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"Why are men in general so emotionally constipated? omg stop crying like a pussy; we just asked a question!" - the patriarchy, oppressing us all
feminism is for everyone. patriarchy is both against and enforced by everyone
Time to get downvoted for having an opinion, here I go:
In my experience, women were the ones constantly telling me I should be positive, I should smile/laugh more, I should not worry or cry or stuff like that (even lovingly telling me to shush), male friends were MUCH more accepting when it came to my emotional problems (both were equally useless tho).
BUT I don't blame women nor the patriarchy, I blame toxic positivity, as most of us weren't taught how to deal with emotions and came from toxic/broken homes so forcing a positive take on everything and shunning anything that could weaken that bubble was (and still is) the norm and that is genderless, assholery is a human thing, not a male vs female thing.I have a very different friend group. Yeah people still like to project success and their kids whatever at the moment. But even that's only my local friends. Many of us love to talk shit about the state of the country/world and try to take care of each other through mental and emotional issues.
It's funny, I generally prefer to talk to a woman professionally, but I'd rather talk to a man friend about specific emotional problems. Of course I'm lucky to have a wife I would talk about most of these things with, but not everyone has a good partner.
Genuine question, how would you wish a good friend/partner would react?
Not the person you replied to, but just listening and allowing the person to express themselves and feel heard goes a long way. Getting it all out to someone and not being bottled up inside your own head can be a huge relief, even if the problem itself remains the same.
The instinctual reaction is to want to offer fixes. However, whatever the hearer thought of in five seconds, the sufferer probably also already thought of, and spent days/months/years attempting to make it work and it just didn't, and now the listening session gets diverted into kind of an argument where the suffered has to justify they have already put in sufficient effort to the fix the listener is pushing that it's not worth continuing on that road.
You'll have to be more specific with your question because... if I'm pointing out a toxic positivity attitude and you tell me you don't know what a more desirable reaction would be, it concerns me... a lot.
OK, be concerned. Now, please tell me how to be better. I am the first to admit that I suck at inter-personal things.
Let's say you are hanging out with a good friend, it is late in the evening, and they tell you about some fucked up shit happening to them.
"That sucks, man hang in there," doesn't quite cut it, as someone else pointed out, no solution you can up with in five minutes is going to help them, and just awkward silence is awkward to both of you.
What do you do?
I do nothing.
I just sit there and listen to them, curse with them and let them blow as much steam as they need, you'd be surprised but most of the time people already know what to do, all they need is to be allowed to embrace whatever they are feeling at the time, to be heard and some empathy.
If you are afraid of an awkward silence then don't be, sometimes just sitting in silence with someone can go a long way. Sometimes just little questions about it can help them open and show that you care.Not everyone wants help, not everything has a fix, not everything has to be fixed on the spot, forcing someone will only make them double-down or close themselves and that can get worse because they'll stop looking for help.
Obviously... this is in general what I used to do, everyone is different so each person requires a different approach,
When i was a kid it was the opposite... but in my adult years it's been overwhelmingly women that tried to enforce masculinity on me any time I stepped out of the bounds of masculinity and did something feminine (wear feminine clothes, cry, make a comment getting hit on by men to name a few). I was a closeted trans woman in denial which made it extra annoying whenever it happened. Now that I'm out the women in my life have been extremely supportive so there is that. However whenever I go out in full femme with outfit and make-up I noticed it's women who stare at me, had one lady look me up and down three times pretty deliberately while standing 4ft away from me. I don't always see it as malicious (not that i would care), more like they're curious or maybe even liking fit. But it's an interesting contrast compared to men who seem to give me almost no mind or attention by comparison. It was something I didn't expect.
My wife makes way more than me, with the potential to be sole provider in less than 5 years. I told her id love to stay home and take care of the house/kids. She got offended, and said itd probably end our marriage because that wouldnt be masculine.
Shes always been a big proponent for gender equality... i guess she always only ever thought of one gender
Take precautions. Seriously. Economic abuse is just as if not even more common than physical abuse. And you already know she's got emotional abuse locked and loaded.
Man your wife is fucked up. I'd love to give the husband an ejection seat for the rat race
lolwut y she so going so 1950s on you
Taking care of the kids is a masculine thing to do! 💪
Funny how that works, right? Both my mom and my ex, super feminists, all down with the gays and progressive but were some of the worst people when it came to enforcing my masculinity. My mom is coming around now after putting my foot down pretty sternly more than a few times. But when I was closeted that shit was really fucking hurtful and kept me from expressing myself.
