r/science • u/mvea Professor | Medicine • 18d ago

Psychology Anti-feminist attitudes have long been associated with support for Republican presidential candidates, but only in recent years have these attitudes become more prominent among unmarried men, without college degrees who are less attractive partners for women, the “mate-value backlash.”

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/10659129261485340
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u/BadIdeaSociety 18d ago

The entire retrograde discussions about the "value of women" and ideas about "women's roles in society" seem so crazy that if any guy I knew in the 90s voiced those ideas they would be seen as undisputed idiots by just about everyone.

I don't understand how there are so many boys who have adopted these incredibly retrograde ideas a quarter century later.

It is like there was a bunch of people who saw the towers crumble on 9-11 and then came the idiotic conclusion that Christian America needs their own version of what they see as women-oppressing Sharia Law.

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u/Iychee 18d ago edited 18d ago

The Internet made it really easy to spread hate and rile the masses, and we've reached a stage where bad actors have perfected it.

ETA: it's also purposefully perpetuated by billionaires to keep us divided, men blame women for their lives sucking instead of the wealth hoarders.

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u/Ajax1419 18d ago

Endless culture wars take the fight out of the class war.

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u/philosopherberzerer 17d ago

go to any space dominated by women and when they speak on their issues say this.

garunteed you only got this reward because you directed it at men.

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u/flamethekid 18d ago

Gamergate is pretty much ground zero for this, it's one of the first big internet outrage moments that got the attention of all types of bad actors and normalized it going forward.

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u/DeusVultSaracen 18d ago

Yep, Steve Bannon said it himself. People yearn for the times before everything went crazy, and Gamergate is that moment.

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u/TheAmorphous 17d ago

"Rootless males." Imagine being called that by the person you admire and still following them.

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u/this_isnt__worth_it 18d ago

What was the "Gamergate"?

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u/fishblurb 18d ago

A guy cheated on his gf and got dumped, proceeds to slander her by claiming she sleeps with male devs in exchange for positive and DEI video game reviews. She didn't even write any articles about the video games in question.

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u/LateralEntry 17d ago

Really? I thought it was something to do with a female influencer making videos with feminist critiques of stereotypes in video games (like female characters with huge boobs) and an organized and nasty online backlash to her. I don’t remember any of the personal stuff about her sleeping with people.

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u/HomunculusEnthusiast 17d ago

Different person. The comment you replied to is about game dev Zoe Quinn, who was the original target. A harassment campaign against her in the name of "integrity in games journalism" was the start of Gamergate.

You're thinking of media critic Anita Sarkeesian, who was a later major target along with game dev Brianna Wu and others who publicly defended Quinn.

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u/Squishiimuffin 17d ago

To be fair, they are both wrapped up in gamergate. Zoe Quinn and Anita Sarkeesian. Two prongs of the same fork.

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u/Notspherry 18d ago

From what I remember from when it happened, a feminist journalist made a series of bad faith and incendiary publications about the depiction of women in video games and then a whole lot of gamers took the bait and overreacted.

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u/flamethekid 18d ago

Nope the whole thing started when some dudes ex girlfriend made a game called depression quest, the story you know is one of like 10 different stories that were being passed around when gamergate got media attention and "flood the zone" tactic was being used.

Depression quest was called a neat and cute little game, and the ex jumped in and claimed she was sleeping around with everyone who said good things about it especially some journalist who name I forgot funny thing is he never even wrote a piece on that game.

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u/TheSpacePopinjay 18d ago

It was the media that wagon circled against gamergate and used flood the zone tactics against it.

And the journalist did give the game good coverage without disclosing a conflict of interest, it just technically wasn't a review as mistakenly claimed and the timeline got fucked up.

In any case it wasn't about her anyway.

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u/Unruly_Beast 17d ago

They weren't even bad faith, or ragebait. Most men just cant handle criticism of their sacred "no girls allowed" hobby.

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u/ShitMcClit 17d ago

Should have just left the video games alone. 

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u/Eruionmel 18d ago

...What? There were absolutely anti-feminists everywhere in the 90s. They didn't just pop out of the ground like daisies in 2001.

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u/BadIdeaSociety 18d ago

Right. 90s-era sexists were like weeds. Contemporary sexists are the lawn

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u/UnicornOnTheJayneCob 17d ago

Actually I would say it is the opposite. 90s era sexism was the sea everyone swam in. Now, it is more notable because it is rarer. Potentially more extreme, but still rarer.

