This reminds me of the predicament male-ness faces in the modern world at large. Modern developed societies have no great need of masculine qualities any more. There may be a need, but it is often placed secondary to feminine qualities. Agricultural machinery accomplishes what masculine strength did at once. Soldiers no longer fight primarily with hand-to-hand combat. Guns are the great equalizer and can eliminate the need for a man to walk a woman home at night.
Women are given intrinsic value through their womb. Men? You need far fewer to keep a sustainable population going. The rest you can discard. When marriages end, priority for the children is given to women. The man has no opportunity to exercise his protective strength or desire to support those weaker than himself as his role in the workplace is put on even ground with that of women. Sometimes the woman supports him. He is, in effect, unnecessary. And unlike women - who are often social butterflies, men do not identify through their 'male-ness'. The masculine identity is one of pitting your strength against others' in order to prove your power as surpreme. Therefore our social roles are different. And it's only in situations of physical durress that a masculine bond can be formed between two men who can come to a mutual understanding of each other's physical prowess.
So with this lack of understanding and ability to identify with other males, this lack of intrinsic value, and the masculine becoming out-moded by modern achievements, society also tells men not to hit a woman when the woman strikes them and to sacrifice their happiness and lives for the woman in order to be 'chilvalrous' - a quality often seen as belonging to the male. What do all these characteristics engender in men today? A feeling of uselessness and powerlessness. The modern man has in effect been castrated. Then we put him down when he fails to act like a man. This is why I find feminism - or particularly any woman's reprisal of a man - to be misguided.
I think this is insightful and it mirrors some of my own feelings. I would like to add my own part if you will.
There is an epidemic of male suicide in our age, particularly men from the age of 18 to 30. And the cause is understood to be primarily an effect of what you called the loss of place for masculinity in society, but also an effect of feminized social expectations.
Men are in many ways and by many women, viewed, nowadays, ironically, not as protectors, providers or leaders, but as objects. Checklists, if you will. I have often felt myself that I am always being sized up by women I meet; for wealth, for prowess, for looks, for fatherly qualities, for a sense of humour, for compassion and caring, for leadership qualities, and collectively, this sizing up does feel like objectification. I feel worth my
traits as though I am a career choice or a new pair of heels being decided on.
I also feel that society no longer affords men the type of leeway offered to women, in regards to the view that women are usually
not the abusers, the guilty party, the cheaters, the misers, whatever it may be. There is, in fact, a massive prejudice in favour of women in our society. And although I don't inherently blame
women for the prejudice existing, I do blame gender elitism in many women for contributing to it.
By gender elitism, I mean this; I find that a lot of girls today are brought up with what I call 'the princess complex'. Taught to feel entitled, to be smarter, brighter, more victimized and more worthy than men. For instance, look at our modern western image of the breakdown of a relationship; many times the reason is that the woman's needs are not being met or that the man does not live up to the genetic or social expectations of the woman (which I personally feel can be extraordinarily over the top). And this is reflected in statistics; We know that around 50% of marriages end in divorce, and a study conducted in the UK found that on average, since 1990, around 70% of divorces are initiated by women. A similar marriage study focused on children's parentage, and was carried out with random group testing. It showed that between 10 and 17% of children are not fathered by the husband who thinks he is the biological parent.
Not only this, but men are put at an extraordinarily high risk as far as sex and relationships go, nowadays. In marriage, men stand to lose livelihood, reputation and children should the marriage fail.
Also consider the driving force for women to be able to work in what used to be male dominated industries, with all the PC adjustments that must be made, and the reluctance of men to work in female focused industries, and that makes for an imbalance in the number of men working vs the number of women working, with women having more jobs socially available to them.
There is also this growing culture trend of social media and dating, whereby women are often desired by many men, but we know from our society that for a man to gain a relationship with a woman requires much more work than vice-versa. Simply because women are the hot commodity and men are becoming irrelevant and obsolete.
Is it any wonder then, accounting all these changes, that young men dread the future so much as to take their lives?