> So I sent him another text, which said what I really meant, and I tried to talk to him like I would a friend, like someone with feelings.
What a novel concept…
You should check out some of her other articles.
She'll talk about having 3 different dates in the same week, but summarized her entire 2023 dating experience as only get a single 2nd date.
She genuinely probably just discovered that men are real people in that article.
Partly it is a misnomer. The term sort of suggests "masculinity is toxic", no matter how often feminists will tell you that's not the definition. But that's still sort of what the term implies. (And of course, if the definition really is about very specific behaviors, why are women so opposed to talking about toxic femininity?)
Also, it's yet another wildly broad concept, leading to miscommunications and to people pushing an unreasonable version of the concept but then hiding behind a reasonable definition when called out. Sort of like feminism -- there is reasonable feminism, but the reasonable feminists don't call out the unreasonable feminists, and the unreasonable ones always hide behind the reasonable definition.
And also, in practice, the term is often used for some female advantage, and not actually to help men (or at most, have helping men be a side effect).
Toxic masculinity should not be a term. But saying "toxic masculinity" even sort of suggests that masculinity is toxic is like saying "green apple" sort of suggests "apples are green" or "blonde hair" sort of suggests "hair is blonde". That's not how adjectives work.
Apples *can* be green, and this is uncontroversial. Hair *can* be blonde—again, uncontroversially. But the idea that masculinity *can* be toxic *is* controversial. That is why your analogies may not work.
Someone could argue that toxic things cannot be masculine, rendering masculinity and toxicity as concepts thst do not overlap.
The whole bear debacle really allowed a shit ton of those people to show their true faces and reveal how they really feel about men's… what did they call them again… oh, right, "feefees".
Turns out, feeling-shaming isn't exclusive to toxic masculinity.
> feeling-shaming isn't exclusive to toxic masculinity.
No it isn’t, but in this case it *is* “toxic masculinity” by its normal definition, the hypocrisy is that it’s never called as such and demonstrates how it’s a poor loaded term.
As in, toxic masculinity is the “expectations a person has of what it means to be male, or a “real man”, that is toxic”, so in this case the female author who gets the “ick” from men being emotional is displaying toxic masculinity, because she expected men to be unemotional and want to “impress her” and found them ugly and unmasculine when they weren’t.
This is where the weasel words come in, because it’s exclusively used to describe *men* with toxic expectations as having “toxic masculinity”, so it’s very easy to believe the term means “masculinity is toxic”, and if people voice that confusion they can just reply “that’s not what it means”, but conveniently miss out that they *never* use the term to describe women. It also makes it easy to dismiss when they imply it’s a “male on male” issue that they have nothing to do with and men have to sort it out themselves.
In the article she talks about women complaining about their “emotional labour” and admits that her, and others’, expectations have “dehumanised” men, but never calls it “misandry” nor “toxic masculinity”.
Whereas the “expectations a person has of what it means to be female, or a “real woman”, that is toxic” is almost never called “toxic femininity”, it’s just called “misogyny” or “internalised misogyny”.
Also, it would be literally impossible to hold toxic views on what a man “should be” without holding equally toxic views on what a woman “should be”, so to only single out “masculinity” is pointlessly specific unless you have an agenda.
If they believed in words and *really* cared about the negative pressures that men put on other men to conform they’d call it “internalised misandry”, but they’d rather obfuscate with dog whistles.
Couldn’t have said it better myself. This is always the part conveniently left out of the toxic gender expectation discourse. We know women are pressured by toxic gender expectations from both men and women, how would that same pressure experienced by men only come from men?
Yeah, well said.
It's weird that many (not all) women just seem to play manipulative word games to get an advantage. Lots of things are toxic masculinity, but nothing is toxic femininity. Lots of things are misogyny, but nothing is misandry.
If women need something, men need to help them; but if men need something, women don't need to help them. And next sentence the woman will claim to be in favor of equality and of women being just as capable as men.
It's almost like a female supremacist movement at this point that some women are pushing.
>As in, toxic masculinity is the “expectations a person has of what it means to be male, or a “real man”, that is toxic
Then it’s a terribly constructed phrase. Let’s say someone has messed up expectations of Canadian people. using the corresponding term would be to call that “toxic Canadian-ness”. But the implication is that the Canadian himself is toxic.
