- cross-posted to:
- mensliberation@lemmy.ca
- cross-posted to:
- mensliberation@lemmy.ca
While many believe young people are becoming more liberal, data shows that 12th grade boys are nearly twice as likely to identify as conservative compared to liberal. Around 25% of high school seniors identify as conservative while only 13% identify as liberal. In contrast, the share of 12th grade girls identifying as liberal has risen to 30%. Many factors may contribute to this trend, including the rhetoric of Donald Trump which appealed to disaffected young men, and the focus of progressive movements on issues of gender and racial equality which some young men perceive as a “matriarchy.” However, most high school seniors claim no political identity, and many boys in high school do not actively discuss
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I suspect it’s less due to the rhetoric of Donald Trump & more due to the influence of Andrew Tate, Jordan Peterson & Joe Rogan.
No, those personalities rose due to the mainstream (mainly left) not being able to discuss normal masculinity and overall only portraying masculinity as something toxic. When you go in one radical direction, you get radical response (Tate, etc).
We need normal, non-partisan discussion and stance towards masculinity.
What is “normal masculinity”?
You know, protecting your wife and kids if it comes to that, not being an domestic abuser, etc.
Oh, my bad - these are obviously toxic examples! Or, idk, women can do both also? /s
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Defending others has nothing to do with being “masculine”.
Interesting to assume people like Tate didn’t exist before. They just changed their rhetoric and added “anti-feminist” to their agenda since that’s trendy in certain circles now. These people existed already in much greater numbers in the past.
Masculinity is not the centre of the discussion of the left or even feminism, though. It’s just what certain people want to make out of it, which is exactly what the quote above is referring to.
Advancing rights for women in general spans a broad spectrum of intersectionality with masculinity just being one fraction of it. You can look up how many feminists are actually talking about masculinity unprompted and you’d be surprised how infrequent it is. It is a certain group of people with an often anti-feminist agenda who try to make it seem as if masculinity was somehow the main hook of feminist discussion.
Most leftists and feminists want emancipation for men as well, with that they mean the emancipation from gender roles for everyone.
I grew up in a Calvinistic worldview where every week you were reminded you were utterly disgusting in the eyes of God and simply by being born you deserved to be tortured more brutally than the English language can adequately express because you had by virtue of being human inherited original sin, and the only way you could get rid of it is if you had been predestined to be saved by Jesus (who did not come to save everyone, only a select few). Anyone can imagine the horrible effect this polar opposite of therapy has on rates of mental illness in that community. This kind of worldview was popular with the English Dissenters (those famous ‘persecuted pilgrims’ belong to this category) who later crossed the Atlantic in large numbers and I think I can see its unpleasant legacy in American political thought both left and right.
If there is one idea I could delete out of existence it’s this notion of original sin in both its religious and secular forms. I would make it unlawful to tell a child that they were born guilty of anything simply for existing or that guilt can be inherited from anyone because of how psychologically harmful this is. While it’s usually not the intention there exists a trend that de facto results in telling boys they’re guilty of various things simply for existing, and then in the same breath we act surprised when scumbags like Tate are hoovering up their attention instead of everyone telling them what a piece of crap they are for being born. Manly qualities in my mind are qualities like physical and mental strength in the face of adversity, having the moral courage to make difficult decisions for the good of a group, a deep sense of good sportsmanship, being willing and able to take risks when required, that sort of thing. The left should be all over that as its history is littered with such examples!
Normal masculinity is simply existing and not giving a fuck how other people expect you to live. There’s almost no point in discussing it more as the left is already very comfortable with discussing the idea that you are who you are and you can be proud of that. That message is literally everywhere.
Toxic masculinity has to be discussed because people are being made to confuse being toxic with being “strong” which is something the right is creating. Their image of a “real man” is toxic.
