This is not my personal opinion, I know Gen Z men who voted for Harris. But the voter demographics really speak for themselves, and maybe now people will look at the radicalization of young men as a serious (but solvable) issue.
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It seems counter intuitive but I don’t think Gen Z is as good with technology as most people assume they are.
I think they just believe everything they see on YouTube and TikTok. Those algorithms just feed people what they want to see and don’t challenge anyone.
Yep. Older people (Millennial, Gen X) grew up with PCs that could be heavily modified, run any program, even repurposed to run Linux if you were brave. Later generations who grew up with phones only get to use the apps that Apple / Google approve of. There’s no hacking the system, so you get whatever the algorithm says you get.
Older people grew up on BBSes and later “Bulletin Boards”, which were mostly the same thing just with prettier graphics, also with email, and sometimes instant messengers. Communities were smaller, and there was no mediator. Younger ones are stuck in apps that are designed around engagement, with a “celebrity” vs “fan” content model where it’s all geared around followers and likes. It’s all parasocial relationships from the “fan” side, and trying to keep up with whatever the algorithm wants from the creator side.
Social media. Gen Z grew up with youtubers and influencers pushing their beliefs.
in the age of misinformation and grifting mind you. it’s not just the technology, we’ve had youtube for 20 years
White women as a majority still voted for Trump. Why just blame men?
The result of telling women they could vote for someone their husband didn’t vote for was the right flipping out and essentially calling them property. How likely do you think speaking up is when you are stuck financially to someone who sees you as a servant rather than a person?
What the fuck? Where? Not where I am.
From a quick google search. It’s about 53% for Trump, 45% for Harris.
It may not be true for those you regularly interact with, but that doesn’t make it untrue overall.
The Exit Polls that were a verbal conversation upon leaving might not be accurate if they are asking women in front of their partners, right?
I’m not USian, so IDK how those polls work. I’m just dismayed that that many women would vote for a pedo rapist who took away their bodily autonomy.
Fair enough. I just talk to a lot of women, all are aghast no matter their race. Men are less so, though many are disappointed, they are more blase.
That’s a pretty ignorant way to overgeneralize about a whole generation. I hoped I was leaving this kind of bullshit behind on reddit.
Every flag-emoji in a user’s profile name is a red-flag for a different mental illness.
But this is pure scapegoating. Even the most straightforward read on the turnout demographics tells us where the problem is.
Trump won the White People.
Trump was expected to dominate the white vote. Hispanic voters were expected to be way more blue tho, especially after the recent “porto reeko” fiasco. I read that Hispanic males tended to prefer Trump but women liked Harris. The geography stats are unsurprising - more dems live in urban areas and more repubs in the smaller towns and wide open spaces. The huge surprise is that younger voters are so evenly divided. Maybe I’m just used to the constant noise on reddit that blames Trump on boomers. Now it will probably shift to “BuT ThEy GoT HiM StArTeD!”
There is a lot to be said here. I’ll use my own experience as an example.
I’m a millennial male who had a terrible time as a young adult through my mid 30s. I grew up in a fairly religious/conservative area of the US, and I didn’t have the ability to even start questioning that before my college years because literally everyone I knew was either a vocal supporter of or tacitly accepted that cultural status quo. Mental health issues were either not discussed or not recognized in any serious fashion. It wasn’t until my late 20s that I finally understood that I had severe depression and anxiety and sought help, despite suffering from it since my early teenage years.
Socially, I never felt like I was cool enough or good enough. I didn’t understand women, and the endless series of rejections and confusing encounters only served to erode my low self confidence further. I had no idea what a healthy relationship looked like because my parents were just going through the motions at that point, and the relationships I saw in TV shows and movies were incredibly shallow. The few people I considered friends did not support me in any positive way. I eventually kicked them to the curb, preferring solitude to being the butt of their jokes.
I was a prime target for recruitment for the alt-right: depressed, alone, disaffected, and ready to lash out. The only thing that kept me from going in that direction was a keen sense that the rhetoric was bullshit and its leaders only cared to take advantage of the rank-and-file to accumulate money and power. Many people I knew were not so perceptive and became victims of that movement.
