When a person has a systemic privilege, sometimes equality feels like oppression to them.

I like saying that society is a hot gas.

It is a mass of small particles that barely interact with one another, heated up by the heat of anger and hate, floating in a large space aimlessly.

My type of society would be a liquid, where particles are free to move but close to other particles.

I've seen two things out of "Men's Health Awareness Month":

• The rainbow hair squad bawling about "No it's Pride Month"
• People posting lazy image macros with lies like "It's okay to show your feelings" in them.

I have no fucking interest in National Whatever Day or Something Awareness Month. They always end up an exercise in worthless busybody tokenism, and the more of them we put in place the more hilarious collisions we're going to find. I got a great idea, let's start observing National Temperence Week as the first week of May, so that we can generate pointless anger at the people drinking Corona and margaritas on Cinco De Mayo. I can hear Latinos now saying "Oh what the fuck have the white people made themselves mad about now?"

The messaging I have seen about "Men's Health Awareness Month" has mostly been addressed to men saying things like "It's okay to share, it's okay to cry, there are five lights." His lived experience has shown that no, it is not. He is overwhelmingly expected to be stable, and any display of weakness will permanently lessen his worth in anyone's eyes. Telling HIM to open up when those are the consequences he knows await, addressing the problem as a change HE needs to make is just pissing up a rope.

I'm going to use the movie Fight Club as an illustrative device here: Pretty much all of the men in this setting find their social and emotional needs unmet by the structure of society. The buzzword you see thrown around today for this is "lack of third spaces." The men in the testicular cancer group have basically only one pain to share with each other: loss of family, marriages, jobs etc. The men respond strongly positively to Fight Club, which at first is basically an underground bare knuckle boxing ring started by a mentally ill man. I have a hypothesis that something like a pickup game of basketball would have served much the same function, that what the men in this setting really need is time to do physical activities with other men, to form those bonds the way men actually do.

On that note, I'll be right back.

Gentlemen, let's go on a hike

I only see women being pushed into places with traditionally male majority, but not men being pushed into places with traditional female majority.

As a positive counter-example, I'd like to give a shoutout to German childcare. In 2022, 17.9% of under 20yolds, 12,6% of under 30yold childcare professionals were men, contrast with 2% among 60 and older. There's been an active effort both from the professional organisations as well as operators to increase the ratio, right-out masterplanned it, and they're making strides. As a side-effect: Plenty of young female childcare workers now don't feel weird at all about wrestling with the boys. Not that "boys need movement because their gross motor skills develop before fine motor skills" was unknown back in my days but the vibe was either "grandma watching you build wood block towers" or "grandma watching you at the playground".

There's three aspects to this: They recognised that "women know better than men when it comes to childcare" is BS and recognition was given to masculine styles of parenting, with that the pattern of dealing with the few men that were in the field by "promoting them out of sight", that is, into administration, was abolished, and finally an active push to advertise the job to men.

Not sure whether the ratio will ever reach 50:50 or whether that's even important at all, stabilising at 1/3rd or such would be plenty to ensure that things are even-keeled. If you rather become a construction worker I'm not going to tell you to go into childcare instead, and vice versa, not everything that's not 50:50 is due to gatekeeping. Women aren't going to become saturation divers en masse, and that's fine.

A growing network of online communities known collectively as the “manosphere” is emerging as a serious threat to gender equality, as toxic digital spaces increasingly influence real-world attitudes, behaviours, and policies, the UN agency dedicated to ending gender discrimination has warned.

There is nothing that needs or requires 50/50 nor is there any benefit to society by forcing it besides being able to say "now it's equal". Childcare should ideally be 30% men and 70% women because women are natual caretakers and excell at emotional and social tasks. Men are needed there to provide strict authority for kids when they are not behaving well and for developing skills such as sports, engineering and emotional reslilience.

A growing network of online communities known collectively as the “manosphere” is emerging as a serious threat to gender equality, as toxic digital spaces increasingly influence real-world attitudes, behaviours, and policies, the UN agency dedicated to ending gender discrimination has warned.

Excellent example, and I sincerely appreciate you engaging in good faith discussion!

I agree that being masculine should by default not be a barrier - social or otherwise - from working with children.

How do we begin to change that as a society?

