Mass shooting at e-sports event in US: 3 confirmed dead

Skarjo wrote:Yes, there are some efforts to try and give growing lads a more balanced outlook, but they're few and far between. Spongebob Squarepants is not presented as a role model who is able to articulate complex feelings constructively; he's just not presented as the new lead of a Commando remake.

Lads are still told that feelings are weaknesses, that success is measured monetarily and failure to be successful is shameful. Stay at home dads whose partners out earn them still get stigmatised. Virgin is still an insult. The choice to take a woman's surname in marriage is one that would need to be explained at length. Many guys cite Fight Club as their favourite film having (mistakenly) interpreted it as a story of reclamation of manhood in the face of a feminised society. John Wick, Death Wish, Taken, The Equaliser, Man on Fire; there's a whole genre of power fantasy action film where the protagonist is emasculated by having something taken from him by force (usually a woman, because they're just things that a man owns that can be taken from him) and he must reclaim his manhood by violently getting it back.

See the thing is, all those movies you listed are purely targeted towards adults. It's the same thing as pointing to violent video games and saying they cause violence, when we know that these games are not for children.

I can't speak about worldwide figures but at least in the US, which is where all these mass shootings take place so it seems a good place to localize the discussion, violent crime has been on a downward trend for at least the last 20 years, with the murder rate in decline for even longer.

So if we see that overall violence is going down, and our society is changing in a positive way with better role models for kids, but mass shootings happen more frequently then perhaps it's not something as simple as just "toxic masculinity" that is the issue.

BTW, you are dead wrong about Spongebob, as a character he is presented as a role model, and for teens/kids is probably the biggest cultural figure for this generation, in the same way the Simpsons was for the previous one.

Still with Spongebob?

I’m with Kazakhstan, Spongebob’s a banana split.

https://metro.co.uk/2014/09/28/spongebo ... n-4884788/

Karl wrote:@Preezy (and anyone else reading really -- Rightey? Ad7? Kerr?): Genuine question back, legit not trying to lead you anywhere. (This isn't a trap, I'm not gonna spring at you next post with some rant and go "haha I win the discourse", I promise!)

What are your thoughts on male suicide rates? I come at it and try to understand it from a few angles - mental healthcare, also feminism, and I think there's a decent argument to be made that capitalism isn't helping either - but I'm interested in your angle on it. Why do so many men kill themselves?

As a follow-up question, is it ever appropriate to think about that "academically", with cold detachment, and try to put a political view forward? It's an emotive issue for me, I've been stood on the edge of a roof before, so even though 99% of me encourages the debate there's still that 1% saying, y'know, "I'm not a political point!". What are your thoughts on that, is it OK to have an agenda about male suicide, or is that manipulative? Even if that agenda is aimed at helping depressed men?

I think far more people contemplate suicide than anyone even realizes. I spent 8 months working for 2 charity's owned by the same parent company both dealing with teens and it was basically lads and girls who were depressed either through bullying or mental health issues, you were talking to them when they were just down but passing them off to higher trained counselors if they were a suicide risk.Did you know studies tend to show that women more often have suicidal thoughts than men, but men die by suicide more frequently. As sick a quality as it might be I think men are just better at offing themselves, both sexes think about it, both try but men just manage it more. I think more people need impartial people to talk to more call lines and charitys etc so in that way you can certainly blame capitalism as if something doesnt really make money it ceases to exist.

To clarify I am not anti feminisim and I do think men can be pricks and some of it can be taught.... I just think there is a certain side of Feminism/ certain Feminists who are absolute a holes, who dont want equality, they want what they want and there willing to lie cheat and steal to get it, for example the ones seen on twitter etc pushing this shooting was toxic masculinity before anyone knew jack gooseberry fool. I suppose every ideal be it left right or center field will have dicks who just want to jump right on it to promote themselves more than to help but then I think a lot of people are happy to side with pricks like this if it marches to the beat of the same drum as them. I consider myself left wing but if I think someones a nob there a nob you know what I mean?

