Tom is a member of the National Coalition For Men and has contributed to several International Conferences On Men’s Issues (ICMI). The video below taken from the first conference in Detroit was a penny drop moment for me that really helped me understand my own thoughts.
Christina Hoff-Sommers is most famous for her books Who Stole Feminism and The War Against Boys.
Whilst her motivations maybe more inline with traditional conservatism, she has put together a lot of useful data to debunk feminist beliefs about male advantage and female disadvantage.
Here is a playlist from her Factual Feminist series with the AEI
Cassie Jaye was a feminist and documentary maker that had previously made documentaries about the abstinence movement and gay rights. In 2016 she decided to look into the “mysogynistic” Men’s rights movement, expecting to end up with an expose but the more she interviewed the people involved, the more her opinions developed and changed.
In this TedEx talk, she talks about her experience making the documentary
An excellent video with Ann Widdecombe interviewing Vincent McGovern and Martin Daubney covering parental alienation, educational disadvantage, false allegations etc
Alexander Grace is a male friendly relationship coach that covers psychological differences between men and women and their impact on relationships. You can see his full YouTube channel here.
On this page I will embed specific videos along with a brief commentary.
Whilst I don’t agree that men’s greatest issues relate purely to dating, and I feel that the concept of hypergamy i.e. women always wanting to “marry up” vastly over simplifiers how men and women find relationships, I do feel that Alexander Grace is spot on in terms of identifying a lack of empathy in society towards men.
This video captures the entitled way some women think about dating – “you’re the prize, not the guy” and Alexander Grace gives a passionate rebuttal to the lack of empathy towards men that may have been treated badly by his mother.
He gives examples such as Surrogate Spouse Syndrome, where a child essentially is made to take on the emotional role of a partner following a breakdown in a relationship between parents. It’s the first time I’ve seen that subject being considered yet it is something that happens frequently and can have a detrimental effects.
Not only that but he covers the difference in terms of adolescent boys and girls find their identities. With the current pervasive narrative of boys and girls being exactly the same, discussing these different experiences and different needs has become completely taboo. The importance of fathers is sidelined. Masculinity is misunderstood and demonised. Femininity is treated as the gold standard of behaviour and no room is left for boys to follow a masculine path. There is a lot of truth in “Women are born, men are made”. This is enshrined in the concept of “a real man”.
This video contains a good primer on Evolutionary Psychology and discusses to what extent men should base their self worth on approval from the opposite sex.
Alexander Grace does talk a lot about “low quality” and “good quality” men and women and those terms can sometimes be quite coarse. What he really means is men and women that make good long term relationship partners.
Alexander looks at data that shows how important height is to women when selecting a partner. One criticism I have is that the data is purely based on speed dating. I think that dating apps and speed dating are heavily skewed towards judgemental behaviours and women are the selectors. Outside of the dating market, people are more likely to fall in love slowly as they discover more about each other so shared experiences can be more important.
A video discussing the difference between what women actually desire in men and what modern society tells women that they should want.
Men want to be their partners heroes. This is deeply embedded into male psychology and they seek women that are reciprocal to men’s desire to please women.
Alexander’s confession about how the accusations of “misogyny” can be very painful to men that do actually genuinely care about women half way through the video particularly hit a nerve with me. Anyone man that talks about men’s issues will find themselves subject to accusations like this and the irony is, if we genuinely did hate women, we wouldn’t care but the reality is it’s not a normal or natural thing for men to hate women. Deep down these women know that because they’re exploiting men’s desire to support them and weaponizing it against good men.
An explanation for why women are more attracted to men that display a darker side rather than the “Mr Nice Guy”.
This is a good video on the difference between what women think men should be attracted to in a woman and what they’re actually attracted to.
How women are under pressure to live up to beauty standards. This is the equivalent evolutionary pressure to what men experience in terms of trying to maximise income. The behaviours of both sexes is shaped by the mating strategies of the opposite sex.
Much attention is given to so called “Toxic Masculinity” but what negative in this video, Alexander discusses the unhealthy traits women possess. I think it’s a good list, but I would also add female violence and psychological manipulation to that list.
Violence is often assumed to be a masculine trait but actually boys learn a code of conduct for their physical aggression. They are taught not to start fights, but also not to be afraid to defend themselves. Violence is a last resort, even in violent sports like boxing, it is as much about having the discipline to know when not to punch as it is to attack. Boys are always told that they should never hit girls but girls are not given the same message that they should not hit boys. If you look at the entertainment industry, it’s littered with films depicting female violence against men and it is treated as if it is just amusing and to be expected.
If you look at the data on domestic violence, in half the cases both partners are equally violent and of those that are not reciprocal, women are the aggressors 70% of the time. Much is made of men’s greater strength, and it is true, in a fair fight with no weapons, men are capable of inflicting far more damage but it is seldom a fair fight. Women will use kettles full of boiling water, they’ll use knives, they’ll use acid in those situations don’t tend to defend themselves because they know they will be blamed and seen as the aggressor even when they’re the victims.
Ask any girl whether they’ve experienced any bullying or social ostracization from another girl and you are likely to hear lots of stories of lies, back stabbing, jealousy and emotional aggression yet it is a subject rarely discussed in comparison to the idea of “toxic masculinity”, which deems positive masculine traits such as stoicism as a defect, rather than a necessity in crisis situations.
Another video covering empathy towards men and men’s desire to give love, not just to be loved. It’s a very powerful mirror into the male psychological experience.
In this video Alexander compares the effect of social media on women to pornography on men in terms of providing access to something traditionally rarely accessible but highly desired. In men’s case, access to aroused naked ladies through porn, which can result in over-stimulation and burn out. In women’s case it’s attention and popularity.
This video explains why men have a natural evolutionary preference for pair bonding with women that have not slept around. In essence, it’s paternal uncertainty.
It is almost impossible for a woman to experience investing in a child where she doesn’t know whether or not the child is biologically hers or not but this is an experience every father may face. The only way a man can know that the child he is going to invest in emotionally and financially is actually his own is if his partner does not sleep with other men.
This is why society shames women that sleep around. Today we have the technology to separate sex from pregnancy and we have paternity testing but our brains are based on instincts that have evolved over millions of years. Paternal uncertainty is a big issue for men and lots of women find it very difficult to empathise with an issue that they cannot experience themselves. The equivalent for men I guess would be understanding the very real fear women have of rape, ironically, for the exact same reason, it takes away her ability to choose with whom she could potentially have a child.
This video gives women a taste of what it’s like to be a man using the dating app tinder. I think it’s important for both men and women to try and walk a mile in each other shoes. I think it would change a lot of misconceptions about what the other sex experiences.
I’ve added another video below not from Alexander Grace that covers the experience of a lesbian journalist who went undercover as a man to see whether the grass was greener on the other side.
Rant Over 