a small part of a complex issue
Nov. 9th, 2024 07:57 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sabotabbyMisogyny isn't all of it, of course, but watching that smug piece of shit Fuentes, who looks like he's about 12, go off, I have Thoughts. Because I do work with teenage boys, and yes, many of them are more right wing than they used to be. Though fortunately most of mine personally aren't, I see a certain Type of behaviour pattern that I think is a synecdoche for a broader societal trend.
("Sabotabby, why the fuck are you trying to spell "synecdoche" before finishing your first coffee? FFS.")
I don't think I have particularly important insights or anything, it's just that I know kids. And I can usually tell which way an election will go by what the kids are talking about. We kind of all assume that the young are more progressive, and in some ways they are, but in other, deeper ways they really are not, and that's concerning for obvious reasons.
We live in an extremely gendered culture, a weirdly gendered culture, and expectations around gender performance begin before a kid's even popped out. I don't know if, under laboratory conditions, children naturally segregate by gender. I suspect they don't. But we're not under laboratory conditions, and so most do.
Accordingly, cishet boys tend to go through developmental stages.
Stage 1: Girls are ICKY.
Stage 2: Oh wait no, girls are CUTE.
Stage 3: WAAAAH no girls like me.
Stage 4: Wait what this girl likes me back. I guess girls are human after all.
In previous generations, Stage 3 tended to be kind of short-lived, and for particularly sensitive and talented boys stuck in that stage, one could give them a guitar and they could write sad songs about it in their garage, which ironically would lead to girls eventually liking them back. But now, instead, we have Jordan Peterson and Joe Rogan, not to mention their peers and educational professionals concerned about the Crisis In Masculinity, basically trapping them in that stage past when it's developmentally appropriate.
I had a version of this, I guess, where I felt that no boy (or girl) would ever like me back, from around 8-13 or so, and thus I would be sad and lonely forever. This is pretty normal, although at the time it felt like it was the most painful thing ever and would never end. It took the equivalent of a garage and a guitar—though in my case, a sketchbook, pencil, punk and goth—to get me out of that stage. I can't imagine what it would be like for that to have happened in the age of the internet, when there were millions of online enablers assuring me that, no, I was ugly and unlovable and here is a convenient political ideology to latch onto where I could have my revenge.
The adult version of this developmental process is even worse, because not only will you never find love, but you will never have the trappings of financial security. This goes for all genders, but it is particularly acute for young men because the remaining unionized work tends to be in the type of labour that's feminized—teachers, nurses, and so on—thanks to neoliberal policies of outsourcing. This not just robs political movements of natural allies in labour, but robs young men of the ability to connect to older, smarter guys and to each other. It atomizes them in the gig economy, which structurally does not favour solidarity, even as it impoverishes them. It isolates them from history and collective action, just as the No Girls Like Me influencers isolate them from the companionship of other genders.
I have enough of an individualist streak that I still absolutely do blame everyone who voted for Trump, most of them against their own economic and social interests, whether or not they did it because they genuinely believe women should be chattel or whether they're concerned about the price of eggs. I also blame the Democrats for being idiots and not addressing any of the structural economic problems when they had four years to do so. But I also think that until we address structural misogyny, we're not going to get enough of the type of individuals who make better choices to make any kind of difference. I don't think the US will fall to fascism quite so quickly, largely because Trump is incompetent and senile and too much power is invested in his failing person, and if the Dems aren't completely incompetent, they can make a comeback in four years, if not by midterms. By then, however, quite a lot of damage will have been done, not just to human beings but to institutions and most importantly, to the climate. As long as we have so many young men trapped at Stage 3, both in terms of gender politics and economically, we have a long term problem on our hands.
The good news is I've actually seen this turned around in action. While I'd like to give every kid of every gender a garage and a guitar, the simple act of proximity can be a radical and transformative thing. Piece of shit dudes forced to interact with women as equals can and does make dudes less shitty. Unionization not only makes people more financially stable, but it makes people better politically. If you give a young man the option of being a normal guy who gets laid vs. being a weird little creep like Fuentes, most will choose the former. I don't know how best to do this outside of the school system, or how to do it when the gravitational pull of Rogan's roid-ridden bullshit is so powerful, but I have to believe it's possible.
