THANK YOU, Jennifer! Every time this happens, there is absolutely NO concern expressed about the perpetrator.
I thought it was disgusting that the one politician referred to him as a "deranged monster". What a horrible thing to say about a child!
The only thing/things I might add to your list involve the child's family life. We have to somehow understand what's going on in servely dysfunctional families for these boys to end up so hurt and angry.
This is a great list and articulates the ways of better supporting our boys to support their well-being, bring out their best selves, and prevent violence as well. Win-win-win.
Roles can take many forms. I was a "bandie" in school (trumpet), and also directed high school and middle school bands for a time. I noticed that a lot of students, particularly boys, thrived in the sense of being part of something -- so many kids were eager to help the cause, be that setting up the stage for the concert, putting up posters, etc. Great point about finding roles for boys and young men.
I feel that still too few people understand these concepts, especially the point about empathy -- thanks for sharing this important message.
I'm a music kid too. (Choir, not band, in my case). And I'm so glad the music department existed! As you know, music can be a great outlet & community, and that's especially important for kids who don't fit into/aren't interested in athletics or whatever else the dominant paradigm is where they are.
Hear, hear, Jennifer! I would also like to know how much being the “designated scapegoat” in a family harms boys. I’ve seen the designated scapegoat concept come up several times from both adult men and adult women but I wonder if there are gender differences in how children cope with being the designated scapegoat.
There would be a lot less Teen violence If we all followed this simple basic advice. Its one of those things that we adults should not have to be told.
Afterthought - maybe it's not so simple. We adults need to be reminded that our kids need to be our top priority as they are the future of our world. We get so wrapped up in our own material interests that we get complacent to what really matters ... thanks Jennifer, for calling us out and helping us to focus on our kids.
These are good, big, thoughtful questions & I'm glad you feel safe asking them here. I definitely don't have all the answers. I do know that there *are thoughtful men working to understand why boys & young men are flailing & working to help them. (See the work of Richard V. Reeves at @OfBoysandMen, Mark Sutton, Next Gen Men, & others) And I do know that there are men -- including those I just mentioned -- who care a lot about the thriving of non-men. As you point out, there is still much, much work to be done.
As a man, it's incredibly obvious why men don't support each other, and it's always disheartening to see how women have turned their own valid negative experiences into overt prejudice against all of us.
"Misandry" is not even a word in most people's dictionary - women generally laugh at the notion, as if the fact that thousands of years of unfair domination somehow gives me a protective mental shield that makes me invulnerable to emotional distress.
At the same time, people will complain that men don't open up and deal with our emotions in a healthy way, while diminishing us for doing so, claiming we're spoiled and entitled. You can't want us to be open and emotional and then chide and dismiss us when we do. Eventually once we realize no outlets exist, we just kill ourselves, either directly, or through drinking ourselves to death or engaging in increasingly dangerous activities. I know I'm basically circling the drain myself. I think there's good odds I'm dead within 5 years, probably by my own hand.
You're asking people who were bred specifically to /not care/, to care about each other. Women are trained from birth to care about things. Men are fairly simple creatures and our main M/O is to try and find ways to constructively contribute to our community, but our cultural zeitgeist has largely operated to deprive us of those roadmaps. Since I was born in the 90s, I've only ever seen a world that lionized women's achievement - men might be the "default" in many situations, but it's foolish to mistake that for targeted assistance. Being the "default" doesn't feel like a warm weighted blanket, it feels like nothing at all. In my life, advice targeted specifically at men has been only one of one sort: "Don't gangbang, don't murder, don't rape. Don't be the toxic man your biology dictates you really ought to be." Well, isn't that just dandy.
And it's not as if the amount of violence inflicted on women doesn't make men feel bad. Certainly for me, it makes me feel awful. I have very little emotional response to violence visited on men, but violence against women triggers me immensely. A woman is precious, a man is expendable.
In our current zeitgeist, women can do everything men can do, and often better. On the other hand, men can't do everything women can do, and many of the things we can't do are the things most important to living a fulfilling and meaningful life namely, building intimate connections and being able to love things. Many more men are isolated, lonely and single than women today, the disparities are pretty enormous.
