Modern WisdomWhy Do The Left Not Care About Men’s Problems? - George TheTinMen
CHAPTERS
George’s origin story: why he created TheTinMen and his “data + creativity” approach
Chris opens by praising George’s infographic work and asks what drew him to men’s issues. George explains his background in the creative industry and progressive spaces, and how the mismatch between rhetoric and data pushed him to research and publish. He frames TheTinMen as an attempt to rebrand men’s advocacy into something calmer, evidence-led, and more persuasive.
- •Creative-industry background and interest in communicating data visually
- •Disillusionment with progressive spaces refusing good-faith engagement on men’s issues
- •Shock at the data on suicide, violence, homelessness, addiction
- •Men’s advocacy seen as having a “brand identity crisis” (loud/aggressive)
- •Account started as a personal reference library; grew into a public platform
Can you be left-wing and still advocate for men? The “kiss the ring” problem
Chris presses on why ‘pro-men’ feels controversial, especially on the left. George argues men and boys deserve discussion in their own right without prefacing constant disclaimers. He critiques left-leaning narratives that default to blaming men for male suffering and leaning on loaded terms like “toxic masculinity” and “patriarchy.”
- •Why ‘pro-men’ is treated as suspect and requires constant caveats
- •Frustration with “prospective apologies” before discussing men’s issues
- •Left-leaning tendency to individualize blame: ‘men should just do better’
- •Language critique: terms that divide and assign guilt
- •Men’s issues overlap with traditionally left-coded concerns (health, homelessness, inequality)
Intersectionality used backwards: police killings, race, and the hidden male factor
George argues many progressive causes are also men’s issues but the gender dimension is often erased. Using police fatality data, he highlights how overwhelmingly male victims are—especially Black men. He claims cultural fearmongering about men may indirectly worsen outcomes for minority men by heightening perceived threat.
- •BLM/police killings framed as race-only while victims are overwhelmingly men
- •Comparing normalized disparities: sex vs race gaps in police killings
- •Cognitive dissonance when explanations for sex gaps would imply uncomfortable race explanations
- •Claim that fear-based rhetoric about men can feed policing outcomes
- •Minority men as the largest victims of many ‘intersectional’ harms
Social costs of speaking up: losing friends and the shallow ‘men should talk’ script
Chris asks what happens when George raises these ideas among left-leaning peers. George describes social and relational fallout, including friends and family disengaging. He argues male suicide discourse is often kept superficial (“men should cry”) while ignoring upstream drivers like abuse, poverty, job loss, and custody loss.
- •Social penalty: friendships strained or lost over discussing men’s issues
- •Example of hypocrisy: supporting ‘men should talk’ but rejecting male sexual violence discussion
- •Suicide linked to deeper structural stressors beyond emotional expression
- •Domestic violence and child custody battles as major suicide risk factors
- •Critique of performative advocacy that avoids politically ‘messy’ topics
Family court secrecy and broader justice-system bias against men
Chris asks for an evidence-based explanation of family courts and divorce outcomes. George emphasizes how opaque family courts are and why lack of public oversight matters. He broadens to criminal sentencing research suggesting men receive significantly harsher outcomes for comparable crimes, with compounding effects for Black men.
- •Family court as a ‘closed’ system with minimal oversight and public visibility
- •Emotional impact of fathers losing contact with children
- •Sentencing disparity research (women more likely to avoid prison; men receive longer terms)
- •UK/US comparisons of sentencing gaps and compounding race + sex effects
- •Intersectional framing: ignoring male disadvantage hides major explanatory variables
Bootstraps double standard: why ‘just do better’ is a uniquely male prescription
Chris reads a paraphrased quote from George about how society responds differently to male versus female disadvantage. George follows by citing UK parliamentary findings that male suicide is often a rational, solution-oriented response to external pressures rather than purely internal pathology. He argues that “talk more” is incomplete without listening and action on root causes.
