Teachers describe a deterioration in behaviour and attitudes that has proved to be fertile terrain for misogynistic influencers

“As soon as I mention feminism, you can feel the shift in the room; they’re shuffling in their seats.” Mike Nicholson holds workshops with teenage boys about the challenges of impending manhood. Standing up for the sisterhood, it seems, is the last thing on their minds.

When Nicholson says he is a feminist himself, “I can see them look at me, like, ‘I used to like you.’”

Once Nicholson, whose programme is called Progressive Masculinity, unpacks the fact that feminism means equal rights and opportunities for women, many of the boys with whom he works are won over.

“A lot of it is bred from misunderstanding and how the word is smeared,” he says.

But he is battling against what he calls a “dominance-based model” of masculinity. “These old-fashioned, regressive ideas are having a renaissance, through your masculinity influencers – your grifters, like Andrew Tate.”

  • SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca
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    5 months ago

    It’s actually not all that difficult to respect women. Which will work well in 99% of scenarios.

    The other 1% are interactions on the internet which has a tendency to magnify the weirdos. The “you gotta do this and this and this to even go on a date with me” types are internet weirdos. Most women aren’t actually like that. But it’s the internet, so a woman saying “just respect me as a person, and we’re cool” isn’t going to gain traction in the algorithms.

    So guys like Andrew Tate are weirdos that gain traction as a reaction to the the other weirdos.

    Go outside, touch grass, respect women as people, and everything will be alright.

      • Jakeroxs@sh.itjust.works
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        5 months ago

        Some are, but I would bet a large amount of people who believe/follow that similar ideology could be able to see how destructive it is.

        Avoid tribalism

          • Jakeroxs@sh.itjust.works
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            5 months ago

            You’re right, I just see a lot of liberal/left leaning people who fall into the same trap and demonize everyone of the “other team”, I have talked several people out of their preconceived religious/conservative notions by specifically not demonizing them for their views, but instead trying to understand the underlying reasons for their belief and then showing data/evidence to the contrary and producing alternative viewpoints.

            For example, HRC’s “Deplorables” comment, yeah there are a lot of shitty people that voted for Trump, but there’s also a lot of people who were duped into believing or did it on a whim just as “something different”.

            There was another thread recently about my fellow idiots in Texas calling to succeed, and a lot of people in the thread basically saying things like, “Good, fuck em” all the way to “Yeah let’s go in with the military and take them out” like jfc, the people calling for that are a vocal minority. I am actively working to get out of this state because of the fucked up legislature, but I know so many good people who live here and are just trying to make it through the day like the rest of us.

              • Jakeroxs@sh.itjust.works
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                5 months ago

                The republican party is definitely a threat, but that doesn’t mean every republican citizen is also a threat for the same reason, they’re basically brainwashed, some of them can be talked out of their incorrect beliefs.

                I agree though as well that there are basically no hard left govt officials in any meaningful sense.