MenAreGood
MenAreGood is a channel for men, boys, fathers, new fathers, grandfathers and women who want to learn about men and masculinity.  Are you tired of the false narrative of toxic masculinity?  Did you know there is a huge amount of research that shows the positive aspects of men, boys and fathers?  That is what we focus on here, being a source of good information and also a place to connect.   Join us!
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May 24, 2022
Gender Studies - if Taught by a Realist

This was sent to me by an anonymous donor. See what you think....

The New Gender Studies

We would basically teach college kids that women are the cart and men are the horse. It would be glorious. We would teach them that women are hypergamous and men are hypogamous. Imagine a professor up in front of the auditorium saying, "Alright! So you meet a guy, and he doesn't have a nice car! So do you want to date him? No! You don't! Why not? Because! Women are hypergamous! Write that down. It will be on the test!".

Then, he would say, "Men! Expect to be sexually rejected at a rate ten times higher than the average woman! Is this unfair? Yes! Life's unfair! And yes! You have good reason to resent women for this! But you have to just suck it up and take it with a smile! Okay?".

Then he would say, "Ladies! You won't buy men for sex. Not even for five cents! Why not? Because! The male body is worth zero dollars to you as a sexual commodity! In fact, it's worth less than zero dollars in that you expect men to pay you!"

And then he would say, "Hypothetical situation! You're courting for marriage . . . And the man has no job! What do you do? You dump him! Why? Because that's how women are!".

And then he would say, "Moving on now, to false rape allegations! Okay! Do women make them? Yes! They do! And more often than they want to admit! Now, let's talk about The gender empathy gap! It's very real! If you cry, as a man, people will call you a poor sport! A sore loser! You lost, Jack! Get over it! Better luck next time! No use crying over spilt milk! As for the women? Crying helps them to get ahead!"

He would then go on to say, "Ladies! Men will always love your bodies more than your minds and definitely more than anything you have to say! Don't even try to deny this! Men love women, not for what they have to say, but in spite of what they have to say! Get used to it! You could all stop talking, entirely, forever, and men wouldn't even mind! In fact, it would probably be better for everyone!".

And then he would move on to religion. . . "God is a man! Why isn't God a woman? Because! When we make God a woman, it goes to women's heads, and they become evil manipulative cunts! So we basically had to demoralize women by telling them God is male, just to bring their pathological narcissism down to barely tolerable! And even this didn't work very well, but it was a slight improvement, so we stuck with it for a long time! If you think women are a pain now, wait until they believe God is a woman!".

Then he moves on to abortion . . . "Abortion! Is it murder? Yes! Why do we allow women to do it? Because men care more about sex than men care about ethics! So men will basically let women crucify children in hope of getting laid. And if you're chasing hippy chicks, then that's your shtick if you are trying to avoid offending them in hope of earning mating rights!"

If only we could take over gender studies and rewrite the entire program.

What else would the prof say? Leave a comment.

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September 20, 2024
Another Male Blaming Organization Rakes in the Cash - The Man Box

recorded in 2022

Tom and Janice discuss a powerful organization called "A Call To Men" that claims to offer transformational workshops and training sessions for men to bring about "healthy manhood." Slickly presented, massively funded, and corporately embedded, the organization proves its anti-male feminist agenda in everything it promotes, blaming men for their suffering and exempting women from any responsibility. Women are to be valued, men are to provide service to women. Far from providing men a freeing escape from what it calls "The Man Box" (allegedly built without any input from women), the organization constructs a deforming feminist box into which it aims to force all men.

A Call to Men https://www.acalltomen.org/

About page https://www.acalltomen.org/about/

Aman Siddiqi Dissertation https://www.proquest.com/openview/18ff860071ff793d5240c7040a00d4d9/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=18750&diss=y

See Janice at Studio B! ...

00:49:46
September 17, 2024
Why So Few DV Shelters for Men?

