being told for a generation that being a man was bad for society. The sad truth today is that men don't need women or in fact other men to find purpose or diversion. A hard lesson well taught to us by society.
There are literally hundreds of romantic comedies with such a scene. It's something very deep in our culture. At some point one part tries to kiss, and there is a certain unknowable how it will land for the first time. This is how people used to fall in love. I feel really sorry for the youth of both genders these days.
>For a generation boys and men have been told that masculinity is toxic not that some extreme elements and fringe behaviors are toxic just as some fringe beliefs of many sub-cultures are toxic but all masculinity.
That on a statistical level boys and girls have different learning styles and challenges. How is it that you take away "all masculinity is toxic" from that article?
"I have a great class this year, I have 19 girls and only eight boys!"
It sends a message.
When boys are held back at twice the rate of girls, when an expert suggests that we are asking boys to behave like girls in school starting from kindergarten as that would be easier, when boys are diagnosed for behavior issues and medicated at higher rates that girls... these all send a message.
The behavior of boys is a problem, starting as early as kindergarten. Boys being boys (masculine) is a problem that schools and society would rather not have to deal with.
>When boys are held back at twice the rate of girls,
So when a boy does well in school we should conclude actually they are female, because schools are designed so only girls do well, because this "battle of the sexes" framework is the best way to view failures in our educational system?
Or when a girl does poorly do we assume schools are actually anti-femininity too? Or do we start with the assumption that all misbehavior is masculine and therefore correcting misbehavior is antimasculine?
OP has started from the outcome and tried to think their (his, almost certainly) way back to the facts of the situation.
You miss the point. Boys didn't USED to do poorly in school. If young girls needed to be medicated to be manageable in schools today and didn't used to have that problem, there is OBVIOUSLY SOMETHING different now than there used to be which is responsible.
And basic psychology shows exactly what it is in the case of males. Young MALE children NEED physical activity (which we longer give adequate amounts of to young male students). Young girls are more sedate and can sit without physical activities for long periods that young males cannot. Our schools now deny the very nature of young males, forcing them to indure conditions anathema to their nature and when they become loud, noisy, physically active, exhibiting behavior any good child psychology text book says is NORMAL for boys deprived of their NEEDED activity, they are labeled a PROBLEM and are DRUGGED INTO DOCILITY!
Boys are now labeled PROBLEMS for being NORMAL!
THAT is the problem and your complete lack of ordinary human empathy for HALF the CHILDREN in the country being DRUGGED to stifle their healthy nature certainly shows how nurturing, empathetic, caring, and possessed with any simple human shred of decency you aren't. Your reply shows zero feeling for any human being who isn't in YOUR PERSONAL GROUP.
At least you've proven that a woman can be as cold hearted and prejudiced as any man. Clearly women really ARE men's equals, and in absolutely EVERYTHING...the BAD as well as the good. Thanks for illustrating the TRUE equality of the sexes for us. MUCH APRECIATED!
I'm not who you asked, but I remember being one of the few quiet boys in my classes when I was a young kid in elementary school (in the US that's like ages 4-10, grades kindergarten through 5th grade). I was resentful of the ones who were always being loud and roughhousing in class and talking loud and not doing their work, and they were always boys.
But when I passed a test to get into a better school than my elementary school, that never happened. Everyone was respectful and followed the rules a whole lot better. There was loud talking sometimes, but everyone always got quiet and listened when the teachers spoke, always did their work, always cleaned up after themselves and were respectful. Meanwhile, I heard from my friends who had gone to another school that there were fistfights all the time and that that behavior I described never stopped.
Anyway, this is to say that I don't think this is a thing inherent to boys, maybe more like culture and social class.
On the other hand, this also isn't to say "Screw them, they just need to be better." If boys are doing worse in school now, then why? Maybe it's, like you said, a lack of physical activity. Recess has been getting cut at elementary schools.
With TV, people gave up more quickly on problems given to them, and children's acts of verbal and physical aggression per minute were doubled in boys and girls. Television also introduced more gender-stereotyped views than there were before. Children's reading performance suffered.
Anyway, I'm wondering if giving children unfettered access to YouTube and TikTok via their phones is like TV, but worse. At least TV only had a few channels in the 1970s and they weren't on it 24/7. This might impact lower-class families more, since they're more likely to just give their kids a tablet or a phone to pacify them, because they're busy. That might lead to an increase in aggression at school and worse performance on school assignments. Maybe it affects boys more, for some reason.
I'm a man, have ADHD, went to public school and was supported and not medicated. Your argument is directly counter to my experience as the person you claim to be protecting and since you used a supersonic jet to fly off the handle you never considered that I or the world could be any different than your grievance stereotypes suggest.
"The infrastructures of intimacy — slowness, curiosity, accountability — have been eroded by haste, convenience and a kind of sanctioned emotional retreat."
I loved her writing but I really wished she had gone on to ask "Why?" Why have men retreated as she says not with hostility but with indifference?
I'm in a decades long loving marriage and have a bunch of loving kids who all want to get married and raise their own families. I am proud as a father to have been a good role model in that manner. I married a woman who was sure she never wanted to marry or have kids. We were married just prior to what I feel was the popularization of the term "toxic masculinity" first coined in the 80s to name (and counter?) the rise of the men's metal health movement. A movement that I freely admit has hyper-toxic off-shoots today.
Here is the thing though. For a generation boys and men have been told that masculinity is toxic not that some extreme elements and fringe behaviors are toxic just as some fringe beliefs of many sub-cultures are toxic but all masculinity. We were told that women didn't need men and in fact preferred if we did not interact with them at all under almost any circumstance. Girls were better off in gender segregated classrooms, boys needed to be medicated at school just to be teachable. Women just wanted to go out in public and do their own thing without being "creeped on". Are there creeps out there? Is sexual assault a problem, sure, absolutely but again, the message from society was not that fringe inappropriate behavior was toxic, but that everything male was toxic.
So, what did men, particularly the "good" ones, do? They retreated, not with hostility but indifference. The last thing "good men" wanted was to offend or be label as a toxic problem. Since any interaction with a stranger was bad and sometimes you needed a written contract to kiss after a date, good men got the message and heeded it. I'm not saying an unwanted kiss is a good thing, but what was the larger message being sent to the "good guys" who might actually care how women feel? The message to those "good guys" was "we don't need you, we don't want you around, you're disruptive in the classroom and at work and we would all be better off if you did not exist.".
One of the more positive vestigial remnants of the men's mental health movement teaches/talks about Stoicism. The retreat of men from social places and society is not due to a desire for haste or convenience. It is a stoic reaction to being told for a generation that being a man was bad for society. The sad truth today is that men don't need women or in fact other men to find purpose or diversion. A hard lesson well taught to us by society.