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So "Into The Manosphere" is a netflix documentary, that im sure many here have heard of.
Here is a video on it that I watched, by a psychiatrist. Although I enjoyed it enough, there is a common sentiment that deserves to critiqued, one that was echoed in the video, that i will simplify with a youtube comment (note: this comment is in response to another comment, the context of whic i will be representing by {} brackets):
I think this gender abolitionist framing is throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
Men & Women are judged and valued by society differently. Men are valued based on their ability to climb up social hierarchy to obtain status. Women's value is more reflected by their attractiveness, and reproductive capabilities. Masculinity (attempts) to provide useful guidelines and structure to achieve this end. Women simply do not exist in the same space, so their variation of being a role model wouldn't be a good representation of the male position. It would be a kin to a white man trying to be a role model for black boys - the critical social context is not there.
Women don't grow up thinking about how to be woman, because much of what defines femininity is there by default. You are simply born a sexy girl - you simply gestate a fetus - and then give birth to it. There is little to no skill barrier required in comparison.
The problem with "being yourself" as so often espoused by liberal types is that, it provides 0 road map to achieving the traits that women (and people in general) value in men. & this is the same general issue I take with the manosphere opponents - Many of these individuals believe completely asinine and reality denying ideas like "Looks don't matter" or "You just need to be a good person to be attractive". The manosphere, for all its misogyny and toxicity, is at least calling out the reality of the situation: If you are poor, fat, and socially inept - as a man, you will be harshly judged and looked down on within our society. This is - arguably - one of the main appeals of the manosphere to begin with. If one really wants to see the manosphere go away - we need to start looking at these realities of life straight to the face. Only then can one begin to provide meaningfully positive alternatives.
This kind of reminds me of the romantic discourse about "careers" and "finding a fulfilling career," as though most people's jobs are so status enhancing. No, most people don't live there. Most girls aren't "born sexy," and even those with favorable genetics can totally make a mess of things if they just go with whatever seems fun and exciting in the moment. "Dr Ana" isn't right, but she's more right than this rubbish about how all women are valued for gestating fetuses, as though women with a bunch of kids and various baby daddies get so much status and respect for their femininity. Because poor, fat, socially inept women get so much respect. No! I hope @HereAndGone2 appears and says something suitably caustic.
Women are, to some extent, admired for different things than men, which can include doing a good job raising children, and can include their beauty, and some of those avenues have deteriorated lately, like the women who host the church socials, but that's a different conversation.
But, sure, just telling boys they should simply adopt female role models if there aren't any good men around isn't going to work, fair enough.
I’m assuming you have mainly underclass women in mind when mentioning single mothers with a bunch of kids from various fathers (well, sires might be a more accurate description). I’d argue that yes, it’s actually true that the one activity that may accord underclass women social status and respect is them having and (supposedly) properly raising children as responsible mothers. But even if they prove to be irresponsible mothers, them remaining childless is still a worse alternative on average.
In other words, if an underclass or working-class woman decides to remain childless, no path that she chooses and no activity she engages in will get her as much social status in the eyes of her social circle as being a mother, even a single mother. Society generally has a different attitude towards higher-class women who delay or reject motherhood because we assume that they have good career options, disposable income, various potential fun hobbies they can afford, some sort of higher calling etc. I suggest this blog post from Steve Sailer from 2005 in which he quotes a social worker about this.
Clearly I described low status behavior, if you immediately assumed I meant underclass. Sure, it might still be less low status than some other ver low status behavior, like being a childless meat packing plant worker or something.
Which is work carried out intentionally and intelligently over a long period of time. Being a good mother absolutely can confer status on women, though much of that status comes into effect when the children are mostly grown, which is a pretty long deferral period even for most careers. So in the meantime women do a bunch of status signaling around not letting their kids look at screens and other such mommy wars things, which are only able to generate a small amount of status, at large inconvenience.
Personal anecdote: my status dropped a bit upon having children, because previously I had some amount of high openness adventurer and religious adherent status, whereas now I spend all my free time with my family, and I've basically dropped out of all my social organizations for the time being. My status at work went down slightly, especially it's low status to have to return quickly from maternity leave, which I had to do for financial reasons. This seems fairly common among women with young children, the gestating leads to isolation, but good mothering can raise status eventually, if it works out, but since it's dependent on other people, there's always a risk one of the kids will have serious mental health issues outside their parents' control, which will also sink status in a way that's difficult to recover from.
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Meh, Ok perhaps this was poor framing on my part. Im gonna narrow it down a bit. Many girls arent born thin (there are many that are) or born with make up (though make up really just enhances whats already there naturally). But id still maintain that the option to leverage beauty exists more often, and the emphasis of beauty is clearly slanted towards women more. And the skills necessary to maintain it arent really as complex and difficult as the skills for climbing the social ladder.
Yes you can make yourself ugly with bad decisions, but the point here is that you'd have to make the decision to begin with - you'd still be starting with a baseline of attractiveness handed to many via the lottery of genetics, and then losing it due to your own decisions. Attractiveness is not as valued in men to start with (although it matters). To put this into perspective, women are rated as more attractive than men, id argue just because they are - well, women.
I'd bet money that if you asked people whether Chris Evans was more attractive than Scarlett Johansen, Scarlett would probably win. Even thought they are "close" in attractiveness.
The loss in status here has more to do with how reproduction was facilitated. Yeah, its low status, because its blatantly irresponsible behavior. Its the same reason boxers and UFC fighters would have high status on the male side of things, as opposed to a thug and a gangster starting fights, despite both actors utilizing masculine characteristics, such as strength and toughness: context matters!
I mean, yeah, i see your point, but again, the social effects here are disproportionate. We see men who are poor and socially inept judged more harshly and given less grace - homeless men are a good example: people will see a homeless men as a lazy and a bum, unworthy of compassion or help. This leads to many in our society giving less help towards, and women being given more (there being more womens shelters and the like). It likely contributes to men being more likely to be homeless in general.
Bear in mind here, im not saying women have it "easier". Just that the 2 experiences are unique.
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