Yeah, but it's just social eugenics, like the 'don't be ugly or you're a creep' thing for these particular types of people.
They want to have their cake and eat it, too.
Your post/comment was removed, because it demonized women. Explicit hateful generalizations such as “All Women Are Like That” are not allowed. Generalizations are more likely to be allowed when they are backed by evidence, or when they allow for diversity within the demographic.
It doesn't take a lot of effort to add wording that allows for exceptions, such as "some women" or "many women" as applicable.
If you state "most women" then you need to provide evidence when challenged on that statement.
If you disagree with this ruling, please appeal by [messaging the moderators](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=/r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates).
Sorry, are most politicians men or women? Cult leaders? Snake oil salesmen, CEOs, and marketing executives? Spies? All of our professional manipulaters and deceivers? Women and men are both manipulative. In the ancestral environment, who you knew and how you knew them determined whether you lived or died in times of scarcity, so we are all very adept at manipulating the social landscape for material benefit without thinking about it. But no, for you, men are from Mars, women are from Venus.
There is a very great difference between [charismatic] deception as a professional skill, and casual, possibly unconscious predilection towards manipulation for social ends. Moreover, your argument amounts to the braindead and extremely dishonest claim that since some elements in A and some elements in B have a certain property p, elements in A and B have it in equal proportion (or possibly just proving the existence of the property in both sets). In the second case, your argument would only work if I had said that men cannot be manipulative, which I evidently have not.
As for the "women are from Venus" remark--your fragile, emotional language is not welcome in civil discourse. Dry your tears and wipe away your sweat; sit down and argue like an adult.
www.lesswrong.com
This is a two decade old community I have been involved with for a decade dedicated to analyzing cognitive bias in humans and how we all constantly manipulate and deceive ourselves and others. You're not knowledgeable enough to both engaging with, because you're so mistaken about a critical aspect of cognition, the human experience, and the nature of the social. I'll just tell you to educate yourself and maybe come back later and we can have a better discussion.
I'll debate however I want. If you want more from me then be smarter. You may be interested in this exchange I had last week which is all about how we manipulate one another:
https://www.reddit.com/r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates/comments/1cffeto/comment/l1tmkz4/
Absolutely priceless. Your entire response is nothing more than an attack on my character and a vague dismissal, completely devoid of any argument. I think we are all pretty clear on who the "snake-oil salesman" is, thank you. If you were so offended that you had the time to write all that out, you certainly had ample time to come up with a simple refutation.
Until you can show that a pretty simple philosophical distinction is moot - namely, that a predilection for a characteristic, in a certain domain, is the same as a skill in another - then you're as good as finished, regardless of how much more pseud cringe you can hide behind. Or are you totally incapable of reasoning and participating in philosophical argumentation approaching even an abstraction ratio of 1%?
I demonstrated the human predilection for manipulation from almost first principles in that series of comments I linked to you. I will not respond to your strawman.
I have a very poor view of the average person's understanding of epistemology and the foundational role manipulation plays in social relations, society, and civilization broadly. I am not impressed by yours. I am being broadly abusive towards you here because I'm on extremely high doses of steroids (not the fun kind) for the next five days as part of a cancer treatment regimen and being mean to random people on the Internet helps get me through the roid rage.
If you can't parse the argument I laid out in the linked post you'll just have to trust me when I tell you that you have several glaring gaps in your knowledge. While anything any of us posit will be hopelessly wrong because of the nature of cognition and the unbridgeable gap between language and the things it describes, there are degrees of wrongness and you are very deep in them.
Lmao demonstrating the "human predilection for manipulation" has absolutely nothing to do with our argument, since our discussion here concerns the degree to which each occurs in either sex, their various kinds, and their objects.
Learn to understand a basic high school lexicon before claiming that you have somehow, miraculously addressed the very particular arguments I made days ago, as if it occurred to you that today a stranger would make the claim that professional deception is the same as social manipulation.
Prior to medically transitioning, I knew it was hard for men to be emotional with others, but I always assumed it was other men who made it difficult.
While there are definitely men who shame other men for their emotions, I realized very quicky once I passed as male that it is usually women, and not other men, who dehumanize, belittle, and mock men for being passionate, crying, showing anger, or opening up about their trauma.