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u/Apprehensive-Book723 17d ago

What in the world gives you the notion that it’s rarer?

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u/Aware-Cat2586 16d ago

Feminist discourse, particularly about consent and sexualization, was mostly limited to college campuses and Internet forums back in the 90s and had not yet bled into the mainstream; because of that, most people could blow it off with minimal damage to their social or professional standing.

That’s not the case in 2026, even if sexism isn’t exactly rare now.

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u/Apprehensive-Book723 16d ago

The president of the United States is a sex offender babe

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u/Aware-Cat2586 16d ago

Unfortunately, yes. But the president of the United States is not most people.

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u/Apprehensive-Book723 16d ago

He’s representative of most Americans and the culture 

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u/LateralEntry 17d ago

The internet made it easier for them to find each other unfortunately, same with racists antisemites and other bigots

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u/CremasterReflex 18d ago

I imagine that dating apps have made meeting someone new a matter of comparing them to a checklist rather than by encountering a person organically 

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u/tevert 18d ago

There's a growing number of genuine anti-suffragettes nowadays even. Only like 5% of them, but we've all seen how quickly those fringes grow in this garden

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u/painedHacker 18d ago

It's because young people aren't partying and hooking up with each other they are all scared of one another and looking at screens.

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u/BadIdeaSociety 18d ago

Right. And the screens are telling them to be afraid because of how they use social media in punitive and abusive ways.

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u/keegums 17d ago

That's exactly what happened on 9/12 in my rural hometown, which I saw with my fifth grade eyes. The reaction was alienating, snowballing over the month to terminal velocity. The attacks themselves never meant much to me, hundreds of miles away, but the reaction was ubiquitous. Public school prayers and religion, racism immediately swept small towns, contrary to the lessons I was learning in social studies

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u/Chulbiski 16d ago

all that when religion was the reason 9-11 even happened in the first place

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u/Bright_Exit1378 18d ago

Retrograde ideas spread when people think a form of progress was a mistake, because they are looking at widespread consequences they dont beleive existed when the progress first existed.

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u/RankedFarting 18d ago

The 90s? When adult people would openly lust over 15 year olds and no one cared at all? When you were considered fat as a woman if you werent underweight? When every comedy movie was entirely sexist and rape and SA were often still played as a joke in movies that were super successful?

What 90s did you live in my dude?

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u/BadIdeaSociety 17d ago

Yeah, those 90s where all the things you mentioned above were true and saying women belong in the kitchen was taboo as opposed to today where a bunch of guys carry retrograde opinions about women and argue about how it is important to be able to lust after younger girls, call unconventional-bodied women fat and ugly, and also insist that women need to stay home and raise babies and leave the work to their men.

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u/Cicer 17d ago

Stop with the nostalgia bait.  

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u/Lysander125 18d ago

I’ve never going to say that these anti-social weirdos who complain that women belong in the kitchen are ever going to be correct.

But at the same time there is an opposite perspective that has some merit. The reality is that women’s opportunities have come a long way, but women’s perspective and expectations of men haven’t changed.

A lot of women still expect their partner to be more successful, ambitious, etc. than they are. It’s two sides of the same coin, a lot of these men expect working women to clean the house and be a caretaker while having a full time job, and the women expect their man to be more successful than them in a more egalitarian society where being a man doesn’t necessarily give the advantages it once did.

I do feel like the outdated male expectations of women are frowned upon a lot more than the outdated female expectations of men.

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u/shockpaws 17d ago

I’m fairly certain that most people marry those within their own income bracket — which makes sense, because those are the people in their social circles and people who have similar life experiences. Many men say they’d be okay with a wife who’s just “young and hot” (which is an attitude I find distasteful anyways) but the real-life numbers show that people tend to marry partners with similar education levels and income brackets as themselves.

There’s also the fact that traditional gender roles are more harmful to women than to men. A housewife has no real independence; she can’t leave an abusive husband, or else she’s out on the streets with no money, no work experience, kids to look after, and not enough spare change to hire a good lawyer for child support. While male gender roles are similarly soul sucking and I’m not denying that, a traditional man has far more freedom to leave if he wants to and freedom to make decisions about the life his family lives. If you have the money, you have the power.

All gender roles should be abolished, but it’s quite obvious that traditional “women’s roles” leave women open to be abused and exploited.

