This is not my personal opinion, I know Gen Z men who voted for Harris. But the voter demographics really speak for themselves, and maybe now people will look at the radicalization of young men as a serious (but solvable) issue.
Iām a gen z male, raised in a far right Republican household. Iām a social democrat. I am progressive.
Same man. It was wild when middle school rolled around and I finally gained awareness of the world beyond myself and learned what the Republicans actually were and wanted. A friend who knew more about politics than me explained some stuff, and suddenly I had to question why my family was against progressive beliefs.
There is a lot to be said here. Iāll use my own experience as an example.
Iām a millennial male who had a terrible time as a young adult through my mid 30s. I grew up in a fairly religious/conservative area of the US, and I didnāt have the ability to even start questioning that before my college years because literally everyone I knew was either a vocal supporter of or tacitly accepted that cultural status quo. Mental health issues were either not discussed or not recognized in any serious fashion. It wasnāt until my late 20s that I finally understood that I had severe depression and anxiety and sought help, despite suffering from it since my early teenage years.
Socially, I never felt like I was cool enough or good enough. I didnāt understand women, and the endless series of rejections and confusing encounters only served to erode my low self confidence further. I had no idea what a healthy relationship looked like because my parents were just going through the motions at that point, and the relationships I saw in TV shows and movies were incredibly shallow. The few people I considered friends did not support me in any positive way. I eventually kicked them to the curb, preferring solitude to being the butt of their jokes.
I was a prime target for recruitment for the alt-right: depressed, alone, disaffected, and ready to lash out. The only thing that kept me from going in that direction was a keen sense that the rhetoric was bullshit and its leaders only cared to take advantage of the rank-and-file to accumulate money and power. Many people I knew were not so perceptive and became victims of that movement.
My only saving grace was that I had a decent job with healthcare benefits, which allowed me to get the therapy I needed to overcome these challenges. Again, most people I knew did not have such resources. Nearly a decade later, I am now a family man with a wife and child. I am far happier than I have been at any other point in my life. Despite that, there is still plenty I donāt understand. I donāt have a good grasp of what positive masculinity looks like. I cannot point to anyone who has served as a good, male role-model in my life. I still donāt have any close male friends with whom I can share my feelings and challenges.
However, I do understand how easily young men can be swayed to far-right crusades. Social media warped my view of reality, and itās far worse now than it was 10-15 years ago. Moreover, there is no alternative to far-right echo chambers for young men to commiserate and get help. Those spaces simply do not exist on the left. If you dare to complain or vent, you will immediately be told your problems donāt matter and called a misogynist. I can readily call multiple conversations I had with liberals and feminists who rejected my problems, even being told that I was āliving life on easy modeā because I was a man.
For all the women who are reading this, I get it. As a man, I donāt have to worry about the government meddling in my bodily autonomy. For the most part, I donāt have to worry about walking alone at night or being accosted or raped. I donāt have to worry about being taking seriously at my job or being passed over for promotions because of my gender. However, none of that negates the challenges that young men are facing. Their gender does not save them from broken homes, abuse, mental health issues, a bad job market, degrading standards of living, student debt, double-standards, confusing and contradictory narratives surrounding dating and relationships, etc. Yes, privileged men with no right to complain do exist, but they are an extreme minority. The vast majority of young men are in a bad place, and the only people reaching out to help have ulterior motives. If you want things to change, try having some empathy. Maybe you will get empathy for your problems in return.
This. Men are more often victims of violent crime, homelessness, mental illness, suicides, do worse in school, incarceration, die in wars, work dangerous jobs. Classic male institutions, structures, and spaces donāt exist anymore like they used to.
Add to that that men showing emotions is still seen as weakness.
These issues arenāt addressed or even mentioned.
Men are more often victims of violent crime, homelessness, mental illness, suicides, do worse in school, incarceration, die in wars, work dangerous jobs.
The victims of other men. Thatās the joke of it all. And the folks screaming loudest about being victimized are inevitably the ones quickest and most eager to take their own pound of flesh at the first opportunity.
Add to that that men showing emotions is still seen as weakness.
Primarily among other men. This isnāt a gendered issue nearly so much as it is a socio-economic hierarchy. The āexcess malesā problem is whatās driving the violence, the poverty, and the declining health. Young men are pressed into the social hierarchy by their elders, often from an extremely young age, through physical, emotional, and sexual violence. They climb the social ladder by proving their tolerance for abuse by those above, while exhibiting a sufficient capacity for sadism on those below. Anyone who cannot endure the abuse and find their own cohort to abuse in turn becomes the social excrement that the system exudes.
This is literally āThe Patriarchyā that feminists rant about and seek to abolish. But efforts to abolish the system invoke its most violent tendencies. The result is a youth population that is selected for the most sniveling and cruel to lead it into the next generation.