Today, being a man feels a useless role. Trades, vocational, physical, and military labor, historically largely the realm of men and for understandable reasons, have had their social value attacked and diminished in favor of liberal arts education above all, which women dominate men at in all aspects. So men's only real domain is sports, which women are now becoming equals in, so it appears to many of us that society is determined to give us absolutely no special role where we can feel uniquely useful.
As a man born in 1995, the lionshare of my life experience has actively beat me over the head with the notion that women are better than me at everything - they're more socially desirable, smarter, more attractive, more mature, more academically successful, more capable at every job I can, they have more friends, they are more capable of expressing themselves, etc. Woodshop, auto shop, and other traditionally "male" extracurriculars no longer exist in great quantity. So men turn to unproductive but reasonably fulfilling activities they can do even if society rejects them - drugs, porn and video games.
Today, I think about trying to create some kind of men's support group, but I have treatment-resistant major depressive disorder, spend basically every day thinking that the algebra of my life is deeply in the red, pointing towards an imminent suicide, that I have no romantic prospects, no serious prospects for ever finding connection/friends, and see everyday that an enormous percentage of the population of women basically hate men or fear us to an absolutely incredible degree (see man or bear)
So why as a man suffering immensely, who recognizes the problems, and even bears the goodwill enough to wish good on similar men, do I do nothing? It's because I basically gave up on myself and humanity as a whole. Women can do everything we can and better, so you all can just manage on your own, without us in it.
Stefan -- Thank you for sharing your story & experiences. In your last paragraph, you write that you're doing "nothing" (despite the fact that you recognize the problems & want better for men). I think you ARE doing something. You are sharing your experience, here at least, and that's valuable b/c people who don't see/hear the real, lived experience of men & boys are unlikely to care & do something about it. I don't know you personally, but my oldest son was born just 2 yrs after you, so he (& all my boys) grew up during the same era you did. You're right: You grew up in & were immersed in a world that said over & over again that girls are great & you saw (and see) the girls you went to school with & grew up with exceling. You saw traditional male roles & outlets shrink & not much pop up to fill their space, except maybe the online world. I know I'm only 1 person, but *I* think you have a lot to offer the world & that the world has a lot to offer you, so I truly hope you stick around. (I also know how horrible depression can be. I struggle w it myself, so I realize that's a real factor in your life & perception. I hope you keep trying, hope you continue to seek professional support & treatment. You deserve hope and love and fulfillment, & I think you can get it. The 988 lifeline is open 24/7 -- you can call or text 988 at any time. More info is here: https://988lifeline.org/) Sending you love!
"And it's not as if the amount of violence inflicted on women doesn't make men feel bad. Certainly for me, it makes me feel awful. I have very little emotional response to violence visited on men, but violence against women triggers me immensely. A woman is precious, a man is expendable."
That is SO TRUE, and it is GENERALLY TRUE for most men. Even with respect to my own suffering: for example, it never occurred to me that the pain of having been sexually abused as a child was of ANYONE else's concern. After all, when a man molests a boy, why should that be anyone else's concern?
The only pain that I have felt in relation to that trauma is the pain of realizing that the world's only interest in helping boys is owed to an explicit desire to "fix us" in such a way that benefits "society" (girls and women). I keep my history of personal sexual abuse close to my chest because the first, and largely only, concern of those who learn what I've been through is: "he might become a perpetrator". And that truly is a painful experience. I don't expect empathy from the world, and I certainly don't expect it from women, but to be treated as a potential perpetrator of the kind of abuse to which I was personally subjected has become simply too unacceptable for me to bare quietly. I've never felt entitled to love or acceptance, all I've ever wanted was to feel like a valid human being without being told to reject my essential nature as a boy and, now, a man. To be a boy or a man today is to live under the constant demoralizing pressure of being treated in spite of ourselves, of being treated in spite of the humanity that apparently no one else recognizes beyond the calcified boundaries of our own minds. The status of women and girls as essentially and ineffably HUMAN has never been in question, what is in doubt is the status of men and boys as essentially valid and worthy parts of the human whole: every where we look our existential position is under attack, some call us "obsolete" and believe that we have no distinct value as men and boys, and others regard us contemptuously as essentially more trouble than we're worth. Many boys and young men have come to accept that the world would be a better place without them in it, and it is precisely that existential despair that results in the manifestation of nihilistic behaviors: suicide, homicide, mass shootings, addiction, etc. And how does society respond to these patterns of nihilistic despair? By furthering the underlying existential doubt that boys and men have a unique and essential part to play in LIFE ITSELF.