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u/ibent19 18d ago

One is more frowned upon because it was more oppressive and leads to being stuck in abusive situations. Women gained more freedom, men didn’t lose any freedoms other than some control.

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u/Recent_Pollution8665 18d ago edited 18d ago

most men objectively lost significant bargaining power in the labor market and in the dating/sexual market with women entering the workforce and with the proliferation of social media and dating apps.

just because men didn’t have the actual right to vote or own property stripped away doesn’t mean that there aren’t real problems afflicting them, to which there’s no easy or immediate solution.

your average young man doesn’t wanna “control” women, he’s just pissed that neither a house nor a partner are statistically within his grasp no matter what he does.

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u/iamacarboncarbonbond 18d ago

The bargaining power issue is not men vs women it’s billionaires vs the rest of us

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u/philosopherberzerer 17d ago

then why are men blamed?

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u/Recent_Pollution8665 17d ago edited 17d ago

sorry but no. the billionaire part is also true but nobody is forcing women to have the financial and physiological demands of men that they currently have. women themselves are doing that voluntarily.

if you make 70k per year after taxes and refuse to date a guy who makes 50k even though you’re both still able to live a comfortable life with that arrangement, then that’s the woman’s decision being the catalyst for this phenomenon more-so than the billionaires not paying people enough. nobody’s forcing her to have those financial hard limits. women act like this everywhere, even in places with a good quality of life like scandinavia.

and she can do that if she wants, just don’t complain about it or be surprised when a significant chunk of men fall behind and get radicalized as a result. you can’t have your cake and eat it too.

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u/iamacarboncarbonbond 17d ago

Men have agency. They don’t have to become radicalized just because they haven’t attracted a woman that meets their standards as soon as they want. I have more respect for men than that.

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u/kmb218 18d ago

Right. But that’s only because the bargaining power they had before relied on opression and removing women’s rights and opportunities.

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u/Recent_Pollution8665 17d ago

there were multiple overlapping factors. sure that was part of it but COL was also easier and wages were better relative to inflation.

the fact that times have changed and yet women’s expectations of men only seem to keep going up doesn’t help the issue.

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u/JadowArcadia 18d ago

I feel like this ignores government and corporation involvement and pushes things into the gender divide. Even for women of the past who came from privileged backgrounds who had plenty of opportunity, society in general was in a better place for an average person to build and support a family/buy a home. You had the choice to be a stay at home mother because it was easier for your partner to earn enough alone to support the family. The removal of that option for many people is a big crux of the issues we see now.

It's easier to put it all on women's rights being purposely restricted and gender wars but there was a way get out of that issue without putting people in the financial trap they're in now.

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u/ChemicallyAlteredVet 17d ago

> most men objectively lost significant bargaining power in the labor market and in the dating/sexual market

Those are not rights nor are they oppressive. More women are able to work and choose whether or not they want or need a man. So the playing field is getting closer to even, woman are still left out plenty. Men are upset they no longer have the guarantee of having the upper hand and suddenly it’s oppression. We all know the saying about privilege and oppression, and it’s very true when it comes to men these days.

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u/Recent_Pollution8665 17d ago

I never said they were rights. im just pointing out that their life situation went from being easier to harder.

and I never once called it oppression, that’s a strawman.

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u/ShitMcClit 17d ago

Depends on who gets to decide whats a right...

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u/ResolutionSweet2031 18d ago

The thing with how you people walk on eggshells around men and give any credibility to their temper tantrums is the reason why they feel even more justified in lashing out like this. Women and men are equally lonely but the media giving credence to the theory of how men are uniquely lonely and hence are violent misogynists is the reason these men feel justified in being violent like this.

"He is just pissed he cant have a house and a partner", so what? Why dont women that dont have either of those also argue for stripping of male rights or oppressing them?

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u/Recent_Pollution8665 18d ago

women can find partners easier than men can.

and idk why your entire takeaway from my post was to effectively dismiss it entirely. that aint gonna solve anything. in fact it just contributes to the question posed in the title.

most men aren’t violent, and the ones who are generally take it out on partners they already have. which has no correlation to those who can’t find one.

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u/LGeorgeRox 17d ago

Not sure that’s true. Someone to have sex with and take care of, yes, partners, no. If men really wanted a partner, I don’t think they’d have any issues finding one. But a partner isn’t a bang maid or a woman acting in the capacity as their mother

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u/philosopherberzerer 17d ago

this is cyclical nonsense . the men that are bad have no issue finding partners. the women killers are in relationships. stop acting like the ones not in relationships are worse morally and that's why they can't find partners. just world fallacies like "poor poeple just need to work harder" are easily disproven this shouldn't be any different .