Tom and Bill Corbitt discuss the treacherous slope of the lack of services for men who are victims of domestic violence. Bill offers some insightful ideas about the reasons for this and describes a bit of what he is doing to try and bring balance to a horribly hurtful and unbalanced system.

Bill Corbitt on Medium https://medium.com/@info_6724Article on available Men’s Shelters https://medium.com/@info_6724/dv-shelters-exclusively-for-men-fathers-and-their-children-2024-ce1e916ab8ce

Daddy’s House https://www.DaddysHouseShelter.com

Donate: https://givebutter.com/DaddysHouse

01:00:17
September 13, 2024
Red Pill Relationships 16: Training Your Woman

Recorded 2019

Tom and Paul discuss the importance of knowing your own values and working to develop a partnership. How do you do that and how do you stand up for what you want?

00:41:10
February 07, 2023
The Way Boys Play and the Biological Underpinnings

My apologies for the last empty post. My mistake. Let's hope this one works.

Tom takes a stab at using the podcast function. Let's see how it goes.

The Way Boys Play and the Biological Underpinnings
May 13, 2022
Boys and Rough Play

This is a short excerpt from Helping Mothers be Closer to their Sons. The book was meant for single mothers who really don't know much about boy's nature. They also don't have a man in the house who can stand up for the boy and his unique nature. It tries to give them some ideas about how boys and girls are different. This excerpt is about play behaviors.

Boys and Rough Play
October 05, 2024
The cult of feminism Destroying the culture of family and relationships

This is an excellent post by a woman talking about her perceptions of feminism and the damage it has done.

https://open.substack.com/pub/skylevi/p/the-cult-of-feminism?r=ybmah&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web

Of course every member of a family should be cherished. But, the actual effects of feminism has throttled our families. Broken homes create terrible insecurity. That insecurity equals dependence on many harmful elements. And as it has for many these days, in the complete devotion and dependency on the state.

All adults should have personal independence. But the reality is, rather than bonding and building stronger communities, feminism has made men and women serial adversaries who compete for supremacy. That's not a viable way to create healthy society, or a familial model. It's toxic.

The vacuum

Within the space in the home where women (and now men too) once were is a vacuum. Being filled with ever more spiritual, social propaganda, and state control. Exposing whole families to ...

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September 30, 2024
$23M for Boys in Australia - Is this a good thing?

A three year plan in Australia is set to offer $23M to help boys who have experienced childhood abuse and violence. The purpose? To limit violence against women and girls! The program seems to mostly focus on therapy for the boys and this could be a good thing...or not so good depending on the messages they try to convey. Oh, and why nothing for girls who have experienced abuse? Reason? The article plainly states that close to 100% of victims are female and nearly 100% of abusers are male! They are getting their stats from bigots!

What do you think of this?

https://womensagenda.com.au/latest/early-intervention-program-targeting-young-men-and-boys-receives-23m-from-federal-government/

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September 27, 2024
Feminism - An interview of Janice Fiamengo

This is a post of Janice Fiamengo being interviewed by the author of a substack page titled Lies are Unbekoming. The questions were excellent and the answers were superb. Janice has an unmatched capacity to clearly narrate the history that indicts feminists as being haters of men. Have a good look.

https://fiamengofile.substack.com/cp/149426853

October 03, 2024
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Using Research to Push a Narrative

Using Research to Push a Narrative

There’s a noticeable trend in research about men and women that often tells only part of the story. A prime example is domestic violence studies that falsely claim women are the sole victims, while ignoring men’s experiences. This happens in other areas too—like reproductive coercion, teen violence, healthcare, and others. Women’s troubles are spotlighted, while men’s are overlooked. Once you see this pattern, it’s hard to unsee it.

In this post, we’ll look at a study published in July of 2024, that employs a similar strategy—not by lying, but by omission. The researchers present only the part of the story that supports the narrative they want to push. And in this case, it’s clear.

