Men Are Getting Weaker

If you’re the average Millennial male, your dad is stronger than you are. In fact, you may not be stronger than the average Millennial female. You’re exactly the kind of person who in generations past had your milk money confiscated every day — who got swirlied in the middle-school bathroom. The very idea of manual labor is alien to you, and even if you were asked to help, say, build a back porch, the task would exhaust you to the point of uselessness. Welcome to the new, post-masculine reality.

This morning, the Washington Post highlighted a study showing that the grip strength of a sample of college men had declined significantly between 1985 and 2016. Indeed, the grip strength of the sample of college men had declined so much — from 117 pounds of force to 98 — that it now matched that of older Millennial women. In other words, the average college male had no more hand strength than a 30-year-old mom.

I look back to my own childhood. In 1985, I was 16 years old, and I was a nerd’s nerd. I toted graph paper and 20-sided dice to school to play Dungeons & Dragons at lunch. (I like to think I was the finest dungeon master Scott County, Ky., had ever seen.) When I wasn’t playing D&D, my nose was buried in Lord of the Rings, or the Shannara books by Terry Brooks, or the Dragonriders of Pern by Anne McCaffrey. I played sports, sure, but let’s just say that my varsity tennis exploits didn’t make the cheerleaders’ hearts flutter.

But none of my nerdiness relieved me of the responsibility of learning how to be a man — a protector, builder, and fixer. So that meant spending my Saturdays hauling out the ramps to change the oil and oil filters on all our cars. That meant helping my dad build a new back porch or constantly wrestling with immense piles of firewood. (We heated our house with a wood stove.) I made extra money working in neighborhood yards. Being a guy meant doing manual labor. That was just part of growing up — no matter your social class.

In the age of instant oil change (why entrust your car’s health to your 16-year-old?), ubiquitous lawn services, and on-demand handymen, privileged kids simply don’t have the same, naturally occurring opportunities to learn to work with their hands and to develop physical strength. In the age of zero-tolerance school-disciplinary policies — where any kind of physical confrontation is treated like a human-rights violation — they have less opportunity to develop toughness. Today’s young males don’t have common touchstones for what it’s like to grow up to be a man.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2016/08/male-physical-decline-masculinity-threatened/

My future son in laws are big strong strapping young men, but they both get a little glaze in their eyes if you start breaking out tools. Thankfully, I taught my daughters how to operate them.

Maybe 'New man' syndrome has more downsides than upsides.

I do see a lot of small wimpy looking younger men whereas many younger women are twice the size of women a generation or so ago.

One reason could be many working class young men, the ones who used to toughen up doing manual labour from the ages of 15 and 16, now have to carry on in education till they are 18, or even go to uni till their 20's.....where the heaviest thing they have to lift is a book.

Syl wrote:Maybe 'New man' syndrome has more downsides than upsides.

I do see a lot of small wimpy looking younger men whereas many younger women are twice the size of women a generation or so ago.

One reason could be many working class young men, the ones who used to toughen up doing manual labour from the ages of 15 and 16, now have to carry on in education till they are 18, or even go to uni till their 20's.....where the heaviest thing they have to lift is a book.

Maybe it's progress, but I see a lot of men who are not going to be much use if the shit hit's the fan.

I'll bet you, that nearly half of the 20 year old males in the US have never operated a lawn mower, let alone taken one apart when it won't start.

Maddog wrote:

Syl wrote:Maybe 'New man' syndrome has more downsides than upsides.

I do see a lot of small wimpy looking younger men whereas many younger women are twice the size of women a generation or so ago.

One reason could be many working class young men, the ones who used to toughen up doing manual labour from the ages of 15 and 16, now have to carry on in education till they are 18, or even go to uni till their 20's.....where the heaviest thing they have to lift is a book.

Maybe it's progress, but I see a lot of men who are not going to be much use if the shit hit's the fan.

I'll bet you, that nearly half of the 20 year old males in the US have never operated a lawn mower, let alone taken one apart when it won't start.  

Probably the same here Maddog.

Kids now are too cosseted, many of them have never toughened up on the streets playing out like the generations before them.
They can fight battles and wars sat in the comfort of their own rooms now....no point in them actually getting off their arses to do anything physical.

I reckon the title to this thread should be "People are getting weaker"...

Not just "Men are getting weaker"..

As I also see a lot of weak and soft mollycoddled young women getting around, who could easily match their withering menfolk in their regressiveness.

Nope.
What’s happened is all the masculine, feminist women that don’t really understand feminism and think it means “act like a man” have emasculated men to the point of a new era of gender swapsies.