I fell asleep writing this a few times so if it comes across like rambling so be it but i dont want to make someone wait when theyve asked me a question.

kerr9000 wrote:I think far more people contemplate suicide than anyone even realizes. I spent 8 months working for 2 charity's owned by the same parent company both dealing with teens and it was basically lads and girls who were depressed either through bullying or mental health issues, you were talking to them when they were just down but passing them off to higher trained counselors if they were a suicide risk.Did you know studies tend to show that women more often have suicidal thoughts than men, but men die by suicide more frequently. As sick a quality as it might be I think men are just better at offing themselves, both sexes think about it, both try but men just manage it more. I think more people need impartial people to talk to more call lines and charitys etc so in that way you can certainly blame capitalism as if something doesnt really make money it ceases to exist.

Isn't the fact that men are much less likely to seek professional help compared to women a major factor in this?

Mafro wrote:

kerr9000 wrote:I think far more people contemplate suicide than anyone even realizes. I spent 8 months working for 2 charity's owned by the same parent company both dealing with teens and it was basically lads and girls who were depressed either through bullying or mental health issues, you were talking to them when they were just down but passing them off to higher trained counselors if they were a suicide risk.Did you know studies tend to show that women more often have suicidal thoughts than men, but men die by suicide more frequently. As sick a quality as it might be I think men are just better at offing themselves, both sexes think about it, both try but men just manage it more. I think more people need impartial people to talk to more call lines and charitys etc so in that way you can certainly blame capitalism as if something doesnt really make money it ceases to exist.

Isn't the fact that men are much less likely to seek professional help compared to women a major factor in this?

I thought it was that men choose more violent means.

Rocsteady wrote:

Mafro wrote:

kerr9000 wrote:I think far more people contemplate suicide than anyone even realizes. I spent 8 months working for 2 charity's owned by the same parent company both dealing with teens and it was basically lads and girls who were depressed either through bullying or mental health issues, you were talking to them when they were just down but passing them off to higher trained counselors if they were a suicide risk.Did you know studies tend to show that women more often have suicidal thoughts than men, but men die by suicide more frequently. As sick a quality as it might be I think men are just better at offing themselves, both sexes think about it, both try but men just manage it more. I think more people need impartial people to talk to more call lines and charitys etc so in that way you can certainly blame capitalism as if something doesnt really make money it ceases to exist.

Isn't the fact that men are much less likely to seek professional help compared to women a major factor in this?

I thought it was that men choose more violent means.

I don’t think they are different thoughts. Rather than seek help, men tend to strike out and either hurt others or themselves.

Sorry Karl, I didn't see your questions until just now.

Karl wrote:What are your thoughts on male suicide rates?

I wish they were lower.

Karl wrote:Why do so many men kill themselves?

Societal pressure to succeed? And failing to meet that expectation? I dunno. I do know that men are far more likely to be rejected sexually than women, and that's quite a depressing thing to deal with. Guys have to work much harder than girls to get laid. I'm not trying to be flippant, I genuinely think that's a (albeit probably minor) factor.

Karl wrote:As a follow-up question, is it ever appropriate to think about that "academically", with cold detachment, and try to put a political view forward?

Sure, I have no problem with that. Removing emotion from a topic makes it far easier to view the issue objectively.

How do male suicide rates in the west compare to the rest of the world? Perhaps it’s something related to western culture rather than men generally?

Moggy wrote:

Rocsteady wrote:

Mafro wrote:

kerr9000 wrote:I think far more people contemplate suicide than anyone even realizes. I spent 8 months working for 2 charity's owned by the same parent company both dealing with teens and it was basically lads and girls who were depressed either through bullying or mental health issues, you were talking to them when they were just down but passing them off to higher trained counselors if they were a suicide risk.Did you know studies tend to show that women more often have suicidal thoughts than men, but men die by suicide more frequently. As sick a quality as it might be I think men are just better at offing themselves, both sexes think about it, both try but men just manage it more. I think more people need impartial people to talk to more call lines and charitys etc so in that way you can certainly blame capitalism as if something doesnt really make money it ceases to exist.

