The Manosphere and it’s anti-women sentiments
Jeroen
Not all those who wander are lostNetherlands Veteran
I recently noticed some new kinds of links appearing in my YouTube feed, interviews with people like Jordan Peterson and Rollo Tomassi. I innocently thought I would have a look since it mentioned some kind of Red Pill, a reference to ‘The Matrix’. I found the interview indigestible and instead had a look on Wikipedia what it’s all about… I read the pages on “Red pill”, “Manosphere” and “alt-right pipeline” before getting thoroughly sick of it.
It seems there are quite a few influencers out there who are trying to convince people to move to the right in their politics, and who seem to be convinced that men are being discriminated against, strange as it may seem. Anti-women sentiments run rampant in this group. I find it quite worrying that these people seem to have a wide reach on YouTube to suck in folks who don’t know any better.
Now I know many Buddhist groups are still men-first, and have a ways to go in terms of gender equality, but at least they are not moving in the wrong direction! This whole process of using the internet to radicalise especially young people seems to me to be something to beware of.
Comments
Trump's "Save America" act would be a first step to ending women's vote. The act requires documentary proof of citizenship, and if one's married name doesn't agree with the name on their birth certificate, they don't have that. Presumably women could get around this by providing documentation of the name change, but this would be very difficult for some women. Not everybody has a copy of their birth and marriage certificates, and it can be quite difficult for some people to obtain them.
Their is a faction of MAGA that doesn't believe women should vote, especially married women, whose husbands should speak for them. They are quite open about this.
Men are sometimes discriminated against and anyone who cares about fighting discrimination should not ignore or try to discredit that in favor of putting the emphasis on another group, my view is that if a problem in society affects a 100 people and out of that 100, 99 shares similar characteristics, it's still not a problem of 99 people, abuse for example doesn't stop being a problem of just a few, things are interconnected and if we treat someone badly we can expect that harm to affect more lives in some ways. So I think there are legitimate issues mens' rights groups raise, but the way these are raised are not always constructive (just like feminist groups aren't always constructive in their communication, optics and politics distort messages as well) and yes, sadly much of these get weaponized by charismatic individuals to further burn bridges and recruit men in a cult-like manner, offering them control over their own well-being, while isolating them further and often radicalizing them. I don't think this is unique to the manosphere, but it's an ideal farming ground for alt-right figures to divide the nation further. And it doesn't take bad intentions to fall for the tricks, I'll be the first to admit that I've got charmed by Peterson when he first appeared in the headlines, because he seemed to be a voice of reason against blind flock mentality, at least it was framed that way by many, including himself. But I'd much rather focus my energies on people who are working to reach common grounds in a highly polarized society. Not necessarily as public speakers or debaters, maybe just regular Joes and Janes showing a bit of kindness to those around them.
What makes me sad about them is that there a genuine problems that men and boys face and the way they weaponize them and turn it into misogyny turns people away from looking at and addressing those problems. For example in education outcomes the gender inequality is worse than it was in the 70s only the genders have swapped in terms of who's doing better and who's falling behind. The people on top of society are still more likely to be men, but the people at the bottom of society are also more likely to be men. More homelessness, greater rates of suicide deaths.
Richard Reeves is a good example of someone who is able to talk about men's issues without the red pill nonsense.
Well, I think a big part of men’s issues is having lost the role of provider. Back in the sixties a factory worker’s wage would sustain an entire family, nowadays father and mother both work to sustain the family.
As far as I am concerned Buddha is a woman if we are. Buddha was brought up by Aunty Buddha as his mother was killed so the baby buddha could be saved.
Come to think of it bodhisattva style, every blade of grass is an eventual Buddha.
Life sure is tough (according to the first Noble Truth of some sects...)
@Jeroen
Well... I think there is an important distinction to make here.
The reason a factory worker's wage could support an entire family in the 1960s was because we lived in a one-wage household society. The entire economic model was built around the assumption that one income could support a family.
The fact that women entered the workforce isn't what broke that system.
What broke it was what happened once the second income became available.
