I am so tired of pissbaby men right now

I say this as someone who is only 50/50 on the idea of the new Doctor Who. Not Jodie Whittaker, to be clear, I still haven't seen her in anything. My ambivalence is purely down to being rather so-so on Chibnall's Doctor Who work to date.

Its not because I believe “no one wants a TARDIS full of bras”. Yes, that is an actual thing an actual person put in a comment on one of the announcement news stories.

And its not like this is some sort of isolated case, either. There was that whole bollocks with guys going mad over the Alamo Drafthouse cinemas in the US doing ladies' only viewings of Wonder Woman. There was even one guy who went out of his way to acquire a ticket to one of those women only viewings.

Why? I mean, what is the damn point? What this guy did was go out of his way to buy a ticket just so he could sit in a dark room watching a movie whilst surrounded by women who didn't want him there just to prove that he could. I mean, I'm just guessing here but I imagine the only novel experience for him in this scenario is the darkened room and the movie.

I am so fucking tired of this. I am so fucking tired of the loud idiots whose masculinity can be threatened by Ghostbusters of all damn things getting an average remake starring female comedians. I am tired of this being what men are in the public consciousness: fragile babies incapable of empathising with any character who is not like them.

I just don't get it. I mean, there but for the grace of God go I, I know that. I was raised mostly by women. My father had to travel for work a lot because he was an engineer in a recession started by the government-sponsored destruction of primary industry in this country so, for the most part, I was raised by my mother and two grandmothers. A lot of my friends growing up were girls and for most of my professional life the majority of my co-workers have been women.

So I just don't get this idea that I, as a man, cannot invest in female characters. The Doctor is a woman now, the Ghostbusters are women now, the lead Jedi character in Star Wars is a woman. Okay. I'm aware that there are people who think it odd that I don't feel threatened by this and that is pathetic.

It is pathetic that anyone could have their fragile damn masculinity threatened by a series moving from a male to a female protagonist. It is pathetically sad that this can turn someone off from the series, that all other content of the series is less important than the gender of the main character. It is pathetic that the existence of a remake can so threaten someone's enjoyment of the original that they will go out of their way to protest its existence. It is pathetic that there are people so invested in the critical reception of DC movies that they couldn't stand the idea that Patty Jenkins might get more praise than Zack Snyder and went through mental gymnastics to try and prove tat Snyder was the one “really “ responsible for Wonder Woman's success.

It is pathetic that this the mainstream understanding of my gender. It is pathetic that this is how we're seen and that even women who know me, who know my past and my politics will assume I'm one of these pathetic pissbabies just because I also happen to be a man.

And I am so tired of being lumped in with these losers. 

A women only Wonder Woman screening and the men who just want to be there

As you can imagine, the usual brigade of dickhead men are angry about the idea that one cinema in the US is having a couple of Wonder Woman screenings for women only. So far I have seen some of them claim that this is as bad as racial segregation and one particular idiot go to far, far too much trouble to get himself a ticket to a screening where everyone else in the room will resent his presence which I'm willing to bet will not be a novel experience for the man.

Now, once again I just have to say: this is why I hate the whole Men's Rights Activist brigade because this is the shit they loudly waste their time on.

Its not even a preview. Its two screenings a couple of days after the film comes out, for goodness sake. Its literally just a couple of screenings they're being asked politely not to attend. In a rational, adult world, this is a minor inconvenience. Its a major feature film, there will be a dozen or more other screenings every day of opening week in any cinema you can find.

You know what? There are serious social issues affecting men that I would like to see addressed in my lifetime. Things like our sky high suicide rate; the massive under-diagnosis of violent personality disorders; the fact that emotional distance is considered a normal component of fatherhood; the chronic under-funding of prostate cancer research even though its the second most common cancer in men; the massive stigma surrounding physical contact between men; the way that media portrays “a useless idiot, but at least he's not abusive” as some sort of ideal relationship goal; the fact that domestic and sexual violence against men gets swept under the rug because of a belief we, as the “stronger” sex, should not be affected by it.

