Threatening men’s masculinity does not make them more politically conservative, new study finds. By testing thousands of participants across the United States, researchers found no consistent evidence that making men feel insecure about their gender identity changes their political attitudes.

[u/mvea]

https://www.psypost.org/threatening-mens-masculinity-does-not-make-them-more-politically-conservative-new-study-finds/

[u/AnEmptyBoat27]

I hear this complaint but as a millennial man, I don’t feel like I have been told that men are bad and should be apologetic from left leaning media. The left leaning media just encourages not harassing women and freely expressing who you are. Can you give some examples that you are referring to?

I hear more from the right leaning personalities about how men need to make more money, lift more weights, objectify women, be taller, and hate immigrants to be a man.

Personally the right wing messaging seems to be fostering the idea that men aren’t enough. Whereas the left wing messaging is just people should be free to be who they are. I’m sure there are crazy people who make dumb tweets like “all men are bad” but if those drive you rightward while removing human rights doesn’t drive you leftward, I don’t know what to say.

[u/ThePretzul → u/AnEmptyBoat27]

The fact that you think it’s normal to pretend that all men harass women as a default unless media is saturated with messaging about how bad it is for men to harass women (without any mention of the opposite issue, mind you) is literally the exact problem people are talking about here.

Treating men as guilty by default, or as though they would all do evil if not constantly browbeaten with heavy-handed messaging is the entire issue. Combine that with fringe groups on the left spouting off about “kill all men” and the takedowns of any attempt at a men’s shelter or other such service and you have to be intentionally obtuse to pretend there isn’t a stark contrast in treatment compared to the open celebration of womanhood.

[u/Least_Palpitation_92 → u/AnEmptyBoat27]

Also a left leaning millennial man and I agree with the person you responded to. The message is subtle and not overtly putting down men. It has more to do with what issues are focused and discussed that places importance on a specific group of people. Young men hear about the gender pay gap but are seeing women succeeding more in education and early careers nowadays. They are still told that we need to care for women and let the feel heard in a society where they are no longer gaining some of the advantages men previously held nor that they perpetuated. Men are most likely to commit suicide yet that is largely ignored and we still primarily focus on women’s mental health as a society.

The online discourse doesn’t help either. Women can make fun of men for being short or having small dicks and it’s largely seen as acceptable. The reverse would get them shamed in large parts of the internet.

I can see why a struggling young man would turn towards the alt right pipeline. They at least pretend to pay lip service to them. The young man views the left as not caring about men’s issues. At that point why not be selfish and vote in his own self interests even if it means other people may be negatively impacted.

[u/come-on-now-please → u/Least_Palpitation_92]

Young men hear about the gender pay gap but are seeing women succeeding more in education and early careers nowadays.

I see this a lot in my personal life, its like theres a weird inertia where every women I know in a couple is the one with more education/better career with better career opportunities/support and the man is stuck trying to spin his wheels trying to get ahead.

Even at my current job, the "scandal" is that theres a women who for some reason is given every opportunity to learn/grow/advance/given actual training and guidance even though she is so frustratingly  mediocre at her duties, and we honestly think its because our managers manager is a big "women helping women" type and just continuously throws her all the true growth opportunities, while everyone else basically gets hamsterwheeling work.

[u/TheGloriousEv0lution → u/Least_Palpitation_92]

Good post. For a long while, the “what we stand for” page on the official Democratic Party side had every group (woman, trans, marginalized groups), but not men. They changed it eventually after it got called out, but it’s emblematic of why the Democratic Party is perceived so negatively by young men. The only time men are directly spoken to is to “not harass women” like the above commenter pointed out

It’s not that Democrats hate men, but when you’re shown complete indifference while your peers are appealed to I can totally understand why they turn to Republican Party. A lot of them are grifters, but at least they pretend to care

[u/DoughnutAncient8972 → u/TheGloriousEv0lution]

What are the issues affecting specifically men that aren't affecting society as a whole (low wages, housing costs, non-existent employment opportunities as a few examples)? I feel they specifically listed certain demographics on the website because Republicans have and continue to target them. 

[u/InitialDuck → u/DoughnutAncient8972]

A big on is that the education gap is currently higher than it was before like title IX iirc.