Although I can’t think of the solution myself, I also don’t see how advancing equality for feminine individuals would hold back equality for masculine individuals.

As mentioned in another comment, a lot of these problems seem to stem from the enforcement of dated gender norms.

A growing network of online communities known collectively as the “manosphere” is emerging as a serious threat to gender equality, as toxic digital spaces increasingly influence real-world attitudes, behaviours, and policies, the UN agency dedicated to ending gender discrimination has warned.

Lots of feminists want to blame every problem on men. That backfired and now a lot of men are doing the same.

Loneliness and being disconnected from the community doesn't help either.

A growing network of online communities known collectively as the “manosphere” is emerging as a serious threat to gender equality, as toxic digital spaces increasingly influence real-world attitudes, behaviours, and policies, the UN agency dedicated to ending gender discrimination has warned.

Is there even an incentive for solving men's problems? Feminism can use men to portray the ultimate evil; influencers can use that portrayal to criticize men, engage in rage bait, get attention and secure brand deals.

Capitalism can appease women to promote consumerism wrapped in feminism. Corporations can capitalize on men's loneliness and low self-worth.

I have noticed that men with low self-worth find meaning in work, which ultimately profits corporations, the money they will earn will be expanded on consumerisms/additions which again can be profited by capitalism and corporate.

The rich can have as many resources as they want, so why solve it? Other than individuals (men) taking matters in their own hands and rescuing each other I don't think there is enough incentive to help men as community or whole

Lots of feminists want to blame every problem on men. That backfired and now a lot of men are doing the same.

Loneliness and being disconnected from the community doesn't help either.

Because people are lonely and the internet is telling men it's the women’s fault.

Men are by default worth less really. One man can impregnate many women. If you look at society from a more cynical perspective as just resources, it makes sense that men are inherently far less worth than women.

Value as people? Pfft, forget it. When was that ever practiced?

Sure. Real men don't cry. Real men aren't weak. Real men toughen up and don't complain. Real men don't care about injustice if it's them who are affected. That's you.

Lol, falsely conflating me telling you not to blame POC and women for late stage capitalism with telling you not to cry is pretty hilarious.

What injustice are you facing that generations of women and immigrants haven't been receiving the whole time?

I'm not telling you not to communicate or build support networks, I'm saying don't blame minorities for the lack of those support networks.

I don't know. Look at all the Tate Todgers around. Also, it does not help that women basically treat men as super-predators. With resentment and contempt nowadays. Leading to...well, men doing the same.

Really, kiss the decency we used to have goodbye. It's all gone now. Best everyone focus on protecting themselves, let the population collapse.

When a person has a systemic privilege, sometimes equality feels like oppression to them.

And internet is telling women it’s men fault.
And poor people it’s immigrants fault.
And insecure people it’s trans fault.

We are the most narcissistic generation ever: it’s always someone else fault… and while we are arguing online changes go in the wrong direction (more inequality, more war, less affordable education that means less social mobility)

Women: it's all about us, we have our own "online safe spaces" where only women are allowed because in history, men were bad to women, It's filled with vitriolic chronically-online women where we go around calling men "cunts". Men should respect this and start up their own community if they want.

Men: <they do that>. It's given a derogatory name so public opinion can be manipulated - marketing 101.

Women: We don't like it. It's not all about us, men are bad to us. They threaten equality - it's all their fault.

I got banned from two communities on Lemmy recently asking if it really should be host to communities that are exclusionary based on protected characteristics such as gender (to stop extremism). Lots of women moaned and were vitriolically abusive - how dare I call their army out. Community hosts really need to get a grip on such things and encourage inclusionary communities, not exclusionary. Whilst this practice goes on, racist/sexist/other extremist opinions will be fostered on the host and in those communities.

Politics such as "yeah, well, populist opinion makes us feel like we need to separate ourselves from you because you're not <insert protected characteristic we only like>..." but we totally respect you and want to talk to you as normal in other communities when we want to, is incongruent to the whole concept of an inclusive community that fosters equality such as Lemmy should be.

(And if I had to guess, I think there are some bots on Lemmy also spouting vitriolic replies to stir up such hatred amogst these who isolate themselves - making themselves prime targets for manipulation - all to stir up chaos on a national level)