Isn't the fact that men are much less likely to seek professional help compared to women a major factor in this?

I thought it was that men choose more violent means.

I don’t think they are different thoughts. Rather than seek help, men tend to strike out and either hurt others or themselves.

Wrong...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_di ... _by_gender

I remember reading that one theory on why women choose less violent measures, like overdosing, is because they don't want their bodies to be disfigured.

mic wrote:How do male suicide rates in the west compare to the rest of the world? Perhaps it’s something related to western culture rather than men generally?

World map of Male to Female ratios of suicide rates in 2015 (green means more male suicides). Below the world maps of male (left) and female (right) suicide rates per 100,000 inhabitants used to derive the ratios (red means higher rates).

From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_di ... _by_gender

Pretty surprising that it's basically 1:1 in China, I would have assumed it would be higher as there are so many more men then women, and that makes things like getting a girlfriend or starting a family much more difficult.

Rightey wrote:Wrong...

Hardly.

Men are FAR more likely to die as a result of suicide. From your own Wiki link:

Globally, death by suicide occurred about 1.8 times more often among males than among females in 2008, and 1.7 times in 2015.[4][5][6] In the western world, males die by suicide three to four times more often than do females.

Now you can choose to interpret that as “women don’t want their bodies to be disfigured” if you want, but it would also suggest that women do it as a cry for help, while men do it to actually die.

Whichever way you look at it, my point of “men tend to strike out and either hurt others or themselves” would not be wrong. Especially as by “hurt” in the context of this thread I obviously meant killing.

Moggy wrote:

Rightey wrote:Wrong...

Hardly.

Men are FAR more likely to die as a result of suicide. From your own Wiki link:

Globally, death by suicide occurred about 1.8 times more often among males than among females in 2008, and 1.7 times in 2015.[4][5][6] In the western world, males die by suicide three to four times more often than do females.

Now you can choose to interpret that as “women don’t want their bodies to be disfigured” if you want, but it would also suggest that women do it as a cry for help, while men do it to actually die.

Whichever way you look at it, my point of “men tend to strike out and either hurt others or themselves” would not be wrong. Especially as by “hurt” in the context of this thread I obviously meant killing.

That's not what we're arguing, we were talking about methods...

You said:

Moggy wrote:

Rocsteady wrote:I thought it was that men choose more violent means.

I don’t think they are different thoughts. Rather than seek help, men tend to strike out and either hurt others or themselves.

the article clearly states Men choose more violent means that tend to be more fatal.

Also from that Kazakstan article...

https://metro.co.uk/2014/09/28/spongebo ... n-4884788/

They [see SpongeBob] as a role model

Well at least we agree there.

You missed out the Mafro quote there. Men are less likely to seek help AND are more likely to pick more violent means.

I fail to see what I got wrong there.

kerr9000 wrote:I think far more people contemplate suicide than anyone even realizes. I spent 8 months working for 2 charity's owned by the same parent company both dealing with teens and it was basically lads and girls who were depressed either through bullying or mental health issues, you were talking to them when they were just down but passing them off to higher trained counselors if they were a suicide risk.Did you know studies tend to show that women more often have suicidal thoughts than men, but men die by suicide more frequently. As sick a quality as it might be I think men are just better at offing themselves, both sexes think about it, both try but men just manage it more. I think more people need impartial people to talk to more call lines and charitys etc so in that way you can certainly blame capitalism as if something doesnt really make money it ceases to exist.

To clarify I am not anti feminisim and I do think men can be pricks and some of it can be taught.... I just think there is a certain side of Feminism/ certain Feminists who are absolute a holes, who dont want equality, they want what they want and there willing to lie cheat and steal to get it, for example the ones seen on twitter etc pushing this shooting was toxic masculinity before anyone knew jack gooseberry fool. I suppose every ideal be it left right or center field will have dicks who just want to jump right on it to promote themselves more than to help but then I think a lot of people are happy to side with pricks like this if it marches to the beat of the same drum as them. I consider myself left wing but if I think someones a nob there a nob you know what I mean?

