Men's Liberation
This community is first and foremost a feminist community for men and masc people, but it is also a place to talk about men’s issues with a particular focus on intersectionality.
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Non-masculine perspectives are incredibly important in making sure that the lived experiences of others are present in discussions on masculinity, but please remember that this is a space to discuss issues pertaining to men and masc individuals. Be kind, open-minded, and take care that you aren't talking over men expressing their own lived experiences.
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Recommended Reading
- The Will To Change: Men, Masculinity, And Love by bell hooks
- Politics of Masculinities: Men in Movements by Michael Messner
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Yup. And I think that once again, a large part of this is the influence of the 'manosphere' putting bullshit into their heads.
There's been a couple of occasions having this conversation where people respond to me and say they don't listen to Jordan Peterson or whatever but they're still lonely. But then they'll say something like "I need marriage and children to be a complete human being or else I'm a failure in life. And I've been robbed." I mean, what the fuck. They're just kids or young adults.
So these guys are attempting relationships with all of this heavy shit about marriage and children and status and ownership in mind and chasing people away. I would run away too if someone started making wedding plans on the second date. And they're not looking for a person that they get along with and can spend the rest of their life with, they're looking for someone who can make their babies for them. Ewww.
Honestly sometimes this 'manosphere' shit is a little bit like purity culture. And it sometimes reminds me of some of the more cultish churches I've come across that push 18 year old kids who are dating into early marriage or else they're "living in sin". In fact I'm pretty sure that there's a religious right wing agenda behind it.
These kids need to stop clutching their pearls and acting like religious fanatics and just have some fucking fun. Go into things with zero expectations. Have one night stands. Enjoy their youth. And if in the process of that, they meet 'the one', then that's a bonus. They don't need to be tied down with kids and bills to pay by the time they're 21 just to be seen as any more of a 'man'. In fact that would just be sad.
Women in the US were first allowed to have bank accounts of their own in the 70s. We were also frequently barred from higher-paying jobs, and the few jobs we did have access to often fired us if they found out we were dating/pregnant. Because we’d ’only care about the kids’, we’d ’always be gone popping out more kids’, we ‘needed to settle down with a man like a proper lady’, and on and on.
Until recently, getting married was absolutely a requirement for a woman to have a stable life, and as men were pressured to choose young, ‘nubile’ women, there was a ticking clock on the chance to hook up.
Many religious groups try to keep this pressure up even these days, telling women that they belong in the home, that making babies is the only proper calling… they also try to ensure women in their group are not as well-educated so they’re forced to rely on men who are getting the higher-paying jobs.
Not consciously maybe, but the ripples still echo. Aside from religious groups trying to pretend things are still structured that way, these kids’ parents most likely grew up in that environment, and movie producers (and lots of video game makers, for that matter) did too. And they often seem to forget that things have changed.
So the message they put into media is ‘guys, if you don’t have a well-paying job and a wife by the time you’re 30, you’re a loser who didn’t try hard!’ and ‘gals, if you’re not married to some well-off dude and a homemaker with multiple kids by the time you’re 25, you’re a useless old maid!’
If that’s the message you hear from all angles, then that’s the message you’re going to internalize, even if the evidence of your eyes shows things don’t work that way anymore. I’ve met several younger guys who seem to think if they’re successful then they ’deserve’ a woman, because what happens to the successful man in movies and games? He gets the girl at the end.
That used to be the stereotype in the past, but at least as far back as I recall (late Gen-Xer), it wasn't as prevalent an attitude as most people thought. Past feminist influence reduced a lot of that pressure but now it's coming back via manosphere essentialism.
Sure, that's true. It's all anecdotal but I'm also thinking of how people talked at the time in general.
When I wrote that I was thinking mostly of everyone I knew in my uni years and into my 20s (esp. with the sexual freedom stuff) but I also had in the back of my mind that I saw peers experience teen pregnancy when I was in high school, and there was stuff in the wider media about it being a problem. (In my elementary school, we all got Sex Ed classes, too.)
That was an age old problem that I hear has recently been reduced significantly. (Probably helps if not just the kids but also parents got sex education early in life.)
This is backwards, in my personal experience. Marriage benefits men, women are the ones at risk from pregnancy and childbirth and usually having kids impacts women's careers more than men's. Plus we can have kids without a relationship if we want them, that's more difficult for men.
Now do SOME girls dream of a wedding and see a guy as an accessory, just a means to an end? Sure. I don't know any of them but I'm sure they exist. It's certainly a trope in stories.
I guess I just thought of a guy as one more thing to take care of? I really never envisioned a long term relationship, as a young woman, but was absolutely sure I wanted kids.
It has become more equal now, I'm sure. Or at least I hope. My husband was a single dad so we do both feel like it's easier with both of us. But our exes - being single parents was considerably easier than parenting together with them. So that can go either way. A helpful partner is a wonderful thing, yes.