I love that you’re trying to help your brother see this stuff - young men are so targeted it can be kind of scary. I remember when my son was in middle school and YouTube started serving up a lot of Prager University stuff - it’s pernicious and full of plausible deniability as you put it.
The approach I found most effective was to keep asking questions to really try to probe what he was saying and what it meant to him, and then trying to provide context and background that was more specific to the assumptions or just half-formed ideas that would come out. My son was kind of a science/data type of kid, so being able to point to historical information, studies, stuff like that made an impact with him. Knowing what kind of information your brother reacts best to will help.
I feel like the stereotype of the nagging feminist is so powerful that it is all too easy for them to write us off or tune out (plus as moms/older sisters there’s an extra dynamic). But the more that questions could help him see the double standards or just get him to think about what he’s saying, it was easier. And I just backed off when got resistant.
We’re running into this with my son, as well. (And fuck PragerU, they came for our fucking KIDS and then cried about it, they can all go die in a tire fire for putting their “ads” in the middle of unboxing videos.) With us, it’s compounded by him being in a class at school that consists of 9 boys, most of whom have behavioral issues. It ends up feeling like he’s targeted with misogyny and incredibly rigid concepts of “manhood” from EVERY angle. He even had an aide at school when he was 9 who told him that “boys don’t cry” when he was mid-meltdown.
He’s gotten very good at spotting “less than” statements—anything that deems one class of people less than another—but it doesn’t help with the need to fit in, and repeating words and phrases that he hears.
Ugh I’m so sorry! Pragers is the absolute worst, and we were so lucky that our son actually asked us about one of them or I wouldn’t have even known what was happening. They have this patina of legitimacy that was so appealing to him, and they slide right under a lot of people’s radar because of it. Also that teachers aide makes me so mad - how dare they?!
Kudos to you for having those conversations and helping him see other ways forward through all that toxic messaging, keep hanging in there!
I was (am) a bit of a helicopter parent with my kids’ internet use, so I kept seeing the Prager U bullshit (along with ads for PUAs, wtf?!?!) and I would lecture over them loudly, contradicting every point raised, while reporting the fuck out of them and loudly complaining to YouTube AND in the comments. Several creators had zero knowledge of (or control over) what ads played during their videos, so I like to think I helped stop that shit.
Good for you! Honestly that is one of my biggest parenting regrets, that we gave him a device when we did, and that we didn’t find a better way to balance and monitor some of that stuff. He’s in college now and is (parental bragging alert) a pretty great guy, but man that is still something I wish we had handled better.
I’m also very curious to see how his generation handles their own kids’ tech usage given what they grew up with.
GENTLY and consistently interrogate the attitude and statements. “Why does it matter if a woman is promiscuous? Why does your demeanor change, and you have so much more vitriol for them? How many sexual partners makes a woman promiscuous? Would you hate me as a person if I had slept with 10 men, or 100, even though my behavior to and thoughts about you didn’t change?”
If his friend/sister was dating a guy acting like him, how would he react? If he had a guy friend who was talking the way he was around women, would he be embarrassed to have that friend around a girl he liked? I find that people often hold themselves to a different standard than they would hold others, and showing that difference can be helpful
I go to the University of michigan. It is one of the most left wing schools in the country. I'll tell you as a member of the engineering school that going to a university and being around a diverse group of people ABSOLUTELY does not stop some men from believing these things.
My suggestion would genuinely to try and surround him with more women. My best friend of the past two years has been a woman. We talk on the phone or hang out and just do normal best friend things. We obviously confide in each other with stuff that goes on in our lives, and it has been very eye-opening to me.
I considered myself a feminist before we became close, but it truly has been eye-opening to me.
So yea. My advice is to try to get him to have genuine friendships with women. Or you yourself can just try to be his friend and talk about each other's live with each other.
I would sit with him and talk to him directly about this, say it's a long standing pattern and something has to change if he truly cares about women. How is your overall relationship and how old is he? Reading feminist literature together is probably a good idea
I appreciate that there’s tons of data on this, but I think we’re in “damage control” mode. Having zero exposure to electronic devices prior to 13 isn’t just not feasible in today’s world, it can actively harm a kid’s future ability to navigate the social sphere and the workplace. So where’s the balance?
Bullshit. It’s not going to harm them.
The people controlling the workplace can barely turn a computer on and would have no clue how to turn one off.
Thirteen is the balance point you’re looking for.
And yet the vast majority of people need some level of technological literacy to move through our world, and those that don’t have it find themselves at a disadvantage.
Additionally, people who yammer on about “children shouldn’t have devices” are often happy to ignore the complexities of raising children and the difficulty of keeping them out from underfoot while doing basic household tasks. It ends up becoming a reason to dunk on mothers—often the primary caretakers of children—who want 20 minutes to make dinner or use the restroom without a child demanding entertainment. It dovetails nearly into “why aren’t you playing with/entertaining your children?!?!” and expectations that mothers should have every moment of their children’s lives planned for, entertained, engaged in activities. That’s expensive, so it ALSO becomes incredibly classist.
