I keep seeing posts mentioning this phenomenon more and more often.

For instance:

More and more men are being sucked into parts of the internet that circulate misogynist content, leaving their families to deal with the wreckage

‘Andrew Tate phenomena’ surges in schools - with boys refusing to talk to female teacher

Like, why? Why now? Why even? I really wish I had a time machine where I could go to the future and ask them what the general reasons were for this social development. But I feel like I’m looking for the specific thorn on a cactus that popped my balloon.

  • thawed_caveman@lemmy.world
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    12 hours ago

    It used to be that women couldn’t open their own bank accounts. Depending on how far back you go, they couldn’t even own property. In this context, women really needed to get married if they wanted to do anything. For this and many other reasons, the bar was lower, men could get married with less effort. Nowadays women can do anything and the only reason for them to want a man is if they want to, so you actually have to put in effort now.

    Also, gender roles are changing and there’s no clarity as to what being a man is supposed to mean in 2025. If it’s not protecting and providing, if it’s not dying in war, then the purpose of men is undefined as of now, and there’s a tendency to want to return to the older gender roles.

    And late capitalism is stressful, and men aren’t going to college as much these days. There’s lots of reasons but this is what i can remember in five minutes

    Further listening material

    • Steve Dice@sh.itjust.works
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      4 hours ago

      To add to this: The internet has increased the reach of propaganda to heights it could only dream of. It used to be that you could just stop your kid from hanging out with the local neonazi group, now they can reach them right in their bedroom.

    • 3DMVR@lemm.ee
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      4 hours ago

      Not really plenty of tradwife woman still exist, id say 50/50 wanna just find someone decent and setltle down so they can pop out kids becuase god wants them to, athiesm isnt as popular as yall think ppl are still religious and get arranged marriages (or basically the equivalent) You gotta be ugly, no money, just give up on life to be alone. Or insanely picky.

      • 3DMVR@lemm.ee
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        4 hours ago

        Now if you’re a liberal man who wants an independent woman, your pool of potential partners is way lower and they have standards like you said, good luck finding that

    • balderdash@lemmy.zip
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      9 hours ago

      It’s not just women having the choice to marry. Women are flooded with choice through dating apps. It puts men in competition, costs money, and is overall a humbling experience. The amount of effort (and money) an average looking average height man has to expend pushes men to stop trying and focus on bettering oneself. This is where the Rogans and the Tates come in. The left isn’t speaking to these boys so the right wins by default.

      • orgrinrt@lemmy.world
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        8 hours ago

        So are men. Flooded with choices on dating apps and otherwise. It also puts women in competition. And others. It’s not a gendered problem. It’s an attitude problem.

        The amount of effort is very likely way more equal to that of those “others” have to expend than most would concede, it’s just that some of the young boys aren’t taught to have a spine and as such expect everything to be easy, then get majorly disappointed when that isn’t the case. World is tough, life is hard, you have to actually fight along the way and struggle to get to places. Just about everyone else already knows this by heart, but some men are barely starting catching up.

        Patriarchy isn’t as alive as it was, though very much alive still, so their expectations just no longer match the reality. And that’s a bummer. Boo hoo. Makes them commit mass murder, school shootings, but more widely, outside of those extremes, just fall in love with toxic men with a platform that actually do speak of things that better match their expectations.

        It’s simply that some young men are pampered little babies that aren’t adapting to a less powerful patriarchy and have zero idea how to actually live in this world as a normal person without an excess of privileges.

        And that’s often just an upbringing thing. And a complex one at that, with not just the parents at fault. Society was, and still is, patriarchal and unequal in so many ways, but slowly gets better at least in west. It’s not the fault of the young men that get sucked into this, they never were taught better. That’s the problem more than anything.

        And before anyone comes in pointing fingers, I was assigned man at birth and am still an enby in part presenting as masculine. I know the privilege, and I do also know how hard it is to accept the fact that everything’s easier for us, when your heart feels like everything is hard. That’s just a bummer, but everyone has got it hard. More hard than me. A tough thing to see and recognize, because suddenly my struggle isn’t special. But really, it isn’t though. But that’s not the expectation young men have for some reason… Not always anyway.

        The toxic young men still are the minority, it’s worth recognizing that too. But they are very loud and very hurt little babies :-( we have to suffer through their incapability to adapt to reality by possibly even just dying in one of their mass shootings.

        It’s fucked up, and I’m not sure if there’s anything or anyone we can easily blame. And no easy answers either. I hate this part of reality.

    • MuskyMelon@lemmy.world
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      10 hours ago

      So much more social, educational and financial support for girls’ development and nothing for boys except for sports. If you’re not into sports, you’re out of luck.

      • starlinguk@lemmy.world
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        7 hours ago

        The US government is defunding all research and programmes that include the word “female” and “women”. No more research into uterine cancer. No more including women in studies (and they were badly represented already).

        When you’re used to privilege, equality feels like discrimination.

        • MuskyMelon@lemmy.world
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          6 hours ago

          This is a stupid and shitty decision.

          You seem to mistake that I meant the women’s rights should be negated. I never said that. I said that development of boys should be encouraged the same way that girls are. I’m totally against taking women’s rights away.

      • mutual_ayed@sh.itjust.works
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        10 hours ago

        Band, theater club, math club, chess club, computer club, to just name a few. Outside of school there’s Kiwanis, boyscouts, YMCA, big brother program, there is no shortage of programs directed at boys. They’re all underfunded in the inner city and rural ag counties. But the Tate heads mostly live in the safe suburbs. They’re usually white and those programs tend to be better funded in those places.