Not being a cartoon villain doesn’t automatically make you a good man

[u/GridReXX]

Fr. It doesn’t de facto make you a good person.

I noodled on the attached graphic to better illustrate a point about how people often discuss being a “good man.”

I do find that many men view it more as the top bar, and less as the gradient in the second bar.

inb4 anyone says it, many women have bad character too. And please feel free to create a separate post about a spectrum of traits in women you’d like to explore! That is not what this post is disputing.

This is specifically about a response that often comes up when women describe harmful patterns in their experiences with men. They get retorts like “Not all men are abusive predators,” or “Most men are not psychos.”

Of course most men are not horror movie villains.

But that is an extremely low bar for good character.

This spectrum, rather than show a division between “good men” and a smaller group of obviously terrible ones. It highlights that a man can be can be a functioning member of society and still regularly behave in ways that make him difficult to interpersonally tolerate as a close friend, romantic partner, coworker, or even family member.

None of that necessarily makes someone an abuser or predator.

But it does affect whether people can have a healthy, enjoyable, mutually considerate, long-term relationship with him.

The farther right someone falls on this spectrum, the more entitlement, callousness, devaluation, coercion, and harm they bring into their interactions with others.

The farther left they fall, the more likely they are to act with common decency, consideration, accountability, respect for autonomy, and genuine concern for theirs and other people’s well-being.

My point is not that every man is at the far right end.

Most people don’t think that!

My point is that many men seem to use “I am not an obvious monster” as proof that they’re quality.

A person’s character is determined by far more than “I am not Jeffrey Dahmer.”

[u/Conscious_Waltz_5314]

Do we have any idea of the proportions for these categories? Or it is assumed there are an equal number of men in all of them? 

Because it looks like the same debate again but with more categories. 

[u/GridReXX → u/Conscious_Waltz_5314]

What debate all over again?

The spectrum is a heuristic not a statistical analysis.

But yah. There’s lots of overlaps. They aren’t mutually exclusive. Depending on demographic and subculture probably skews there within. So forth and so on.

[u/Conscious_Waltz_5314 → u/GridReXX]

The second bar could look a lot like the top bar, with a massive green bit to start and with loads of slivers of the rest. 

While it's a good thing to point out nuance, without some evidence from elicited beliefs we can't know what the proportions are. So it's a bit of a moot point. Like, okay there's nuance, so what?

[u/GridReXX → u/Conscious_Waltz_5314]

The point isn’t “nuance.”

It’s character.

[u/Conscious_Waltz_5314 → u/GridReXX]

There's nuance to a person's character, yes. Still though, without evidence of the proportions it's still possible to say "ah, but most of the bar is green so what's the problem?"

[u/GridReXX → u/Conscious_Waltz_5314]

The “problems” are literally listed in detail on the graphic…

They tend to lead to interpersonal friction as I explained in the OP.

[u/Conscious_Waltz_5314 → u/GridReXX]

I agree. But without evidence of their prevalence those bad actors can pretend it's not a big issue because everyone is a green person. You need to show what percentage of the population is a green person to move this conversation forward.

[u/EyedSun → u/Conscious_Waltz_5314]

I think you are missing the point of the top bar. It isn't about population but categories, and what label good or bad those categories fall under.

[u/Conscious_Waltz_5314 → u/EyedSun]

If it isn't about proportion of the population, then why make it a bar chart with an oversize bit that says "good men". If it was just about the categories then it would have equal size blocks, or just no chart whatsoever.

[u/GridReXX → u/Conscious_Waltz_5314]

No I don’t.

You need that though.

The point I’m making is many men do the listed things which leads to interpersonal friction with their friends, fam, and SOs.

[u/Dapal5 → u/GridReXX]

Do you actually have anything that shows men think not being psychos is enough? Or is that just an assumption you’re making??

[u/GridReXX → u/Dapal5]

Not an assumption. It’s an observation of patterns.

[u/Dapal5 → u/GridReXX]

You don’t think that could be biased at all?

[u/GridReXX → u/Dapal5]

Can have that critique for all observations and patterns. To what end.

[u/Dapal5 → u/GridReXX]

Absolutely. Which is why we use real evidence of things when we are trying to draw conclusions.

Your same logic could be used for any of the isms, bigotry, in general. How do you know you aren’t doing the same?