I listened to this just after listening to a right-wing podcast about young men’s shift to the right. The whole time I kept thinking, “but it’s not about that!”
Thank you for putting words to it!
I read the Rand report on income inequality back in 2020, and followed that up with books about Reagan, dark money, neo-liberal economics, the opioid crisis, and eventually, of Boys and Men by Richard Reeves.
Here’s what I gathered With regards to MOST American men:
Are men being emasculated? Yes
Are their opportunities shrinking? Yes
Is their relevance being diminished or outright dismissed? Yes
Are the sins of the fathers unfairly being visited on the sons? Yes
Is their specialness being contested loudly and with more than a hint of hostility in online spaces? Yes
Are most of these men unaware that this new and uncomfortable state of dehumanized disenfranchisement they find themselves in is right now not new to women, people of color, and people with disabilities? Also…yes.
I think especially the young ones might be under the impression that they are the first people to be treated unfairly just because of their gender or skin color.
But - as you point out - instead of punching up at the people responsible for stealing their wages, exporting their jobs, busting up their unions, stigmatizing emotional health, exploiting their labor, setting impossible standards for masculinity, and the. emasculating them for falling short, they just long for a time when other people had it worse. At least back then they had someone to punch down at.
I learned the hard way that men who won’t stand up for others, won’t stand up for you when you need it, they “just don’t want to get involved” (they don’t want to be emotionally uncomfortable). It’s cowardly; by not taking a stance against injustice many men emasculate themselves.
Neutrality ultimately takes the side of the oppressor.
For me the elephant in the room, and in this article, is that neither Democrats or Republicans actually represent working people. I don't know what should be done about it, but it's a big problem.
The actual left (not Democrats, but people who care about distribution of wealth instead of its concentration) are also feeling very left out. I wonder how we convince these men move to the left and build a party that actually represents their -- and everyone's -- interests.
And it's not just in the USA, Jeremy. Other countries have more parties, but the only candidates allowed to run support the neoliberal system, which creates this inequality.
Amen Diana. I fear that we have become numb to the profound effects of money in American politics. It dilutes the voice of working people and accelerates wealth concentration faster than we can vote.
This is where I am at as well. Both major political parties in the US have become spheres unto themselves with their own rules and hierarchies. We see this in the sidelining of AOC, for example. The goal in the Democratic Party has become to rise within the party - not necessarily to represent the best interest of the constituents. But it’s a vicious cycle: to have any impact politically, it seems, you must rise within the party. But then by definition you may no longer be in touch with your constituents and with various cultural shifts.
People need to feel heard and Democrats have not given that to young men - I really felt that when I went canvassing last fall. I think we can no longer look to our leaders. We need to re-engage within our own communities and find ways to get boys and young men in those communities what they need - and they need to feel heard and that they belong and are valued. Jeremy, I truly appreciate the work you are doing here. I would love to see more Gen X men (my generation) working together to address this challenge.
It's easy to forget that only 37% of Americans have a college degree when you have one. The 63% of America that doesn't gets few chances to forget. It takes work to stay in touch.
After decades of our culture centering girls and women, of lifting them up while at the same time tearing boys and men down, you are "trying to figure out what's going on with young men." Though you may not agree, I'll state this as an empirical fact: feminists control the cultural narrative. They have for decades.
Feminists have been criticizing, demeaning, deprecating, vilifying, demonizing, and blaming men for all of the problems and ills of the world for decades. I know whereof I speak for I have seen it, I've heard it, I've felt it, and I've lived it.
For at least 40 years, the message from ivory tower elites such as yourself is: 'there's something wrong with men, this is how they got that way, here's how to fix them.' I'm turning 75 this year and I've been a man for a bit. I don't need advice from someone whose intent is "to help men develop a healthier sense of masculinity."
Another example (so many.) - A podcast from the NYT asked the question "What Does Healthy Masculinity Look Like?" The ivory tower elites pontificating therein were so clueless it was infuriating. I'm a working class man, a husband of 51 years, a father, and a grandfather. They're going to teach me about masculinity? One of whom is a feminist lesbian? Seriously?
