This is an excellent question. Thank you for raising it and for thinking through some ideas. I think you have some of the answers. But it's complicated, which I think you recognize too. I think raising the idea about media is a part of what we are dealing with. Media needs to sell advertising, and the easiest method of selling is emotional selling - primarily fear and anger. These emotions elicit a response and are addictive.

You asked what others thought.

I think the answer is quite complicated and made up of several different parts, in addition to what you have raised.. One part feeling a loss of privilege. And when those in power or have perceived power start to lose something, there is a sense that it is being taken away from them because they are used to having it. I have seen this in churches where you can actually get a toxic response when you tell old, white men "no" to what they suggest or demand. You won't get just them responding in anger, but also others who are part of the same toxic system. The status quo has a powerful pull to it and will do anything it can to protect itself - even burning down the whole thing if it feels threatened enough, rather then expanding who is in power, making decisions, etc.

I think another part is the loss of a sense of certainty. They knew what to expect before and now with growing diversity, that certainty is gone. In a sense, they are becoming like everyone else and that is a sense of loss. They are no longer special, yet they will try to hold onto that specialness. Systems haven't helped with this. This raises questions about how we can shift systems and have people understand what the new expectations and assumptions are about these new systems and how everyone fits in. Maybe that's just being idealistic, I don't know. Changes in systems are complicated.

I think another part is the loss of a sense of what it means to be a man in society. Again, roles and expectations and assumptions are all up for debate because of the nature of a changing society. That creates uncertainty and a lack of controlled order. White, cis, men have not had to do this before, so they don't know how. That's not an excuse for stopping this. It's a recognition of reality.

In all, I think so much of this points to the idea of loss. And as a society, we're really terrible at helping people mourn their losses. It doesn't matter if we are talking about the loss of a job, a relationship, the way things used to be, death of a loved one or friend, loss of home, etc. We are terrible as a society at dealing with loss. There are many stages of mourning with anger being one of those stages. In a sense anger is a natural response to loss - one of the ways we humans deal with loss.

Which raises some other questions. There are five parts to grief - denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. I've seen all of these parts with white, cis, men. Where are we seeing these different parts of grief in society? How can we help these men through the process of grief? What is not helping and how do we deal with those things that are not helping?

Getting these men through grief will be beneficial for society. Not because they are special, but because unresolved grief is toxic and destructive. There's a fine line between helping people grieve so they can adjust to the new norm and giving them extra privilege to help them avoid being uncomfortable and being changed. The death of something means that what was present is now in the past. How do we adjust?

Considering the long history of privilege for white, cis, men, they generally don't know how to grieve because it's not been a part of what they have had to do. That's not an excuse or an argument to stop the changes in society or some reason to reverse course. It's to answer your initial question - why are cis, white, men so angry? I think part of the answer is they've never had to grieve loss of their position before and so they don't know how to do it as a whole. Other groups of people have had power taken away many times through history, mostly by white, cis, men. They know how to grieve loss.

Another reason to be angry would be because of another type of loss related to this. It's the idea that if one gives up their power and position in society, they expect others to treat them the way they treated other people. I think this is another fear that many white, cis, men have. And so anger is a response - an effort to force others to comply with the status quo through any means necessary because they don't want to experience what other groups of people have experienced at the hands of white, cis, men throughout most of history.

I don't know that there is nice simple answer to all of this, because people are complicated and messy and irrational. And in a sense, we're not dealing with rationality. We're dealing with things that are at a much deeper level - identity. At the core, we are dealing with a changing identity of white, cis, men. And when people lose their identity that has been protected for ages, without something to replace it, people feel lost and angry because they think that something essential has been taken away from them - their identity.

This will take time. I wish it was easier and quicker, but nothing is easy when we are dealing with a change in identity.

That's a few thoughts to throw into the mix.