I think the fact that in general women are considered to have more mental health issues and men committing suicide way more often shows that this headline is true.
This is not something I think about much (fortunately), but what is the point in attempting suicide by means that are not likely to work? How do we measure "true attempts" vs "cries for help." I guess ultimately they are very close together... but all the same it seems harder to attempt and not succeed.
It's not the most plausible hypothesis. Men are more likely to own firearms than women are, therefore they're more likely to attempt suicide by firearms.
All three are equally available to men and women and anyone else.
In terms of rate, male suicide rate 17.2 per 100,000. Female suicide rate of 5.4 per 100,000
London has the lowest overall rate of just 7.3 per 100,000, 65% of the national rate. North East being highest at 14 per 100k.
The highest population group being Males aged 50-54 years, being 27.9 per 100,000
Wales is even worse, with Males aged 45-49 years being 32.3 per 100,000, and overall 21.6 (male) // 7.5 (female)
Generally the worse the economic opportunities, the higher the rate. Middle aged men are most at risk, men in general are at high risk, and guns have nothing to do with it
Nonsense, that is an America-centric attempt at making up a narrative. The sex differences in suicide outcomes are essentially the same in countries with low to zero firearms ownership, eg Europe, Australia, Japan. If there are no firearms available, then other almost equally lethal methods are used (hanging, trains, etc).
The sex difference in completed suicides is nearly universally 3-to-1 to 4-to-1.
I've been curious about the phenomenon of suicide for a while, so I've read quite a bit about it in different countries. One of the interesting things about suicide is the means of suicide is always whatever is most available or readily available in the environment. In the U.S. where guns are more available, about half of all gun deaths are suicides, and about 80% of those are men. But in some countries in Africa, men kill themselves more frequently as well, and the primary mechanism is by drinking pesticide.
My mental model is that men tend to be more extreme and less conservative than women (risk-taking is more prevalent), and this leads to more extreme approaches in how they try to kill themselves.
But it's been a while since I've read any of these statistics, and I have no special credentials. Just thinking about what we're observing.
The person may not definitively want to die, but may wake up one day and not care either way, so attempting is a roll of the dice.
It also may be down to what was available to them at the time. There’s a famous case study where a lot of women in the UK were dying by putting their heads in the oven and gassing themselves in the 1950s. The UK government changed the formulation of gas that was being piped to homes and the suicides stopped. If those women really were dead-set on suicide, they would have just chosen a different method.
What people who’ve never had extreme depression might not realize is that in those low moments it feels like you will always feel this way and it will never ever change. Then you wait an hour or so and the feeling passes. So a person may not feel suicidal 24 hours a day, only at specific moments. But in those low moments, the chances of suicide dramatically increase and as the UK case shows, accessibility to quick suicide methods makes a big difference.
Yeah, because women tend to seek more clinical assistance than men do so of course the attempt % would be higher for them as well, because how are you even gonna know that number for men if they aren't even getting recorded.. the suicide numbers are the only actual real recordable evidence unfortunately.
To ignore the terrible things going through the minds of people trying¹ and the effects attempts, especially successful ones, can have on others, for a moment²… I wonder if anyone has looked deeper into those two stats to, see if the attempt rate is actually the same but the lower success rate means that the average women in that sort of crisis position attempts more times.
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[1] Speaking as one who did some decades ago, as irritating as life is right now I'm glad I bucked the trend of any “men have a higher 'success' rate” stat.
[2] Sometimes my nerd side takes control and empathy takes a back seat.
Commonly proposed reasons I've seen mostly involve conscientiousness around impact on their body and setting. For the most stereotypical two methods: a gunshot to the head leaves a mess and means you're going to need a closed casket, while the mess from a slit wrist in a bathtub can be washed down the drain, and easily hidden while still having an open casket. But it's harder to "succeed" with a slit wrist in a bathtub, and it takes longer, giving more time to be found or to change your mind.
This is a common observation, but it only addresses part of the gap:
In the US, more men commit suicide by every broad method -- except poisoning, which is similar for both men and women.
Firearm deaths are the leading suicide method for both, and more men commit suicide even when excluding firearm deaths. And even when excluding men's firearm deaths and including women's.
Men and women have different mental health crisis spirals.
It's like the difference between killing yourself drunk crashing your car into a pole vs winding up in a wheelchair because you crashed into everything of value on the street before hitting the same pole slower. Which is worse depends on who you ask.
There's too many men in this world, a surplus. Some percent of men will be the winners (not a large percent) and the rest will be losers who never reproduce and have unhappy lives doing hard work with little reward.
In the past we had large wars, harsh labor, that killed off men, but not today. There's roughly 5% males born than females. India and China have aborted 10s of millions of female babies. In the Western world, massive numbers of men (from low to high skilled) have move there. So here we are, men everywhere, roaming around grocery stores trying to talk to women, 70 to 80% of the population on dating apps are males, bars are filled with men. It's not a good time to be a low status man.
Yes, thank you. I don't know why we're always so dishonest about this topic (especially the most vocal younger crowd).
Men and women are far too picky compared to the past. That's why they die alone. It's that simple.
There's nothing wrong with this if it means you're happier than being stuck in a relationship you don't want, but you can't have it both ways.
Most people reading this know exactly who they'd be with if they just said yes to their options. Not liking your options is vastly different from having no options at all. Your options can change if you make the change within as well. The fact that this is such a modern and loud problem also points to the lack of competition you'd face compared to the past. We've overcomplicated this beyond belief. That's not nature's doing.
> Most people reading this know exactly who they'd be with if they just said yes to their options.
What does this mean? Just lower your standards and there's a woman out there for you?
It's been a long time since I was single, but I never felt like that. I worked at a job with a bunch of other men and didn't have a lot of social outlets that involved women. My candidate pool was close to zero. I eventually recognized this and found ways to broaden my pool, but it wasn't easy.
I'm not prescribing anything. I'm describing the situation.
I'm only speculating that I think the past used to be (a lot) worse. Competition was higher across the board for significantly worse options across the board.
So much of the modern era is defined by the desire for social change, but nobody seems to pause and think what that must mean regarding the perception of their options (and themselves). It means even your worst option today probably isn't that bad or is already more similar to you than you want to believe. I think this all boils down to mortality. Other people change slower than you have time for, so on some level you do have to either compromise or make your own changes at the pace you prefer. You can't spend life looking at the rear view mirror and a horizon that never comes.
A casual look on social media tends to confirm that the same people not liking their options also think they were "born in the wrong era" or similar.
You are counting the over 50s/60s. Men die off faster and it was more equal in the older generations. That's not what we are talking about here. We are talking about men who are attempting to start their lives and a family and/or date. In that pool, there's A LOT more men than women in the western world. Particularly the USA.
The vast majority of heterosexual men who are unsuccessful romantically has nothing to do with their "status." A bit of self-confidence and the ability to listen to and empathize with women is literally all it takes. Women don't want to date chuds, shocker.
Also, dating apps are pointless. Go volunteer for a community organization or join a pickleball league. Don't force it.
> Expressed another way, that would mean that 10% of all males surviving to adulthood would perish in combat.
> We’ll get back around to fertility rates later in the series but for how if we assume each woman in this society is having on average five live childbirths, a 2% chance of death at each stage adds up pretty quickly – a woman who gave birth five times with a 2% chance of dying each time has a total chance of dying at one stage or another of 9.607%, which as you will note is not far off from the chance of dying in a battle
Does it imply also fewer men getting diagnosed? I presume it does.
I remember reading something about mental health in Iceland being much more even between men and women due to less perceived stigma and more equality, leading to men seeking help.
Great. How do you determine that men and women are seeking treatment at the same rate, and that diagnoses are being given out at the same rates for matching symptoms across genders?
It could just as much be the case that men are diagnosed at a lower rate because they seek out care less often (many studies point at this being true) or that men who do seek care are not diagnosed at as high of a rate despite having the same symptoms (men report higher rates of dissatisfaction with mental care, and other studies show gender bias in diagnosis - men get told to "man up" in so many words-, or men get misdiagnosed because symptoms for the same mental illness vary between men and women)
You know when the APA tried to publish guidance for therapists to help them better reach male clients and break through these barriers of men being expected to "man up" the reactionaries screamed at them and called them misandrists. Efforts to improve this are resisted by reactionaries.
You might be interested in operationalization. Every measurement is also an operationalization - even things like temperature, speed, and weight.
Eliding or obscuring the act of operationalization leads to reification - treating concepts like real tangible things. I wish reification was taken as seriously as our taboo of anthropomorphization. It happens way more, and sneakily smuggles in human values into the sciences. In some ways it's unavoidable, but being opaque about it and doing it without knowing is a sin.
> The findings will now help guide the development of Canada's first Federal Men and Boys' Health and Well-being Strategy, expected to be released in early 2027.
It would not surprise me to see protesting over this, as has been similarly done in the past. The person who organized a men's-support-group some years back in Canada, if I remember right, ended up committing suicide after it was forced to be shut down by protestors.
Wikipedia says nothing about protests, only indicates neglect as the driver for suicide. Guess its drummed up internet drama taken at face value again.
The birds they sing,
At break of day.
Start again I heard them say.
Dwell not on what has passed away,
Or what is yet to ring,
Forget your perfect offering,
There's a crack in everything.
That's how the light gets in.
National health reports cannot fix deep-seated cultural issues. I'm sure they'll come out with a nice report on strategies to improve men's wellbeing that won't make a lick of difference unless the world at large starts to shift.
Can you expand on this? It seems to me that deep seated cultural issues are the sort of thing that therapy is supposed to address. However, I may be looking at this from the wrong angle.
The people who see issues with themselves get therapy. The ones that see no issues with themselves don't.
That is what "deep-seated cultural issues" means. Some subset of the population aren't seeing a problem with their own behavior. They see nothing that needs addressing. The rest have to learn how to put up with or avoid them.
Government reports like this sometimes motivate additional studies and think pieces, which in turn creates a framing that may be used later when society decides it's truly ready for change.
So no, they can't change the world, but sometimes they can plant a seed.
This all is just pure virtue signaling and the only beneficiary will be some NGO who gets some money and produces a report and a slide deck which only they will read. It's like the Soviet joke of "we had a 4 hour meeting about improving production in communism in the factory today and after this we will work not better and not worse than before". Until that suffering actually causes measurable damage that affects something on a grand scale that the country needs, nothing really will happen.
Nationwide change doesn't happen overnight. It involves years of unglamorous work by hundreds or even thousands people you and I don't even know about.
The report gives no indication its a male problem. It’s just a survey targeting men. Maybe its a general mental health problem. We know mental health issues in women have increased over the same time period.
This report? The existence of a male mental health problem does not imply the existence or absence of a female mental health problem or any other type if mental health problem.
Maybe you can you disambiguate your phrasing here. Which do you mean?
1.There is a MALE mental health problem -- some mental health problem wholly or partially unique to men
2. There is a mental health problem observed among men
If #1, where is the evidence? A men-only survey can't show it. If you surveyed left-handed people and 30% had anxiety, that doens't mean there is a left-handed anxiety problem.
If #2, we agree on what the research shows, but it brings your original point into question: "Isn't recognizing there is a problem the first step on fixing the problem?" Which problem are we recognizing? Labeling a general problem a male one assumes a diagnosis, which points the search for causes and fixes at men when nothing in this report shows that's where they are, and other available information shows worsening mental health in women as well.
My friend the only one doing assuming here is you. You've constructed this strawman argument where since this report doesn't prove X then just because it proves Y it's worthless. Proving Y has value.
Carney will still milk it as a way to get votes. There will be 3+ press conferences with leadership, and they will try to talk about it in ways that won't alienate the "remember École Polytechnique" crowd.
ultimately they will do nothing and pass more bills allowing big businesses to do whatever tf they want
Yet.. they say a man's worth is "not" the value they put in the bank account.
2) What's deadly about this space is that surveys can be toxic.
Too often, it's researchers looking to slowly understand things, have people open themselves up, then leave them like that, for little to no progress in 5-10 years.
That kind of system needs supply, no?
3) I have heard from some men that sometimes there can be things that only other men understand. That can be similar to women's health issues can be understood differently, or men can feel more comfortable with other men.
4) It's important for authors to try and be aware of their own unconscious biases. Much like medicine is horribly behind at understanding women's health (for example, women hearts are not the same as men's), it means the inverse can be true too, beginning with asking men.
> 1) "Poor men's health carries economic costs"
>
> Yet.. they say a man's worth is "not" the value they put in the bank account.
That's not what is meant by "economic cost". Helping young men feel better early long term is obviously better and cheaper for society than letting them grow up and live a whole life where they suffer and hurt themselves or others.
Nothing about this is surprising or unknown. We know how to prevent and treat despair-related lives. It's a political choice that most of the world has insufficient or even broken (mental) healthcare. We could choose to vote differently, but we don't.
FWIW, in these sorts of situations I try to link the place where I found the news. If some tiny local news website brought something to my attention that the bigger players don't, then I think they deserve to be rewarded with the add revenue if people follow my link.
Like those social media videos about how therapists won't tell you, because they'll lose their business, that the real way to feel better is to just go to Italy. :)
Literally nothing stopping men from being confident, strong providers if they want to be. Most do not because that is hard and videogames and porn is easy.
That’s a very good example of how problems of men vs women are approached. Women typically get support (which is great! We should continue that) and men are typically blamed for being weak. It’s same pattern for many things, like mental health (like here), general health („it’s not our fault that men don’t take care of themselves”) to men being less educated than women.
There would first need to be a fundamental change in the way boys are socialised, shifting them more towards how girls are socialised. Which I don't see happening any time soon. You can't help people that don't want to be helped and a significant portion of men's brains are in a permanent state of rejecting all help offered to them.
"Traditional Masculinity" is just in general maladaptive in the current age.
I got downvoted earlier today for saying that there's nobody out there that would argue that men and women are exactly the same, except for a little bit of environmental nudging.
That appears to be exactly what you're arguing here: All we need to do is socialize boys more like we socialize girls, and then the men they become will be happier in our society. Is that your position?
If so, can you say a little bit more about what you mean or what you envision that socialization would look like for boys?
"Literally nothing" stopping the perfectly spherical massless man in a social, environmental, cultural and economic vacuum from self-actualising into an ubermensch. Go gett'm, Tyger - The Stars, Your Destination!
Women are successful because they became more like men, to catch up men now need to become more like women, which they will not do because that would be gay.
Women seem to have this special blind spot for men. It's all "empathy this" and "acceptance that," until it's a man. When they see a weak man, what they feel is disgust. And in their disgust, they try to find reasons to invalidate the suffering. He brought it on himself, or he's choosing to suffer because he refuses to open up, or women are suffering worse, etc.
I think this is an intuitive reaction. It's like being grossed out by dog poop on the ground. You feel the disgust first, and although an evolutionary psychology explanation for that disgust may be true (eg, "you have evolved disgust for dog poop to prevent illness and infection) intellectualizing it further would be totally superfluous. People experience the proximate cause for these sort of evolved behaviors, even when they intellectually know better. If you think you're above this sort of reaction, try "choosing" to be attracted to an 80 year old woman.
Someone hurt you; I'm sorry for that. But, you're making sweeping generalizations about ~50% of the world's behavior and, while this may be your perception, I think you could use some genuine therapy to help w/the struggles you clearly are facing.
E: I am so baffled how the HN community could be so very anti-female here that they would advocate for this sort of commentary by downvoting.
They aren't anti-female, they are down-voting your personal take.
You invalidated a lived experience that a lot of people can confirm by telling someone that their feelings are so unrealistic that they need therapy.
> But, you're making sweeping generalizations about ~50% of the world's behavior
sounds a lot like "not all (wo)men"... yeah, but enough of them for many men to have learned to be cautious around vulnerability with women. Its the same thing as guys who don't understand the man vs. bear thing.
You may not have read what they wrote and I responded to, but you just invalidated what I was responding to by saying “wo(men)”. Yes; PEOPLE can be hurtful, but the parent was specifically talking about WOMEN.
The parens were a reference to the "not all men" phrase from the me too movement, and the "yes all men" response.
It's making fun of that sentiment. That all men are the problem is as stupid as thinking that all women are the problem. People who have suffered violence from men, or emotional abuse from women will put up walls, and sometimes it becomes a wall based on gender. You missed the point.
I'm not invalidating what you're saying. I'm explaining why you got downvoted to all hell, and what you're interpretation edit may be missing.
There are subcultures in which men showing vulnerability are considered bad. But in those subcultures, men are just as mean to other men as women are. And women embracing this are usually not very "empathy this" and "acceptance that" towards anybody.
There is definitely a part of feminist culture is openly aggressive toward men in general while being "empathy this" towards women. But they are usually way more aggressive towards cocky men than weak men.
It starts in college, having lived through those first couple sentences verbatim. There is a group / pack mentality around this behavior as well, but I'm not really educated on psychology enough to describe it further.
I have had similar experience in my personal life in multiple relationships, including my wife. I've learned to never complain about anything in front of women and just white knuckle whatever difficulties I get at any given moment. This approach helped me secure more respect and better overall response from women. Showing weakness triggers the disgust response that you mentioned. It could be masked under pity, but you lose respect quickly. Working through my issues with male friends is more productive for me.
The only woman who actually cares for me has been my mother.
- Currently, the dominant ideology is that there is a victim hierarchy, and if you're in the wrong group (ie, you're privileged) then your opinions and needs don't matter. Moving away from this sort of identitarianism would one important step.
- I think it's important to try to understand why male socialization has fallen apart. (statistically, yes, I'm sure a lot of you still socialize) It's clearly a gendered effect, and I'm genuinely not sure what a reasonable explanation would be. (your comment, men supporting men would play nicely here, although I'm not sure how we make that happen.)
To your first point, I am aware of the rhetoric, without having encountered it myself, but would be skeptical it amounts to "dominant ideology" or policy.
To the second, I had more in mind male-centered institutions offering male-tailored solutions; perhaps funded, promoted, or helmed by men. I wasn't expecting those suffering, or the average man, to bear responsibility for solving men's issues.
I spent my teen years in a rural community and observed, and formed, a lot of strong bonds with men. Back in the city, I still see examples of kindness and camaraderie among boys and men. So all I can say is my experience doesn't bear out what your point 1 is asserting. My own view of modern men's isolation is that it's a fairly recent pathology.
"The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation. From the desperate city you go into the desperate country, and have to console yourself with the bravery of minks and muskrats. A stereotyped but unconscious despair is concealed even under what are called the games and amusements of mankind. There is no play in them, for this comes after work. But it is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things.."
― Henry David Thoreau
A good start would be enforcing truly gender neutral laws by governments all over the world. I personally know at least a dozen men who have been harassed by biased laws and judges when it comes to divorce. These are good men, who worked really hard and took care of their wives very well, only to get either cheated on or scammed for money and lost everything. 2 of them are even almost homeless now. Most of them have aged so poorly after just 2 years into the divorce. Their wives aren't even homemakers who sacrificed anything who are getting paid, mostly working women who have good lawyers who just abuse the laws to steal wealth. Until this system is fixed, men's mental health will always be down the toilet.
What I really learned from these men is never sign a contract where the other party is incentivized to break it.
"The very limited set of protections under the current law can leave cohabitants facing significant financial difficulties when relationships end, which disproportionately affects vulnerable groups such as women, and children..."
All else aside for a second... yes? Women are both physically and economically (primarily when they are stay at home moms) vulnerable. No, that doesn't mean I'm saying that no men are vulnerable at all but averaged out to a population it's clear.
> Economically disadvantaged often through choice is not "vulnerable". It's "economically disadvantaged", at best.
It leaves them economically vulnerable. When 100% of the income is going into one person's bank account that means they have the opportunity for economic control over their partner. Their partner does not have savings of their own to speak of. No, healthy relationships do not work that way. But a lot of relationships do.
Also, it's often not "through choice". A lot of the time childcare is more expensive than one parent leaving their job. A lot of families can't afford an alternative.
Force a Prenup ratio equal to the assets they had at the exact point prior to marriage, or meeting each other, as default. Make shared custody also the default, unless one side is found guilty of abuse.
It's 2026, and women are starting to outearn men in some cities. Why make men the sole breadwinners of the family?
> Force a Prenup ratio equal to the assets they had at the exact point prior to marriage
Which would completely ignore the economic imbalance I was talking about, which occurs during the marriage.
> It's 2026, and women are starting to outearn men in some cities. Why make men the sole breadwinners of the family?
Like I said, making a parent a stay at home parent is simply economic reality for many, while the kids are young and childcare is expensive. There’s no reason why that has to be the woman but the data shows that the vast majority of the time it is.