I fell asleep writing this a few times so if it comes across like rambling so be it but i dont want to make someone wait when theyve asked me a question.

Sure, thanks for getting back to me (there was no rush!). I think we talked about it once briefly before, but cheers for your work with kids and teens. My issues started really young so I know first-hand it can be tough for kids to understand what is happening to them when they become depressed or suicidal. Yeah, I'd heard that statistic, that women suffer serious depression at a similar rate to men, despite the suicide statistics being so different -- understanding that discrepancy is really important, and (taking personal feelings out of it for a second and looking at it academically) it's a really interesting piece of sociology as well.

I actually think you have a valid point about the left on Twitter (and to some extent in other spheres). Recently I have come to kind of accept and try to reclaim the term SJW (people are thinking it anyway, so why not?). So, speaking as an SJW, I think one of the SJW community's biggest rhetorical weaknesses is how it engages with its "out-group", i.e. people who are centrist or right-wing. Us SJWs often: 1. speak using scary or incomprehensible academic political theory phrases, like "dialectic" and "toxic masculinity" and "racism is about power structures so minorities can't be racist", that sound like doublethink to people unfamiliar with their precise meanings, and for some reason we seem to insist on doing this even when we know "outsiders" are watching; and 2. treat people who question or misapprehend those discussions like evil fascist trolls rather than good faith bemused bystanders.

So I don't think there are many people on the left that seriously want to kill all men - I sometimes see "eat the rich" style hyperbole, but you've got to let them have their edgy jokes (they're mostly teens after all!) - but I agree with you that sometimes us leftists can be incomprehensible or overbearing or annoying. I'm as guilty of that as anyone. Sorry if I've come across that way in this discussion.

Preezy wrote:Sorry Karl, I didn't see your questions until just now.

> What are your thoughts on male suicide rates?
I wish they were lower.

> Why do so many men kill themselves?
Societal pressure to succeed? And failing to meet that expectation? I dunno. I do know that men are far more likely to be rejected sexually than women, and that's quite a depressing thing to deal with. Guys have to work much harder than girls to get laid. I'm not trying to be flippant, I genuinely think that's a (albeit probably minor) factor.

> As a follow-up question, is it ever appropriate to think about that "academically", with cold detachment, and try to put a political view forward?
Sure, I have no problem with that. Removing emotion from a topic makes it far easier to view the issue objectively.

No worries and thanks for your reply! I was actually pretty touched by "I wish they were lower" -- I do too.

There's definitely a discussion to be had around loneliness in men, so I thought it was really interesting you mentioned that. In its most extreme form you end up with the in-cel community (I have to put a dash in or it wordfilters to "fedora-wearing misogynist" ). Despite the deserved bad rep they have, I don't think everyone who ends up in that community is evil, even if their rhetoric about women is grossly offensive (calling them "femoids" and "cumdumpsters" and so on). I think most of them have simply had some bad luck in relationships, got depressed about it, and then don't feel they have anywhere to turn apart from these weird online communities. You know, they can't talk to their mates about loneliness, and they don't want to get therapy, and they feel so much shame over not being "good with women" it's hard for them to just shrug it off and, like, get a hobby (even though that might ultimately solve the problem!).

Relationships & sexuality is only one component of the male experience, but it's very important to many (most? nearly all?) men, so I think you're right to bring it up and it's an interesting point. And some mass shooters have cited being in-cel as a motivation, so it's definitely relevant.

Even for men who don't go down that road, loneliness - lacking a partner, lacking friends - eats away at you, and I think men do often have worse support systems for dealing with that.

Rightey wrote:
See the thing is, all those movies you listed are purely targeted towards adults. It's the same thing as pointing to violent video games and saying they cause violence, when we know that these games are not for children.

