Why DON'T you kill people?

[elmagicochrisg]

Real men don't depend on stupid assholes to define their gender for them.

Real men don't depend on women to define their gender either...

[Menegrothx]

I'm tired of men that plop their fat asses into a sofa, talk a bunch of shit, eat handfuls of chilimac and hotdogs while they fart and watch football and loudly tell everyone what real men are. These aren't real men. They are 7th-grade comic sketches of what real men are.

I dont think that's what chilimac was talking about though. It's all about self-sufficiency, a fat couch potato sports fan isn't much different from a fat (or skinny) basement dweller nerd in that regard, both live amongst modern urban comfort. There are tribes in the Amazon rainforest that still truly live off the land, those are real men, more so than Jersey Shore-type loud and obnoxious bodybuilder

[chilimac]

The evidence is all around you. Today, men are more open about their feelings, and they care now more than ever of the way they look. ...Even today's movie stars are less manly.

I just want to point out that, if you're noticing "less manly men" (meaning "aggressive and violent") around, whether in the media or otherwise, it might be because women have more social rights and are also more valued as a target audience group than before.

You're right, women have become a more valued target audience group to movie makers, and the reason is because there are no longer any real men to target the movies to. Everything today is designed for women and children because men have evolved into hairy women.

On the first point, even half a century ago most women needed men to support them financially, and marriage was the best way to attempt a secure future. I'm not saying people didn't marry for love, but there was heavy incentive to marry, period. And what if you discovered you'd married a violent man? Well, if a divorce were even an option in your case, you probably wouldn't be able to make it on your own. So lots of women were trapped into staying, and violent husbands didn't have a lot of incentive to change. Nowadays heterosexual women can afford to be choosier, and so values like compassion, tenderness, emotional availability, and so on -- things traditionally thought to be "naturally the woman's domain" -- are more desirable qualities to possess as a man, if you're looking to attract a lady mate. And if you're a husband who struggles with anger issues, your wife has a lot more options for leaving or protecting herself, which means you now have something to lose if you don't address those issues. It's not that men are being feminized. It's that the desired "ideal male" archetype is being redefined.

This is another way that civilized life is weakening man. Men are now being bred to be weak and obedient slaves for women. Back before civilization, men decided which woman he wanted to breed with. The only thing standing in his way was another man. And so the two men fought and the stronger one won and got to breed with the female, and this made the species stronger, because the stronger men got to lie with more women, which lead to many strong children. But nowadays, thanks to civilization and all the laws it brings, the woman has the ability to support herself, and she is protected by the law. Now she decides who she lies with, and often she will choose a weak man simply because he's open with his feelings and doesn't mind changing diapers. Now the wimps are getting the women and the manly men are in prison for... well, behaving like men.

On the second point, lots of women don't find "manliness" a particularly desirable trait

Correction. They 'no longer' find manliness a desirable trait. If we still lived in an environment where a woman needed a man to go out and hunt for food and to protect her from other men, suddenly manliness would be the most desirable trait. But nowadays manliness is no longer needed because now a woman can buy food at the grocery store and call the police for protection. Now she just wants someone who will listen to her bitching and who doesn't mind taking out the trash when he's told to do so. She wants a slave.

[AppleQueso]

chilimac has to be a troll

holy shit

[elmagicochrisg]

chilimac has to be a troll

holy shit

I don't agree with everything he says, but he makes more sense than you give him credit for...

I don't think he's a troll at all. Just someone with his own opinion. Whether you agree with him or not doesn't matter...

[mjmjr25]

He's not a troll on NA, not sure what's going on here...off to the batcave to discuss.

[AppleQueso]

chilimac has to be a troll

holy shit

I don't agree with everything he says, but he makes more sense than you give him credit for...

I don't think he's a troll at all. Just someone with his own opinion. Whether you agree with him or not doesn't matter...

Sorry, don't really buy it.

"You don't want to kill people!? YOU MUST BE A GIRLY MAN, YOU NEED MORE TESTOSTERONE."

That shit's off the wall bonkers.

Someone probably told him this place was really left leaning or something and he thought he'd come and try to stir the pot.

[o.pwuaioc]

It's actually not a troll point of view, although I cannot speak for chillmac, obviously. That's not to say that we *ought* to kill people, but that there is a natural tendency toward violence, and high levels of testosterone has been linked to violent crime.

However, people and groups who advocate returning back to "macho" days tend to select their evidence while ignoring anything that contradicts it. The reality is that it's much, much more complicated than most advocates present. For one, testosterone is not the be all and end all of male emotion, or even just aggression. Women too can be very violent, and often are. Finally, the exact repercussions are never discussed, but only fear mongering a la "we're at the end of our species! we're going extinct!" without ever laying out - scientifically - why this is the case.

It's a bad position with honest intentions from butchered science. However, that doesn't make its advocates trolls.

[Michi]

Man are not as manly as they used to be.

Women are not as feminine as they used to be.

I think the more accurate way to describe it, is people are just acting the way they want to act and don't feel as pressured as they once did to live up to social conformity.