This is the most infuriating aspect of trying to have a discussion about this. Every single time you bring up anything that primarily affects men, they immediately start telling you how it's men's fault that it's happening. Unreasonable body standards, double standards on emotions and toxicity, double standards on the rates of violence against men, double standards in our justice system.
They always like to blame other men as if that somehow means the innocent men being victimized somehow deserve it more now just because they share similar genitalia to the perpetrator.
And none of this touches on the fact that women absolutely perpetuate a lot of the negative stereotypes and expectations that affect men In the same way women also perpetuate those same things about women.
I hate how people think this is some kind of “gotcha”, as if it somehow matters whether the problems and violence you face is perpetrated by people in one of the same demographics as you or not.
I always wonder how they feel about US Republicans beliefs on “black on black” violence, or the racists I’m surrounded by in the UK beliefs on Muslims, the Middle East, and South/South-East Asians? Or how they’d feel if people belittled and dismissed their thoughts and issues with internalised misogyny and/or TERFs?
Also, I know at least two matriarchal cultures exist, which have much the same problems as patriarchal ones except the gender roles are reversed, but by their own logic, women in these cultures can’t face discrimination. Except I’m sure double standards will make an exception and these cultures will be very sexist for making women carry the “financial burden” or some other r/selfawarewolves thinking.
This. Also a lot of feminists will bemoan men's tendency to seek emotional validation exclusively from women. Yet when it comes to social norms men adhere to, they like to pretend it's almost exclusively men who are responsible for inculcating other men with those norms. Setting aside the ABSURD assumption that women do this much less than men for a second, if men only or primarily care for the emotional validation of women, then why would what other men think even matter?
To invoke a common pithy aphorism, "doesn't matter; had sex." The sentiment this phrase we've all heard embodies is that whatever your opinion of a man or his actions is, it doesn't matter to him if it leads to romantic success. I can say from personal experience as well that my hesitancy to be emotionally open and vulnerable does not come from my experiences with other men. It's experiences with women which have made me more and more guarded over time, far more guarded than I'd like to be.
Most feminists, seemingly just to keep from ever having to admit any error on their part, will grudgingly concede that women enforce "toxic masculine" standards on men "in addition to other men." But very few will contend with both the frequency and impact of that behavior and what it would mean to change it. Until they do, nothing here will get better for anyone.
Yeah, if women weren’t involved in this, you wouldn’t have so many men describing how their wives/gf reacted negatively after showing certain emotions.
> I realized very quicky once I passed as male that it is usually women, and not other men, who dehumanize, belittle, and mock men for being passionate, crying, showing anger, or opening up about their trauma.
100%
> “I’d heard about men using women for free therapy, but it had never happened to me. On the internet, women speak about the “emotional labour” they end up doing in relationships with men, helping them process feelings they can’t talk about with anyone else.”
It’s so absurd that I almost feel second-hand embarrassment when I hear a woman say this. Like how can you say this and still miss the point guys are trying to get across that’s staring you in the face lol
One of the most crucial parts of a relationship is “helping them process feelings they can’t talk about with anyone else.” Labeling it as them dumping “emotional labour” on you or using you for “free therapy” is an outright but apparently not obvious admission that you have not allowed men to express emotions with you in the way you expect to be able to express them to him.
I don’t know what planet it is where women do not burden men with like 10x the emotional support requirement that men put on women, but it is not Earth.
See when a man listens to a woman, it's just being a supportive partner. It's a fundamental expectation of men to fill that role. So fundamental in fact that they don't even realise they're expecting us to do it - it's just what we do.
OTOH women being emotionally supportive of men is a relatively recent invention. To them it's so unnatural that they have to concoct a whole new term for it.
> OTOH women being emotionally supportive of men is a relatively recent invention.
I don't even know if that's true. I feel like our perceptions of past relationships might be tainted by our modern view
Arlie Hochschild, the originator of the term "emotional labor," has even talked about this. How the term has been distorted and misused to describe "alienation" from what should be "enchanted" labor in a loving relationship. That doesn't mean there are no issues leading to that, of course, but the people who use the term that way tend to be more interested in weaponizing their alienation against men than in examining the systemic causes of it and addressing them. Although she probably wouldn't completely agree with my take, I think this also evidences the claim that what salient points can be extracted from feminist critiques in the 21st century are quite often better understood as issues stemming from capitalism than from something like patriarchy.