It’s like the whole “racist right winger” or “neonazi” labels given to a politician, but then some random right winger gets all bent out of shape as if they were called a Nazi… They weren’t even part of the conversation, they decided to take on that guilt. It’s the same with toxic masculinity. If you’re not expressing the things that are discussed within that subject then they aren’t talking about you, you’re more than likely “performing” normal masculinity. It’s not the fault of the people having the conversation that someone else chose to feel offended by it when it wasn’t about them at all.
like, there isn’t a non-partisan stance towards masculinity
Well, think about it. Who is the most confused, scared, and angry about women not throwing themselves at their feet? Pubescent boys. The entire right wing media sphere is aimed at someone with the temperament and unleashed anger and horniness of high school boys, in a time when kids are having less sex. These perpetually online kids are being fed into the ecosystem through YouTube, then they hear it normalized on fox/literally any right wing outlet, and then they get those poisonous ideas reinforced when they go to school and don’t get laid by the hottest girl they know.
I don’t think these things were planned, by any means. But they sure did work out for them.
Funny, people are mostly blaming the left for not adressing young boys mental health, but not the right for manipulating them into becoming sexist and violent.
Because we’ve done a bad job of reconciling everything popular culture tells you it means to be a man or manly or sexually attractive with everything popular culture also says is outdated or wrong or cringe or even which you’ll be ostracized or even punished. Also the latter is a moving target while the former is not. It’s not surprising they choose to listen to non-conflicting voices, and it’s lazy to just blame Republicans as if there’s nothing for the left to learn from and improve on other than ways to beat Republicans.
I keep feeling that there’s a disaster being brewed there, the only people paying attention to young boys seems to be the alt right, and there’s a need for this which everybody seems to dismiss, every single one of the old style support structures for masculinity have been dismantled over decades, and while they were right to be dismantled all these boys still need the support to actually grow into decent people, and no one is giving it, and these crazies have noticed and are using it as breeding ground for soldiers for their cause. The decent people side must create something for them even if it’s to avoid them falling into these dens of craziness.
Exactly. The response among the left seems to be “ha, fuck em” which is a terrible plan
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Actually, just don’t fuck em.
I’m sure the 25% figure will plummet when they enter the adult world, realise Andrew Tate is just a sad, loud little man who never found a way to proccess his fathers abuse and that imitating him does the opposite of getting you laid.
Andrew Tate isn’t anywhere near the whole problem. Then entirety of the alt-right isn’t even the whole problem.
Sure, but they’re the ones grooming children for extremism using the techniques of abusive partners, terrorist organisations and social media companies trying to maximise engagement.
Pick any mass shooter at random and chances are they were 20 something, male and followed a familiar path from edgelord to extremist.
You’re confusing the Left with Dems. Dems are not Left. They are squarely Center.
At least give them a reach-around
This is part of the plot in American history X
That’s something I have argued about with my liberal friends often. You don’t make allies by telling people that their opinions don’t matter, or that they’re wrong based purely on their sex or color. The left has been dismissive towards men, no… It has been hostile towards men for at least a decade. Masculinity isn’t inherently negative and not all masculinity is toxic. Spreading the belief that it is will only make enemies of people who otherwise would be allies. It is incredibly short sighted to reject normative people and make them feel that they’re less important or that there’s something wrong with them just based off their birth. Also, that is the exact same mentality that the left supposedly wants to overcome, but rather than working towards its end, they’ve just shifted the target. To be clear, I say “liberal” and “left” and that may cause an assumption that I’m a right-wing conservative. I am not.
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You also have issues where high-school educated men have not seen any major benefits to any typical liberal or conservative ideology within the past generation.
On the conservative end, the jobs that the men would have gone into have seen wages and benefits stagnate or drop.
On the liberal end, the status of white men in society has dropped to a more level playing field with class status or wealth being a more defining factor, something which they don’t have.
Alt-right conservatives are addressing the economic issues by restricting the work force (anti-immigration) and increasing the jobs in resource extraction (trashing all environmental laws). On social issues, the alt-right head of family is the man.
Leftists could address these issues better by supporting unions more.