___________________________

I came across a media article about boys and threats to their masculinity. From the picture below that  accompanies the article, I anticipated some dramatic findings on violence or hostility. 

 

The research claimed to investigate adolescent boys' responses to threats to their masculinity. Here's a quick summary of the study:

The study was simple. 207 boys, ages 10-14, were given two quizzes—one on stereotypically feminine topics like flowers, makeup, and dresses, and one on masculine topics like tools, guns, and cars. Regardless of their actual scores, the control group was told they had scored high on the masculine test and were congratulated. The boys in the experimental group, however, were told they scored well on the feminine quiz but poorly on the masculine one. In other words, they were told they were more like the girls—meant as a threat to their masculinity. The boys then took a third quiz, a word completion test designed to measure their level of aggression. The parents took a series of questionnaires to assess their parenting.

The researchers aimed to see if this perceived threat would spark aggression. (One might also ask if the boy's aggression might be sparked simply because they were lied to. After all, they probably were well aware that they knew more about guns and cars than makeup and dresses.)

This type of response has been studied before and has been identified as "threat vigilance," a common reaction to status threats among men and boys, often linked to testosterone levels. Studies show that when a male's status is challenged, he is more likely than a female to respond aggressively, partly due to higher testosterone. However, prepubescent boys typically don't display this aggression, as they have not yet reached the higher testosterone stage of life. Curiously, despite examining what appears to be this same phenomenon, the study in question makes no mention of the previous research about threat vigilance. As we will later discover, the researcher was aware of this concept but chose not to include it in the study.

The media article I first read didn't mention threat vigilance or even mention testosterone, though it's a key factor in this type of research. Thinking I might have missed something, I searched for other articles on the study and found many—but still, no mention of testosterone in any of the articles.

What I did find were media portrayals showing angry, hostile boys, even though the researchers themselves didn’t claim the boys were violent.

 

Here's a quote that appeared in many of the articles: “Beyond just aggression, manhood threats are associated with a wide variety of negative, antisocial behaviors, such as sexism, homophobia, political bigotry, and even anti-environmentalism,” said the researcher, Adam Stanaland. Wait, what? How did we jump from threats to status to sexism, homophobia, political bigotry, and even anti-environmentalism? This felt like a massive leap, though it's worth noting the researchers didn’t directly say boys were violent. It seems the media exaggerated that part as seen in the photos, and I doubt the researchers did much to correct it.

Somewhat confused about this, I decided to find the actual study and read it. Testosterone was mentioned—once—in the limitations section, suggesting that future studies could explore its role. This made no sense, given that existing research clearly links testosterone to threat vigilance and status defense. This puzzled me and I was determined to find out what was going on so I wrote to the researcher with some questions.  He got right back to me and we carried on a conversation.  He was a very nice fellow and I do appreciate his initially taking the time to field my questions.  The sense I got was that he was interested in pushing the "it's all about socialization" ideas.  I looked  up his history and his graduate work was done at Duke University and he was a member of the Duke "Identity and Diversity Lab" for 5 years. The name says it all.  I think my assumptions were pretty close.  He was likely to follow the ideas that socialization is the most critical element of human development.  

 

When I asked him, "Isn't threat vigilance related to testosterone levels?" he responded: “Basal testosterone and aggression are certainly related, but here our focus was figuring out whether a social mechanism (i.e., typicality/masculinity threat) could also cause aggression among adolescent boys (as it does among men), as well as when/why.”

In other words, he didn’t answer the question.  He acknowledged the biological link but chose to focus only on the social aspect. To me, this is like studying a car engine but only looking at the spark plug and ignoring fuel, air, and combustion. A well-rounded study would acknowledge that both testosterone (biological) and socialization play important roles. Omitting one side feels like an intentional way to push a narrative.

I asked the researcher again if he was aware of studies showing testosterone’s role in threat vigilance, and he responded: “Yes, I’m familiar with the complex role between testosterone, threat vigilance, status-seeking, and aggression. My previous explanation was all to say that there is definitely a biological component to aggression, but our results provide evidence that there is also a notable social component.”