Start wearing a frilly pink apron around the house. Gotta have some fun while you can
But also yeah, good luck with the divorce 😶🌫️
Yes, and many women are strict enforcers of the patriarchy, too. Boys are raised to deny their feelings by both parents, because both parents were raised that way, too. There’s a focus on hyper masculinity that hurts both men and women, and is perpetuated by both men and women. Society has been leaning away from that, but it’s caused a backlash that’s kinda hurting us right now. And some social media is amplifying it.
We’ll get past it, but it’s going to hurt for a while.
Eh, this is all stuff that was written up in the 70s and 80s, it's gonna take a while before anyone even attempts to do anything about it.
Yes, it was written up back then. Which is a large reason why many more GenZers were raised without those toxic values, because their GenX parents actually read that shit.
So this upcoming generation are being called woke pussies for being raised with empathy and against the historical gender norms, and that’s causing the normal pendulum of conservative panic to swing society in the other direction right now.
If you’ve watched history happen and really read about it critically, this is all very predictable.
You or @[email protected] in somewhere like the SF Bay Area, California?
Curious cuz this ain’t cool and I dare say my circles ‘round these decently progressive parts would concur
Wait you know people here who have genuine opinions they share and aren't just being performative?
I think the ideology you think of when you say it's for everyone, is egalitarianism. Feminism can't be for everyone in the same way that patriarchy can't mean "womens oppression of men".
Unless of course, you're looking to confuse with the terminology.
Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social equality of the sexes.
Tell me where in feminism are men's issues dealt with? They aren't, because feminism is about acheiving equality of the sexes for women. It is about advancing women and there's nothing wrong with that.
Feminism doesn't address men's issues. It never has and never will because that's not the purpose of the movement.
Beating people over the head with this out of context "social equality of the sexes" is only going to drive men to declare they aren't feminists because feminism does not and never will address mens issues.
If you feel that claim is unwarranted please point out a single men's issue that has been addressed by feminism because the Wikipedia article certainly doesn't include any examples.
The word literally derives from feminine
feminine adjective (WOMEN) Showing qualities that people generally think are typical of women
There is an opposite term to feminism, masculinism, which then leads to the idea that it can't be completely equal. But i assume people will keep using the term to mean "equal rights for all", since thats usually how it goes with languages.
I just worry that the implication is changing so that women = equality and men = inequality. That train of thought is mainly what drives younger men to go off the wall with their chauvinistic tendencies.
But that is not how it ends up working. There are very little places to talk about men's issues. It either turns in some incel shit or reddits menslib.
It's ironically self-unaware victim-blaming to use the male-based word "patriarchy" to describe a set of societal norms and expectations that both sexes are equally responsible for creating and perpetuating. Puts the blame entirely on men and takes women completely off the hook.
Pure sexism.
I say the same about calling the movement feminism
If men are equally welcome in it, it's not feminism anymore, it's egalitarianism, but every woman I've ever seen it suggested to flips their shit while every man I've seen it suggested to goes "yeah that makes sense"
This has nothing to do with men being in position of power, this has everything to do with people having no empathy. If we lived in a matriarchy and people acted the same way they would still be assholes.
Patriarchy says that men can't be "soft" because that's a womanly trait, and women are inferior.
So they where practicing the first part. Do we have a word for that?
No, patriarchy is men having power, it doesn't define what they can or can't do otherwise.
By patriarchy, I mean it in the context of feminism, as in the ideology that attempts to rationalize the idea of that men are better than woman, by using things such as religion, bioessentialism, and more. There are many definitions.
So toxic masculinity, not patriarchy.
Toxic masculinity is an effect of the patriarchy. These are the toxic traits that eminate from masculinity as defined by the patriarchy.
But hey at this point we're arguing about semantics. There are traits that men and women are taught as being bad to do as men, even though some of those traits are actually necessary, or just part of someone's personality.
Are people this shitty to women when they express sadness?
Yes
Stop using "the patriarchy" as an excuse for vile behaviour. Yes, it exists, but it's made up of a large group of people behaving badly, and one way to break it is to address the individuals one at a time.
Stawp ghashlighting meh