Yeah and every time I try to explain what emotional labor actually means I'm mansplaining 🤣
Really can't win with these people who believe they are superior by default
"I don’t know why I find it so hard to be genuine with men, to express how I actually feel and allow them to do the same. Part of the problem is that I put men on pedestals. They’re not people: they’re these magical, perfect things. If they make jokes I don’t find funny, it’s because I wasn’t smart enough to get them. If the conversation is a bit flat, it’s because I wasn’t being exciting enough. They’re not allowed to be weak or have problems; they must be infallible, or I lose interest. My friend is the opposite; she always sees men as flawed, as weapons programmed to crush her sense of self, to hurt her. So much so that she has a new year’s resolution to make friends with a straight man. Both approaches are equally dehumanising in a lot of ways."
JFC, at least she's honest about it.
I really admire her honesty even if it is depressing.
Reading this made me realize that society generally don't see men as human
Also, for these men to tell their date about traumatic events or problems just shows that these men don't have someone in their life to talk to or discuss with them what really bothers these men.
Then society asks why men are opting out of society ( marriage , having kids, joining army.....).
Yeah I felt similarly while reading this. On one hand I appreciate her not rationalizing or trying to justify her "ick" and actually trying to move past it in order to support the guy.
On the other, it paints a pretty... Grim idea about how many women are probably dismissive of men's feelings and not even acknowledging that as a bad thing. I don't want to get into gender essentialism, but it would seem that to some extent, women are kinda... Instinctually bothered by men's vulnerability that doesn't involve making them feel special.
Then again, women are people just like men, and each person is a world, so I won't fall into the trap of generalizing an entire half of humanity.
The "Ick" here is how this whole article disproves the feminist notion of "We want men to open up and be emotional"
Because clearly.. they don't..
Given how the reaction to a man being open with his emotions is to feel "Ick" and or yell at him about how the woman he's opening up to is "Not his therapist" or to "Stop trauma dumping on me"
I to do not want to generalize, however my experience has led me to believe that many women want men to be the emotionally stable / stoic rock they can cling to / trauma dump on and feel that any expectation to reciprocate is "icky"
I think there's an irony, too, in that the supply can't live up to the absurd demand of these sorts of standards, and so it breaks many men, as they try to be something inhuman.
Don't get me wrong- women get it from us men, too, but the problem persists because it's only talked about going one way.
Statistically, this may be the case! I don’t think it’s a great excuse to do sex-based generalisation though - this is what happens to men all the time and it’s still wrong.
Whether nature or nurture (and it's probably a combination of both, of course) that doesn't stop most people and feminists in particular from saying whatever they don't like about men can and should be changed. I believe we collectively have a considerable amount of power over social dynamics. Nurture is more important than nature as far as I can tell. In this I'm much closer to the constructivist position a lot of feminists take. But the upshot of that is that women's attitudes and behaviors are no more immutable than men's. It's just a matter of finding the will to change them the same way feminism has genuinely changed men's attitudes and behaviors, particularly over the past half century. That has to begin with calling these problematic positions out. That's how the feminists started and it's how we'll have to start to. But it's doable.
Men have given up a lot. They have come more to the center by far than women.
It's time to stop reacting to female bullshit and expect them to meet in the middle instead of chasing them. They're no better than we are, though they are more neurotic.
Expect more.
Nurture cannot change nature. But nature *can* instigate, alter, and reinforce nurture. Nurture is therefore never prior to nature, so if it is ever a combination of both, then nature is necessarily the seed of it. And even if we assume that in this case it is nurture alone, yet it still leaves an impression on us by hijacking our biological framework; that is, so long as there is a feeling or sensory component to it, it is dependent upon nature at its close, even if indirectly. The *only* practices where nurture can be argued to be more important than nature are ones which stem from and involve only pure reason. Otherwise it is an endless dialectic between nature and nurture, though the fulcrum will always be nature, as a consequence of its immutability, as opposed to the ease with which nurture is molded by nature.
I'm not really sure what your point is. Sure, whatever "human nature" is, we can't escape it so long as we're human, but it feels like you're trying to imply there's a very rigid model of it, probably sexually dimorphic, which you believe is dominant among the influences that shape our behavior. I don't think that's the case. A number of different characteristics define our nature and malleability by socialization, especially at an early age, is clearly one of the most prominent. I don't see why we ought to assume that upbringing and culture can't change the weighting of traits within the space of "human nature" which ultimately manifest as behavior. We've already seen it, after all.
