Downsides of being a white male

Yes, white men also have disadvantages, let us talk about them

I was specifically asked to write about the disadvantages of being a white male in response to one of my articles about privileged white men self-victimizing:

In that article I also wrote the following:

Are there downsides to being white and male? Of course, and we should not ignore those challenges. But there is quite another thing to portray yourself as the most marginalized one. Only with a very deep narcissism can one fail to see ones own privilege and only see every minute little manner in which one is wronged or disadvantaged.

But I never elaborated on what those disadvantages were. Natasha Young got curious what I meant and asked me specifically:

Loved your article, but what's the downside to being a white male? Just so I know your story.

Answering such a question is challenging because I do not want to carry water for redpill manosphere type of guys. That means I cannot simply list downsides of being a white male. I have to also put it in context and compare to challenges other people face.

Also, I will not do this in a particular order of importance. The disadvantages of being a white male is not something that occupies my minds a lot so, I don't have some well thought out ten point thing in prioritized order.

Public Discourse

People are free to use your skin color and gender against you in public discourse if you are a white man. It is the only identity our society deems okay to attack someone for having. There will be expressions such as "that is such a white thing to say" or we have the expression "mansplaining" which will simply be applied to almost any argument a man makes.

Articles in major newspapers could write articles about the problem with men. But they cannot write articles disparaging women in that way.

There is however an exception. Because society has decided "white" people are fair game to criticize, people simply specify "white women" when they want to attack women. Somehow that makes attacking women okay.

The reverse is of course true for men. You can attack men, but not if you tacked on another skin color than white. Talking about the problem with say "black men" would be taboo.

If you are fellow leftist, you may be aching to counter my argument at this point. But don't worry, towards the end of the article I will actually criticize the arguments I make here so you can see that I can see this in a more nuanced fashion than it may appear here.

Discussing Racism

This is more about being white than male specifically. Western society has in a way defaulted to the idea that racists are always the white guy and the victims are people of color. It means when white people experience racism they often cannot easily raise the issue and get it tackled.

I live in an area of Oslo, where native Norwegians are a minority for instance. How bad racism is has really been hammered into Norwegian kids but much less so minority kids. The result is that racial slurs is primarily used by minorities against other minorities as well as Norwegians. Words such as "potato."

I know of a mother who had just moved to the area with her daughter, who did not feel very welcome with these kinds of slurs directed at her. However they did not know how to raise the issue, because they were being afraid of being called racist. Think about that. The people subject to racism was afraid of being called racist because let us face it, whites are treated as the de-facto racists.

I cannot go into all the details of the things we experienced in this area as I don't want to out any particular people. But my wife is an ethnic minority and had to deal with these kinds of issues as a parent representative. There were many ethnic minorities who experienced racism from other ethnic minorities but the school struggled to tackle it because white teachers are not in a privileged position, if they have to tackle racism within a minority group.

The way they try to deal with it is by speaking out against racism in general. But this does not work very well, because when you do not actually single out the ethnic group engaging in racism this is what happens after all these meetings: Norwegian parents go home and have serious conversations with their kids about the importance of not acting racist. Except those Norwegian kids were not the ones actually engaging in the racism.

Meanwhile the minority parents of children who actually engage in racism, don't have this conversation with their kids because they simply assume their kids would be the victims. This is the problem with the framework that assumes racism only ever flows from white to person of color.

So what happens is many try to leverage other minorities such as my wife to raise issues of racism because it is topic white people have a significant disadvantage when discussing.

I know of cases where ethnic minorities prefers to hang out with native Norwegians (whites) over other ethnic minorities because they experience less prejudice and racism. But even talking about this kind of stuff is taboo. It is the kind of things other parents almost tell you in hushed fashion and add all sorts of disclaimers to.

There are many minorities with muslim background where I live and in my everyday life that works fine. My kids have many muslim friends. But within the muslim community there are problems with attitudes towards women, and it is something many families with daughters start experiencing once kids reach teenage years. Norwegian families leave my area because of it.

