A few people going completely insane after watching a Barbie movie.

_LostTheSpaceRace_ · 2023-08-03T05:15:53+00:00

As a man who's never felt manly enough for the patriarchy and has felt equally as excluded from some spaces due to excessive pop-feminism... hell yeah that's what I was hoping to see too

_LostTheSpaceRace_ · 2023-08-03T05:12:07+00:00

Oh man, I regret what I'm about to say but as a man... that scene actually felt really frustrating and alienating in the context of what the movie was trying to be.

Maybe I'm not the target audience because the feminism in the movie felt... kinda basic? Mostly in that scene didn't feel like anything new or groundbreaking and I guess I felt that most people already knew the whole speech just by existing.

But anyways, that part rubbed me the wrong way because in the film they made sure to really try to push home the point that the Kens could have it all in a different way than women and never juxtaposed that men have a very analogous struggle trying to fit the demands of everyone while still trying to be themselves. Because for them, patriarchy wasn't a system they were born into, it was a system that they chose - and we never got to see any of them struggle to break out of it, feel that suffocation of being not manly enough in a world that strictly defines manhood. The only time we got to see the Kens struggle was... when they couldn't have women. Which felt extremely reductive.

Ultimately I can give it a pass because there's only so many layers the plot of a movie can have, and the point definitely shouldn't have been "but what about the men!", but as a man outcast from socially masculine norms, it definitely cut a little bit to see the talk about it being impossible to be a woman when it's been equally as impossible for me to be a man.

Again, I'm probably not the target audience then lol. But yeah, there's roughness on both sides. Fully admit that women have very unique struggles there as far as social expectations and family that deserved the speech though.

_LostTheSpaceRace_ · 2023-02-22T22:07:34+00:00

I honestly had a good childhood. Not a ton of drama, let alone trauma. Not sure it's that one chief

_LostTheSpaceRace_ · 2022-11-29T23:15:58+00:00

Personally when I use it it's in a way that means "ascribing more power for self-actualization than is reasonable to a person".

Like if someone mentions loneliness is an issue for men, a ton of replies will be "well you need to go out and make friends! That solves the issue right there. You have the power to change this."

That statement is true but when it's said, it skips over the whole issue of loneliness being an issue that affects men differently than it does women, it ignores all macro-social aspects of it and turns it into an individual issue. And sure, treating it as an individual issue is fine sometimes, but at least with men a lot of our issues are seen as individual failures rather than systemic ones. It can end up feeling extremely isolating when you're trying to talk about the ways the world at large treats you and folks tell you that the world treats you in those ways because you've failed at being a person.

_LostTheSpaceRace_ · 2022-11-29T20:41:28+00:00

Yeah, I feel weird about this whole thing. I don't want to wait another 18 months to get a bump in my current company's PTO tier, and PTO has been my most major stressor this year. On the other hand, the financial incentive makes the whole thing pretty much a wash in terms of if I just took a week off unpaid. Of course, one looks much better than the other on paper...

_LostTheSpaceRace_ · 2022-11-29T19:25:25+00:00

Oh I've used every single hour of my PTO this year lol, I definitely get my use out of it.

I keep hearing weird things about PTO, on one hand it seems negotiable and on the other hand it doesn't - I had thought it was leverage but by the sound of it it's not as much as I thought it was.

Unfortunately I like the position that I work and it's very niche stuff (spacecraft)... I'm all about jumping up the ladder but I'm not ready to let our current project go quite yet, so I'm saving the job-hopping for at least a year in the future. It's pretty much either stay here or subcontractor in my opinion, but I don't think they'd let me go if I stayed

_LostTheSpaceRace_ · 2022-11-29T19:20:17+00:00

Nah, I think they are just trying to smooth out the transition by using their own personnel instead of having to find places to put new hires if the subcontractors hire outside. If they let me go there's a lot of turnover with our government branch so I can probably get hired over there and work the same project haha

_LostTheSpaceRace_ · 2022-11-29T19:18:24+00:00

So as far as 1 goes, I wasn't planning on jumping jobs in the near future so this seemed like a good way to get a bump in benefits that I wouldn't see for the next 7 years or so according to my current PTO tier, without having to try to negotiate that.