This entire comment is exactly the kind of lack of empathy that the gentleman was talking about.
Primarily among other men.
The worst I ever got for showing emotions in front of other men was being called sensitive. Women on the other hand dismissed me with fury, insulting my manhood and even hitting me.
They climb the social ladder by proving their tolerance for abuse by those above, while exhibiting a sufficient capacity for sadism on those below.
Where did you learn this fucking nonsense, gender studies?
The Patriarchy
Interesting name for it given how many men will tell you it is women upholding menās gender roles. Men are still expected to pay for dates, to be able to support families, to have a home and a car before theyāre even worth attempting to dateā¦
As a Gen Z man who statistically should have fallen down the incel and alt-right pipeline but didnāt, this echos exactly what I see in my generation. We donāt have positive examples of Masculinity, and the left just yells at us that weāre trash, when we struggle with things and most donāt have many (or any) good friends to lean on. So of course they go to the alt right.
Thanks for relating all that - lots of information but worth the read. You largely summed up my own early existence in the first few paragraphs. My therapy came in the form of getting involved in theatre, which exposed me to all kinds of people and ideas, revamped my attitudes and saved me from embracing radical ideas that are more or less based on rejecting a society that rejects you. I think that same cynicism is common in people from many different backgrounds, who share the same alienation for all kinds of reasons.
Iāll even add one - throughout my software career doing contract jobs, finding a new gig always took me 2-3 weeks and was very routine. When I turned 50 the 2-3 weeks abruptly and permanently became 2-3 months, and took a lot more effort. Apparently in that community I was suddenly too old. Only one recruiter let slip that age was the reason a potential client rejected me, but the sudden difference at 50 was stark. So I donāt know what you do for a living but you might be facing that yourself when itās your time.
Anyway I totally agree about empathy. I donāt know what it is but people seem to be constantly on guard nowadays. Their go-to assumption is to look for evil and refuse to accept simple mistakes. That and permanently crucifying anybody who does anything morally unacceptable, or ever did in their past. If somebody Likes the wrong tweet itās unforgivable and irredeemable. I donāt recall another time when so many people were so militant about this attitude. Forgiveness used to mean compassion, now it means youāre complicit, enabling, a shill, ājust as bad,ā etc. I think we need to think of the glass houses analogy and stop pretending to be morally impeccable.
half joke first. nobodyās trying to meddle in our bodily autonomy, yet.
edit: i havent looked too close at it but the mensliberation space on lemmy.ca may interest you? cancermancer down bellow has a rec for r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates that looks to have another good perspective in the topic. so im sticking it right here with the other.
Iāll try to approach the topic from my perspective as well. my gender has never really be part of my internal view of myself. but it is an inescapable part of how other people will see me, and the rules are always whatever the other person wants. so maybe not the poster child for speaking on masculinity. iām literally the default charater generator in every videogame, but itās just a hallucinating meat suit.
talking about gender concepts and social roles was a norm growing up because i did that growing up in the weird outside groups the christian kids chased. any reference to maculinity was done at me as an attack, even when i was doing it according to the rules. i agree, there are few places for young men to explore their way out of those strict views. especially in the early years. iāve often seen them jump straight into spaces meant to be safe for people whoāve had not great experiances with the topic, especially women. and press other people to do all the work, explain things to them and navigate their often* harsh language. and i get it. when youāve only ever been allowed to express 3 levels of the same emotion, itās gonna be rough sorting that out.
itās going to be on people who have worked their way through that mind set to make those places for kids to start the process. most importantly, people who share their experiance and perspective. yes folls like me can and really need to come in there and talk openly. but my own experiance is never going to line up in a way that will connect with those kids. even when i look exactly like our experiance should line up.
ā¦if theres more spelling mistakes then there are more spelling mistakes. fuck it thats too much text for a phone
mensliberation space on lemmy.ca
I appreciate your otherwise quality comment but I have to say that I donāt intend to use a space that only views menās issues through a feminist lens.
On Reddit, LeftWingMaleAdvocates is a solid lefty menās space.
i spent all of a minute poking around. not a topic i deep dive in really. more hoping to pose the question of āhey do we maybe have a space like this?ā. someplace where people having a shared perspective would have the patience for eachothers early questions they once had.
iām not on reddit but a few minutes poking around there it doesnāt look crazypants. so iāll add it to my comment too.
That was a very thoughtfully written response. I can relate to a lot of your story and agree with your conclusions. There needs to be more outlets for men as an alternative to right wing communities. I hope you meet more liberals and feminists that are open-minded to menās hardships. I have to believe there are more reasonable people out there on the left than not.
