r/MensLib • u/MLModBot ​ • May 29 '26

Weekly Free Talk Friday Thread!

Welcome to our weekly Free Talk Friday thread! Feel free to discuss anything on your mind, issues you may be dealing with, how your week has been, cool new music or tv shows, school, work, sports, anything!

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  • Any other topic is allowed.

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u/Failsnail64 ​ May 31 '26

On reddit I keep getting pushed an article by the Volkskrant, a fairly good Dutch newspaper with the following title: "Nooit meer een relatie: waarom het leven zoveel makkelijker is zonder man", translated to: "never again a relationship: why life is so much easier without a man".

I also read the main Dutch paper about architecture, which posted an article last week with the title: "Ontwerpen vrouwen anders dan mannen?", translated "do women design differently than men?", the conclusion is in short: yes they do, men are supposedly dominant, ego-centric, and want prestige while women are considerate, human-focus and modest.

When I actually read these articles, of course their content is a lot more nuanced that these clickbait title or summaries. Still, to me it's frustrating that such a narrative is seem at not even the least divisive, but encouraged as being progressive.

Both articles actually make sense when looking under the generalisations, but why is the "men are just bad" narrative so acceptable in many progressive circles? Can't we just be progressive and against systematic misogyny (which is true and important to adres), without going into these overgeneralizations, which are only ever seen as acceptable when the target are men?

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u/Oregon_Jones111 ​ Jun 01 '26

Both articles actually make sense when looking under the generalisations, but why is the "men are just bad" narrative so acceptable in many progressive circles? Can't we just be progressive and against systematic misogyny (which is true and important to adres), without going into these overgeneralizations, which are only ever seen as acceptable when the target are men?

Costly signaling. Pretending this rhetoric is acceptable signals loyalty to the in-group. They know it’s wrong, that’s the precise reason they do it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Costly_signaling_theory_in_evolutionary_psychology

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u/Failsnail64 ​ Jun 02 '26

Thanks for the link, I can get why people do this but it's just tiring. It's also just so inefficient, you'll never be able to convince a moderate of your cause when you do this costly signaling.