It is not like it is universal, so let us not hype this up too much. But let us just say it is a relevant problem to deal with but again schools and authorities do not know how to speak about this sort of thing because they are afraid of the racism label. The worst case is probably the grooming scandals in the UK, where abuse of white girls persisted in large part because police did not want to get labeled racist. There were victims who got silenced and labeled racists.

Frankly I think it is an advantage that my own kids are mixed. It means they cannot as easily be pigeon holed into some kind of ethnic category with some kind of associated slur or prejudice.

Boys in School

The school system tends to favor girls. Mind you not deliberately, but the kind of behavior school expects is something women are much better at. Boys have much harder time sitting still and paying attention. Research has been done on this which points to the need for young boy to be more physically active and have more action.

I know from mothers who get boys who are almost a little shocked by how wild boys can be compared to girls. Boys have interests which in a way are not interests society condones. As a boy I was play fighting with other boys all the time. Throwing snowballs at each other. All my favorite computer games involved shooting something. Like most boys I loved war movies, gangster movies, Westerns.

I wanted to do martial arts. But my parents did not want me to. The 1980s Norway was still very innocent in a way. American violent entertainment had really just began entering the country. Norwegian government monopoly on TV was ended and entertainment focused much more on conflict and war such as He-Man, Transformers, G.I. Joe etc flooded in from America. Norwegian parents were not thrilled.

What young boys cared about was Rambo, Commando, Terminator. All these muscular action heroes with big guns.

At the time a blank slate view of humans still dominated in my native Norway. There was a belief that boys could be socialized into being a lot like girls. That boys could be made to not like all this violence, fighting and conflict. I remember a lot of school material was quite overt in this sense. I remember reading a book for a young guy was all negative to children and then he somehow had pushed a stroller with a child and discovered he liked it. For me it was an eye rolling type of moment. It was so obvious that the school tried to make boys into their image.

And keep in mind I say this as a self professed male feminist today. I am a dad, and I did indeed very much enjoy pushing my kids around in a stroller. But when you are a boy in elementary school and think Rambo is the most badass guy ever, it is not the right time to talk about boys pushing strollers. We will have zero interest in it. It simply reeks of an attempted indoctrination.

Boys are more immature than girls and far less disciplined. And that hurts boys in school. They will face more behavioral problems. Research done here in Norway suggests that boys often get worse grades than girls when doing equally well. The reason? They are misbehaving more and that created a more negative image.

It should be clarified here that this is not explicit targeting of boys. Anyone who misbehaves more gets worse grades regardless of gender. Well behaved boys do get as good marks as girls when performing equally. However, because behavioral problems is much more common among boys it hurts boys as a group far more.

But this also fosters prejudice against boys. I know for instance there was cases when it was actually girls doing something wrong in class that my son got the blame for it. It is simply assumed that boys are the trouble makers. And let us not be in denial of reality: They are more often trouble makers, but that also means they are more likely to be suspected of being the guilty part.

Domestic Violence

Domestic violence is a case where there are significant disadvantages when you are the victim. Descent men with a violent spouse will be reluctant to protect themselves properly as they are afraid they will found guilty for being a wife beater.

Many men have trouble accepting themselves as victims as it goes against the expectations of men in society as the strong one. I actually know some big strong guys who know very well how to fight, that have been subject to domestic violence. I remember speaking to one of them who talked about how therapy had been a lot about getting him to accept that he was a victim. It is a big like alcoholic anonymous, where one of the steps is to say out loud and acknowledge that "yes, I am an alcoholic."

Of course this issue is a lot like school. Men are the ones most responsible for domestic violence and thus this will disadvantage the men who are actually victims when they seek help.

Victims of Violence and Crime

While women face a serious danger of rape in society, men are in no way safe. Men are far more likely to be victim of violence. And just like rape that can ruin a person for life. Not just due to physical injuries but also the psychological trauma. Never feeling safe afterwards. You read here about some kid getting ganged up on and beaten seriously, it will typically be a boy.

