thank you for sharing this! i've been avoiding tate stuff because well, he's such a noxious person and even just talking about him feels awful. it's nice to read a good writing as to why he resonates

the part about boys complaining "i can't be me" and contrapoints being singled out as the person from the other side who gets it is a pretty amusing detail

this article is good insofar as it describes this cultural phenomenon (that in my mind is sort of already in the past, being that andrew tate stopped really being notable once the cops got him for being a fucking rapist)

But in Men, Wynn gently asks her progressive viewers to consider the possibility that men’s-rights activists’ concerns contain a nugget of truth: that the suffering of men is real, especially among those who were never high on any kind of ladder. Much feminist theory accounts for this, but many online feminists don’t. “Maybe the average man is also oppressed by the system the feminists call patriarchy,” Wynn says. She describes a “genuine crisis of male identity” caused by the decades-long shake-up of cultural gender norms. “The traditional protector-provider role of men is being replaced by a more equal and undefined gender dynamic,” she argues, and this loss of purpose has contributed to higher rates of depression, anxiety, suicidality, and loneliness in men, which is not ameliorated by well-meaning liberals perpetually calling them “toxic.” “I think a lot of feminists have failed to imagine the ways that being treated as invisible or dangerous can also kind of suck,” she says.

i just want to talk about this bit for a sec. theres this pattern of infantilisation of men in this line of thinking that i cant get over. men have lost this supposedly sacred protector-provider role (where they were free to beat and rape their wives and leave them alone to raise their children when the going got tough, but hey, i guess they felt that they were protectors/providers, and that's what matters) and now theyre just so helplessly adrift in this Just So Darn Complicated Post-Feminist World!! if only those nasty feminists could throw them a bone once in a while and realise just how hard it is to be a man now that women know that the emperors have no clothes. i think in 2024 this "patriarchy affects men too!!" argument is soooo played out and corny. its not surprising that this complex social phenomenon has drawbacks for men. but i dont understand why this problem is laid at the feet of feminists like its their fault or problem to solve.

also: "this loss of purpose has contributed to higher rates of depression, anxiety, suicidality, and loneliness in men, which is not ameliorated by well-meaning liberals perpetually calling them “toxic.”" is such little bitch shit i cannot help but roll my eyes. like first of all are liberals really calling men "toxic" en masse? it's (at the time of this article's publication 2023). be real. this is not an actual problem for anyone whos not the softest most sensitive snowflake. but after an entire article talking about how men and boys fell in love with tackiest, dumbest, most predictable mommy issues MRA on the planet, leading to changes in their behaviour that directly affected the women and girls around them negatively, i think it's fucking generous for someone to call masculinity toxic! if masculinity is so fragile and tenuous in this craaazy postmodern world of ours that this cigar-chomping rapist boor andrew tate becomes a symbol of its resurgence and strength then it deserves all the hate it gets. ugh!