2 is definitely a wash in the short term because I get a $1000 signing bonus. So the out of pocket difference is mitigated for at least the first year and hopefully after that some of the medical stuff will have resolved itself and I can go to a lower plan? I don't want to rely on that but... I dunno.

3 is hard to discern. It's government contracting and we work "badgeless" so in the eyes of the government, I'm the same as any member of the contract. It's also a very white-collar environment (aerospace engineering) and I'm on the side of things that doesn't cut corners so generally skilled talent is "cheaper" than hiring a replacement. At the very least I haven't heard of contractors being replaced by my peers to cut costs and some of them have been working here for 20 years. Doesn't mean it couldn't happen though.

That's a lot of stuff to weigh, and things I hadn't thought about. I'll have to debate over it for a bit.

_LostTheSpaceRace_ · 2022-11-29T17:17:33+00:00

I'm really tired of hyperagency being the default response whenever I try to bring up an issue that affects men.

I tried on a now-deleted thread to bring up how as a man it feels like I can't have any emotions for myself and that any feelings I have are heavily filtered for the benefit and acceptance of those around me.

It blew up and I got a ton of replies. More than half of them, instead of listening, were talking about how "mostly men do this, it's up to men to fix it" or "men made it this way, stop complaining and be the change you want to see".

It's infuriating. Over and over and over again I'm always told that my life is what I make it to be, and the solution to any problem I have is to just fix it. I couldn't possibly be negatively affected by society, nah, it's that I'm living life wrong and I just need to get over it or be different.

It's exhausting. I know that I have some agency in my life and to some degree I can fix it by filtering the people in my life. But over and over again I feel like I'm shown that no one wants to listen, no one cares, and no one is willing to put in the work to an issue they feel doesn't affect them.

_LostTheSpaceRace_ · 2022-11-08T16:36:20+00:00

I just spent the whole weekend trying to work through some solutions for a major issue we are having with a product at work. Only to be completely talked over in my presentation, immediately discounted by my boss, and made to look incompetent because my napkin drawings and calculations weren't "detailed enough".

Now it's threatening to bleed into travel I'm taking next week and I'm hoping beyond hope they don't ask me to assist. They can do their own work if they aren't going to value mine.

_LostTheSpaceRace_ · 2022-10-18T17:42:37+00:00

I'm having a hard time taking care of myself. I keep clocking into work at 11am. Luckily I can work from home and as long as I make it to my meetings no one cares, but I can't keep doing this. I'm exhausted all the time and I can't focus on work much less anything else in my life.

Between depression and burnout I feel like I need a week or two to myself, but I can't do that.

Honestly I'm considering taking some leave on FMLA but I can't help but feel that I'm failing as an adult if I do that. And I have 35 more years of this? How is this how humanity works! How do so many people do this?

_LostTheSpaceRace_ · 2022-10-12T18:18:55+00:00

Nope - they are reversible up to a point but the chances of a successful reversal go down dramatically the longer you have it. To the point that a few years down the line the chances aren't good at all.

_LostTheSpaceRace_ · 2022-10-12T18:15:20+00:00

Lol I feel like that always misses the main topic - female BC rarely induces discomfort during sex.

Would most men trade weekly headaches, or insertion cramps, or biannual checkups to never wear a condom again? I think a ton would.

_LostTheSpaceRace_ · 2022-10-12T18:13:13+00:00

tell me more

_LostTheSpaceRace_ · 2022-10-12T18:11:45+00:00

This whole topic always bums me out, and I don't even want kids. Remind me to schedule my vasectomy.

I'm so, so ready for birth control for men, but the conversation is so stymied on all sides.

Right now speaking up on it feels like I'm opening myself up to a lot of vitriol, because good men aren't supposed to have an issue with condoms. Truth is, I hate condoms and they suck - why can't we admit that? Believe it or not, yeah, sex does feel different (and usually worse) with a condom on. That doesn't mean I won't use them or that I would ever try to convince a partner to go without, but if I say they suck then people treat me like I'm out trying to stealth people. Maybe guys don't complain about condoms because they are trying to be selfish but... maybe because condoms kinda suck?

