Many minority communities face the same problem, often called "self-hatred." Some Jews, for example, internalize anti-Semitic stereotypes of themselves. The result is a high rate of assimilation except in fervently religious communities, which are somewhat isolated and therefore immune to those stereotypes). Many black people, too, are affected by self-hatred. In earlier times, that was caused primarily by external pressure (such as racial segregation), although strong black families and strong black churches mitigated the problem. In our time, though, the cause is primarily internal pressure (such as the fear of seeming too "white" for adopting virtues such as study, delayed gratification and hard work--and especially the internalized "bigotry of low expectations").
You suggest here that demoralized boys are likely to feel defeated and therefore to give up (by dropping out of school, say, and becoming addicted to drugs or video games). And that's true. But too many boys not only give up on and even abandon society (which is generally indifferent toward them at best and hostile toward them at worst) but also turn aggressively against society (by turning to the cynicism that leads to violence and crime). These boys believe even a negative identity is better than no identity at all. This solution is dangerous for them, of course, but also for society as a whole.
Yes, exactly Paul, we can see the same patterns play out with Blacks or Jews or whoever is subject to a negative cultural narrative. I remember very clearly in the 1960's civil rights movement, one of the things they did was to create buttons that were worn on shirts or blouses that said "Black is Beautiful" This was a brilliant move on their part that was designed to negate the stereotype threat that had decimated the Black community. We need to do the same for boys and men.
Has anyone heard the rumours that boys are accessing websites like Pornhub to learn about sex?
No? Ok then. Must be why it's never a part of the "boys are struggling" conversation, unless Scott Galloway talks about how he likes "porn" and how it's just so great, boys prefer it to having a girlfriend. I will keep bringing up that its primal sexual rage-bait and deeply traumatizing for boys, and is the main cause of the boy crisis, since no one else will.
In most illicit trades the dealers are considered more criminal than the customers/users - unless the dealers are primarily female in which case the customers are the problem whilst the dealers are "victims".
Did Scott Galloway publicly say he uncritically watches or enjoys "porn"?
If he spoke about it publicly in relation to boys, I assume he would complain about how some prefer it to actually having to meet girls and suffer possible rejection. Porn, of course, is not real life and it dishes up many types of human interactions. Not a few of which are beyond reasonable norms and tend to be outright misogynistic. Therefore, it is a troubling influence on boys, girls and others.
Please provide an example of Galloway saying porn is okay.
Sure. Its easy to find. I knew his attitude by the cavalier manner he talks about before i head this appalling line with my own ears. Like nearly everyone in his political bubble, he thinks “porn” is some relatively benign vice that boys enjoy too much, and not a horrifying attack on their self-respect. You can watch the Time Ferris interview on Youtube.
Well, I suppose questioning porn just wouldn't be "hip". I never liked Galloway's style and distrust his and Richard Reeves deep bows towards all things feminist. But then again, if they didn't do so, they wouldn't be given the voice they hold.
Exactly. I know they have good intentions. But they both drive me nuts. Reeves American Institiue for Boys and men purports to find causes and solutions to the boy crisis, and in the hundreds of articles on the website and his substack I cannot find one single critical reference to the demoralizing impact of raising them on internet pornography. Its an astonishing gaping blindspot. At least Galloway is mildly critical. But their blase attitude about it is just mind-boggling to me.
Thank you, Tom. Fortunately the US Department of Justice, Office for Civil Rights, is on our side. On their website, they specifically mention that the investigate DEI complaints.
There is a lot of truth in this both for boys in school and even adult men in organizations.
1. As a new high school teacher in a university town I taught my students in the traditional method one might expect both from teachers and students. Those who learned well by sitting quietly, following directions and enacting cook book experiments to demonstrate basic principles did well as might be expected. This groups was predominantly girls. Those who learn more by messing around and experimenting in a hands on way did less well (B and C) and tended to be boys. I tried experimenting with a couple exercises where the students were NOT given a cook book procedure to follow to see if the students could come up with their own experiments to prove/disprove a chemical principle. The B/C students were soon busily trying new things, making some mistakes and trying something new. The A students with their cookbook mentality really struggled. The performance of the 2 groups completely reversed. The mostly girl A groups complained that they couldn't learn this way and were being held back. The mostly boy B/C group were super excited and wanted to keep doing things this way. The boys way of learning was definitely messier, harder to manage and required greater trust and faith from the teacher in the students....but it produced superior learning from students who learn this way. I suspect the other students, with time, might have actually discovered they could learn this way too, but it would have required undoing years of their preferred learning style. Whether the girls would be inherently disadvantaged is unclear.
