Care and Feeding: My Teen Is About to Fall Down the Male-Power Incel Rabbit Hole

[minoanmiss]

How do I help him through this crisis of masculinity?

My son is 14, and he’s coping with identity issues that I could really use some advice about. Last night, he was complaining about English class. “All we talk about is stuff like, I dunno. How women are so great and can defend themselves and shit.” Alarm bells, right? I probed a little, and he started getting upset. He talked about the girls in his class being aggressive towards the boys, accusing them of … he wasn’t sure what. Mumbled a few things about sexism, the patriarchy. “You know, this whole ‘kill all men’ thing.’” And with that, he burst into tears. “I’m white—I’m male—and I’m probably straight!” he sobbed (at 14, he maintains that the jury is still out on that last one). “It’s like, I can’t say anything! And the girls, they can say anything they like!” Of course, we talked about those girls being out of line, but also about how real sexism is—that he can be proud of who he is and support feminism (and Black Lives Matter, and LGBTQ rights, etc.) at the same time. And ignore purposefully provocative stuff like #killallmen.

Still, I’m concerned. My feeling is that he’s pretty well inoculated against racist and homophobic propaganda. But clearly, he’s struggling with his masculinity. I really worry that he might stumble across a few clever Jordan Peterson videos and end up falling down some nasty male-power incel rabbit hole … Do you have any advice as to how to deal with this? In particular, do you know of any good age-appropriate books or podcasts or shows or whatever that deal with these topics—especially the “crisis of masculinity”—in a sensitive way? A way that’s in sync with feminist values?

—Feminist Mom in Need of Advice!

Dear F.M.i.N.A.,

Mamas, don’t let your babies grow up to be red-pilled! I think you’re on the right track here, and while I’m not super worried about your son falling down an incel rabbit hole, I do understand and sympathize with your concerns. The girls in his English class are experimenting with an extreme version of their authentic selves, and that’s super normal at their age, if also super annoying. If your son does end up dabbling in the dark web, I think as long as he’s communicating with you this openly you don’t have to fear that he’ll be permanently radicalized.

I have an idea (besides: keep talking!) that is a little bit out of left field, and will only work if your son is open to it, but might be worth a shot. I recently watched all three seasons of _Cobra Kai_ on Netflix, because it’s a pandemic and I ran out of TV. Have you seen it, or the original _Karate Kid_ movie that it’s based on? It’s kind of brilliant and also very dumb, in a great way. It’s about two warring martial arts dojos, both helmed by middle-aged guys whose teenage kids are rival champions, just as they were when they were in high school. Daniel is “nice” and teaches nonviolence and self-defense, but he’s shortsighted and often lashes out in ways that he winds up regretting. Johnny is “mean” and teaches his students no mercy and “strike first,” has no idea the last 30 years of political discourse have occurred, calls his students “pussies,” but also is a much better teacher in many ways. I might be reading too much into it, and in fact almost certainly am, but I think the show is valuable because of the way it approaches the culture of masculinity directly. You and your son could watch it together and talk about it, if he doesn’t hate this idea immediately. And then maybe you guys could make a podcast about doing that, because there should definitely be more feminist cultural content that’s aimed at boys, not just their concerned moms.

Comments

[minoanmiss]

I'm not as sanguine as the columnist, considering society and the massive and ongoing backlash against feminism, but/and I truly admire the LW. Her son trusts her enough to talk to her, and that may well make all the difference.

Also, I love the Cobra Kai mention, bwee.

[ioplokon]

Don't put your kid on a podcast where he is working through his complicated feelings on hot-button social issues?

[movingfinger]

Yes, that is an odd thing to suggest. A... podcast?

[rosefox]

It's like the advice columnist equivalent of "If you can't find the book you're looking for, you should write it"—you need resources but there aren't any, so go bootstrap some! With your emotionally vulnerable teenage son!

[feldman]

I'm agog at the podcast suggestion, this kid is already wrestling with enough trying to redefine 'manhood' in real time, much less being turned into possibly-viral content.