My only saving grace was that I had a decent job with healthcare benefits, which allowed me to get the therapy I needed to overcome these challenges. Again, most people I knew did not have such resources. Nearly a decade later, I am now a family man with a wife and child. I am far happier than I have been at any other point in my life. Despite that, there is still plenty I don’t understand. I don’t have a good grasp of what positive masculinity looks like. I cannot point to anyone who has served as a good, male role-model in my life. I still don’t have any close male friends with whom I can share my feelings and challenges.
However, I do understand how easily young men can be swayed to far-right crusades. Social media warped my view of reality, and it’s far worse now than it was 10-15 years ago. Moreover, there is no alternative to far-right echo chambers for young men to commiserate and get help. Those spaces simply do not exist on the left. If you dare to complain or vent, you will immediately be told your problems don’t matter and called a misogynist. I can readily call multiple conversations I had with liberals and feminists who rejected my problems, even being told that I was “living life on easy mode” because I was a man.
For all the women who are reading this, I get it. As a man, I don’t have to worry about the government meddling in my bodily autonomy. For the most part, I don’t have to worry about walking alone at night or being accosted or raped. I don’t have to worry about being taking seriously at my job or being passed over for promotions because of my gender. However, none of that negates the challenges that young men are facing. Their gender does not save them from broken homes, abuse, mental health issues, a bad job market, degrading standards of living, student debt, double-standards, confusing and contradictory narratives surrounding dating and relationships, etc. Yes, privileged men with no right to complain do exist, but they are an extreme minority. The vast majority of young men are in a bad place, and the only people reaching out to help have ulterior motives. If you want things to change, try having some empathy. Maybe you will get empathy for your problems in return.
This. Men are more often victims of violent crime, homelessness, mental illness, suicides, do worse in school, incarceration, die in wars, work dangerous jobs. Classic male institutions, structures, and spaces don’t exist anymore like they used to.
Add to that that men showing emotions is still seen as weakness.
These issues aren’t addressed or even mentioned.
Men are more often victims of violent crime, homelessness, mental illness, suicides, do worse in school, incarceration, die in wars, work dangerous jobs.
The victims of other men. That’s the joke of it all. And the folks screaming loudest about being victimized are inevitably the ones quickest and most eager to take their own pound of flesh at the first opportunity.
Add to that that men showing emotions is still seen as weakness.
Primarily among other men. This isn’t a gendered issue nearly so much as it is a socio-economic hierarchy. The “excess males” problem is what’s driving the violence, the poverty, and the declining health. Young men are pressed into the social hierarchy by their elders, often from an extremely young age, through physical, emotional, and sexual violence. They climb the social ladder by proving their tolerance for abuse by those above, while exhibiting a sufficient capacity for sadism on those below. Anyone who cannot endure the abuse and find their own cohort to abuse in turn becomes the social excrement that the system exudes.
This is literally “The Patriarchy” that feminists rant about and seek to abolish. But efforts to abolish the system invoke its most violent tendencies. The result is a youth population that is selected for the most sniveling and cruel to lead it into the next generation.
This entire comment is exactly the kind of lack of empathy that the gentleman was talking about.
Primarily among other men.
The worst I ever got for showing emotions in front of other men was being called sensitive. Women on the other hand dismissed me with fury, insulting my manhood and even hitting me.
They climb the social ladder by proving their tolerance for abuse by those above, while exhibiting a sufficient capacity for sadism on those below.
Where did you learn this fucking nonsense, gender studies?
The Patriarchy
Interesting name for it given how many men will tell you it is women upholding men’s gender roles. Men are still expected to pay for dates, to be able to support families, to have a home and a car before they’re even worth attempting to date…
Thanks for relating all that - lots of information but worth the read. You largely summed up my own early existence in the first few paragraphs. My therapy came in the form of getting involved in theatre, which exposed me to all kinds of people and ideas, revamped my attitudes and saved me from embracing radical ideas that are more or less based on rejecting a society that rejects you. I think that same cynicism is common in people from many different backgrounds, who share the same alienation for all kinds of reasons.