Although I may share a bit of my life experience with you, the fact remains that you, and all of the other ivory tower elites, really don't know anything about me. Nor do you know anything about the millions of other men you so desperately feel a need to 'fix.' The feminist controlled cultural narrative has little interest in learning about the real life experience of men. We're nothing but a symbol upon which to can hang whatever stereotype fits the narrative.
I have been an ally of women since the early 1970's - the heydays of second wave feminism. I am all on board when it comes to equal treatment of women, equal rights for women, equal opportunity for women, equal respect for women, and equal pay for equal work. I concede that we're not there yet, and there's still a need for the feminist political movement. I just feel it's unfortunate that so many elite, ivory tower, pontificating feminists spend their lives viewing the world through a mirror.
The way I see it, feminists have overplayed their hand.
What we're unfortunately witnessing is some very serious and nasty backlash.
Since we are generalizing, I’m going to slow down a bit and analyze what you’ve said by using generalizations.
Feminism is about equality. Equality in pay, safety, bodily autonomy, respect, human rights, etc. Ok you agree with all that. You agree with the notion that we as a country or globally have fallen short.
Feminists are criticizing, vilifying and blaming rapist for rape. They demonize violence against women. They criticize paying women less for the same work. Etc etc. Shouldn’t we be criticizing and demonizing violence against women?
I am assuming based on what you wrote that you are not a rapist, you don’t participate in the assault of women, if it is in your control you would pay any woman in front of you the same salary for the same qualification and work. Logically, you should only be upset if you identify with those that are a rapist or assaulting women or pedophilia etc etc.
Not all men are committing those crimes. Many men respect women and treat them with dignity and equality.
By saying “they are talking about me and every man” you are saying all men do those bad things. That is misandry.
If you do not identify with those evil types of men, why are you defensive?
We still have not yet reached equality in safety, pay, human rights. Feminism “going too far” would be women thinking they are superior. But that’s not feminism, that’s misandry. Feminism is for equality and by your own admission, something we do not yet have.
If close to 1/3 to a half of all women will be physically or sexually assaulted in their lifetime it makes sense to demonize, criticize, vilify the perpetrators. It makes sense to get loud and say “no more”.
Can you define your personal masculinity for yourself? Lots of people in the world with lots of opinions on who you should be. It gets loud, but you don’t have to internalize it. Lots of people think I shouldn’t be into any kind of science, but here I am…successfully being an EE.
You don’t have to be in an ivory tower to write a Substack. Kind of unfair to criticize the writer whom you don’t know personally. It’s literally free and you can write one too. I don’t know for sure but it doesn’t seem plausible that a counselor like Jeremy has several houses in South France. Lol 🤔
Can I be defensive? Sure, I’m not perfect, I’m not afraid to admit it. I’m not sure it means that I “identify with those types of evil men.”
What I was trying to say is there’s a message that boys and young men are getting. The message is that they’re all rapists and murderers. Why do I say that? Because I’ve heard them say it.
I think maybe some are hurt by it, maybe some are angry, maybe some are resentful, maybe some are thinking ‘if that’s what everybody thinks about me then, what the hell, guess I’ll just live up to they’re expectations.’
I’m not making excuses for them. Or for anyone, including myself. I took a risk to share some of my personal experience as a man living in this milieu of misunderstanding.
I didn’t do it to defend rapists, sexual predators, or anyone else that mistreats women. I don’t defend the mistreatment of anyone, including mistreatment by demonizing and vilifying.
I’m familiar with the word misandry, and I believe there are a good number of misandrists who call themselves feminists.
I’m afraid I can’t agree with your ‘Iogic’ that I should only be upset with misandry if I “identify with those that are a rapist or assaulting women or pedophilia etc. etc.”
I’m also familiar with the word misogyny, and I’m grateful that you didn’t just write me off as a misogynist in your reply. I was expecting that…not necessarily from you, but from someone.
It might be true that it’s unfair to say Jeremy lives in an ivory tower. His heart is in the right place and he obviously means well. He works in a profession that’s dedicated to helping people. He writes this blog and gets people to engage with each other. I’m sure he hopes that in some way it will help make the world a better place. I hope so too.
Some criticism and controversy does lend itself to engagement though, doesn’t it?
I wish you well, and I’m sure if we keep hammering away at this we’ll get it solved.