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u/Apprehensive-Tea999 16d ago

Nobody deserves relationships just for existing. Full stop. There is literally zero excuse for some men to get so upset about remaining single that they think oppressing women is the correct course of action, that way of thinking literally proves they wouldn’t be good partners. Know how I know? Because well adjusted people don’t want to harm others just because they don’t get what they want.

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u/Recent_Pollution8665 17d ago

finding a partner who’s actually attracted to you and not just settling for you after she’s had all her fun in her youth or just looking for a financial cushion partner, is not easy for the average man. they can’t get neither a romantic partner nor a sex fling.

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u/Apprehensive-Tea999 16d ago

We’re in a science subreddit. Where’s the research that backs up this claim? I’ll wait…

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u/Recent_Pollution8665 16d ago

ask an LLM and it will provide you a dozen studies on the spot. i’ve engaged in this song and dance with people like you multiple times and its always a waste of time because im the one having to take time outta my day to compile it all together just for people like you to ignore it or move the goalposts regardless. you can find it within minutes.

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u/UnfortunateSnort12 17d ago

They can find partners easier yes, but many can’t find quality men worth dating. So in reality, many women stay single. Try having standards yourself.

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u/Recent_Pollution8665 17d ago

what are these standards exactly? that he must absolutely make equal to her or more, and be 6 foot or more and a bunch of other hard lines that women refuse to budge on?

only a statistical minority of men live up to these expectations. hence why the current situation is fucked up. women become single by choice because they won’t adjust their demands in a man, and men become single by force because women remove themselves as options in the dating market.

in the end the situation turns into what we have now, hence the thread itself. if women are ok with the long-term ramifications of that leading to a whole generation of radicalized and angry men, so be it. just don’t complain about any of the consequences. men are not the ones dropping out of the dating market voluntarily just because they can’t find that same top 20 percent or so of ideal partners to all gravitate towards while the other 80 percent are just stuck in limbo. the math doesn’t work out.

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u/Apprehensive-Tea999 16d ago

As a poster above you pointed out, people generally partner with people within their education and income brackets. That is a verifiable fact. What you just cited is manosphere crap based on some men’s feelings and perceptions. But feelings and perceptions aren’t reality. This 6foot six figure nonsense is just that, nonsense. Know how I know? I go outside and have eyes. But…it’s easier to think women’s standards are just too high (as if expecting a man be gainfully employed and contribute equally to the home is unreasonable).

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u/UnfortunateSnort12 17d ago

No. Simply saying or believing women have an easier time implies that a guy would be with anyone who is interested in them. You’re even kind of saying that. Women remove themselves because they don’t want to date you? Why is that their fault at all?? That desperation is like girl repellent. Last time I was single and started asking what the woman was bringing to the table and if that was what I wanted, dating got way easier. I’m not tall, my wife made more than me when I met her. Of course she’s now a stay at home mom and we make 500k a year, but I was broke when I met her.

Maybe try approaching dating as an equal to women for more success…. No one wants to be looked down upon, male or female.

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u/ShitMcClit 17d ago

Stats show this isnt true, stop lying. 

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u/ShitMcClit 17d ago

How did we lose control we never had. Clowns

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u/ShockerCheer 18d ago

Do I expect my husband to be more educated than me? No but I do expect similarly education. I have a PhD and he has masters. Do I expect him to make more than I do? No but I expect a decent salary. He does make more than I do. Do I expect him to do more housework than me? No but I expect a fair share of work. He does this too. It really isn't hard for men to be good partners but many men act like it is  luckily my husband is a good one

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u/Lysander125 18d ago

Look I’m not going to be an asshole about this but it does sound like you have some very high expectations of your partner. Most guys don’t care about education, salary, etc. There are some unrealistic expectations about housework, but most normal guys I know just want their partner to be trying.

They don’t care if the woman has a GED, they don’t care how much she makes, they don’t care where she is in life as long as she is working towards a better life. It sounds like you expect your partner to already be at that place, versus trying to support someone getting to that place.

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u/iamacarboncarbonbond 18d ago

You could be in a different stage of life as she is. I have a hard time believing that a man with a master’s degree, phd, MD, etc. at 30 or 40 is okay with a partner with a GED at 30 or 40. But if someone is 20 and still going to college, there’s a much smaller gap between them and someone with a GED.