I’m wearing a tshirt that I bought to support a union drive now, actually. Over the weekend, I spotted a table with volunteers supporting the UPS drivers and walked up and asked how I could show support. I poster went in my window. I was wearing a sticker supporting Amazon workers trying to unionize at the time, which they noticed.
It’s a very unique time during my lifetime where union activity seems to be on the rise. A local Trader Joe’s recently formed a union so I went there and individually approached workers and congratulated them. I had a strong sense of who voted yes vs no based on their responses. The ones that were please were really appreciative of the support.
Push hard for unions. Show support for unions in other industries. This is a moment where we might be able to show regular people that we can have collective power.
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It’s the corporate-friendly “CeNtRiSt” democrats and MSNBC lib-pundits that don’t.
Like Biden’s admin shutting down railway workers trying to collectively bargain. And then a train disaster happened, like, the next day.
yes, that terrible anti-union Joe Biden, how dare he
https://www.cnn.com/2022/09/15/business/railroad-strike-averted-tentative-deal/index.html
President Joe Biden called in personally to talk to negotiators around 9 pm ET Wednesday, according to a person familiar with negotiations. Biden stressed that catastrophic harm could come to families, businesses and communities if the rail system shut down. Sources within the unions were giving Biden’s call credit for helping to get the deal completed without a strike.
“We’re very proud of what was accomplished,” said Jeremy Ferguson, president of the conductors union and one of the leaders involved in the marathon session. He thanked Biden and Labor Department officials involved in the talks for the deal.
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On the liberal end, the status of white men in society
I’m sorry, did I miss somewhere in the dataset where this result was broken down by race?
I agree with the majority and think both sides suck.
I just think we should fix all the problems. Hot takes like this are why you should elect me!
This is very sad. I was in high school in the 1990s and I was hugely big mouthed left-wing boy with friends who were hugely big mouthed left-wing boys and girls. This in a small town. My graduating class was 100 or so. “most high school seniors claim no political identity” looks promising. They are looking at the landscape and saying “this makes no sense, I’m not signing up for any of this crap.” So, you know, perhaps a silver lining?
Lack of political involvement is never a silver lining. Apathy doesn’t bring about progress it brings about regression. Which is why the right is rising in numbers.
I don’t know about that. You can’t really say what the future holds unless you have a magical crystal ball or something. I take that type of answer as legitimately confused on the part of the respondent. I didn’t exactly say it was a good thing, just that there is hope. They could eventually wind up one way or the other. Time will only tell. I like to be optimistic and hopeful. It keeps me alive.
Zoomer MAGAs with gay friends/relatives feel like a blister just waiting to burst.
Maybe kid watching too much Andrew Turd or Lobster cult? That’s why de-platforming is so important. These people are genuinely harmful to the world.
Grifters are a symptom, not the cause. I agree with getting rid of them, but more will follow.
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I understand that self identification is more convenient than a list of policy questions, but I kind of wonder how many of them count as conservative by the standards of twenty years ago, or even by the standards of people twenty years older than themselves
Do these conservative teenagers believe that gay people shouldn’t be allowed to marry? That a war against Islam is a good idea? That wives should submit to their husbands?
I had a young woman, maybe 17 last semester, turn in a paper --it was a 12 page research/argumentative paper about why gender complementarianism (ie woman and men have different, distinct roles with men at the top). She’s a good student, a good writer, but literally she’s heard this set of morals from the pulpit her whole life… So like… Yeah. I read another young man’s paper where his takeaway from 12 Years a Slave was “wow, not all slave owners were abusive monsters–some were pretty kind and treated their slaves like family.” The kids are as alright as the rest of us are.
The conservative platform in the US doesn’t exist. At this point, conservative is a bucket term for, “not progressive.” Most conservatives are on the right, but not all. Most conservatives are Republican leaning, but not all. Most conservatives are opposed to socially progressive change (e.g. expanded LGBT rights) but not all.
Basically any policy position you could point to will fail to capture a significant number of modern conservatives.