You seem like you are engaging in good faith and are open to expanding what you know to be true (as am I), that makes it much easier to consider and respond.
For women, myself included, it can be difficult to have non-emotional debate on this particular subject. The reason for this is that we have many many traumatized women (myself included) that have experienced multiple instances of not only physical and sexual abuse, but also not being believed or heard (which compounds the trauma) by men and at the hands of men. It’s not just a fun curious intellectual debate, it’s our lives being tossed around like a political football while women continue to suffer the violence and misogyny inflicted on them. While everyone is talking about whether our human rights matter or whose opinion is more valid, women are being actually physically harmed every single day.
As a compassionate and empathetic person, this is a reasonable reaction to abuse and must be considered.
Talking about this is not misandry. Calling it misandry is a deflection and abdicating responsibility for the reality. We are all responsible for contributing with our words and actions to a more safer society for everyone.
Misandry is simply the hatred of men or the idea that women are superior to men. I suspect what you are considering misandry is really observing traumatized women reacting to the abuse and misogyny en masse. Did you abuse them personally? No. You simply do not have to identify yourself with the men that have committed abuses.
The most insidious part, which I believe Jeremy has written about, is that the men who do these heinous acts of abuse or misogyny want you to identify with them. They want to continue to exploit and abuse women, so if you identify with them and become defensive against feminism, they get to distract from the conversation and normalize that they are abusing and exploiting men and women and children. Women and children are the easiest target when we have non-abusing men defending the abusers. This is important to understand.
In any other context we would find this odd and not reasonable. For example, there are people who call themselves scientists who believe the earth is flat. It would not be logical to then conclude that all scientists just can’t help themselves and are really all unreasonable conspiracy theorists that don’t actually accept the results and make them up instead.
With 7 billion people on the earth, of course there are women who call themselves feminists and who believe women are superior and genuinely hate men. That is not feminism and flat earthers are not scientists - though they may call themselves that. But again, I would ask myself “how much has this woman been traumatized by men?” before you call her a misandrist. Is she actually promoting the hatred of men or is she talking about the violence or misogyny she has endured? Whatever the answer, so be it. But you’ve got to be honest about the answer you find.
But it is not useful to talk about anything if we don’t start from a shared reality. My reality is that I and most of the women I know have suffered violence and immense injustice in our homes and in our work places and in public at the hands of men. Decades of research and statistics support this. I am a scientist. I would not have come to my conclusion without strong evidence to support it.
I appreciate your reply. I'm a middle aged male social worker who works with boys & men. My experience with hundreds (thousands?) of them is not about rape and murder. I've personally never heard one stung by those labels. They are stung by changing standards of equality and fairly lost when it comes to roles and what it means to be "masculine". I don't agree with Richard Reeves that gender isn't a zero a sum equation - power is always zero sum and women are still miles behind men but gaining ground and power. I'm rooting for them and willing to give up some of mine as they are my family. The question is can men navigate a world where they don't get special treatment because of a Y chromosome.
Police reform is much more complicated. The police, (and the military) are two of the remaining ways for men not born in privilege to work their way up in society. So things like Defund The Police were attacks on their economic prospects and men are way more likely to be tough on crime than women. That's because, except for sexual violence, the vast majority of crime victims are men. So when Sara supported Defund The Police, he may have just heard that she wants it to be more likely that he will be victimised.
I think the uncomfortable truth is that men are doing more harm than good. In a modern economy, where you need less brawn and fewer cowboys doing their own thing and more people able to collaborate and follow processes, it's no wonder many men feel they don't have a place in society. Add that to the fact that men are associated with pretty much every negative sociological outcome you can think of: crime, unemployment, addiction, chronic disease, you name it. Before we try to get more men to vote or empower them, we should ask what role we envision men to play going forward. I don't think there's a good answer to that, outside of jobs that really do require physical strength, where it might be worthwhile to accept the negative externalities these men come with. But why do we need male office workers? I'm not sure we do.
I listened to this just after listening to a right-wing podcast about young men’s shift to the right. The whole time I kept thinking, “but it’s not about that!”
Thank you for putting words to it!