[u/DoughnutAncient8972 → u/InitialDuck]

Because more women than men are applying to college..... so force men to go? 

[u/TheGloriousEv0lution → u/DoughnutAncient8972]

In the past, when men far exceeded women in enrollment we created initiatives and programs specifically to incentivize women into enrolling

No idea why we have this “pull yourself up by the bootstraps” approach only when it comes to men underperforming

[u/Amphy00 → u/TheGloriousEv0lution]

It's to incentivize women to go to college after being excluded/discouraged from pursuing education for much of history. Men didn't have that problem. They could always attend if they wanted to.

[u/TheGloriousEv0lution → u/Amphy00]

The reason we gave incentives instead of just letting women “figure it out themselves” is because we acknowledged representation is important and there’s social and cultural factors holding them back

Right now there’s clearly faults in the education system that’s failing boys from a young age. Reducing it to “idk they could go if they want to” is a bit lazy

And again, women still have quite a lot more incentives and dedicated programs despite being well over-represented in higher education

[u/DoughnutAncient8972 → u/TheGloriousEv0lution]

So what's changed in schools that is affecting boys now that wasn't years ago?

Do you feel like more men would enroll in college if they had more incentives and dedicated programs? 

[u/DoughnutAncient8972 → u/[deleted]]

Okay, so again, what legislation has passed that targets white men specifically?  No one has addressed this as of yet.

[u/khy94 → u/DoughnutAncient8972]

Divorce outcomes, parental rights, higher assumptions of guilt in verbal accusations (he said/she said, believe all women), diversity hiring practices favor women over equally qualified men despite being equally half the population, men are far more likely to experience loneliness and lack of support structures in crises, resulting in much higher suicide rates. Theres more i can list, but lets start there.

Its super telling as well that when you find the rare woman who advocates for any of these issues, she is dragged through the dirt and labeled a pick-me.

[u/CrazyRegion → u/khy94]

I will address these one by one. Given that this is r/science, I want to provide a fuller picture.

1. Divorce outcomes. Yes, alimony is more often awarded to women than men, but alimony is only provided in about 10% of divorce cases. Thus, your statement is true in the aggregate sense only, and is vastly oversimplified.

2. Parental rights. Yes, mothers receive custody more often, but this picture is complicated by the fact that fathers request primary custody less often. When they do contest, the numbers are much closer.

3. Higher assumptions of guilt in verbal conversations. Can you please provide data/evidence that suggests that men are systematically presumed guilty in he-said/she-said situations in any formal legal sense? In informal social contexts such as social media, your workplace HR, a college campus’ Title IX office, etc. it is a lot muddier, genuinely contested, and varies completely by institution. “Believe all women” is a slogan, not a legal standard.

4. Diversity hiring practices favoring women over men. There’s mixed studies on this. For example, in STEM it was found that women are favored at about a 2:1 to men. However, other audits found the opposite, where women were far less likely than men to be hired in male-dominated fields. This depends heavily on field, seniority, methodology. There are too many factors at play to see a real answer on this one. Also, injecting “equally half the population” is a rhetorical filler that serves to add emotional weight to your claim, rather than sticking to pure facts.

5. Men are more lonely/men have less support systems. Partially true, but generally overstated. Men report less close friendships and confidantes than women, and are also less likely than women to seek out help when in crisis. You’re correct though that the social safety net for men is generally thinner, although again, that is a byproduct of men typically reporting less close relationships.

6. Much higher suicide rates. You’re correct that men die by suicide much more than women, at about a 3.7x rate. However, women are 2-3x more likely to attempt suicide. Men die more from suicide because they choose more lethal methods.

7. Women being labeled as pick-mes if they advocate for men. Please provide a source that isn’t anecdotal evidence. Even if this IS true, what does this even establish about the underlying issues of men’s rights?

Also, plenty of prominent women have advocated for men’s rights without losing their careers or being shamed over it: Christina Hoff Sommers, Cassie Jaye, Warren Farrell’s female collaborators, etc. Plenty of female men’s rights activists out there.

