Awesome Intro to Men's Issues.

An interesting interview with Warren Farrell, former feminist, now a "men's issues advocate".

http://interviewly.com/i/warren-farrell-apr-2014-reddit

MOTIVATION

All throughout my life, I have seen men repress their feelings. As a boy, I don't know how many times we are told not to cry, not to speak our minds, not to be true to our feelings, to be tough.

I don't believe for a second that repressing one's feelings or pretending that one is fine when one has been hurt, that this makes one happier. Repression, defenses make such issues harder to fix.

As far as I can see, it's not actually a gender issue, but there is a lot of room for improvement, for males. Just look at the stats for mental illnesses, incarceration, crime stats, suicide rates, addiction rates (eg. smoking, drug use), life expectancy... the ground to cover is as vast as all of human history and will be an multi-generational process.

Growing up, I began to see social expectations, massive gender biases. Ridiculous as it was, I did not really have the skill, courage, clear-headedness to point it out.

I also go to therapy. One of the misconceptions about therapy is how it's just about the client, the issues they want to work on and the goals they want to achieve. No. The further down the rabbit hole you go, the more issues you see in not only yourself, but in the people you've met in your life, and the relation to the results they get in their lives. You see possible reasons for why she is a feminist, why he became religious, why he is in that job, why he smokes. You begin to see below the surface and identify strengths and dysfunction in people. And gradually, you start to wonder why isn't everybody in therapy, particularly men.

Just as psychology has been getting more popular all the time, the conversation about men's issues is really just starting.

I am no collectivist. Unlike feminism, "men's issues" is avoiding marxist ideology. The male gender is not viewed as a collective demanding "collective rights and freedoms", but only as an attribute of the individual and the effects of being biologically male.
There are no activists, feminists trying to change the rules. There is no government intervention, no initiatives, no lobby. Instead of collective action, it is about self-improvement, self-determination, seeking and spreading the truth.
There is no making-up of narratives, no playing-the-victim, no affirmative action. In the place of these, is analysis and discussion about how to change this at the grassroots level, in organizations, in the family, among peers, in oneself.

There is only one tool. Pointing out the truth as one sees it, with facts and reasoning, and offering possible solutions.

THREATS

Talking about men's issues can be hazardous. For one, many men don't know what it's about. On the other hand, it goes against social justice warriors (eg. SJW), political correctness and feminism, very much mainstream trends. Within the "Men's issues" community, there are many schools of thought, which spend most of their time competing against each other. Each school of thought sees their part of the elephant. Men's Rights Activists see the legal problems faced by men as the center problem. Masculinists want to replicate feminism for men. MGTOWs see male desire, commitment to long-term relationships as the cause of many problems. Misogynists see any problem faced by men and point at the female gender.

But the biggest threat, by far, is failure to spread and export values. As with any religion, faith, philosophy tech, culture, idea, meme, the limits to growth remains the willingness of its members to spread its messages far and wide. In the context of men's issues, it dies when its members let people turn a blind eye to the problems most commonly faced by men and yet are continually understated and not solved.

WEAKNESSES

The primary problem with Men's Issues is that it is a broad bunch of inter-related issues. There is no specific, well-defined problem.

For example,

...


//To be Continued

On Men And Women, inspired by the Sword of Truth series

*The following content is truthful as I see it. Politically correctness was not a consideration. There are also exceptions.

Remember the Terry Goodkind books I spent 2013 reading?

There was this question on the author's website that's been bothering me since I first read it 2 years ago.

 Tonight, in the shower, I think I got it.

I think it's to do with men and women.

Masculine characters are seekers or anti-seekers, Feminine characters are confessors or anti-confessors.

In layman terms,

1. 
Men are resource gatherers. There are two ways to gather resources - through natural truth, or through force, coercion and compulsion. 

In the books, the Seeker is a role with certain magical powers created by ancient wizards. The seeker's job is to ensure that human society can prosper free from immorality.
On the other hand, the anti-seekers are the evil villains which use brutal means to achieve their ends.

From the standpoint of biological reproduction, the purpose of males is to provide resources for the mother and children. Required in the gathering of resources is the correct interpretation of reality - natural truth. Like how an accountant must recognize math and arithmetic or programmers must understand algorithms and obey the rules of their programming language.

Women also like getting what they want, but their main strength is through social and bio-psychological means.

In the books, there are Confessors and Mord Sith. Confessors have the magical ability to destroy a person's free will and make them do whatever she wishes. Confessors can also tell if one is telling the truth. The power of Confessors is based on love.

Confessors make more confessors by mating with high status men. Of course, the men become confessed in the process, their minds destroyed. This is kind of tragic, because it means they cannot have sexual relations with men they really love without destroying them.

Mord Sith are the opposite of Confessors. While Confessor magic is love, Mord Sith use hate, pain and emotional manipulation to enslave.

In reality, interacting with attractive women generally leaves men cognitively impaired and less able to express free-will. And if there is any doubt as to this, well, male sexual arousal (signs such as erection) are essentially involuntary and easily triggered. On the other hand, women do not experience this effect.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-interacting-with-woman-leave-man-cognitively-impaired/

Have you ever been with some female you consider so attractive you feel like you are melting, and you need your mindpower to go for it? That's what it means.

Sometimes, long term exposure creates the stereotypical guy with a nagging wife/girlfriend which has him by the balls.

2.
Love is fundamentally emotional reactions to common values, beliefs, virtue.

The Sword of Truth series is revolves around Richard and Kahlan, who share common goals of defeating the baddies and discovering the nature of the magical world around them.

When they first realize they are in love, Kahlan realizes that they can never have sex, because that would be the end of Richard. Richard ponders for about half the book, then realizes that it actually was possible, because they already love each other so much it would make no difference whether he was confessed or not.

Love needs to be clearly defined and not confused with physical attraction, attraction to resources, but a spontaneous genuine response to common virtues. Failure to recognize this leads to disaster when the relationship is ever tested.

3.
Men do, women are.
Men select women based on her being. What is she? Does she look after herself? What's her personality? Is she kind or mean, generous or selfish, faithful or unfaithful, open or uptight, introverted or extroverted? Males start from the physical and go into the psychological, intellectual, personal qualities.

Women select men firstly based on what and how well he does. The reproductive reason needs no explanation - the young take up vast resources. Pregnancy, child-rearing are time and resource intensive. (Modern feminists may have you think otherwise, but even if one opts for childcare services, there is still increased cost.)

Richard was named a Seeker. Kahlan was born a Confessor.



If there is anything to take away from this post, it's this.

Males Seekers and female Confessors has been the natural way of things, because this strategy has worked for millions of years. But we can do better if only they...

1. Don't be "confessed".

2. Choose partners based on their virtue first and foremost. Don't settle for anything less.

3. Be sure what other people love you for. Be in-dispensable. Don't be expendable.