This is an absurdly simplistic idea that ignores prevailing social dynamics and blames the victim. Fifty years of trying to define and encourage appropriate behavior patterns has spawned the manosphere, Andrew Tate and Jordan Peterson - and a tiny bit of social progress. Most men don't want to acknowledge that "traditional" masculinity is incredibly harmful to men - and to everyone else. How TF are we going to even allow "appropriate behavior patterns" when inappropriate ones are so much in the fabric of our culture?
Gender indoctrination, including the notion that boys are better, smarter, and more important than girls, begins in babyhood. Boys learn early that they need to be tough, dominate others around them, and control women. That's what needs to be interrupted - primarily by men (although women need to support and allow for that) and the APA agrees (based on 40 years of research).
Media exerts a lot of influence in maintaining gender norms and stereotypes, beginning in childhood, and continuing throughout life. “One study we looked at found that the more TV children of both sexes watched, the more likely they were to believe that “boys are better”. For little boys, watching television appears to reinforce their already positive self-regard, while for girls, watching television appears to dampen it. This is concerning given that there are more than twice as many male characters as there are female characters on kid’s TV shows.” (2)
In a 2011 study of math gender stereotypes in American elementary school children, two findings emerged. “First, as early as second grade, the children demonstrated the American cultural stereotype that math is for boys on both implicit and explicit measures. Second, elementary school boys identified with math more strongly than did girls on both implicit and self-report measures. The findings suggest that the math-gender stereotype is acquired early and influences emerging math self-concepts prior to ages at which there are actual differences in math achievement.” (emphasis mine) (3)
Constant exposure to dated concepts of gender roles and norms in the media starts before preschool and continues from there — concepts like: Boys are smarter than girls; certain jobs are best for men and others for women; and even that girls are responsible for their own sexual assaults. This was the finding of the 2017 Common Sense Media report Watching Gender: How Stereotypes in Movies and on TV Impact Kids’ Development.
The United Nations education agency Unesco says that messages undermining girls' confidence and expectations of life are so prevalent in educational materials worldwide that they present a “hidden obstacle” to gender equality. In their 2016 Global Education Monitoring (GEM) report, they noted that “women are often portrayed in domestic tasks, from cooking and washing to caring for the children and elderly.”
In many cases, women are also portrayed as passive and submissive.
Until that shit starts getting broadly challenged -without the huge and often very violent backlash to it - we're not going to make much progress. Women are leaving dating in droves because there are so few guys out there who they want anything to do with, but we don't hear about that part. What we hear about instead is that feminism has made women too uppity and picky, and that they should have compassion for all the lonely men. Women are making better mate choices and men are livid about it!
When #MeToo broke, the overwhelming response from men was "Shut up bitches, stop making men look bad." It wasn't compassion, it wasn't "Oh my god, I never realized it was THAT bad." A tiny percentage of men stood by women (and other victims) at that time. That’s the problem in a nutshell, right there.
Being a warrior doesn't just mean being physically able to fight someone. It's about mindset and inner strength, and standing for what is right. It's about knowing yourself well and being willing to confront any places that need improvement - because that is where honor stems from.