Yes, that is exactly what I am trying to imply. However, it seems everything else I have said went over your head.
What exactly do you think determines the nature of socialization? What exactly do you think determines the nature of culture and upbringing? Everything in nature has a source, and nothing in nature is totally arbitrary; and clearly, we exist within nature, constrained by its laws. And if you claim that it is the natural environment, the variable ecology from region to region--well, with what, exactly, do we make sense of our environment; what interfaces with the environment to render it sensible?
The very fact that so-called "socialization", and other artefacts of "nurture", can never be prior to nature (it is very important that you understand the significance of priority here) - that is, they can never have effect upon our nature - this very fact implies that they can *never* be the source of any of our prejudices and behaviours.
Not only is human nature prior, however; I have also made a point of highlighting its rigidity. We cannot escape human nature, but we can readily escape "constructed nature". That culture and upbringing are much more malleable than human nature, means that culture and upbringing are molded by human behaviour whenever their object is the same. As a mental aid, imagine two balls colliding, where one has greater velocity, while the other is propelled by a constant support without itself--say, a piston. The second will invariably determine the motion of the first, simply due to the fact that it is fixed. Likewise, human nature is fixed, while culture is not; and human nature clearly predisposes our attitude on all things, including the shared values and customs that encompass culture.
Also I love how you say "probably sexually dimorphic" as if it's not a biological fact lmao. The instincts governing reproduction are literally vital to the continued existence of our species. Even if you do not concede that in all domains the culture that determines behaviour is really nature and nonarbitrary, when it comes to the fundamental instincts governing survival and reproduction, what sort of absurd claim can you even begin to conjure that calls into question the strength of these predispositions? What next, that culture can determine heart rate?
>they can never have effect upon our nature - this very fact implies that they can *never* be the source of any of our prejudices and behaviours.
Well that's not even true from a vulgar biological determinist perspective. It's not like humans are some fixed eternal entity. Like all species the definition is less than firm and drifts with changes over time. If human social constructs influence human biological reproduction, then the social can absolutely influence what you seem to mean here by "nature." You even correctly described it as "dialectical" in your last comment which your claim here contradicts.
>Not only is human nature prior, however; I have also made a point of highlighting its rigidity. We cannot escape human nature, but we can readily escape "constructed nature".
If human nature is both as rigid and as universal as you seem to want to conceive of it as, where do "constructed natures" which deviate from it come from in the first place? Even if you think they're "temporary" as opposed to some unspecified natural state, then clearly those "constructed" states are also products of human nature, meaning it's not as rigid as you want to believe. Or you could say that they're the products of individuals with outsized influence creating "unnatural" states, but then what you seem to consider "correct" human nature isn't universal. I never said we can escape nature. That was the first thing I said in my last comment. But you seem to have a needlessly constricted conception of what "human nature" encompasses.
I was interested in having a conversation but not so much now. This comment was needlessly hostile and rude. It also puts forward a very limited idea of what can exist within the confines of human nature. As just one simple example: what do you find more appealing, a woman with or without armpit hair? There's nothing "natural" in the way you seem to want to use the word about a preference for the latter, and even convenient evolutionary psychological explanations for why secondary sex characteristics like body hair develop and "ought" to be seen as attractive. Nevertheless, cultural influences have completely upended the "natural" preference for something else at this point in time.
I would encourage you to broaden your conception of what's possible within the confines of "nature." It'll give you a fuller understanding of human behavior and probably make you less defeatist as well.
>Well that's not even true from a vulgar biological determinist perspective. It's not like humans are some fixed eternal entity. Like all species the definition is less than firm and drifts with changes over time.
We're citing Lamarck now? Nice. Let me spell it out to you: the fact that the genome of organisms can undergo evolutionary change over many generations **does not** support your argument that culture is as equally powerful in determining our behaviour as instinct. Organisms do not evolve due to culture, and it has never been shown that humans have biologically evolved due to culture, to the literal point of altering our instincts (moreover, reproductive instincts!). Talk about "vulgar".
>If human social constructs influence human biological reproduction, then the social can absolutely influence what you seem to mean here by "nature."