It is a dog eat dog world. Men are in a pecking order mindset. Other men are seen as challenges. Women are not to the same degree seen part of the male dominance game and thus not pulled into that fight.

Down at a bar, a guy is not going to get provoked by a girl looking at him. Quite the contrary. It will boosts his ego. But if another guy looks at him, he will see it as a challenge. Particularly guys steep in honor culture will see getting looked at as some kind of challenge and an invitation to a fight.

This male desire to assert dominance over other men is part of the reason why the police and security guards benefit from including women in the force. Experience shows that women are much better at calming men down. A female police officer may not have the physical strength to take on a violent man, but on the other hand he does not see her in the same way as someone challenging his placement in the male dominance hierarchy. Thus women are often more able to talk these guys down.

It is not always a benefit. In class of rowdy teenage boys it may be more effective with a grown man to maintain order. They have more natural authority than a woman often would have. Human nature is complex.

Expectations of Bravery

One of the things that truly terrifies men is appearing weak or afraid. I suspect a lot of the bad things men do is often to cover up their own weakness. Now, I have never been someone who really cared about playing the macho games. I found it quite stupid. Instead I placed more value on being intelligent, well read, compassionate and wise.

Yet, when serving in the Norwegian armed forces, first in the cavalry and later in the Royal Guard I definitely felt the fear of being seen as weak. I hated every day in the military. I frankly hated everything the whole organization was about. To me it appeared like a really big childish kindergarten for grown men with big dangerous toys. And the funny thing is that I say this as someone who by my own admission love war movies and guns.

The army is to a large degree throwback to older more authoritarian way of life. It is entirely different from school system and civilian society and workplaces which operate on more democratic principles. As a strong believer in democracy, freedom, egalitarianism and intellectualism the military was terrible place. Too many people there are on a power trip. It is a place full of misogyny, homophobia and other regressive ideas and thoughts. It only gets worse by being so dominated by boys. It sort of amplifies all the worst traits of men.

Now, I tend to get along quite well with almost anybody so that aspect was fine. I had friends in the military but it was shallow. We didn't truly have much in common. If you are an intellectual type who actually enjoys reading and learning you will feel misplaced in the military. Nobody openly reads books.

I didn't actually have to serve. I could have declared myself a pacifist and done civilian duty. But here was the problem: I am not a pacifist. I do believe military force is sometimes needed. I believe it is a duty to defend your country with violence if needed. Hence not serving would be hypocrisy. I did it out of a sense of duty not because I wanted it.

But there is also that element of not wanting to be a coward. If most of the male population served, why should I not?

Here is an experience that illustrates the fear of weakness. I have almost of phobia of heights. I really cannot deal with heights. It was apparent from childhood. My brother could easily climb trees, but I could not.

At one point in the military we had to climb across a rope stretched out over a sort of marshland, swamp or bog. English is not my native language so I am not entirely sure what word will best describe this thing. It was a lot of mud. Let us put it that way. And it was very far down.

It terrified me. I saw almost every guy trying to get across would loose their strength about midway and fall into the mud below. Already I had tried to climb up and get on the rope, but I looked down and just saw how far down it was and froze up. However at some point I had to try. Nobody was skipping. Every guy was trying to get across. If I didn't do it I would be the odd person out. There are few things more scary than being the only guy too afraid to do something. You don't want to be that guy.

At the same time I saw guys much stronger than me fall down. I concluded that the only way possible to get over was by climbing above the rope rather than hanging under it. However this is a far more difficult move. You need to hang one leg down very relaxed. You cannot tense up. The leg helps you balance. And it means you are also looking straight down while moving across. Not good if you have an irrational fear of height like me.

Short story: I managed to get over. In fact I was among the few who actually did. Keeping myself balanced and focused moving ahead one inch at a time on that rope was terrifying, but I was still far more afraid of being the only guy left behind who was too chicken to try.

I believe it is also why men often don't run away from dangerous situations then should run away from. They are simply more afraid of looking afraid. Now, I might be wrong about this, but I am pretty sure that women do not have the same fear as men of showing fear.