I’ll even add one - throughout my software career doing contract jobs, finding a new gig always took me 2-3 weeks and was very routine. When I turned 50 the 2-3 weeks abruptly and permanently became 2-3 months, and took a lot more effort. Apparently in that community I was suddenly too old. Only one recruiter let slip that age was the reason a potential client rejected me, but the sudden difference at 50 was stark. So I don’t know what you do for a living but you might be facing that yourself when it’s your time.
Anyway I totally agree about empathy. I don’t know what it is but people seem to be constantly on guard nowadays. Their go-to assumption is to look for evil and refuse to accept simple mistakes. That and permanently crucifying anybody who does anything morally unacceptable, or ever did in their past. If somebody Likes the wrong tweet it’s unforgivable and irredeemable. I don’t recall another time when so many people were so militant about this attitude. Forgiveness used to mean compassion, now it means you’re complicit, enabling, a shill, “just as bad,” etc. I think we need to think of the glass houses analogy and stop pretending to be morally impeccable.
As a Gen Z man who statistically should have fallen down the incel and alt-right pipeline but didn’t, this echos exactly what I see in my generation. We don’t have positive examples of Masculinity, and the left just yells at us that we’re trash, when we struggle with things and most don’t have many (or any) good friends to lean on. So of course they go to the alt right.
That was a very thoughtfully written response. I can relate to a lot of your story and agree with your conclusions. There needs to be more outlets for men as an alternative to right wing communities. I hope you meet more liberals and feminists that are open-minded to men’s hardships. I have to believe there are more reasonable people out there on the left than not.
I have to believe there are more reasonable people out there on the left than not
There are, but online is where the psychopathic man haters feel free to let their colors fly. At union conventions and community meets, I only ever hear tame comments from the very obvious radfems.
half joke first. nobody’s trying to meddle in our bodily autonomy, yet.
i havent looked too close at it but the mensliberation space on lemmy.ca may interest you? if you havent already found it.
I’ll try to approach the topic from my perspective as well. my gender has never really be part of my internal view of myself. but it is an inescapable part of how other people will see me, and the rules are always whatever the other person wants. so maybe not the poster child for speaking on masculinity. i’m literally the default charater generator in every videogame, but it’s just a hallucinating meat suit.
talking about gender concepts and social roles was a norm growing up because i did that growing up in the weird outside groups the christian kids chased. any reference to maculinity was done at me as an attack, even when i was doing it according to the rules. i agree, there are few places for young men to explore their way out of those strict views. especially in the early years. i’ve often seen them jump straight into spaces meant to be safe for people who’ve had not great experiances with the topic, especially women. and press other people to do all the work, explain things to them and navigate their often* harsh language. and i get it. when you’ve only ever been allowed to express 3 levels of the same emotion, it’s gonna be rough sorting that out.
it’s going to be on people who have worked their way through that mind set to make those places for kids to start the process. most importantly, people who share their experiance and perspective. yes folls like me can and really need to come in there and talk openly. but my own experiance is never going to line up in a way that will connect with those kids. even when i look exactly like our experiance should line up.
…if theres more spelling mistakes then there are more spelling mistakes. fuck it thats too much text for a phone
mensliberation space on lemmy.ca
I appreciate your otherwise quality comment but I have to say that I don’t intend to use a space that only views men’s issues through a feminist lens.
On Reddit, LeftWingMaleAdvocates is a solid lefty men’s space.
i spent all of a minute poking around. not a topic i deep dive in really. more hoping to pose the question of “hey do we maybe have a space like this?”. someplace where people having a shared perspective would have the patience for eachothers early questions they once had.
i’m not on reddit but a few minutes poking around there it doesn’t look crazypants. so i’ll add it to my comment too.
Bodily autonomy? What’s this scar on my cock again?
fair point. sounds like theres a need for a space to have these conversations. with people effected by the topic and moded by people on the otherside of the joirney, who could have empathy in the difficult moments. anyone know of a space? i’ll try engaging where i can.
I was actually wondering how the gender gap changed in this election, and it wasn’t at all what I was expecting:
According to exit polls by CNN Trump gained +2% of the male vote, and +5% of the female vote compared to 2020 - though women were still more likely to support Harris, of course.