I can't speak about worldwide figures but at least in the US, which is where all these mass shootings take place so it seems a good place to localize the discussion, violent crime has been on a downward trend for at least the last 20 years, with the murder rate in decline for even longer.

So if we see that overall violence is going down, and our society is changing in a positive way with better role models for kids, but mass shootings happen more frequently then perhaps it's not something as simple as just "toxic masculinity" that is the issue.

BTW, you are dead wrong about Spongebob, as a character he is presented as a role model, and for teens/kids is probably the biggest cultural figure for this generation, in the same way the Simpsons was for the previous one.

Still focusing on the movies, you have it back to front.

I'm not saying that movies like John Wick are the driving force of toxic masculine ideals, I'm saying they're the culmination of decades of (sometimes toxic) masculine conditioning. They're a reflection of the structures, not the architect.

The reason why something as absurd as John Wick appeals so much as a power fantasy is that it both mirrors all the positive things boys are told (stand up for yourself, take care of your loved ones, be self-dependent) and indulges all the negative (but fun) implied ends of those lines of reasoning (destroy your enemies, avenge your loved ones, rely on nobody but yourself).

This is what I mean when I say that boys get such mixed messages.

Lets take 'stand up for yourself'. No one would disagree that standing up for yourself is a positive personality trait. But lets say a dude cuts in front of you in the supermarket car park and steals your place. How do you stand up for yourself in that scenario? Grumble under your breath? Shake a fist? Shout at him? Smash his windows? Slash his tyres? Beat him to death in front of his crying children? Obviously it's somewhere in between, but where?

At school, boys are told to stand up for themselves, but if they get into a fight doing so they'll get punished alongside the aggressor. The relationship between all the so-called positive aspects of masculinity and where they become toxic is not explored or discussed and becomes a source of confusion.

So they're told to stand up for themselves, but that violence doesn't solve anything. After years of wrestling with that conflict, is it any wonder they eventually love movies where the dissonance is resolved and the guy stands up for himself by being ridiculously violent and it totally solves everything?

Boys are told that girls love confidence and that they should make the first move. They're also told that starting conversations out of the blue can be creepy and possibly a form of sexual harassment. After years of wrestling with this contradiction, is it any wonder that some boys find 'Red Pill' ideas that women are child-minded who don't really know what they want and so you don't need to worry about their feelings?

Boys are told that winning isn't everything and they should just be happy, and then we bombard them with media where wealth and success are the only measures of achievement. Is it any wonder that this leads to deep insecurities about their status, to the point where being out-earned by their partner by just $5000pa is an actual divorce risk? I mean, that's strawberry floating insane right? We tell boys that they should take care of their loved ones (a good message) and then we just let that message run wild until men feel so emasculated by not being the breadwinner that they end the relationship (toxic).

So in this case (and this is wild speculation on my part of course, we will never really know the killers motives), we have 'Try your best' (good message) becoming 'winning is all that matters' (bad message), coupled to a monetary driving force and into this mix we put a disturbed young man (twice hospitalised for mental health issues and clearly not equipped to deal with these conflicting messages) and he snapped.

With regards to the dropping crime rate, that's likely linked to better measures to combat poverty (a much stronger cause of crime than 'being a man' ever will be) rather than men just getting better.

Karl wrote:very long post (I'm on my phone dammit!)

I can't believe I forgot to mention loneliness, I've even posted about my (relatively minor) struggles with it in the Depression Thread

Skarjo wrote:At school, boys are told to stand up for themselves, but if they get into a fight doing so they'll get punished alongside the aggressor. The relationship between all the so-called positive aspects of masculinity and where they become toxic is not explored or discussed and becomes a source of confusion.

What's your basis for this viewpoint? A huge amount of focus is put on emotional development in the school system these days and in the scenario you suggested those themes absolutely would be discussed and explored with those involved, but also this is the kind of stuff that would be a topic of conversation routinely anyway.