As women entered the workforce, their income was initially supplemental in many households. That meant households suddenly had greater purchasing power. Rather than that additional income simply improving the standard of living of those families, corporations could—and did—raise prices. And as prices rose, the second income gradually stopped being "extra" and became necessary just to maintain the same standard of living.
Then the cycle continued.
Corporations could keep increasing prices because households increasingly had two incomes to absorb those increases. Eventually, we reached the point where the cost of housing, food, transportation, education and virtually everything else became structured around the assumption that a household would have two earners.
And that's where I think we sometimes identify the wrong culprit.
It wasn't women working that destroyed the ability of one income to support a family.
It was an economic system increasingly driven by the pursuit of greater profit, where corporations continually pushed prices upward toward whatever the market would bear. Once two-income households became normal, that additional household income became part of what the market could bear.
So I don't think men "lost" the provider role because women went to work.
The economic conditions that made the traditional provider role possible were eroded by a system that continually demanded more from households.
And I say that as someone who has lived the transition personally.
For roughly 80% of my adult life, I was the primary breadwinner in my household. Being the person who provided most of the income was a significant part of how I understood my role as a man and as a husband.
Today, my wife makes roughly three times what I make.
So I understand the hit to the ego.
I really do.
But ultimately, that's what it is: a hit to the ego.
My wife's ability to earn three times what I earn hasn't made me less of a husband, less of a father, less useful to my family, or less of a man. It means that one particular role I occupied for most of my adult life has changed.
And I think this is where Buddhism becomes particularly relevant.
If my sense of worth is attached to the idea that I am the provider, then losing that role is going to hurt. But the suffering isn't necessarily in the circumstances themselves. It's in the attachment to the identity.
"I am the provider" becomes another form of "I."
And when that identity is threatened, the ego wants an explanation. It wants someone or something to blame.
That's where I think the manosphere can take a legitimate problem and turn it into something destructive.
There really are men and boys struggling. We shouldn't dismiss those problems simply because some people have weaponized them. But there is a huge difference between saying:
"Men are struggling because the economic and social structures that once gave many men a clear role have changed."
and saying:
"Men are struggling because women took their role away from them."
The first recognizes a real social problem.
The second turns women into the enemy.
And I don't think we help men by trying to restore a hierarchy simply because some men have been taught to derive their identity from occupying a particular position within it.
For me, the more interesting question is what happens when a man discovers that his worth was never actually dependent upon being the person who earned the most money.
I still provide for my family. I still contribute. I still have responsibilities. I still have things to offer my wife, my children and the people around me that have nothing whatsoever to do with my salary.
I don't need my wife to earn less for me to feel like more of a man.
And I don't need another human being to occupy a lower position in order for me to feel secure in my own.
Maybe the answer to the crisis of masculinity isn't getting men back to the 1960s.
Maybe it's helping men discover that they can have purpose, responsibility, strength, love and dignity without needing their identity to depend upon being the provider.
From a Buddhist perspective, that's a pretty profound lesson in non-attachment.
At least in the USA, women were part of the workforce. They were, however, restricted in the types of jobs and their levels in the hierarchy were, generally, highly restricted. Property rights, economic rights, political and such were limited or non-existent. Foe economics and work, it was the myth of the "Weaker Sex".
That the opening up of women entering the brauder work force is not what drove prices up. It was, perhaps, a contributory factor, but not the driving force.
In the 1970s, nationally, when women finally achieved the right to control their own finances, the reactive (conservative), ccorporate forces looked at the masses and said, "They are too powerful, we must regain our dominance." Beginning with President Nixon, the corporatists began a long campaign to regain dominance in the economic field through their the political influence. The true collapse began when President Regan, with his pro-corporate and anti-union and "Trickle Down" economics and his termination, in 1987, of the FAIRNESS DOCTRINE which required equal air time for opposing political views.
The power of unions declines as laws were changed to better fulfill the corporate (moneyed) interests, and weaken the political power and influence of the working and middle class. All while corporations consolidated power, politically and economically. Wages stagnated or rose slowly in response to increasing prices while the power elite
saw their slalries and bonuses skyrocket.