And I think anyone who calls themselves an activist on behalf of men's issues should probably be more concerned about issues that literally kill us or fill our lives with loneliness and misery that then likely kills us anyway than having a by now days long tantrum about there being two screenings in one cinema that most of them live nowhere near that they can't attend.

And they wonder why there are women who would like to see a movie without them. 

International Men's Day 2016

(Content warning: suicide mention. Also, I shit you not, that picture was the number one Google image result for “Men”, could it be more perfect?)

Yesterday was International Men's Day, an event that is all too often just treated as a gotcha when that annoying MRA guy you know at work spends March 8th whining about International Women's Day. Now, of course, this even gets co-opted all too easily by people who just want to use the occasion to bash feminism as if women having rights is at fault for every problem men face. 

And how much good does that do? How much does that help promote men's health issues or foster important conversations our society needs to have about the role of fatherhood, of what makes a good male role model or help to demolish harmful stereotypes of masculinity? 

Nothing. It does nothing. Its just a bunch of MRA Status Quo Warriors shutting down important conversations because those conversations might hurt their fragile little feelings. 

The theme of International Men's Day 2016 is Stop Male Suicide. On average the rate of male suicide is three times that of women. Our rate of suicide is higher in every country bar China that keeps public records of such things. Does anyone think this is conversation that doesn't need to happen? Does anyone actually benefit from shutting down this conversation? 

Men are taking their own lives because of the broken, aggressive, emotionally closed off version of masculinity our society promotes and every man who lowers the conversation to “but it's all the fault of the Feminazis!” is one more person working against this issue being taken seriously. You know what would help? Having actual discussions about how men spend their whole lives being told to repress their feelings; about how society actively mocks people of all genders for seeking psychiatric help; about how the expression of any emotional weakness is seen as a negative. We are encouraged by society, by media, even by the orthodoxy of some medical professionals, to ignore and hide our feelings. 

And when someone actually sets up an event to address these issues the loudest amongst us treat it like a joke or, worse, an opportunity to lash out at their favourite targets (usually women) and the media ignores it because it looks like all having an International Men's Day for is just an appeasement tactic for the worst forms of masculinity. 

There is an epidemic of male suicide. Prostate cancer is incredibly common (only lung cancer kills more men) and is barely discussed in comparison to skin, lung and breast cancer. We are not taught emotional coping strategies. We are socialised to treat women as either an objective or the enemy. 

So fuck those guys who think they can sweep all that under the carpet by shouting the word Feminazi at the top of their Twitter accounts. 

Because we really need to talk about these things. 

Conversations we need to have (but can't because of bastards)

I really wish we could talk about men. There are a whole bunch of conversations I think we, as a society, need to have about men and masculinity. We need to talk about particular stigmas of diagnosing mental health issues in men (we are massively under-diagnosed for disorders and conditions that make us more aggressive because that's apparently just how we're meant to be whilst women are massively under-diagnosed for conditions that make them more passive because same).

We need to talk about how young men and boys are literally not taught how to talk about our emotions. I mean, we are just not taught the language and that has to have an effect on the suicide rate.

We need to talk about how funny some men get about physical contact. How we will literally shy away from each other and how that's not only rooted in unconscious homophobia but also as a manifestation of how we're not meant to connect with each other.

We need to have a lot of conversations about fatherhood. There's that distance again, that lack of contact and emotional honesty. Its a vicious cycle of fathers not being taught how to talk about or deal with their emotions and then passing that

There are health issues that have to be discussed. Not only the peculiarities of certain mental health issues but also the fact that prostate cancer is very rarely discussed in spite of being the second most common kind after skin cancer. And things might have improved since I was at school but there were a lot of sexual health and hygiene issues that weren't fully broached, though this was true of both genders. 

But having these conversations is difficult because once you try to have a serious conversation about men and our place in an evolving society some bloody retrograde “Men's Rights Activist” will butt into the conversation yelling blue murder if you so much as suggest that maybe masculinity needs to change with society.