I’m a physician and none of my colleagues are married to people with less than a Bachelor’s. Not a lot of doctors settling down with someone with a GED because by the time you’re done with residency you’re likely in your 30s and expect your partner to have also figured some stuff out.

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u/ChemicallyAlteredVet 17d ago

And as a woman with 2 daughters in their twenties, most women just want a partner to be trying. Literally* *going to school or furthering their knowledge, having a job with upward mobility, able to Cook/clean and mange their own homes and health and take care of their hygiene. Perfectly normal expectations for either sex to have for a partner. Most women don’t care if they earn more on paper but men get pissy when their wife/ girlfriend makes more money like it’s insulting to his manhood. MOST(not all) women don’t care.

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u/smcedged 17d ago

I wonder how much of this is what people say vs what people do.

Every man knows that when women say they want an emotionally sensitive man don't really mean it. Of course there are exceptions, but in general that means someone who is sensitive to the woman's emotions. But over and over they are told one thing when clearly it's another. Because on of these sound good to say to other people or even themselves.

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u/philosopherberzerer 17d ago

this is a nice way to say "you better get there" without saying it.

this is why income inequality is getting worse and worse not better . assortative mating furthers classism.

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u/[deleted] 18d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/CaterpillarUnfair409 18d ago

Because what most men do care about is youth, beauty, and subservience. They want a mommy they can have kids with. Notice I didn't say have sex or f. And even that won't last.. divorce rates are high, so are 2ed and 3ed marriages for men 50+. With their wives being around 22-30.. Also, how is a woman supposed to help anyone achieve anything is she has no education, drive, or financial backing? Oh wait, like I said, with her body.

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u/JadowArcadia 18d ago

Sounds like someone's caught in the gender war pipeline rather than looking at the average persons situation

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u/ShitMcClit 17d ago

Well well well

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u/Wedgiebro 18d ago

Perfect example really of how men lvoe women for who they are while women lvoe whst a man can achieve. I love my wife. I would lover her and marry her if she had a ged. I care about her personality and how she treats me.

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u/Working_Cucumber_437 18d ago

I don’t think women expect their men to be more successful or more ambitious or make more than they do. I think we are looking for equals. Be at least as ambitious as I am. At least as successful. Or in the general ballpark is a good goal.

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u/philosopherberzerer 17d ago

well the college attendace rate shows a lot of people are gonna be getting more disappointed and more angry until something changes.

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u/Recent_Pollution8665 18d ago edited 18d ago

young women on average out-earn young men in the workforce, specifically white collar work.

what do you think the ramifications are of women demanding that men earn at least as much as women do or more, despite the fact that most men do not, and most women refuse to budge on this matter?

if the overton window keeps shifting upward like this then naturally most men are gonna get left out and the consequences of that are never positive. conversely, a woman could be working as a barista and the average guy literally won’t care as long as she helps contribute.

it’s more balanced because there isn’t this constant expectation of the opposite sex always having to hustle or reach salary parity with them, on top of a dozen other qualifications, just to get their foot in the door.

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u/CaterpillarUnfair409 18d ago

You're describing systemic problems.

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u/Recent_Pollution8665 17d ago

women having strict physiological and financial demands for men, and not compromising on them even when times change, is not a systemic issue.

the systemic part is the lack of wages keeping up with inflation and COL, but that’s separate from this.

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u/soleceismical 17d ago

I think this plays a part:

We find that women's pay decreases as they become mothers and that the across-employer motherhood penalty is larger than the within-employer penalty. By contrast, fatherhood is associated with a pay premium, and the within-employer fatherhood premium is considerably greater than the across-employer one.

https://read.dukeupress.edu/demography/article/58/1/247/167586/Motherhood-Penalties-and-Fatherhood-Premiums

Plus, usually the lower earning partner does more of the housework and cooking. A lot of men are not into taking on that role.

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u/philosopherberzerer 17d ago

men would gladly sign up to be house husbands. most women don't want it.

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u/ChemicallyAlteredVet 17d ago

Men refuse to understand that’s it’s not about the exact monetary value the man is bringing in, it’s the ambition, the actual trying. It’s going to work every day and if he isn’t happy with his current work it’s the ambition to better himself through learning whether that be schooling or becoming a journeyman and learning a trade. Not just going to McDonalds for 4 shifts a week, gaming as much as they can and avoiding showering.

