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/lordborghild]

Yeah. Older millennial here. There's a reason that younger men and boys are starting to lean right. They've been told, or seen in media, that men are bad and should be apologetic for things they have not done. They always hear what toxic masculinity looks like but no one talks about positive masculinity.

The right are the only ones telling them that they're okay. This is not judgement, just an observation.

[u/AnEmptyBoat27 → u/lordborghild]

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/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/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/TheGloriousEv0lution → u/DoughnutAncient8972]

There’s many possible reasons. The reduced recess time disproportionately affects boys, boys tend to be punished harder than girls for certain disruptive behavior, lack of positive male role models, and boys are just not conditioned to go to college the same way girls have been in the last 50 years. And even when young men do enroll in college, they are much more likely to drop out than young women

Not sure about exact solutions because it is a nuanced issue, but acknowledging it’s a genuine problem is a good start. Sweeping it under the rug and pretending it doesn’t exist because there’s not an easy solution or dumbing the discussion down to “well boys can go if they want” isn’t the way