I was a “Fox News”-viewing turd in high school, too.
Conservativism mirrored what my parents viewed at the time. Seemed edgy. And offered simple solutions to all of life’s problems.
Then I grew up. Five years later, I was voting for Barack Obama and terrified of Sarah Palin.
That is actually an easy trap to fall into because that was the environment you were raised in. I am glad you got out of that trap when many do not.
In turn, my parents are gradually escaping.
My dad was a Never Trumper who we gently led out. And Jan 6th made him an “independent” (he votes for Democrats now). My mom is a loyal Republican (somehow)… but agrees Trump is an arrogant piece of garbage and not the horse to bet on.
Then I grew up.
No one just “grows up”. You had a set of experiences that allowed you to think beyond the confines of what your parents taught you.
Most never do.
It’s not a natural process.
And this is why Republicans are so opposed to higher education. My dad grew up in a conservative household - like, so conservative that my grandad would respond to the question of who he was going to vote for with “I’m a Republican. I vote for the nominee,” and it wasn’t until he went to college and met people with life experiences that were different from his that my dad began to question the things he was told about the world when he was growing up.
It’s a lot easier to convince you that your life sucks because
Jewishbrown immigrants are taking all the jobs and women won’t date you because, actually, they’re the sexist ones (and it definitely has nothing to do with the fact that you treat them like sex toys) if you’ve never been beyond 40 miles of where you were born and have never been outside of a town where everybody looks like you.
It’s absurd, yes, but nothing new. Many of the kids at my own school are leaning to the far right, without ever stopping and wondering if it even profits them. All they see are a couple of Instagram reels and hear “global leader” and “country’s decade” and decide they’ll follow the government blindly even if the most harm will be done to them. Worshipping your political idols is a way of life, and anyone who doesn’t see the very same line as yours is an anti-nationalist. You might have guessed by now, alas, I speak of India.
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That’s not surprising since high school boys think they have it all figured out and think they’re special. Plus they still believe the lies they’ve been taught in school. I was conservative around that age. When you think that the world is fair, the government benevolent, and failure a result of laziness, then conservative makes a lot of sense. When you grow up and get some real world experience, you learn just how high the chips are stacked against average people. You learn some empathy.
My first election out of high school I voted for a right wing candidate because that’s what my Dad voted for, but also because I was entrenched in Christian ideaology and patriarchal propoganda.
After that I started paying a bit more attention to politics and slowly moved to the left with a few leaps along the way. Nowadays I find the Labor party of Aus to be about as conservative as I can stand. I can barely hide my disgust with anything to the right of them.
Real life experience can be far more radicalising than any immature ideas you inherent in high school.
Edit: My major leaps were: Having an employer illegally underpay me, seeing my friends lose ‘stable’ jobs in 2008, having a close friend come out as gay, leaving the church, volunteering with unhoused people, living in the UK, living in a rental controlled by a landlord with over 100 properties, and doing disaster relief work.
What effect did the UK change your political views?
I spent nearly every dollar I had saved to live in London, and don’t think I’d ever seen such visible displays of wealth disparity once I got there. I got a good paying job but often struggled to save and pay all my bills.
I got to live through the Brexit debate while living behind a chip shop in a poorer, multicultural neighbourhood and heard all the bullshit about immigration being directed at brown people while I worked there as an immigrant myself but because I was white I was largely accepted.
I learned a new level of contempt for the pointless wealth of the monarchy and had to deal with a boss who was plainly bad at his job but because he had an OBE everyone around me worshipped him like he could do no wrong.
I also worked for some very large companies and realised they aren’t anything special, just willing to exploit more people.
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Oh I see, yes that sounds eye opening
Yeah living through the fifth once-in-a-generation crisis in this generation is powerful left-wing propaganda.
I bet this happens to a lot of people unless they get sucked into a YouTube/truthsocial echochamber rabbit hole.
I totally could have gone down that route if I were younger. I spent a good amount of time reading conspiracy theories online before YouTube existed.
