Pretty sure it was this toxic masculinity video that prompted the NFL to pursue social work; 'member Ray Rice 2014? 

 

 

https://ph.news.yahoo.com/barack-obama-talks-toxic-masculinity-023549457.html?guccounter=1

 

Pretty interesting article on a recent discussion with Barack Obama and Steph Curry.  Obama even touches on themes in rap and hip-hop (which should please everyone here who has posted BUT WHAT ABOUT RAP in this thread).  I'm sure there was more discussed, but the article highlights these main things:

 

-Being a man = being a good human being, being responsible, working hard, being kind, respectful, compassionate

-If you are confident, you don't have to display that by putting others down - a better way to do that is to lift others up.

-A lot of the violence and pain come from men seeking respect.  A lot of cultural influences, like hip-hop and rap, are centered on having more than others (even if not true), therefore I can disrespect you - but really it's revealing your own insecurities

-Obama notes how different it is when groups of women get together vs. men - women are much more open and comfortable talking about what's going on with their lives, feelings, etc.

5 hours ago, DarkandStormy said:

-Obama notes how different it is when groups of women get together vs. men - women are much more open and comfortable talking about what's going on with their lives, feelings, etc. 

 

On the flip side, two men can sit together, watch a 3+ hour football game, and say virtually nothing the entire time without wondering if the other guy is mad at them.

 

Neither of these attributes have anything to do with toxicity, of course.

On 2/11/2019 at 3:15 AM, jmecklenborg said:

What is up with these guys on Facebook, usually aged 20 to maybe 30, making some bold but vague declaration about some character in their world who was making women "feel unsafe"? 

 

The whole thing is the opposite of a spoiled loser kicking the ball into the woods so he can't "lose".  Instead, a bomb is dropped online if you don't 100% align yourself with the self-declared moral hero, you're as bad as the unsafer.  

 

Look at me everybody -- I DON'T MAKE WOMEN FEEL UNSAFE AND I CALL OUT THOSE WHO DO ON FACEBOOK!!!  I'm a SAFER, NOT AN UNSAFER! 

 

It's called "white knighting" and it is almost always a (rather weak) ploy to gain female attention.   

One thing to consider:   Kareem Hunt did not get in any real trouble at all for hitting two guys.  He shoved (once) and kicked at a woman who had been physically and verbally aggressive with him and he got in severe trouble.

 

Double standard?   Yes.   Justified one?   Debatable, but probably.    I would say yes, but I'm firmly of the view that most of what is called "toxic masculinity" isn't toxic at all.

 

Does dramatically changing the definition of masculinity threaten this double standard.

9 minutes ago, E Rocc said:

 

It's called "white knighting" and it is almost always a (rather weak) ploy to gain female attention.   

This is the think of a person that doesn't think that someone can genuinely care. White knighting is misused now just like virtue signaling.  

I think the term on the left is to say that a male is engaging in "performative feminism".

13 hours ago, E Rocc said:

 

It's called "white knighting" and it is almost always a (rather weak) ploy to gain female attention.   

 

Instead of supporting women, this approach makes them all sound like panicked mice.  Much of feminism's current wave seems to do that.  In some venues, you can't even discuss unpleasantry without trigger warnings, as if a few words are enough to liquefy someone's poor little weak little brain.  It's like "the vapors" all over again-- and that was a tool to subjugate women, not to liberate them.

7 minutes ago, 327 said:

 

Instead of supporting women, this approach makes them all sound like panicked mice.  Much of feminism's current wave seems to do that.  In some venues, you can't even discuss unpleasantry without trigger warnings, as if a few words are enough to liquefy someone's poor little weak little brain.  It's like "the vapors" all over again-- and that was a tool to subjugate women, not to liberate them.

I really feel like this is trying to take a rare situation and then use a broad brush.  

On 2/21/2019 at 9:53 AM, 327 said:

 

Instead of supporting women, this approach makes them all sound like panicked mice.  Much of feminism's current wave seems to do that.  In some venues, you can't even discuss unpleasantry without trigger warnings, as if a few words are enough to liquefy someone's poor little weak little brain.  It's like "the vapors" all over again-- and that was a tool to subjugate women, not to liberate them.

 

That's an unfortunate trend these days, to use various tactics to prevent certain topics from being discussed, or certain opinions from being voiced.

