I don’t believe I’ve ever encountered this.

It very much is something you'll find in advice columns for women.

So how could that define manhood?

Societal expectations. If enough people think it does then it does. Doesn't mean non-men can't do it, but they might get ostracized for it, just like men are when they do certain female-coded things. Why is blue for boys and pink for girls? Why are high-heels for women only? Doesn't have to make any actual sense, it just kinda is right now, even though it wasn't always the case.

What’s your go-to trick for boosting self-perception?

Therapy.

For real, I've been doing it for two years now and it helped a lot.

It probably is about feeling useful/needed. That's what men are taught to measure their self-worth in.

As in, one way is within the story, keeping the Federation utopian (as you'd expect when you watch a Star Trek show), the other not so much. But I'm mostly talking about Picard here, don't remember too much about Discovery to be honest.

I'd say making an obvious analogy is being less in-your-face than transplanting one of today's problems onto the Federation's future society. The layer of fiction is what makes it effective IMO.

Nobody will feel called out by the ridiculously hate-filled half-black half-white aliens, but if one group was black and the other was white it would be a different story. Making them green and purple would also be less effective because people could just map those to human skin tones. That, I think, is what people would find in-your-face. Doing it the way they did on TOS (aliens of the week that literally look the same except mirrored, no clear good/bad side - it's racism, but not as we know it) puts the ridiculousness of the concept itself front and center, not how the story could be a direct translation of our current issues. And it allows the protagonists to react accordingly as well.

The black-and-white aliens aren't a subtle analogy but I think it's smarter than people give it credit for.

That episode very directly mocks the whole concept of racism in a way everybody will understand and without pointing fingers. It's ridiculous, why do they care so much which sides the colors are on, come on! Oh, wait...

That's what Star Trek does best: Examine problems we have through the lens of weird aliens. The audience can then make the connection to the real world.

Writing in the new shows doesn't really do that as much, partially because they don't really do alien of the week type episodes anymore (disclaimer: I haven't seen SNW). So my impression is that they instead more or less directly and somewhat clumsily talk about current-day issues without the extra layer, which also diminishes the positive future aspect Star Trek is supposed to show. Especially Picard felt really off for me because of that.

I was totally on board with that premise, thinking they might basically do their version of Andromeda mixed with late-season Enterprise. But then the actual plot happened.

Yeah, really. There wasn't much enlightened future stuff going on and they pointlessly killed (and then returned, but still) one of the gay guys for shock value(?). It's just so poorly written that neither that nor any of the empowerment messages landed for me.

In the case of MAGA it's more about Trump telling them it's the minorities fault.

Problem is that people are fairly easily told that their less-than-optimal situation is the fault of those people, regardless of it being true or not.

It may be more directed at them than you.

Kostet mana, tut aber sonst nichts?

Er könnte jeder von uns sein! Vielleicht du, vielleicht ich, vielleicht sogar...

Echter Konservativismus ist für mich durch bedachtes handeln geprägt, ein Gegengewicht zum Hype um neue Ideen aber keine pauschale Ablehnung. Eher ein aktuelles Debian Stable als immer noch Windows XP. Liberales handeln stelle ich mir auch anders vor als es an der FDP-Spitze gelebt wird. Beide legen ihre Ausrichtung irgendwie ständig zu Ungunsten persönlicher Rechte und Freiheiten aus.

"Generation"?

Genuine question: AFAIK the Republicans would like to use the US Military against its own people, as well as disband institutions like the FBI. What would you do if they actually went ahead with that?

Schon besser!

Jetzt lass uns doch die Freude vor den kommenden Merzjahren 🤢

Das DDR-Ampelmännchen ist mir suspekt.

EDIT: Okay, ich habe die Metapher einfach mal komplett übersehen. Soll keine Aussage zu den Parteien sein. Aber dieser Hut...