Elsewhere (287)
Christopher DeGroot on attempts to pathologise masculinity:
Published this week, the American Psychological Association’s Guidelines for Psychological Practice for Boys and Men is a remarkable and frightening document. Throughout, value judgements are expressed under the guise of “science.” Social constructivism is assumed to be true, the implication being that “gender roles” don’t represent anything deeper, such as biology or an enduring human nature. Thus, if most nurses are women, and if most engineers are men, the only explanation is the patriarchy, that insidious, mysterious, inescapable evil. One is struck by the facile, trendy cant that the authors take for granted. Three sentences in, we read this assertion: “Boys and men, as a group, tend to hold privilege and power based on gender.” There is no recognition here of male accomplishment — that falls into the category of “privilege and power,” words which, like “patriarchy,” we encounter with mind-numbing frequency.
Readers who can bear to plough through the entire APA document, supposedly thirteen years in the making, will note the framing of masculinity (or “traditional masculine ideology”) as entailing violence, bullying, sexual harassment, “dominance and aggression,” ableism, ageism, racism, and outright sociopathy. Or as Stephanie Pappas says in a summary here: “Traditional masculinity… is, on the whole, harmful.” In poking through the document, readers may also note the absence of any meaningful reference to biology, testosterone, evolution, etc., as if such details were irrelevant to fathoming male behaviour. However, the word privilege occurs 19 times, and the word transgender no fewer than 60.
As DeGroot points out, it seems unwise to redefine masculinity in order to flatter the resentments and insecurities of the fringe and maladjusted – say, “social justice” enthusiasts who consider themselves “marginalised” by expectations of competence, competitiveness and emotional self-possession. Or those who describe themselves as transsexual, non-binary or “gender non-conforming.” As if a proclivity for adventurousness or risk-taking, and a desire for achievement, were fundamentally a problem, something to be fixed. And it goes without saying that the writers of the APA’s guidelines would be unlikely to enjoy lives of comfort and status without a great many others embracing the values and inclinations – including ambition, stoicism and courage – that our self-imagined betters strive to pathologise.
Andrew Sullivan on the same (scroll down):
The ideological misandry is unmistakable. Check out the equivalent guidelines for women and girls, issued in 2007. Where stoicism is a bad thing for men, especially black men, here’s how it works for women: “In therapy, teaching, research, and supervision, psychologists are encouraged to become aware not only of the challenges that women and girls have faced, but of the resiliency and strength that women and girls have shown in response.” For men, “assertiveness” is part of a pathology; for women, it is a virtue.
And Toby Young has more:
There’s scarcely a sentence that isn’t freighted with the ideology of the social justice left. Gender is “socially constructed” and “non-binary”; sex is “assigned at birth” rather than observed and recorded; “dominant masculinity” is historically dependent on “the exclusion of men who are not white, heterosexual, cisgender, able-bodied and privileged”…
The APA is a powerful body in the US. It has 117,500 members, including the vast majority of practising psychologists, and an annual budget of $115 million. Its guidance documents carry the imprimatur of scientific authority and are hugely influential when it comes to policies and behaviour in public institutions. This edict will be referred to by university administrators when policing sexual interactions on campus, by the courts when deciding who to award custody to in divorce hearings, and by HR departments when assessing complaints about male employees.
A comfort to us all, no doubt.
Update, via the comments:
Taken as a measure of the politicised state of psychology – a development with few happy connotations – the APA’s corrective to “masculine ideology” is at least instructive, albeit in ways that were presumably unintended. The document reads as a rote menu of leftist conceits and endless begged questions, from indignation at the racial demographics of prison populations – while showing zero interest in the demographics of criminal activity, as if that were immaterial – to the claim, stated baldly, that ours is a “patriarchal society.” How this assertion was arrived at is somewhat unclear, yet the claim is presented as self-evident.