An analysis by the AP found similar results, with the support from men under 45 increasing +7%, and women under 45 +6%, while for older men it decreased -1%, and for older women stayed the same.
Surprisingly, Trump’s support among racial minority groups increased while white and older Americans increased support for Harris.
After thorough analysis and much thought I have ultimately concluded that I have absolutely no fucking clue what is going on with American politics.
the real metric that matters is that way way less people voted. not many people changed their votes from last time. many people are simply convinced to stay home, and as always, that results in a Republican win. the propaganda that was most effective was all of the “Kamala is no true Scotsman, so you should just not vote”. i believe this was lost by the people that “refused to vote for genocide”. i think that’s what accelerated the genocide.
I really doubt double-digit millions of voters sat out because of Gaza.
Kamala’s vote total is roughly in line with what would be expected looking at 2008, 2012, and 2016. The massive turnout in 2020 on the Dem side appears to be an abberation - it was unique circumstances with COVID and all that. On the Republican side, Trump ran slightly ahead of his 2020 performance, and well ahead of 2016.
It’s basic electoral politics: Trump has succeeded at expanding his base of support and turning them out to vote reliably. The Democrats have not. No single issue is responsible for that.
You can blame protests or Gaza or third parties or whoever else you want - the truth remains that the Dem base from the Obama years is not large enough and not appropriately distributed to win an election against Trump’s base; whatever else you think of the man, he has been very good at gaining and retaining support.
True but I think that’s probably more of deep red state residents seeing their vote not matter live on TV every fucking election. I’ve seen the federal turnout but I haven’t compared state to state turnout yet and I would imagine that’s probably a better metric since like 30% of the population live where their vote makes no difference.
So many pundits were leaning into the gender gap so hard, I really expected a blowout landslide for Harris. This is the last time I pay any attention to commentators, forecasters or polls. My current theory of American politics is that we’ve become a full-on Idiocracy. There are always idiots in any society, but I really feel like if we can elect the Orange Sack of Shit a second time, our collective stupidity has passed a tipping point. We almost made it to 250 years too. But nothing lasts forever. Hang onto your seat, I don’t expect swirling down the drain to be fun.
Some commentators were even publishing absolutely ridiculous cope to explain why the polls were 50/50. The media was working overtime to stick their heads in the sand for some reason.
I think corporate media wants every race to be neck-and-neck because that gets more ad views. I put the results of this election to Trump’s stunning con man ability (his only real ability) and to millions of Americans being fucking idiots.
It’s the economy. Look at the numbers for voters without a college degree, rural voters, and lower income voters. Trump won all of these groups. In the WaPo exit polls the issues are included, not just the demographics. For voters who think the economy is the most importantly issue and for voters who think the US economy is doing badly: Trump dominated.
The Democrats continue to fail at shedding their reputation for being out of touch with working class Americans. The only income bracket that Harris won was the $100,000+ group. This tells us that the Democrats are an upper middle class and upper class party.
Trump grew with educated voters, too, though.
So they voted to have their faces eaten
They probably feel like they’re fucked either way and have nothing going for them. That makes it easier to side with the dude spouting hate. If I was that age I’d probably be in the same boat as them because being angry and hateful feels good and it took me a while to get that under control. I certainly didn’t have any actual hope things would improve after this election but I did vote for Kamala because she at least wasn’t spouting hateful shit. Not that it helped because I live in a dark red district. If there hadn’t been an abortion amendment on the ballot I’d have probably skipped this one.
Wow, that’s crazy.
I wonder how much of that is demonization of unions. If a big piece of Democrat support for working class is support for unions, does that actually matter when so many people of all incomes are taught to hate unions?
Then there’s the student loan fiasco. By all rights the Biden administration should have gotten kudos for finding so many ways to attempt student loan forgiveness, and for focusing it on lower income people (for example, people in income based repayment with less than $10k left). However the right succeeded in making that seem elitist or not independent and the left seemed to blame Democrats for not being more successful in the face of Republican obstruction
Trump won the morons. And there are just so many fucking stupid people.
After thorough analysis and much thought I have ultimately concluded that I have absolutely no fucking clue what is going
The statements above seem to suggest it’s no longer about identity politics. The habitual way of labeling people no longer explains political results.
