Global Politics of Masculinity, Literary and Wellbeing
The Global Politics of Masculinity
globally, I think anti-democratic movements are only effective if they can capitalize on discontentment, lack of satisfaction, some feeling that it is a zero-sum game or that you’re being left behind. And generally that lends itself very nicely to forming an identity or a movement in opposition to someone or something else. So I love when you said it’s a half-finished revolution because I think once we make progress on the conversation around all gender identities, more people will feel seen and people who feel seen are not so easily manipulated.
And I think you just said these are bad actors and that can be violent extremist actors and organizations online and in the physical world, and sometimes this even powers social and political movements. So I think in this way, what your book does so well is identify the social systems that create individual-level risk and then this creates global challenges, including the rise of autocracy, the backlash against the movement for gender equality, the recruitment of young men into violent extremist groups and reactive and anxiety-driven movements that position themselves sort of against progress, against the momentum that we’ve seen on the left and for social progress.
You say that it's important that we make men feel heard, and you seem extremely careful here and in previous discussions to specify that this is just to address men's feelings. Do you think that male anger and rage at the state of their lives at this point in history is justified? Not as a feeling. As an actual actionable position. Not in comparison to anyone who has it worse or better, just a straightforward appraisal of whether being upset at the current state of things can exist outside of misogynist reactionary thought.
Like, the speakers in this interview seem to be blaming the global rise of fascism and violent extremism. on male entitlement and reactionary antifeminism. The idea seems to be that if Andrew Tate and Donald Trump weren't stirring people up, everything is fine and everyone would be perfectly happy, but men are solely and exclusively upset about women having rights now and that is being used to fuel violent movements attempting to take down our current systems.
Link to New Lines Institute
How Drug Overdose Deaths Have Plagued One Generation of Black Men for Decades
In dozens of cities, the recent rise of fentanyl has put older Black men in particular jeopardy.
The cities with this pattern of drug deaths tend to be places with large Black populations, intense residential segregation and heroin markets that were active in the 1970s, when the oldest of these men were young and first became exposed to illicit drugs, according to Dr. Dan Ciccarone, a professor of family and community medicine at the University of California, San Francisco.
“Heroin has become an endemic problem,” he said. “It never went away.”
In addition to the risk of overdose, men of this generation lived through convulsions in public health and criminal justice. In the 1980s, some became exposed to H.I.V. through drug injections. In the 1990s, more aggressive sentences for drug crimes meant many of them spent time in jails or prisons.
Link to NYTimes
Men's Suicidal thoughts and behaviors and conformity to masculine norms: A person-centered, latent profile approach
Conformity to masculine gender ideologies is associated with increased suicide risk
Emotional restrictivity and risky behavior raise men's suicide risk 2.32-fold
Some men perceive their emotional pain as more unbearable than others do
Men somatizing depression symptoms creates a challenge for health practitioners
Considering masculinity ideologies may enhance tailored suicide prevention
Link to ScienceDirect
Top Holiday Gifts for Thoughtful & Empathetic Bros - Books and Movies
Supporting the well-being of Black men and boys
Mental health organizations explore innovative solutions for reaching those historically excluded from mental health care
Innovative solutions for Black men and boys focus on upstream prevention, peer support programs, and working through existing networks.
To lift the mental and physical health of Black men and boys, it’s necessary to rethink misconceptions and shift narratives from deficiencies to accomplishments.
Effective strategies include using terms like “mental strength,” meeting in comfortable spaces, and increasing mental health literacy.
Many of these jobs that large numbers of Black men have, such as security, warehouse work, delivery and all sorts of transportation jobs, make it so that mental health issues can be disqualifying for work. Even if the place is tolerant, finding a therapist willing to work odd hours or be tolerant of last minute rescheduling
Link to APA (American Psychological Association)
Why Do Men Hate Women? (spoiler: it's more about men hating themselves)
Russia had one of the world’s highest life expectancy gender gaps. Then Putin sent hundreds of thousands of men to war.
“Ideas about masculinity differed between socialist and capitalist countries. In capitalist societies, men could assert themselves by starting businesses, building careers, and making profits. Someone with these aspirations would take care of his health, as it was an important tool for his success,” Tartakovskaya says. “But there was no equivalent in socialist societies. The pursuit of personal success and good earnings was frowned upon as ‘careerism’ and seen as a denial of societal norms and values. This meant that men could assert themselves only through service to the state, often at the expense of their health.”
These, along with other societal patterns with roots in the Soviet period, have been “absorbed” into the cultures and lifestyles of people in former socialist countries and continue to affect them today: in almost all such countries, men live significantly shorter lives than women. Overcoming these patterns will be a long and difficult process, according to an analyst from To Be Precise: “Behavioral models aren’t easily changed, and 30–40 years is a short period for this kind of shift.”
Putin has murdered 180k men and boys as that’s what a ton of conscription is even if it is normalized/desensitized in the context of war and invasions.
Link to Medusa
Testing forgotten rape kits could free the innocent. Here’s why it isn't always done.
After nine years and nearly $350 million, USA TODAY confirmed just one exoneration resulting from a grant program to address untested rape kits.
Link to USA Today
Men are struggling. Here’s how your philanthropy can help.
Seidler’s research has also found that regardless of gender, many therapists dismiss men as “not psychologically minded,” and view some young men as unteachable.
That quote/study is the expectations gap in action, ‘I treated you like a failure and you failed. I was right.’ It’s a self fulfilling prophecy. And it’s basically sexism.
Link to Vox
Why Books are Rebellious and Hopeful in a Time of Social Media Saturation and Injustice
"Books, however, nurture the mind by promoting reflection, critical thought, complexity, and understanding."
"Social media is structured to be a passive parade of banality, spoon feeding users very short, shallow, mediocre entertainment content interspersed with numerous ads."
"Fiction is especially powerful for developing analogical reasoning – the ability to see commonalities between problems and situations – and, along with promoting empathy, these skills are essential for organizing collective actions toward social, economic, and environmental justice."
Link to CounterPunch
What Andrew Tate Taught Me About the Ideology of Violence
Opinion | The Disappearance of Literary Men Should Worry Everyone
Here I am reminded of something that the feminist scholar bell hooks once wrote: “There remains a small strain of feminist thinkers who feel strongly that they have given all they want to give to men; they are concerned solely with improving the collective welfare of women. Yet life has shown me that any time a single male dares to transgress patriarchal boundaries” — something I am convinced that literature enables men to do — “the lives of women, men and children are fundamentally changed for the better.”
For anyone looking at being better read: pick a wheelhouse that you know you’re going to enjoy and camp there until you’re ready for something else. When I was trying to force myself to read things I thought I should read, I didn’t read. When I accepted that I’m a horror and genre fic dork I started putting away dozens of books a year. And my writing improved.
Link to NYTimes
Young Men Are Pouring Money Into Risky Assets Like Crypto and Meme Stocks:
New research shows that men’s attitudes toward masculinity are a predictor of whether they own risky investments like crypto or meme stocks.
There are a lot of different factors driving this, but the main reason that I heard was that taking a big leap of faith in their financial strategy feels like the only way that they can really have a chance at the life that they want. Whether that's retiring comfortably or buying a home.
Link to WSJ
Men in Caring Jobs Will Make Society More Equal
Link to NYTimes
The Oversexualization Of Boys In Media
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