It is why many men get into deep trouble. They participate in things they know they should not do but they a more afraid of showing fear than doing it. In a bizarre way it requires a lot of strength to be "weak."

Adrenalin Junkies

Men are born with a lot stronger desires for actions and adrenalin rush. And testosterone does not help. We know how people taking extra testosterone get a lot more aggressive.

In many ways men are profoundly maladjusted to the civilized society we live in today. Evolution made men to be the disposable gender. The gender that could do the most risky stuff so that the gender that is most important, because she carries the next generation can be safeguarded.

Hence hunting has historically been almost exclusively done by men. Or almost any kind of dangerous work. And you see this in professional choices. Men are more likely to pick jobs like roughnecks, sailors and other professions which carries a lot of danger and action.

The more calmer civilized society we live in today is in many ways more naturally fitting the nature of woman. Being able to exert a lot of violence is not an advantage in today's society. The ones who would have been great hunters in our historical past now end up as violent criminals instead and get put in prison.

And we cannot simply socialized our way out of that problem. That was the naive idea of the 1970s and 1980s in Norway. You cannot turn men into women through socialization. And if you could then trans people or gay people would never have existed because one could just have socialized people to be a desired gender or sexual orientation.

Instead society must adapt. We have adapted to women's needs with things like 1 year paid parental leave, abortion rights, guaranteed child care from age 1 etc in Norway. Sometimes treating people as equals means you need to recognize a unique challenge they face. Being pregnant create unique challenges that men will never have and thus women need special provisions for that.

I think you can extend that thinking into how we deal with men as well. It might be good to allow for more physically active school days for boys in the early years for instance. Rather than double down on the idea and force boys to sit still, we should recognize that they have a different need to move around.

My Criticism of This Article

If you have read this thus far, you may easily end up with the mindset that society has gone too far. Too much anti racism. Too much feminism. We need to dial the clock back to the good old times and all that.

Well, you would be mistaken. Everything I wrote needs to be put in proper context to not be abused to advance a regressive agenda.

The key thing we got to understand is that everyone can experience disadvantages and privileges in different areas of life. That white men experience some challenges doesn't somehow imply that they are more disadvantaged overall than non-whites or women.

When I was much younger, I was far more of a right-wingers and had a fair number of more anti feminist attitudes. I didn't think racism was that big of a deal or homophobia. In retrospect it is not so hard to see why. It was so much easier to see the problems I faced and people like me. It required far more insight to grasp the experiences of people very different from yourself.

The episode I remember best that illustrates well my lack of insight was when I was on Utøya summer camp at 19 years old. Yes, the very same island where Anders Behring Breivik murdered some 80 teenagers.

First of all I remember being annoyed with a gay couple making out right next to me while I was trying to eat my breakfast. Keep in mind I was not a religious person. I did not see being gay as a sin or anything like that. So I was not a guy actively hating on gay people or finding it sinful. But I also didn't have much empathy for them.

When one of them later went on stage and declared that he was gay, I saw everyone clapping like crazy. Personally I felt like rolling my eyes and saying "Oh my God," with dripping sarcasm. In my world it felt like he was simply being applauded for being gay. As if being gay was an achievement onto itself.

Looking back I can now safely say that I was an idiot. I simply did not grasp that they were clapping because he was brave enough to come out and say to a whole crowd of people that he was gay. They were clapping him on for openly living what he was without shame.

I was not stupid as such. I was top of my class in school. Typically top marks in physics, chemistry and mathematics. But when it came to understanding the human condition and emotions I was not terribly bright in my humble opinion.

I believe Elon Musk is an extreme version of me. Extremely talented in the natural sciences, but even more immature when it comes to actually understanding humans.

When it comes to feminism and racism I do not have as clear memorable stories as this. I cannot point to a particular moment in time where in retrospect I can say that I totally and completely missed the point. The realization in these other areas far more of a gradual natural progression.