It's not that hard to explain positive expressions of "stand up for yourself" to children - parents and teachers will be encountering situations on almost a daily basis where they have the opportunity to do just this. Obviously you are always going to get teachers who don't have the time to explore this properly, or dick parents who fail to use these opportunities to check bad behaviour and discuss this with their kids, or even the complete twats who will actively encourage bad behaviour ( ), but for the most part our society does have systems in place that should deal with this effectively.

There's been a lot of talking in this thread so I can't remember exactly who raised this point, but I think the way some feminists (and I'm sure other social theorists, but feminism and gender politics is the thing being discussed here) speak is a very important point.

I had a quick Google a couple of days ago to look at the phrase "toxic femininity", and got one website which said that toxic femininity was an invention of meninists to undermine feminism, and another which said toxic femininity was very much a thing but only white people did it. I'll be honest, I stopped soon after that!

Now, I don't go around reading academic studies and articles about feminism - I just don't have the time, let alone the inclination - so I may be completely wide of the mark here, but it seems the way some women behave, and the expectations they place on men in relationships etc, reinforce all the bad aspects of masculinity and thus help propagate the damage to society we see in events like this. "I like being paid for on dates, it's romantic", "if I leave him to do it the house will burn down wot iz he like", "boy jobs and girl jobs", "I dumped him and if he wants me back he'll have to fight for me". All these are women positioning themselves as domestic objects to be fought for and won in a society where that no longer has to be the case, and if a man wants to "win" that woman's affection, he's got to play that game, and thereby we all risk developing the in-cel (:lol: by the way Karl) mindset in a man when he isn't fulfilling those roles.

In a slightly weird manifestation of this, when I stayed with my son in hospital, the HCA on the ward made me a slice of toast at breakfast, despite there being a rule that only breastfeeding mothers would be fed. I'd already sorted my breakfast out because I'm not an infant, and my wife didn't get a thing when she was there the two days before, so not only was my wife not treated as well as me, I had my ability to function as a human being brought into question, all because of this HCA's assumptions about what men and women should be expected to do!

Whilst I accept that all this may well be due to an overarching patriarchal hegemony and all toxic gender behaviour may well be a function of that, calling it "toxic masculinity" seems, certainly to the layperson, to place all the blame on men who happen to like manly things, whilst ignoring women who play on that dynamic - and reinforce it - in day to day life. Essentially I would rather it was called "toxic gendering" or something to that effect. I don't disagree that there are problems in society with toxic gender behaviours, and men may be more likely to perpetrate violence, but a gender neutral term would be a bit fairer and tackle more of the problem in my opinion.

I had a similar argument in the pub recently about mansplaining, in that whilst it definitely is a problem when women aren't respected at work, the term itself assumes only men are ever condescending pricks, and misuse of the phrase may actually make men feel less able to contribute and have their voices heard, which I don't think is right. Case in point: a friend of mine has taken up climbing, and saw a woman helping a newbie set up. He saw something that he thought was a bit unsafe, but kept quiet as, in his own words, he "didn't want to be mansplainy." The newbie broke her ankle. Now if that situation isn't detrimental to society I don't know what is!

Moggy wrote:Spongebob’s a banana split.

Step outside, Sir. I challenge you to fisticuffs!

Dowbocop wrote: calling it "toxic masculinity" seems, certainly to the layperson, to place all the blame on men who happen to like manly things, whilst ignoring women who play on that dynamic

Just chiming back in here to address this point; it's super important to recognise toxic masculinity as the product of a system rather than something that some men chose, subconsciously or not, to have. It's about how boys are raised to deny certain emotions that are gendered from birth, like sadness or kindness. It's about how being told not to cry is something done to boys, not girls.

It is a systematic problem that manifests itself in habits that form the concept known as toxic masculinity. It has nothing to do with women. It is a process created and propagated by men, enacted on men, and is something that harms men. It leads to things such as inappropriate displays of aggression, rocketing suicide rates and endemic depression. It's not about saying men who like sports are bad and it's not about women playing up to anything.