 

IMO, it's dangerous.    If you want to convince people of something, you need to know where they are coming from.   Attempts to "shame" Trump supporters almost certainly backfired in 2016, possibly enough to elect him.

 

I don't see how they can be that much of a status symbol when they are so common and commoditized, but they are. They're literally more abundant than Accords. If they are more than 2 years old or less than 25 years old nobody cares.

A guy I used to work with had a 20 year old Ram, loved to work on the engine in his spare time, it was his baby. Body was falling apart but the thing ran like a beauty.  He had all the aftermarket parts and loved to roll coal on the highway. Not my cup of tea but to each their own I guess.

And they rust so horribly. In Columbus I'm seeing 2010s with rust-through already, let alone trucks that live north of U.S. 30.

I drive a truck because it’s the most comfortable and roomiest 4-dr vehicle I’ve ever owned. 
I’ve never seen it as a status symbol, but simply a choice that fits my needs. 

My dad has both a Tundra and a F-250.  He also owns two farm tractors.  They live at the back of the land and to get them out to the road you need to tow them down into a gully that almost has a creek, then back up the other side.  When you take one of the tractors to the place to get serviced, you get a wave from all of the other pickup drivers.  

 

On the other end of the spectrum is the "weekend warrior" truck, like the Tacoma or Colorado.  You see a lot of mountain bikers who show up to the trail head with their expensive mountain bike on an expensive rack on the back of their expensive pickup.  It's like - I'm about to go off road on my bike, so I'd better drive my off road vehicle there. 

 

 

When I started renovating my house, I coincidentally needed to get a new car. I briefly looked at little old pickups and was shocked at how well they seem to hold their value. Even now, 15 year old 4WD Toyota Tacoma's with 180,000+ miles are almost $10k.

 

I got a Toyota Celica for $4000 off of Craiglist, instead. It's a hatchback, and with a few bungee cords I've managed to get a surprising amount of lumber, doors, tile backer boards, etc. in the thing. The only times I've had to rent trucks were for sheet goods like drywall, plywood, and rigid insulation. Even when actively completely renovating a house, there were only a handful of times I really needed a truck.

Running, driving trucks that aren't rusted to death have a "value floor" of about $1200-$1500. This is in contrast to SUVs which are worth less than stuff like Cavaliers and Sunfires when they are old. People who only have $800 to spend on a car cannot buy something that gets 12 mpg.

If you live in a developed area, there's almost certainly a cheap truck rental service (UHaul or equivalent) nearby for those rare days when you're actually going to need it.

Truck sales to non-professional users are almost exclusively driven by three, highly interrelated factors;

1. The fact that other men have them, so therefore I must have one too so I can be just as much of a man. 

2. I can’t be seen to be anything other than 100% self-reliant. That’s why I have a huge truck I haul with once a decade, a McMansion with rooms that are hardly used etc...

3. Survival of the fittest on the road. Physics is physics and these things are safer because they are bigger. If I’m going to get in a road smash then better the other guy dies than me. 

 

They are not safer because they are bigger. Because they are bigger they crash more. Much more. The safest crash is one that never happened.

^ Don’t disagree, but try having that conversation with most truck owners!

20 hours ago, KJP said:

 

 

Not sure what this has to do with this topic?

 

Either way, 99% of people who think they need a pickup for the utility - and let's be honest, that's a very minimal number of overall pickup truck sales - would be better off just buying a used minivan and folding down/removing the back seats.

 

Re: the bikes on the pickup truck - my wife and I throw our bikes on the back of a tiny Yaris on a bike rack.  It accomplishes the same goal.

Edited November 25, 20195 yr by DarkandStormy

I tend to agree that this is only tangentially related to this topic, because I seriously don't think that most truck owners are thinking about the "manliness" or masculinity of the truck when they're buying it.  I think more that the possibility that they'll need it figures more highly than any rational assessment of the probability that they'll need it.  (And, of course, as the article noted, the cabs are increasingly comfortable--manufacturers know that off-road use isn't even close to the primary function most buyers intend.)

 

I'm mulling whether this should be moved to the Global Warming thread, but I'm waffling (and pressed for time at the moment) ... will think on it more later.

9 minutes ago, DarkandStormy said:

 

Not sure what this has to do with this topic?

 

 

 

Trucks are expensive and a lot of people are spending money on them that could go to more worthwhile places. Real masculinity goes right past things like guns and trucks into deeper, more important pursuits and traits. Toxic masculinity can't.

