Japan's deputy prime minister blames women for nation's declining population - Sensationalist Headlines

And I'mma keep it real with you, too, Facepunch user MIR: this is not an effective way to disguise your incel leanings. Your post is just repeating and reinforcing verbatim the most basic talking points of red pill-style misogyny, right down to ideas like "hypergamy" and the concept that men are somehow being pacified by ebul feminism. The only thing you've changed is tacking on a "well to be fair" in front of it. You're still blaming women for your inability to get your cock touched and you're still putting forth 'hypergamy' as something that a) exists and b) needs to be "done away with", which is a perfect inoccous phrase to disguise whatever kind of control you envision as natural and right. If you're going to try to sugarcoat views you know are rightly reviled, do a better job.

it's actually the work culture, not women, causing the decline, but I guess the prime minister is too arrogant to know that

Saying incels are even leaning towards having a vaguely valid point (even if whatever they come up with is tainted by their other views) has nothing to do with having incel leanings. They're right in pointing out that a lot of Westernized/capitalist societies have toxic dating cultures which ripple into demographic declines and people feeling alienated. They're wrong for blaming women/other men or anything other than their own shortcomings or the dynamics at play. Things like hypergamy pervade Asian culture because women feel the need to use the few tools society has left at their disposal to get along; that's a symptom of sexism, but it's also a problem by itself. This is what I mean by hypergamy. It has nothing to do with whatever incels accuse women of—it has everything to do with China's fucked up culture. It exists in Korea and Japan due to less overt reasons. I'm not implying masculinity being toned down is a bad thing, either. I meant that while masculinity is being redefined as people tackle toxic masculinity and machismo, dating culture is failing to update as well. Overt masculinity is falling out of vogue, but passivity still has a stigma attached to it. I don't like toxic masculinity. I don't like machismo. It's better to be gone with those for good, but our romantic conventions have to adapt to accept more passivity and meekness. Perhaps adjusting gender/relationship dynamics won't save incels, but it will lead to fewer romantic outliers joining their ranks.

I'm going to assume that you mean "the only gender who is capable"; even then, it's not about them "not bothering", it's people choosing to do with their lives what they want to. Kids are not a good idea for a lot of people for a lot of reasons, the biggest of which is flat-out not wanting kids. Parents that sincerely don't want kids are usually at the very least apathetic. What a hellish viewpoint. You don't think that happiness is more important than kids?

Definitely not for me bro

Reminds me of that old term, err, "biotruths." Biological imperatives, or at least the notion that we ought to follow them, kind of drives sexism, tribalism, and all kinds of harmful thinking. Japan's birthrate decline isn't because couples don't want to have kids, it's because existing couples don't have the means to and singles don't have the incentive to find partners.

Is that a fancy way to say "women are starting to do what they consider best for them"? There's no rules to dating, it's just about what people want vs. what people expect. If you can't find a partner, either you have to lower your standards or improve yourself. People aren't owed a partner. Correction: mentally unhealthy people will commit violence anyway if they never get help and blame it on whatever they see as the cause. It doesn't mean that it's true. Incels just blame it on women. Also, this is really insulting to men. It's as if you're saying it's inevitable that if a man feels alone he'll get violent, most of us handle loneliness just fine even if it's unpleasant. That's so vague that it doesn't really mean anything, people in western countries are now more than ever free to choose who they want to be with or what they want to do. I say that's an improvement from any other single point in history. Feels like that's just something you're pulling out of your ass. They don't. Incels are a tragedy but they're the symptom of a society lacking a support structure for people with mental illnesses.

(I don't know how to break down quotes on Newpunch.) There are no written rules to dating, but there are conventions, norms, and people who fall into statistical averages and outliers. These conventions have changed significantly since the 1950s, and perhaps they've become more difficult to identify, but that doesn't mean they've stopped existing. The closest we've come to doing away with romantic conventions began in the 1960s and ended in the 1980s. The past few decades have been a return to rigidity, but under a confusing new set of standards. I don't think incels can be cast away as a symptom of mental pathologies, although the worst and most dangerous among them are mentally ill. It's primarily a sociological problem: learned helplessness combined with misgivings about masculine standards that gets misdirected at women and feminism. Yes, when men feel marginalized, confused, or mistreated, some of them will invariably become violent. Not all of us, not even a minority, but the pattern persists. It is mental illness paired with a sociological problem that leads to incel-themed violence. Mental illness alone would lead to both men and women committing violence, but the triggering mechanism here is a feeling of isolation that is unique to men for one reason or another. Unless we want to imply that the problem is particular to men because they are naturally more prone to violence, we have to consider the existence of a sociological element. Do you know why men and women become hikikomori? They aren't afflicted with some mental pathology (depression/GAD are symptoms, society is the cause); the lot of them are perfectly reasonable about their circumstances and know the damage they're doing to themselves. They hide because there is an understanding that they are incompatible with society in general. Perhaps they could fill some niche function, but what are the odds? The Japanese government understands that their problem cannot be solved on account of the afflicted. Society has to change. Incels are a far cry from most hikikomori, far less self-aware, far more entrenched, and far more militant. But they encapsulate an extreme of a larger demographic of men (and possibly women) who feel isolated and marginalized for falling outside of societal norms. Perhaps they do have severe problems that need addressing, or perhaps they don't. Some people simply have constitutions that aren't particularly attractive, but to devalue a type of personality based upon how it aligns with the masculine or feminine scale is wrong. Those peoples' problems are not going to disappear on their own. Maybe those people need to fix some of their problems, but they won't have a place to start if they don't have a chance in the first place. Society has to change. Telling people to improve themselves or lower their standards is a patch job at best. That won't work for everyone, even if they try, and it won't stop them from feeling the pain of marginalization. You could leave those people behind, but they're liable to let their frustrations manifest. Endemic problems have systemic causes and systemic solutions. Realpolitik is treating people as a means to an end rather than a pure end. It isn't love, it's an extension of the patriarchal politics that used to define courtship carried on by people forced to survive in recklessly capitalist/cutthroat societies. India operates upon the old system of hypergamy/realpolitik (only marry the best possible caste to enrich my family); China, Korea, and Japan operate upon a new system (only give someone more fortunate than me the time of day so that I can get mine).