TL;DR I am not saying misogyny is the only factor in the US elections, I am saying it's a factor.
("Sabotabby, why the fuck are you trying to spell "synecdoche" before finishing your first coffee? FFS.")
I don't think I have particularly important insights or anything, it's just that I know kids. And I can usually tell which way an election will go by what the kids are talking about. We kind of all assume that the young are more progressive, and in some ways they are, but in other, deeper ways they really are not, and that's concerning for obvious reasons.
We live in an extremely gendered culture, a weirdly gendered culture, and expectations around gender performance begin before a kid's even popped out. I don't know if, under laboratory conditions, children naturally segregate by gender. I suspect they don't. But we're not under laboratory conditions, and so most do.
Accordingly, cishet boys tend to go through developmental stages.
Stage 1: Girls are ICKY.
Stage 2: Oh wait no, girls are CUTE.
Stage 3: WAAAAH no girls like me.
Stage 4: Wait what this girl likes me back. I guess girls are human after all.
In previous generations, Stage 3 tended to be kind of short-lived, and for particularly sensitive and talented boys stuck in that stage, one could give them a guitar and they could write sad songs about it in their garage, which ironically would lead to girls eventually liking them back. But now, instead, we have Jordan Peterson and Joe Rogan, not to mention their peers and educational professionals concerned about the Crisis In Masculinity, basically trapping them in that stage past when it's developmentally appropriate.
I had a version of this, I guess, where I felt that no boy (or girl) would ever like me back, from around 8-13 or so, and thus I would be sad and lonely forever. This is pretty normal, although at the time it felt like it was the most painful thing ever and would never end. It took the equivalent of a garage and a guitar—though in my case, a sketchbook, pencil, punk and goth—to get me out of that stage. I can't imagine what it would be like for that to have happened in the age of the internet, when there were millions of online enablers assuring me that, no, I was ugly and unlovable and here is a convenient political ideology to latch onto where I could have my revenge.
The adult version of this developmental process is even worse, because not only will you never find love, but you will never have the trappings of financial security. This goes for all genders, but it is particularly acute for young men because the remaining unionized work tends to be in the type of labour that's feminized—teachers, nurses, and so on—thanks to neoliberal policies of outsourcing. This not just robs political movements of natural allies in labour, but robs young men of the ability to connect to older, smarter guys and to each other. It atomizes them in the gig economy, which structurally does not favour solidarity, even as it impoverishes them. It isolates them from history and collective action, just as the No Girls Like Me influencers isolate them from the companionship of other genders.
I have enough of an individualist streak that I still absolutely do blame everyone who voted for Trump, most of them against their own economic and social interests, whether or not they did it because they genuinely believe women should be chattel or whether they're concerned about the price of eggs. I also blame the Democrats for being idiots and not addressing any of the structural economic problems when they had four years to do so. But I also think that until we address structural misogyny, we're not going to get enough of the type of individuals who make better choices to make any kind of difference. I don't think the US will fall to fascism quite so quickly, largely because Trump is incompetent and senile and too much power is invested in his failing person, and if the Dems aren't completely incompetent, they can make a comeback in four years, if not by midterms. By then, however, quite a lot of damage will have been done, not just to human beings but to institutions and most importantly, to the climate. As long as we have so many young men trapped at Stage 3, both in terms of gender politics and economically, we have a long term problem on our hands.
The good news is I've actually seen this turned around in action. While I'd like to give every kid of every gender a garage and a guitar, the simple act of proximity can be a radical and transformative thing. Piece of shit dudes forced to interact with women as equals can and does make dudes less shitty. Unionization not only makes people more financially stable, but it makes people better politically. If you give a young man the option of being a normal guy who gets laid vs. being a weird little creep like Fuentes, most will choose the former. I don't know how best to do this outside of the school system, or how to do it when the gravitational pull of Rogan's roid-ridden bullshit is so powerful, but I have to believe it's possible.
TL;DR I am not saying misogyny is the only factor in the US elections, I am saying it's a factor.
no subject
Date: 2024-11-09 04:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-11-09 04:26 pm (UTC)(I was young enough during Reagan's presidency and mosty out of the country not to have any clue, and my parents are conditioned to almost never discuss politics because of, y'know, spending their childhoods in a dictatorship, so I didn't get any context from them either.)