> making a parent a stay at home parent is simply economic reality for many
The topic was couples/cohabitation/marriage, not child rearing. The concerns you raise would be equally applicable where the parents have decided they want absolutely nothing to do with each other. There is truth in what you are saying, but it is an entirely different topic. How to deal with the child is a negotiation that takes place around the child, not around a romantic relationship (or lack thereof).
In the romantic relationship, there is no realistic situation where one party ends up with all the money unless the other one willingly hands theirs over. But any of us can do that. I can willing give you all my money now just the same and there would be no good legal recourse if I decide it was a bad idea later. The only reason we have these ideas in the world of romance is due to the historical idea that women aren't capable of thinking for themselves.
Is this actually borne out by the data? According to a quick Google search, men make up 73% of Canadian homicide victims and 66% of the homeless population.
Averaged out to the population, it's not at all clear that women are physically and economically more vulnerable than men.
Pro-tip (for both unmarried men and women): You can sign a pre-nup even if you never have any nuptials. It turns out that people can choose to enter into a contract with each other at any time. There are plenty of reasons why people in a relationship may choose not to get legally married, but that does not mean you have to leave yourself at the mercy of the defaults in the law, which may or may not make sense for you.
This is especially important if there are children involved in your situation.
Cool. You think that explains the findings in TFA related to adolescent boys?
From a better write up of this same story:
Young men aged 15 to 24 show concerning trends in their self-rated mental health and rates of mental illness. For instance, between 2012 and 2022:
the percentage who reported "very good" or "excellent" mental health fell from 70% to 52%
the percentage who experienced:
mood disorders increased from11% to 16%
generalized anxiety disorder increased from 4% to 10%
He's saying: They are aware of stories of problems adults face.
It is absolutely true that someone else's life doesn't define their own future path, but that doesn't mean they don't latch onto those stories and project the negativity onto themselves. One cannot see the future, so it is quite common to look to others to predict what the future may hold. As you point out, the future is often completely different to what you imagined, but it is what you are imagining that shapes how you feel.
I’m the father of a 17 year old. He is very aware of the many challenges facing his generation and this is not a topic of concern for him or his peer-group. It’s almost as if this particular thread is dominated by selection bias.
More generally - we can ask if there is data in this study or another one that supports the idea that teen mental health issues are substantially due to their fears of unfair divorce terms they may face 20 years in the future. In my experience as a former teen and father of two, that is simply not happening and I’d need to see the data that says it is before I take it seriously.
They don’t have any real worries about how they will feel in their 30s because they think 7th grade was a long time ago and they don’t quite believe they are actually going to be 30 some day.
My comment is about grown men going through grief because of biased laws. What is the relation to "TFA related to adolescent boys"?
Now, to answer your data points regardless - I don't think you understand that divorce isn't in isolation, it obviously affects entire families, including children. So, I wouldn't be surprised if there is more data showing these young boys are from broken homes.
Gosh, this thread is so full of sweeping takes. Different or equal in what regard? Income? Violent behavior? Or culinary skills? Maybe we should not codify stereotypes into law...
I don't think anybody in their right mind is saying that. The prevailing wisdom seems to be to acknowledge that there are differences in different bodies that often manifest one way in women and another in men¹ but also to acknowledge that it is a lot more complicated than that, including that the binary male/female divide is not always sufficient³ and that environmental factors can have as much effect as the more easily analysed biological ones.
“They claim men and women are no different apart from their environment” tends to be a claim made by those who can't cope with the singular “they” let alone anything else, who are trying to make those who disagree on such points seem ridiculous.
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[1] particularly in the endocrine system, though in other parts² which might also have an impact on how we react to things and our mental health more generally
[2] it isn't just emotional matters and related coping mechanisms: heart attacks often manifest differently in women, or if not that then the signs are often misdiagnosed, for instance
[3] either for talking about specific detailed differences, or for identifying people in terms of their identity & phycological makeup more generally
The assumption is that biological masculinity and femininity form a spectrum based on the complex interplay of genes, environment, and time, and that, just because you know what genitals someone sports, it doesn't mean you know how their bodies and minds will respond to particular circumstances.
This cuts both ways: you will often see physically emasculated men get treated as if they're not men, to their detriment. Think of less-developed young men being cut from sports teams; they have the same in-built need for physical activity, competition, even some measure of practicing dominance, as larger boys. Deprivation leads to frustration and more.
I have thought of that. Regardless, there is a pretty obvious discrepancy of supply/demand in heterosexual relationships, which only becomes more evident through my relations with women.
We're all here arguing the "hender pay gap", yet women have the single most amazing gift granted to them by the universe that men will never have. What I'd give to be the one to have given birth to my own children.
Distinction is always going to be less effective than universally agreed declaration. We can declare: all human beings have equal rights.
Pandora's box is the universality aspect, which must be manifest by those agreeing to declare the nature of ones rights in respect to others rights, both for oneself and for others. This is the reason a distinction-based legal position is poor policy.
We cannot distinguish between a man and a woman if we are agreeing to the universality of their equal human rights.
The we part is the difficult part, apropos pandora's boxes. But ultimately, universality is very empowering to the individual.
Well, asset management could also be held as a responsibility of the marriage in the first place, and that can only be done by way of expressing ones rights with another, properly.
That this expression has become the root of an industry of exploitation (divorce proceedings are a big circus) is clear. Rights are not a constant. They have to be expressed.
If a man and a woman are both drunk and have sex, the man is declared the rapist. (This is said as an example of where the laws, as applied, are not gender neutral)
Yeah, not all states actualize human rights, whether they are party to the declaration or not, as well as others. I don't need to focus on any particular state - I've seen many of them - and understand that there are definitely shifting loads in the worlds cultural fabric.
the desired outcome seems to be that men and women are the same in situations where being a man is beneficial. In situations where being a woman is beneficial that goes away. For example 80% of healthcare workers are women, it is the biggest?(or close to) industry in the USA but I have never once seen someone pushing to correct that imbalance.
I don’t even get how I am supposed to hold my partner to the same standards I would hold a close male friend/family member. If I knew a dude who freaked out and yelled/sobbed several times a month over something inane like where to get dinner I would drop them immediately. I have found just using the old adage “happy wife happy life” is most effective, but isn’t that inherently disrespectful? Like “I can’t reason with this person but if I upset them it’s gonna go poorly for me so I better let them have their way!”. The only way my relationship survives is if I have a bit of internalized misogyny and hold her to a different standard than I do myself or another man.
> have never once seen someone pushing to correct that imbalance.
Conservative men rights advocates find such proposition insulting to men. It is not a manly men job.
Men in those positions are mocked by supposedly pro-male groups
> If I knew a dude who freaked out and yelled/sobbed several times a month over something inane like where to get dinner I would drop them immediately.
Why are you dating someone like that? Genuine question. I dont know ANY woman that cries that often. Not a single one.
The Swedish government has made several studies on why gender segregated professions stay segregated, for both men and women, and their findings have been very similar for both genders. There are indeed some incidents of in-group peer pressure to gender conform. However the biggest factor for both women and men is not negative reinforcement, but rather a lack of positive reinforcement. Women who work in STEM, or men who becomes teachers, has a significant smaller support network for their chosen careers compared to the majority. This in turn provide a poor insulation against setbacks and significant increase the risk of leaving the chosen path. The leaky pipe analogy has thus less to do with people being bullied out of their chosen professions, even if that idea has latched on to the public mind.
I'm not sure if it's about same or universal, someone else already said it's about universal human rights that all humans must agree to demonstrate a practice of care with and towards each other.
Do you have any examples of laws that couldn't just be thought out better and anchor their reasoning more accurately and neutrally? Falling back to using gender often just feels like a quick hack.
Falling back to gender (or race, or whatever protected class you’d like to consider) is far less about rote equality or equity than it is about correcting earlier imbalances of power/access.
People chafe against things like DEI as arbitrary favoritism completely failing to note that yes, this policy is meant to promote equality, not to represent it. In the case of promoting female stem workers you might say it’s a policy designed to give women equal-ish access to the job market by way of giving them preferential treatment in hiring, to counteract biases of men favoring men during that process.
The ideal outcome of any policy like this is that once the systemic inequity is resolved, the policy can be retired.
Assuming all humans and populations of humans are interchangeable parts. We are not. Not so much "race" - which is a fairly idiotic concept as it's applied -- but hereditarianism is very much a real thing. IQ equates with life outcomes and is highly heritable. How people migrate (or are forced to migrate) can help you understand a population and population differences. Nigerians who immigrate to the U.S. now do far better than populations that were brought over during chattel slavery. Likely those who were captured by their neighbors and sold to European slavers had to lose battles of some variety. Selection effect. There are also documented differences between native populations in regions. Things like the harsh winter hypothesis pose that harsher environments lead to higher IQs. Otherwise, why doesn't every country look like Japan? If we don't diagnose the real problems societal interventions will fail to help anyone in a lasting/meaningful way.
The "harsh winter hypothesis" is self-evidently risible. You have to ignore huge chunks of human history, during which the hot-weather civilizations did stuff like invent algebra while the cold-weather civilizations were barely worthy of the label "civilized", in order to take it seriously.
It's really weird that it ever became a serious talking point!
Right, that's my point. The hypothesis is specific to cold climates; it's a just-so story about why southern "races" are less intelligent, and it falls apart instantly on first inspection, unless you think evolution just started to happen 200 years ago.
That sounds good in theory, but all too often people create discriminatory practices to counteract alleged biases that don't actually exist.
For instance, empirical evidence finds that gender bias in tech hiring favors women over men [1]. So DEI ends up exacerbating the bias, not counteracting it.
This is a place where gender neutral language would benefit the outcomes. The application of preferential treatment in hiring could be done based on the imbalance between minority and majority for any profession which are not deemed gender equal. That way it would counteract biases of the majority gender, in any given industry, that is favoring their own gender during the hiring process. The systemic inequity that leads to gender segregation could then be resolved.
DEI does not need to be selective favoritism. It could just be a policy to promote equality. It also happens that the government is the employer, and customer, of professions that has the highest grade of gender inequality (for both men and women).
> DEI does not need to be selective favoritism. It could just be a policy to promote equality.
I'm curious if you could describe a DEI policy that's flawed in this way and then go on to explain how you would implement it in such a way where it wouldn't be subject to the same criticism.
most DEI policy pushes for a narrative saying their work is not done until their is equal _outcomes_ not just equal opportunity. And I know that it will never end because the more freedom we give the genders the more exacerbated their expressions become (in short, and on average, men orienting to objects and women orienting towards people).
> most DEI policy pushes for a narrative saying their work is not done until their is equal _outcomes_ not just equal opportunity.
This is just flat wrong. Both because the word narrative makes no sense in the way you've used it in this sentence, and because equality of outcome is specifically not what is being targeted by these policies.
I'm inclined to think you've imbibed a lot of propaganda on this subject as the use of the word "narrative" in this incorrect fashion is as strong an indicator of that as the emdash is of copying stuff from ChatGPT.
What you're revealing is an underlying difference in constitution of Lib/Cons (to apply labels a bit grossly), in that L is usually concerned with enforcing outcomes despite the values it violates and R is usually concerned with enforcing values/rulesets despite the outcomes it produces.
Is "right" defined by the nature of existence or just by the ends? Some would say an outcome of hunger is unacceptable, some would say there are plenty of "wrong" (try to not make that moral meaning) behaviors which should result in hunger. (Such as refusing to work or trade value for other people's property ie food)
While this line of thinking seems to match, there is a direct competing theory. Both sides focus is on benefiting their voting demographics, one using arguments based on enforcing outcomes and the other values/rulesets.
For example, there was an initiative in Sweden to improve diversity in the student body by giving minority demographics free bonus points during application. For any given minority the outcome would be a small but meaningful advantage compared to the majority so that over time the balance would improve and become closer to represent society as a whole. It was a very unpopular imitative, especially by the left, and later was found to be deemed discriminative. Such initiatives are only supported and approved by the legal system if they are selective.
Equality and justice are certainly noble goals. but they are at this point merely goals. But in parallel, we very much need better support for the men going through the challenges that may come from the lack of equality in divorce proceedings.
Last week's tragedy here, with a father throwing his two young kids off a roof before jumping himself, has caused our community to focus - at least for a while - on what was missing and what our system did wrong and what could have been sone better to prevent that from having happened.
A Pittsburgh suburb. Outside my wife's window. unfortunately, her blinds were closed - otherwise, she might have seen something was about to go terribly wrong and alerted the authorities.
Maybe men don't have supports until it's rock bottom or too late.
At the same time I don't think there's many men who beleive think the standard of supporting women, and children, early and often, should never be reduced or changed. Maybe it could be expanded.
I agree that divorce proceedings could be more equal than they are. But society is not gender neutral, so things like divorce proceedings aren't either. Women are far, far more likely to be stay at home parents. That means they're far more involved in childcare and far less likely to be earning money independently. That makes the situation very difficult when it comes to divorce.
There is the underlying reality and bias. When I'd pick up my kid from Kindergarten it was me and 20-30 other moms hanging out on the playground afterwards. So yes, in that sense we may not see gender neutral outcomes.
The bias however is absurdly strong. My first lawyer said I should have taken my ex's offer of slightly less than 50/50. She said that my ex's floor was 50/50 and that if we couldn't show that we could effectively coparent they'd give it to the Mom.
That's exactly what happened and it held through her completely cutting me off from my son. I even went through a modification try and the same Judge upheld the situation.
As a result I haven't spoken with my son in almost 2 years now.
I would definitely have preferred to have had a couple more days a week off with my kids while they grew up, and given their Mum a chance to do her thing, too. Instead, it became my responsibility to pay the bills, and the rest of the crews right to make them. So yeah, that's what I did.
>2 years
Kids need their Dads, and Dads have to be strong as hell for them, even still, in this modern world. I am super glad to have gotten my two giant oafs into adulthood well enough to be surfing the wonders the world has in store for them both .. but yeah, you'll get your ass kicked. Be a kick ass Dad, then.
The most important thing is that your son knows you're there for him as he grows up. Maybe keep a journal, don't stop writing important things to him, notes and ideas from his Dad, for him to read when he gets his own agency over things.
How is it even possible for someone to prevent you from seeing your own child for two years? That would be completely illegal in my country. Can one parent really just decide to cut the other parent out of their child's life and get away with it? It's absolutely proven than this is against child's children best interest.
How is it possible? Well, theoretically it's not. The order I got and subsequent denial of modification blatantly violate state law and appealate precedent. But it's all procedural. The standard for the underlying opinion of the judge is that if there is one fact to support that opinion then the ruling is upheld.
So I could have appealed and won. But then I go back to the same judge that doesn't think my kid should have any contact with me and all she has to do is find one fact to support that.
More often a custody order is just a piece of paper. The primary parent can screw with visitation easily and it takes time and money to go to court. The original divorce cost me $100k, another contempt motion $7k, and the failed modification $20k.
Custody ends for Fathers when they give up. I gave up unusually early (which royally pissed off the judge) and this is my punishment.
Family court is a scam, and if you end up there you’ve already lost. For some reason your usual legal rights don’t apply; the entire system seems to be constructed to drain everyone of money. It’s basically the definition of “the process is the punishment.” I’ve never seen a good outcome from it.
You don't even have to sign a contract to end up in this situation. In California at least, just habituating with someone for 10 years is enough for the courts to consider you effectively married. That needs to be fixed. Marriage should absolutely be a contractual agreement where one party is fully aware what they're giving up, signing over, or potentially losing, not something you end up in through no fault of your own.
EDIT: Turns out this is NOT true, or at least, nothing I can find seems to point to it being true. Just habituating with someone for a long time is not enough.
this "just habituating with someone for 10 years is enough for the courts to consider you effectively married" is completely false and a myth. Especially in California.
Only a few states have something like the common-law 'marriage' you picture - but it's a really high bar.
There needs to consideration AND usually clear intent to marry (w/ nuance of course);
You can't simply fall into this by happenstance because you cohabitate for {n} amount of years.
California does have a (ever barrowing) Marvin Action.
But it's an incredibly high bar and not family court
You need to prove that essentially a contract exists between the parties; * e.g. consideration *
You need to really fuck up to end up common-law married. You are simply wrong about California (we don't do common law marriage at all), and in all jurisdictions I'm aware of that do have common law marriages, you need to present yourself as married in order for there to be any claim.
That's not some "oh, we live together, and under old-timey understandings that means we're married" requirement. That's publicly making a pattern of referring to each other as your spouses, often including at least some public documentation. Common law marriage is much more about protecting people who failed to dot their 'i's and cross their 't's when registering their marriage than it is about surprising a breakup partner with divorce precedings.
Hm, this flies in stark contrast to what I've been told and what I believed, but you're right as far as I can tell, common law marriage does not apply if you simply live with someone for a long time.
For the record I had heard this from a lawyer, not some random person.
Depending on the state, you don't need to refer to each other as a spouse, just that people get (or could get) the impression you're spouses.
My father's last "marriage" was like this. After several divorces he was dead set on never getting married again, made sure only his (or her) name was on any purchases, and made sure his friends knew the situation. After a messy breakup where he discovered she had been diverting money for drugs and hiding bills, her lawyer managed to convince an Alabama court to find a common law marriage. Not long afterward she ended going to prison for arson after setting aflame some of my father's personal and real property, and his dog[1], in piques of spite. I think those felony convictions happened prior to or at least concurrent with the common law marriage proceedings.
Of course, his real mistakes occurred before he ever started cohabitating. Common law marriage rules were far down the list of wrong turns. But in any event, ironically a few years later Alabama abolished common law marriage.
[1] Dog survived after heroic efforts by, IIRC, University of Alabama, but had pretty severe scaring.
All states in the U.S. that currently recognize or formerly recognized common law marriage require the couple to present themselves as a married couple, either by using the same last name, sharing bank account, or referring to each other as husband and wife, in addition to cohabitation.
It's a factual inquiry. There's no magic thing that's sufficient or necessary, though the things you list tend to strongly favor a finding of marriage unless you can rebut them. The core elements tend to be whether there was a mutual agreement (usually implicit) to marry and whether you held yourself out that way. In a dispute both sides present their evidence and a judge decides. Of course in a dispute one side will be claiming there was no agreement. It's not contract law; the inquiry can be far less mechanical.
> EDIT: Turns out this is NOT true, or at least, nothing I can find seems to point to it being true. Just habituating with someone for a long time is not enough.
It isn't true in California, it appears. It is true in a number of other places worldwide, Australia in particular.
Even in Australia, a de facto relationship – in which partners have a right to a property settlement upon separation – requires more than mere cohabitation of sexual/romantic partners. However, in practice, relatively few long-term cohabitating partners will be found not to be in a de facto relationship.
I started reading this thinking I would disagree, but you're right, in some countries (Canada for sure), there's a weird thing that some genders are more equal than others. I know this sounds bad, but I am a left-leaning feminist.
I've seen first hand where spouses of equal education and opportunity are treated as traditional values applied.
And nearly always it's the male that has to take a second job/cash in their retirement to meet societies demands.
I went through a divorce in Canada, there is a thing called "amiable divorce/separation". Where both parties negotiate a fair divorce agreement rather than the standard "Pay continued support for X months/years + lump sum".
So there is some variability, and of course in my case it was a "happy path" scenario where both me and my ex-wife mutually wanted the divorce.
But by default you have to pay spousal support regardless of how well-off your partner is. The assumption is that women will be worse off after a divorce financially. Which is really not a contemporary point of view to make as a blanket statement.
But again, it seems weird when a male has to work 2 jobs in their 50's to send large monthly payments to a female that has a larger or equivalent net worth.
And it happens routinely. Of course, there are also a lot of men out there that just want to stiff their ex. But that doesn't mean my former example isn't happening.
> The assumption is that women will be worse off after a divorce financially
And this was exactly what happened to my friends. The women who sought alimony actually earned much more. The financial burden was so tough that it turned a good hard working member of the society into almost a criminal (if you don't pay alimony, you can be even arrested for it in some countries).
I guess you missed the last part of my comment. Women are majorly incentivised legally to walk out of a marriage while being financially rewarded for it. Even if you marry the "right" woman, it doesn't guarantee she won't turn into the "wrong" woman over time. And in modern times, it doesn't take a lot for that transition especially with social media really rallying to take advantage of the legal loopholes - eg. you can cheat on your partner AND walk away with 50% of the marital wealth.
Brazilian law is far superior to US laws on this matter.