I understand (I think) why you feel that way. And as a man, I feel I want to offer solutions to your challenges (problems?) I wont - since you didn't ask. But I invite you to read my substack "Worthless men", maybe there is something there to help you see the underlying mechanisms? (https://substack.com/@alfafarfar/p-144681051) It's not as nefarious as it may seem. But it is bleak to be a man.
So your theory is that men have less empathy for women than women do for men? Seriously? The assumptions you are making are self-evidently erroneous, the reason why so few men are speaking on behalf of boys and men is because men generally care FAR MORE about the welfare of women and girls then they do about men and boys; not to mention the fact that men who DO deign to care about boys and men, men such Warren Farrel and Jordan Peterson, are SYSTEMICALLY DEMONIZED BY A SOCIETY THAT HAS NOTHING BUT CONTEMPT FOR MEN AND BOYS. Your belief that women and girls had been "struggling" throughout history any more than men and boys is historically ignorant in the extreme, men have ALWAYS sacrificed for women; so even if your resentful attitude of revenge were morally right (which it isn't), the perception upon which you have derived your sense of revenge is based on nothing more than a mischaracterization of human history.
Lance, did you read the article? I'm not AT ALL saying that men have less empathy for women then women do for men. I'm saying that boys & men need more empathy from the rest of us. I'm saying that the world at large needs to show more empathy FOR boys & men.
THANK YOU, Jennifer! Every time this happens, there is absolutely NO concern expressed about the perpetrator.
I thought it was disgusting that the one politician referred to him as a "deranged monster". What a horrible thing to say about a child!
The only thing/things I might add to your list involve the child's family life. We have to somehow understand what's going on in servely dysfunctional families for these boys to end up so hurt and angry.
Agreed- family is so important. Somehow, we have to find a way to culturally support families as well. Raising kids is hard, important work.
This is a great list and articulates the ways of better supporting our boys to support their well-being, bring out their best selves, and prevent violence as well. Win-win-win.
Roles can take many forms. I was a "bandie" in school (trumpet), and also directed high school and middle school bands for a time. I noticed that a lot of students, particularly boys, thrived in the sense of being part of something -- so many kids were eager to help the cause, be that setting up the stage for the concert, putting up posters, etc. Great point about finding roles for boys and young men.
I feel that still too few people understand these concepts, especially the point about empathy -- thanks for sharing this important message.
I'm a music kid too. (Choir, not band, in my case). And I'm so glad the music department existed! As you know, music can be a great outlet & community, and that's especially important for kids who don't fit into/aren't interested in athletics or whatever else the dominant paradigm is where they are.
Hear, hear, Jennifer! I would also like to know how much being the “designated scapegoat” in a family harms boys. I’ve seen the designated scapegoat concept come up several times from both adult men and adult women but I wonder if there are gender differences in how children cope with being the designated scapegoat.
There would be a lot less Teen violence If we all followed this simple basic advice. Its one of those things that we adults should not have to be told.
Afterthought - maybe it's not so simple. We adults need to be reminded that our kids need to be our top priority as they are the future of our world. We get so wrapped up in our own material interests that we get complacent to what really matters ... thanks Jennifer, for calling us out and helping us to focus on our kids.
These are good, big, thoughtful questions & I'm glad you feel safe asking them here. I definitely don't have all the answers. I do know that there *are thoughtful men working to understand why boys & young men are flailing & working to help them. (See the work of Richard V. Reeves at @OfBoysandMen, Mark Sutton, Next Gen Men, & others) And I do know that there are men -- including those I just mentioned -- who care a lot about the thriving of non-men. As you point out, there is still much, much work to be done.