Just came to this thread to post the flex emoji. ?

I think the truck discussion does belong here. I've heard a lot of "men" tell me how economy vehicles are girl cars or other such things. Ad campaign push the message that real rugged men drive trucks.  

3 minutes ago, freefourur said:

I think the truck discussion does belong here. I've heard a lot of "men" tell me how economy vehicles are girl cars or other such things. Ad campaign push the message that real rugged men drive trucks.  

 

Lol - I agree. 

 

I had to get a Jeep Grand Cherokee after losing a battle with my wife (I was stuck in snow 3x last year in my sedan). I actually like the car - it rides well, but I really just didn't want something that big. 

 

I've never looked at a guy with a jacked up pickup and said "there's a dude secure in his own masculinity"

I watched a lot of monster truck racing as a kid. The very early guys in the '70s and early '80s that got into the trucks were just regular guys that thought the trucks were neat. Then around '86 or '87 or so when racing really picked up and they were doing a lot of post-race interviews right next to the trucks I was thinking "man these announcers like Army Armstrong are huge guys" while they were interviewing the drivers. I didn't realize until I was an adult and went back and watched the VHS tapes I made of the races that the second wave of monster truck owners were a bunch of little guys and that the announcers were average size!

2 minutes ago, GCrites80s said:

I watched a lot of monster truck racing as a kid. The very early guys in the '70s and early '80s that got into the trucks were just regular guys that thought the trucks were neat. Then around '86 or '87 or so when racing really picked up and they were doing a lot of post-race interviews right next to the trucks I was thinking "man these announcers like Army Armstrong are huge guys" while they were interviewing the drivers. I didn't realize until I was an adult and went back and watched the VHS tapes I made of the races that the second wave of monster truck owners were a bunch of little guys and that the announcers were average size!

 

Similarly - I know a handful of people who are involved in bodybuilding. Of everyone I'd know, I'd say only one doesn't deal with serious depression / self-worth issues. 

59 minutes ago, YABO713 said:

 

Lol - I agree. 

 

I had to get a Jeep Grand Cherokee after losing a battle with my wife (I was stuck in snow 3x last year in my sedan). I actually like the car - it rides well, but I really just didn't want something that big. 

 

I've never looked at a guy with a jacked up pickup and said "there's a dude secure in his own masculinity"

You need something with all wheel drive in Cleveland for the winters.

 

The thing about the trucks and the SUV's is that since they sit higher off the ground, more people want them so they can see over traffic or are not blocked by traffic especially when turning left at stop lights. If more people are sitting high off the ground in a truck or SUV, it tends to increase the demand more.

That's an endless cycle. It's not worth it to me to drive a barstool over a few specific situations, especially not because some other person decided to buy something tall. I can't rationalize nor create justifications for it.

6 minutes ago, Brutus_buckeye said:

You need something with all wheel drive in Cleveland for the winters.

 

 

This is not true.  You need something with good tires. Front wheel drive cars with snow tires is all you need. But even a very good pair of all seasons will work too. 

Outside of hilly areas AWD is mostly for people who don't understand tires.

Plus, if they don't have 4-wheel drive, they only have rear-wheel drive, with all of the engine weight up front.  So they're usually terrible in the snow.  

 

I have tried to spin out my Ford Focus in the snow but can't.  The post-2011 model has pretty amazing ABS, plus the weight of the engine is directly above the axle that makes the thing go.  

Edited November 25, 20195 yr by jmecklenborg

5 hours ago, Gramarye said:

I tend to agree that this is only tangentially related to this topic, because I seriously don't think that most truck owners are thinking about the "manliness" or masculinity of the truck when they're buying it.  I think more that the possibility that they'll need it figures more highly than any rational assessment of the probability that they'll need it.  (And, of course, as the article noted, the cabs are increasingly comfortable--manufacturers know that off-road use isn't even close to the primary function most buyers intend.)

 

I'm mulling whether this should be moved to the Global Warming thread, but I'm waffling (and pressed for time at the moment) ... will think on it more later.

 

Show me a Cro-Magnon driving something other than a big f*cking truck.