You only get to choose either:
* Partial Community of Property - the default: applies only to property acquired after the marriage; in case of divorce only that property is split 50/50
* Universal Community of Property - applies to all property before and after the marriage; in case of divorce all property is split 50/50
* Separation of Property - no property is shared at all; in case of divorce nothing at all is split. If you want buy and share property you have to do it explicitly. This is also mandatory in cases where one of the spouses is 70+ years old
Divorce is much less litigious here. It's basically impossible to lose all of your assets. It works the same for men or women.
There are some of the same issues in custody law as in North America but from what I read it still seems way better than in the US.
It's more that these are the only options. No other laws govern marriages. I'm sure other countries have sensible ones too. In the US they have all matter of legal dispute because it's too wide open.
In Islam, we have it much simpler. There's a dowry paid to the woman that becomes her property. Other than that, each person leaves with their own assets they came in with. If, during marriage, they acquired assets they decided to split half way (or any other percentage), that split holds post divorce.
> Universal Community of Property - applies to all property before and after the marriage; in case of divorce all property is split 50/50
This should not even be an option. If you worked your ass off to acquire wealth before marriage, someone new into your life should not be entitled to that.
You can definitely make a fair argument for wealth built together as partners. That is really fair. They can even have 100% of that. But wealth accumulated before that should not even be up for discussion as there was 0 contribution from the other partner.
Some people want to share everything they have. The idea that there shouldn’t be an optional legal mechanism that enshrines that in marriage is ludicrous.
Unfortunately, losing decades of your hard work for a less than a three year marriage makes for unbearable suffering and loss of any hope. The person losing that realizes they no longer matter.
One decision can ruin your life very quickly.
There is no confusion as to why suicide feels like the only option to so many.
It's basically impossible to lose all of your assets. It works the same for men or women.
The issue isn't assets, it's alimony. Brazil has the same issues with alimony as the U.S. does. Most modern countries do. (Asset splits are generally governed by statute and case law. Asset-related conflicts are about whether prenups are valid, or whether an asset is community/marital property subject to split. These same issues arise in Brazilian divorces.)
Also...Britney Spears and most other famous women with unfamous (or less succesful) husbands would like to weigh in on this conversation. It's not that men always get "screwed." It's simply that the more successful partner always ends up paying the other partner.
> Brazil has the same issues with alimony as the U.S. does.
No, it doesn't. Alimony for former partners is very rare in Brazil. If it happens it has a fixed period: a former partner will only pay alimony for 1 or 2 years, if any. Only in some very exceptional cases it exceeds that.
Maybe you're confusing it with child support, which is different.
And bear in mind I'm not red-pilling things here (don't associate me with those nutjobs please). In fact women still get the short end of the stick in Brazil when it comes to these things, it's much harder for them to start over after divorce. I'm just stating how much more logical it is when you have fixed and sane rules.
It's important for people to remember they don't marry other people.
Legally, people are marrying a law in their place of residence, marriage is a contract and agreement with the government.
Through a marriage to the government's law first, two people are married in the eyes of the law.
The first time I came across this it made me wonder how much people are aware of this central, third party in between the two people in their marriage.
> It's important for people to remember they don't marry other people.
Of course you do. As you even point out yourself, you marry the government, which is people.
> The first time I came across this it made me wonder how much people are aware of this central, third party in between the two people in their marriage.
Considering that the traditional marriage process involves two people standing in front of representatives of the government and declaring promises to them it seems like it'd be a bit hard to miss? I suppose if others also don't realize that government is people then they might not realize what the people in the audience are doing? But, then again, given that the two people prepared to make those promises are usually responsible for inviting that audience to the wedding you'd think they would have questions about why they are there otherwise?
Both marriage to the law and marriage to the government was said. I chose to focus on the latter. However, as the law is nothing more than thoughts people have, it too is just people. Any social construct is going to be people.
The idea behind an uneven split is that, in a lot of marriages, the partners do not act fully independently of each other. In marriages where one partner stops working to have or raise kids, they do so knowing the other partner will continue to work. Splitting according to the ratio before marriage would suit this (extremely common) type of relationship very poorly, because the partner who raised a child would have an interrupted career while the other wouldn't. It would be unfair and would discourage this (normal, often desirable) type of relationship
It still doesn't seem quite fair for the partner that simply married, didn't contribute financially, and has every incentive to simply leave and take 50% of the assets with them.
Hence why I said a Prenup ratio based upon what both groups had while single makes more sense.
Ambiguous without more context. 50% of assets for the time period determined by your relevant laws.
In my part of the world, that’s 50% of community property built after the relationship is formally recognized (e.g. marriage, cohabitation, etc.). You own less individually the more time you choose to commit to the relationship. That’s an incentive for the one with more assets to leave, and for the one with less assets to stay, if you want to think about it in those terms. However, that’s not a healthy way to maintain a relationship that builds community property.
Didn’t the marriage laws start favoring women because patriarchy caused immense bias and harm to women over the millennia and left them persecuted and penniless?
True. But society has largely achieved gender equality (and by many metrics such as educational attainment and life expectancy women are seeing better outcomes than men), yet many systems still favor women under the outdated assumption male privilege.
When a couple with two working spouses and no children splits, what is the rationale behind ordering the man pay alimony to his ex-wife that outearns him?
To attack a group of people you always need a convenient revenge myth. Like the Jews oppressed our poor people over millennia and now their children's children must pay.
A teenager boy or young man, what is his share of the guilt for any past injustices? Assuming that all women alive today have a father, don't they also share half of this supposed "guilt"?
The other side of the story is already in the comments. They cheated. Convenience. Some of them even literally confessed literally that.
I am curious, is it because you think women can do no wrong and can only be victims? Otherwise, why would you say that in a narrative about declining men's mental health with hard data points by a government agency?
Because I've known a couple different dudes who have gone thru nasty divorces and have said that kind of thing, how the laws and judges are biased and the deck was stacked against men. And in both those cases I happened to know, either via a trusted third party, or their kids, or their wives, or even from things they themselves had previously told me, that there was a whole lot more to the story that they weren't saying.
It's the same kind of thing as parents complaining their grown children have gone no contact, and if you only listen to the parents you think maybe they have a point, maybe the kids are blowing things way out of proportion, and it's unfair they don't get to see their grandchildren. But then if you talk to the kids and hear their stories it's quickly crystal clear why they did what they did.
People, especially men, need to get way more actively political than passively political in order to solve these issues. The biased judges are often ignorant and not even thinking philosophically about right or wrong or fairness in most of these cases. Also men have a natural bias to protecting women and children, which is also taken advantage of knowingly or unknowingly by the other side. People or individuals can be unfair and inconsistent, but systems can be fair and consistent. Make systems for this. Currently we don't exactly have consistent or fair systems for this. A decently defined system for the scope of handling divorce that is fair to both man, woman and children isn't something that is hard. It may feel like the brain would hurt, if you have not been thinking much.
Hmmm yes my country expects women to earn their own money (the government is paying for your university degree so you better use it you lazy harlots!) but then people start whining about declining birth rates. You just can't win.
Social contributions towards retirement should be lower, but taxes should be higher so the government can get the same money from man they've raised as from woman.
I do not share this position but I understand it may be someones legitimate opinion in general. I do not understand it here - when we are talking about a report like that.
Is it better to go unreported if the alternative is that an LLM was used in the articles creation?
Most people don't have time to read every article posted to Hacker News. Avoiding the AI slop in favor of human-written articles that promise a higher return on investment seems like a reasonable strategy. For that to work, AI slop must be accurately labeled as such.
As Charles Darwin deliberated, and concluded... MARRY MARRY MARRY. Q.E.D.
"My God, it is intolerable to think of spending ones whole life, like a neuter bee, working, working, & nothing after all. No, no won’t do.
Imagine living all one’s day solitarily in smoky dirty London House. Only picture to yourself a nice soft wife on a sofa with good fire, & books & music perhaps. Compare this vision with the dingy reality of Grt. Marlbro’ St. Marry — Marry — Marry Q.E.D."
I strongly oppose all comments that seem to have the causal relationship reversed, that somehow by some biological effect they are now more depressed than in the past. I think that instead the extreme demands of society are the cause and that suffering in silence is the result.
What do you expect when most men have been priced out of a happy life? What do you expect when most men are villainized in the stories that dominate narratives in modern media? What do you expect when men are uniquely dehumanized and calling men less-than is okay regarding height, looks, money, or outward masculinity? If anything I am surprised that the numbers indicating suffering in silence aren't worse.
The leader of the New Zealand Green Party once stated "I am a violence prevention minister and I know who causes violence in the world, it is white, cis men."
I strongly believe (or hope) that in the future the idea of viewing everything through a lens of group theory and identifying who has privilege and who suffers the most in terms of stereotypical cohorts, which is the dominant medium for attributing blame in society at large now, will be viewed by future societies with disdain.
> "I am a violence prevention minister and I know who causes violence in the world, it is white, cis men."
That may well be true, but its also true that the main victims of that violence are "white, cis men"
But people love to lump other people together by shallow characteristics because looking at individuals is hard, and looking at systems individuals live in.
In New Zealand it appears to be young adult women who are the main victims of violence. By quite a margin, like 50% more than men, which is probably enough to override any differences in reporting.
Reported sexual violence, where the ratio is about 40% male 60% female in NZ.
Looking at the UK for violence in general. 72% of homicide victims were male and 28% were female. Men accounted for a higher proportion of victims of violence with and without injury where the perpetrator was a stranger. Vast majority of knife crime victims are male.
Women tend to be victims of men they know. Men tend to be victims of men they don't know.
But sure, carry on with the "#AllWhiteMen" and "#MenDontCry" and victim blaming and other misanthropic nonsense.
I suspect you meant to type misandry rather than misanthropic, and further guess you have little to no exposure to the breadth and spectrum of domestic violence in New Zealand: https://youtu.be/x6tgOOWPMkQ?t=88
It's all the same, and thats why you kill the comments. You like to bundle "All Men" into one group and "All Women" into another because it's easier for you to work with generalisations.
Because more women suffer domestic violence, men don't suffer at all. Winner takes all etc.
Just ignore other forms of violence because it doesn't fit your nice easy groups.
It's completely unsurprising of course, we live in a polarised world.
Downvote me all you want, pessimism is never popular but its often right.
It's a zero-sum game. Everyone, and I mean everyone, is pursuing power. Power means different things, in different contexts, but it always gets back to power.
The most obvious form of power is resources and money. But there are so many other forms. These identity and gender issues we've seen over the last 10 years have absolutely, undoubtedly been at the core about one thing: power.
Now before you get all upset, pursuing power isn't always a bad thing. If you've been historically marginalized, aren't you within your right as a human being to seek equality? The question really is in how you do it, and who suffers as a result, and how far you take it. It's very easy to swing the pendulum back too far, and end up in a society that may or may not be any better but just different.
Being able to say that as a political figure and not getting an unequivocal drumming down by everyone else shows how far gone the west is. There is no turning this ship around.
I hope you agree it's because she identified a demographic group of as causing a lot of problems, not because of which group she chose, right? The most powerful man in the world is blaming trans women for half the world's ills and we can all agree they're both bad statements?
Well, if she deliberately singled out this specific group to appeal to certain voters, then it makes perfect sense to be angry about it. In principle, it's no different from racists or bigots targeting minorities and blaming them for society's problems.
I'd guess that's exactly what's happening here. She could have simply said "men," which would have been a truthful statement. Instead, she specifically said "white cis men," which is a blatant lie.
It's the same tactic as blaming everything on immigrants or Roma people. You know what your voters already believe and what they want to hear, so you tell them exactly that. You reinforce their prejudices to win their support.
Is it even possible to step back from this level of polarization? Centrists quickly get shoved into one side or the other depending on where their funding or family loyalties are. It just keeps ratcheting up when I start to think it's starting to level off
Honestly, yes I think it is possible for things to get better because they have frankly been FAR worse, for reference see most of human history. Most of us lived our formative years in an era of unprecedented peace, we currently find ourselves in an era of transition which often leads to periods of tribalism and strife.
I suppose that's the long and short of it. Material excess just gives us a break from tribalism, but it's always there just under the surface. I'll try to share your optimism
> Material excess just gives us a break from tribalism
Material excess is what gives many people a means to express their tribalism in the way that they do instead of being occupied with some productive activity for the common good.
The New Zealand Green Party got 13.3% of the vote. I could pull all sorts of absolute drivel from any party in any country of the world that got ~ 13.3% of the vote.
Declaring "the west gone" is something better left on a reactionary platform like X, rather than something like Hacker News.
Seems like a fairly high percentage for a green party. Are you saying it was low because of their comments? Did they lose media support or have to apologize?
I'm not well-read on New Zealand politics outside of the broadest strokes (e.g. positive indigenous involvement). I would imagine very few people on this forum are well-read on New Zealand politics, given the demographics that we can probably collectively safely assume.
> Seems like a fairly high percentage for a green party.
Which makes this statement, unless you're well-read on New Zealand politics, pretty strange. Do you even know if they have something like ranked choice voting, or vote-for-party rather than vote-for-candidate, that could greatly impact the performance of smaller national parties?
I don't know about white and cis, but you can't argue with facts that men are overwhelmingly the source of individual violence (as opposed to wars, etc.).
Physical violence is the only thing that everyone agrees is violence. Threats of physical violence are also probably considered violence by a majority, though such judgements are often conditional on the credibility of the threat.
Manipulating state power to deprive people of essentials is also arguably violence, since the state's power is ultimately realized in its monopoly on the same.
Saying mean things to people may be abusive, but it isn't violence in the sense that an unqualified reference generally means.
> Physical violence is the only thing that everyone agrees is violence
For a very long time, everyone agreed that ADHD was defined in how it manifested in males. It is a very limited way to view the world and it create all kind of illogical conclusions that doesn't make any sense.
Bisexual women are statically twice as physical violent when in relationship with women then when with men. Similar, bisexual men are half as physical violent when in relationship with men, compared to relationships with women. The crime statistics are clear here, and yet, it makes absolute zero sense that how physical violent a person is depend on the gender of their partner.
There is however some explanations for the statistics if one start to view the spectrum of violent behavior, the underlying causes, and how and when it escalate into physical violence.
>What do you expect when most men have been priced out of a happy life?
Most PEOPLE are being priced out of a happy life. I'm not aware of any "man tax" men are having to pay when they go out to eat, or when buying groceries, or renting/paying their mortgage.
Your anger is misplaced. You we're raised to believe that a mans job was to earn a high enough income to provide for their family, and now that shit is expensive, that perception society forced unto you makes you feel like a "failure". You're not a failure, you're just someone living in a capitalist society.
>What do you expect when most men are villainized in the stories that dominate narratives in modern media?
Most men are not being made up as villains. This reads like your algorithm/news feed is trying to enrage you.
Are there idiots out there who are attributing the wrongdoings of certain men, and/or the issues of men as a whole to individuals? Yes, but that some idiots voice their opinions on social media is nothing new, nor is it unique to men to be unfairly judged on the internet. Every demographic has bullshit thrown their way these days.
Men and their ideals, are portrayed as inherently evil in a good chunk of western media. It's pretty obvious to anyone looking at the West from the outside.
It's also a reason why the West is failing, but certainly not the only one. Social Welfare states like Europe are burning, since it was never sustainable.
America is fighting among itself, because there is no Asabiyyah (social cohesion), and the wealth inequality (wealth pump) is growing massively.
Compare that with China or Singapore, where social harmony is perhaps the most important thing in their society, food is subsidized, education as a high priority, their laws are punitive, infrastructure is extremely new, etc.
I don’t think you’re open for a discussion but I’ll try; just judging from experience talking to other people who hold similar entrenched beliefs, I might be very wrong.
> Social Welfare states like Europe are burning
I live there and wasn’t aware that it’s burning - Europe also isnt a singular entity.
> the West is failing
I wasn’t aware of that either! Seems to me that western countries (I assume you mean US and EU with that?) still hold most of the power worldwide?
> Men and their ideals, are portrayed as inherently evil in a good chunk of western media
The opposite is also true. I think it’s just because most heroes and villains in western media are men - hell most characters are men.
Men are interested in things, while women are interested in people. That's probably why most characters are men overall. Same with men being more likely to be Autistic.
That being said, it's quite noticeable that people in the entertainment sector, who are probably marginalized, are directing some anger against men.
Ghostbusters 2016, likely started this, and I do wonder if it was to appease the women and other groups after the the #Metoo movement, where marginalized people were given a voice, to pretend that Hollywood was like them (they aren't, look at their governmental funding before #Metoo).
If men are into things, then they likely are into abstractions, concepts, ideas, etc. Stories are one of these. I remember there's neurological evidence to back this up, but I have no links on me currently.
France is burning because they're defaulting and can't pay for their social welfare benefits, and Germany's economy isn't doing so well. That's a good chunk of Europe's economy in a nutshell. Only Poland I believe, has improved and officially was considered developed since 2018.
France's West African colonies are also leaving France as they inch closer to China, politically and economically.
China is rising, and so are other (previously and currently) Third World nations. It's a matter of when they take power, not if. India and Indonesia seem to be heavy hitters, for now and probably for the near future. I wouldn't count out Africa (Nigeria, Kenya, Botswana, Rwanda) or Latin America (Mexico, El Salvador, Brazil, etc).
I stand by my statement of Western entertainment demeaning men, probably out of anger, or as something of an alibi for Hollywood after the #Metoo movement. Occupy Wallstreet is also notable for happening before this.
Germany has the third largest GDP worldwide so I don’t think it’s “not doing so well” considering how tiny it is.
China/Asia, South America and Africa have the most space, people and natural resources so it just makes sense that they would be more successful in the long run though.
>I stand by my statement
That is fair. I stand by mine that this doesn’t convince me.
Of course men are the villains when they hold the most power.
You can’t really be an effective or convincing villain if you’re powerless.
Germany made its money through high end production (which is handled by Asia) and its Mittelstand (which like most of the West, is starting to slow down massively).
Germany is still in a good position for Europe, but it can't compete as well as it once did compared to Asia or the US. Even then, the US is having issues with China.
"Of course men are the villains when they hold the most power."
I agree with the statement, but not the context.
Looking at Velma, Dragon Age: Veilguard, Ghostbusters 2016, Star Wars sequels, She-Hulk, and much more, a good chunk of such Western media feels like they have some disdain for a large portion of fans who watch them.
Like a Superiority complex formed out of deeprooted insecurities of their feelings towards men.
You could argue men have reacted to this in the same way, especially in Instagram and the like.
If you're going to use art to back up your point that society hates men, then there is a literal mountain of artwork throughout humanity that vilifies women.
This is about a trend of the recent decades to reboot popular franchises with formerly male heroes and replace them with female versions (instead of, i.e. think up new female heroes).
If we're talking about where future art direction is going, then how much artwork from centuries ago exists is not relevant.
I think it's gotten better? Ghost Busters: Afterlife (the movie following the 2016 one) also went back to their original cast and instead introduced Phoebe as a new protagonist.
I was noticing it most strongly with Disney. Not sure what was their strategy there, but for some period in the last few years, they seemed to go mechanically through their IP catalog and produce a life action reboot for each classic. The reboots were mostly unremarkable IMO, but they had a strange recurring pattern: Almost every one of them included one controversial change to the original setup that was guaranteed to rile up certain fans and cause drama, ostensibly in the name of DEI.
It became such a predictable occurrence that I'm honestly not sure if they really felt the need to "modernize" their classics, or if they were deliberately causing those controversies as a promotion tactic.
those examples you listed are really not representative of media in general - i don’t even know half of them!
Most of these are fanslop anyway, utter garbage even before their woke 1.0 versions.
Like ghostbusters or Star Wars sequels were never good
And to my knowledge for example the ghostbusters was a major flop.
Sounds to me like you get your knickers in a twist for a huge nothingburger
> I live there and wasn’t aware that it’s burning - Europe also isnt a singular entity.
As a resident of Portland OR, I'm all too familiar with people pointing to protests confined to a few downtown city blocks as evidence of the entire city being burned to the ground.
Seems like France/Europe is currently suffering from that same sort of propaganda. "Europe is so far gone because thr Gucci store in Paris got looted and some cop cars burned."
French protests are known for their ferocity in European context, yes. But what was dominant in the recent weeks were not protests, it was the rioting. Obviously.
People protesting poor school conditions don't burn down their schools or random public buildings.
Your description seems to ignore that a historic town hall that survived two world wars was invaded and torched, and burnt to the ground, and that entire neighbourhoods -public spaces- in major cities have been turned into warzones from weeks of riots involving hundreds of thousands of people, causing extensive property damage, widespread feeling of insecurity and environmental damage.
Your takeaway from this was apparently 'looted luxury store and burned cop cars'.