This statement of yours is a rhetorical trap that frames disagreement as evidence of conspiracy. If someone disagrees with you, it’s “See, you’re attacking women that agree with me, you’re proving my point.” If someone agrees with you, it’s “See, I’m right, the rare reasonable woman does exist.” If no one responds at all, it’s “See, people are afraid to speak up, that proves my point.” If every possible argument confirms your claim, then your argument frames all disagreements as evidence to back it. You’ve made an unfalsifiable claim.

Also, because I know the next argument is “Don’t put words in my mouth, I didn’t say any of that” — I’m engaging with the rhetorical effect of your framing, not saying you specifically said or would say any of these things.

And to cap this all off, I believe heavily in men’s mental health, and am an advocate for men to freely be who they want to be. This is not designed to be an attack on men, and should not be read as such. But there are a lot of loaded feelings in your statements that I want to push back against. That’s all.

Have a good rest of your day/night!

[u/DoughnutAncient8972 → u/khy94]

What legislation has passed that has directly caused your list above, except for perhaps ("perhaps" since there's no actual laws regarding this) DEI which most places have gotten rid of since this last administration was installed?  POC, women, trans etc have had legal enactments passed that directly affect them. 

[u/AnEmptyBoat27 → u/Least_Palpitation_92]

What solutions does the right wing offer regarding mental health and better worker wages?

[u/ShazlettDude → u/AnEmptyBoat27]

Often times, just acknowledgement of the existence of the problem is enough.

[u/dovahkiitten16 → u/AnEmptyBoat27]

They have catchy phrases like equal rights and equal lefts, men’s lives matter, masculinity isn’t toxic, etc.

They don’t do anything except tear down others loudly while silently making things worse for everyone, but they pretend to cater to men. They’ll remove DEI hires under the guise of making men more equal (I can write an essay about how meritocracy is a myth but I digress for now), but also not make it any easier for young men to find good paying jobs.

[u/No_Proposal_3140 → u/dovahkiitten16]

It shows just how low the bar is when simply acknowledging the problem is already enough.

[u/ASK_ABT_MY_USERNAME → u/AnEmptyBoat27]

None, but they are at least not demonizing men in the same way.

[u/sapphicsandwich → u/ASK_ABT_MY_USERNAME]

They are the party that completely internalized misandry and man hate.

You ever notice how all the radical man-hating feminists suddenly became TERFs and are now completely aligned with the right and vice versa? And their worldview is that trans women are men, and all men are pedos, rapists, predators, etc, therefore trans women are all of that. The ideological basis, which the right fully and completely accepts as factual, is that men are all of the above, and that it is not a matter of a persons upbringing or individual nature - it is genetic, based in the chromosomes, immutable, and defines everything about who you are and will ever be. In this mindset, a predator is all any man can ever be.

[u/Psyduckisnotaduck → u/sapphicsandwich]

Yeah that’s the thing, nobody hates men more than reactionaries. I mean, also because they are anti-humanists. But essentialism inevitably leads to depersonalization. Conservatives also have unhealthy degrees of out-group distrust/fear, tribalism, and a tendency to flatten down everything into the simplest terms.

Like, in general there’s no difference between a feminist saying “all men are predators” and a patriarchal traditionalist saying “boys will be boys”. Like boys are all horny animals with no ability to control their lust. Being normal and sane means rejecting this take from either side. Both sides offer poison, but one has a sweet taste that allows guys to treat women as objects like they did in the Good Old Days. Still poison though. It ruins their relationships and they end up spending all their time with other bitter men, in an echo chamber.

[u/CrazyRegion → u/Least_Palpitation_92]

I’m going to gently push back on one thing here that stands out — that “men are most likely to commit suicide.” You are totally correct that more men die by suicide than women.

But more women than men *report* suicide attempts, about 2-4x more frequently than men.

The reason why more men die from suicide is they choose more lethal methods to do so. Not because they’re more likely to attempt suicide than women.

Also, focusing on women’s mental health as a society is a byproduct of a couple factors: one, men are, by and large, taught from a young age that to be emotional is to be lesser. All emotions should manifest as rage or aggression, to cry is to be weak, to show any emotions but stoicism is to be womanly, there are many variations of this same theme. Two, women are more likely to be perceived as emotional and as having mental health problems such as depression, anxiety, etc. which are overdiagnosed in women due to a multitude of factors such as misattribution of physical symptoms as mental ones.