- •Double standard framing: fix society for women vs fix yourself for men
- •APPG Boys and Men report: suicide as outcome of accumulated external stresses
- •Key drivers listed: relationships, work culture, employment, debt, isolation, lack of services/empathy
- •Talking helps coping but doesn’t solve structural problems
- •Proposed trio: “listen, ask, act” (beyond ‘men should open up’)
Masculinity messaging in schools, platform censorship, and the ‘toxic masculinity’ backlash
Chris shares research suggesting negative views of masculinity correlate with poorer male wellbeing and that “toxic masculinity” is widely perceived as insulting. George discusses concerns about boys being taught they are inherently dangerous, and notes content moderation/censorship issues on Instagram. The segment underscores how policing language can become policing speech.
- •John Barry study: ‘masculinity is bad’ beliefs linked to worse wellbeing
- •High proportion of men viewing ‘toxic masculinity’ as harmful/insulting
- •Concern about programs that frame boys as ‘rapists in waiting’
- •Examples of Instagram takedowns and sensitivity around certain topics/figures
- •Paradox: encouraging men to talk while restricting what they’re allowed to say
Why people get angry: politics as identity, community-held beliefs, and the empathy gap
Chris asks why stating “men face disadvantages” triggers backlash. George likens it to the embarrassment of realizing something obvious was missed—people defend beliefs tied to identity, employment, and community membership. He introduces the idea of an ‘empathy gap’ toward men and explains “gamma bias” (highlight male privilege, highlight female victimhood).
- •Beliefs embedded in social identity; challenges feel existential
- •Changing minds often requires leaving a community or changing the whole community
- •Approach: understand what experiences lead people to distrust/hate men
- •‘Treat the issue, not the gender’ as a guiding principle
- •Gamma bias: male privilege highlighted; male victimization minimized/erased
Media framing and gender erasure: from knife crime to strip searches to 9/11 heroism
George expands gamma bias with examples of how news language obscures male victimhood while spotlighting female victimhood. He cites teenage knife-crime deaths and police strip searches reported as ‘children/teenagers’ despite overwhelmingly male victims, especially Black boys. He contrasts the emphasis on male perpetrators with the erasure of male sacrifice (e.g., firefighters).
- •News headlines often de-gender male victims but gender perpetrators (‘gunman’, ‘knifeman’)
- •Knife-crime teen deaths reported neutrally though victims were all boys in cited year
- •Met Police strip-search scandal framed as ‘children’ despite ~95% boys in George’s claim
- •9/11: male terrorists highlighted; male firefighter sacrifice rarely gendered
- •Erasing male heroism undermines positive role models and fuels backlash/alternatives
How the right ‘won’ men: abandoned role models, tribal politics, and institutional imbalance
Chris argues the right dominates male role-model space because the left vacated it without offering aspirational alternatives. George adds that political tribalism mirrors sports-team loyalty and that women’s higher voting turnout shapes policy attention. He lists institutional examples (commissions, offices, bureaus) focusing on women/girls with few equivalents for men/boys, challenging simplistic patriarchy narratives.
- •Role-model vacuum: criticism of Tate/Peterson without offering substitutes
- •Tribal politics and social penalties for cross-party openness (dating, friendships)
- •Women as a dominant voting bloc influencing policy priorities
- •Examples of women-focused commissions/offices vs few/no men-focused equivalents
- •Workplace deaths and male mortality burdens contrasted with limited institutional focus
Gender pay gap reframed: motherhood penalty, paternal leave, and behavior differences (Uber study)
Chris asks what people misunderstand about the pay gap. George reframes it as primarily a gap between mothers and fathers driven by childbearing and caregiving patterns. He argues equal parental leave for fathers is a key lever and cites evidence that, controlling for role and hours, the gap shrinks substantially; he uses the Uber driver study to illustrate behavioral contributors.
- •Pay gap as ‘child/motherhood penalty’ rather than blanket sex discrimination
- •Policy lever: expand/normalize paternal leave to balance caregiving time
- •Other contributors: hours, job risk, industry selection, commute, work timing
- •Uber study factors: shift timing, tenure/experience, and speed as major components
- •Shift from ‘why are women paid less’ to ‘when are women paid less’
What men want women to understand: the everyday social chill, lack of compliments, and new ‘boxes’
Chris asks what men want from women and what women misunderstand about male experience. George uses the COVID lockdown atmosphere as a metaphor for being treated with suspicion and distance. He contrasts men’s social invisibility and compliment scarcity with women’s constant attention (including unwanted attention), and warns that replacing the ‘man box’ with new blame-boxes doesn’t help.