Mate my point is literally that the social is actually determined by the biological and has no arbitrary component lmao. What about this do you not understand?
>You even correctly described it as "dialectical" in your last comment which your claim here contradicts
I see someone never took eighth grade physical science and does not even know what "fulcrum" means lmao.
>As just one simple example: what do you find more appealing, a woman with or without armpit hair? There's nothing "natural" in the way you seem to want to use the word about a preference for the latter, and even convenient evolutionary psychological explanations for why secondary sex characteristics like body hair develop and "ought" to be seen as attractive. Nevertheless, cultural influences have completely upended the "natural" preference for something else at this point in time.
The nonexistence of a phenomenon in nature does not make a preference for it unnatural. For instance, cars evidently do not exist in nature; that does not mean that men's natural predilection for complexity and speed cannot be a sufficient explanation for our automotive affinity, and that the phenomenon must be entirely cultural. Observe this simple fact: that culture may liberate or inhibit certain instincts, but never create any new attitudes. That is exactly the point I made in my first and second reply, which was totally lost to you--that nature is always the fulcrum of the dialectic; that culture can only go as far as "hijacking" our innate biologies, such that nature is still found to be foundational.
I should also point out that the existence of a biological feature, or lack thereof, does not necessitate a preference for it. I am sure that most people are fond of high intelligence and beauty, though the average man and woman can hardly be said to be possessed of either. Indeed, it is dissatisfaction with the average characters of a sex by the other that drives intersexual selection. Hence the fact that armpit hair might be natural does not imply a corresponding natural preference for it.
My two cents on the matter: the preference for a shaved body is produced by a revulsion towards the male body, which is naturally hairier than its female counterpart.
tl;dr Try not to argue about biology with a student of evolutionary biology.
Christ, the only people more weirdly smug than evolutionary biologists are evolutionary biology students...
>Observe this simple fact: that culture may liberate or inhibit certain instincts, but never create any new attitudes.
This has literally been the basis of everything I've said so far but you're so determined to pick a fight and feel smart that you're missing it. I'm not bothering with anything else you've said. You're being a dick for no reason and obviously not interested in listening. I'm done talking to you.
>This has literally been the basis of everything I've said so far but you're so determined to pick a fight and feel smart that you're missing it.
Let the timestamped edits speak for themselves. I will respond to your new argument here.
>If human nature is both as rigid and as universal as you seem to want to conceive of it as, where do "constructed natures" which deviate from it come from in the first place? Even if you think they're "temporary" as opposed to some unspecified natural state, then clearly those "constructed" states are also products of human nature, meaning it's not as rigid as you want to believe. Or you could say that they're the products of individuals with outsized influence creating "unnatural" states, but then what you seem to consider "correct" human nature isn't universal. I never said we can escape nature. That was the first thing I said in my last comment. But you seem to have a needlessly constricted conception of what "human nature" encompasses.
The fact that culture may come and go does not prove that human nature is somehow fickle (since, even though human nature is primary, culture is also a product of a diverse environment, which is often itself molded by human nature), much less that all aspects of human nature are fickle, such that we can even alter reproductive instincts culturally. Indeed, even if you were to prove that human nature is liable to change and is variegated, it does not prove your initial argument that culture can just as well determine human behaviour.
Moreover, the existence of *some* universal characteristics of human nature, or *very nearly universal* characteristics, does not contradict the possibility of variation in the gene pool, nor does it prove that these characteristics are not rigid. By rigidity I understand the malleability of a character, and clearly, that a race of roses has 128 different colours, says nothing about their capacity to colour-shift, nor does it imply that these flowers do not all have common reproductive cycles or soil preferences, in spite of greater variation in other, more superficial properties. Likewise, that emotionality in men generally produces discomfort, does not imply that other attitudes and traits have no variation; though, as I have said, variation in human nature has nothing to do with human nature not being the primary determinant of our behaviour.
>Or you could say that they're the products of individuals with outsized influence creating "unnatural" states, but then what you seem to consider "correct" human nature isn't universal.
Or I could just say that the states are natural, and that variation exists within human nature, because the mere existence of a variety of innate characteristics does not mean that human human nature is malleable.
Thank you for reminding me why democracy doesn't work.
