While many believe young people are becoming more liberal, data shows that 12th grade boys are nearly twice as likely to identify as conservative compared to liberal. Around 25% of high school seniors identify as conservative while only 13% identify as liberal. In contrast, the share of 12th grade girls identifying as liberal has risen to 30%. Many factors may contribute to this trend, including the rhetoric of Donald Trump which appealed to disaffected young men, and the focus of progressive movements on issues of gender and racial equality which some young men perceive as a “matriarchy.” However, most high school seniors claim no political identity, and many boys in high school do not actively discuss
This, want it or not, it is not hard for boys to feel incredibly alienated in the left hemisphere. We gone from “girls have issues too” to “only girls can have issues”. It’s ridiculous, and even more ridiculous when you remember that girls reach their growth spurt sooner than boys, effectively eliminating many of the purported advantages of boys over girl, making them feel even more alienated.
I’m pretty far left and in my entire life I’ve never experienced “only girls can have issues” as more than an extreme fringe statement.
What I tend to see regarding men is how they, too, are victims of toxic masculinity, taught to internalize their emotions until they have literal breakdowns. The Left gives a fuck about that, and it’s one of the cited reasons they have problems with toxic masculinity.
I wonder where you get the impression that “the left” is saying “only girls can have issues”? It feels to me like people have spun this reactionary tale in the backlash to feminism but no one is actually saying that.
It is like every time someone tries to talk about issues women face this is seen as an attack on men. Which I find frankly ridiculous. At the same time, in many cases when people bring up boy’s or men’s issues they will only do so while simultaneously attacking feminist talking points. This is especially prevalent on social media platforms like Reddit and YouTube.
It does seem like anti-feminists and sometimes straight up misogynistic people have monopolized the entire discussion surrounding men’s issues. When you look up information regarding issues men face it is really hard to not end up in a hateful corner of the internet. Some of these sources do not actually have the people looking for help at heart, they are simply anti-feminist and will even go so far as to provide inaccurate information or withhold information just so that they can keep up their narrative.
This is very much a talking point by “only girls can have issues” people.
“Men don’t have issues, men’s rights groups only exist to spread misogyny!”
That is a key point of why the idea that men’s issues are not taken seriously is spreading, because simply talking about / focusing on men’s issues quickly gets people labled as misogynists.
This both gets people to stop caring about the idea of misogynism, because “apparently simply talking about men’s issues is misogyny”, and thereby also pushes people to develop more problematic views.
This is simply not true.