Public Discourse Revisited

It is true that when it comes to mainstream media it is a disadvantage to be a white man. But it is important to keep in mind that our overall discourse is far bigger than this. We talk about friends, in dinner parties, in church, in the locker room, at the sports match, at the bar, on social media and many other places.

For instance the public face of the military was a very inclusive place which embraced women and gay people. But the reality on the ground was totally different. Sexism and homophobia was rife. Doesn't matter what the top brass said in official speeches. That was not everyday reality on the ground.

You cannot say the military was a very egalitarian place friendly to women simply because the rules made, and the public pronouncements made favored women. They favored women specifically because they were trying to counter a culture that was deeply sexist at its core.

This becomes even more clear if you look at the American military. It has all sorts of public announcements and rules that look like they favors women. But really it is an attempt at the top to counter what is a deeply misogynist culture. I read for instance about women serving in the US navy. On the ship they got told straight out in a speech by their superiors that they would have to expect to get raped and they should just suck it up. The victim blaming was rife.

This is what many reactionaries don't get. The pretty speech and at the top from the elites is not a reflection of the reality on the ground. These are simply active attempt to try to push was is often pretty bad cultures to improve.

Just like affirmative action and DEI is not giving women, minorities and disabled people a genuine advantage in sum. It is simply a counter measure against systems that tend to favor white straight able bodied men.

That some intellectual in New York Times put down men and elevate women, does not mean that is what happens in social media, in the locker room, in church, at board meetings, in the bar or elsewhere. The liberal intellectual media is just a tiny sliver of the media reality we live in. Social media for instance is now bigger than traditional media. I watched a lot of stuff that typically interest men on YouTube for instance. Whenever women is mentioned it is almost always sexist in my humble opinion. In fact it is rather depressing how overwhelmingly negative the comments are. There are is a whole category of YouTube videos of when a woman challenged a man and she gets knocked down. They all have comments like "equal rights, equal lefts, LOL" underneath. It points to a seething visceral hatred of both women and equality in general.

So that is the context you need. Men are disadvantaged in the intellectual mainstream media, but that is just a tiny part of our reality. It does not mean women are somehow favored overall. It just isn't the case.

Discussing Racism Revisited

I pointed out how us whites struggle with the default assumption that if you are white you are the racist and the non-white person is the victim.

But again this is much in the public discourse. Racism is everywhere in society against non-whites. But we all know it is taboo, so it is not expressed as clearly. The American Southern Strategy was all about this. It was about conveying racism and capitalizing on it without stating it bluntly.

Now, I do not think my native Norway has the same racism problem as the US. And as I said, I do not think Norwegian kids will typically be racist explicitly against minority kids. But, by all means I can be wrong about that.

My kids are essentially minority kids, given that they are mixed and they have never expressed having experienced any racism directly. Nor have I seen any directed against them or my wife the years we lived in Norway.

Yet prejudice exists in other form. Apply for a job with a very non-Norwegian name and you will likely face challenges. And if you show up at a job interview with mannerisms and speaking what we call "Kebab-Norwegian" you will face challenges. Living where we live I can see my kids pick some of the Kebab-Norwegian way of speaking. And there is a reason I try to remind them not to talk like that. I know it will count negative in the rest of society if you speak like that.

The advantage of being white still trumps the disadvantages. People may accuse you of being racist, but people will also assume you are more law abiding, less violent and better educated whether that is true or not.

Boys in School Revisited

There is a narrative that suggests that because women now do much better in school and get better educated, the future belong to women or that men are being discriminated against.

But here are some things to make clear: Girls have always done better than boys in school. This isn't a new thing. It isn't feminism that suddenly suppressed boys and made them perform worse.

The only thing that changed is that many barriers against women, that hindered them from higher education has been removed. Thus women now are more visibly outcompeting men in education.

But this does not mean women will win the job market race. Men still tend to pursue professions and careers which pay more than women. Many studies women pursue are not always in high demand or well paid.

