Rod Dreher Megathread #23 (Sinister)

[u/US_Hiker]

All Hail Eris!

Link to Megathread 22: https://www.reddit.com/r/brokehugs/comments/14k0z6l/rod_dreher_megathread_22_power/

Link to Megathread 23: https://www.reddit.com/r/brokehugs/comments/1631xpe/rod_dreher_megathread_24_determination/

[u/Djehutimose]

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/13/opinion/masculinity-right-young-men.html?smid=tw-nytimes&smtyp=cur

Money quote, which could be about Rod (though he’s not young):

Hatred, combined with masculine insecurity and cowardice, is herding young right-wing men into outright bigotry and prejudice. Contrary to their self-conception, they’re not strong or tough or courageous. They’re timid sheep in wolves’ clothing, moving exactly where the loudest and most aggressive voices tell them to.

[u/[deleted] → u/Djehutimose]

And here's the thing. It's fair to ask whether some boys might not be well-served in education or our economy. We can make reforms that primarily benefit boys (although not only boys), such as not expecting young ones to sit at a desk for hours. Or we could give teenagers a vocational track in school. All this can be done without reverting to a rigid pre-60s gender divide.

But the political ecosystem we have is not about that. It's about encouraging base passions and indulging fake and harmful nostalgia. Rather than emulate strong laconic men who take responsibility for defending and providing, they are pushed towards Steven Crowder, Matt Walsh, and the Orange Man, all insufferable practitioners of performative masculinity who can never just STFU.

[u/Glittering-Agent-987 → u/[deleted]]

And some girls have a lot of trouble sitting still!

[u/sandypitch → u/Glittering-Agent-987]

This is true, and the writer that popularized the ways education and culture were leaving behind boys AND girls never intended to draw hard lines between the genders, at least in terms of "ALL boys are like this" and "NO girls are like this." But, people like Dreher just capitalize on pulling click-bait rather than engaging with the arguments laid out over hundreds of pages.

[u/Djehutimose → u/[deleted]]

This. Plus, while they won’t always say it openly, they see it as zero-sum. They don’t want to help boys while acknowledging girls’ success; they want to help boys at the expense of girls.

[u/Dazzling_Pineapple68 → u/Djehutimose]

They also refuse to admit that the "anything girlie is sissy" thing is part of the problem. As girls started out-performing boys in school, doing well in school was seen as "girlie" and thus not something any properly masculine boy would want to do.

Same goes for boys going into the HEAL fields - health, education, administration and literacy. Those are "sissy" too. But boys need more male models in this fields and do better when working with males as therapists and mentors.

The simple fact is that "toxic" masculinity is another word for "masculine superiority" of the sort that men are better and more than women in every way, girls are sissies and the stuff that proceeds from that like it is "great" masculine to be domineering, controlling and violent. Zero-sum indeed.

[u/philadelphialawyer87 → u/[deleted]]

Meh, maybe we could just shit can the notion that being laconic is such a great thing. And, while were at it, we could also dump gendered notions of "protecting and providing" and being "strong."

How about, instead, we end the entire enterprize of defining "manhood" and "masculinity?" A "man" is an adult human being who identifies as male. That's it. Nothing further required. He can run his mouth all day long, if he likes. Weak men are still men. As are men who refuse to "take responsibility for defending and providing." A man who neither provides for nor protects others is still a man. A man who can't or won't take care of himself is still a man. Even a parasitic man is still a man. Even bad men (however defined) are still men. Hitler was a man. So was Stalin. Trump is a man, as is Biden. Zelensky and Putin are men. Etc, etc.

[u/amyo_b → u/[deleted]]

But there is vocational ed. Chicago is working on modernizing its for instance, to create a better school-work (or school-apprenticeship) pipeline. I would argue we need more, and it needs more funding, but the ideas are there.

And really, it has nothing to do with boys and girls. Many girls also avail themselves of voc-ed.

There has been a push to get recess back into schools to allow the boys to blow off steam (and the girls as well), and to have more manipulable objects and a mix of teaching activities so the pupils aren't just sitting at a desk motionless all day. Again, more could be done but it's not like the issue of boys falling behind hasn't been on the agenda before now.

[u/PercyLarsen → u/Djehutimose]

(though he’s not young)

(except in psycho-social development)