2. The Geological Society of America is a professional society in the geosciences that is approaching its 140th year. Like geology it was founded by and heavily dominated by men for the first 125 years of its existence. The men had no problem allowing women scientists to join the profession and society in ever larger numbers. Just after the 125th anniversary the society elected a series of women presidents with a new woman as executive director. They quickly made clear that they wanted to change the culture of geology to be more amenable to women. It took only a few years to see the effects. A society that held annual meetings with 12,000 attendees and had a membership in the 25,000 range became totally dominated by women. A new enforceable Code of Conduct was implemented by which the women could use cancel culture to silence any "male" voice that offended their feminist ears. Research presentations and grants suddenly were focused on identity politics designed to advance white women above all else with lip service to people of color. The meetings became more and more like a visit behind the Iron Curtain. Membership and meeting attendance collapsed. Whereas a meeting of 7000 in the prior era was seen as a catastrophe, now the female leadership celebrates a meeting in the mid 4000's. Despite the crash in membership and participation, they continue to double down on the women's culture focus, focusing session in education, for example, on DEI and women's participation projects but saying there is no "room" for topics that actually address the learning and teaching needs outside the narrowly defined needs of these preferred groups. The entire profession of geology has been negatively affected. What it look 125 years for men to build, women seriously degraded in less than a decade!
i remember reading how feminist teachers use tactics to deliberately undermine boys education. I also read that nothing is done about it due to feminist bullying, Feminism is an anti male hate movement ,they don't want equality. I wish governments would stop pampering and protecting women and realise they are damaging our future and our society. Feminists need to be punished and held to account.
For a number of years Mary Curnock-Cook who was the CEO of the organisation that oversees applications to Universities pushed for a response the "gender gap" in applications. Hardly a MRA she eventually realised and stated that she was being blanked by the feminist educational establishment. After her retirement she has continued to press for this to be addressed. It has not been of course.
Probably 20 years ago Michael Kimmel wrote that in the work he was doing, boys in high schools those like him should not ignore the boy's negative experiences in dating etc. otherwise the boys would think the feminists like him "are telling lies". Now any boy, in any age, grows up knowing he'll "cop for it" more often than girls and that a common trick is for girls to play the victim. I've previously commented about a series of research projects following the dating violence moral panic in the US. Where one wise feminist summed it up " girls should not rely on the much greater tolerance of their (the boyfriends) mistreatment by their girlfriends (than vice versa) because at some point he may retaliate". Now throw into the mix the current domination of "personal health and relationship education" by feminist content on "consent", relationship abuse, gender equality and healthy relationships. And one can see that completely ignoring boys' "lived experience" will lead many boys to conclude they are being told lies. I suspect this is at least partly behind the increasing scepticism in younger cohorts of men about "feminism" and "gender equality". While feminist misandry was really confined to University and the corridors of political power it could masquerade as "being nice to women" to the wider public (my generation is generally still believing this). But its triumph in getting into every school in the land exposes it to a far wider young audience, one often wanting to rebel from orthodoxy, and keenly aware of unfairness. I forget who but a partner of a reasonably well known feminist here described feminism as "being shouted at for things I haven't done" I have a feeling teenage boys will experience it the same way. And many will pick up its not just that his parents always "side" with his sister, or that some teachers "always like the girls' work" or "let them off", its an ideology that systematically does boys down.
We shall not push for more men at Uni. We shall push for more masculine enviroment, which is different.
I dont want men to become nurses.
But I dont want me to be subject to female teaching: we shall segregate schools. As soon as possible.