Living in PHS, this last year or two I see siteworkers every day come and go from their jobs on the Lumen, Halle, JHB etc. They almost all drive trucks. Kinda makes sense. That’s said, Ive noticed that plenty of those trucks have never seen any serious work, including a guy who nearly always parks by me in his huge truck with all the bells and whistles. It’s a ‘Laramie’ edition or something. The thing is in permanent showroom condition. 

I mentioned it to a work colleague, who told me about his brother in law, who is a contractor and is exactly the same. He has a maxed-out truck only because if he didn’t, the other guys wouldn’t take him seriously, so he basically dropped a ton of cash on something he doesn’t need, just so his peers won’t call him ‘gay’ or something. Seems like the effects of something pretty ‘toxic’ to me. 

15 hours ago, roman totale XVII said:

Living in PHS, this last year or two I see siteworkers every day come and go from their jobs on the Lumen, Halle, JHB etc. They almost all drive trucks. Kinda makes sense. That’s said, Ive noticed that plenty of those trucks have never seen any serious work, including a guy who nearly always parks by me in his huge truck with all the bells and whistles. It’s a ‘Laramie’ edition or something. The thing is in permanent showroom condition. 

I mentioned it to a work colleague, who told me about his brother in law, who is a contractor and is exactly the same. He has a maxed-out truck only because if he didn’t, the other guys wouldn’t take him seriously, so he basically dropped a ton of cash on something he doesn’t need, just so his peers won’t call him ‘gay’ or something. Seems like the effects of something pretty ‘toxic’ to me. 

 

The only person who ever made a comment about me driving a "girly" car was a friend of mine who is a die-hard feminist. I'm on a couple different construction sites every week and haven't gotten any trash talk about it - I'd say the majority of cars around are old beaters like mine and work vans. Although the last month or two these places have been big mud pits, so maybe folks don't want to get their showroom quality trucks muddy?

^Oddly, a lot of the same guys out in the country who own trucks are also into modifying foreign hatchbacks.  

18 hours ago, roman totale XVII said:

 

I mentioned it to a work colleague, who told me about his brother in law, who is a contractor and is exactly the same. He has a maxed-out truck only because if he didn’t, the other guys wouldn’t take him seriously, so he basically dropped a ton of cash on something he doesn’t need, just so his peers won’t call him ‘gay’ or something. Seems like the effects of something pretty ‘toxic’ to me. 

You could say the exact same thing about someone driving a Tesla

6 minutes ago, Brutus_buckeye said:

You could say the exact same thing about someone driving a Tesla

 

Um, speaking as a Tesla driver ... heck no.

27 minutes ago, Brutus_buckeye said:

You could say the exact same thing about someone driving a Tesla

 

The owner of my dad's company drives a pickup.  That might have influenced my dad's decision to sell the Focus to me and start driving a truck to work.   

I know it’s the Daily Wire, but Jesus.

34 minutes ago, Brutus_buckeye said:

You could say the exact same thing about someone driving a Tesla

I have seen things online and heard things in person regarding males driving a Prius for some time now- Metrosexual, wimps, gay, etc.

 

 

 

Quote

 ...would be better off just buying a used minivan and folding down/removing the back seats.

Me. already took out the last row of seast-may have to take out more and just leave the driver and front passenger seat-just in case I end up having to live in the damn thing.

^^ toxic masculinity distilled down to one tweet

Edited November 26, 20195 yr by freefourur

I don't listen to DW at all, but that sounds like shock-jock material.  Most conservatives love Mr. Rogers.

2 hours ago, Gramarye said:

 

Um, speaking as a Tesla driver ... heck no.

Present company excluded of course....

 

 

I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say Aubrey probably drives a pickup. ?

BTW - it speaks volumes that I spent a good five minutes deliberating if this belonged in here, The Trump Presidency, The Republican Party, or Crazy Conspiracy Theories thread...

 

 

Edited November 27, 20195 yr by roman totale XVII

13 hours ago, roman totale XVII said:

I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say Aubrey probably drives a pickup. ?

BTW - it speaks volumes that I spent a good five minutes deliberating if this belonged in here, The Trump Presidency, The Republican Party, or Crazy Conspiracy Theories thread...

 

 

 

Very normal person.

 

"Hey, I think the poor and working classes need help and that healthcare should be a right for everyone."

 

Toxic males - "YO WE WILL LITERALLY HUNT YOU ALL DOWN IF THIS HAPPENS."

If he's worried about being less important now, he'll be really unimportant once the cops kill him.