Basically, he’s saying, "Yes, testosterone matters, but we’re focusing on the social side." And that’s how narratives are built, by telling only a part of the story. Unfortunately, this study—like many others—implies that boys could be “fixed” if only they were taught to be less aggressive when their masculinity is threatened. But this ignores the biological factor. Once boys hit puberty, higher testosterone levels biologically predispose them to defend their status. Yet, this crucial piece of information is left out of the conversation.

Puberty

The study focused on 10-14 year old males from pre-puberty through mid- and late-puberty stages. The researchers made several statements that highlighted their views on puberty, including this one:

"We contend that puberty represents a developmental shift in boys' psychological relationship with societal definitions of their gender."

The researchers acknowledged that puberty is an important factor in these behaviors, but what does puberty primarily signal? It highlights the increase in testosterone levels in young males. However, the researchers never mention testosterone. Instead, they describe puberty like this:

"We contend that puberty represents a developmental shift in boys' psychological relationship with societal definitions of their gender. Puberty causes boys to recognize themselves—their bodies, their relationships, and so forth—as being adult-like, which means they must now contend with newly discovered societal expectations of manhood: a precarious status that is earned, can be lost, and is only regained by conforming to rigid norms, such as aggression."

Their interpretation suggests that boys, upon recognizing their maturing bodies, must now face "societal prescriptions about manhood." The focus here is entirely on socialization, asserting that boys must conform to rigid societal norms. There's no mention of testosterone—it's all framed around societal pressures, leaving biological factors out of the discussion entirely.

The Word Completion Test

Another issue I had with this study was their method of measuring aggression: a word completion test. The boys were asked to fill in blanks like "GU_" (which could be "gum" or "gun") and "_UNCH" (which could be "punch" or "lunch"). The number of aggressive words chosen supposedly indicated their level of aggression.  I find it hard to believe this test accurately measures aggression, but the researcher assured me it had been validated in other studies.  It seems to me that they are taking a cognitive response and then expecting that cognition to predict an actual behavior.  Seems wonky to me.  I was fairly new to the word completion tests and poked around a bit and found that there is considerable controversy about this.  As there should be. 

I continue to think this is a very weak indicator but the study got magazines to print pics like this based on choosing gun rather than gum:

 
 

These pictures, like the other pictures in this post, imply not only aggressiveness but hostility.  Seems like a jump to me.  There is a big difference between aggressively defending your status, which is what threat vigilance does, and overt hostility or violence.  Looks like they are trying to imply the later.  But this is what the media wants.  Give them some research that shows the men and boys are aggressive and they will put violence on the front page.  Whatever happened to the word assertive which is similar to aggressive?  I think assertive might be a better word for men defending their status.  Their defense in some cases might get aggressive but the norm might be simply responding to the challenge in a strong, rational, and assertive manner.

The Sample 

The sample used in the study also raised some questions. Nearly 90% of the parents involved were mothers, and more than two-thirds were single parents. This is far above the national average for single-parent households, which hovers around 20-25%. Research shows that boys raised by single mothers are more likely to exhibit aggression, yet the study doesn’t address how this may have influenced the findings.

"Regarding the parents themselves, 87.4% identified as women (mothers) and 12.6% were men (fathers). Most parents were the sole primary caretaker of the participant (68.6%) or shared caretaking responsibilities equally with another person (30.0%)." 

I asked the researcher about the chances of a biased sample due to the large number of single mothers and here is what he said:

"I’m not sure that it’s fair to say that our sample comprising a majority of mothers is "strong indication that [we] had a biased sample.” Research has shown that although dads are more involved now in their child’s caregiving than they used to be, moms are still vastly overrepresented (hyperlink) as the child’s primary caretaker. It makes sense, then, that our sample would comprise more mothers than fathers—i.e., it’s representative and not biased (in fact, a sample with half mothers and half fathers would be biased against the reality of parenting in the U.S.)." 