Is it your source of news that's to blame for that misapprehension, or your personal stance on things?
The sex ration of completed suicides in the USSR as a whole between 1984 to 1990 was 3,9 men to 1 women.
That is, near exactly the same as in the 'capitalist' world then, and now.
(In the Slavic-predominant part of the USSR, that is Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, it was an even worse 4,6-to-1. Somewhat lower in Central Asia at ~2,7-to-1).
Haven't this been known for a loooooooong time now...? I recall listening to TED talk (silly times) at least 15 years ago already talking about how behavioral pattern difference of seeking help between men/women pointing to this.
By now I would've hoped the conversation have moved from re-recognizing the problem and iterative solution seeking?
Silent suffering of this cohort have for the last maybe 10 years been too profitable segment to milk out of, to actually try to solve the underlying issue. (manosphere for example being one of the vicious extractor of this suffering)
The solution have always had some alignment with the observation that for guys, a sense of belonging, purpose, (and if younger) guidance and healthy rawmodels have been important. It warms me to see how some local efforts have addressed this. How much lively the surrounding became when they installed a free-to-use outdoor gym and football courts, for people to mingle. (and for the older cohort, Frisbee golf court apparently).
It doesn't help that when this conversation comes up, people start to project a lot and inevitably people will start to bring up women (in antagonistic tone) creating a cesspool of bitterness to hijack the conversation.
Predictably, many of the comments here are already about women
I don't believe I suffer, but it seems pretty obvious why someone would do it in silence. Many times when I tried to get help from institutions for anything nobody seemed to care much at all. It's like you could either deal with your problems in silence or deal with them "out loud" and have people pretend to care while looking helpless.
To be sure, not referencing mental health here but rather virtually any issue institutions claim to care about.
I have difficulties, mostly due to overload, and sometimes it would be good looking at it from an other angle, discussing with someone. There are some male peers I am being able to discuss certain matters, usually a different detail with different peers, but not everything. I look with curiosity how my wife is able to discuss things with a professional. My concern are usually: the professional can only know about what she explains, the way she explains, the amount she explains. The output can only be based on that constrained input (sessions are bound by time). Probably it is not a surprise that things do not get changed much. I have no time for that - did I mention that I am overloaded? By the time I was able to tell it in a decent granularity, complemented by details from people knowing me a certain way - no-one have full picture - so the picture is not distorted by looking through my eyes only, by all this time I'd be really frustrated that things went on and we got nowhere. And all those assume that I am able to phrase and express clearly what the heck is going on, very difficult sometimes. Also that the professional is good at listening and is not trying to force a pattern on me. I am from an upbringing that taught me doing something when something is wrong, try my best and accept what comes out of it. Suggestions of others are pieces that may help or may not. Possibly pretty random (e.g. the person was basically me in that scenario and came out well, so they really know what they are doing, not just meddling for some reason).
Yeah, getting any external help is difficult. Need some inner source some way, accepting some level of 'flaws'.
HR is overwhelmingly subservient to feminist orthodoxy and feminist orthodoxy is categorically hostile to any implication that men require any emotional support on a societal level.
Women are about 1.8x more likely to attempt suicide[1], but men are about 4x as likely to die by suicide.[2] Rates of suicide in female adolescents appear to be increasing at a faster pace than in male adolescents.[3] There is a body of literature suggesting a link to social media.
As a nit in an area where words matter, the title's phrasing of "Too many men suffering" implies that there is a correct number of men that should be suffering.
I think the broader point is that both genders have seen a decline in mental health over the same time period. Scoping by gender is a choice. One I am highly suspicious of when people are happy to chime in with their change suggestions.
1) Are we sure this is even a male problem? Apparently the percentage who reported "very good" or "excellent" mental health fell from 70% to 52%. What was the answer for women? Turns out they dont ask the question but we know related metrics like anxiety, depression, etc. show a similar trend. What does it say about the views of the Canadian health ministry that they would target this survey at men only?
2) There sure are a lot of people in these discussions who come ready with their diagnosis for men. It's quite the entry-point.
1) Yeah, we should probably have both sets of data, but seeing this in any subset is alarming
2) Yeah, that sucks
3) Scouting is still around! As an Eagle Scout, I don't think the issue is that girls can be in Scouts now.
I wished there were (separate) girl troops when I was in it, and was part of an Explorers troop (BSA subtype with men and women, 18–21, affiliated typically with a fire station, police station, or hospital). Men and women can learn the skills that Scouting teaches together, but you need community members to help support the troop.
I hope all of my kids are in Scouting one day, because it helped me without hurting me, but the door is wide open and plenty of people aren't walking through.
Per your note on point #1, one thing we need is good data, but I'd say the other thing we need is to support our friends in getting off the couch and hanging out. Check in on the people you haven't heard from for a while. I have reached out to men I knew from college several times to get lunch or dinner and learned they don't have a good social network. The modern world gives us so many amazing opportunities, but a lot of them are hard or scary to take advantage of alone. Go grab some friends and work through them together. It won't fix everything, but it'll fix some things.
The comments are revealing. "Men think...", "women need..." We are caught in a semantic-linguistic trap, debating a false dichotomy and pointing out all the places it has respectively harmed us.
I'd argue there's room for men's issues under (4th-wave, intersectional) feminism. The patriarchy mostly benefits a few at the top, but it has also privileged men disproportionately over at least the last few millennia and if we want to have a real conversation about it we have to have a common set of agreements on which to advance that conversation. We're not there yet as a society, we don't have the language or concepts to make this work on any side of the issue. I guess I'm arguing that some people actually do, but it's where we get into areas of gender deconstruction that start raising sharp objections, which is also part of the semantic-linguistic trap.
Men feel isolated because they are. They don’t reach out because they intuit being vulnerable will not help them.
Why would we question their feelings??
Male loneliness is a symptom of community breakdown along with growing economic expectations from institutions (corporations and government) that rely on them for revenue and labor.
Smaller local communities do value men’s contributions, but those have been liquidated in favour of Institutional Liberalism.
So as a man, you now *have* to live as an individual. The state is hostile to your interests, the market is hostile to your interests, and, as a group (not individually), women are hostile to your interests.
But as a man you can define your own worth apart from social validation, find other like minded men for camaraderie, and still lead a meaningful life.
I have spent a lot of time in countries with strong male community even to this day: cafe culture where the menfolk of the town meet daily, sometimes for hours. I speak the languages and can be a full participant.
As a man, I find those cultures just as vexsome as the cultures of isolation and anomie. Men talking one-on-one or up to three-four people have a good dynamic. But when men assemble into larger groups and a public male society, they inevitably talk about football, fucking women, toilet humor, and other inane things. Also, a pecking order is always established in large male groups, and men on this neurodivergence-heavy site are likely to be at the very bottom of it. Be careful what you wish for.
> Also, a pecking order is always established in large male groups, and men on this neurodivergence-heavy site are likely to be at the very bottom of it. Be careful what you wish for.
A $500,000 total comp engineer with a wife and a house in California set to retire at 50 vs a $60,000 bar tender in Ohio with a hotter wife and muscles. Who's higher in the chain? Genuine question
Now imagine a culture where neurodivergent but wealthy you has to regularly sit at a cafe table or attend religious observance with men who are overwhelmingly the latter type. Being ostracized or mocked daily would still sting in spite of your enviable wealth.
Most likely the engineer won't find other dudes relatable, so he won't be taking part in the dick measuring contest, so he'll be at the bottom. Meanwhile the bartender has the same core values as the rest of the group, and has more achievements that are aligned with those values.
When I was a kid I was one of the best students at school which gave me negative respect from peers who valued sports, physical power, and pissing off teachers, which were things I sucked at. I think that your example is a similar situation.
It's the nature making decisions here. It has decided to lower the sprawl of human race to rebalance the ecosystem. The nature's correcting forces restore the equilibrium. Governments focussed on worker-driven economy rather than family well-being would naturally force everything towards genderless robotic societies which are ideal for work. European nations even started making policies specifically for punishing people opting to not to work. The world is taken over by powerful new races of creatures - governments, businesses, data and AI. They are nature's agents working to control the human growth. Human race is degraded to an unnecessary biological mass.
Well because men are physically stronger than women and because some men are wife-beaters or rapists or cheating on their wife, since decades already now there's been a movement to portray all men as raping pigs.
So it's no surprise that young gullible persons (both men and women), after that insane propaganda campaign that commences with kids at a young age, eventually got convinced all men were worthless pigs.
And now, cry me a river, there are national health report findings saying that "too many men suffer in silence".
Maybe it's time we look out as to whom are the actual people responsible for this state of affair?
You cannot spit in the air and expect it to not eventually come back in your face.
P.S: as a sidenote and very, very, very interestingly these same movements that describe men as pigs turn a complete blind-eye to actual patriarchal societies and religions, which is honestly quite shameful.
This is results of general misandry culture in the past two decades or three, it isn’t just laws or hard artifacts you can trace and correct, it is the general acceptance that it’s ok to ridicule men, insult them and belittle them publicly and all over media, and if a man objects it he is gaslighted and called all sort of bad names like insecure or whatever, a man in control? God forbid he is controlling misogynistic {insert other terms}, men natural way of doing things are also attacked, from simple ways of how they sit or act all the way to natural instinct for intimacy where men are visually stimulated yet are attacked or ridiculed for it, and many more examples. And unless a major cultural shift happens, this won’t go anywhere, you can look at the numbers and I don’t mean serious ones like suicides but also employments and others, look up female/male hiring ratio in the past year or two, or in jobs where women get shoved into very niche fields for virtue signaling, not because they are indeed competent, and many more. And obviously very little studies about that because whos gonna fund such research? After all, scientists mostly go with their sponsors directions.
Misandric culture has been a thing for more than those two decades obviously, but in this age of easily-peddled one- or few-liner "arguments" (trivial to claim and spread, far more difficult to effectively bring to a stop) on 'social media', misandric memes and memetic content has exploded in both prevalence and impact, that is in the twenty years since facebook and twitter et al that serves as seedbeds for these toxicities came to.
Someone else here asked why a mens issue would also affect adolescents? Simple: Adolescents, naturally including boys, are the heaviest consumers of 'social media', and are thus most heavily exposed to it. The rest of us are mostly exposed to the second-order effects, namely misandric culture and institutional misandric bias which seems to be powered by the same memetic toxicity that we've witmessed on SoMe the past two decades.
Men and boys are thinking and feeling beings, too.
It is very difficult to talk about illness, especially chronic illness. It is one thing to break a bone, or need stitches; something entirely different to say you have chronic migraines or POTS. Every time I mention it I fear I'm sacrificing future employment opportunities.
And it goes without saying, if you are disabled you will miss out on a lot, often we are just trying to not make it any worse.
This is a trap, just like it’s a trap when my wife asks me what’s wrong, I give an honest answer, and then I’m scorned for being weak [1]. Men need to cultivate an internal compass. The government can alleviate the issue by stopping the systemic preference of women that they have instituted in education, employment, and law.
[1] To head things off, I’m fine, thanks to a few sessions of therapy a few years back
I’m having a hard time buying the argument that the law prefers women when women just had their bodily autonomy stripped away across the US only a few years ago and the very real, awful history that lead to the “me too” movement due to years of women not being taken seriously in the eyes of the law.
I have a feeling this comment will not sit well with you but I am very much willing to engage this in good faith. I don’t see what you’re seeing. There are definitely domains where different genders have the advantage, but to act like the law as a whole benefits women over men…that dog don’t hunt IMO
Education, there is a stronger argument there (re admissions and such, not safety). I agree that has gotten messy as hell at the very least.
Workplace, similar to my issue with the law claim.
It's not clear to me that women's bodily autonomy is starkly disadvantaged in US law vs men's.
The law protects female infants from circumcision in a way that it doesn't protect male infants.
The law requires men to register for the draft.
Men who have been circumcised and/or drafted surely outnumber women who have been denied an abortion in modern America.
The comparative scope and impact of those insults to bodily autonomy is debatable, but I don't think it's so black-and-white that someone might reasonably prefer the overall status of women in the eyes of US law.
(Just to be clear, I think everyone's bodily autonomy should be protected.)
Citing conscription is incredibly disingenuous. Nobody's getting drafted again.
And surely we are discussing life in the US today for young men and women, not for the vanishing number in their late 70s and 80s who were drafted into Vietnam.
Just a few days ago my wife told me that a woman should never express empathy to a man when he complains about life being difficult (because apparently then he will spend the rest of his life complaining, and never grow up). This is a wisdom she learned from her mother.
From my perspective, that's a complete idiocy. (And incompatible with love.) But she is not the first woman I heard to express a similar opinion. It's in the culture.
> The government can alleviate the issue by stopping the systemic preference of women that they have instituted in education, employment, and law.
US SecDef Hegseth, and the Trump administration at large I guess, tried to address this but it doesn't seem to have gone over well with people. Maybe if they had just focused on women and not also went after minorities and the LGBTQ community, it might have been more popular?
I couldn't help noticing the linked report didn't mention religion (at all?). The list of participating organizations listed one church (Renew Church and maybe one other spiritual organization).
We're more than just a body (physical) and a mind (soul), but also spirit.
Spirit in the sense of conscientiousness from the divine, or a sense of awe of the foresaid.
I read through the underlying report, but the survey itself is extremely unremarkable.
There were only 12 very vague questions - and none actually asked the respondent about how they felt personally: "Where do you believe stereotypes about masculinity primarily come from?"
Only about 2/3 of the respondents even identified as male - this isn't a serious study of how men themselves feel. It's more of a survey about the public perception of men.
This was a particular lazy government report that just happens to touch on a nascent gender war, but it is shocking how much published research in psychology is more or less like this.
Not sure whether sarcasm really wants an answer, but here's one either way: yes, an actual question asking for actual answers would have been largely preferable. Of course, only preferable for those who actually want answers, to start fixing it. Because neither vague hand-waving nor sarcasm can bridge the gap between influencer empowerment garbage talk and real life interrelationships.
I had the same experience, I read the attached link, just read a lot of fluff, found the link to the actual report, and it wasn't much better. There's definitely an interesting discussion to be had about this topic, but the original post does not carry the right information to have that discussion, IMO.
Australian Government did something similar for woman a few years back. The research of which set the foundation for it being assigned national security importance. During that research they found these men issues as detailed here in this article. No action was taken. Only on how it affected woman. Now some action has started, hopefully Canada doing something about it will push them to do more.
The poor mental health is the symptom, not the disease. Men are suffering in the modern economy. That is triggering other things such as failure to start higher education and failure to start families. I work with guys every day who want families but also realize the financial impossibilities. They aren't earning 200k. They do not have rich parents. They will not own a house before hitting 40.
I did a yearly career counseling/updating session with a guy a month ago who's "long term goal" was to buy a dog. A dog needs a yard. A dog needs an owner who is home regularly. So he figured that in the next 10 years he might be able to get a small house and switch to a job with more regular hours. THAT is where depression starts. A good man with a good job and all he can envision for himself is maybe... one day... if he saves every penny... he might get to adopt a puppy.
The answers are not in more government-sponsored therapy sessions. The answer is to improve jobs, to give the working man a future to look for.
A lot of the infrastructure got closed in Canada circa 1980s, or 1990s. Some tools are still available - sometimes - and I finally got my diagnosis following through with that, almost 20 years ago now. Anyway, this is partially "there's no tools available to help", and partially a "culture of not talking".
One of the consequences is that - while all of my issues have underlying biological causes (and thus, I can see specialists to mitigate that, somewhat) - I've been on a waiting list for ADHD now for 3 years, with no idea when I'll actually be able to see anyone. Thankfully, otherwise, my cPTSD - I got enough tools in the year after the diagnosis that it's no longer - most of the time - causing any trouble.
Now I was homeless when I started (this IS related to me being able to get help) - but those paths are not easy to get through. That help has been inaccessible to me since I stabilized my housing and employment situations.
So yeah, I'm not surprised. I've met a LOT of people who need more help than they could get ... providing they were open to reaching out. This is entirely related to "homeless epidemic". Mind "shortage of work", "cuts by companies who moved their offices south of the border" are related to this, too.
There is certainly more pressure, and workplaces can be a minefield for men. God forbid a man is rude to a woman; it can't simply be "rudeness", it now has to have its own classification of "mansplaining", "toxic masculinity" etc. and therefore a greater seriousness.
I have seen and experienced this myself: in one past company, the HR person openly held the view that if a woman accuses a man of "harassment", it's probably true. In other words, HR itself operated with an attitude of 'guilty until proven innocent' against men.
I was once personally accused of "racism" against people of my own race (but across a political divide) by a former female colleague who was of a different race altogether. Thankfully, this was over LinkedIn chat outside of work where we also worked for different employers. I shudder to think what would have happened if this had been inside a workplace.
I don't blame women at all for this. I don't believe women are perpetuating this OR benefitting from this. This is a worse situation for everyone.
the Western society has adopted capitalism (money is God and money above all), and enjoys Capital when times are good and incomes are high.
However, for some strange reason, the West refuses to use dialectic materialism to explain when times are bad, when males feel lonely or face increased suicide rates.
material conditions explain everything, both when times are good, and when times are bad.
The solution is to obtain (via any means necessary) better material conditions, which might include redistribution by force or political action
As I posted earlier, the sex suicide ratio in the USSR was equivalent to or worse, than contemporary and current ('capitalistic') sex suicide ratio. Material 'explanations' of the issue do not suffice here.
I think this whole discourse is unhealthy and frankly more toxic for the HN community than the political threads. At least those get flagged right away. Time and time again these threads about male suffering/under-representation/discrimination end up being upvoted, with malcontents flocking to them and filling the comments with generalized statements about women, paranoia about divorce rape and of course the ever-present disdain towards feminism.
This is getting really tiring and it's frankly a shame to see the inexorable slide of HN into a sexist echochamber. The irony of it is, I'm pretty sure that a large part of self-victimising posters in this thread were complaining about the SJW oppression olympics just five years prior.
I get where different kinds of bigotry come from; when things get bad, outgroups are always going to be blamed and scapegoated, whether racial or class-based. Yet there’s something inherently obscene about blaming women for the social issues modern society faces. How bad things must be for someone’s designated oppressor outgroup to constitute 50% of the population, people who resemble them and face largely the same problems? Seriously, do all these people who make sweeping generalisations and talk about “women” as some kind of monolithic entity ever actually talk to women or have female friends? It’s bizarre.
Hey, maybe this is a chance for chuds to exercise some self-reflection and reconsider the merits of intersectionality. I doubt it, though, as a "chud" is pretty much by definition someone who is incapable of self-reflection.
>Yet there’s something inherently obscene about blaming women for the social issues modern society faces.
The root of problem is that you don't find it inherently obscene to do the same to men.
That's literally all it is. If you think women are worth more than men you are, in a system of equality, objectively wrong.
If you want women to be socially worth more than men, what are you going to give men to uphold that deal? Because the longer you answer "nothing, fuck you", the worse this gets.
Who says I don't? Of course it would be obscene, that's my whole point. What I said about othering half of the population applies in both directions. Yes, it would also be wrong and absurd to blame men for social problems!
I'm calling out the petty sexism that I'm seeing far too often, how did you manage to read it as an attack on all men? There's that victim mentality again. Nobody except a small minority of deranged fanatics calls for women to be socially worth more than men.
However, I do find that last line of yours telling, the implication of betrayal, and the promise of future reckoning. Pray do tell me: what exactly is going to get worse? What happen next? Women to be driven back into the kitchens? The beta uprising?
> However, I do find that last line of yours telling, the implication of betrayal, and the promise of future reckoning. Pray do tell me: what exactly is going to get worse? What happen next? Women to be driven back into the kitchens? The beta uprising?
Amen. Hallmark of misogynistic, reactionary commentary on the internet. Almost guaranteed to appear. Like we need an internet law about it...
This is the type of stuff that Elon Musk greatly overestimates dominates public opinion because of his X echo chamber, leading him to waste $500 million on election advertisements.
>Nobody except a small minority of deranged fanatics
Yes, "it's just a few crazy kids on college campuses". We've heard this lie before.
>What happen next? Women to be driven back into the kitchens? The beta uprising?
You're telling on yourself here with the standard feminist hysteria. What's actually happening at the moment is the stark divergence in life trajectories between men and women who are able to co-operate and treat each other fairly, and those that are not.
The consequences of failing to do this only become apparent for women in old age, much like it's only apparent for men in young age. Humanity doesn't really have an instinct to moderate that yet because resource scarcity meant it never really developed a sense for how to behave in post-scarcity environments.