The APA is currently in rapid-back-pedal mode, insisting that the document has been misrepresented, even though the assumptions and framing are there to see. We’re told this in a press release that champions “social justice” as an inarguable good, that refers to “people of all genders” as if this were unremarkable, and which again cites “getting needs met through violence,” being sexually abusive, and being unconcerned by any harm one does to others, as key aspects of “traditional masculinity.” We’re also assured that, by embracing “psychological science,” the APA “supports all boys and men to live happy, constructive, and fulfilling lives.” This sentiment is rather at odds with a belief that “traditional masculinity… is, on the whole, harmful.” A statement that appeared, and remains, on the APA’s own website.
As usual, feel free to share your own links and snippets, on any subject, in the comments.
There is no recognition here of male accomplishment — that falls into the category of “privilege and power,”
Not entirely unrelated:
Tim Newman, here.
“Traditional masculinity… is on the whole, harmful.”
Now do women.
Somewhat related:
Masculinity is “useless” and “counter-productive.” Says transvestite potter.
Apparently, men should be more like this.
It’s almost like the APA want men flocking to their member’s offices to be cured of something that exists naturally in 50% of the population.
(I’m actually quite irritated by what the APA have done. I’ve spent the last week reading Steven Pinker’s ‘Enlightenment Now’, and felt pretty good about the world and the direction it is heading in. Much of that positivity has been kind of flattened by this idiocy.)
It’s almost like the APA want men flocking to their members’ offices to be cured of something that exists naturally in 50% of the population.
As a reflection of the politicised state of psychology, it doesn’t bode terribly well. The document reads as a rote menu of leftist conceits, from indignation at the racial demographics of prison populations while showing zero interest in the demographics of criminal activity, as if that were irrelevant, to the claim, stated baldly, that ours is a “patriarchal society.” How this assertion was arrived at is somewhat unclear, yet the claim is taken as self-evident.
As Andrew Sullivan notes, the guidelines effectively smear half the human race, implying that a desire for accomplishment and not wishing to appear weak are primarily pathological and a cause of woe. As if one could have achievements and innovations, on which we all depend, without such ambitions and a corresponding risk of failure, and as if a civilisation could somehow survive without these “harmful” inclinations.
If Grayson Perry hadn’t dressed up like a pantomime dame, then I have no doubt that the world would have remained blissfully unaware of his crappy ceramics.
I’ve seen schoolkids’ work that is far superior to anything that charlatan has ever produced.
Now do women.
– There’s GOT to be a sleazy double-entendre in there somewhere…
Female sexuality and its male counterpart, depicted.
That.
What this APA document means is that it will be impossible to train to be a counselor or clinician without endorsing these “standards”.
Thus, you might envision a future mom (or dad) bringing their male progeny to a therapist with the complaint that he plays with toys cars and likes football. The therapist will undertake to cure the child of these toxic interests and involve him in playing dress-up and play with dolls.
In this future, the turnout of boys for the first practice for football will be used to identify them as psychologically damaged and victims of privilege.
What this APA document means is that it will be impossible to train to be a counselor or clinician without endorsing these “standards”.
That was what I was afraid of. If that is truly the case (and the clinicians actually pay attention to this guff), can you imagine the damage?
Some poor sod going in to speak to a medical person because he’s depressed and being told it’s all his fault, and he’s reaping payback for all of the pain he’s caused by achieving things?
And (on the flip side) doctors (allegedly) get in trouble for telling the obese to shed some weight or they will die young because it hurts the feelings of the overweight
(And thank you for your subtle correction of my apostrophic error in the quote in your earlier comment, David)
And thank you for your subtle correction of my apostrophic error
Don’t thank me yet. It all goes on the tab.
If Grayson Perry hadn’t dressed up like a pantomime dame…


Coincidence ?
Coincindence?

Was thinking more like Polkaroo…
Was thinking more like Polkaroo…
Never heard of Polkaroo before, as it was evidently limited to The Great White North, however…
…I bow to your better assessment. This truly is a place of learning.
The APA is now in rapid-back-pedal mode, claiming that the document has been misrepresented, even though the assumptions and framing are there to see. We’re told this in a press release that champions “social justice” as an inarguable good, refers to “people of all genders” as if this were unremarkable, and which again cites “getting needs met through violence,” being sexually abusive, “extreme restriction of emotions,” and being utterly unconcerned by any harm one does to others, as key aspects of “traditional masculinity.”
