Men's Discussion Forum

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Truthfully, I really don't like the idea/concept of a discussion forum catered only to a single gender.

I do understand, a little more, the need for a "woman's forum," though. There is the tendency for some within the male gender to want to put their "two cents" in when it comes to discussions on 'female issues"; whereas women tend not to be so inclined to put their "two cents" in within a male-centered forum.

I would also like to see a Men's forum.

There are a lot of topics that get brought up in various parts of WP's forums that have no real subsection of their own, or somewhere permanent that would benefit others in terms of acting as a point of reference. Here are some examples:

-Men's health (not just fitness, this could be to do with specific injury or illness, hormones, late puberty etc.)
-An information space for FTM Trans and male identifying people regarding the above and male culture, or a place to generally hang out and chat with other guys.
-A place for guys to generally hang out as "just the guys" with the occasional woman chiming in on a topic, not too dissimilar to the Women's Discussion Forum. The Men's Discussion Thread could be moved to this forum, too!
-Threads for specific genres of sport such as Soccer, Motorsports, Table Sports where latest news, clips or funnies can go.
-Men's fashions.
-The ongoing debates of guy culture and masculinity which are briefly touched upon in L&D, Social Skills and the Adult forums.

I'm sure I have missed some examples but as you can see there is a lot of scope for a forum like this to work and thrive. I think disenfranchising an entire gender on WP over another based on the grounds that it might fuel misogyny or enable bad behaviour is in itself pandering to misandry and undermining the abilities of one of the best teams of mods this place has had in many damned years. It can be moderated the same as any other place on WP.

Add to that, a lot of people turn to WP because they have nowhere else to go to seek guidance. Turning those poor souls away (even if they frustrate you) under the guise of political correctness or "fairness" ironically achieves the opposite of what is intended. There are a couple of guys who I can think of here that were on the verge of just "ending it" based on how they were treated over their misunderstanding of socially sensitive topics. But give these people time, they can learn and develop. And many have.

I say do it. Make the Men's Discussion Forum, make some clear ground rules like WDF and police it just like anywhere else. C'mon make Xmas come early!

I think if there were a men's forum, and enough topics were in it it would build a bigger picture on a guy's perspective and a lot of the hating would go away.

Some people are naturally hateful beings but a lot of hate and fear is borne of ignorance and misunderstanding. That can go away with enough review, education and attention. In other words, it might even benefit the women who don't want the men's forum for it to exist anyway.

True, I want to talk about my balls' one pimple, without women probing into the matter - where can I do that?

Don't worry, I don't think anyone wants to probe your pimple.

We've already got a men's forum. It's called L&D.

Really pleased to see a few more guys debating this.
Keep pushing.

I don't think we need one. Thanks to the fact that there's about three autistic males for every autistic female, any thread about male related issues is going to get plenty of male eyes on it.

I feel the forum is adequate due to this number of male members and the diversity of subforums to be able to cover male issues without needing a male subforum. I'd need to see a reason why a thread of a certain kind would fail to deliver the desired results under current forum conditions, but would succeed in a male focused subforum.

For the list of things in TheSpectrum's post, we have the Health and Fitness forum, we have the LGBT forum, the place for guys to hang out with the occasional woman chiming in, the forum is already heavily male populated, and any thread more likely to appeal to male interests than female should naturally become guys talking with perhaps the occasional female posting too. For sports threads gender is irrelevant to discussion. But again, sports generally appeal more to males anyway, so that coupled with the number of males to females here means you should get your mostly male sports thread naturally anyway. Men's fashion, again, I see no reason for such a thread to fail (well, apart from poor fashion sense due to autism! ). And guy culture and masculinity can be debated freely here too.

All that being said though, I have no reason to oppose the creation of such a forum. I'm just saying, I fail to see how the forum in current state impedes the ability to discuss such things. I've felt the same way reading past threads on this subject.

It's nice to see the Men's forum again.

Good idea in theory, useless in practise. Given the PC atmosphere and moderation on this site, I wouldn't be allowed to express myself anyway. I've already pushed the limit 2 times on L&D, and it would just end up the same...

example from a couple of days ago:

woman: unemployed men are losers
me: fat women are losers

result: I get a strike from the moderator....

Now, I'm not saying my comment was tasteful, but all it was, was a response to the previous one. And what I wonder is why did I get strike, while the woman didn't? Unless wrong planet hires philosophers to value the ethical content of comments, I don't know how they can with any accuracy say that my comment was worse.
The moderation on this site has a strong feminist agenda. This is why I refuse to be nice, I don't follow rules if they are not consistent.

If it's wrong to insult fat people it should be wrong to insult unemployed people.

Size-ism like ageism can be deeply offensive and those that promote it in simplistic binaries eg (me fit as Tarzan, you are a fat loser, so you are a less worthy person than me) seem unaware of the lack of nuance and egoism represented in their comments.

I'm not trying to decide what's right and wrong with the fat / unemployed posts, context matters and I'd need to see the relevant thread to do that.

But it seems to me calling the unemployed losers is worse than calling the fat losers. Your weight is entirely in your hands. Whether you have a job is not, you can take steps to improve your chances, but otherwise it's entirely in someone else's hands. Something we as autistics are especially keenly aware of. It doesn't matter if we're well suited to a job if we can't pass the interview. So we're losers for that? Most people here will be losers by that definition as most autistics are unemployed.