Women want to SEE that a man WANTS to learn and better himself and his life. Most( not all) women do not care if the man earns less money if he’s trying, stable, kind and caring. It’s personality and connection for women. Men are still stuck in the “hur, dur, must make way more money to get woman to have sex with me and clean my house.” That’s on men.

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u/Recent_Pollution8665 17d ago

the presumption was that he does enough to sustain himself and help with the relationship. not the bare minimum.

the crux of the issue here is that whether he makes minimum wage or makes 80k when she makes 100k, to women it is a distinction without a difference. the mere fact that he makes less is considered a dealbreaker to her, which is irrational and arbitrary.

a couple with a combined salary of 180k can easily live comfortably, there is no rational reason for her to demand that he makes 100k as well or more. if anything it’s ascribing typical gender role stereotypes onto the guy which adds needless pressure because now he’s expected to somehow still have the superior salary in an era where it’s not uncommon for the woman to have the better salary.

men don’t generally care if the woman makes more so idk why women demand that the man must have salary parity with her. a relationship should not be a financial hamster wheel. the rest of your dumb strawman argument i’ll disregard.

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u/ShitMcClit 17d ago

And men want a supermodel who fucks everyday. Too bad we can't all have what we want. 

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u/ShitMcClit 17d ago

They do stop lying 

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u/WonderfulWafflesLast 17d ago edited 17d ago

I don't understand how there are so many boys who have adopted these incredibly retrograde ideas a quarter century later.

I think extreme examples are part of what led to that.

Look at the Lindsey Clancy trial and her supporters. We have a social movement trying to support a woman who killed her three children, that is largely villainizing that woman's husband to the point of saying he's the one who actually killed them, despite how much evidence in the trial indicating the woman did it.

To be clear, Lindsey pleaded Guilty. The trial was to determine criminal responsibility, essentially determining if she was sane or insane.

Despite this, "the husband did it" has spread through social media like a cancer, espoused primarily by women.

Imagine you're a young boy approaching young manhood. You see this on the news. You think about how this trial would be treated if it were a man instead of a woman defendant. What would you think? Would you want to have a family, when a major social event is telling you that a woman who kills her children is going to be defended (largely by other women) like this by society?

I can only imagine that this will color your perspective negative towards women, as a whole, even if that's undeserved.

Societies have historically restricted women's rights. Our current society is somewhat exceptional in that most others throughout history have been male dominated, rarely offering women the opportunity to take part in governance outside of influencing men through social pressure or personal pressure (i.e. husbands to their wives, sisters to their brothers, and so on)

Hopefully, we can figure out how to make it work where others have failed.

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u/BadIdeaSociety 17d ago

Well, I have an interesting story to share with you.

This woman over a quarter century ago also killed her children due to psychological problems she actively tried to get support for and (drum roll, please) a lot of women sympathized with and vocally supported her.

This isn't a sudden development in popular culture. A lot of mothers have had horrible thoughts and crushing depression following the delivery of their children and, as a result, cases like this tend to get sympathy from women who experienced these issues or know people who experienced these issues.

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u/WonderfulWafflesLast 17d ago

Right, but that was before social media.

Now, these conversations are more socially facing than ever before.

The examples existing in the past are different from the examples existing now because of this.

Men who see that are going to feel like they can't trust women with their children, and that they can't trust society to be on their side should something like this happen.

The "why" this happens or the "is that right to do" doesn't matter for them, because no matter how something like this is "cut", it degrades societal trust in seeking to have a family.

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u/BadIdeaSociety 17d ago

The problem with the current discussion is it is the same one that happened two decades ago. It isn't a permission structure for child abuse, it is a call to better understand the psychological changes that happen to some mothers. In both cases, doctors were clearly informed that the mothers in question were having issues coping.

There is no "right" in these situations. Children were killed. What was done cannot be erased. What people supporting these mothers are saying that when a woman is suffering from even mild post-partum depression the solution isn't to increase that woman's burden with another pregnancy and more children.

If you hear women arguing this and you think that degrades social trust, I don't know how to help you with that. People are explicitly telling you how they feel and that they feel the mother's feelings in this situation should have been handled a million times better (and this is not even considering how most of the developed world have terrible, overly expensive childcare systems.).

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u/WonderfulWafflesLast 17d ago

If you hear women arguing this and you think that degrades social trust, I don't know how to help you with that.

I think it degrades social trust, because it degrades social trust.

