12 Comments

I'm a woman in my 50s and a mom of 4 Gen Z men. I've lived as a woman in this world and country all my life, so I understand the very real threats to women and the harms the sex- and gender-based expectations & stereotypes exert on all of us. And, I don't think we've done young women (& men) any favors by over-emphasizing harm. and under-emphasizing the many ways in which we live and work together.

Expand full comment

There are very real threats of harm to your sons and alll other men, as well. . Half of rape accusations are false. Women batter men as often as the converse, but there is only a Violence Against Women Act. Meaning that a woman could punch your son out, and the likelihood is that your son will be the one taken to jail. There is open employment discrimination against men, which is why men are ditching college for trade schools. I could go on all day.

Expand full comment

I find it quite strange how all the statistics presented here could just as easily be used to construe women in a negative light, yet they've been only explained in the way that makes women look better and men look worse.

> Fifty-six percent of young women said that women understood at least somewhat well what men went through, while less than half (42 percent) of young men agreed. When it came to how well men understood the challenges women faced, both young men and women agreed that many men did not have a clue. Only about one in four young women (25 percent) and just over one in three (35 percent) young men said that men understand even somewhat well what women dealing with on daily basis.

This could very easily be interpreted as women being overconfident in their estimation of understanding men, while men are less confident / potentially much more accurate.

>Of the 10 bestselling male authors, readership was roughly evenly divided by gender, with 55% male readers and 45% female readers. In contrast, only 19% of the 10 bestselling female authors’ readers were male, compared to 81% female.

Just as easily supports the notion that women write in an insular fashion, and struggle with making stories and characters men are able to relate to, while men write stories that anyone can relate to (perhaps aided by a lack of confidence they understand women from the outset).

>A while ago I heard a story about a high school English teacher who assigned his students to write about a day in the life of someone of the opposite gender. The boys had to imagine what the experience of being a high school girl was like, while the girls had to share their thoughts about what life was like as a boy. The girls threw themselves at the assignment, drafting detailed and thoughtful essays, but many of the boys refused to do it all. The few male students who took up the assignment did so grudgingly.

This could just as easily mean that the girls, again, are overconfident, and the boys don't want to deal with the onslaught of criticism and accusations of sexism.

All of this data is ambiguous at best. I think the interpretation here speaks more to your priors than to anything suggested by your cited data as you explain it.

Not only that, but I think you fundamentally misread what male-focused media actually says, which isn't that men are shallow, but that focusing on self improvement over rumination is effective.

Edit:

I do want to make clear that I am not suggesting that the interpretations given above are the correct ones, or that you are necessarily wrong, but that the data, as described, seems completely compatible with other interpretations.

Especially with the English teacher assignment, as a kid if I had gotten liberal feministy vibes off my teacher I would have deeply resented that assignment. It could be interesting, but I wouldn't want to be considered sexist by my teacher for any hitting any of the various landmines that come with that task. I would have written it for the points while wishing I could write whatever I actually wanted to instead.

Expand full comment

Thank you for addressing these gender issues. It's so eye-opening! There aren't easy answers, but I love that we're discussing this openly. The bottom line is that no one is set up for success in a patriarchy.

Expand full comment

Except for the top 20% of men. They always win.

Expand full comment

If there really was a patriarchy, there would be 4 times more female suicides than male suicides. Precisly the opposite is the case. Yet more evidence that we live in a matriarchy, not a patriarchy.

Expand full comment

If there really was a patriarchy, women would fight wars and men would be exempt; men would have reproductive rights and women would not; there would be far more funding for prostate cancer than breast cancer: exactly the opposite of how things really are. Truth is we live in a matriarchy, not a patriarchy.

Expand full comment

"I have no trouble believing that women have a broader base of knowledge about men than men have about women."

That's clear. And it's laughable.

Expand full comment

What about "not currently married" persons as differentiated from "never married." Largish category.

Expand full comment

“I wish young men understood how unsafe it feels at times to be a young woman. To feel the insecurity of having men stare at you for no reason. To feel how unsafe it can be to date, use public transportation and dating. To think about if they had a sister and if they would want her treated that way.”

— Lia, Age 26

Does Lia know that men are violent crime victims two times more often than women are? And that rates of sexual assault are about the same between men and women? And that about half of rape accusations by women are false? And that women destroy men every day in divorce courts, with the blessing of the court system that is biased against men?

Expand full comment

"If you want some election-focused content, you can check out my recent post at Business Insider that explores the growing political influence of single women voters. In recent elections unmarried women have made up one-quarter of all voters, and they are increasingly supporting Democrats. "

Of course single women vote for Democrats. The Democrats offer big daddy government as the substitute husband for single women. Married women, who have husbands, tend to vote Republican.

Democrats have posted, right on their web site, that they serve women, but do not serve men. They also mention that the serve every racial/ethnoc group, EXCEPT for White people. You can find this on the "who we serve" page of Democrats. org.

I trust you are also concerned for the welfare of men? The Republicans have expressed concern for the welfare of men, the Democrats have not. Take a look at these quotes from Senaqtor Marco Rubio, a Republican:

"Today, men are less likely to enter the labor force, find a decent-paying job, build a family, and contribute to a community--and more likely to fall into depression, social isolation, substance abuse, or suicide--than at almost any other point in our nation's history....

"....far from working to help men, many elites are exacerbating the crisis--by overlooking, allowing, or outright encouraging mass migration, both legal and illegal."

Rubio is clear: "this isn't the migrants' fault." They didn't create the system by which the American government completes the human smuggling process and partners with nonprofits and staffing agencies "that connect migrants with local employers hungry for cheap labor."

In my own experience, I have received three employment settlements for sex discrimination against men, which the feminists in Human Resources never even tried to hide.

Expand full comment

"Few young women believe men understand the problems women face".

And the vast majority of young women don't give a damn about the problems that men face. The exceptions are the Honey Badgers on Youtube, and a few other women that speak out oin male issues.

Expand full comment