The rate of girls identitying as liberal is significantly higher and unlike the conservative boys, the rate hasn’t started dropping off. Probably because the girls face actual threats to their freedoms, while the conservative boys’ complaints are about a bunch of imaginary nonsense.
But of course it’s boys who get the headline. The hill is a right wing dumpster bin.
while the conservative boys’ complaints are about a bunch of imaginary nonsense.
The verbalized complaints, yes.
The passive misandry that’s pushing boys right is a very real thing.
Please define passive misandry
A dismissal or lack of consideration for the unique issues facing men and boys and the unique solutions they require. Focusing exclusively on women and girls. Viewing boys as defective girls.
In this thread, here’s a few specific examples
Let’s use their own “reports” to show those women that their boyfriends/husbands/fathers think they own them.
The rate of girls identitying as liberal is significantly higher[…]Probably because the girls face actual threats to their freedoms, while the conservative boys’ complaints are about a bunch of imaginary nonsense.
I was a “Fox News”-viewing turd in high school, too[…]then I grew up.
It’s passive because it’s not direct and focused. It’s more neglect than abuse. Men’s problems are not just secondary; they’re not even worth consideration, and men should just Fix It Themselves.
Schools in particular are extremely geared towards focusing on girls and their successful development.
Yeah, I’m not buying it. The Patriarchy is real, and whatever imagined neglect you think is happening is so far removed from the reality of what women have to deal with all day every day that it’s laughable. Won’t someone think of the poor dominant class?
Won’t someone think of the poor dominant class?
12th Grade boys are a dominant class? Not only is that statement totally lacking empathy but its also ignoring the evidence that Girls now graduate High School and College at rates well exceeding Boys. If there is a dominant “class” for the 12th Graders it’s Girls and not Boys.
Conservatives are thinking of them. They’re the only ones, apparently. Is it any wonder that’s where their allegiance goes?
“Haha, fuck you and everyone like you” is a terrible way to persuade people to your side.
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What male -specific rights are currently threatened or actively being removed?
Several boys only organizations or programs have changed to accepting all genders. Meanwhile, most girls only organizations or programs have remained girls only.
So what? That has nothing to do with anyone’s rights. Girls are facing having their body autonomy stripped away and the best you can come up with for boys is that they don’t have boys only orgs at school anymore?
Conservatives are so fucking soft.
This is right wing nonsense right here ^
What you just said (even if it were true, which I don’t actually believe to be the case) what you said is NOT-infringing on anyone’s rights.
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WTF does that matter? Are you seriously making the argument that the only people who matter are ones whose rights are threatened?
Attitudes like this are the reason the alt-right is rising in this country. Good grief there’s so many opinions in here that are just rank, literally stomach turning.
Recess. Unstructured outdoor play including monitored roughhousing.
Do you have kids? I do. My boy has more than enough unstructured outdoor play and comes home scraped up all the time. I’ve volunteered as a lunch / recess monitor. They’re doing just fine and doing young boy things.
Good anecdotal evidence, the numbers are against you
Lol recess is a right now?
Did you know that we currently still have almost exactly the same school form that we had when school was for boys only? It was literally designed with only boys in mind. That the sexism girls face, which makes them more compliant and more pleasing for teachers, is now seen as an attack on boys is hilarious. When you want them to be equally liked by the teachers you will have to punish boys as much as girls for being rough. You have to encourage boys as well to stay clean, play domestic shit indoors and care more for their social appearance. Because that’s what giving girls their current “advantage”.
lol what are you smoking? Recess hasn’t gone anywhere lmao. In fact, I fucking wish I had as cool of a playground for recess as my nephew does when I was a kid. Shit’s fancy as fuck, all kinds of monkey bars, rock walls, a puke-a-tron that puts the merry-go-rounds of old to shame, etc… Mind you, he goes to school in a super liberal school district of an already very liberal state. The park district playgrounds have gotten way cooler too, one of the playgrounds at my local park has a fucking zipline now.