This sounds like a description of sociopathy, not masculinity, traditional or otherwise.
Are they confusing the U.S. with the Democratic Republic of the Congo?
This sounds like a description of sociopathy, not masculinity, traditional or otherwise.
That, and with the possible exception of restriction of emotions, is the exact opposite of “traditional masculinity”.
Another psychologist weighs in.
Boys and men often use violence inappropriately not because they are socialized to be men but because Dad is absent
That, as they say.
This sounds like a description of sociopathy, not masculinity, traditional or otherwise.
Well, when masculinity on the whole (save for feminized beta-males in touch with their feelings and not much else) is pathologized, it doesn’t seem to be too far of a stretch to go to masculinity = sociopathy.
Still waiting on the APA to discuss the less favorable outcomes of single-parent households (https://www.google.com/search?q=outcomes+single+parent+families). I’m not holding my breath for that position paper to appear.
Still waiting on the APA to discuss the less favorable outcomes of single-parent households
The APA document does touch on the benefits of an involved father – albeit briefly and amid more rote blather about the “dominant construction of White, able, and heterosexual [fatherhood].” But it seems to me that the determination to be inclusive and non-judgemental of various “marginalised groups” and their alternative arrangements, or lack of arrangements, sits uneasily with the wider claim of helpful intent.
Boys and men often use violence inappropriately not because they are socialized to be men but because Dad is absent …
Interestingly, the two almost-universal factors of school shootings are 1) teen on SSRI’s and 2) no father in the home.
Some poor sod going in to speak to a medical person because he’s depressed and being told it’s all his fault, and he’s reaping payback for all of the pain he’s caused by achieving things?
That’s been going on for at the very least 25-30 years now. Especially in couples’ therapy. Don’t ask me how I know.
The APA is now in rapid-back-pedal mode, claiming that the document has been misrepresented…
Misrepresented by paid-up members of the Patriarchy, surely.
First, it was the teachers’ unions deciding that boys are “defective girls” and should be treated that way; now, the APA has decided that masculine men (responsible, adult men, iow) are “defective women” and should be treated that way.
Some poor sod going in to speak to a medical person because he’s depressed and being told it’s all his fault, and he’s reaping payback for all of the pain he’s caused by achieving things?
>That’s been going on for at the very least 25-30 years now. Especially in couples’ >therapy. Don’t ask me how I know.
@WTP- Reminds me of a friend, who- when going through a rough patch in his marriage- was bullied by his wife to take up the counselling offered through his employer as a benefit.
My friend thought about it and decided he’d not do the counselling, but tell his wife he would.
To give himself a plausible cover story, he did a bit of reading about psychology (so he could convincingly play back discussions he’d supposedly had with his counsellor). In the end he got quite interested in it all, and ended up resolving the problems in his relationship by applying what he learned from books to his situation.
When pressed he maintains that psychology solved his problems, not psychologists, and states his outcome was the only possible good one from such a circumstance.
My opinion is it would make a splendid sitcom.
Artificial gaydar?
Via Jordan Peterson.
One remarkable development I’ve noticed in the 21st century is that just about every professional association retains very little of the popular respect and deference it might have had a few decades in the past. In many cases, it’s a matter of these associations being taken over by activists who’ve hijacked the institutional respect to advance political goals outside the mission of the organization itself. In others, it’s a knock-on effect of standing by while related groups are compromised.
I’ll be curious to see whether any of these groups can regain the respect and deference they had in the past, and if not, what might rise to replace them. It seems we need to find new sources of expertise, or just give up on the idea of listening to anyone calling himself an expert on some specialized subject.
I’d watch John’s sitcom, but I’m afraid he’d have to switch the husband and wife roles if he was to have a prayer of getting it produced. I don’t think there’s any appetite in Hollywood for husbands fooling their wives, unless it’s something that can backfire hilariously in the space of 23 minutes.