Maybe so, but he doesn't address the over-abundance of single mothers in the sample and how that is far from the norm for parenthood in the US today. I  specifically pointed out the single mothers issue and he simply avoided it and focused on mothers doing the majority of child care.  The link he provided was not about single mothers, it seemed to be about two parent families.  If he had 87% mothers in his sample and they were all from two parent families, then that would be a different story.  But that was not the case.  It was 87% mothers and 2/3rds single parents.  This tells us that it is likely most of those mothers were single parents.  A predominance of single mothers should be a red flag, but not in his view.  Could the excess of single mothers have had an impact on the findings?  I do wonder.

Framing Parents as the Problem

One key takeaway from the study was that boys from conservative, less wealthy families with parents teaching “hegemonic masculinity” were more aggressive in response to the threat. The tool used to assess this was the Male Role Norms Inventory, which includes statements like these:

  • Men should know how to fix cars.

  • Men should be physically tough.

  • It would be awful if a man enjoyed dressing like a woman.

  • A man should be able to fix most things around the house.

  • A man should always be the boss.

  • Men should lead their household.

  • A man should always be ready for sex.

If the parents score high on this questionnaire they are assumed to be teaching their boys to be "hegemonic".  Hegemonic is seen as something bad. It's meant to say that men are controlling and dominant.   It comes from the writing of R. Connell who some time ago became a transwoman.  Many academics seem to find Conell's book as the essential word in Masculinities. The parts I have read seem highly anti-male.  Connell's book brought a great deal of change into the research on men where many of his ideas were unceremoniously and artificially planted into studies like in the Conformity to Masculine Norms Inventory (CMNI).  I did a report on the CMNI and the very suspect manner that it was developed with a focus on how Connell's ideas magically appeared.  You can see that one here.

The researchers seemed to focus on the parental pressure (hegemonic attitudes) as being a prime motivator for the boy's aggressive responses.  They titled that variable pressured motivation (PM).  When reading the media articles it seemed that this parental pressure was being portrayed as being a large part of the reasons for the aggressive responses. This would lend credence to the idea that boys could be fixed if parents would just stop teaching them to be hegemonic males.  But wait a minute.  The PM variable (parental pressure) when paired with the threat variable (the word completion test) only had a significance score of p=.835.  Usually a score of .05 or below is considered to be significant so this one was far off the mark.  But they also had a variable that indicated the Degree of Puberty for the Boys (PDS) which showed that the only boys to appear aggressive in response to the word completion were boys who were in mid to late puberty.  When that PDS variable was paired with the threat variable (the word completion test) it came up with a score of p=.095.  Still not considered significant but surely more significant than the parental pressure variable.  When both the PM and the PDS were paired with the threat variable, voila!  They get a significance of <.001. 

Simply put, the data suggest that puberty (and its associated changes) has a stronger influence on the boys' aggression than social pressure alone.  This reinforces the idea that biological factors, like testosterone, may be important drivers for these aggressive responses, even if the study didn’t say so directly.

If puberty is so closely linked to aggression, and testosterone is one of the primary hormones behind puberty, doesn’t it stand to reason that testosterone might be a key factor? The fact that the puberty variable shows a stronger effect than pressured motivation only strengthens the argument that the biological side of adolescence is critical here.

 

One does tend to wonder if defending one’s status as a male is such a bad thing as it is being portrayed in this research.  There are some good reasons for it.  Men are reinforced and rewarded for independence and for their ability to protect.  Being seen as independent and able to protect is a part of the male hierarchy. But in a highly gynocentric atmosphere these once highly valued traits are framed in a negative manner. If you think about it, maybe the boys who failed to defend their status are actually the ones who need help?  