We're not quite at the point where the consequences of gynosupremacy have come home to roost- the women born privileged under that system haven't hit the age at which men are no longer instinctively wired to value women over themselves yet. But once they are there, they'll quickly find that having no young men left who are willing or able to maintain the current inequality, and no old men who respect them enough to give that order due to how they acted when they were young, will remain.
You have already seen the beginnings of this. When you are privileged, equality feels like oppression.
Heh, didn't take you long to hit me with the hysteria accusation.
I don't know what kind of bubble you came from, but I really suggest you befriend some women and get another perspective. Your worldview is all sorts of fucked up, and I don’t see any point in further discussion with someone who believes in “gynosupremacy” and spews the usual incel drivel about women finally getting their due once they age out of their reproductive years.
As expected for someone whose views are the precise reason the problem even exists- you have provided no actual argument other than repeating "man bad woman good".
I don't blame women for men's problems, but just to be pragmatic about the situation, the kinds of comments you're referring to are usually a response to this same kind of micromanaging of thought. Doubling down on it probably won't be an effective response.
I am not part of the thought police, nor do I promote the nebulous feminist oppressive agenda that half of the posters here seem to be fighting against. I doubt my expression of disdain for casual misogyny qualifies as micromanaging of anything. I just think the whole thing is ridiculous and ultimately self-destructing.
You say "half of the posters here" are doing this, and a sibling comment claims the majority are guilty, but I don't see it scrolling up and down this comment section. Seems like the mods and the [flag] feature keep things cleaner than I've seen on just about any other forum this large.
Not the impression I am getting. A quick look shows quite a lot of pent up resentment and indignation. As of this moment:
- Most upvoted comment with 155 posts under it claims that men's poor mental health stems from unfair divorce laws. As always, there's a subthread with fearmongering about being unwittingly trapped in a common law marriage.
- Second highest rated one goes on about the usual drivel about men being villainised and dehumanised in the media.
- Fourth highest rated starts with "This is a trap, just like it’s a trap when my wife asks me what’s wrong"
I rest my case. People in the comments here aren't alright.
One of the deepest problems with being a man is the palpable, omnipresent sense that there are too many dudes. It is just a fact of the human condition that a large fraction of males are biologically superfluous. Society tries to equalize outcomes by promoting monogamy, but this strategy is losing effectiveness in the face of dating apps and extended premarital relationships. Historically, violence and war also tended to reduce the population of males, but violence has declined enormously compared to previous eras.
This isn't really the case! And, FWIW, it is neither true that monogamy is some clever invention nor that many women are meaningfully hypergamous. In all the high-quality data I see, women are just single more just as men are, they just don't talk about it as much in places you or I read (it seems like psychometrics implies the median woman is more okay with being single than the median man. Part of it could be that).
Men struggling is no surprise. Today's world is not well suited to their strengths (physical strength, risk taking, aggression, etc..). It's better suited for women and they're winning in a ton of important categories that contribute to quality of life. To compound this, the dating scene for men is abysmal. Women have so much power in the dating market and use it to their benefit as men did before them.
Men especially take this hard. I find men have a very very strong urge to get ahead, succeed, and climb the ladder of success. If they consistently fail at this AND can't find a partner it gets really rough. I have a close friend going through this now and he is contemplating ending it. I'm visiting him everyday just to try to bring a smile to his face
> I have a close friend going through this now and he is contemplating ending it. I'm visiting him everyday just to try to bring a smile to his face
You're a good dude
I have a friend like this too. He graduated out of an IT program into the post AI world, in a kind of small town. He's working at a grocery store, convinced he's unlovable (and unfuckable), and he's started to talk about ending it sometimes. Super good dude, just needs some wins, but life has not been good to him
Very similar situation to my friend! Can't move up in career, working at a dead end job, women either ghost him or are rude when he talks to them.
The unlovable part really hit the nail on the head. I can't begin to explain what a lack of relationship and sex life has done to him. He questions EVERYTHING about himself because of this. "Maybe I'm ugly" "Maybe I'm a bad talker" "Maybe I'm not smart enough"
You are a good friend and truly the solution to the problem is simply people looking for the people in their lives that are struggling and being there for them, its amazing what just a little acknowledgment from a friend (or even a stranger) can do for someone.
One day I was at a store checking out and the attendant was rather brusk and didn't seem particularly friendly, but he was wearing a watch that I liked and I simply stated that I liked his watch and he lit up, the whole dynamic changed in an instant. I wasn't trying to be nice I literally just liked his watch but after seeing how he opened up and changed after that statement I realized just how much joy can be created with a simple compliment. I try to genuinely compliment people more often now.
I love this and have been doing it for a while. I compliment strangers weekly and get the same reaction you do. It actually bring myself immense joy to see their faces light up.
I suspect we underestimate how many people we see everyday that are hiding deep sorrow under their persona
I’ve grown up mostly friends with queer people and women, given they feel emotionally safer and are just generally more pleasant to be with. Men have it hard, but I don’t think any harder than any other group of people out there.
Now, I’m a dude. I got into clinical depression, trauma therapy, attempt at suicide, you know, the works. I’m very empathetic towards the suffering of other people.
But… men’s struggles can be 80% alleviated by men showing empathy, doing some therapy, and trying to connect with other people. There. Our ‘strengths’ aren’t that useful in the modern world, but failing to adapt and seeking behaviours that would help us thrive is contrary to evolution.
Things have been tipped in favour of women for a bit, which is a correction on the previous environment. And, eventually, it will all harmonise.
I’ve now had 3 separate moments where dudes were making fun of my toddler. You know, the casual snickering, the little comments. Uh, look, it’s a child doing child things. Womp womp, can’t be vulnerable, gotta tear everything down to make ourselves feel good.
I’ve women in my life that date or go on dates with the complete men-children that are perpetually in arrested development, inconsiderate, unkind. They’re not meanies or thugs, they’re just dudes that never learned compassion or empathy, that never had the curiosity of wondering “is the world unfair or am I not adapting to it?”
Men deserve help. We all do. But the Male Loneliness Epidemic is, if not self-inflicted, self-perpetuated. We need, as men, to take responsibility for ourselves and find ways out of this.
as a pretty non strong (can't gain muscle), non aggressive, not risky guy what you say seems the opposite of true. every day i see people like that, buff aggressive risky men, have a ton of easy success in life. people like me we suffer in silence or between each other. some can get by with other qualities (creativity, humor, etc) if they have them.
What kind of jobs? What kind of success? Do they sustain it long term? What income bracket do they make it to long term?
Typical white collar jobs have by far the highest long term earnings in the numbers I've seen, and these jobs are not what aggressive buff guys tend to do well in long term. Generally if you want to earn well, then you should get a boring masters degree and work a boring white collar job and rise through the ranks slowly. Numerically you will end up doing better than most. But it's soooo booooring.
It blows my mind that so many people in the comment section act like dating is the only way to be happy, and value people's lives purely through calculated mathematics and game theory, not to mention throwing around ideas with zero certainty, like 'monogamy is only a cultural imposition.'
I get the impression, whenever there are these "studies" about men's suffering, it's purely from the self-interested angle of getting men to do what the system wants them to do.
It's only a problem if they aren't getting what they want. Similarly with the whole "toxic masculinity" thing, you ask them what "non-toxic masculinity" looks like and it's just a bunch of self-serving bullshit.
I'm not saying women aren't pathologized similarly. But it seems like, we live in a world where scarcity is king and everyone is out for themselves. You can think otherwise at your own expense. People tend to idealize unconditional love (maybe because they miss childhood, I'm not sure).
The same unforgiving scarcity and brutality that animals experience in nature, we also experience, and it's the underlying truth of life. It's just that people don't seem to want to accept this. Maybe there are rare instances where you meet someone who shows grace, but reality tends to sink to the lowest common denominator. I'm not saying that life sucks in general, it's just that it sucks wherever scarcity is present. (Life is actually pretty great, it just seems like seeking fulfillment in the wrong places leads to disappointment)
I'm honestly appalled by how mental health is talked about in this whole thread. I am male, I have many experiences with mental struggle, but I never thought to blame women and the rise in popularity of feminist discourse in social media for it, especially with how the vast majority of the said mental struggles were due to my negative interactions with destructively competitive and/or insecure men. For all this rallying of mental health under the banner of the male sex, the toxicity of how men treat each other is completely left out of the discussion. That's also why you're incentivised to suffer in silence, by the way, because what you say will be used against you at work and will keep you out of a promotion.
And then there's a kind of mental struggle that's brought about by isolation, not having genuine and deep connections with others whom you share ideals or interests with, which is driven by the modernity of our lifestyles and possibly by socioeconomic class. Why we are gendering mental health as an issue is beyond me. People seriously need to learn another paradigm with which to evaluate world events besides gender politics.
jwr | 21 hours ago
Celeo | 21 hours ago
tete | 21 hours ago
free652 | 21 hours ago
Forgeties79 | 20 hours ago
bryanrasmussen | 19 hours ago
Forgeties79 | 2 hours ago
burnaftercommen | 20 hours ago
robswc | 20 hours ago
maerF0x0 | 20 hours ago
This is the most plausible hypothesis, judging revealed preferences by the outcomes.
burnaftercommen | 20 hours ago
It's not the most plausible hypothesis. Men are more likely to own firearms than women are, therefore they're more likely to attempt suicide by firearms.
allig256 | 20 hours ago
burnaftercommen | 16 hours ago
wtch98 | 20 hours ago
hanging/strangulation (9,164, 49%);
self-poisoning (4,098, 22%);
jumping/multiple injuries (2,423, 13%).
All three are equally available to men and women and anyone else.
In terms of rate, male suicide rate 17.2 per 100,000. Female suicide rate of 5.4 per 100,000
London has the lowest overall rate of just 7.3 per 100,000, 65% of the national rate. North East being highest at 14 per 100k.
The highest population group being Males aged 50-54 years, being 27.9 per 100,000
Wales is even worse, with Males aged 45-49 years being 32.3 per 100,000, and overall 21.6 (male) // 7.5 (female)
Generally the worse the economic opportunities, the higher the rate. Middle aged men are most at risk, men in general are at high risk, and guns have nothing to do with it
burnaftercommen | 16 hours ago
Ding ding ding ding ding. There’s a throughline between men's issues and male suicide, and it's got a lot to do with money and power.
neglesaks | 20 hours ago
The sex difference in completed suicides is nearly universally 3-to-1 to 4-to-1.
sznio | 19 hours ago
maerF0x0 | 19 hours ago
rpdillon | 19 hours ago
My mental model is that men tend to be more extreme and less conservative than women (risk-taking is more prevalent), and this leads to more extreme approaches in how they try to kill themselves.
But it's been a while since I've read any of these statistics, and I have no special credentials. Just thinking about what we're observing.
akoboldfrying | 18 hours ago
Try again.
[1]: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15834784/
owenpalmer | 20 hours ago
lazyasciiart | 20 hours ago
dabinat | 20 hours ago
It also may be down to what was available to them at the time. There’s a famous case study where a lot of women in the UK were dying by putting their heads in the oven and gassing themselves in the 1950s. The UK government changed the formulation of gas that was being piped to homes and the suicides stopped. If those women really were dead-set on suicide, they would have just chosen a different method.
What people who’ve never had extreme depression might not realize is that in those low moments it feels like you will always feel this way and it will never ever change. Then you wait an hour or so and the feeling passes. So a person may not feel suicidal 24 hours a day, only at specific moments. But in those low moments, the chances of suicide dramatically increase and as the UK case shows, accessibility to quick suicide methods makes a big difference.
typeofhuman | 20 hours ago
json_hero | 20 hours ago
lazyasciiart | 20 hours ago
dspillett | 20 hours ago
--------
[1] Speaking as one who did some decades ago, as irritating as life is right now I'm glad I bucked the trend of any “men have a higher 'success' rate” stat.
[2] Sometimes my nerd side takes control and empathy takes a back seat.
delecti | 19 hours ago
thiswholetime | 15 hours ago
In the US, more men commit suicide by every broad method -- except poisoning, which is similar for both men and women.
Firearm deaths are the leading suicide method for both, and more men commit suicide even when excluding firearm deaths. And even when excluding men's firearm deaths and including women's.
cucumber3732842 | 20 hours ago
It's like the difference between killing yourself drunk crashing your car into a pole vs winding up in a wheelchair because you crashed into everything of value on the street before hitting the same pole slower. Which is worse depends on who you ask.
swingandamiss | 20 hours ago
In the past we had large wars, harsh labor, that killed off men, but not today. There's roughly 5% males born than females. India and China have aborted 10s of millions of female babies. In the Western world, massive numbers of men (from low to high skilled) have move there. So here we are, men everywhere, roaming around grocery stores trying to talk to women, 70 to 80% of the population on dating apps are males, bars are filled with men. It's not a good time to be a low status man.
strbean | 20 hours ago
sublinear | 20 hours ago
Men and women are far too picky compared to the past. That's why they die alone. It's that simple.
There's nothing wrong with this if it means you're happier than being stuck in a relationship you don't want, but you can't have it both ways.
Most people reading this know exactly who they'd be with if they just said yes to their options. Not liking your options is vastly different from having no options at all. Your options can change if you make the change within as well. The fact that this is such a modern and loud problem also points to the lack of competition you'd face compared to the past. We've overcomplicated this beyond belief. That's not nature's doing.
StilesCrisis | 20 hours ago
What does this mean? Just lower your standards and there's a woman out there for you?
It's been a long time since I was single, but I never felt like that. I worked at a job with a bunch of other men and didn't have a lot of social outlets that involved women. My candidate pool was close to zero. I eventually recognized this and found ways to broaden my pool, but it wasn't easy.
sublinear | 19 hours ago
I'm only speculating that I think the past used to be (a lot) worse. Competition was higher across the board for significantly worse options across the board.
So much of the modern era is defined by the desire for social change, but nobody seems to pause and think what that must mean regarding the perception of their options (and themselves). It means even your worst option today probably isn't that bad or is already more similar to you than you want to believe. I think this all boils down to mortality. Other people change slower than you have time for, so on some level you do have to either compromise or make your own changes at the pace you prefer. You can't spend life looking at the rear view mirror and a horizon that never comes.
A casual look on social media tends to confirm that the same people not liking their options also think they were "born in the wrong era" or similar.
StilesCrisis | 4 hours ago
cowlevel | 19 hours ago
sublinear | 19 hours ago
cowlevel | 10 hours ago
swingandamiss | 20 hours ago
wtch98 | 20 hours ago
Sanzig | 20 hours ago
Also, dating apps are pointless. Go volunteer for a community organization or join a pickleball league. Don't force it.
harimau777 | 20 hours ago
delecti | 19 hours ago
opwieurposiu | 19 hours ago
SubmarineClub | 19 hours ago
bluefirebrand | 18 hours ago
An alarming number of my wife's female friends married chuds, or seem to only pursue chuds.
One of her friends is cheated on by almost every man she's dated. She also almost exclusively seems to date men who have been to prison
Obviously "not all women" but come on. Women date chuds all the time.
newsclues | 19 hours ago
kixiQu | 18 hours ago
> Expressed another way, that would mean that 10% of all males surviving to adulthood would perish in combat.
> We’ll get back around to fertility rates later in the series but for how if we assume each woman in this society is having on average five live childbirths, a 2% chance of death at each stage adds up pretty quickly – a woman who gave birth five times with a 2% chance of dying each time has a total chance of dying at one stage or another of 9.607%, which as you will note is not far off from the chance of dying in a battle
tarpitt | 18 hours ago
alasano | 20 hours ago
I remember reading something about mental health in Iceland being much more even between men and women due to less perceived stigma and more equality, leading to men seeking help.
nonethewiser | 20 hours ago
It's 26%women/19%men some mental health issue and 7%women/4%men serious mental health issue
https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/statistics/mental-illness
malfist | 20 hours ago
nonethewiser | 20 hours ago
malfist | 20 hours ago
dghlsakjg | 19 hours ago
It could just as much be the case that men are diagnosed at a lower rate because they seek out care less often (many studies point at this being true) or that men who do seek care are not diagnosed at as high of a rate despite having the same symptoms (men report higher rates of dissatisfaction with mental care, and other studies show gender bias in diagnosis - men get told to "man up" in so many words-, or men get misdiagnosed because symptoms for the same mental illness vary between men and women)
UncleMeat | 13 hours ago
kelseyfrog | 20 hours ago
Eliding or obscuring the act of operationalization leads to reification - treating concepts like real tangible things. I wish reification was taken as seriously as our taboo of anthropomorphization. It happens way more, and sneakily smuggles in human values into the sciences. In some ways it's unavoidable, but being opaque about it and doing it without knowing is a sin.
FLeXMurphy | 21 hours ago
It would not surprise me to see protesting over this, as has been similarly done in the past. The person who organized a men's-support-group some years back in Canada, if I remember right, ended up committing suicide after it was forced to be shut down by protestors.
functionmouse | 21 hours ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earl_Silverman
RHSeeger | 20 hours ago
That is just tragic :(
throwawayqqq11 | 20 hours ago
redanddead | 20 hours ago
marksbrown | 21 hours ago
Krei-se | 20 hours ago
seanc | 20 hours ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8-BT6y_wYg
_qua | 21 hours ago
lostlogin | 20 hours ago
harimau777 | 20 hours ago
Exoristos | 20 hours ago
doright | 20 hours ago
That is what "deep-seated cultural issues" means. Some subset of the population aren't seeing a problem with their own behavior. They see nothing that needs addressing. The rest have to learn how to put up with or avoid them.
asdfman123 | 20 hours ago
So no, they can't change the world, but sometimes they can plant a seed.
bragh | 20 hours ago
pojzon | 18 hours ago
But we live too comfortably for anyone to take those actions.
Like a boiling frog, ppl will wake up when its too late.
asdfman123 | 15 hours ago
malfist | 20 hours ago
nonethewiser | 20 hours ago
malfist | 20 hours ago
nonethewiser | 19 hours ago
malfist | 19 hours ago
nonethewiser | 19 hours ago
Maybe you can you disambiguate your phrasing here. Which do you mean?
1.There is a MALE mental health problem -- some mental health problem wholly or partially unique to men
2. There is a mental health problem observed among men
If #1, where is the evidence? A men-only survey can't show it. If you surveyed left-handed people and 30% had anxiety, that doens't mean there is a left-handed anxiety problem.
If #2, we agree on what the research shows, but it brings your original point into question: "Isn't recognizing there is a problem the first step on fixing the problem?" Which problem are we recognizing? Labeling a general problem a male one assumes a diagnosis, which points the search for causes and fixes at men when nothing in this report shows that's where they are, and other available information shows worsening mental health in women as well.
malfist | 14 hours ago
redanddead | 20 hours ago
It starts with an objective report on reality
It's like taking your blood pressure or blood sugar, it starts with data in health
This is public health and this report is the measuring instrument
icantevenhold | 18 hours ago
redanddead | 16 hours ago
https://www.canada.ca/en/services/health/publications/health...
red-iron-pine | an hour ago
ultimately they will do nothing and pass more bills allowing big businesses to do whatever tf they want
j45 | 21 hours ago
Yet.. they say a man's worth is "not" the value they put in the bank account.
2) What's deadly about this space is that surveys can be toxic.
Too often, it's researchers looking to slowly understand things, have people open themselves up, then leave them like that, for little to no progress in 5-10 years.
That kind of system needs supply, no?
3) I have heard from some men that sometimes there can be things that only other men understand. That can be similar to women's health issues can be understood differently, or men can feel more comfortable with other men.
4) It's important for authors to try and be aware of their own unconscious biases. Much like medicine is horribly behind at understanding women's health (for example, women hearts are not the same as men's), it means the inverse can be true too, beginning with asking men.
holsta | 19 hours ago
That's not what is meant by "economic cost". Helping young men feel better early long term is obviously better and cheaper for society than letting them grow up and live a whole life where they suffer and hurt themselves or others.
Nothing about this is surprising or unknown. We know how to prevent and treat despair-related lives. It's a political choice that most of the world has insufficient or even broken (mental) healthcare. We could choose to vote differently, but we don't.
dubcanada | 21 hours ago
Like maybe https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/healthy-livi...
j45 | 21 hours ago
harimau777 | 20 hours ago
_3u10 | 21 hours ago
djmips | 20 hours ago
_3u10 | 2 hours ago
cs02rm0 | 20 hours ago
gcy | 21 hours ago
WarmWash | 20 hours ago
Good luck with that.
_3u10 | 20 hours ago
Pull up freedom house and pick any country rated 15 to 60 and see if you like it. Within 3 or 4 you will think, this place is awesome.
