How college campuses, not necessarily education, explain why men with degrees are more immune to far right radicalism on gender.

Trying to understand why I had these opinions, I recalled how much different being a man felt at 18 versus 28. I had no money which I presumed meant I had no value to the opposite sex. I wanted the company of women and girls, but I also resented them because I lacked experience in dating and my few experiences were rocky. A lot of magazines and headlines focused on the shortcomings of men and boys in the early 2010s, and it was easy for me to get negatively polarized into thinking it was a personal attack. Academic feminism did and does a much better job explaining patriarchy better than blogs and news sites which boiled down systems of sexism to individual behaviors.

My experience as a resentful teen boy wasn’t unique. It’s the same experience that millions of boys are going through, which they’d ordinarily grow out of by the time they hit their twenties. In my case, it was happening during a period of social revolution on gender and during an evolution in mass communications. Many of these early communities on Atheism, which captured me for their sensibility and anti-orthodoxy, evolved into anti-progressivism and eventually evolved into the Redpill and Manosphere which is how millions of young boys today engage with their gender. At least my period in this mindset was short lived: about two years. By the time 2016 rolled around, I had clearly lost interest in online gender wars as tyranny seemed a greater threat. I was now 24 and actively attending college; I had plenty of friendships and dating experiences with women, and that teenage resentment was forgotten.

The big crisis we’re dealing with today is that the resentment is not only not expiring when men get into their twenties, but it’s being weaponized globally by parties against men’s material interests. What young boys like me didn’t realize when we were being lectured about patriarchy and the problems of men, is that being a man is an extremely privileged position over women, we’re just not old enough to benefit from it yet. This presents a problem on how we teach oppression and discrimination to young people who have little autonomy of their own and feel bad when you imply your immutable characteristics harm people you seek validation from.

  • t3rmit3@beehaw.org
    16·
    3 days ago

    This is something I’ve been harping on for years, ever since I saw my partner’s cousin (16 at that time) falling down the manosphere hole, and had to work to pull him back from it:

    There is not an established “pipeline” / messaging to young men, that shows them their place in a positive masculinity culture without being condemning or accusatory. In a vacuum, without any opposing messaging, guys learning this stuff organically or through simple social maturation might be enough in a leftward-shifting society, but there’s an entire developed pipeline to capture young men into right-wing, misogynistic rhetoric, and it’s clearly very successful, and it’s part of a feedback cycle/ political apparatus used to push society rightwards.

    I don’t think there are many left wing guys in the US who can speak with credibility to the interests, experiences, and worldview of young guys who feel ostracized by traditional US progressive/ center-left rhetoric. It was actually a “Defend Equality” sticker of an AR-15 over a Progress Pride flag on one of my gun safes that prompted said cousin to ask me about LGBT+ people, which was my ‘in’ to discuss all the rightwing rhetoric he was being steeped in. That’s not the kind of thing that you generally see welcomed in most progressive spaces.

    • Zero22xxEnglish
      8·
      3 days ago

      In a vacuum, without any opposing messaging, guys learning this stuff organically or through simple social maturation might be enough in a leftward-shifting society, but there’s an entire developed pipeline to capture young men into right-wing, misogynistic rhetoric, and it’s clearly very successful, and it’s part of a feedback cycle/ political apparatus used to push society rightwards.

      Yeah I’m with you there. As someone that lives in a relatively socially conservative country, I can’t think of too many older men I knew growing up that wouldn’t have been / probably have been sucked into this culture war shit. Because none of this is new, it’s a conservative push to restore gender roles and boomer humour and boys will be boys and greasy old film execs getting away with sexual assault.

      I don’t think that the answer is necessarily older friends. If it was just a case of needing older male role models to talk to, then this conservative shift would’ve started with the older millennials already. Because every second person I knew came from a divorced, usually fatherless household.

      The difference is that we weren’t listening to jackasses whose qualifications are hosting Fear Factor lecture us about gender roles and politics. We didn’t even have the kind of ‘media’ when I was in my early 20s, unless you count greasy TV preachers. So actually what the fuck has happened.

      Maybe the answer is to get Guy Fieri doing a leftist podcast because the kids seem to love having reality stars from yesteryear lecture them about politics and social issues. But I dunno, I think the media that we consume in general is part of the issue. Why isn’t Sonic the Hedgehog an anti-authoritarian hero anymore? The kids need punk rock, not podcasts. Not whatever the entertainment industry is offering right now if it’s being beaten by Joe Rogan and a microphone.

      Also just want to say, this author talks like going through a woman hating phase is normal for an 18 year old because of not having money and confidence. Which fuck that, it’s not only men that don’t have money and confidence or experience when they’re young. And that wasn’t a ‘normal’ phase for teenage boys to go through when I was that age.

      Which after my long rant (sorry, I’m fairly stoned) brings me to what I’m actually agreeing with in the first place. It’s definitely this pipeline, as you said. And lack of a good leftist or progressive pipeline.