Teachers describe a deterioration in behaviour and attitudes that has proved to be fertile terrain for misogynistic influencers

Teachers describe a deterioration in behaviour and attitudes that has proved to be fertile terrain for misogynistic influencers

“As soon as I mention feminism, you can feel the shift in the room; they’re shuffling in their seats.” Mike Nicholson holds workshops with teenage boys about the challenges of impending manhood. Standing up for the sisterhood, it seems, is the last thing on their minds.

When Nicholson says he is a feminist himself, “I can see them look at me, like, ‘I used to like you.’”

Once Nicholson, whose programme is called Progressive Masculinity, unpacks the fact that feminism means equal rights and opportunities for women, many of the boys with whom he works are won over.

“A lot of it is bred from misunderstanding and how the word is smeared,” he says.

But he is battling against what he calls a “dominance-based model” of masculinity. “These old-fashioned, regressive ideas are having a renaissance, through your masculinity influencers – your grifters, like Andrew Tate.”

  • merc@sh.itjust.works
    3·
    9 months ago

    Communism kind-of smeared itself. Everywhere where communism has been tried on a national scale, it has become authoritarianism.

    Maybe it would be a good thing if done to the letter of the principle, but just like Libertarianism or Anarchism, it seems to be incompatible with human nature, at least so far.

    But, socialism isn’t even a foreign idea. A lot of US institutions are socialist. The mail delivery is done by an arm of the government. Streets are paved by the government. Firefighters are government employees. The water delivered to your house is almost certainly by a government-run entity. People retiring without having saved enough are taken care of by the government. There’s medicare and medicaid.

    A full capitalist system would have nothing done by the government that could be done by a business. No FDA, Pinkertons instead of Police, most army functions handed over to private contractors, every road privately owned and maintained, etc.

    • TWeaKEnglish
      1·
      9 months ago

      I agree with just about everything you’ve said. Communism has had too many failures that have affected too many people, the word is tainted.

      To grossly oversimplify it, capitalism is the way of business and trade, while socialism is the way of society and governance. The two things are separate, but the issue we have is that businesses are dictating policy to governments in their exclusive interest, rather than the other way around with governments focusing on the overall good of society.