Jtarii | 20 hours ago
azan_ | 20 hours ago
Jtarii | 19 hours ago
"Traditional Masculinity" is just in general maladaptive in the current age.
rpdillon | 18 hours ago
That appears to be exactly what you're arguing here: All we need to do is socialize boys more like we socialize girls, and then the men they become will be happier in our society. Is that your position?
If so, can you say a little bit more about what you mean or what you envision that socialization would look like for boys?
x-complexity | 14 hours ago
....no. Hard no.
Boys mentally respond differently to girls. The delusion of universality will only lead to MORE male deaths.
jodrellblank | 19 hours ago
Jtarii | 19 hours ago
everdrive | 20 hours ago
I think this is an intuitive reaction. It's like being grossed out by dog poop on the ground. You feel the disgust first, and although an evolutionary psychology explanation for that disgust may be true (eg, "you have evolved disgust for dog poop to prevent illness and infection) intellectualizing it further would be totally superfluous. People experience the proximate cause for these sort of evolved behaviors, even when they intellectually know better. If you think you're above this sort of reaction, try "choosing" to be attracted to an 80 year old woman.
garciasn | 20 hours ago
E: I am so baffled how the HN community could be so very anti-female here that they would advocate for this sort of commentary by downvoting.
dghlsakjg | 19 hours ago
You invalidated a lived experience that a lot of people can confirm by telling someone that their feelings are so unrealistic that they need therapy.
> But, you're making sweeping generalizations about ~50% of the world's behavior
sounds a lot like "not all (wo)men"... yeah, but enough of them for many men to have learned to be cautious around vulnerability with women. Its the same thing as guys who don't understand the man vs. bear thing.
garciasn | 18 hours ago
You may not have read what they wrote and I responded to, but you just invalidated what I was responding to by saying “wo(men)”. Yes; PEOPLE can be hurtful, but the parent was specifically talking about WOMEN.
dghlsakjg | 15 hours ago
It's making fun of that sentiment. That all men are the problem is as stupid as thinking that all women are the problem. People who have suffered violence from men, or emotional abuse from women will put up walls, and sometimes it becomes a wall based on gender. You missed the point.
I'm not invalidating what you're saying. I'm explaining why you got downvoted to all hell, and what you're interpretation edit may be missing.
d--b | 20 hours ago
There are subcultures in which men showing vulnerability are considered bad. But in those subcultures, men are just as mean to other men as women are. And women embracing this are usually not very "empathy this" and "acceptance that" towards anybody.
There is definitely a part of feminist culture is openly aggressive toward men in general while being "empathy this" towards women. But they are usually way more aggressive towards cocky men than weak men.
0x1ch | 20 hours ago
FLeXMurphy | 20 hours ago
mrluckysmith | 20 hours ago
The only woman who actually cares for me has been my mother.
neglesaks | 19 hours ago
shermantanktop | 20 hours ago
Not a great example. Elderly women may not be your thing, but nursing homes are apparently hotbeds of STDs. There's someone out there for everyone.
moolcool | 20 hours ago
everdrive | 20 hours ago
moolcool | 20 hours ago
everdrive | 20 hours ago
moolcool | 20 hours ago
TimedToasts | 19 hours ago
Fricken | 20 hours ago
cowlevel | 20 hours ago
moolcool | 19 hours ago
Exoristos | 20 hours ago
everdrive | 20 hours ago
- Currently, the dominant ideology is that there is a victim hierarchy, and if you're in the wrong group (ie, you're privileged) then your opinions and needs don't matter. Moving away from this sort of identitarianism would one important step.
- I think it's important to try to understand why male socialization has fallen apart. (statistically, yes, I'm sure a lot of you still socialize) It's clearly a gendered effect, and I'm genuinely not sure what a reasonable explanation would be. (your comment, men supporting men would play nicely here, although I'm not sure how we make that happen.)
Exoristos | 18 hours ago
To the second, I had more in mind male-centered institutions offering male-tailored solutions; perhaps funded, promoted, or helmed by men. I wasn't expecting those suffering, or the average man, to bear responsibility for solving men's issues.
pojzon | 18 hours ago
We are in 95% still the same animal and 5% intelligent human.
Vast majority of all of our weird discussions is about us not accepting this fact.
In this case its:
1) Men are competing with each other for resources and women
2) Women only want strong resourceful men
3) Our only purpose was defined by first living cell being born - we have to sustain life
Outcome of the above is:
Nobody cares about men that dont succceed (which ofcourse will cause a lot of men depression).
Exoristos | 18 hours ago
neglesaks | 18 hours ago
edit: typo
x-complexity | 14 hours ago
Men had that, and then those places were torn down because they were "boy's clubs".
adipose | 19 hours ago
what are non-anecdotal things that support the idea, "When [women] see a weak man, what they feel is disgust."
do men demonstrate the same "disgust" when _they_ "see a weak man"? why or why not?
joshuamcginnis | 20 hours ago
neya | 20 hours ago
What I really learned from these men is never sign a contract where the other party is incentivized to break it.
gib444 | 20 hours ago
https://www.setfords.co.uk/2026/09/01/new-rights-for-cohabit...
At the request of the family law lobby, naturally ...
https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/a-fairer-end-to-...
"The very limited set of protections under the current law can leave cohabitants facing significant financial difficulties when relationships end, which disproportionately affects vulnerable groups such as women, and children..."
Women...so naturally vulnerable ?! In 2026?
afavour | 20 hours ago
All else aside for a second... yes? Women are both physically and economically (primarily when they are stay at home moms) vulnerable. No, that doesn't mean I'm saying that no men are vulnerable at all but averaged out to a population it's clear.
gib444 | 20 hours ago
And I don't make a habit of pointing out women's smaller stature to call them vulnerable?? Wtf
afavour | 20 hours ago
It leaves them economically vulnerable. When 100% of the income is going into one person's bank account that means they have the opportunity for economic control over their partner. Their partner does not have savings of their own to speak of. No, healthy relationships do not work that way. But a lot of relationships do.
Also, it's often not "through choice". A lot of the time childcare is more expensive than one parent leaving their job. A lot of families can't afford an alternative.
Huarache1 | 19 hours ago
It's 2026, and women are starting to outearn men in some cities. Why make men the sole breadwinners of the family?
afavour | 19 hours ago
Which would completely ignore the economic imbalance I was talking about, which occurs during the marriage.
> It's 2026, and women are starting to outearn men in some cities. Why make men the sole breadwinners of the family?
Like I said, making a parent a stay at home parent is simply economic reality for many, while the kids are young and childcare is expensive. There’s no reason why that has to be the woman but the data shows that the vast majority of the time it is.
Huarache1 | 19 hours ago
Even if one party earns less, I don't see how "vulnerable" that would make them if it was prior to meeting the other person.
9rx | 18 hours ago
The topic was couples/cohabitation/marriage, not child rearing. The concerns you raise would be equally applicable where the parents have decided they want absolutely nothing to do with each other. There is truth in what you are saying, but it is an entirely different topic. How to deal with the child is a negotiation that takes place around the child, not around a romantic relationship (or lack thereof).
In the romantic relationship, there is no realistic situation where one party ends up with all the money unless the other one willingly hands theirs over. But any of us can do that. I can willing give you all my money now just the same and there would be no good legal recourse if I decide it was a bad idea later. The only reason we have these ideas in the world of romance is due to the historical idea that women aren't capable of thinking for themselves.
programjames | 18 hours ago
drdaeman | 20 hours ago
afavour | 19 hours ago
Manuel_D | 17 hours ago
Averaged out to the population, it's not at all clear that women are physically and economically more vulnerable than men.
derf_ | 20 hours ago
This is especially important if there are children involved in your situation.
Obscurity4340 | 20 hours ago
gib444 | 20 hours ago
The law isn't simply a "default" in this matter that you can opt out of AIUI
SubmarineClub | 19 hours ago
jeremyjh | 20 hours ago
From a better write up of this same story:
Young men aged 15 to 24 show concerning trends in their self-rated mental health and rates of mental illness. For instance, between 2012 and 2022:
the percentage who reported "very good" or "excellent" mental health fell from 70% to 52% the percentage who experienced: mood disorders increased from11% to 16% generalized anxiety disorder increased from 4% to 10%
aivisol | 20 hours ago
typeofhuman | 20 hours ago
win311fwg | 20 hours ago
It is absolutely true that someone else's life doesn't define their own future path, but that doesn't mean they don't latch onto those stories and project the negativity onto themselves. One cannot see the future, so it is quite common to look to others to predict what the future may hold. As you point out, the future is often completely different to what you imagined, but it is what you are imagining that shapes how you feel.
jeremyjh | 17 hours ago
More generally - we can ask if there is data in this study or another one that supports the idea that teen mental health issues are substantially due to their fears of unfair divorce terms they may face 20 years in the future. In my experience as a former teen and father of two, that is simply not happening and I’d need to see the data that says it is before I take it seriously.
They don’t have any real worries about how they will feel in their 30s because they think 7th grade was a long time ago and they don’t quite believe they are actually going to be 30 some day.
neya | 20 hours ago
Now, to answer your data points regardless - I don't think you understand that divorce isn't in isolation, it obviously affects entire families, including children. So, I wouldn't be surprised if there is more data showing these young boys are from broken homes.
lazyasciiart | 20 hours ago
neya | 20 hours ago
https://www.canada.ca/en/services/health/publications/health...
And in here, you will find:
This is what I was responding to.tayo42 | 20 hours ago
maerF0x0 | 20 hours ago
If men and women have meaningful differences then it makes sense to have gendered laws.
I think pandora's box is open never to be shut again on the conversation if we're the same or different.
throwawayqqq11 | 20 hours ago
maerF0x0 | 20 hours ago
rpdillon | 20 hours ago
dspillett | 19 hours ago
“They claim men and women are no different apart from their environment” tends to be a claim made by those who can't cope with the singular “they” let alone anything else, who are trying to make those who disagree on such points seem ridiculous.
---------
[1] particularly in the endocrine system, though in other parts² which might also have an impact on how we react to things and our mental health more generally
[2] it isn't just emotional matters and related coping mechanisms: heart attacks often manifest differently in women, or if not that then the signs are often misdiagnosed, for instance
[3] either for talking about specific detailed differences, or for identifying people in terms of their identity & phycological makeup more generally
hsuduebc2 | 19 hours ago
mpalczewski | 20 hours ago
no controversy of this in chimps.
no magical evolutionary moment when they became the same in humans.
biologists know this. sociologists start with an unfounded null assumption.
underlipton | 19 hours ago
This cuts both ways: you will often see physically emasculated men get treated as if they're not men, to their detriment. Think of less-developed young men being cut from sports teams; they have the same in-built need for physical activity, competition, even some measure of practicing dominance, as larger boys. Deprivation leads to frustration and more.
graemep | 17 hours ago
You seem to be treating stereotypes as facts.
tarpitt | 20 hours ago
hsuduebc2 | 19 hours ago
tarpitt | 18 hours ago
The status quo of "sexual liberation" doesn't do much to mitigate this difference. We no longer live in a monogamous society.
rexpop | 19 hours ago
Have you ever spoken with a woman?
tarpitt | 18 hours ago
zo1 | 19 hours ago
MomsAVoxell | 20 hours ago
Distinction is always going to be less effective than universally agreed declaration. We can declare: all human beings have equal rights.
Pandora's box is the universality aspect, which must be manifest by those agreeing to declare the nature of ones rights in respect to others rights, both for oneself and for others. This is the reason a distinction-based legal position is poor policy.
We cannot distinguish between a man and a woman if we are agreeing to the universality of their equal human rights.
The we part is the difficult part, apropos pandora's boxes. But ultimately, universality is very empowering to the individual.
cowlevel | 19 hours ago
MomsAVoxell | 19 hours ago
That this expression has become the root of an industry of exploitation (divorce proceedings are a big circus) is clear. Rights are not a constant. They have to be expressed.
Like in vows, maybe.
maerF0x0 | 19 hours ago
MomsAVoxell | 19 hours ago
tuna74 | 17 hours ago
Huarache1 | 16 hours ago
ericmcer | 20 hours ago
I don’t even get how I am supposed to hold my partner to the same standards I would hold a close male friend/family member. If I knew a dude who freaked out and yelled/sobbed several times a month over something inane like where to get dinner I would drop them immediately. I have found just using the old adage “happy wife happy life” is most effective, but isn’t that inherently disrespectful? Like “I can’t reason with this person but if I upset them it’s gonna go poorly for me so I better let them have their way!”. The only way my relationship survives is if I have a bit of internalized misogyny and hold her to a different standard than I do myself or another man.
cowlevel | 19 hours ago
watwut | 18 hours ago
Conservative men rights advocates find such proposition insulting to men. It is not a manly men job.
Men in those positions are mocked by supposedly pro-male groups
> If I knew a dude who freaked out and yelled/sobbed several times a month over something inane like where to get dinner I would drop them immediately.
Why are you dating someone like that? Genuine question. I dont know ANY woman that cries that often. Not a single one.
Maybe be wise and break up.
belorn | 14 hours ago
j45 | 19 hours ago
kalaksi | 19 hours ago
ToucanLoucan | 19 hours ago
People chafe against things like DEI as arbitrary favoritism completely failing to note that yes, this policy is meant to promote equality, not to represent it. In the case of promoting female stem workers you might say it’s a policy designed to give women equal-ish access to the job market by way of giving them preferential treatment in hiring, to counteract biases of men favoring men during that process.
The ideal outcome of any policy like this is that once the systemic inequity is resolved, the policy can be retired.
4c0d3r | 19 hours ago
tptacek | 15 hours ago
It's really weird that it ever became a serious talking point!
maerF0x0 | 11 hours ago
tptacek | 2 hours ago
Manuel_D | 15 hours ago
For instance, empirical evidence finds that gender bias in tech hiring favors women over men [1]. So DEI ends up exacerbating the bias, not counteracting it.
1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25069644
belorn | 15 hours ago
DEI does not need to be selective favoritism. It could just be a policy to promote equality. It also happens that the government is the employer, and customer, of professions that has the highest grade of gender inequality (for both men and women).
ToucanLoucan | 2 hours ago
I'm curious if you could describe a DEI policy that's flawed in this way and then go on to explain how you would implement it in such a way where it wouldn't be subject to the same criticism.
maerF0x0 | 11 hours ago
ToucanLoucan | 2 hours ago
This is just flat wrong. Both because the word narrative makes no sense in the way you've used it in this sentence, and because equality of outcome is specifically not what is being targeted by these policies.
I'm inclined to think you've imbibed a lot of propaganda on this subject as the use of the word "narrative" in this incorrect fashion is as strong an indicator of that as the emdash is of copying stuff from ChatGPT.
datsci_est_2015 | 19 hours ago
> If men and women have meaningful differences then it makes sense to have gendered laws.
This framing of the issue puts the discussion down an awkward rhetorical path that is difficult to recover from.
What if it doesn't matter whether someone looks or acts different; but it matters how society treats them and the outcomes that they face.
Black chess pieces and white chess pieces are superficially, trivially distinct. Yet, the player with the white pieces wins 52% to 56% of the time.
I'm calling it out here because it's a typical technocratic bad-faith argument that I'm personally tired of hearing.
maerF0x0 | 18 hours ago
Is "right" defined by the nature of existence or just by the ends? Some would say an outcome of hunger is unacceptable, some would say there are plenty of "wrong" (try to not make that moral meaning) behaviors which should result in hunger. (Such as refusing to work or trade value for other people's property ie food)
datsci_est_2015 | 17 hours ago
gamblor956 | 17 hours ago
maerF0x0 | 11 hours ago
belorn | 15 hours ago
For example, there was an initiative in Sweden to improve diversity in the student body by giving minority demographics free bonus points during application. For any given minority the outcome would be a small but meaningful advantage compared to the majority so that over time the balance would improve and become closer to represent society as a whole. It was a very unpopular imitative, especially by the left, and later was found to be deemed discriminative. Such initiatives are only supported and approved by the legal system if they are selective.
nxm | 17 hours ago
intrasight | 20 hours ago
Last week's tragedy here, with a father throwing his two young kids off a roof before jumping himself, has caused our community to focus - at least for a while - on what was missing and what our system did wrong and what could have been sone better to prevent that from having happened.
FLeXMurphy | 20 hours ago
intrasight | 20 hours ago
j45 | 19 hours ago
Maybe men don't have supports until it's rock bottom or too late.
At the same time I don't think there's many men who beleive think the standard of supporting women, and children, early and often, should never be reduced or changed. Maybe it could be expanded.
afavour | 20 hours ago
apercu | 20 hours ago
freedomben | 20 hours ago
tomcatfish | 17 hours ago
treis | 20 hours ago
The bias however is absurdly strong. My first lawyer said I should have taken my ex's offer of slightly less than 50/50. She said that my ex's floor was 50/50 and that if we couldn't show that we could effectively coparent they'd give it to the Mom.
That's exactly what happened and it held through her completely cutting me off from my son. I even went through a modification try and the same Judge upheld the situation.
As a result I haven't spoken with my son in almost 2 years now.
MomsAVoxell | 19 hours ago
>2 years
Kids need their Dads, and Dads have to be strong as hell for them, even still, in this modern world. I am super glad to have gotten my two giant oafs into adulthood well enough to be surfing the wonders the world has in store for them both .. but yeah, you'll get your ass kicked. Be a kick ass Dad, then.
The most important thing is that your son knows you're there for him as he grows up. Maybe keep a journal, don't stop writing important things to him, notes and ideas from his Dad, for him to read when he gets his own agency over things.
hsuduebc2 | 19 hours ago
Huarache1 | 19 hours ago
treis | 19 hours ago
How is it possible? Well, theoretically it's not. The order I got and subsequent denial of modification blatantly violate state law and appealate precedent. But it's all procedural. The standard for the underlying opinion of the judge is that if there is one fact to support that opinion then the ruling is upheld.
So I could have appealed and won. But then I go back to the same judge that doesn't think my kid should have any contact with me and all she has to do is find one fact to support that.
More often a custody order is just a piece of paper. The primary parent can screw with visitation easily and it takes time and money to go to court. The original divorce cost me $100k, another contempt motion $7k, and the failed modification $20k.
Custody ends for Fathers when they give up. I gave up unusually early (which royally pissed off the judge) and this is my punishment.
iamnothere | 19 hours ago
rubicon33 | 20 hours ago
EDIT: Turns out this is NOT true, or at least, nothing I can find seems to point to it being true. Just habituating with someone for a long time is not enough.
soperj | 20 hours ago
jjice | 20 hours ago
https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/life-events/divorce/famil...
soperj | 19 hours ago
colejhudson | 20 hours ago
dillondoyle | 20 hours ago
Only a few states have something like the common-law 'marriage' you picture - but it's a really high bar.
There needs to consideration AND usually clear intent to marry (w/ nuance of course);
You can't simply fall into this by happenstance because you cohabitate for {n} amount of years.
California does have a (ever barrowing) Marvin Action.
But it's an incredibly high bar and not family court
You need to prove that essentially a contract exists between the parties; * e.g. consideration *
https://www.wgslawfirm.com/family-law/divorce-mediation/2025...
OkayPhysicist | 19 hours ago
That's not some "oh, we live together, and under old-timey understandings that means we're married" requirement. That's publicly making a pattern of referring to each other as your spouses, often including at least some public documentation. Common law marriage is much more about protecting people who failed to dot their 'i's and cross their 't's when registering their marriage than it is about surprising a breakup partner with divorce precedings.
rubicon33 | 19 hours ago
For the record I had heard this from a lawyer, not some random person.
wahern | 19 hours ago
My father's last "marriage" was like this. After several divorces he was dead set on never getting married again, made sure only his (or her) name was on any purchases, and made sure his friends knew the situation. After a messy breakup where he discovered she had been diverting money for drugs and hiding bills, her lawyer managed to convince an Alabama court to find a common law marriage. Not long afterward she ended going to prison for arson after setting aflame some of my father's personal and real property, and his dog[1], in piques of spite. I think those felony convictions happened prior to or at least concurrent with the common law marriage proceedings.
Of course, his real mistakes occurred before he ever started cohabitating. Common law marriage rules were far down the list of wrong turns. But in any event, ironically a few years later Alabama abolished common law marriage.
[1] Dog survived after heroic efforts by, IIRC, University of Alabama, but had pretty severe scaring.
gamblor956 | 17 hours ago
wahern | 17 hours ago
skissane | 18 hours ago
It isn't true in California, it appears. It is true in a number of other places worldwide, Australia in particular.