Yep, Trump’s popularity went down with white voters (albeit only 2-4 points depending on male or female) but gained ground in Latino and “other unidentified” minorities. He also actually lost older voters too.
But I think the biggest surprise for me is that Trump gained more of the new voters than Harris. And while I don’t have a gender breakdown from that, I wonder if a lot of those were males.
Women asked for some basic goddamn respect and when they got “uppity”(because us men weren’t listening) they really got a “you were mean to me so I’m gunna elect Hitler again”. Millions of people alive today want women strip women of the rights they fought for and women are supposed to be polite about it?!
It’s crazy how weak they are and I’m sad sharing a gender with them.
the data does not support this conclusion. more young men did not vote for Trump, less people in total voted. almost no one changed their vote from last election. people were just convinced to stay home, which always results in Republican wins. both candidates got less votes total than last year, by a lot. i blame this on the “i refuse to vote for genocide” people that have just successfully accelerated that genocide.
I’m a gen z male, raised in a far right Republican household. I’m a social democrat. I am progressive.
Same here. I’ve cut my entire family out of my life over this shit.
Good on you. No group is a monolith
Unironically, congrats on breaking free of the brainwashing. I grew up in an insanely red rural area and a very conservative religious family, unlearning all that shit has been a decades long process (and still continues).
Same. I live on a ranch in a deeply red area. Voted Kamala. I’m also happy to say my conservative parents are ex-republicans.
Same man. It was wild when middle school rolled around and I finally gained awareness of the world beyond myself and learned what the Republicans actually were and wanted. A friend who knew more about politics than me explained some stuff, and suddenly I had to question why my family was against progressive beliefs.
Mostly the same, i was raised to be a worthless red neck. I’m not. The issue with using our experiences is that we are people, we have an inner world and are capable of free thought. Trump’s followers aren’t.
Can you please tell your entire generation to get it together worldwide? That’d be great, thanks.
Leaving this here just in case: /s
Man. I get being disappointed. I really do get it.
But tarring all these guys with “hitler youth” when just like every other group, at worst it’s a 45-55% split… Come on. That’s a hell of an insult to throw towards people, many of whom are doing their best and didn’t vote Trump. Doing your best, doing everything that you can do, and still being met with scorn… I know how bad that hurts. I know how it sucks the will right out of you. I know it drives people away. And even if it doesn’t drive them to Trump because they’re good people, it sure isn’t going to drive them towards finding a solution.
Don’t worry, the youth will only become further right-wing.
Here’s the result of a local German state election from September. It displays the results for people aged 18-24, divided into male (light) and female (dark). AfD is openly fascist. No other age group voted for them as much. Getting 46% in a system with proportional representation is basically unheard of by the way.
I very much suspect this trend will continue.
Because the Republicans succeeded at fully killing education. It’s dead.
I am morbidly curious to see what happens over the next generation or two. The innate anti-intellectualism that seems to be a required component of right-wing policy will heavily affect red states, but blue states are still prioritizing their school systems. Is the “states’ rights” party going to sic the fed on state-controlled school systems in blue states to prevent the spread of thoughtcrime?
If it’s only blue states that continue funding education, what does that do long-term in a nation that has shifted away from being a manufacturing superpower to now primarily making its capital on knowledge industries? It is already the case that college applicants from states like Massachusetts and Connecticut get inherent bonus points in their transcripts just by virtue of where they graduated high school, because earning an A in Boston means more than earning an A in Baton Rouge. We’ve got a brain drain of doctors and nurses, and teachers and college professors, all leaving red states because the laws there are getting too oppressive for them to work. Most of the finance and technology sectors remains in the (blue) northeast and west coast states as well.
What is the long-term plan for the Republican party to empower their own constituents in these red-state strongholds when their old industries are gone, never to return, and they refuse to invest in the education and welfare of their citizens?
My prediction is that we’re going to have plaques and monuments that say “In memory of 2026, thousands of American citizens deported - and its the Democrats fault btw”
Any semblance of resistance will be labelled as “radical leftists trying to subvert the will of America”… with how over half of voters made their decision, the will of America seems far different than I remembered.