And then, may decide that they dont want to be nurses. How we soleve the imbalance at Uni? By making masculine work require university as well. E.g. an car mechanics have to now more or less the same as a nure. Why one is call a "trade" and another a "University grade"? Because the left designed this 40 years ago to increase female reputation.
We shall look for the inverse: nursering is a "trade" and car mechanics is a registered university grade.
I agree with your article. But my point is that we can only ensure that men are treated equally if we do segregated education + men deciding the curriculum.
My point is that the gap at the university is irrelevant right now. Most of the college education does not ential a higher pay than trades.
So, for reputational purpose, my point is that we need to make trades... an university degree.
This will surprisingly equalise college grades for men... and women.
I'm waiting to hear the first man that is a Tradie and he tells us the story: She asked me to fix her toilet, but when she informed me about the patriarchy I then said, "I'm so sorry but I'm fully booked for the next decade!" or "oh, I'm so sorry but I forgot to tell you how much per hour I charge, it is $200 !!"
I don't want this to happen but I'm waiting to hear at least one male who does this..
Actually, I know one. He was in an airport and was approached by a woman who asked if he would help her carry one of her bags. He said sure, that would the $20! He tells the story and adds that male agency is not free and it is good for men to start realizing that fact.
I've been out of teaching for a while now, but the messaging was clear. Girls are disadvantaged, girls miss out, girls need support, boys are holding girls back, blah blah blah. All evidence to the contrary, all the funding and special programs notwithstanding. It appears as though the girls are victims narrative will continue for the foreseeable future.
Slowly maturing masculinity in boys can be formed through creative risk-taking, in trying out something that they have not attempted before. They like it better if it is physical or competitive and there might be some risk or danger involved. It helps if a male is guiding such endeavors and bonding, is a goal. In this connection, little is more deadening for boys than current efforts to get them to settle down for feminized schooling settings and then punished for failing to do so. For most males, learning from experience is preferred to acting on information as a given - they like things which they can't test by themselves. Adolescent males distrust what is drilled into them as true in favor of paying attention to what they can see, test and experience. You don't have to be a genius to notice any of this.
Tom, great article. The discrimination is clear and is creating an ever enlarging cohort of young men with a negative opinion of their essence and awful statistics in keeping with this hypothesis. While society pulls out its full arsenal to correct any area of female demoralization in education you recognize that similar acknowledgement or action is not available to address the widespread systemic demoralization that men in general face - not just our young men but men in general are held to a different account throughout society. Our media persistently portray men as perpetrators, our MSM display significant gamna basis along the 4 salient points.
So the educational discrimination is only part of a bigger assault on "Western cisheteronormativity".
Normal masculinity is the target rather than a secondary side effect of radical feminism where antimale sentiment has always been a fundamental pillar of the movement.
What is remarkable is how long it has taken for these issues to be appropriately acknowledged, as in our wonderful academic world where these uncontested attitudes have been incubated and are now so ingrained that any change will be neither swift nor complete in the foreseeable future.
I look forward to your next section on how to correct the imbalance as the 'cure' is where the really interesting discussions occur.
Discrimination gets talked about quite a lot - & rightly so. But I'm convinced that stereotyping & prejudice do even more harm. So, thanks for tackling it.
Sadly I fear the people who need to read this won't but nonetheless you are doing society a service with this analysis even if it opens only a few eyes to what is happening.
Brilliant article, which is well articulated, balanced and principled. Thank you for providing this clarity.
You are very welcome. Thank you!
Sharing this article with key people, right now...
Excellent, Tom. It does indeed matter. A lot.
Many minority communities face the same problem, often called "self-hatred." Some Jews, for example, internalize anti-Semitic stereotypes of themselves. The result is a high rate of assimilation except in fervently religious communities, which are somewhat isolated and therefore immune to those stereotypes). Many black people, too, are affected by self-hatred. In earlier times, that was caused primarily by external pressure (such as racial segregation), although strong black families and strong black churches mitigated the problem. In our time, though, the cause is primarily internal pressure (such as the fear of seeming too "white" for adopting virtues such as study, delayed gratification and hard work--and especially the internalized "bigotry of low expectations").