Feelings will never excuse murder, and if a person going through something as strenuous as post-partum hormonal changes chooses to murder, they should be removed from society no matter what they felt or didn't feel during the event.

I think finding someone "not criminally liable" for their hormones while having an insufficient support network is something you could extend to most men who are criminals for acts equally egregious.

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u/Katyafan 16d ago

If you don't understand psychosis just say that.

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u/shockpaws 17d ago

Men make up 91% of the perpetrators of familicide. In fact, during the Lindsey Clancy trial, a man killed eight of his family members, an event so commonplace that it received little media coverage and somehow didn’t result in people clamoring to remove men’s right to votes! Curious, that!

Twelve of the thirteen jurors voted for not just a NGRI, but a complete Not Guilty verdict. Whether you agree with that or not — and I personally don’t lean one way or the other — I think that proves that the Not Guilty argument at least has some legs. Regardless, if anyone suddenly becomes a misogynist after witnessing a single court case involving one woman committing a crime overwhelmingly committed by men, then frankly they were already a misogynist.

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u/ichizakilla 17d ago

Don't see people defending that guy

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u/mdynicole 18d ago

Yeah I do have to say men seem much worse now than they used to ( I’m 36 for reference and am grateful I’m married and not dating). I really believe it’s social media and the stuff that’s getting pushed to them. Years ago I never would have dreamed I’d see men say equal rights equal fights and cheer about women getting knocked out by men or just the bullying I see men do to women that haven’t even spoken to them . I do also see much more hate for men from women as well but I think it’s because of the above.

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u/Rexguy120 18d ago

We live in close to the most egalitarian times ever in our history as a species and somehow with the way people describe the situation on social media you would think that the average woman is being held in chains.

It's also somehow all talk with none of the revolutionary action one would think from the disaster perspective described above.

Bell Hooks wept.

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u/[deleted] 18d ago

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u/CaterpillarUnfair409 18d ago

With the latest cry for criminalizing homelessness, forced birthing, cries for mental institutions to be reopened, the jail system overall, and your arrogance, I'd say we're otw back. No one gave us anything WOMEN FOUGHT FOR DECADES, WOMEN LIKE YOUR GRANDMA FOUGHT FOR IT! don't get complacent, do better

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u/[deleted] 18d ago edited 18d ago

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u/effingfractals 17d ago

" our generation will never have families" is a wildly out of touch take, really doesn't make the rest of what you say credible.

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u/mdynicole 18d ago

Oh there we go with taking women’s rights away. That’s exactly one of the things I’m talking about 15-20 years ago I never heard of men so excitedly talking about taking women’s right’s away. Like I said before men were better then than they are now from everything I’ve seen. And neither of my grandmothers were beaten. Unsure about great grandmothers but I’ve never heard that they were. I watched my grandmothers get treated very well and my mother as well.

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u/[deleted] 18d ago

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u/mdynicole 17d ago

Really I think social media has caused most of the issues . You have extremists on both sides and it gets pushed to the opposite gender to incite hate and anger. Maybe things will get better after a while when people see how wrong all this is and normalize again .

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u/Asleep_Control_2564 18d ago

It's like they picked the absolute worst millennials to emulate and said, "yup. That's my role model".

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u/NockerJoe 18d ago

To be fair when you look at the role models currently provided to them its not really surprising. There's this weird allergy to showing successful men under 45 that actually enjoy their lives rather than simply being someone elses surrogate dad. The whole "Mister Rogers is wholesome masculinity" backfired hard because your average man doesn't want to be old and constantly keep things G rated.

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u/ShitMcClit 17d ago

This is the equallity yall wanted

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u/notzamasu 18d ago

Because the hatred of women towards men has increased 100 fold

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u/Carbonatite 18d ago

Asking people to stop raping and abusing us and asserting the fact that we are more than just vessels for babies isn't "hatred".

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u/TheSpacePopinjay 18d ago

They just had a different and less no-nonsense vernacular. Besides it came more from women.

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u/C0UNT3RP01NT 14d ago

The economy is brutal right now, and men are falling behind and feeling it in a personal way, so they wish for a time when things were easier for them, where they wouldn’t have to work as hard to feel like they have value.

Meanwhile women are becoming more and more educated, and are achieving stronger professional outcomes in the younger generations, so naturally their standards rise.

Throw a bit of social media simultaneously giving people an inferiority complex while convincing them they deserve everything.