The fact that fucking recess is the best you could come up with, and it’s just blatantly not even fucking true, says it all.
Also, girls like outdoor recess too, MORE so than boys, actually, in my experience. What a weird thing to gender.
It’s almost like he’d been told the opinion he was supposed to hold and then had to frantically explain why when someone finally asked him.
in my experience
We can trade anecdotes (and insults) all day long and none of it means a thing. You asked for a specific example and I gave you one. Just the first one off the top of my head. Schools in my area are canceling unstructured outdoor play time, which hurts boys more than girls.
Here’s one you’re probably more familiar with, since it’s nationwide: men being pushed out of careers in education.
I’m sure you’ll just move the goalposts on that one too though. “Ah but it’s not GOVERNMENT doing it so it doesn’t count!” or “I know a male teacher so it doesn’t count!”
The gender performance gap in primary and secondary education is, however, well documented, with girls outperforming boys to a statistically significant degree in ELA across the board, but with variability from school district to school district in math. Interestingly, boys tend to outperform girls in math mostly in higher income school districts, suggesting that two things can be true at once: patriarchal attitudes around boys and math performance can and do persist, mostly in white bread communities, AND, the educational system as a whole may be failing some boys, mostly in lower income communities.
Where the discussion gets gross, of course, is where MRA types use these statistics as a justification for misogyny, or on the flip side where those sensitive to that go out of their way to wave stats like this away, sometimes even making a ‘boys will be boys’ argument that is historically problematic for completely different reasons and in the end amounts to blaming the kids for the problem.
Again, two things can be true at once - society is still male dominated and victimizes women in many facets of life. At the same time, the little boys struggling at school … mostly in poor neighborhoods … aren’t the root of the problem, and certainly aren’t the ‘dominant class’ referred to above. The conversation should not be a zero sum game where recognizing the challenges of one group means you are trivializing the challenges of another.
(Though in fairness many do try to make it thus, so the caution is understandable).
Talking about the issues women and girls face is not an attack on men and boys.
Talking exclusively about the issues women and girls face is, though.
Why? Following your logic it would also be sexist against women to write an article or start a discussion without addressing women’s issues as well. Wouldn’t it also be racist and ableist if you don’t talk about the issues minorities face? Don’t you see how this doesn’t make sense?
It’s not discrimatory against all other “groups” if you bring up the issues of one group.
But of course it’s boys who get the headline. The hill is a right wing dumpster bin.
Flaming dumpster bin!
while the conservative boys’ complaints are about a bunch of imaginary nonsense.
Ah yes, the education gap is imaginary nonsense.
Are you hearing yourself? Because what you’re saying is not only gross but grossly dismissive. Be better.
Oh shit an education gap? Better attack minorities, take away women’s rights, burn a bunch of books and accelerate full speed into the brick wall of climate change.
The reality is that conservatives aren’t trying to address any actual problems facing young men, they’re just trying to turn their disillusionment into votes and gun sales.
Calmly approach anyone in the education sector with this study, without the “nobody cares about men anymore!” theatrics and you’ll have millions of people – mostly “leftists” – with thoughts on how to improve things.
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Yeah that’s why they’re always pushing things like “a higher minimum wage (but only for women and minorities)” and “universal healthcare (and by universal we mean just women and minorities)”.
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And who votes against it?
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It’s just journalism in general. “Girls are liberal” is pretty much a non-story, it’s expected. You don’t publish those.
“High school boys are becoming more conservative” can be seen as surprising by many, and thus newsworthy.
This is definitely right-wing trash. However, we should be using headlines like this to fire up the country. Everyone knows that “republican” men think they have the last say about reproductive rights. Let’s use their own “reports” to show those women that their boyfriends/husbands/fathers think they own them.
That’s a little bit sexist
The trend shows identification to either label is falling. Really reads as a way to spin what is likely a move even more left by many high schoolers as a move right by pretending no other axis exist than conservative/liberal. Only 35% said either label. The overwhelming majority didnt pick a label.