You suggest here that demoralized boys are likely to feel defeated and therefore to give up (by dropping out of school, say, and becoming addicted to drugs or video games). And that's true. But too many boys not only give up on and even abandon society (which is generally indifferent toward them at best and hostile toward them at worst) but also turn aggressively against society (by turning to the cynicism that leads to violence and crime). These boys believe even a negative identity is better than no identity at all. This solution is dangerous for them, of course, but also for society as a whole.
Yes, exactly Paul, we can see the same patterns play out with Blacks or Jews or whoever is subject to a negative cultural narrative. I remember very clearly in the 1960's civil rights movement, one of the things they did was to create buttons that were worn on shirts or blouses that said "Black is Beautiful" This was a brilliant move on their part that was designed to negate the stereotype threat that had decimated the Black community. We need to do the same for boys and men.
Has anyone heard the rumours that boys are accessing websites like Pornhub to learn about sex?
No? Ok then. Must be why it's never a part of the "boys are struggling" conversation, unless Scott Galloway talks about how he likes "porn" and how it's just so great, boys prefer it to having a girlfriend. I will keep bringing up that its primal sexual rage-bait and deeply traumatizing for boys, and is the main cause of the boy crisis, since no one else will.
Interesting Crimson, would love to hear more about your perceptions that porn is a large factor in the boy crisis.
Hi Tom thanks for asking, big fan of your work. Here it is. Porn is a factor all right.
https://substack.com/@smalltowncat/note/c-180738319?r=1izj1g&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=notes-share-action
In most illicit trades the dealers are considered more criminal than the customers/users - unless the dealers are primarily female in which case the customers are the problem whilst the dealers are "victims".
Did Scott Galloway publicly say he uncritically watches or enjoys "porn"?
If he spoke about it publicly in relation to boys, I assume he would complain about how some prefer it to actually having to meet girls and suffer possible rejection. Porn, of course, is not real life and it dishes up many types of human interactions. Not a few of which are beyond reasonable norms and tend to be outright misogynistic. Therefore, it is a troubling influence on boys, girls and others.
Please provide an example of Galloway saying porn is okay.
Sure. Its easy to find. I knew his attitude by the cavalier manner he talks about before i head this appalling line with my own ears. Like nearly everyone in his political bubble, he thinks “porn” is some relatively benign vice that boys enjoy too much, and not a horrifying attack on their self-respect. You can watch the Time Ferris interview on Youtube.
Well, I suppose questioning porn just wouldn't be "hip". I never liked Galloway's style and distrust his and Richard Reeves deep bows towards all things feminist. But then again, if they didn't do so, they wouldn't be given the voice they hold.
Exactly. I know they have good intentions. But they both drive me nuts. Reeves American Institiue for Boys and men purports to find causes and solutions to the boy crisis, and in the hundreds of articles on the website and his substack I cannot find one single critical reference to the demoralizing impact of raising them on internet pornography. Its an astonishing gaping blindspot. At least Galloway is mildly critical. But their blase attitude about it is just mind-boggling to me.
Thank you, Tom. Fortunately the US Department of Justice, Office for Civil Rights, is on our side. On their website, they specifically mention that the investigate DEI complaints.
https://www.justice.gov/crt
Maybe someday they will have a division for stereotype threat complaints!
There is a lot of truth in this both for boys in school and even adult men in organizations.
1. As a new high school teacher in a university town I taught my students in the traditional method one might expect both from teachers and students. Those who learned well by sitting quietly, following directions and enacting cook book experiments to demonstrate basic principles did well as might be expected. This groups was predominantly girls. Those who learn more by messing around and experimenting in a hands on way did less well (B and C) and tended to be boys. I tried experimenting with a couple exercises where the students were NOT given a cook book procedure to follow to see if the students could come up with their own experiments to prove/disprove a chemical principle. The B/C students were soon busily trying new things, making some mistakes and trying something new. The A students with their cookbook mentality really struggled. The performance of the 2 groups completely reversed. The mostly girl A groups complained that they couldn't learn this way and were being held back. The mostly boy B/C group were super excited and wanted to keep doing things this way. The boys way of learning was definitely messier, harder to manage and required greater trust and faith from the teacher in the students....but it produced superior learning from students who learn this way. I suspect the other students, with time, might have actually discovered they could learn this way too, but it would have required undoing years of their preferred learning style. Whether the girls would be inherently disadvantaged is unclear.
