Why Men are in Trouble

[Captain_Obvious]

Re: Why Men are in Trouble

@Gaia

18-to- 34-year-old men spend more time playing video games a day than 12-to- 17-year-old boys. While women are graduating college and finding good jobs, too many men are not going to work, not getting married and not raising families. Women are beginning to take the place of men in many ways. This has led some to ask: do we even need men?

So what’s wrong? Increasingly, the messages to boys about what it means to be a man are confusing. The machismo of the street gang calls out with a swagger. Video games, television and music offer dubious lessons to boys who have been abandoned by their fathers. Some coaches and drill sergeants bark, “What kind of man are you?” but don’t explain.

Movies are filled with stories of men who refuse to grow up and refuse to take responsibility in relationships. Men, some obsessed with sex, treat women as toys to be discarded when things get complicated. Through all these different and conflicting signals, our boys must decipher what it means to be a man, and for many of them it is harder to figure out.

Read morehere.

So are men lagging behind because women are trying to succeed with an education and a career?

There are definitely more women breadwinners today than there were 50 years ago, but does that hurt the male ego?

Discuss.

If men are in trouble, I don’t think it is because of video games, as the article seems to imply. If anything, I’d say it’s a symptom, not a cause.

I myself fall into the age group in question. Alhamdulillah, I am married, have a good job,a family and recently bought a house. I’m managing all of my responsibilities and I enjoy playing video games in my leisure time. I don’t see it being any worse than somebody who would watch movies or TV in their leisure time.

Here’s a link to a response to that article from a gaming site:

Video Game Reviews - IGN

Here are some exerpts:

Bennett was in charge of the U.S education system in the late-1980s and ran anti-drugs policy under the first Bush administration. You can argue among yourselves whether this list of dubious career highlights qualifies him to whine about what other men do with their lives.

He mentions high rates of unemployment as if this were the fault of men too apathetic to rise from our Gears of War marathons, rather than a direct and very obvious consequence of a global economic recession

Bennett uses games as a catch-all ‘bad thing’ ignoring the fact that it’s merely part of the fabric of modern life, has many social uses and offers people a welcome release from our stressful and / or humdrum lives, as well as a sense of achievement and progression. He makes zero mention of the fact that women make up around 50% of games players or that the fastest growing sector of the population playing games is adult women.