LW, there's a lot to unpack and talk about IN A SAFE SPACE, from processing his current situation to evaluating the examples of others (both friends and in media) who model positive masculinity. Those girls are also struggling, in ways their parents also can't quite grasp, to redefine 'womanhood' against even more hostility, and they aren't going quiet like many girls have done at that age for generations, they're working on their fighting skills.

Maybe helping him identify and express his emotions about this, not just his outrage but also his fears, and talking about the values of your family and how you act on those values with the power you have, might give him a foundation to build from.

[melannen]

LW, this is a situation where you might want to talk to the teacher. Teenage girls working out their selfhood and politics is one thing; if he has a teacher who is trying to be feminist by telling the boys that they aren't allowed to talk and their opinions don't matter, or who is encouraging girls to say things like "kill all men" in classroom discussions, that is something you can (and should!) talk to them about - a classroom needs to be a space where everyone feels safe learning, talking, and making mistakes. Talking to the teacher should also give you a better idea of what is actually going on in the classroom space - there's a broad space between "We're reading only books by women this year, and they don't let us dominate the discussion to complain about that" and "the teacher says that all straight men are inherently harmful and violent". They might feel the same to a teenager for whom EVERYTHING is A LOT (..especially if this is his first time in a classroom for over a year), but your response should be different.

Don't start a podcast, omg.

Do talk to him, on an ongoing basis, about what being male and masculine means to him, and what he wants it to mean for him, and how the things he is hearing about men in the world effect that, and, yes, share stories or media that shape different images of masculinity. It also might be a good time to talk about how setting up one gender as better than the other hurts both men and women but in different ways, and talk about what he can try to do and support in his life that helps create a world where people don't have to feel like that. And I hate to say "male role model", but are there any safe adult men in his life who you trust to help guide him without radicalizing him? A kid who has RL men he can look to is less likely to resort to Jordan Peterson.

[jadelennox]

This is for the LW but also for teachers:

We need to get better about using talking about shorthand, synecdoche, and power. There's a real utility to being able to say "why are men?" or "ugh, wypipo" or "are the straights okay?" (Not that any of those are classroom appropriate, but I'm sure they get said.) But while adults understand that those are shorthand statements about patriarchal structures, white supremacy, and heteronormativity, they sound like (and taken literally, mean) that they are talking about people. Individual white, straight, male people.

It's 100% age appropriate not to understand the wordplay here! The girls in his class don't necessarily understand the shorthand either. Understanding that the critique is of the systems of power and oppression, and sometimes the way individuals misuse their power within a system, is incredibly sophisticated. And both this boy and the girls in his class are almost certainly repeating conversations from Tumblr or TikTok where people who do understand the synecdoche are saying "cis straight white guys need to shut up and listen" as a shorthand for something with context, such as "the cis straight white guys in my mentions need to stop telling me that the way I experienced being interrupted in a meeting has no political valence because it happens to them, as well."

And that's fine. This class needs to learn nuance, and the boy can understand while maybe he shouldn't be critiquing his Asian classmates' reaction to hate crimes, say, that doesn't mean he should be made to feel any shame about who he is. If we can understand that "we're totally gonna slaughter New York this weekend" is a statement about the baseball game, he can understand that "ugh, why are men" is a statement about one dude being an asshole, #NotAllMen. And the girls can learn that, too, on the off chance they're really being dicks in the classroom.

[green_grrl]

This is a really, really excellent point.

[jadelennox]

Also there's some great resources on youtube, eg:

the alt-right playbook

[conuly]

So, first things first, I think it's clear that LW needs to speak to the teacher and try to figure out if this is an accurate representation of what's going on in class. Sometimes people get the wrong end of the stick.

[shirou]

As a straight white man, I can say it can be hard to avoid taking some rhetoric personally. It takes a lot of security and understanding. Of course it's incredibly important to develop that understanding, but still, it would be tough for a 14-year-old kid.

LW is the boy's mother. Is dad in the picture? Because ideally, dad could provide a role model for positive masculinity and handling critique of a patriarchal system in a constructive manner.