- •Lockdown as metaphor: avoidance, fear, emotional masking as male social experience
- •Men often experience social invisibility and go long stretches without compliments
- •Women face a ‘spotlight’ of attention—both positive and negative (catcalling, scrutiny)
- •Critique of replacing old expectations with new labels (privilege/violence/patriarchy)
- •Core prescription: listen to men’s lived experience without pre-judgment
Fragile masculinity and market incentives: why we mock ‘For Her’ products but blame men
Chris prompts George to explain ‘fragile masculinity’ through examples like gendered pens and razors. George argues society often ridicules companies for gendering products to women, but ridicules men themselves for responding to gendered marketing toward men. The point is that cultural blame frequently targets men rather than the commercial incentives shaping the messaging.
- •Pink ‘for women’ products mocked as corporate sexism; ‘for men’ products framed as male fragility
- •Asymmetry: blame the product/company for women, blame the consumer (man) for men
- •Capitalism exploits identity signaling in both directions
- •Framing effects shape perceptions of what ‘masculinity’ is responsible for
- •Invitation to notice double standards in everyday cultural commentary
Nora Vincent, male suicide gatekeeping, and why current interventions miss male distress
George recounts Nora Vincent’s experiment living as a man and her later suicide, cautioning against simplistic politicization while preserving her insight that women often don’t grasp male experience. He argues male suicide is frequently framed through ‘toxic masculinity’ in ways that blame men and miss realities: most men who die by suicide sought help, yet were assessed low-risk. He suggests mental-health systems may be calibrated more toward female presentation of distress due to workforce composition and prevailing models.
- •Nora Vincent’s ‘Inside Man’ experience and her conclusion about misunderstanding men
- •Gatekeeping via ‘toxic masculinity’ framing that reduces complex causes to male fault
- •University of Manchester findings cited: high rates of help-seeking among men who die by suicide
- •Clinical risk assessment mismatch: many later-suicidal men assessed low/no risk
- •Hypothesis: mental-health approaches may fit women’s distress signals better than men’s
Toward a better masculinity conversation: beyond patriarchy shorthand and toward a ‘third wave’
Chris and George argue one-word frameworks (patriarchy/toxic masculinity) are too blunt for complex social problems and can alienate men from participation. They discuss alternative lenses: understanding developmental roots (e.g., bullying and later violent fantasies), communicating with nuance, and avoiding sweeping generalizations about either sex. Chris proposes a “third wave manosphere” focused on positive-sum, non-adversarial masculinity that integrates strength with emotional reality.
- •Critique: catchphrase frameworks oversimplify and polarize; ‘original sin’ dynamic
- •Example research: bullied boys and later violent fantasies as coping mechanisms
- •Need for evidence-based, multi-factor models (DV, pay, mental health)
- •Chris’s ‘third wave manosphere’: pro-social masculinity without blaming women
- •Nuance tools: overlapping distributions, averages vs individuals (Factfulness)
Online distortion loops, apex fallacy, and closing: where to find George and what he’s building
They close by diagnosing how the internet amplifies extreme stories, creating recursive belief loops that misrepresent normal life and gender relations. George adds ‘apex fallacy’: judging men by the tiny elite at the top while ignoring male overrepresentation at the bottom. In the wrap-up, George shares that TheTinMen is currently focused on Instagram and serves as R&D for a future documentary.
- •Internet selects for the most outrageous narratives; offline life is mostly ‘boringly fine’
- •‘Recursive’ learning loops: extreme examples become perceived reality (applies to all ideologies)
- •Apex fallacy: attention on powerful men obscures disadvantaged men (e.g., homelessness)
- •George’s platform focus: Instagram first; Twitter minimal
- •Long-term goal: translate insights into a documentary; invite debate in comments
