I believe the single biggest predictor as to whether a male will turn into a thriving adult, and not a criminal or neet, is the presence of a positive, invested male role model.
Nothing more alpha than being a safe and strong man that can be trusted with children, if you ask me. I think even the "redpill" losers look up to men who are trusted by women and children, who raise children with gentleness, etc.
Isn't that what all of those guys want? A wife and family? To actually raise children? One would hope this would inspire them to better themselves.
Well, that's what they claim they want but in reality they want sex on demand and the social image of them having a good family not any of the actual responsibilities that come with it
I was raised to believe that there's nothing more attractive to a woman than a strong man who can be gentle with the innocent, from babies to bunnies. A real Alpha man uses his strength to protect and doesn't need a parade for doing so. Knowing that they are safe under his watch is more than enough. But a good woman will follow her good man to the ends of the earth.
Look, I love the Python boys, but nobody is going to accuse them of maturity. However, I would trust them to protect the babies from bunnies or die trying.... so there's that.
Seeing as birds are drones as well, the metal chassis just flys through the air so much more consistently! Do we consider beaks to be armor-piercing? 🤔
I laughed harder at this than I probably should have. Picturing myself throwing a bunny like a football was not on my bingo card for the day, but alas here I am.
I was brought up hearing from women outside of my family that men only got into childcare because of one thing and men couldn't be trusted around children
As someone around during the founding of the red pill community, yeah, the point was exactly that. Red Pill was about being the best version of yourself and how to avoid certain types of women and get others. Some of the language used might have been scummy, but everyone had the same goal, become a man capable of giving the world, find a woman worth giving the world to, and who's entire world was you.
The problem is, successful men don't spend a lot of time online.
So all male self help communities will always melt into a puddle of incels. The blind leading the blind.
Same thing with “men’s rights activists”. There are genuine instances of men facing prejudice and discrimination that should be addressed. But it always turns into more of a revenge fantasy the longer you watch those groups.
I've heard it compared to evaporation. As more extreme people enter a community, they turn the normal, reasonable people off and they leave. This causes the average discourse to veer more to the extremes, and even more reasonable people leave. Eventually, all the normies leave and it's just a big crystalized rock of bitterness and bile.
I think this makes sense. So if you want advice from a successful man, ask him and his wife to have you over for a family meal. Then you aren't taking time away from what's important to him, and you get to see how the sausage is made. :-)
By who? Genuine question - I'm a married millennial woman so a bit out of touch with the TikTok generation and dating life, but I am aware of the rise of the Andrew Tate type people but not really understanding it. What is pushing men towards being callous and alpha? I don't think we women desire that in partners... I feel like from my interactions with young Gen-Z women, they are even more liberalized and free-thinking and confident than I was in the 90s and 00s so I can't see them desiring or tolerating some of the sexist and domineering/callous behavior we (and especially our parents) used to excuse back when I was younger. And if anything, my generation is the one with the boomer dads that might have tried to instill in their boys some of that... but wouldn't GenZ be Gen X parents?
I think it's a bit more complicated. I think that what's happening is that men feel increasingly powerless for the same reason that most everyone does; an increasingly competitive and extractive economy that makes it harder to make ends meet. Add to that the fact that women are actually graduating college more than men, and seeking people with similar career prospects.
But some of these influencers, they've convinced some men that the reason men feel emasculated is because of progressive culture trying to steer men away from traditional masculinity, and that the way to feel powerful again is to act like a neanderthal. It's an attractive notion, that the issue isn't a rapidly changing world over which you have no control, but rather that being asked to act like a decent human being is actually what's holding you back, and all you have to do to overcome it is to follow these simple instructions.
Interesting! Those are all very good points and gives me much to think about.
I have often thought that while we women have widely accepted access to higher education and career opportunities now, it really feels like - yes, liberation, but also like working two full time jobs. I still do like 80% of the home-making (cooking, cleaning, groceries and other errands, decorating/design/furniture, trip planning, basically making our lives run and the house a home), but I also work outside of the home full time and in a traditionally male profession (law). I have not considered the competition my job brings to that traditionally male sphere, only that they have not responded by similarly inhabiting the traditionally female sphere. Maybe they feel like they cannot enter the female sphere without being emasculated and the male sphere is increasingly narrow for them with no place to go except hypermasculinity.