Even in Australia, a de facto relationship – in which partners have a right to a property settlement upon separation – requires more than mere cohabitation of sexual/romantic partners. However, in practice, relatively few long-term cohabitating partners will be found not to be in a de facto relationship.
oulipo | 20 hours ago
DaSHacka | 20 hours ago
apercu | 20 hours ago
I've seen first hand where spouses of equal education and opportunity are treated as traditional values applied.
And nearly always it's the male that has to take a second job/cash in their retirement to meet societies demands.
Insanity | 19 hours ago
So there is some variability, and of course in my case it was a "happy path" scenario where both me and my ex-wife mutually wanted the divorce.
But by default you have to pay spousal support regardless of how well-off your partner is. The assumption is that women will be worse off after a divorce financially. Which is really not a contemporary point of view to make as a blanket statement.
apercu | 18 hours ago
But again, it seems weird when a male has to work 2 jobs in their 50's to send large monthly payments to a female that has a larger or equivalent net worth.
And it happens routinely. Of course, there are also a lot of men out there that just want to stiff their ex. But that doesn't mean my former example isn't happening.
neya | 18 hours ago
And this was exactly what happened to my friends. The women who sought alimony actually earned much more. The financial burden was so tough that it turned a good hard working member of the society into almost a criminal (if you don't pay alimony, you can be even arrested for it in some countries).
MomsAVoxell | 20 hours ago
This, a thousand times.
And I say that as a man who has lived in multiple countries in my lifetime, raising my family, through thick and thin.
>mens mental health
I no longer see it as a man problem, its a we problem.
greenowl | 20 hours ago
thisismyopinion | 20 hours ago
cowlevel | 19 hours ago
iamnothere | 19 hours ago
neya | 18 hours ago
I guess you missed the last part of my comment. Women are majorly incentivised legally to walk out of a marriage while being financially rewarded for it. Even if you marry the "right" woman, it doesn't guarantee she won't turn into the "wrong" woman over time. And in modern times, it doesn't take a lot for that transition especially with social media really rallying to take advantage of the legal loopholes - eg. you can cheat on your partner AND walk away with 50% of the marital wealth.
UncleMeat | 13 hours ago
dlisboa | 20 hours ago
You only get to choose either:
* Partial Community of Property - the default: applies only to property acquired after the marriage; in case of divorce only that property is split 50/50
* Universal Community of Property - applies to all property before and after the marriage; in case of divorce all property is split 50/50
* Separation of Property - no property is shared at all; in case of divorce nothing at all is split. If you want buy and share property you have to do it explicitly. This is also mandatory in cases where one of the spouses is 70+ years old
Divorce is much less litigious here. It's basically impossible to lose all of your assets. It works the same for men or women.
There are some of the same issues in custody law as in North America but from what I read it still seems way better than in the US.
icantevenhold | 19 hours ago
I would be really surprised if the US didnt have these options too…
dlisboa | 18 hours ago
watwut | 18 hours ago
Fidelix | 19 hours ago
Just living together, informally, is already enough for the woman to take half your assets as it's already considered `Partial Community of Property`.
I can't think of anything where Brazil is generally superior to the US in terms of law.
burnedbyhell | 12 hours ago
za3faran | 19 hours ago
neya | 18 hours ago
This should not even be an option. If you worked your ass off to acquire wealth before marriage, someone new into your life should not be entitled to that.
You can definitely make a fair argument for wealth built together as partners. That is really fair. They can even have 100% of that. But wealth accumulated before that should not even be up for discussion as there was 0 contribution from the other partner.
dlisboa | 17 hours ago
But you have to go out of your way to choose it.
davkan | 13 hours ago
burnedbyhell | 12 hours ago
Unfortunately, losing decades of your hard work for a less than a three year marriage makes for unbearable suffering and loss of any hope. The person losing that realizes they no longer matter.
One decision can ruin your life very quickly.
There is no confusion as to why suicide feels like the only option to so many.
gamblor956 | 17 hours ago
The issue isn't assets, it's alimony. Brazil has the same issues with alimony as the U.S. does. Most modern countries do. (Asset splits are generally governed by statute and case law. Asset-related conflicts are about whether prenups are valid, or whether an asset is community/marital property subject to split. These same issues arise in Brazilian divorces.)
Also...Britney Spears and most other famous women with unfamous (or less succesful) husbands would like to weigh in on this conversation. It's not that men always get "screwed." It's simply that the more successful partner always ends up paying the other partner.
dlisboa | 17 hours ago
No, it doesn't. Alimony for former partners is very rare in Brazil. If it happens it has a fixed period: a former partner will only pay alimony for 1 or 2 years, if any. Only in some very exceptional cases it exceeds that.
Maybe you're confusing it with child support, which is different.
And bear in mind I'm not red-pilling things here (don't associate me with those nutjobs please). In fact women still get the short end of the stick in Brazil when it comes to these things, it's much harder for them to start over after divorce. I'm just stating how much more logical it is when you have fixed and sane rules.
j45 | 19 hours ago
Legally, people are marrying a law in their place of residence, marriage is a contract and agreement with the government.
Through a marriage to the government's law first, two people are married in the eyes of the law.
The first time I came across this it made me wonder how much people are aware of this central, third party in between the two people in their marriage.
9rx | 19 hours ago
Of course you do. As you even point out yourself, you marry the government, which is people.
> The first time I came across this it made me wonder how much people are aware of this central, third party in between the two people in their marriage.
Considering that the traditional marriage process involves two people standing in front of representatives of the government and declaring promises to them it seems like it'd be a bit hard to miss? I suppose if others also don't realize that government is people then they might not realize what the people in the audience are doing? But, then again, given that the two people prepared to make those promises are usually responsible for inviting that audience to the wedding you'd think they would have questions about why they are there otherwise?
j45 | 15 hours ago
9rx | 8 hours ago
Huarache1 | 19 hours ago
datsci_est_2015 | 19 hours ago
Huarache1 | 19 hours ago
tomcatfish | 17 hours ago
Huarache1 | 16 hours ago
Hence why I said a Prenup ratio based upon what both groups had while single makes more sense.
unlicensed | 16 hours ago
In my part of the world, that’s 50% of community property built after the relationship is formally recognized (e.g. marriage, cohabitation, etc.). You own less individually the more time you choose to commit to the relationship. That’s an incentive for the one with more assets to leave, and for the one with less assets to stay, if you want to think about it in those terms. However, that’s not a healthy way to maintain a relationship that builds community property.
Manuel_D | 15 hours ago
hi41 | 18 hours ago
dandellion | 18 hours ago
neya | 18 hours ago
Manuel_D | 16 hours ago
When a couple with two working spouses and no children splits, what is the rationale behind ordering the man pay alimony to his ex-wife that outearns him?
carlosjobim | 15 hours ago
A teenager boy or young man, what is his share of the guilt for any past injustices? Assuming that all women alive today have a father, don't they also share half of this supposed "guilt"?
cucumber3732842 | 18 hours ago
BigTTYGothGF | 18 hours ago
neya | 18 hours ago
BigTTYGothGF | 14 hours ago
Because I've known a couple different dudes who have gone thru nasty divorces and have said that kind of thing, how the laws and judges are biased and the deck was stacked against men. And in both those cases I happened to know, either via a trusted third party, or their kids, or their wives, or even from things they themselves had previously told me, that there was a whole lot more to the story that they weren't saying.
It's the same kind of thing as parents complaining their grown children have gone no contact, and if you only listen to the parents you think maybe they have a point, maybe the kids are blowing things way out of proportion, and it's unfair they don't get to see their grandchildren. But then if you talk to the kids and hear their stories it's quickly crystal clear why they did what they did.
rubberstamp | 18 hours ago
expedition32 | 18 hours ago
ponector | 17 hours ago
Kid takes immense toll on the body, career development and retirement savings of the woman.
Untill men could give birth to the child the truly gender neutral laws are unreachable goal.
Also men live shorter life - should their tax rate be higher?
tomcatfish | 17 hours ago
The rest of your comment is full of non-sequiturs, and even an outright error.
Manuel_D | 17 hours ago
If anything it should be the opposite: men spend fewer years post-retirement and thus as less of a burden on social security and pensions.
ponector | 17 hours ago
Manuel_D | 16 hours ago
einpoklum | 20 hours ago
https://www.salahadawi.com/hacker-news-ai-detector/50429475
foxtrottbravo | 20 hours ago
sltkr | 19 hours ago
foxtrottbravo | 19 hours ago
Is it better to go unreported if the alternative is that an LLM was used in the articles creation?
sltkr | 18 hours ago
Jtarii | 19 hours ago
foxtrottbravo | 19 hours ago
Jtarii | 19 hours ago
zubiaur | 20 hours ago
"My God, it is intolerable to think of spending ones whole life, like a neuter bee, working, working, & nothing after all. No, no won’t do.
Imagine living all one’s day solitarily in smoky dirty London House. Only picture to yourself a nice soft wife on a sofa with good fire, & books & music perhaps. Compare this vision with the dingy reality of Grt. Marlbro’ St. Marry — Marry — Marry Q.E.D."
Exoristos | 20 hours ago
Exoristos | 18 hours ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emma_Darwin
midtake | 20 hours ago
What do you expect when most men have been priced out of a happy life? What do you expect when most men are villainized in the stories that dominate narratives in modern media? What do you expect when men are uniquely dehumanized and calling men less-than is okay regarding height, looks, money, or outward masculinity? If anything I am surprised that the numbers indicating suffering in silence aren't worse.
lukeify | 20 hours ago
I strongly believe (or hope) that in the future the idea of viewing everything through a lens of group theory and identifying who has privilege and who suffers the most in terms of stereotypical cohorts, which is the dominant medium for attributing blame in society at large now, will be viewed by future societies with disdain.
wtch98 | 20 hours ago
That may well be true, but its also true that the main victims of that violence are "white, cis men"
But people love to lump other people together by shallow characteristics because looking at individuals is hard, and looking at systems individuals live in.
roodypoo2 | 11 hours ago
wtch98 | 7 hours ago
defrost | 7 hours ago
jemmyw | 9 hours ago
wtch98 | 7 hours ago
Looking at the UK for violence in general. 72% of homicide victims were male and 28% were female. Men accounted for a higher proportion of victims of violence with and without injury where the perpetrator was a stranger. Vast majority of knife crime victims are male.
Women tend to be victims of men they know. Men tend to be victims of men they don't know.
But sure, carry on with the "#AllWhiteMen" and "#MenDontCry" and victim blaming and other misanthropic nonsense.
defrost | 7 hours ago
> But sure, carry on with the "#AllWhiteMen" and "#MenDontCry" and victim blaming and other misanthropic nonsense.
See HN comment guidelines https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
I suspect you meant to type misandry rather than misanthropic, and further guess you have little to no exposure to the breadth and spectrum of domestic violence in New Zealand: https://youtu.be/x6tgOOWPMkQ?t=88
wtch98 | 6 hours ago
Because more women suffer domestic violence, men don't suffer at all. Winner takes all etc.
Just ignore other forms of violence because it doesn't fit your nice easy groups.
It's completely unsurprising of course, we live in a polarised world.
rubicon33 | 20 hours ago
It's a zero-sum game. Everyone, and I mean everyone, is pursuing power. Power means different things, in different contexts, but it always gets back to power.
The most obvious form of power is resources and money. But there are so many other forms. These identity and gender issues we've seen over the last 10 years have absolutely, undoubtedly been at the core about one thing: power.
Now before you get all upset, pursuing power isn't always a bad thing. If you've been historically marginalized, aren't you within your right as a human being to seek equality? The question really is in how you do it, and who suffers as a result, and how far you take it. It's very easy to swing the pendulum back too far, and end up in a society that may or may not be any better but just different.
apsurd | 19 hours ago
shoobiedoo | 20 hours ago
cowlevel | 19 hours ago
hsuduebc2 | 19 hours ago
I'd guess that's exactly what's happening here. She could have simply said "men," which would have been a truthful statement. Instead, she specifically said "white cis men," which is a blatant lie.
It's the same tactic as blaming everything on immigrants or Roma people. You know what your voters already believe and what they want to hear, so you tell them exactly that. You reinforce their prejudices to win their support.
It's Horseshoe theory again and again.
Viliam1234 | 18 hours ago
Somehow many people think the problem is choosing the wrong group. Nope; the problem is choosing a group, full stop.
shoobiedoo | 17 hours ago
jimmyjazz14 | 17 hours ago
shoobiedoo | 16 hours ago
antisthenes | 13 hours ago
Material excess is what gives many people a means to express their tribalism in the way that they do instead of being occupied with some productive activity for the common good.
cowlevel | 11 hours ago
throwawaypty | 17 hours ago
datsci_est_2015 | 19 hours ago
Declaring "the west gone" is something better left on a reactionary platform like X, rather than something like Hacker News.
shoobiedoo | 17 hours ago
datsci_est_2015 | 17 hours ago
> Seems like a fairly high percentage for a green party.
Which makes this statement, unless you're well-read on New Zealand politics, pretty strange. Do you even know if they have something like ranked choice voting, or vote-for-party rather than vote-for-candidate, that could greatly impact the performance of smaller national parties?
santoshalper | 18 hours ago
synecdoche | 17 hours ago
jeremyjh | 15 hours ago
Manipulating state power to deprive people of essentials is also arguably violence, since the state's power is ultimately realized in its monopoly on the same.
Saying mean things to people may be abusive, but it isn't violence in the sense that an unqualified reference generally means.
belorn | 14 hours ago
For a very long time, everyone agreed that ADHD was defined in how it manifested in males. It is a very limited way to view the world and it create all kind of illogical conclusions that doesn't make any sense.
Bisexual women are statically twice as physical violent when in relationship with women then when with men. Similar, bisexual men are half as physical violent when in relationship with men, compared to relationships with women. The crime statistics are clear here, and yet, it makes absolute zero sense that how physical violent a person is depend on the gender of their partner.
There is however some explanations for the statistics if one start to view the spectrum of violent behavior, the underlying causes, and how and when it escalate into physical violence.
watwut | 18 hours ago
burnaftercommen | 20 hours ago
Most PEOPLE are being priced out of a happy life. I'm not aware of any "man tax" men are having to pay when they go out to eat, or when buying groceries, or renting/paying their mortgage.
Your anger is misplaced. You we're raised to believe that a mans job was to earn a high enough income to provide for their family, and now that shit is expensive, that perception society forced unto you makes you feel like a "failure". You're not a failure, you're just someone living in a capitalist society.
>What do you expect when most men are villainized in the stories that dominate narratives in modern media?
Most men are not being made up as villains. This reads like your algorithm/news feed is trying to enrage you.
Are there idiots out there who are attributing the wrongdoings of certain men, and/or the issues of men as a whole to individuals? Yes, but that some idiots voice their opinions on social media is nothing new, nor is it unique to men to be unfairly judged on the internet. Every demographic has bullshit thrown their way these days.
scott01 | 20 hours ago
220hertz | 20 hours ago
I think I need that on a T-shirt.
Huarache1 | 19 hours ago
It's also a reason why the West is failing, but certainly not the only one. Social Welfare states like Europe are burning, since it was never sustainable.
America is fighting among itself, because there is no Asabiyyah (social cohesion), and the wealth inequality (wealth pump) is growing massively.
Compare that with China or Singapore, where social harmony is perhaps the most important thing in their society, food is subsidized, education as a high priority, their laws are punitive, infrastructure is extremely new, etc.
icantevenhold | 19 hours ago
I don’t think you’re open for a discussion but I’ll try; just judging from experience talking to other people who hold similar entrenched beliefs, I might be very wrong.
> Social Welfare states like Europe are burning
I live there and wasn’t aware that it’s burning - Europe also isnt a singular entity.
> the West is failing
I wasn’t aware of that either! Seems to me that western countries (I assume you mean US and EU with that?) still hold most of the power worldwide?
> Men and their ideals, are portrayed as inherently evil in a good chunk of western media
The opposite is also true. I think it’s just because most heroes and villains in western media are men - hell most characters are men.
Huarache1 | 19 hours ago
That being said, it's quite noticeable that people in the entertainment sector, who are probably marginalized, are directing some anger against men.
Ghostbusters 2016, likely started this, and I do wonder if it was to appease the women and other groups after the the #Metoo movement, where marginalized people were given a voice, to pretend that Hollywood was like them (they aren't, look at their governmental funding before #Metoo).
icantevenhold | 18 hours ago
Seems like a generalisation. I’m a man and I’m more interested in people than in things for example.
> That's probably why most characters are men overall.
How does this follow what you wrote before; I don’t see any connection tbh
Huarache1 | 18 hours ago
Huarache1 | 18 hours ago
France's West African colonies are also leaving France as they inch closer to China, politically and economically.
China is rising, and so are other (previously and currently) Third World nations. It's a matter of when they take power, not if. India and Indonesia seem to be heavy hitters, for now and probably for the near future. I wouldn't count out Africa (Nigeria, Kenya, Botswana, Rwanda) or Latin America (Mexico, El Salvador, Brazil, etc).
I stand by my statement of Western entertainment demeaning men, probably out of anger, or as something of an alibi for Hollywood after the #Metoo movement. Occupy Wallstreet is also notable for happening before this.
icantevenhold | 18 hours ago
China/Asia, South America and Africa have the most space, people and natural resources so it just makes sense that they would be more successful in the long run though.
>I stand by my statement
That is fair. I stand by mine that this doesn’t convince me. Of course men are the villains when they hold the most power. You can’t really be an effective or convincing villain if you’re powerless.
Huarache1 | 18 hours ago
Germany is still in a good position for Europe, but it can't compete as well as it once did compared to Asia or the US. Even then, the US is having issues with China.
Huarache1 | 17 hours ago
I agree with the statement, but not the context.
Looking at Velma, Dragon Age: Veilguard, Ghostbusters 2016, Star Wars sequels, She-Hulk, and much more, a good chunk of such Western media feels like they have some disdain for a large portion of fans who watch them.
Like a Superiority complex formed out of deeprooted insecurities of their feelings towards men.
You could argue men have reacted to this in the same way, especially in Instagram and the like.
burnaftercommen | 17 hours ago
Huarache1 | 16 hours ago
xg15 | 16 hours ago
If we're talking about where future art direction is going, then how much artwork from centuries ago exists is not relevant.
UncleMeat | 13 hours ago
xg15 | 8 hours ago
I was noticing it most strongly with Disney. Not sure what was their strategy there, but for some period in the last few years, they seemed to go mechanically through their IP catalog and produce a life action reboot for each classic. The reboots were mostly unremarkable IMO, but they had a strange recurring pattern: Almost every one of them included one controversial change to the original setup that was guaranteed to rile up certain fans and cause drama, ostensibly in the name of DEI.
It became such a predictable occurrence that I'm honestly not sure if they really felt the need to "modernize" their classics, or if they were deliberately causing those controversies as a promotion tactic.
icantevenhold | an hour ago
The reboots are utter garbage even if you disregard the woke1.0 updates
Btw Disney has always been garbage and always will be. If we use that as the measuring stick for culture idk
roodypoo2 | 10 hours ago
UncleMeat | 13 hours ago
icantevenhold | an hour ago
Sounds to me like you get your knickers in a twist for a huge nothingburger
seattle_spring | 18 hours ago
As a resident of Portland OR, I'm all too familiar with people pointing to protests confined to a few downtown city blocks as evidence of the entire city being burned to the ground.
Seems like France/Europe is currently suffering from that same sort of propaganda. "Europe is so far gone because thr Gucci store in Paris got looted and some cop cars burned."
Huarache1 | 18 hours ago
neglesaks | 17 hours ago
People protesting poor school conditions don't burn down their schools or random public buildings.
Huarache1 | 16 hours ago
It's unspoken, but obvious in their culture, to almost act barbaric in protests.
neglesaks | 18 hours ago
Your takeaway from this was apparently 'looted luxury store and burned cop cars'.
Is it your source of news that's to blame for that misapprehension, or your personal stance on things?
edit: typo
rTX5CMRXIfFG | 13 hours ago
neglesaks | 18 hours ago
That is, near exactly the same as in the 'capitalist' world then, and now.
(In the Slavic-predominant part of the USSR, that is Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, it was an even worse 4,6-to-1. Somewhat lower in Central Asia at ~2,7-to-1).
NalNezumi | 20 hours ago
By now I would've hoped the conversation have moved from re-recognizing the problem and iterative solution seeking?