The ideas of what is feminine and what is masculine can vary widely from culture to culture and naturally change over time. That's just how it is. Take Louis the XIV here:


Just look at those shapely legs.

Sure he was one of the greatest king's of France and started fought in three major wars, but most men today wouldn't be caught dead wearing those fashionable heals and hose. But back then things like that weren't uncommon in aristocratic culture.

And just as recently as the early 1900's, pink was considered the popular and appropriate color for boys, not for girls. The Sunday Sentinal from March 29, 1914 advised mothers, "If you like the color note on the little one's garments, use pink for the boy and blue for the girl, if you are a follower of convention." It should also be noted that assigning a color to gender is mostly a recent 20th century trait, as is the idea that clothing for young children should be gender specific.



That would be Franklin D. Roosevelt, four time president and rough rider, up there with that wavy hair and patent leather shoes. Know why you find pictures of little boys wearing dresses from that time? Because skirts and dresses made it easier to change diapers.

It's true that body chemistry can play a role in how someone acts (and we're only now just starting to scratch the surface of how that all works), but the points Key-Glyph brought up also play a large role as does society's larger, constantly changing perspective.

The evidence is all around you. Today, men are more open about their feelings, and they care now more than ever of the way they look. ...Even today's movie stars are less manly.

I just want to point out that, if you're noticing "less manly men" (meaning "aggressive and violent") around, whether in the media or otherwise, it might be because women have more social rights and are also more valued as a target audience group than before.

You're right, women have become a more valued target audience group to movie makers, and the reason is because there are no longer any real men to target the movies to. Everything today is designed for women and children because men have evolved into hairy women.

Imma cut it off there because I think the gist of what you're getting at is "Oh, woe is me. Men have lost all their power and everything is dominated by women." In which case, you'd be wrong and while I think you're just trying to stir the pot and I should probably ignore you, I'm going to list a few things here anyway.

There is still a 23.5% wage differential in the U.S. between equally qualified men and women. There is also the fact that women with children are less likely to be hired in a position than equally qualified fathers.

The ratio of male to female lawmakers in Congress and Senate is about 5 to 1.

In a study of over 5,000 children's books, boy characters outnumbered girl characters by 1.6 to 1. In the top 100 movies in 2008, only 33% of speaking roles went to women.

The United Nations proclaimed that there "are no societies in which women enjoy the same opportunities as men".

It's also stereotypically assumed that women can't drive, change a tire, fix a computer, or enjoy sports. And that's learned from a society where the constant message is that boys and girls are separate.

It's generally more accepted for girls to wear "boys" clothes or participate in "boyish" activities, than it is for boys to wear "girl" clothes or participate in "girlish" activities. Why is that? It's because the boy is the standard. It's seen in our own titles for the sexes: Male and Female, Man and Woman. The female term is the addition, the male term is the base, the default. The boy is something to aspire to (This Gallup poll of 1,020 people, shows that almost twice as many said they would prefer a boy.) But doing "girly" things? The one's that are usually quieter? That's not as good. That's somehow lesser. To a lot of people that's a boy stooping down to a lower level, even if only subconsciously.

I don't think we should be teaching our kids that being a boy means you have to be like this, or that being a girl means you have to be like that. We should be teaching them that being a girl/boy means being smart, and caring, and loving, and daring, and nurturing, and adventurous, and curious, and anything else that they want it to mean. The goal should be teaching them to be human.

Just be your damn self.

[elmagicochrisg]

There is still a 23.5% wage differential in the U.S. between equally qualified men and women.

Most of that difference is because a lot of women work part-time, or work in sectors that are less well paid. You cannot expect a woman to make as much as a man and only work part-time and / or do an easy job. A lot of women still depend on the man to do most of the hard work, but want to be treated equally moneywise. It doesn't work that way...

Makes me think of how my mother used to whine about how hard her part-time job at the post office was and how women got paid less than men while her boyfriend worked his ass off as an underwater welder. The guy sometimes literally fell asleep while eating after he was done working...

Another example. When I worked in a deep freeze food factory the men had to work their ass off doing heavy labour while the women sat all day with a little heater close to their legs picking the bad Brussels sprouts and whatnot before they sealed the bags. They also complained they made less money. Well fuck that...

It's like those foreigners who always claim their rights, but never heard or duties.

You want equal wages? Work equal hours. And work an equally taxing job.

And before you're all pissed. Yes, there are exceptions. Cleaning can be a taxing job too for instance, and it doesn't pay that well. But you can't deny A LOT of the difference in wages is there with good reason. Whether you like it or not...

I don't think we should be teaching our kids that being a boy means you have to be like this, or that being a girl means you have to be like that. We should be teaching them that being a girl/boy means being smart, and caring, and loving, and daring, and nurturing, and adventurous, and curious, and anything else that they want it to mean. The goal should be teaching them to be human.

Just be your damn self.

Quite the task for a little boy that grows up in a metrosexually oriented world...