Take back your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Expel these, the homeless, tempest-tost to anywhere else, I laugh and lock our golden door!
I can see why some young men might feel like the Democratic party is prioritizing women’s issues over those affecting men, especially young men. In fact, it might seem like the Democratic party is not only indifferent to struggling young men, but hostile to them. I can understand why someone might not want to vote for a party that thinks of them as deplorable, pathetic losers.
Issues affecting young women:
- Rapes aren’t prosecuted
- Government forced births
- Bleeding out in a parking lot
- Widespread misogyny
Issues affecting young men:
- Girls won’t put out
- There aren’t enough pickup trucks
- Joe Rogan is being victimized by jews
- Germ theory and masks or something
How exactly can a political party address what is for men essentially a collection of toxic culture issues?
Issues affecting young men:
- Rape reports are ignored and not taken seriously
- Not trained in the tools to deal with mental health and emotions
- High expectation to make money but low job prospects
- Jerks trivializing the fact that men have real concerns because OtHeRs HaVe It WoRsE.
It should be empathy for all. Asshat.
Your list is the issues that men are actually facing, but what OP posted is what the clout chasing “alpha influencers” tout as “men’s actual problems”.
For everyone’s sake, we need to start reclaiming men’s spaces from these Andrew Taint-wannabe’s, and towards people like you. They don’t care about anything but their bank accounts.
Influencers are the tail that thinks they’re wagging the dog. When they aren’t shilling garbage products and cryptoscams they’re spending all their time trying to find the next trend to chase. Besides the shilling, at their worst they’re merely a sounding board for ideas and issues that are already out there (and have been for a long time).
The biggest mistake the Democrat campaign made was to ignore the plight of working class, non-college educated people. To a group that’s been reeling from inflation and the major setback of COVID lockdowns, the Democrats promised more of the same. That’s not good enough! What good is student loan forgiveness to people who never went to college?
That’s been the problem for the Democrats for decades now. A party that used to call labour unions its base now focuses pretty much exclusively on college-educated middle class and up.
I just had a look at the exit polls. Of the people who said the economy was the most important use, 79% voted for Trump. Of those who think the US’s economy is doing not so good/poor (67% of voters), 69% voted for Trump.
I know lots of people here will sneer at that and Trump seems pretty unlikely to right the ship but he actually promised change whereas the Democrats did not. Promising to keep things the same when 2/3 of voters believe the economy is poor is not going to get the job done.
Yes, us men need therapy. Women also don’t don’t get special mental health training and oh fucking boy if you think women aren’t dealing with people trivializing every legitimate worry they have then you’re on something special.
If we’re so damn fuckin’ tough we should be able to handle ourselves while we focus a little more on making sure women aren’t dying from preventable causes, losing their rights, or worrying about whatever immediate danger they find themselves in day-to-day.
No one is being mean to us unless we start something and women are fed up with men as a group because they’d be insane not to be right now. It’s been about us for thousands of years and the second anyone tries to do any good for someone else we, as a group, throw a fit like you wouldn’t believe.
“Empathy for all” take your “all lives matter” bullshit and shove it up your fucking ass.
Empathy isn’t a zero sum game. It is, in fact, possible to care about women’s issues and men’s issues at the same time. A woman getting the support they need doesn’t take anything away from a man, nor does a man getting the support they need take anything away from a woman.
And yet these “all ____ matter” comments only come up when someone tries to take the spotlight away from white men. Women getting the support they need has been fought tooth and nail by men for fucking ages. The group that only just got the ability to have their own bank account doesn’t owe us fuck all in politeness especially when so many of us act like goddamn degenerates all the fucking time. They still struggle to even get healthcare that isn’t designed for men.
What you’ve got in your comment is a deflection away from the real use of these things. It’s not clever, you’re just being an ass.
The original topic was about the radicalisation of men. One poster commented how it might feel that the democratic party doesn’t care about men’s issues. Another replied and tried to trivialize those issues. So some users advocate for empathy. And you reply with “but what about women?” Do women face issues? Absolutely. Arguably more than men, I don’t know. But that’s beside the point here. The topic was radicalisation of men, and a possible cause. I would argue, you’re acting like an ass right now.