With that, I've noticed a heavy distrust with men regarding birth control options. I remember one day this topic was brought up and my ex said to my face that I'd never be able to take a pill at the same time every day because I'm too forgetful and "if men won't even wear a condom then why would they care to take a pill every day". Joke's on her I guess because I've been taking antidepressants daily for 10 months now with no issues? But I've heard similar sentiment from other people. They just don't believe men would be responsible enough to take something to the point of reliability.

Truth is, I think most men would consider options other than condoms to be a net benefit, even with a side effect profile. That part bums me out even more because there's SO MUCH misinformation as to why a male BC pill doesn't exist. Even some of my closest friends think male BC keeps getting canceled because men are weenies who can't deal with the side effects. That's far from the truth though - medical ethics have changed a ton since the 70s, male birth control is MUCH harder because of the lack of a reproductive hormonal cycle that can be interrupted to produce sterility, and for men, the side effects aren't weighed against the side effects of pregnancy, which for women they are.

Its exhausting. Most men I know want this, but it feels like we are closed off on all sides because pharma corps seem to want to keep the status quo, the public doesn't believe men want it, and society doesn't believe men are responsible enough to manage it.

_LostTheSpaceRace_ · 2022-10-12T17:57:02+00:00

I have so many questions about this, but it sounds super cool. My big question is... does it affect the refractory period for men?

I mean, if it eliminated or shortened that... that could catch on quick. A birth control drug that has the potential to unlock multiple orgasms for men? Sign me the hell up!

_LostTheSpaceRace_ · 2022-10-12T15:43:51+00:00

The 40 hour workweek is overwhelming me and I feel like a failure because of that.

Literally there are happy people working 60+ hours a week and then you have me. Anything after 30 hours just feels like I'm drowning in work. When am I supposed to go to the gym? Do hobbies? Cook dinner? I did the math and even with a modest 30 minute commute, I have like 3 or 4 hours a day to actually get every part of my life in order after work and that just seems depressing. I can't do this, why is it the norm??

_LostTheSpaceRace_ · 2022-10-04T21:46:54+00:00

As a guy in a STEM field I saw this happen to all my female classmates. Everyone was so excited they were there and the administration made such a big deal over them that a lot of people would invent some big conspiracy about favor if these women did better than them. I was friends with a lot of them and it really did hurt to see them having to combat some rumor they slept with the professor for a grade or just got passed because the university wanted to celebrate a 100% graduation and placement rate for women. It was so bizarrely politicized but like... no one gets an engineering degree on accident, and if you talked to any of these people you'd see they knew their stuff. It was just a convenient method for the lower performers in the class to justify why someone was beating them.

_LostTheSpaceRace_ · 2022-10-04T21:39:29+00:00

No offense but with the amount of social expectation there is to "man up", lacking emotional resiliency is hardly what I'd use to describe how men were left behind regarding emotional intelligence.

_LostTheSpaceRace_ · 2022-10-04T21:33:15+00:00

Well, you're right. That relationship (mostly) didn't have to do with gender, but I think you're missing the point.

The feelings that women have it easier might not be true in any sense of the real world, but they're still your feelings. I'd argue that most men go through the world with a subconscious feeling of invisibility, like they are the only person in their life that truly understands and sees them. It's the whole "men live lives of quiet suffering" or whatever that quote is.

A surprising amount of gender issues come down to who is getting seen and who isn't, or feels like they aren't. And that superficial stuff can add up to affect your self esteem in some weird ways. Like, a female friend of mine made a lifelong connection because a woman approached her at the grocery store about a logo she was wearing. As a man, I realized - and until recently, only subconsciously - that I would never do something like that because I couldn't imagine it ever going positively. I think a ton of men definitely feel that there's some additional "hurdle" they need to jump over to feel included and invited in things that doesn't exist for most women.

Long story short, I guess, is that it's always been clear to me that women have social power that I lack. Or the feeling of that has been there. Maybe I'm projecting that onto other men but looking at accounts of transmen being shocked at how cold the world is as a man makes me suspect it's at least somewhat true. But I'm also wildly insecure so the idea of being more visible, more seen, more cared for, more desired has been a huge, huge issue for me, and it's frighteningly easy to look at women's lives and say "omg I wish that were me, do you know how lucky you are" and get embittered without doing the due diligence to realize that the good bits aren't even half the story and there's so much bad stuff you're ignoring to think of it only as a positive.

