dudebroheim

The issue is systemic. These young men were raised in a system where the messaging was “the future is female”, “women in STEM”, “teach men not to rape”, or “would you rather be in the woods with a bear or a man.” All of this, all of it, impressed upon them that there is a future out there they aren’t invited to. That they are monsters through the sheer happenstance of having been born male. They are to be feared, they aren’t to be trusted, and there is no need to provide them with any help or hope because they are hopeless.

They spend the first 17-18 years of their lives in a public education that is largely gynocentric. It caters to better outcomes for women and has become a zero sum game engineered by women and for girls.

If there was an issue of black folks having poorer and poorer outcomes, and those largely overseeing their education openly joked, “would you rather be in the woods with a bear, or a black person”, the issue would be instantly recognizable and suddenly problematic. It would be immediately understood that bigotry was disenfranchising that segment of the student body and those in charge carried a significant share of the blame. But that conversation isn’t happening.

Instead we get more messaging on how it’s these toxic boys with their toxic masculinity that is driving the issue. That patriarchy has tainted these defective boys and that is the root of their problems. That without addressing their toxicity and broken social conditioning they can’t be fixed. What about those with the toxic messaging? The hate directed towards minors by bitter adults with an axe to grind?

So, seeing the writing on the walls, they retreat to spaces that are unapologetically pro boy, pro male. These spaces don’t exist in public spheres because pro male spaces that exclude women are discouraged. They don’t even have Boy Scouts anymore as a space for just them. It’s not inclusive enough.

To the Internet they go. Chat rooms, message boards, YouTube, TikTok, where there are no real adults in the room but there are opportunists. People like Andrew Tate who are only too happy to welcome them with open arms and tell them they’re awesome. They have power. They can have the future they want. If only they had places to go with reasonable adults in charge, proper male role models who could help them better understand themselves and the world they live in, but that space doesn’t exist. It’s not given space to exist.

The lack of introspection is troubling and this problem isn’t likely to get better without it. So, those in charge will just double down and then double down again instead of looking in the mirror. Adults blaming children for the outcomes they helped engineer in the first place.