i overall agree with this comment, but i do hear
a lot about how “men’s role in society is changing”, and “why do we have so many un(der)employed men: because of the degradation of their role as exclusive breadwinner to a family” (i.e. fewer men having children, more women joining the workforce). those are external forces acting on men.
flipping both axes, there’s also the perception that women today “choose to” have fewer kids, and focus instead on self-directed fulfillment. that’s the internal framing you speak of, ignoring that the ability to have this choice meaningfully sits atop a bunch of external societal change over the last century.
so… i’m not really sure how these framings get selected for that perception you and i have in the end. is it just a tendency to “glass half-empty” it? maybe coupled with the incentives of outlets which most prominently discuss these things? i can’t say i’ve spoken much about these topics with a co-ed crowd IRL.
Generally when I see discussion around men's role in society, the way people phrase it is that the change is in how men themselves view their role in society. If I type your phrase ("men’s role in society is changing") into a search engine and pick the first result, it talks about how men define themselves. The change might be external, but the problem space and solution is framed exclusively as internal.
And yes there is a "glass half-empty" aspect to it, but the aspect I want to highlight is that problem and solutions are generally framed internal when men as a demographic is described. The suggested solution is not that society should do anything to help men, but rather than men must change themselves.
Naturally we can flip this. We can creatively frame it as an historically injustice that men was forced to work exclusive to provide for women who did not support themselves, and now men are free to choose to spend time on other things like say video games. A hostile society however looks down on this and thus physiologically harming those men who choose to do something else than perusing a carer as a breadwinner for a wife and family. The problem is with society and it is society where the change should occur.
The above is obviously an extreme way to frame it and exist only illustrate how the framing impacts the discussion. I generally do not see such explicit framing when reading scientific studies, through they often align to a degree with the cultural framing that the author inhabits. Meta studies in social science often highlight when multiple studies on the same subject have conflicting results because the framing is made in conflicting cultures.
flipping both axes, there’s also the perception that women today “choose to” have fewer kids, and focus instead on self-directed fulfillment. that’s the internal framing you speak of, ignoring that the ability to have this choice meaningfully sits atop a bunch of external societal change over the last century.
so… i’m not really sure how these framings get selected for that perception you and i have in the end. is it just a tendency to “glass half-empty” it? maybe coupled with the incentives of outlets which most prominently discuss these things? i can’t say i’ve spoken much about these topics with a co-ed crowd IRL.