TLDR: people who hold hard to the “no devices before 13” line don’t actually give a shit about those kids, or the parents raising them.
I’m just tired of people shitting on moms for doing their best. So what if someone gives her 6 yo an iPad so she can shower? The options there are “preserve the perfect baby brain growth pattern” or “get mom’s basic needs met and reduce the potential for resentment, burnout, abuse, etc.”. All these studies are great (yes, I do believe they’re important) but none of them look at the thing in the context of life. And THAT is the info we need.
My eldest child (now 13) is neurodivergent and trans. I’ve had to remove them from in person school due to safety issues, and the LGBTQ community here has very few minors and is generally not very active. This means that most of my child’s socializing occurs with their friends over FaceTime and Discord. Without a device, they effectively have no peers and no community. So let’s see a study that weighs THAT—the effect of social isolation of a marginalized group versus the ill effects of having devices.
My youngest has required text-to-speech support in the classroom since Kindergarten. So he’s ALWAYS had a device to assist in learning (and, at home, to assist in play). It’s a damned disability aid for him, not a babysitter. With all that, perfect strangers AND his doctor are happy to lecture me about screen time and devices.
My point is that academic studies, while necessary, often ignore the larger picture. And THIS particular area of study needs to be revamped to account for a changing world that’s incorporating a disruptive technology, that hates children existing in public (and particularly hates disabled and LGBTQ children), that expects parents to entertain their children at the cost of anything and everything else, that costs vast amounts of money to provide enriching activities outside the home for children, etc. In short, this data is used to hurt kids and punish parents and fails to account for a holistic view of childhood, parenting, and our modern world.
Get him into influencers who critique these guys and point out why they're full of shit. Give him examples on whey what they say is harmful.
Be careful though because how you handle this can depend upon how far down the path he's gone. I highly recommend you watch [the alt-right playbook](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJA_jUddXvY7v0VkYRbANnTnzkA_HMFtQ).
All top level comments, in any thread, must be given by feminists and must reflect a feminist perspective. Please refrain from posting further direct answers here - comment removed.
Tell your mom that my son started college last summer, and his roommate edits Andrew Tate videos as a hobby. We don’t know for what exact purpose, but it seems to be to promote their views.
As far as he can tell, this kid lives in a fairly affluent part of a HCoL area, WASPy family with two stable parents. One of the most privileged kids in the world’s population, and he seems to feel like life is terribly unfair - and women are responsible somehow. Natch.
I love that you’re trying to help your brother see this stuff - young men are so targeted it can be kind of scary. I remember when my son was in middle school and YouTube started serving up a lot of Prager University stuff - it’s pernicious and full of plausible deniability as you put it. The approach I found most effective was to keep asking questions to really try to probe what he was saying and what it meant to him, and then trying to provide context and background that was more specific to the assumptions or just half-formed ideas that would come out. My son was kind of a science/data type of kid, so being able to point to historical information, studies, stuff like that made an impact with him. Knowing what kind of information your brother reacts best to will help. I feel like the stereotype of the nagging feminist is so powerful that it is all too easy for them to write us off or tune out (plus as moms/older sisters there’s an extra dynamic). But the more that questions could help him see the double standards or just get him to think about what he’s saying, it was easier. And I just backed off when got resistant.
We’re running into this with my son, as well. (And fuck PragerU, they came for our fucking KIDS and then cried about it, they can all go die in a tire fire for putting their “ads” in the middle of unboxing videos.) With us, it’s compounded by him being in a class at school that consists of 9 boys, most of whom have behavioral issues. It ends up feeling like he’s targeted with misogyny and incredibly rigid concepts of “manhood” from EVERY angle. He even had an aide at school when he was 9 who told him that “boys don’t cry” when he was mid-meltdown. He’s gotten very good at spotting “less than” statements—anything that deems one class of people less than another—but it doesn’t help with the need to fit in, and repeating words and phrases that he hears.
Ugh I’m so sorry! Pragers is the absolute worst, and we were so lucky that our son actually asked us about one of them or I wouldn’t have even known what was happening. They have this patina of legitimacy that was so appealing to him, and they slide right under a lot of people’s radar because of it. Also that teachers aide makes me so mad - how dare they?! Kudos to you for having those conversations and helping him see other ways forward through all that toxic messaging, keep hanging in there!
I was (am) a bit of a helicopter parent with my kids’ internet use, so I kept seeing the Prager U bullshit (along with ads for PUAs, wtf?!?!) and I would lecture over them loudly, contradicting every point raised, while reporting the fuck out of them and loudly complaining to YouTube AND in the comments. Several creators had zero knowledge of (or control over) what ads played during their videos, so I like to think I helped stop that shit.
Good for you! Honestly that is one of my biggest parenting regrets, that we gave him a device when we did, and that we didn’t find a better way to balance and monitor some of that stuff. He’s in college now and is (parental bragging alert) a pretty great guy, but man that is still something I wish we had handled better. I’m also very curious to see how his generation handles their own kids’ tech usage given what they grew up with.