Conclusion

In the end,  I never got answers to all my questions. It’s been a month and a half since the researcher stopped responding, but I’m left thinking this study was designed to push a particular narrative, one that minimizes biological factors and highlights social ones. This leaves people pushed towards the narrative that boys can be fixed (and be more like the girls) if only the parents and the culture would stop teaching them to be aggressive.

It’s true that research often focuses on a specific, narrow aspect of psychology. I’ve read many studies that follow this pattern. However, in those studies, there was always a section that reviewed previous research on the topic and acknowledged earlier work in the field. This study, unfortunately, did not do that at all.

But there’s something important that can be gleaned from this study that even the researchers missed: pre-puberty boys didn’t respond aggressively to threats to their masculinity. This strongly suggests that puberty—and by extension, testosterone—is key to understanding these behaviors. Yet testosterone was never discussed in any meaningful way.

Just as an engine needs both a spark and fuel to run, adolescent boys’ aggressive responses to threats to their masculinity likely involve both social triggers and biological factors like testosterone. By including both in the analysis, we can move beyond a one-dimensional explanation and start to understand the complex interplay of factors that drive behavior during this critical period of development.

In the end, it’s not just about what makes the engine run — it’s about understanding all the components that come together to make it work smoothly. And when it comes to adolescence, testosterone is a big part of that equation.

Men Are Good

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September 25, 2024
Jill Biden reveals $500 million plan that focuses on WOMEN'S HEALTH!
Really?

Ok. Wait a minute. Men die earlier from almost every major disease, they live shorter lives, and they have no federal offices specifically for their health. All that, and what do Jill and Joe Biden do? They crank out a half a billion dollars for women’s health! What do you think of this? Does it show that gynocentrism runs silent and deep?

If you have even the slightest doubt about this be sure to check out Jim Nuzzo’s substack article that lays out the facts around gynocentrism and biomedical research.

 

https://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/national-international/jill-biden-500-million-plan-womens-health/3978109/?os=icxa75gdubbewzke8c&ref=app

 

Here's thie first of the article:

First lady Jill Biden on Monday unveiled a new set of actions to address health inequities faced by women in the United States, plans that include spending at least $500 million annually on women's health research.

Jill Biden made the announcement at this year’s Clinton Global Initiative annual meeting in New York, moments before the organization honored President Joe Biden with the 2024 Clinton Global Citizen Award.

“He's provided a playbook for getting things done,” former President Bill Clinton, said as he presented the award. “We honor him today, not just for what he's accomplished, but for the way he has done it.”

President Biden, standing next to his wife, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Clinton Foundation Vice Chair Chelsea Clinton, joked, “This is what you call being trapped.”

In his short remarks, he then called Jill Biden's announcement one of the most substantial of his administration.

The additional government spending will mainly come from the Department of Defense, which provides medical care to more than 230,000 active duty military women and nearly 2 million military retirees, as well as their family members. The research will focus on why these women experience endocrine, hematological and other immunity-related disorders twice as often as men.

“Women are really hungry for this kind of information,” Jill Biden said. “We don't have the answers.”

 

You can see it for yourself:

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September 23, 2024
DAVIA: False Allegations: New Feminist Tactic to ‘Topple the Patriarchy’?

This is a link to a DAVIA press release regarding false accusations. DAVIA puts out two or three press releases each week that are excellent and well documented summations of many of our issues. They are very much in harmony with our thoughts here on menaregood. You can see all of the releases here. This one (linked below) offers some suggestions at the end of the release that are guidelines for lawmakers to stop false accusations:

"To curb the epidemic of false allegations by vindictive women, lawmakers need to make these changes (11):

  1. Renounce the use of so-called “believe the victim” and “trauma-informed” investigations, which bias the probe and remove the presumption of innocence.

  2. Require hard evidence, not a mere accusation, as proof of abuse.

  3. Increase penalties for false accusers."

 

https://endtodv.org/pr/false-allegations-new-feminist-tactic-to-topple-the-patriarchy/

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