Feeling deflated?

Fewer questions. Get posting.

There’s only one way to find out!

Gonna be some cranky leopards in America.

He’ll never take Windows. Never!

I don’t want Vance to be president, but I do really want Trump to die quite soon.

He’ll die soon.

Pokemon Red: Rocket Edition is brilliant.

Do you think this comic calls out all men?

No and no. We’re talking about issues raised by the comic here. Some men’s, some are women’s.

Broadcast to whom? I’m a man too, as it happens.

I think we have a lot of problems with mood regulation and emotional control of ourselves. We have problems with empathy, both experiencing it and expressing it. We have problems with sharing power. We have problems with responsibility: taking either too much of it or not enough. We have problems with openness, examining our beliefs, thoughts and emotions, especially with the help of others. We have problems with ambition and identity, aiming for things that are unrealistic or unhealthy, not clearly knowing what successful masculinity looks like in 2024. We have problems with body image, in novel and unexamined ways compared with women: there is absolutely no such thing as male body positivity. We have problems making friends and finding a partner. We have problems concentrating at school. Not all of us have all these problems, but I think there’s a lot in this list that a lot of men will identify with if they’re being honest.

I guess so. Like most whataboutism it’s a deflection for the sake of self- preservation. The truth is that there are specific problems with the way society treats women, and recognising that is disruptive and possibly painful.

The problem is that it’s so easy to see it as a mechanism to maintain the status quo. Which it so often is. Even when men call for change, it’s quite often “women should behave differently” rather than “everyone needs to reflect on their behaviour and start making changes for the better.”

I think people do care about men’s problems, but too often it just comes out as “the problem is toxic masculinity”.

Fundamentally yes that is a major problem, and we need to find a better identity that men can subscribe to. But it’s like taking a book and just showing people the last page: it seems like irrelevant nonsense without the preceding understanding.

If we set up a place where we listened to each other, and to the feedback of women, with the intent of forging a new and more functional form of masculinity, I for one would be very interested indeed.

That’s the problem. Some folks managed to create wholesome men’s subreddits back in the day. Don’t know how they’re faring now.

Good point. I think in a case like this it’s useful to explicitly point out that you’re trying to relate, and to format your response as a question so as to demonstrate that you’re actually interested in her experience. The fact that she will likely have experienced a lot of bad- faith responses will mean that we need to tread carefully when trying to compare our experiences.

The time to talk about men’s problems is any time you like, except when a woman has just started talking about women’s problems. If you redirect a conversation about women’s problems, you’re telling the women that you don’t care about their problems. If that’s the case, fine. Just don’t contribute, and let people who want to discuss the women’s problems do that. Start another conversation about men’s problems elsewhere.

If you’re a digital artist, your domain is the internet. Your audience is the internet. Your medium is the internet. In that case, you’ll write about the internet.