Wives pulling a long con on their husbands, for their own good? That’ll get greenlit in a matter of minutes!
Artificial gaydar?
Yeah, I’m going to have to raise the bullshit flag on this one, first, the humans are hardly likely to answer completely honestly lest they be accused of homophobia, profiling, or some such hence results on a par with random guessing, and for all we know (as the actual photos aren’t in the paper), they may have been showing pictures of diesel dykes and drag queens to the AI -as you can see, they list Barry O as a non-Caucasian face, so their judgement is suspect at best.
Besides, Wang detecting sexual orientation – the jokes, they write themselves.
Besides, Wang detecting sexual orientation – the jokes, they write themselves.
I’ll wait for the app.
I’ll wait for the app.
In the early days of word processing the computer company Wang dominated the corporate market. Word processing jobs were highly trained and well compensated. A friend of mine took a job right out of University. She and her fellow workers had great fun calling themselves Wang Manipulators. It went over very big in bars.
I’m told it was nothing like the caption contest from Friday’s Ephemera though.
Dear David,
I confess: I have been slumming on the comics page. I left a link to this entry at this cartoon. I’m hoping to attract some visitors who will accuse you of being a homophobe.
Speaking of toxic masculinity and shaving. Gillette has a really strange idea of how to appeal to their target market.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=96&v=koPmuEyP3a0
https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2019/01/14/pg-urges-men-to-lose-their-toxic-masculinity-in-gilette-razor-ad/
Geezer,
Great merciful Zeus! How DID you find that cathedral of tolerance and independent thought?
I learned something new today: McKenzie Bezos built Amazon, and hubby Jeff had very little to do with its success – not that I give much of a damn about billionaire socialists’ troubles, and actually hope the “Divorce of the Century” breaks up Amazon’s virtual internet monopoly for good.
(FWIW, the most prominent “premium member” in that thread, “Zev Bellringer” is a internet adult video star, specializing in “mother-son incest porn”. I shit you not. I thank Reddit for that bit of “can never unknow”.)
Gov. Squid,
C.f. (David Burge in 2015!!)
https://mobile.twitter.com/iowahawkblog/status/664089892599631872
Fred,
This bit of wisdom from the self-described “drunken internet rando” also applies:
https://twitter.com/iowahawkblog/status/761642534946807808
the framing of masculinity (or “traditional masculine ideology”) as entailing violence, bullying, sexual harassment, “dominance and aggression,” ableism, ageism, racism, and outright sociopathy. Or as Stephanie Pappas says in a summary here: “Traditional masculinity… is, on the whole, harmful.”
they must be ignoring the hundreds of studies on female abuse and aggression. women commit at least equal amounts of interpersonal violence, if not more violence. adjust for the higher number of single mothers etc, and women still commit the majority of physical child abuse and murder of children. one of the largest-ever studies of child sex abuse found that 40% of men abused as children were molested by a woman.
https://web.csulb.edu/~mfiebert/assault.htm
http://www.psicothema.com/pdf/3334.pdf
http://boysmeneducation.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Strauss-Concealing-and-distorting-female-DV.pdf
http://www.breakingthescience.org/SimplifiedDataFromDHHS.php
https://www.jimhopper.com/pdfs/dube_(2005)_childhood_sexual_abuse_by_gender_of_victim.pdf
from the APA website:
>More females and fewer males have been entering the psychology workforce. In 2013, for every male active psychologist, there were 2.1 female active psychologists in the workforce. This gender gap was even wider for racial/ethnic minority groups.
any man who agrees to study psychology these days must be a self-loathing glutton for punishment.
to quote Camille Paglia:
“…feminism is of little help [to women] except with a certain stratum of deferential, malleable, white middle-class men.”
For quite awhile, although the fad seems to have passed, the NYT had a stock set of adjectives when writing about women — “fierce” “independent” “spirited”.
Now, they are reduced to this:
Your Vagina Is Terrific (and Everyone Else’s Opinions Still Are Not)
One year ago I wrote about my vagina and men’s opinions of it. Things have not improved.