2. The Geological Society of America is a professional society in the geosciences that is approaching its 140th year. Like geology it was founded by and heavily dominated by men for the first 125 years of its existence. The men had no problem allowing women scientists to join the profession and society in ever larger numbers. Just after the 125th anniversary the society elected a series of women presidents with a new woman as executive director. They quickly made clear that they wanted to change the culture of geology to be more amenable to women. It took only a few years to see the effects. A society that held annual meetings with 12,000 attendees and had a membership in the 25,000 range became totally dominated by women. A new enforceable Code of Conduct was implemented by which the women could use cancel culture to silence any "male" voice that offended their feminist ears. Research presentations and grants suddenly were focused on identity politics designed to advance white women above all else with lip service to people of color. The meetings became more and more like a visit behind the Iron Curtain. Membership and meeting attendance collapsed. Whereas a meeting of 7000 in the prior era was seen as a catastrophe, now the female leadership celebrates a meeting in the mid 4000's. Despite the crash in membership and participation, they continue to double down on the women's culture focus, focusing session in education, for example, on DEI and women's participation projects but saying there is no "room" for topics that actually address the learning and teaching needs outside the narrowly defined needs of these preferred groups. The entire profession of geology has been negatively affected. What it look 125 years for men to build, women seriously degraded in less than a decade!
Brilliant 1.
Disgusting 2 :(
Men whould create a new society.
I am sex separatist. By far.
i remember reading how feminist teachers use tactics to deliberately undermine boys education. I also read that nothing is done about it due to feminist bullying, Feminism is an anti male hate movement ,they don't want equality. I wish governments would stop pampering and protecting women and realise they are damaging our future and our society. Feminists need to be punished and held to account.
For a number of years Mary Curnock-Cook who was the CEO of the organisation that oversees applications to Universities pushed for a response the "gender gap" in applications. Hardly a MRA she eventually realised and stated that she was being blanked by the feminist educational establishment. After her retirement she has continued to press for this to be addressed. It has not been of course.
god bless her
Probably 20 years ago Michael Kimmel wrote that in the work he was doing, boys in high schools those like him should not ignore the boy's negative experiences in dating etc. otherwise the boys would think the feminists like him "are telling lies". Now any boy, in any age, grows up knowing he'll "cop for it" more often than girls and that a common trick is for girls to play the victim. I've previously commented about a series of research projects following the dating violence moral panic in the US. Where one wise feminist summed it up " girls should not rely on the much greater tolerance of their (the boyfriends) mistreatment by their girlfriends (than vice versa) because at some point he may retaliate". Now throw into the mix the current domination of "personal health and relationship education" by feminist content on "consent", relationship abuse, gender equality and healthy relationships. And one can see that completely ignoring boys' "lived experience" will lead many boys to conclude they are being told lies. I suspect this is at least partly behind the increasing scepticism in younger cohorts of men about "feminism" and "gender equality". While feminist misandry was really confined to University and the corridors of political power it could masquerade as "being nice to women" to the wider public (my generation is generally still believing this). But its triumph in getting into every school in the land exposes it to a far wider young audience, one often wanting to rebel from orthodoxy, and keenly aware of unfairness. I forget who but a partner of a reasonably well known feminist here described feminism as "being shouted at for things I haven't done" I have a feeling teenage boys will experience it the same way. And many will pick up its not just that his parents always "side" with his sister, or that some teachers "always like the girls' work" or "let them off", its an ideology that systematically does boys down.
TBH Tom.
This does not matter anymore.
We shall not push for more men at Uni. We shall push for more masculine enviroment, which is different.
I dont want men to become nurses.
But I dont want me to be subject to female teaching: we shall segregate schools. As soon as possible.