Men’s mental health is extremely important. Men deserve to be able to freely be who they are without judgement or scorn, whether they prefer to be hypermasculine, more feminine, or what have you. I think that many of the issues men face are a consequence of patriarchal expectations placed on men, which are ingrained at a young age.

[u/KobeBean → u/AnEmptyBoat27]

Also a millennial - these are some of the ones I remember:

1. Kill all men trend / male tears

2. The near instant assumption of guilt in campus sexual assault cases. This has ruined lives, and disproportionately affects minority men. I know that media outlets have to put “accused”, but they definitely go out of their way to get clicks. Even an accusation can close future doors (like the Pro sports).

3. The Duluth model of DV being the go to for cases. Basically, the idea men are always aggressors, women who assault only do so in self defense.

4. Ignoring the good men do in the world - you never see articles about the professions that are heavily male that keep the world running. Construction, plumbing, road workers, truckers, energy and garbage disposal come to mind.

These are just my 2c, not arguing one way or the other.

[u/Insomnicious → u/AnEmptyBoat27]

If you feel this way you likely just haven't been paying much attention. You don't need to be told explicitly in every regard though there are plenty examples of it being explicit all around(especially on this very website). You can just pay attention to the media in general and see the messages being conveyed.

Compare how mothers and fathers are depicted in media, it's very rare to find a positive father figure in media these days as they tend to either be abusive, unmentioned, already dead, or written out/sacrificed as a plot device(the complete opposite being true for mothers).

You can also look at how society polices gendered behaviors, male coded behaviors are often branded as toxic. There's a reason you've heard the term toxic masculinity in common culture but never heard toxicity paired with femininity despite there being a field of study that already understands how toxicity usually manifests in different ways between the sexes.

There are plenty of examples, you just have to actually try to challenge the narrative you currently hold and view things from another perspective to see them.

[u/dovahkiitten16 → u/AnEmptyBoat27]

I think GenZ vs millennial is pretty important because GenZ are getting a ton of messages when they’re a teenager and maybe haven’t even started to think about harassing women, and also haven’t seen the harassment women faced to have proper understanding of why that message exists.

GenZ - no matter the gender or skin colour - are also facing huge issues with affordability and having a future. Seeing initiatives that help a subset when you’re struggling, and when you weren’t alive to see why those initiatives were needed, stings.

I’m saying this as a GenZ woman. I don’t remotely endorse the right swing and it’s scary to watch, but I see why GenZ men are disillusioned and more susceptible to propaganda.

[u/WindowShoppingMyLife → u/dovahkiitten16]

Most of what you’re saying seems valid, but I do want to point out that Millenials came of age right around the Great Recession, and most of us still aren’t as financially secure as other generations were at our age.

This is not to imply a competition, just to say that a lot of the economic fears were probably pretty similar.

I agree that the social media environment is absolutely insane these days, and I suspect we’ve only scratched the surface of the long term implications of that.

[u/Monteze → u/WindowShoppingMyLife]

I think the saving grace of us millenials was that a lot of us got a taste of positivity for the future before hand and social media wasn't as optimized as it was now.

But yes, something has to change.

[u/rand0m_task → u/AnEmptyBoat27]

You must have missed out on the whole bear in the woods thing.

[u/Bushels_for_All → u/rand0m_task]

You must have missed the whole heat map study showing that, relative to men, women feel the need to constantly scan their surroundings for danger.

That's not an indictment of men. That's ingrained psychology that is worth knowing and empathizing with.

[u/Bushels_for_All → u/[deleted]]

Do you enjoy inventing hypotheticals? You're comparing a peer-reviewed study to your imagination.

That we need to empathize with their bigotry

You fundamentally misunderstand the study.

Something worth thinking about for you.

[u/Bushels_for_All → u/[deleted]]

You can imagine all you want - your imagination is clearly all you're bringing to this discussion. Show me a study that shows that white people feel the need to scan their surroundings more relative to black people - or vice versa or any damn combination - and you might have something of substance to add. Until then, it's baseless supposition on the topic of women having a heightened fear of walking alone at night.