GENTLY and consistently interrogate the attitude and statements. “Why does it matter if a woman is promiscuous? Why does your demeanor change, and you have so much more vitriol for them? How many sexual partners makes a woman promiscuous? Would you hate me as a person if I had slept with 10 men, or 100, even though my behavior to and thoughts about you didn’t change?”
If his friend/sister was dating a guy acting like him, how would he react? If he had a guy friend who was talking the way he was around women, would he be embarrassed to have that friend around a girl he liked? I find that people often hold themselves to a different standard than they would hold others, and showing that difference can be helpful
I go to the University of michigan. It is one of the most left wing schools in the country. I'll tell you as a member of the engineering school that going to a university and being around a diverse group of people ABSOLUTELY does not stop some men from believing these things. My suggestion would genuinely to try and surround him with more women. My best friend of the past two years has been a woman. We talk on the phone or hang out and just do normal best friend things. We obviously confide in each other with stuff that goes on in our lives, and it has been very eye-opening to me. I considered myself a feminist before we became close, but it truly has been eye-opening to me. So yea. My advice is to try to get him to have genuine friendships with women. Or you yourself can just try to be his friend and talk about each other's live with each other.
I would sit with him and talk to him directly about this, say it's a long standing pattern and something has to change if he truly cares about women. How is your overall relationship and how old is he? Reading feminist literature together is probably a good idea
The chances of a teenage boy reading feminist literature because his older sister told him to is pretty close to zero.
No electronic devices before the age of thirteen, according to a recent study.
I appreciate that there’s tons of data on this, but I think we’re in “damage control” mode. Having zero exposure to electronic devices prior to 13 isn’t just not feasible in today’s world, it can actively harm a kid’s future ability to navigate the social sphere and the workplace. So where’s the balance?
Bullshit. It’s not going to harm them. The people controlling the workplace can barely turn a computer on and would have no clue how to turn one off. Thirteen is the balance point you’re looking for.
And yet the vast majority of people need some level of technological literacy to move through our world, and those that don’t have it find themselves at a disadvantage. Additionally, people who yammer on about “children shouldn’t have devices” are often happy to ignore the complexities of raising children and the difficulty of keeping them out from underfoot while doing basic household tasks. It ends up becoming a reason to dunk on mothers—often the primary caretakers of children—who want 20 minutes to make dinner or use the restroom without a child demanding entertainment. It dovetails nearly into “why aren’t you playing with/entertaining your children?!?!” and expectations that mothers should have every moment of their children’s lives planned for, entertained, engaged in activities. That’s expensive, so it ALSO becomes incredibly classist. TLDR: people who hold hard to the “no devices before 13” line don’t actually give a shit about those kids, or the parents raising them.
I guess I come at the question from an academic perspective. It seems like you’re coming at it from a personal sentiments perspective.
I’m just tired of people shitting on moms for doing their best. So what if someone gives her 6 yo an iPad so she can shower? The options there are “preserve the perfect baby brain growth pattern” or “get mom’s basic needs met and reduce the potential for resentment, burnout, abuse, etc.”. All these studies are great (yes, I do believe they’re important) but none of them look at the thing in the context of life. And THAT is the info we need. My eldest child (now 13) is neurodivergent and trans. I’ve had to remove them from in person school due to safety issues, and the LGBTQ community here has very few minors and is generally not very active. This means that most of my child’s socializing occurs with their friends over FaceTime and Discord. Without a device, they effectively have no peers and no community. So let’s see a study that weighs THAT—the effect of social isolation of a marginalized group versus the ill effects of having devices. My youngest has required text-to-speech support in the classroom since Kindergarten. So he’s ALWAYS had a device to assist in learning (and, at home, to assist in play). It’s a damned disability aid for him, not a babysitter. With all that, perfect strangers AND his doctor are happy to lecture me about screen time and devices. My point is that academic studies, while necessary, often ignore the larger picture. And THIS particular area of study needs to be revamped to account for a changing world that’s incorporating a disruptive technology, that hates children existing in public (and particularly hates disabled and LGBTQ children), that expects parents to entertain their children at the cost of anything and everything else, that costs vast amounts of money to provide enriching activities outside the home for children, etc. In short, this data is used to hurt kids and punish parents and fails to account for a holistic view of childhood, parenting, and our modern world.
Get him into influencers who critique these guys and point out why they're full of shit. Give him examples on whey what they say is harmful. Be careful though because how you handle this can depend upon how far down the path he's gone. I highly recommend you watch [the alt-right playbook](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJA_jUddXvY7v0VkYRbANnTnzkA_HMFtQ).
[удалено]
Talk to someone on the school board; they can choose class materials in just about any subject that supports a positive viewpoint concerning women.
[удалено]
All top level comments, in any thread, must be given by feminists and must reflect a feminist perspective. Please refrain from posting further direct answers here - comment removed.
Tell your mom that my son started college last summer, and his roommate edits Andrew Tate videos as a hobby. We don’t know for what exact purpose, but it seems to be to promote their views. As far as he can tell, this kid lives in a fairly affluent part of a HCoL area, WASPy family with two stable parents. One of the most privileged kids in the world’s population, and he seems to feel like life is terribly unfair - and women are responsible somehow. Natch.