The other problem is that the traits which rewards women in the school system punishes them in the workplace. Being compliant and doing as you are told may be an asset in school, but in the workplace the aggressiveness that is a problem for men in the school system becomes an advantage. Men will more eagerly seize opportunities and the competitive mindset of men becomes an advantage.

I am reminded of a story I read about scrabble. Far more women play the game than men. Yet men are the ones who win most of the highly competitive scrabble matches. Why is that? An analysis shows that women play it primarily to enjoy themselves. But men are more likely to spend hours practicing every sort of silly detail to win. The thing is that winning matters more to men than simply enjoying a good time of play with friends.

And that is perhaps why we see in riding and cooking which are other activities women tend to enjoy more, is still dominated by men at the top. The competitive mindset of men push them ahead of women who care much less about winning.

I notice this in how men and women play computer games. Men are far more obsessed with winning. We would play the Pandemic board game sometimes. It is a very cooperative game where we all fight against a pandemic. My wife really loves the game. My sons are less thrilled and I understand totally why. You are not competing against someone. Boys want to win against someone. That is their joy. While my wife think it is great that we don't have to compete but can do it all together instead. That points to a very different mindset men and women have.

Of course this is a simplification. There are many women in top performance sports. If they didn't care about winning they wouldn't be there. Likewise, even historically there has been woman engaging in hunting. When it comes to gender it is very easy to end making black and white generalizations one way or the other.

That some girls like doing typical boys stuff doesn't mean men and women are the same or can be socialized to be the same. But neither does the fact that women tend to love cooking, knitting and fashion more than men mean women cannot love hunting, shooting or extreme sports.

We must avoid pushing the idea that you have to do something specific because of our gender. Like the Nazis insisting women should be in the kitchen or watching children.

Anyway my point is that some of the traits that disadvantage a gender in one walk of life might advantage them in another. Some might use this as an excuse to suggest we should just let everything be.

I think that is wrong. Should boys be left struggling in school, because they may later excel in a competitive corporate environment, or should girls be elbowed out by competitive boys in the workplace because they simply did better in school?

My perspective is to try to meet the challenges different groups of people face. I am not actually onboard with the whole "treat everyone the same." That was a good slogan when people got special treatment due to titles, family name and similar. It is a fair argument when people got discriminated against for no good reason.

But when dealing with people having genuine disadvantages it becomes rather cold a callous to say treat everyone the same. That is akin to saying that treating people with wheel chair and legs exactly the same by giving both a staircase to climb is fair. In this case letting the person in a wheel chair getting treated the same way as an able bodied person is not fairness because it ignores the unique challenges they face.

Rather I would say people should be accommodated in ways that levels the playing-field. For women in the workplace it may mean giving them more encouragement to try to advance. For boys in school it may mean giving them more chance to be physical. Not every lesson has to happen in the classroom behind a desk.

Domestic Violence Revisited

From a domestic violence perspective it is of course better to be a man because it is simply less likely to happen to you. Now people can argue that if you count incidents women are actually worse. There is statistics like that which I don't want to get into here because this is not really an article which looks at domestic violence in detail. Let me just say that you can spin any reality you like if you cherry pick data and don't look at the big picture. The big picture is that domestic violence is a problem primarily hurting women.

In this sense men are privileged. The privilege for women is rather once it happens and you need to talk to someone. Women are more likely to get taken serious. But if you think that makes women the privileged party overall I would ask any man if they would actually want to swap roles. I don't think they do.

Another important detail is that the consequences of domestic violence is profoundly different for men and women. For men it is much more about shame. For women it is more straight out fear. Women who leave a violent husband are far more likely to get killed. A very common reason for women to get killed is that they leave a husband or boyfriend.

The reverse is exceedingly rare for a man. Leaving a violent wife behind carries practically no risk to a man. Men who stay in abusive relationships do not do that because of fear primarily, but often because they still have feelings for their violent wife. They cannot bring themselves to leave. They are still hoping they can fix the relationship somehow.