I read the Rand report on income inequality back in 2020, and followed that up with books about Reagan, dark money, neo-liberal economics, the opioid crisis, and eventually, of Boys and Men by Richard Reeves.
Here’s what I gathered With regards to MOST American men:
Are men being emasculated? Yes
Are their opportunities shrinking? Yes
Is their relevance being diminished or outright dismissed? Yes
Are the sins of the fathers unfairly being visited on the sons? Yes
Is their specialness being contested loudly and with more than a hint of hostility in online spaces? Yes
Are most of these men unaware that this new and uncomfortable state of dehumanized disenfranchisement they find themselves in is right now not new to women, people of color, and people with disabilities? Also…yes.
I think especially the young ones might be under the impression that they are the first people to be treated unfairly just because of their gender or skin color.
But - as you point out - instead of punching up at the people responsible for stealing their wages, exporting their jobs, busting up their unions, stigmatizing emotional health, exploiting their labor, setting impossible standards for masculinity, and the. emasculating them for falling short, they just long for a time when other people had it worse. At least back then they had someone to punch down at.
Love this comment and totally agree with you!
This was a great article Jeremy!
I learned the hard way that men who won’t stand up for others, won’t stand up for you when you need it, they “just don’t want to get involved” (they don’t want to be emotionally uncomfortable). It’s cowardly; by not taking a stance against injustice many men emasculate themselves.
Neutrality ultimately takes the side of the oppressor.
For me the elephant in the room, and in this article, is that neither Democrats or Republicans actually represent working people. I don't know what should be done about it, but it's a big problem.
The actual left (not Democrats, but people who care about distribution of wealth instead of its concentration) are also feeling very left out. I wonder how we convince these men move to the left and build a party that actually represents their -- and everyone's -- interests.
This is THE question I’m sitting with.
And it's not just in the USA, Jeremy. Other countries have more parties, but the only candidates allowed to run support the neoliberal system, which creates this inequality.
Amen Diana. I fear that we have become numb to the profound effects of money in American politics. It dilutes the voice of working people and accelerates wealth concentration faster than we can vote.
Money in politics means we do not live in democracies.
This is where I am at as well. Both major political parties in the US have become spheres unto themselves with their own rules and hierarchies. We see this in the sidelining of AOC, for example. The goal in the Democratic Party has become to rise within the party - not necessarily to represent the best interest of the constituents. But it’s a vicious cycle: to have any impact politically, it seems, you must rise within the party. But then by definition you may no longer be in touch with your constituents and with various cultural shifts.
People need to feel heard and Democrats have not given that to young men - I really felt that when I went canvassing last fall. I think we can no longer look to our leaders. We need to re-engage within our own communities and find ways to get boys and young men in those communities what they need - and they need to feel heard and that they belong and are valued. Jeremy, I truly appreciate the work you are doing here. I would love to see more Gen X men (my generation) working together to address this challenge.
Thanks for reading and commenting! I appreciate you doing that canvassing in your community and totally agree with the points you made.
Love the analogy of the kids in the back versus the front of the classroom.
I think I’ve heard someone else use it before but I can’t remember!
It's easy to forget that only 37% of Americans have a college degree when you have one. The 63% of America that doesn't gets few chances to forget. It takes work to stay in touch.
After decades of our culture centering girls and women, of lifting them up while at the same time tearing boys and men down, you are "trying to figure out what's going on with young men." Though you may not agree, I'll state this as an empirical fact: feminists control the cultural narrative. They have for decades.
Feminists have been criticizing, demeaning, deprecating, vilifying, demonizing, and blaming men for all of the problems and ills of the world for decades. I know whereof I speak for I have seen it, I've heard it, I've felt it, and I've lived it.
For at least 40 years, the message from ivory tower elites such as yourself is: 'there's something wrong with men, this is how they got that way, here's how to fix them.' I'm turning 75 this year and I've been a man for a bit. I don't need advice from someone whose intent is "to help men develop a healthier sense of masculinity."
Another example (so many.) - A podcast from the NYT asked the question "What Does Healthy Masculinity Look Like?" The ivory tower elites pontificating therein were so clueless it was infuriating. I'm a working class man, a husband of 51 years, a father, and a grandfather. They're going to teach me about masculinity? One of whom is a feminist lesbian? Seriously?