Silent suffering of this cohort have for the last maybe 10 years been too profitable segment to milk out of, to actually try to solve the underlying issue. (manosphere for example being one of the vicious extractor of this suffering)
The solution have always had some alignment with the observation that for guys, a sense of belonging, purpose, (and if younger) guidance and healthy rawmodels have been important. It warms me to see how some local efforts have addressed this. How much lively the surrounding became when they installed a free-to-use outdoor gym and football courts, for people to mingle. (and for the older cohort, Frisbee golf court apparently).
It doesn't help that when this conversation comes up, people start to project a lot and inevitably people will start to bring up women (in antagonistic tone) creating a cesspool of bitterness to hijack the conversation.
Predictably, many of the comments here are already about women
robswc | 20 hours ago
To be sure, not referencing mental health here but rather virtually any issue institutions claim to care about.
SoftTalker | 20 hours ago
robswc | 12 hours ago
mihaaly | 19 hours ago
Yeah, getting any external help is difficult. Need some inner source some way, accepting some level of 'flaws'.
pylua | 20 hours ago
Try solving a difficult problem that has more meaning other than trying to form a problem that is easier solve.
mpalczewski | 20 hours ago
maerF0x0 | 20 hours ago
seanclayton | 20 hours ago
Which one was it?
polarsanel | 20 hours ago
faeyanpiraat | 20 hours ago
bittercynic | 19 hours ago
ihsw | 19 hours ago
hn92726819 | 16 hours ago
Pedantry can be useful, but you have to at least be correct about it.
BinaryKnight | 14 hours ago
brianleb | 20 hours ago
[1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35598742/
[2] https://www.cdc.gov/suicide/data/index.html
[3] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11225381/
As a nit in an area where words matter, the title's phrasing of "Too many men suffering" implies that there is a correct number of men that should be suffering.
pizzafeelsright | 19 hours ago
We all suffer, 100%, but some of us are able to choose the suffering as opposed to having it thrust or fall upon us.
Being healthy is suffering the exercise. Being unhealthy is suffering without.
dyauspitr | 20 hours ago
hack1312 | 20 hours ago
recursive | 20 hours ago
triceratops | 20 hours ago
dyauspitr | 19 hours ago
triceratops | 19 hours ago
wtch98 | 7 hours ago
In households with domestic abuse an unhappy man makes an unhappy woman
Even in the olden days it was a known thing that you kept 'er indoors happy for a quiet life
johnnyApplePRNG | 20 hours ago
Nobody cares about anyone else hardly at all in Canada.
Male / Female ... makes no difference.
If you can't cut it, there's the street bub. Enjoy your tent and/or shelter ridden by gangs and bedbugs.
bijowo1676 | 20 hours ago
adipose | 19 hours ago
does this fact change anything about your claim that those two things are "causing" the increased male suicide?
bijowo1676 | 19 hours ago
fierycatnet | 20 hours ago
greenowl | 20 hours ago
atestu | 20 hours ago
nonethewiser | 20 hours ago
I think the broader point is that both genders have seen a decline in mental health over the same time period. Scoping by gender is a choice. One I am highly suspicious of when people are happy to chime in with their change suggestions.
Kirth | 19 hours ago
nonethewiser | 20 hours ago
2) There sure are a lot of people in these discussions who come ready with their diagnosis for men. It's quite the entry-point.
3) Bring back the Boy Scouts
tomcatfish | 16 hours ago
2) Yeah, that sucks
3) Scouting is still around! As an Eagle Scout, I don't think the issue is that girls can be in Scouts now.
I wished there were (separate) girl troops when I was in it, and was part of an Explorers troop (BSA subtype with men and women, 18–21, affiliated typically with a fire station, police station, or hospital). Men and women can learn the skills that Scouting teaches together, but you need community members to help support the troop.
I hope all of my kids are in Scouting one day, because it helped me without hurting me, but the door is wide open and plenty of people aren't walking through.
Per your note on point #1, one thing we need is good data, but I'd say the other thing we need is to support our friends in getting off the couch and hanging out. Check in on the people you haven't heard from for a while. I have reached out to men I knew from college several times to get lunch or dinner and learned they don't have a good social network. The modern world gives us so many amazing opportunities, but a lot of them are hard or scary to take advantage of alone. Go grab some friends and work through them together. It won't fix everything, but it'll fix some things.
flatline | 20 hours ago
I'd argue there's room for men's issues under (4th-wave, intersectional) feminism. The patriarchy mostly benefits a few at the top, but it has also privileged men disproportionately over at least the last few millennia and if we want to have a real conversation about it we have to have a common set of agreements on which to advance that conversation. We're not there yet as a society, we don't have the language or concepts to make this work on any side of the issue. I guess I'm arguing that some people actually do, but it's where we get into areas of gender deconstruction that start raising sharp objections, which is also part of the semantic-linguistic trap.
jlos | 20 hours ago
Why would we question their feelings??
Male loneliness is a symptom of community breakdown along with growing economic expectations from institutions (corporations and government) that rely on them for revenue and labor.
Smaller local communities do value men’s contributions, but those have been liquidated in favour of Institutional Liberalism.
So as a man, you now *have* to live as an individual. The state is hostile to your interests, the market is hostile to your interests, and, as a group (not individually), women are hostile to your interests.
But as a man you can define your own worth apart from social validation, find other like minded men for camaraderie, and still lead a meaningful life.
TFNA | 20 hours ago
As a man, I find those cultures just as vexsome as the cultures of isolation and anomie. Men talking one-on-one or up to three-four people have a good dynamic. But when men assemble into larger groups and a public male society, they inevitably talk about football, fucking women, toilet humor, and other inane things. Also, a pecking order is always established in large male groups, and men on this neurodivergence-heavy site are likely to be at the very bottom of it. Be careful what you wish for.
gib444 | 19 hours ago
A $500,000 total comp engineer with a wife and a house in California set to retire at 50 vs a $60,000 bar tender in Ohio with a hotter wife and muscles. Who's higher in the chain? Genuine question
dghlsakjg | 19 hours ago
I - genuinely - do not aspire to either of these lives, although pieces of both appeal.
TFNA | 19 hours ago
six_seven | 19 hours ago
gib444 | 9 hours ago
watwut | 17 hours ago
anal_reactor | 14 hours ago
When I was a kid I was one of the best students at school which gave me negative respect from peers who valued sports, physical power, and pissing off teachers, which were things I sucked at. I think that your example is a similar situation.
jlos | 18 hours ago
Most men (most people) don’t do well as true individuals. They need the inane group cohesion.
zkmon | 20 hours ago
Peacefulz | 20 hours ago
TacticalCoder | 20 hours ago
So it's no surprise that young gullible persons (both men and women), after that insane propaganda campaign that commences with kids at a young age, eventually got convinced all men were worthless pigs.
And now, cry me a river, there are national health report findings saying that "too many men suffer in silence".
Maybe it's time we look out as to whom are the actual people responsible for this state of affair?
You cannot spit in the air and expect it to not eventually come back in your face.
P.S: as a sidenote and very, very, very interestingly these same movements that describe men as pigs turn a complete blind-eye to actual patriarchal societies and religions, which is honestly quite shameful.
tamimio | 20 hours ago
neglesaks | 19 hours ago
Someone else here asked why a mens issue would also affect adolescents? Simple: Adolescents, naturally including boys, are the heaviest consumers of 'social media', and are thus most heavily exposed to it. The rest of us are mostly exposed to the second-order effects, namely misandric culture and institutional misandric bias which seems to be powered by the same memetic toxicity that we've witmessed on SoMe the past two decades.
Men and boys are thinking and feeling beings, too.
vantechno | 20 hours ago
And it goes without saying, if you are disabled you will miss out on a lot, often we are just trying to not make it any worse.
georgeburdell | 20 hours ago
[1] To head things off, I’m fine, thanks to a few sessions of therapy a few years back
Forgeties79 | 19 hours ago
I have a feeling this comment will not sit well with you but I am very much willing to engage this in good faith. I don’t see what you’re seeing. There are definitely domains where different genders have the advantage, but to act like the law as a whole benefits women over men…that dog don’t hunt IMO
Education, there is a stronger argument there (re admissions and such, not safety). I agree that has gotten messy as hell at the very least.
Workplace, similar to my issue with the law claim.
thiswholetime | 15 hours ago
The law protects female infants from circumcision in a way that it doesn't protect male infants.
The law requires men to register for the draft.
Men who have been circumcised and/or drafted surely outnumber women who have been denied an abortion in modern America.
The comparative scope and impact of those insults to bodily autonomy is debatable, but I don't think it's so black-and-white that someone might reasonably prefer the overall status of women in the eyes of US law.
(Just to be clear, I think everyone's bodily autonomy should be protected.)
hndc | an hour ago
And surely we are discussing life in the US today for young men and women, not for the vanishing number in their late 70s and 80s who were drafted into Vietnam.
roodypoo2 | 10 hours ago
Babies are not the same person as their mom
Viliam1234 | 17 hours ago
From my perspective, that's a complete idiocy. (And incompatible with love.) But she is not the first woman I heard to express a similar opinion. It's in the culture.
doom2 | 15 hours ago
US SecDef Hegseth, and the Trump administration at large I guess, tried to address this but it doesn't seem to have gone over well with people. Maybe if they had just focused on women and not also went after minorities and the LGBTQ community, it might have been more popular?
throw7 | 20 hours ago
We're more than just a body (physical) and a mind (soul), but also spirit. Spirit in the sense of conscientiousness from the divine, or a sense of awe of the foresaid.
cowlevel | 19 hours ago
thom | 20 hours ago
legitster | 19 hours ago
There were only 12 very vague questions - and none actually asked the respondent about how they felt personally: "Where do you believe stereotypes about masculinity primarily come from?"
Only about 2/3 of the respondents even identified as male - this isn't a serious study of how men themselves feel. It's more of a survey about the public perception of men.
bradlys | 19 hours ago
Few are even reading the article. It's mostly a way to start a discussion and vent.
legitster | 19 hours ago
red-iron-pine | an hour ago
datsci_est_2015 | 19 hours ago
soco | 8 hours ago
rpdillon | 19 hours ago
thewanderer1983 | 19 hours ago
sandworm101 | 19 hours ago
I did a yearly career counseling/updating session with a guy a month ago who's "long term goal" was to buy a dog. A dog needs a yard. A dog needs an owner who is home regularly. So he figured that in the next 10 years he might be able to get a small house and switch to a job with more regular hours. THAT is where depression starts. A good man with a good job and all he can envision for himself is maybe... one day... if he saves every penny... he might get to adopt a puppy.
The answers are not in more government-sponsored therapy sessions. The answer is to improve jobs, to give the working man a future to look for.
teunispeters | 19 hours ago
One of the consequences is that - while all of my issues have underlying biological causes (and thus, I can see specialists to mitigate that, somewhat) - I've been on a waiting list for ADHD now for 3 years, with no idea when I'll actually be able to see anyone. Thankfully, otherwise, my cPTSD - I got enough tools in the year after the diagnosis that it's no longer - most of the time - causing any trouble.
Now I was homeless when I started (this IS related to me being able to get help) - but those paths are not easy to get through. That help has been inaccessible to me since I stabilized my housing and employment situations.
So yeah, I'm not surprised. I've met a LOT of people who need more help than they could get ... providing they were open to reaching out. This is entirely related to "homeless epidemic". Mind "shortage of work", "cuts by companies who moved their offices south of the border" are related to this, too.
nfca | 19 hours ago
I have seen and experienced this myself: in one past company, the HR person openly held the view that if a woman accuses a man of "harassment", it's probably true. In other words, HR itself operated with an attitude of 'guilty until proven innocent' against men.
I was once personally accused of "racism" against people of my own race (but across a political divide) by a former female colleague who was of a different race altogether. Thankfully, this was over LinkedIn chat outside of work where we also worked for different employers. I shudder to think what would have happened if this had been inside a workplace.
I don't blame women at all for this. I don't believe women are perpetuating this OR benefitting from this. This is a worse situation for everyone.
bijowo1676 | 19 hours ago
However, for some strange reason, the West refuses to use dialectic materialism to explain when times are bad, when males feel lonely or face increased suicide rates.
material conditions explain everything, both when times are good, and when times are bad.
The solution is to obtain (via any means necessary) better material conditions, which might include redistribution by force or political action
neglesaks | 18 hours ago
sltkr | 19 hours ago
dagenleg | 19 hours ago
This is getting really tiring and it's frankly a shame to see the inexorable slide of HN into a sexist echochamber. The irony of it is, I'm pretty sure that a large part of self-victimising posters in this thread were complaining about the SJW oppression olympics just five years prior.
I get where different kinds of bigotry come from; when things get bad, outgroups are always going to be blamed and scapegoated, whether racial or class-based. Yet there’s something inherently obscene about blaming women for the social issues modern society faces. How bad things must be for someone’s designated oppressor outgroup to constitute 50% of the population, people who resemble them and face largely the same problems? Seriously, do all these people who make sweeping generalisations and talk about “women” as some kind of monolithic entity ever actually talk to women or have female friends? It’s bizarre.
datsci_est_2015 | 19 hours ago
qball | 19 hours ago
The root of problem is that you don't find it inherently obscene to do the same to men.
That's literally all it is. If you think women are worth more than men you are, in a system of equality, objectively wrong.
If you want women to be socially worth more than men, what are you going to give men to uphold that deal? Because the longer you answer "nothing, fuck you", the worse this gets.
dagenleg | 18 hours ago
I'm calling out the petty sexism that I'm seeing far too often, how did you manage to read it as an attack on all men? There's that victim mentality again. Nobody except a small minority of deranged fanatics calls for women to be socially worth more than men.
However, I do find that last line of yours telling, the implication of betrayal, and the promise of future reckoning. Pray do tell me: what exactly is going to get worse? What happen next? Women to be driven back into the kitchens? The beta uprising?
datsci_est_2015 | 17 hours ago
Amen. Hallmark of misogynistic, reactionary commentary on the internet. Almost guaranteed to appear. Like we need an internet law about it...
This is the type of stuff that Elon Musk greatly overestimates dominates public opinion because of his X echo chamber, leading him to waste $500 million on election advertisements.
qball | 16 hours ago
Yes, "it's just a few crazy kids on college campuses". We've heard this lie before.
>What happen next? Women to be driven back into the kitchens? The beta uprising?
You're telling on yourself here with the standard feminist hysteria. What's actually happening at the moment is the stark divergence in life trajectories between men and women who are able to co-operate and treat each other fairly, and those that are not.
The consequences of failing to do this only become apparent for women in old age, much like it's only apparent for men in young age. Humanity doesn't really have an instinct to moderate that yet because resource scarcity meant it never really developed a sense for how to behave in post-scarcity environments.
We're not quite at the point where the consequences of gynosupremacy have come home to roost- the women born privileged under that system haven't hit the age at which men are no longer instinctively wired to value women over themselves yet. But once they are there, they'll quickly find that having no young men left who are willing or able to maintain the current inequality, and no old men who respect them enough to give that order due to how they acted when they were young, will remain.
You have already seen the beginnings of this. When you are privileged, equality feels like oppression.
dagenleg | 15 hours ago
I don't know what kind of bubble you came from, but I really suggest you befriend some women and get another perspective. Your worldview is all sorts of fucked up, and I don’t see any point in further discussion with someone who believes in “gynosupremacy” and spews the usual incel drivel about women finally getting their due once they age out of their reproductive years.
qball | 15 hours ago
qntty | 19 hours ago
dagenleg | 18 hours ago
tomcatfish | 16 hours ago
dagenleg | 15 hours ago
- Most upvoted comment with 155 posts under it claims that men's poor mental health stems from unfair divorce laws. As always, there's a subthread with fearmongering about being unwittingly trapped in a common law marriage.
- Second highest rated one goes on about the usual drivel about men being villainised and dehumanised in the media.
- Fourth highest rated starts with "This is a trap, just like it’s a trap when my wife asks me what’s wrong"
I rest my case. People in the comments here aren't alright.
watwut | 17 hours ago
And no, they are not response to micromanaging of thought ideas. They have gender ideology in mind they want to enforce and are using it.
d_burfoot | 19 hours ago
tomcatfish | 17 hours ago
Dem_Boys | 18 hours ago
Men especially take this hard. I find men have a very very strong urge to get ahead, succeed, and climb the ladder of success. If they consistently fail at this AND can't find a partner it gets really rough. I have a close friend going through this now and he is contemplating ending it. I'm visiting him everyday just to try to bring a smile to his face
bluefirebrand | 18 hours ago
You're a good dude
I have a friend like this too. He graduated out of an IT program into the post AI world, in a kind of small town. He's working at a grocery store, convinced he's unlovable (and unfuckable), and he's started to talk about ending it sometimes. Super good dude, just needs some wins, but life has not been good to him
Dem_Boys | 17 hours ago
The unlovable part really hit the nail on the head. I can't begin to explain what a lack of relationship and sex life has done to him. He questions EVERYTHING about himself because of this. "Maybe I'm ugly" "Maybe I'm a bad talker" "Maybe I'm not smart enough"
tomcatfish | 17 hours ago
jimmyjazz14 | 16 hours ago
One day I was at a store checking out and the attendant was rather brusk and didn't seem particularly friendly, but he was wearing a watch that I liked and I simply stated that I liked his watch and he lit up, the whole dynamic changed in an instant. I wasn't trying to be nice I literally just liked his watch but after seeing how he opened up and changed after that statement I realized just how much joy can be created with a simple compliment. I try to genuinely compliment people more often now.
Dem_Boys | 16 hours ago
I suspect we underestimate how many people we see everyday that are hiding deep sorrow under their persona
port11 | 7 hours ago
I’ve grown up mostly friends with queer people and women, given they feel emotionally safer and are just generally more pleasant to be with. Men have it hard, but I don’t think any harder than any other group of people out there.
Now, I’m a dude. I got into clinical depression, trauma therapy, attempt at suicide, you know, the works. I’m very empathetic towards the suffering of other people.
But… men’s struggles can be 80% alleviated by men showing empathy, doing some therapy, and trying to connect with other people. There. Our ‘strengths’ aren’t that useful in the modern world, but failing to adapt and seeking behaviours that would help us thrive is contrary to evolution.
Things have been tipped in favour of women for a bit, which is a correction on the previous environment. And, eventually, it will all harmonise.
I’ve now had 3 separate moments where dudes were making fun of my toddler. You know, the casual snickering, the little comments. Uh, look, it’s a child doing child things. Womp womp, can’t be vulnerable, gotta tear everything down to make ourselves feel good.
I’ve women in my life that date or go on dates with the complete men-children that are perpetually in arrested development, inconsiderate, unkind. They’re not meanies or thugs, they’re just dudes that never learned compassion or empathy, that never had the curiosity of wondering “is the world unfair or am I not adapting to it?”
Men deserve help. We all do. But the Male Loneliness Epidemic is, if not self-inflicted, self-perpetuated. We need, as men, to take responsibility for ourselves and find ways out of this.
ShinyLeftPad | 6 hours ago
Sammi | 5 hours ago
Typical white collar jobs have by far the highest long term earnings in the numbers I've seen, and these jobs are not what aggressive buff guys tend to do well in long term. Generally if you want to earn well, then you should get a boring masters degree and work a boring white collar job and rise through the ranks slowly. Numerically you will end up doing better than most. But it's soooo booooring.
ShinyLeftPad | 4 hours ago
Also, I see plenty of aggressive buff bros in white collar jobs but maybe that depends on location.
crab2 | 18 hours ago
moononite | 16 hours ago
gsky | 14 hours ago
matrix87 | 13 hours ago
It's only a problem if they aren't getting what they want. Similarly with the whole "toxic masculinity" thing, you ask them what "non-toxic masculinity" looks like and it's just a bunch of self-serving bullshit.
I'm not saying women aren't pathologized similarly. But it seems like, we live in a world where scarcity is king and everyone is out for themselves. You can think otherwise at your own expense. People tend to idealize unconditional love (maybe because they miss childhood, I'm not sure).
The same unforgiving scarcity and brutality that animals experience in nature, we also experience, and it's the underlying truth of life. It's just that people don't seem to want to accept this. Maybe there are rare instances where you meet someone who shows grace, but reality tends to sink to the lowest common denominator. I'm not saying that life sucks in general, it's just that it sucks wherever scarcity is present. (Life is actually pretty great, it just seems like seeking fulfillment in the wrong places leads to disappointment)
rTX5CMRXIfFG | 12 hours ago
And then there's a kind of mental struggle that's brought about by isolation, not having genuine and deep connections with others whom you share ideals or interests with, which is driven by the modernity of our lifestyles and possibly by socioeconomic class. Why we are gendering mental health as an issue is beyond me. People seriously need to learn another paradigm with which to evaluate world events besides gender politics.
Sammi | 5 hours ago