As a man, it's incredibly obvious why men don't support each other, and it's always disheartening to see how women have turned their own valid negative experiences into overt prejudice against all of us.
"Misandry" is not even a word in most people's dictionary - women generally laugh at the notion, as if the fact that thousands of years of unfair domination somehow gives me a protective mental shield that makes me invulnerable to emotional distress.
At the same time, people will complain that men don't open up and deal with our emotions in a healthy way, while diminishing us for doing so, claiming we're spoiled and entitled. You can't want us to be open and emotional and then chide and dismiss us when we do. Eventually once we realize no outlets exist, we just kill ourselves, either directly, or through drinking ourselves to death or engaging in increasingly dangerous activities. I know I'm basically circling the drain myself. I think there's good odds I'm dead within 5 years, probably by my own hand.
You're asking people who were bred specifically to /not care/, to care about each other. Women are trained from birth to care about things. Men are fairly simple creatures and our main M/O is to try and find ways to constructively contribute to our community, but our cultural zeitgeist has largely operated to deprive us of those roadmaps. Since I was born in the 90s, I've only ever seen a world that lionized women's achievement - men might be the "default" in many situations, but it's foolish to mistake that for targeted assistance. Being the "default" doesn't feel like a warm weighted blanket, it feels like nothing at all. In my life, advice targeted specifically at men has been only one of one sort: "Don't gangbang, don't murder, don't rape. Don't be the toxic man your biology dictates you really ought to be." Well, isn't that just dandy.
And it's not as if the amount of violence inflicted on women doesn't make men feel bad. Certainly for me, it makes me feel awful. I have very little emotional response to violence visited on men, but violence against women triggers me immensely. A woman is precious, a man is expendable.
In our current zeitgeist, women can do everything men can do, and often better. On the other hand, men can't do everything women can do, and many of the things we can't do are the things most important to living a fulfilling and meaningful life namely, building intimate connections and being able to love things. Many more men are isolated, lonely and single than women today, the disparities are pretty enormous.
Today, being a man feels a useless role. Trades, vocational, physical, and military labor, historically largely the realm of men and for understandable reasons, have had their social value attacked and diminished in favor of liberal arts education above all, which women dominate men at in all aspects. So men's only real domain is sports, which women are now becoming equals in, so it appears to many of us that society is determined to give us absolutely no special role where we can feel uniquely useful.
As a man born in 1995, the lionshare of my life experience has actively beat me over the head with the notion that women are better than me at everything - they're more socially desirable, smarter, more attractive, more mature, more academically successful, more capable at every job I can, they have more friends, they are more capable of expressing themselves, etc. Woodshop, auto shop, and other traditionally "male" extracurriculars no longer exist in great quantity. So men turn to unproductive but reasonably fulfilling activities they can do even if society rejects them - drugs, porn and video games.
Today, I think about trying to create some kind of men's support group, but I have treatment-resistant major depressive disorder, spend basically every day thinking that the algebra of my life is deeply in the red, pointing towards an imminent suicide, that I have no romantic prospects, no serious prospects for ever finding connection/friends, and see everyday that an enormous percentage of the population of women basically hate men or fear us to an absolutely incredible degree (see man or bear)
So why as a man suffering immensely, who recognizes the problems, and even bears the goodwill enough to wish good on similar men, do I do nothing? It's because I basically gave up on myself and humanity as a whole. Women can do everything we can and better, so you all can just manage on your own, without us in it.
Stefan -- Thank you for sharing your story & experiences. In your last paragraph, you write that you're doing "nothing" (despite the fact that you recognize the problems & want better for men). I think you ARE doing something. You are sharing your experience, here at least, and that's valuable b/c people who don't see/hear the real, lived experience of men & boys are unlikely to care & do something about it. I don't know you personally, but my oldest son was born just 2 yrs after you, so he (& all my boys) grew up during the same era you did. You're right: You grew up in & were immersed in a world that said over & over again that girls are great & you saw (and see) the girls you went to school with & grew up with exceling. You saw traditional male roles & outlets shrink & not much pop up to fill their space, except maybe the online world. I know I'm only 1 person, but *I* think you have a lot to offer the world & that the world has a lot to offer you, so I truly hope you stick around. (I also know how horrible depression can be. I struggle w it myself, so I realize that's a real factor in your life & perception. I hope you keep trying, hope you continue to seek professional support & treatment. You deserve hope and love and fulfillment, & I think you can get it. The 988 lifeline is open 24/7 -- you can call or text 988 at any time. More info is here: https://988lifeline.org/) Sending you love!