Yeah, I remember reading this old crime manga called Sanctuary that was written in the 90s where the core of the story was the younger protagonists trying to take on the political establishment, which consists of old men, through both legit and illegal methods. One of the big shocks in the manga was that one of the 30 year old main characters was going to run for office with a secondary party, just the fact that he didn't go for the party that's been in power since Japan went democratic was considered shocking.

citation needed What does this mean? Just so I don't misunderstand you. Well in that case it doesn't really matter what the trigger is, is it? Mentally ill people prone to violence should probably be treated for their, you know, medical issues. The solution is definitely not them getting a partner but connecting with someone that can actually help them; family, social workers or mental health specialists. You could just say "NEET" instead of making me google something most people wouldn't know the definition of. Or hey, maybe include the definition if you wanted to educate me. Okay but here's where you're completely misunderstanding the problem, the issue with society isn't that people don't want to date them. Them getting a partner won't fix their issues. This is ALL COMPLETELY UNRELATED to the behavior of women at all and it's completely rediculous to claim such a thing. You don't fix loneliness with dating, you fix it by connecting them with people that can help and support them. It's not the responsibility of women at large to do so, however. If that's how you define it, realpolitik isn't the reasons why there's incels or men get lonely.

Facepunch user MIR who is capable of not posting sugar-coated biotruth misogynist shut chosen not to bother

I agree with you but I'd like to add that society might have actually created incels. Incels seems to be people with a plethora of mental issues and low self-confidence, and they could have been helped if we encouraged people to get therapy and other mental health help more vigilantly. Anecdotal: my depressed co-worker kind of echoes those same incel ideas and I have to regularly remind him that those ideas are bullshit and don't align with reality. Nevertheless, I could easily see why he thinks that and I think a lot of people would nudge towards these ideas if they were in a similar bad place. It doesn't help that the internet now allows people with these ideas to come together and reinforce each other. All the rest of the internet does is ridicule and vilify them (very understandable), but if we want to rid society of incels we really have to make an effort to help them out of their well. In a way, society might be to blame as life is getting more and more stressful for young people. For a lot of people with low confidence, stuff like dating seems impossible now and the perceived hoops are mentally crushing. I personally am even turned off by my perception of the dating process and have no idea how I'll meet a girlfriend. Though, I won't start believing in delusions like "girls only going for the bad boys" or whatever kinda shit incels come up with. I might, if I was less self-aware and more socially isolated.

While he definitely could have provided a definition, asking him to substitute in NEET as an alternative isn't really viable. They're two totally differently but vaguely related concepts. A NEET is just someone who's not going to school or working, often out of laziness but also sometimes out of other personal issues. A hikikomori on the other hand basically entirely withdraws from society altogether. They're more of a recluse or hermit than simply a NEET. And usually their position isn't based on laziness so much as bad experiences leading them to just not want to deal with society at all, which is a serious issue in a culture that puts ridiculous amounts of pressure on people when they're still developing and treats anyone who doesn't conform very poorly for not conforming.

Man it sure would have been useful to know beforehand but thankfully it still fits with my point.

I figured most people (at least the ones around here) knew about hikikomori already, so I didn't think a definition was necessary.

Okay but this has nothing to do with women at all. Okay, but what does any of that concern women in general? What do you mean exactly by "changes have to come from the other side", who or what is this "other side"?

The other side is society at large. Men, women, the media that sculpts peoples' preferences and self-images. The zeitgeist needs to change. Incels need to change too, and the first step is to stop blaming women for their problems.

That's quite the track record of offenses, he could probably become the president of the United States if he were born in the US and was a rich old white guy.