And then, may decide that they dont want to be nurses. How we soleve the imbalance at Uni? By making masculine work require university as well. E.g. an car mechanics have to now more or less the same as a nure. Why one is call a "trade" and another a "University grade"? Because the left designed this 40 years ago to increase female reputation.
We shall look for the inverse: nursering is a "trade" and car mechanics is a registered university grade.
Men to become nurses? Not sure where you get that, the article was about the canyon of gap in the ways boys and girls are treated.
Hi Tom,
I agree with your article. But my point is that we can only ensure that men are treated equally if we do segregated education + men deciding the curriculum.
My point is that the gap at the university is irrelevant right now. Most of the college education does not ential a higher pay than trades.
So, for reputational purpose, my point is that we need to make trades... an university degree.
This will surprisingly equalise college grades for men... and women.
Agreed. The young men will shun college, and go for trade schools instead.
I'm waiting to hear the first man that is a Tradie and he tells us the story: She asked me to fix her toilet, but when she informed me about the patriarchy I then said, "I'm so sorry but I'm fully booked for the next decade!" or "oh, I'm so sorry but I forgot to tell you how much per hour I charge, it is $200 !!"
I don't want this to happen but I'm waiting to hear at least one male who does this..
Actually, I know one. He was in an airport and was approached by a woman who asked if he would help her carry one of her bags. He said sure, that would the $20! He tells the story and adds that male agency is not free and it is good for men to start realizing that fact.
Thank you Tom!
I struggle with the idea actually but when travelling one should not carry more than one can manage alone.
As usual it seems that 'toxic masculinity' is ignored until assistance is required.
Edit 🤪 as usual ‘toxic masculinity is bad until assistance is required!!
Brilliant hahahah
Excellent!
alas if you dare point this out in polite society the pitchforks and torches will be soon to follow
I've been out of teaching for a while now, but the messaging was clear. Girls are disadvantaged, girls miss out, girls need support, boys are holding girls back, blah blah blah. All evidence to the contrary, all the funding and special programs notwithstanding. It appears as though the girls are victims narrative will continue for the foreseeable future.
‘Foreseeable future’ being the operative words.
Slowly maturing masculinity in boys can be formed through creative risk-taking, in trying out something that they have not attempted before. They like it better if it is physical or competitive and there might be some risk or danger involved. It helps if a male is guiding such endeavors and bonding, is a goal. In this connection, little is more deadening for boys than current efforts to get them to settle down for feminized schooling settings and then punished for failing to do so. For most males, learning from experience is preferred to acting on information as a given - they like things which they can't test by themselves. Adolescent males distrust what is drilled into them as true in favor of paying attention to what they can see, test and experience. You don't have to be a genius to notice any of this.
What to do about it. Brave and truthful article. Thank you.
From: mother of two sons
Tom, great article. The discrimination is clear and is creating an ever enlarging cohort of young men with a negative opinion of their essence and awful statistics in keeping with this hypothesis. While society pulls out its full arsenal to correct any area of female demoralization in education you recognize that similar acknowledgement or action is not available to address the widespread systemic demoralization that men in general face - not just our young men but men in general are held to a different account throughout society. Our media persistently portray men as perpetrators, our MSM display significant gamna basis along the 4 salient points.
So the educational discrimination is only part of a bigger assault on "Western cisheteronormativity".
Normal masculinity is the target rather than a secondary side effect of radical feminism where antimale sentiment has always been a fundamental pillar of the movement.
What is remarkable is how long it has taken for these issues to be appropriately acknowledged, as in our wonderful academic world where these uncontested attitudes have been incubated and are now so ingrained that any change will be neither swift nor complete in the foreseeable future.
I look forward to your next section on how to correct the imbalance as the 'cure' is where the really interesting discussions occur.
A really strong piece, Tom.
Discrimination gets talked about quite a lot - & rightly so. But I'm convinced that stereotyping & prejudice do even more harm. So, thanks for tackling it.
Tony
Exactly as you describe.
Sadly I fear the people who need to read this won't but nonetheless you are doing society a service with this analysis even if it opens only a few eyes to what is happening.
Thanks, Tom. I'll be sharing!