Of course, the power influencers and the "movers and shakers" pushed the "Blame" on women and minorities. Minorities have never been the source of economic hardship in this nation. Women have been in the greater workforce in numbers in the USA for over 60 years. They are not the cause of the current situation where two or three jobs can not adequately feed, cloth and house a family.
The lack of the human element in the business equation, the "Profit over People" Corporate (and Billionaire) and the false business mindset and the need to always "Grow or Die"
The current Corporate mindset of Gain without the inclusion of Goodness is the core. There is no problem with personal gain when it includes Gain (Goodness) for the community, the society (the people). Gain, without the human element is GREED.
Corporations, of themselves are not Bad. Profit of itself is not Evil. It is the abuse of the power arising from ever centralizing Corporate power and the emphasis of profit with disregard to the benefit or harm to the people (workers, communities, customers/consumers) where the evil arises.
The Buddhist approach of awareness and concern for the People and the environment, the ecosystems of which we are all a part, is a counter-valence to the greed and arrogance, the MARA we see so much in the business and political elite and others which seems so prominent today.
as individuals, in embracing and opening up the power within are we thus able to affect, to change the power without. A thirteenth century monk said it well:
WHEN THE BODY BENDS, THE SHADOW MUST FOLLOW
Peace to all
I think the big shift started when the idea that the sole mandate for business was to return profits to shareholders. It was in Milton Friedman's 1962 book, but it really started to take hold in the 70s. I think it also has to do with the size of the businesses today too. Many small business still care about their employees, vendors, communities, customers. But if you want to compete with big companies its all about maximizing returns for the shareholders.
But this is a bit of a tangent away from the thread topic. Most of the reasonable concerns I've heard raised about the struggles of men and boys today has little to do explicitly with not having the provider role. I think to the more traditional men I know and some of them make less than their wives and don't seem to care one bit.
My wife will soon make more money than me. It's not the reason I feel useless, but feeling useless and fearing that she'll eventually leave me is sadly a part of why I keep coming back to Buddhism. I lack true ambitions. The ones people need to climb the corporate ladder and get that raise and get that bonus... I don't really care for a much better life, some financial stability would be nice and I'm keep trying to find some skill I could learn to eventually provide, because starting a family would also be nice, but what I love (art, creative writing) is not very valued in paychecks, it's valued less and less with AI around now and I want to be useful to her and others, but it's really hard seeing that someone you love and care about craves more in life to be happy and not seeing how you could be the person who helps make that happen. Not much to do with the manosphere I suppose, but needing two jobs in a household just to pay the bills and keep a roof above your heads... yeah, that's not great.
I'm sorry this is your situation. Its one of the sad ways the old patriarchal system hurts men too. The old expectations of judging men by their status and ability to earn is still alive in plenty of people, even those who are opposed to the patriarchal norms.
I'm a depressed person with social anxieties and paranoia, if I have insecurities about my wife finding me worthless, I assure you that they are baseless, she does so much to support me. She just has different standards than I do is all. And yeah, I agree, it's a shame that we often measure ourselves and each other by these things.
@RobinH Your comment actually reminded me of something that happened to me very recently.
My wife and I took her daughter to Disney World for a week. The entire trip was built around her, which was completely appropriate and something I was genuinely fine with going into it. But over the course of the week I found myself getting upset far more often than made any sense given what was actually happening.
I started feeling ignored, unimportant, and at times even unloved.
The strange part was that I knew those feelings weren't true. I wasn't sitting there thinking, "My wife doesn't love me." I could actually see what was happening in my own mind while it was happening. I could recognize that old attachment wounds were being triggered, that I was interpreting things through those old wounds, and that the story my mind was constructing wasn't supported by what was actually happening.
And yet knowing that didn't make the feelings go away.
I could see the pattern and still got caught in it.
That experience really brought something home to me about the difference between insight and actually being free of a pattern. Sometimes we can intellectually understand exactly what we're doing and still be completely caught in the emotional machinery of it.
And I wonder if something similar is happening in what you're describing about feeling useless or fearing that your wife might eventually leave you.