Although I may share a bit of my life experience with you, the fact remains that you, and all of the other ivory tower elites, really don't know anything about me. Nor do you know anything about the millions of other men you so desperately feel a need to 'fix.' The feminist controlled cultural narrative has little interest in learning about the real life experience of men. We're nothing but a symbol upon which to can hang whatever stereotype fits the narrative.
I have been an ally of women since the early 1970's - the heydays of second wave feminism. I am all on board when it comes to equal treatment of women, equal rights for women, equal opportunity for women, equal respect for women, and equal pay for equal work. I concede that we're not there yet, and there's still a need for the feminist political movement. I just feel it's unfortunate that so many elite, ivory tower, pontificating feminists spend their lives viewing the world through a mirror.
The way I see it, feminists have overplayed their hand.
What we're unfortunately witnessing is some very serious and nasty backlash.
Since we are generalizing, I’m going to slow down a bit and analyze what you’ve said by using generalizations.
Feminism is about equality. Equality in pay, safety, bodily autonomy, respect, human rights, etc. Ok you agree with all that. You agree with the notion that we as a country or globally have fallen short.
Feminists are criticizing, vilifying and blaming rapist for rape. They demonize violence against women. They criticize paying women less for the same work. Etc etc. Shouldn’t we be criticizing and demonizing violence against women?
I am assuming based on what you wrote that you are not a rapist, you don’t participate in the assault of women, if it is in your control you would pay any woman in front of you the same salary for the same qualification and work. Logically, you should only be upset if you identify with those that are a rapist or assaulting women or pedophilia etc etc.
Not all men are committing those crimes. Many men respect women and treat them with dignity and equality.
By saying “they are talking about me and every man” you are saying all men do those bad things. That is misandry.
If you do not identify with those evil types of men, why are you defensive?
We still have not yet reached equality in safety, pay, human rights. Feminism “going too far” would be women thinking they are superior. But that’s not feminism, that’s misandry. Feminism is for equality and by your own admission, something we do not yet have.
If close to 1/3 to a half of all women will be physically or sexually assaulted in their lifetime it makes sense to demonize, criticize, vilify the perpetrators. It makes sense to get loud and say “no more”.
Can you define your personal masculinity for yourself? Lots of people in the world with lots of opinions on who you should be. It gets loud, but you don’t have to internalize it. Lots of people think I shouldn’t be into any kind of science, but here I am…successfully being an EE.
You don’t have to be in an ivory tower to write a Substack. Kind of unfair to criticize the writer whom you don’t know personally. It’s literally free and you can write one too. I don’t know for sure but it doesn’t seem plausible that a counselor like Jeremy has several houses in South France. Lol 🤔
This is a wonderful reply Kari. Thank you for taking the time to write it.
I also appreciate
Kari’s reply. Thank you.
Can I be defensive? Sure, I’m not perfect, I’m not afraid to admit it. I’m not sure it means that I “identify with those types of evil men.”
What I was trying to say is there’s a message that boys and young men are getting. The message is that they’re all rapists and murderers. Why do I say that? Because I’ve heard them say it.
I think maybe some are hurt by it, maybe some are angry, maybe some are resentful, maybe some are thinking ‘if that’s what everybody thinks about me then, what the hell, guess I’ll just live up to they’re expectations.’
I’m not making excuses for them. Or for anyone, including myself. I took a risk to share some of my personal experience as a man living in this milieu of misunderstanding.
I didn’t do it to defend rapists, sexual predators, or anyone else that mistreats women. I don’t defend the mistreatment of anyone, including mistreatment by demonizing and vilifying.
I’m familiar with the word misandry, and I believe there are a good number of misandrists who call themselves feminists.
I’m afraid I can’t agree with your ‘Iogic’ that I should only be upset with misandry if I “identify with those that are a rapist or assaulting women or pedophilia etc. etc.”
I’m also familiar with the word misogyny, and I’m grateful that you didn’t just write me off as a misogynist in your reply. I was expecting that…not necessarily from you, but from someone.
It might be true that it’s unfair to say Jeremy lives in an ivory tower. His heart is in the right place and he obviously means well. He works in a profession that’s dedicated to helping people. He writes this blog and gets people to engage with each other. I’m sure he hopes that in some way it will help make the world a better place. I hope so too.