And I’m pointing out that men have not been forgotten, they’re just whining because it’s not about them 100% of the time anymore and they need to get over themselves. Also, their sexism caused a lot of the problems that women face and are now having to do all this fucking work to fix.
Boo-fucking-hoo.
I don’t know the solution, but I do know that self-hatred isn’t it.
People face a myriad of assaults on their mental health every day. Virtue signaling and choosing to leave any subgroup behind just because you think someone else has it worse won’t lead to the outcome you hope it will.
Men aren’t being left behind, they’re just a bunch of fucking babies about maybe actually having to police their own behaviour. Women have been carrying the mental load for generations and now that we’re being asked to carry our fair share we do this shit.
You’re not being left behind, you’re just being a asshole.
—
Also, I’m a tall straight white male. Blond hair and blue eyes and everything. I don’t feel the least bit left behind. I feel embarrassed that I may have acted a certain way in the past, and it’s hard to overcome habits and normalized shitty behaviours. Instead of running from it and blaming everyone else for pointing out how my behaviour might have hurt someone I’m dealing with it and trying to be better.
I don’t give a fuck who you are. I didn’t ask, and it’s not relevant. And whatever you’re doing smacks more of “look how much better I am than you” than “I’m truly trying to be a better person.”
Empathy makes you better, not self-hate and virtue signaling. People need help. All of them.
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I don’t disagree with your issues facing women. But your issues young men face is very disingenuous
Its disingenuous to the actual issues facing young men, but right on point for how people seem to see mens issues. It is in fact a perfect example of why men might just feel put upon by the left.
Nowhere in this thread has anyone discussed issues that exclusively affect men. There are very few such issues and all of them are trivial.
How exactly can a political party address what is for men essentially a collection of toxic culture issues?
I don’t necessarily know, and neither does the Democratic party, which is at least part of the reason why Trump just got reelected.
Talk about diving people, what a prime example. What would you say if I name fashion as one of the primary female problems? Or having good pictures on Instagram?
This is the exact kind of attitude they meant
Is there a visual representation of 3. being nailed to a cross for dramatization purposes?
It’s not so much a crucifix but a lowercase letter T for his low-testosterone he’s so obsessed with
I think many men, whether they realize it or not, feel specifically persecuted by trans rights. They might say that allowing trans women in women’s sports is cheating and that it would allow the trans women to be successful in the sport over less merit than they as cis males would have to. The deconstruction of the gender/sex binary also threatens cis males’ historic position as self-assigned protectors, leaders, and winners of the “weaker sex”. There is also the phobia among men of discovering that the woman whom they want to romance is trans, which really comes down to masculine fragility and conformity that leads to homophobia (in the sense of XY + XY, not gender) and transphobia. As a cis male, these men need to get over themselves.
Many men also believe that gun control is a threat to them. They need these guns in case a fascist power ever seizes the government and they need to fight back, so they are actively voting for the fascist powers to seize the government so that they can keep their guns.
There are also men who hold prejudice against any religion except Christianity so leftwing inclusivity efforts and anti-prejudice efforts come across as welcoming these perceived threats. These men aren’t simply just the redneck Bible thumpers or even devout or practicing Christians, but they just see the most common belief system around them as the default.
It’s not that these issues are a threat to men, but that they perceive them as threats.
Don’t forget them just being mad at the concept of child support
Oh yeah, good point.
I am Gen Z male and please do not let my blond hair, blue eyes, and German lineage deceive you. I’m as appalled as one can be with all of this. I never connected with my boomer dad or my millennial elder brothers over machismo or sports nor did I ever pick up TikTok and my social media consumption elsewhere was limited or gated by my own doing. From my experience, the pressure to conform to masculinity and male dominated in-groups; the perceived onus to keep males in power and powerful; and the propagandists’ weaponization of media such as TikTok, Facebook, podcasts, and Fox News and their ilk on TV and radio are the main depreciators of character in these cases.
Don’t apologize for the way you look. You didn’t choose that.