I have to believe there are more reasonable people out there on the left than not
There are, but online is where the psychopathic man haters feel free to let their colors fly. At union conventions and community meets, I only ever hear tame comments from the very obvious radfems.
I was actually wondering how the gender gap changed in this election, and it wasnāt at all what I was expecting:
According to exit polls by CNN Trump gained +2% of the male vote, and +5% of the female vote compared to 2020 - though women were still more likely to support Harris, of course.
An analysis by the AP found similar results, with the support from men under 45 increasing +7%, and women under 45 +6%, while for older men it decreased -1%, and for older women stayed the same.
Surprisingly, Trumpās support among racial minority groups increased while white and older Americans increased support for Harris.
After thorough analysis and much thought I have ultimately concluded that I have absolutely no fucking clue what is going on with American politics.
Itās the economy. Look at the numbers for voters without a college degree, rural voters, and lower income voters. Trump won all of these groups. In the WaPo exit polls the issues are included, not just the demographics. For voters who think the economy is the most importantly issue and for voters who think the US economy is doing badly: Trump dominated.
The Democrats continue to fail at shedding their reputation for being out of touch with working class Americans. The only income bracket that Harris won was the $100,000+ group. This tells us that the Democrats are an upper middle class and upper class party.
They probably feel like theyāre fucked either way and have nothing going for them. That makes it easier to side with the dude spouting hate. If I was that age Iād probably be in the same boat as them because being angry and hateful feels good and it took me a while to get that under control. I certainly didnāt have any actual hope things would improve after this election but I did vote for Kamala because she at least wasnāt spouting hateful shit. Not that it helped because I live in a dark red district. If there hadnāt been an abortion amendment on the ballot Iād have probably skipped this one.
Wow, thatās crazy.
I wonder how much of that is demonization of unions. If a big piece of Democrat support for working class is support for unions, does that actually matter when so many people of all incomes are taught to hate unions?
Then thereās the student loan fiasco. By all rights the Biden administration should have gotten kudos for finding so many ways to attempt student loan forgiveness, and for focusing it on lower income people (for example, people in income based repayment with less than $10k left). However the right succeeded in making that seem elitist or not independent and the left seemed to blame Democrats for not being more successful in the face of Republican obstruction
After thorough analysis and much thought I have ultimately concluded that I have absolutely no fucking clue what is going
The statements above seem to suggest itās no longer about identity politics. The habitual way of labeling people no longer explains political results.
the real metric that matters is that way way less people voted. not many people changed their votes from last time. many people are simply convinced to stay home, and as always, that results in a Republican win. the propaganda that was most effective was all of the āKamala is no true Scotsman, so you should just not voteā. i believe this was lost by the people that ārefused to vote for genocideā. i think thatās what accelerated the genocide.
I really doubt double-digit millions of voters sat out because of Gaza.
Kamalaās vote total is roughly in line with what would be expected looking at 2008, 2012, and 2016. The massive turnout in 2020 on the Dem side appears to be an abberation - it was unique circumstances with COVID and all that. On the Republican side, Trump ran slightly ahead of his 2020 performance, and well ahead of 2016.
Itās basic electoral politics: Trump has succeeded at expanding his base of support and turning them out to vote reliably. The Democrats have not. No single issue is responsible for that.
You can blame protests or Gaza or third parties or whoever else you want - the truth remains that the Dem base from the Obama years is not large enough and not appropriately distributed to win an election against Trumpās base; whatever else you think of the man, he has been very good at gaining and retaining support.
but all of the same things could be said about Biden. he won. what changed?
True but I think thatās probably more of deep red state residents seeing their vote not matter live on TV every fucking election. Iāve seen the federal turnout but I havenāt compared state to state turnout yet and I would imagine thatās probably a better metric since like 30% of the population live where their vote makes no difference.
Yep, Trumpās popularity went down with white voters (albeit only 2-4 points depending on male or female) but gained ground in Latino and āother unidentifiedā minorities. He also actually lost older voters too.
But I think the biggest surprise for me is that Trump gained more of the new voters than Harris. And while I donāt have a gender breakdown from that, I wonder if a lot of those were males.
So many pundits were leaning into the gender gap so hard, I really expected a blowout landslide for Harris. This is the last time I pay any attention to commentators, forecasters or polls. My current theory of American politics is that weāve become a full-on Idiocracy. There are always idiots in any society, but I really feel like if we can elect the Orange Sack of Shit a second time, our collective stupidity has passed a tipping point. We almost made it to 250 years too. But nothing lasts forever. Hang onto your seat, I donāt expect swirling down the drain to be fun.
Some commentators were even publishing absolutely ridiculous cope to explain why the polls were 50/50. The media was working overtime to stick their heads in the sand for some reason.