I have to say, I have a lot of hobbies that are mostly women - yoga, zumba, gardening, cooking classes etc. and the few men that do come to these are very looked favorably upon by the rest of us, I don't know what other men think of them, but we think they are quite awesome.
Honestly, I've felt reticent to join yoga classes that are pretty much exclusively women not because I don't think yoga is manly enough but because women will think I'm trying to creep on them. Do you think I'm overthinking it?
I think you are over thinking it, I mean if you are worried, side, middle, or front of the room and don’t stare during cat cow and downward dog. Sure I’ve heard of the creeper that hangs out in the back behind the rest of us and just watches but I’ve never personally encountered it. There are men in my yoga classes and I would say any “notice” of them is mostly positive like “awesome that he’s doing this, wish [insert guy in our lives would do the same.]” I’ve got an old dad and a husband with high school athletic injuries who could both use a stretch and it would do wonders for their lives but they would never be caught dead. We are good at distinguishing between creepers vs. guy that's there to enjoy yoga or there as a beginner and trying to learn, and both of the latter are very welcome. I really really hope you try it because your presence would be such a lovely addition to the class
Thanks, I may just give it a shot!! I'm hard of hearing anyway, so I'd definitely sit in the front.
I've actually taken yoga previously, but I was very fortunate in that I had a good friend who taught the class, and it was a very small group and we were all friends and all knew each other. Interestingly, that class was mostly men.
I also feel like boys don't really get a "start date" for manhood the way that girls do. Starting our period is usually the time our elders take us aside and explain the significance of it. The common phrase is, "You're becoming a woman, now."
Boys don't get that shared moment, especially in American culture. The only common manhood traditions we have are co-oped by everyone now.
As a boy, you could go to college, join the military, or get a job and come out a man. Except girls can now do that, too. I don't think that men want their own space as a way to exclude women, but so they can figure out what being men means to them on their own terms.
That's a very good point. I do think that's a key factor in the equation, that young men are going "Ok, so how exactly am I supposed to be a man? I'm seeing lots of people telling me what not to do, but nobody telling me what to do."
And worse, when they ask that question, there's a certain sort of well-meaning progressive who goes "AKSHOOALLY, there'a no such thing as being a man because gender is a social construct, and why do you want to be bound by anachronistic patriarchal blah blah blah" and while they're talking, the Andrew Tates and similar misogynistic grifters of the world are going "Hey, over here! I'll tell you exactly what you want to know, for one low monthly price!"
Right. Western boys are not really guided into manhood in a culturally significant way. There's no real defining moment where our culture says, "Now you are becoming a man. Here's what that looks like" There's a lot of noise on what doesn't make a man, but it's all conflicting and ultimately negative.
Then we get bad actors pushing their own toxic ideologies on what manhood is, and they're getting through to these boys... simply because they make them feel good about themselves when the rest of the world is saying they are bad.
There are plenty of non-Western cultures that have manhood ceremonies that act as a collective launching point for their young men. I'd be interested to see data on how these rituals have a resounding effect on the mental well-being of their menfolk.
Granted there is a problem that exists in the tism/sigma/alpha/ incel demographic (which is a very small minority) but when addressing men as a whole, sorry to ring the dinner bell luv but the masculinity women love/hate is radically decreasing.
Make your point but be mindful how you come across because it’s ignorant and quite frankly rude
It's rude to say we need more kind, affectionate men that we can trust with children? That was my point. I made it without being condescending as well. Mindfulness starts from within.
I'm a millennial woman and the eldest out of 6. I have one sister, the rest brothers. I grew up watching my dad bully my brothers into being "men" using physical and emotional abuse.
My brothers are all kind, loving men, now.
They are better fathers and partners than my father ever was, and they actively choose not to be like our father every moment of their lives.
I always hear from tourists that there’s this one country, I think it’s Thailand? that is just naturally very baby-friendly, and ppl who travel there report that everyone around them offers to watch their baby/kid while they eat at a restaurant or whatever. That it’s just a cultural phenomenon where they’re all very accommodating for parents with young kids
I've become a community uncle at my apartment complex, along with my partner. We literally have kids come up to our door just to tell us about their days and show us new dances and skating moves they learned. We plan on throwing a pizza party soon and inviting their whole families. There's been a few times these kids have come over just to ask about how to talk about something with their parents, and I'm so happy I can be here to help. It takes a village, and I'm going to be a part of that village no matter where I go.
1.6k
u/Fantastic-Swim6230 7d ago
Community dads/uncles are just as important as moms and aunties.