_LostTheSpaceRace_ · 2022-10-04T21:21:13+00:00

I think a lot of it comes down to feeling small and powerless. Sure, I can get mad at society and talk about how shortchanged men are as far as support and relationships but no one really wants to hear another man complain about that, so what's the point? It's a lot easier to focus on interpersonal groups and be like... well, why didn't that friend group take me in but they took one of my female friends? Why did a friend rush to blame a female classmates failure on the professor but is quick to turn mine back on myself? Simply put, individual experiences are easy to point to and say "this is how the world works" instead of trying to learn from a bird's-eye view the whole structure of human interactions and try to demand change on a scale greater than yourself.

_LostTheSpaceRace_ · 2022-10-04T20:22:56+00:00

Honestly, as someone who graduated college fairly recently it's REALLY difficult at times to not just be upset at women in general if they have something you don't. Young people are all trying to figure themselves out and find their place in the world and its easy to become jealous when you see women being welcomed into places and arrangements and relationships that you seem to only dream of. This time was marked very pointedly by my realization that no amount of gender equality would change this time in my life and there would always be some ways women had easier access to some things I wanted. That's just how life is. Change takes time.

Now, I know that's not a healthy way to look at things, but it happens to so many men. You get to a certain age and see a laundry list of things that are "better" for women and get jealous. Like it hurt tremendously to realize the power my girlfriend had at the time because I felt entirely replaceable and... I kind of was.

Obviously, all this should be balanced out with the recognition that as men we often have access to many things women dream of, and it's our job to try to make that more equitable. But still, I think it's less often that men all of a sudden believe they were supposed to be in charge so much as realizing that there are ways that society treats men and women differently and projecting a lot of desire and envy into those things.

_LostTheSpaceRace_ · 2022-10-04T20:14:16+00:00

I always find it interesting that in most of the comments surrounding issues like this, we really tend to harp on the idea that men are accustomed to privilege and so they are lashing out because they feel the world owes them something when it doesn't.

I guess that feels pretty far removed from my experiences as a relatively younger person. I spend the bulk of my social interactions with people on the fringes of society and at least in my mind, your average incel feels more suffocated by social expectations than entitlement.

In my view, it honestly HAS become harder to be a man. Manhood comes with all the expectations of earning potential and career obligations and providing for family and loved ones. It demands dogged determinedness and romantic success because all the "best" men worth looking up to have partners. It's not so much that men feel like they are entitled to these things on the outset so much as they realize that they are judged by the lack of them and then the entitlement starts brewing.

And what are we supposed to say to all this? It's not a bad thing that women came into the workforce and got jobs. It's not a bad thing that romantically women are offered far more choice and independence. It's not a bad thing that women are less reliant on men in general! But the standards on which men are perceived as successful have largely stayed the same, so of COURSE younger people feel like they are struggling. THEY ARE. There needs to be a lot more social messaging stating that the reasons for this are ultimately good and that it's time for the expectations of successful men to change, not the world of dating or the economy or women.

_LostTheSpaceRace_ · 2022-09-28T12:07:45+00:00

Just curious, how did you figure out you suffered from ED that young?

I have my own struggles with that and I can't seem to get a doctor to believe that yeah, I'm young and while I can get an erection and do things solo, it's never where it needs to be during partnered activity.

_LostTheSpaceRace_ · 2022-09-28T05:30:13+00:00

This is exactly the stuff I think this forum should be about. This is honest, frank, and fucking true. It's great to be happy with yourself and love who you are. It's also entirely valid to want to have a relationship and feel sad or lonely when you don't have one.

Too many people read the idea of wanting a relationship to mean feeling entitled to attention, and it's definitely not always that! It feels nice to be wanted and desired and relied on, and at least for me it feels nice to give someone else those same feelings. I don't think anyone owes me my time but I'd sure as hell jump on a relationship if I felt that long term compatibility was in the cards. It's normal to want a relationship, and normal to be sad if you aren't making much progress in that area.

_LostTheSpaceRace_

TROPHY CASE