I can see why some young men might feel like the Democratic party is prioritizing womenās issues over those affecting men, especially young men. In fact, it might seem like the Democratic party is not only indifferent to struggling young men, but hostile to them. I can understand why someone might not want to vote for a party that thinks of them as deplorable, pathetic losers.
Issues affecting young women:
- Rapes arenāt prosecuted
- Government forced births
- Bleeding out in a parking lot
- Widespread misogyny
Issues affecting young men:
- Girls wonāt put out
- There arenāt enough pickup trucks
- Joe Rogan is being victimized by jews
- Germ theory and masks or something
How exactly can a political party address what is for men essentially a collection of toxic culture issues?
Issues affecting young men:
- Rape reports are ignored and not taken seriously
- Not trained in the tools to deal with mental health and emotions
- High expectation to make money but low job prospects
- Jerks trivializing the fact that men have real concerns because OtHeRs HaVe It WoRsE.
It should be empathy for all. Asshat.
Your list is the issues that men are actually facing, but what OP posted is what the clout chasing āalpha influencersā tout as āmenās actual problemsā.
For everyoneās sake, we need to start reclaiming menās spaces from these Andrew Taint-wannabeās, and towards people like you. They donāt care about anything but their bank accounts.
Yes, us men need therapy. Women also donāt donāt get special mental health training and oh fucking boy if you think women arenāt dealing with people trivializing every legitimate worry they have then youāre on something special.
If weāre so damn fuckinā tough we should be able to handle ourselves while we focus a little more on making sure women arenāt dying from preventable causes, losing their rights, or worrying about whatever immediate danger they find themselves in day-to-day.
No one is being mean to us unless we start something and women are fed up with men as a group because theyād be insane not to be right now. Itās been about us for thousands of years and the second anyone tries to do any good for someone else we, as a group, throw a fit like you wouldnāt believe.
āEmpathy for allā take your āall lives matterā bullshit and shove it up your fucking ass.
I donāt disagree with your issues facing women. But your issues young men face is very disingenuous
Its disingenuous to the actual issues facing young men, but right on point for how people seem to see mens issues. It is in fact a perfect example of why men might just feel put upon by the left.
Is there a visual representation of 3. being nailed to a cross for dramatization purposes?
I think many men, whether they realize it or not, feel specifically persecuted by trans rights. They might say that allowing trans women in womenās sports is cheating and that it would allow the trans women to be successful in the sport over less merit than they as cis males would have to. The deconstruction of the gender/sex binary also threatens cis malesā historic position as self-assigned protectors, leaders, and winners of the āweaker sexā. There is also the phobia among men of discovering that the woman whom they want to romance is trans, which really comes down to masculine fragility and conformity that leads to homophobia (in the sense of XY + XY, not gender) and transphobia. As a cis male, these men need to get over themselves.
Many men also believe that gun control is a threat to them. They need these guns in case a fascist power ever seizes the government and they need to fight back, so they are actively voting for the fascist powers to seize the government so that they can keep their guns.
There are also men who hold prejudice against any religion except Christianity so leftwing inclusivity efforts and anti-prejudice efforts come across as welcoming these perceived threats. These men arenāt simply just the redneck Bible thumpers or even devout or practicing Christians, but they just see the most common belief system around them as the default.
Itās not that these issues are a threat to men, but that they perceive them as threats.
Women asked for some basic goddamn respect and when they got āuppityā(because us men werenāt listening) they really got a āyou were mean to me so Iām gunna elect Hitler againā. Millions of people alive today want women strip women of the rights they fought for and women are supposed to be polite about it?!
Itās crazy how weak they are and Iām sad sharing a gender with them.
And many of those people who voted to āelect Hitler againā were woman. I think it is wild that people keep minimizing the role of the single largest voting demographic into victims.
I thought the Harris campaigns ads to encourage female voters in red counties was incredibly demeaning.
āWhat happens at the polls stays at the pollsā
Iām male, but I cringed hard at those ads.
I wonder if the had good reception at focus groups or something. Maybe it really did play well, I donāt know. But it made it seems like women were too weak to own their opinions or vote.
Which would forget the huge amounts of indoctrination that subset of that group has experienced, both religious and just cultural by way of hearing āitās a womanās placeā for their entire lives. And just because they can be stupid, too, doesnāt mean they arenāt victims and just because theyāre victims doesnāt mean they canāt be stupid.
Weāre all getting fucked by the right economically and itās not even hidden a little but but they keep getting into power. Itās the same shit, different pile.
the data does not support this conclusion. more young men did not vote for Trump, less people in total voted. almost no one changed their vote from last election. people were just convinced to stay home, which always results in Republican wins. both candidates got less votes total than last year, by a lot. i blame this on the āi refuse to vote for genocideā people that have just successfully accelerated that genocide.