Look around. Women may be striving to look more Feminine but their attitudes are more male.

My wife pushed me around Marks and Spencers some months ago, I saw a counter with the sign "Mens Cosmetics"----------I thought it was a joke !

So maybe the 'greys' with spindly bodies and big heads are the future of humanity.

nicko wrote:My wife pushed me around Marks and Spencers some months ago,    I saw a counter with the sign "Mens Cosmetics"----------I thought it was a joke !

I couldn’t be with a guy who takes longer than me to get ready. I also have to smell divine and don’t want to be in competition with a guy who smells like a perfume shop.

WhoseYourWolfie wrote:

I reckon the title to this thread should be "People are getting weaker"...

Not just  "Men are getting weaker"..

As I also see a lot of weak and soft mollycoddled young women getting around, who could easily match their withering menfolk in their regressiveness.

Nah. Women are far more athletic and active than they used to be. The girls can hang with the boys now.

eddie wrote:Nope.  
What’s happened is all the masculine, feminist women that don’t really understand feminism and think it means “act like a man” have emasculated men to the point of a new era of gender swapsies.

Look around. Women may be striving to look more Feminine but their attitudes are more male.

Gender swapsies

I think you have a point...men get maternity leave, some men are house husbands, plus the pill liberated women a couple of generations ago...the drip drip effect of women becoming stronger has made some men emotionally weaker.
Maybe evolution is now making them physically weaker.
I do think its very noticeable that many women look physically bigger than their partners nowadays.

I married a farmer who did everything that she expected the blokes on the farm to do, from chucking hundredweight sacks of corn around, hand-picking brussels sprouts at daybreak with the thermometer registering below zero, driving a bloody great combine harvester with a cab that looked like the flight deck of Starship Enterprise and even accompanying the farm Jack Russell terrier Micky into a barn where rats were having their nightly convention.

So who am I to deny the sentiment of the thread title?

A majority of women do seem to emasculate men. I’ve seen it.

Syl wrote:

eddie wrote:Nope.  
What’s happened is all the masculine, feminist women that don’t really understand feminism and think it means “act like a man” have emasculated men to the point of a new era of gender swapsies.

Look around. Women may be striving to look more Feminine but their attitudes are more male.

Gender swapsies

I think you have a point...men get maternity leave, some men are house husbands, plus the pill liberated women a couple of generations ago...the drip drip effect of women becoming stronger has made some men emotionally weaker.
Maybe evolution is now making them physically weaker.
I do think its very noticeable that many women look physically bigger than their partners nowadays.

Some good points.

And yes, gender swapsies Hahahahahaha

Didn't the Romans report on Celtic men and women being comparable in size and women being rather formidable in a fight?
I seem to remember fairly sturdy woman when I was a child. You don't do all your washing, scubbing and carrying babies around without becoming pretty strong.
There was a recent report on women in historic times having arm and shoulder strength equivalent at least to current elite female athletes, due to them doing most of the agricultural requirements.

Interested topic

Thought I would add this

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-5497805/If-equality-comes-cost-men-not-worth-it.html

Didge wrote:Interested topic

Thought I would add this

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-5497805/If-equality-comes-cost-men-not-worth-it.html

I wonder if men have always been the vast majority of suicides, or if that's a more recent phenomenon?

Maddog wrote:

Didge wrote:Interested topic

Thought I would add this

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-5497805/If-equality-comes-cost-men-not-worth-it.html

I wonder if men have always been the vast majority of suicides, or if that's a more recent phenomenon?  

I am not sure to be honest mate.

Would have to look into

In the past did many men get to the point of suicide, life expectancy for the ordinary man was pretty limited by lack of food and medicine, accidents and death in the wars and squabbles of their so called betters.

This is screen culture all the way. Boys spend more time with gadgets and TVs than playing outside, and it's no wonder they don't develop any strength -- it takes fitness to play baseball or soccer, to climb trees, build forts and do all the stuff we used to do.

I remember a Fort Worth sports columnist once predicting that baseball injuries were going to become far more common, and that the "power pitchers" who could hit 100 mph with their fastball were going to start dying out. He was looking at how kids were playing video games instead of playing sports, and it turns out he was right.

There's even a professional video game league now! I think the game is called Overwatch.

I think it is because boys/men are not allowed to fight anymore.
Young men have to Actively try and lower testosterone to prevent minor 'violence' that in the past would have been nothing, maybe a clip around the ears from the local cop, but Now will be before the courts facing jail time.

Under the current legal system Physical Strength is a Liability.