Some criticism and controversy does lend itself to engagement though, doesn’t it?
I wish you well, and I’m sure if we keep hammering away at this we’ll get it solved.
You seem like you are engaging in good faith and are open to expanding what you know to be true (as am I), that makes it much easier to consider and respond.
For women, myself included, it can be difficult to have non-emotional debate on this particular subject. The reason for this is that we have many many traumatized women (myself included) that have experienced multiple instances of not only physical and sexual abuse, but also not being believed or heard (which compounds the trauma) by men and at the hands of men. It’s not just a fun curious intellectual debate, it’s our lives being tossed around like a political football while women continue to suffer the violence and misogyny inflicted on them. While everyone is talking about whether our human rights matter or whose opinion is more valid, women are being actually physically harmed every single day.
As a compassionate and empathetic person, this is a reasonable reaction to abuse and must be considered.
Talking about this is not misandry. Calling it misandry is a deflection and abdicating responsibility for the reality. We are all responsible for contributing with our words and actions to a more safer society for everyone.
Misandry is simply the hatred of men or the idea that women are superior to men. I suspect what you are considering misandry is really observing traumatized women reacting to the abuse and misogyny en masse. Did you abuse them personally? No. You simply do not have to identify yourself with the men that have committed abuses.
The most insidious part, which I believe Jeremy has written about, is that the men who do these heinous acts of abuse or misogyny want you to identify with them. They want to continue to exploit and abuse women, so if you identify with them and become defensive against feminism, they get to distract from the conversation and normalize that they are abusing and exploiting men and women and children. Women and children are the easiest target when we have non-abusing men defending the abusers. This is important to understand.
In any other context we would find this odd and not reasonable. For example, there are people who call themselves scientists who believe the earth is flat. It would not be logical to then conclude that all scientists just can’t help themselves and are really all unreasonable conspiracy theorists that don’t actually accept the results and make them up instead.
With 7 billion people on the earth, of course there are women who call themselves feminists and who believe women are superior and genuinely hate men. That is not feminism and flat earthers are not scientists - though they may call themselves that. But again, I would ask myself “how much has this woman been traumatized by men?” before you call her a misandrist. Is she actually promoting the hatred of men or is she talking about the violence or misogyny she has endured? Whatever the answer, so be it. But you’ve got to be honest about the answer you find.
But it is not useful to talk about anything if we don’t start from a shared reality. My reality is that I and most of the women I know have suffered violence and immense injustice in our homes and in our work places and in public at the hands of men. Decades of research and statistics support this. I am a scientist. I would not have come to my conclusion without strong evidence to support it.
I appreciate your reply. I'm a middle aged male social worker who works with boys & men. My experience with hundreds (thousands?) of them is not about rape and murder. I've personally never heard one stung by those labels. They are stung by changing standards of equality and fairly lost when it comes to roles and what it means to be "masculine". I don't agree with Richard Reeves that gender isn't a zero a sum equation - power is always zero sum and women are still miles behind men but gaining ground and power. I'm rooting for them and willing to give up some of mine as they are my family. The question is can men navigate a world where they don't get special treatment because of a Y chromosome.
Police reform is much more complicated. The police, (and the military) are two of the remaining ways for men not born in privilege to work their way up in society. So things like Defund The Police were attacks on their economic prospects and men are way more likely to be tough on crime than women. That's because, except for sexual violence, the vast majority of crime victims are men. So when Sara supported Defund The Police, he may have just heard that she wants it to be more likely that he will be victimised.
I think the uncomfortable truth is that men are doing more harm than good. In a modern economy, where you need less brawn and fewer cowboys doing their own thing and more people able to collaborate and follow processes, it's no wonder many men feel they don't have a place in society. Add that to the fact that men are associated with pretty much every negative sociological outcome you can think of: crime, unemployment, addiction, chronic disease, you name it. Before we try to get more men to vote or empower them, we should ask what role we envision men to play going forward. I don't think there's a good answer to that, outside of jobs that really do require physical strength, where it might be worthwhile to accept the negative externalities these men come with. But why do we need male office workers? I'm not sure we do.