I only mentioned those characteristics because of the Hitler Youth descriptor used in the screenshot and I wanted to underscore that there are strangers who don’t want to be seen as the enemy but the enemy has co-opted their innate look. I know not to judge a person’s character by their appearance and I hope those on this side of the situation all know that as well.
I hope so too!
They could dye their hair…
Clearly my attempt to joke fell flat, sorry for using comedy as a response to stress.
They shouldn’t have to.
It was a joke.
No jokes 😡
(no but seriously I don’t think anyone in the “Hitler Youth” post is in a joking mood :,) )
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I’m not doubting you OP, just asking if anyone has the voter demographics data that shows Gen Z males voted for Trump because I’m interested in the #'s of the issue.
As to the question of the post: I think part of the issue is that what it means to be a strong, mentally healthy male has been left unspecified or even attacked in recent years and that’s left a lot of young men confused and upset. Men get all sorts of advice on what’s wrong to do, but not enough on what’s right. Contradictory advice makes the confusion worse.
Are you supposed to chase a girl or is that creepy? How do you navigate increased romantic isolation and dating apps in a healthy way? What are expectations about being the sole income provider a la tradition? In that vacuum confident, opinionated, clear voices are persuasive, and a lot of those voices are the jackasses pushing a toxic masculinity and telling males to reclaim it. We need more strong, positive male role models and visible social support of them if we want to win young men back - they have to know that being better will yield rewards.
Sometimes it feels like a man need to feel guilty just for being a man, even if they have done absolutely nothing wrong.
I don’t know in America. Here in Spain there is a trend in which to be “feminist” somehow you have to admit that you are a little sexist, because are men are sexist even a little. It is an absolute. It’s not even “a majority of men…” its all, no other opinions accepted.
And if you decline that premise, and just say “I’m not sexist, I treat everyone the same despite gender” you are somehow lying and trying to hide your sexism, which makes you a bad person or something.
And I refuse that. I refuse to accept having done things that I have not done. Same I reject accepting responsibility for things I have not made or enabled. And some people still want me to accept that guilt.
That trend needs to die. I know that it creates sorority making the “all of us vs all of them” rhetoric, but my humble believe is that that path do not lead to the desired destination.
Edit: I was going to start the comment with “As a man” as it was my assigned at birth gender. But in all true and while for confort I just let most people treat me with masculine gender I just do not believe in gender as a social construct. Not that I do not believe as in I do not believe it exist, I do not believe that gender is a desirable social construct we need to keep in our society. But that’s just my opinion.
I understand what you mean, and it sucks. I’ve been accused of being antisemitic because I post against Israeli policy and I’ve never cared about ethnicity or birthplace. Sometimes because I put up a post talking about supporting Jews that oppose Netanyahu’s Zionism. It doesn’t matter to some folks - if you have a problem with certain people it’s not because of what they do or say, it’s sexism, racism, etc.
Here in Canada it’s not automatically assumed men are sexist. There are folks who will say that but they are a small group. I can only imagine it’s maddening to have to defend yourself constantly, especially if most people won’t believe you no matter what. It kind of reminds me of an old Dave Chappelle sketch (NSFW language) about being accused of sleeping with someone and having people assume it happened.
No you’re fair to do so, here’s the demographic breakdowns and differences between 2020 and 2024 from NBC exit polls.
The particular thing to note is that Trump support jumped from 36% to 42% in the 18-29 demographic, while the other age groups remained steady, this is what I think the tweet is going off of.
You are my hero :) Thank you for the link! You are right to say that number is probably significant. Given how vocal female support of Kamala was, it’s likely young men make up a lot of that shift too. Of course we’ll have to wait for more detailed stats to be sure, but it’s not unreasonable IMO.
No worries, I love discussing numbers, and elections always give some great statistical insight, no matter where in the world it is.
My solace today is being able to look at the numbers and intellectualize some of the outcomes. Otherwise I’d just be depressed all day :')
Obviously in their lives they’ve been massively influenced by social media starting from a younger age than any previous generations. And you know what kind of garbage is out there.
Men have already long been abused by the patriarchy alongside with women. In the last couple of years the so-called “liberals” claiming to fight against the patriarchy have joined in the abuse by denying men any escape from that situation