"And it's not as if the amount of violence inflicted on women doesn't make men feel bad. Certainly for me, it makes me feel awful. I have very little emotional response to violence visited on men, but violence against women triggers me immensely. A woman is precious, a man is expendable."
That is SO TRUE, and it is GENERALLY TRUE for most men. Even with respect to my own suffering: for example, it never occurred to me that the pain of having been sexually abused as a child was of ANYONE else's concern. After all, when a man molests a boy, why should that be anyone else's concern?
Because all children deserve protection, love, & care. I'm sorry that happened to you, Lance.
The only pain that I have felt in relation to that trauma is the pain of realizing that the world's only interest in helping boys is owed to an explicit desire to "fix us" in such a way that benefits "society" (girls and women). I keep my history of personal sexual abuse close to my chest because the first, and largely only, concern of those who learn what I've been through is: "he might become a perpetrator". And that truly is a painful experience. I don't expect empathy from the world, and I certainly don't expect it from women, but to be treated as a potential perpetrator of the kind of abuse to which I was personally subjected has become simply too unacceptable for me to bare quietly. I've never felt entitled to love or acceptance, all I've ever wanted was to feel like a valid human being without being told to reject my essential nature as a boy and, now, a man. To be a boy or a man today is to live under the constant demoralizing pressure of being treated in spite of ourselves, of being treated in spite of the humanity that apparently no one else recognizes beyond the calcified boundaries of our own minds. The status of women and girls as essentially and ineffably HUMAN has never been in question, what is in doubt is the status of men and boys as essentially valid and worthy parts of the human whole: every where we look our existential position is under attack, some call us "obsolete" and believe that we have no distinct value as men and boys, and others regard us contemptuously as essentially more trouble than we're worth. Many boys and young men have come to accept that the world would be a better place without them in it, and it is precisely that existential despair that results in the manifestation of nihilistic behaviors: suicide, homicide, mass shootings, addiction, etc. And how does society respond to these patterns of nihilistic despair? By furthering the underlying existential doubt that boys and men have a unique and essential part to play in LIFE ITSELF.
I understand (I think) why you feel that way. And as a man, I feel I want to offer solutions to your challenges (problems?) I wont - since you didn't ask. But I invite you to read my substack "Worthless men", maybe there is something there to help you see the underlying mechanisms? (https://substack.com/@alfafarfar/p-144681051) It's not as nefarious as it may seem. But it is bleak to be a man.
So your theory is that men have less empathy for women than women do for men? Seriously? The assumptions you are making are self-evidently erroneous, the reason why so few men are speaking on behalf of boys and men is because men generally care FAR MORE about the welfare of women and girls then they do about men and boys; not to mention the fact that men who DO deign to care about boys and men, men such Warren Farrel and Jordan Peterson, are SYSTEMICALLY DEMONIZED BY A SOCIETY THAT HAS NOTHING BUT CONTEMPT FOR MEN AND BOYS. Your belief that women and girls had been "struggling" throughout history any more than men and boys is historically ignorant in the extreme, men have ALWAYS sacrificed for women; so even if your resentful attitude of revenge were morally right (which it isn't), the perception upon which you have derived your sense of revenge is based on nothing more than a mischaracterization of human history.
Lance, did you read the article? I'm not AT ALL saying that men have less empathy for women then women do for men. I'm saying that boys & men need more empathy from the rest of us. I'm saying that the world at large needs to show more empathy FOR boys & men.
I appreciate the reply, to clarify, I was responding to Karen Dabaghian's comment. I don't object to what you've said.
Got it. Thank you.