You actually said something really important yourself: you know those fears are baseless, and you know your wife supports you. That's the insight. But the fact that you know it doesn't necessarily mean the fear won't still arise.
I've spent roughly 80% of my adult life as the primary breadwinner. Now my wife makes about three times what I make. So I absolutely understand the ego hit of no longer occupying that role.
But I've had to learn that the feeling of being less important isn't evidence that I am less important.
That's a really important distinction.
And I think this is where Buddhism has become useful to me. The practice isn't necessarily about arguing with the feeling until it disappears. Sometimes the mind already knows the argument and the feeling keeps coming anyway. The practice becomes learning to sit with what is actually happening without feeding the story attached to it.
At Disney, I eventually started using the Great Compassion Mantra while walking. I only knew the first ten lines at the time, so I would repeat those ten lines as I walked. It didn't "prove" to me that my feelings were irrational. I already knew that. What it gave me was something to hold onto while the mind was spinning, until the rumination eventually wore itself out.
That experience actually changed how I understand compassion too. I usually think of compassion as something directed toward another person's suffering. But that week it became compassion toward the part of myself that was hurting, even when the story that part of me was telling wasn't true.
So when you say that you keep coming back to Buddhism because of these feelings, I don't necessarily see that as evidence that something is wrong with you.
Maybe that's exactly what practice is for.
Not to convince yourself that you shouldn't feel what you feel, but to learn how to experience those feelings without automatically believing them.
And maybe your wife making more money than you doesn't need to be solved at all.
Maybe the deeper work is learning that being loved, being useful, and being valuable aren't things that can be measured by your income.
You don't have to become the person who earns the most money in order to become the person you want to be.
And honestly, from what you've written, it sounds like you already care deeply about being useful to her and to other people. That matters. Your art matters. Your writing matters. The way you show up for people matters.
A paycheck is only one measurement of contribution, and probably not even the most interesting one.
I think that's one of the things I'm slowly learning myself: sometimes the thing that needs to change isn't the situation. It's the story the "I" has attached to the situation.
The mindset that if the man is making less than the woman, he is "Less than" still holds weight for men in our cultural psyche. That is changing, but is is a fear that men do have that their spouses, partners, will see them as lesser, that the women will seek "Hire Status" men, who's income is greater than their own.
The key to eliminating the fear, to eliminating the status issue is open communications. Both men and women must agree and understand, not theoretically, but fundamentally, that the relative income is not or ceases to be an issue. When both understand and agree that contributing to the relationship/family involves the entire relationship, of which, who make more is but an insignificant element.
Social climbers aside, a partnership, a marriage, is an ongoing dynamic relationship of constant give and take , of adjustments to ever changing circumstances. If relative monetary position is a serious issue, it usually means there are other issues, issues of trust, of communication, of fear.
The "Manisphere" or at least the part worried or complaining about financial status when the woman makes more money than the man, is usually the fear of loss of control.
They have been taught or bought into the fallacy that men are the sole providers, and or men must be the dominant, not equal, the dominant partner.
In the wild, for wolves, the Alpha Male and the Alpha Female are equal. The support each other and jointly lead and protect the pack. Birds share the burden equally of tending their nests and raising their chicks. They do not keep records of who brought the most to the nest. The y communicate, they coordinate, they work as a team.
In a culture that has been trained to equate income with worth and status, the trap is set, the fear real. Yet, when the female college professor marries the male truck driver, she remains a professor and he remains a truck driver. Neither is deminished by their economic reality, both are independent, both choose. They both "tend the nest" together.
The choose, in their own fashion, the middle way.
Peace to all
Some great insights everyone,
Very important to understand that Mind in Buddhism includes emotions and body feelings. Some of these are hormonal, age and gender related etc.
As I slowly disintegrate into irrelevance, alternate relevance and Anti-Vance, I can attest:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nine_Noble_Virtues
What was that great word of wisdom?
Oh yes!
"Put the toilet seat down before leaving."
“Or the women in the house will take up the Zen stick and proceed to bash you with it.”
Haha 😝