That is why helping men in a violent relationship is quite different. It is more about getting them to accept that they are a victim and they must learn that nobody deserves to be treated the way they get treated. That they should not accept it and they should leave.

This isn't even limited to romantic relationships. Many of you likely had friendships that are toxic. Friends that mean something to you even if they are not treating you well. That is the complexity of human nature. Some people can be both kind and bad at the same time.

Victims of Violence and Crime Revisited

I am not sure if I can add so much to this part. Men are here both typically the victim but also the perpetrator. In essence men are their own worst problem. And this isn't the fault of feminism or women. It is not women attacking men or making men violent. In fact I would argue that more macho countries have a bigger problem with violence than societies that have embraced gender equality.

Thus the fact that there is a disadvantage to be a man with respect to the likeliness of experiencing violence isn't some kind of weird reason to argue that gender equality is bad. Quite the contrary.

Expectations of Bravery Revisited

Men have to live up to a higher standard of bravery than women, but on the other hand women have to tackle many other issues men don't. The flip side of this is that women have to live up to a higher standard of compassion and kindness. Look at the demands put on women to be smiling, accommodating and kind.

It is why it can be hard for women to succeed as political or corporate leaders. A woman acting tough is often denounced as a cold bitch. While there is an expectation of bravery in men there is a reverse expectation of kindness in women.

It is not without reason that women frequently write about all the times men, completely unsolicited, tells them to smile. I remember reading one story about a woman who had had very hard days dealing with her dying dad. So she didn't look happy going home on the bus.

Of course a man had pester her and tell her to smile more. She told him why she was not happy and his reply was that she was a nasty bitch.

So here is my take: Be more generous to each other. Maybe men should not always have to be so brave and tough and women should not always have to be so kind and self-sacrificing. I think both men and women would be more happy if we did not insist as hard on living up to our stereotypical gender roles.

Adrenalin Junkies Revisited

I don't think you can simply toggle off the male desire for action, but you can try to channel it into healthier directions. I remember when I was play fighting as a child that we had rules. We were primarily wrestling each other. No kicking or hitting. I saw some boys engaging in play-fighting where I live. Minority kids. What I noticed as an issue is that they were seriously kicking and hitting each other. That was going to get some of them hurt bad and it really isn't needed to get your adrenalin rush out. That is why we have sports with rules. They are made so we can engage, often in dangerous activities, in a safer manner.

And when my kids play shooting games or watch action movies I try to talk to them about the difference between fantasy and reality. That they know the things done in movies can be very dangerous in real life.

And I had one rule in computer games. I insist on the principle that you only shoot at those shooting back at you. It is not always a hard rule you can follow, but it is a good principle to aspire to. I cannot lecture my boys about playing shooting games when I did the same as both a child and adult. But I can do my part to instill a health attitude about the activity.

One of the things that haunts me is about the Bowling Columbine mass shooters. Their video gaming habits differed from normal children in that they preferred to go around shooting lots of characters who could not fight back.

We must distinguish between when you engage in an activity for the challenge and when it turns into something much darker. Winning a firefight against someone else shooting at you requires skill. It is a competition. That is where the joy exists. But when you are simply shooting someone who cannot fight back it turns into something darker: It becomes an execution. Something sadistic.

I know for women it may not always be clear when a male activity veers into unhealthy territory, but these are pointers to keep potential mothers or sisters a bit more alert about what the boys and men in their lives engage in. Ask yourself if he is engaging in something that is ultimately a competition in skills and perseverance, or whether it looks more like taking out anger on other people.

Ultimately it is far more important to teach boys compassion than trying to limit them from playing with toy guns.

Final Words

I am sorry this ended up as a long article. I will say like Blaise Pascal that I did not have time to write shorter. I find this to be a very challenging subject to write about and thus hard to compress it into a short article. Perhaps as my own thoughts around this coalesce I can write a shorter more punch article that gets to the point faster.

Or I'll use AI to help me. Albeit seeing so many AI written articles I have become almost allergic. The overly smooth punchy style becomes cringe after a while.