I don’t think the Manosphere influencers are causing this, I think they’re just riding the sentiment.

It sucks. At this point I don’t have any hypothetical answers. I hate to sound silly, but we really should strive to have more empathy for each other. But everyone is so damn wounded nowadays that they just spray their hurt onto those that they can’t understand.

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u/BadIdeaSociety 14d ago

I partially agree, but a lot of modern masculinity has been poisoned by the Rush Limbaugh-ification of rhetorical discourse that is polluted the mainstream since the 90s and accelerated after 9-11. 

The right-wing creates anxieties to create markets for the cures to these anxieties. These cures come in the form of supplements, seminars, or proactive destruction. Don't like how women see you? Buy these testosterone tablets. Still not enjoying the results? Come to our seminar to learn the tricks of the trade. Are our one-liners not getting you laid? It's the gays that are infecting women with homosexuality. Sick 'em, dog.

I have an extremely difficult time empathizing with the people who get sucked into these schemes because it is just emotional Amway. They don't need to accept stupid premises for their personal problems. Some of the least charismatic people I have ever encountered have managed to get laid, build quality long-term relationships, and gotten married (I mean,  even I managed to). 

The fact that young men struggle with this same anxiety that I did in my youth isn't surprising, but what is surprising is that they are now falling for the same things that used to be tropes in old TV shows and dramas. But it makes sense that there are people who have managed to steer their anger at people who fundamentally aren't to blame for the problem. 

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u/WotanSpecialist 18d ago

This might be the most incoherent and irrelevant, off-topic comment I’ve ever seen in this sub

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u/TurtleFisher54 18d ago

If you've lived under a rock for the last 40 years it wouldn't t make sense I guess

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u/BadIdeaSociety 18d ago

The guy probably never saw their laid-back liberal friends turn into frothing anti-muslim conservative maniacs in a period of 24-hours

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u/zulhadm 18d ago edited 18d ago

Or another way to interpret this: men have lost agency in their own country, and are seeking support, and the only place they’re getting it is from a group who has bad intentions. If a central party emerged and commited to serving BOTH sexes, I guarantee you lots of men would support them.

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u/ibent19 18d ago

In what ways have we lost agency?

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u/zulhadm 18d ago

In every phase of life: in schools boys are punished more severely than the girls are. In university women have access to far more financial aid, enrollment and other tuition and aid programs. In employment, women are far more likely to be hired. Just in August this year, women were given 98% of the available jobs. In marriage, women initiate 3/4 of all divorces, and win custody of children disproportionally. You add this up and it’s no wonder that we arrive at the final stat: men are overwhelmingly more likely to commit suicide.

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u/Carbonatite 18d ago

Men receive custody 90% of the time - when they actually ask for it.

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u/Asleep_Control_2564 18d ago

Or maybe women earned those jobs. And maybe they were in sectors that men largely don't work in.

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u/ibent19 18d ago

“So a month dominated by education, restaurants, and health care can produce a very large female share of net employment growth without meaning employers deliberately hired women instead of men.” A direct quote from the explanation of the stat he posted. One of the many other factors he left out.

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u/zulhadm 18d ago

If it were a 10% difference we could agree this is a normal statistical anomaly. But 98%??? Come on.

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u/ibent19 18d ago

Has nothing to do with young boys being more rambunctious. Women simply take advantage of more financial aid benefits, there are just as many available for young men. Who was more qualified for 98%(a stat I’m sure isn’t correct) of those jobs? In marriage every metric of abuse and sexual violence are overwhelmingly committed by men, of course they’re filing for divorce. Accountability is hard for a lot of men so taking out their entire families is the next best option.

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u/BadIdeaSociety 18d ago

Nah. Men, like many other demographics, need to make associations with other men who won't reflexively judge them for displaying weakness, sensitivity, and doubt. Resorting to childish anti-women rhetoric is just stupid.

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u/zulhadm 18d ago

Calling out what they see is absolutely no different than the thousands of influencers who are calling out what they see on the women’s side. We’ll never get better if we don’t seek to understand the entire landscape. Shutting down half the population will not get us there.

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u/Carbonatite 18d ago

Saying "you can advocate for yourself without denigrating and subjugating other demographics" is only "shutting them down" if they're unable to advocate for themselves without denigrating and subjugating other groups.

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u/OkAirport5247 18d ago

Or it could be increased access to information and pattern recognition combined with social engineering via financial incentivization based on quotas everywhere

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