…
We rarely talk openly about what’s required for a woman to have a good sexual experience, and so many heterosexual women learn the mechanics of sex and female orgasms from movies (most of which are written, directed and produced by … men).
Is there nothing toxic masculinity can’t do?
(Oh, by the way, “we rarely talk openly about what’s required for a woman anything“? AYFKM — there’s no shutting it up.)
One remarkable development I’ve noticed in the 21st century is that just about every professional association retains very little of the popular respect and deference it might have had a few decades in the past.
Every professional association has become a rent-seeking special interest lobby. Their castle has been erected (credentials by way of graduate degree, exams, state licensing), the moat around it installed (dues-paying members), thus limiting entry to their profession (economic law of supply/demand), with the resulting efforts to fatten their wallets.
That they have veered off course of their professional mission is the result of self-interested partisans taking control of the levers of power and dominance–the game of power and dominance being the one human endevour without a final whistle.
Oh dear, dear, dear. I need a break from the interwebs. I’ve gotten myself completely wrapped up in a Twitter fight with some lofty academic type who insists the “toxic masculinity” APA paper is “exactly what men have been demanding for years”, and claiming that “literally no one can argue that toxic masculinity isn’t real.” Let’s not call abuse “abuse”, let’s blatantly imply that abusive behavior is inherent to masculinity itself.
A rabbit hole to end all rabbit holes. (o_O)
Steve E,
Speaking of toxic masculinity and shaving. Gillette has a really strange idea of how to appeal to their target market.
BTW, those are the links that sent me on my trip down the Twitter labyrinth more than three hours ago. Yeeps.
Spiny, Spiny, Spiny….don’t you know there’s no arguing with an academic? As Socrates supposedly said, “Intelligent individuals learn from every thing and every one; average people, from their experiences. The stupid already have all the answers.”
Gillette has a really strange idea of how to appeal to their target market.
Including (in the Pleasantville “before” sequence) a Barbecque Menace chorus intoning “boys will be boys”. Do people really say that sort of thing? Society has been bringing up boys according to the feminist model since the 1970s. It’s been going on a lot longer than #metoo or Gilette’s marketing pivot. We have enough multigenerational experience that we should be able to determine how the project of feminizing boys has worked out – do the boys grow up in to happy, successful men?
And in the “after” sequence that models men calling each other out over harassment, the harassers are white and the callers-out are black. A narrative-conformist but not true picture of the street harasser demographic. Could the races have been reversed in the ad? No. Why not? Because white men calling out the misbehavior of black men is what they did to Emmett Till. And because getting abusive strangers to back down is a feat of traditional masculine authority backed up by willingness to fight. Even if it wasn’t so problematic, progressives don’t even find it believable that their guys, the oversocialized pajamaboy feminists, have any kind of iron hand inside their velvet glove, so much for the feminist promise to men of being able to access both their masculine and feminine side. They imagine instead that black men, under a kind of carbon credit scheme for their toxic masculinity, can be their street muscle against white Deplorables.
@Farnsworth
Yeah, I’m going to have to raise the bullshit flag on this one
That’s one of the… less tasteful theories turning out to have some truth to it: physiognomy is real. You never had to observe the lumps on the skull. You just had to look at the bloke’s face.
Clara,
Society has been bringing up boys according to the feminist model since the 1970s.
Boys = defective girls who
canmust be “repaired”. I didn’t notice it until the 1980s, but yeah, it’s been a public education crusade for a very long time.Gillette has a really strange idea of how to appeal to their target market.
Oh dear. They take what’s largely an anti-bullying message, which you’d think would be fairly unobjectionable, and somehow end up with something repulsive and insulting. In short, “Our customers are the kind of people who indulge in, or enable, or excuse, bad behaviour, including bullying and sexual harassment.” As marketing goes, not the most obvious sure-fire strategy. And I can’t wait for the ad, aimed at women, that defines women everywhere by their supposed collective shortcomings and shameful complicity in very bad things, before telling them to do better.
Gillette has a really strange idea of how to appeal to their target market.
I think Cheerios and Dove did dad-ads rather better.
Mentioned in the thread following this.