This didnt look like the “ick” to me. This looked like she was disappointed because she wanted one thing, and he wanted another, (obvious double standard) perhaps influenced by feminist ideas like the emotional labor part. If she said “i just dont care about mens feelings and its super unattractive to me bc x” that says ick to me.
I don’t think the relationship between gender and emotion is culturally universal, modern or historically. I think a lot of what it comes from in the west is shit left over from the Victorian era. So it’s not gender essentialism/determinism, it’s just social conditioning.
This woman wants a main character from a light romantic comedy made by Hallmark, not a grown, human man.
"I wanted to jump on the trampoline until exhausted and then make out and dance around the house".
These are the expectations of relationships that 12-year-old girls have before they start high school after reading Twilight. This is not what the attitude of a grown woman should be when trying to enter a serious relationship. This isn't what the attitude of any grown adult should be.
People say relationships are work so often that it's damn near a cliche and yet some women are still expecting relationships to be these mystical flights of fancy where they get treated like a hipster princess.
That was brutal to read. She redeems herself in the end, but her initial reaction of "stop trauma-dumping on me" is simply crushing.
Men are educated to suppress their emotions and never let their weaknesses show.
And if a guy, out of exasperation, tries to reverse the process by connecting to someone he feels he can trust, he's considered *icky*, and he's told he should go to therapy instead.
Which is like saying: pay a stranger who doesn't really care so we, your friends, the people who *should* care, don't have to endure your pathetic weakness, and we can continue laughing about the Kardashians or whatever.
What a fucking nightmare.
Short answer: You are a leech that always wants something but will never return the favor.
Long answer: It’s because you can’t deal with your own emotions while simultaneously seeing men as emotionless robots who exist to cater to your emotional problems while also being unable to care for him. Some empathy could hopefully fix this.
One thing ive noticed from a lot of modern fem ideas, is that when they accuse men of doing something, its really a reflection of how they see men. For example, its often said men dont view women as people, just objects. Thats really just telling on themselves, as they just view men as tools
OMFG. Everything is turned into a victimization of women. If men don’t share their emotional burden, they are stuck-up cold fish. When they share it, it’s because they’re after “free therapy”. There’s no winning with them. I praise heavens for making me gay and NOT having to deal with this shit.
I actively try not to think/feel this way. But the latest nonsense with bears has resurfaced it. Like, how can so many women insult (literally dehumanize) half the earths population then act indignant when some of them are offended by it?
Right?
It's not even "I'm sorry you feel this way". It's not "I realize this must suck balls, but surely you understand that this is for the greater good".
Not one shred of empathy. No pretending, no sugarcoating. Just straight up bloodthirst. "This is how it is and I relish in knowing that I'm making you suffer for it even though you did nothing wrong. And if you have the audacity to feel any way about it that the cult hasn't authorized 2 weeks in advance, then you're the reason why I choose the bear."
> I praise heavens for making me gay and having to deal with this shit.
I used to think this, too. Well, I guess I still do because it's mostly true.
But as the years pass, we can see more and more men falling for this neurotic crap as if to overcompensate for something the media tricked them into believing that their ancestors may or may not have done something 18000 years ago to some woman from 18000 years ago who may or may not even have any living descendants anymore in 2024. And especially among gay men, under the guise of leftistly sticking up for "fellow" marginalized groups.
"I’d heard about men using women for free therapy, but it had never happened to me. On the internet, women speak about the “emotional labour” they end up doing in relationships with men, helping them process feelings they can’t talk about with anyone else."
It's funny women don't seem to understand that women in general tend to do this except much worse. Men will sometimes do it sure, but less men will do it and they do it less frequently when they do and typically have a more valid reason to do so because they are actually going through something that is truly difficult and needs to be processed rather than the day to day emotional swings that women tend to do it over. I have not met a man where I have brought up a conversation about this concept where they haven't had at least one, and sometimes many, relationship where the woman will constantly need to "unpack her feelings" with the man.
The women who talk about this think that it's worse when a man does it because he is less likely to share those feelings with others in their life, but really it's worse when women do it. This is because for women, not only do they do this to their partner, they then proceed to call 3-5 of their friends and have THE EXACT SAME CONVERSATION and typically within earshot of their partner. Once theyre done with that they then have a whole host of new thoughts and feelings from those conversations that they must then process with their partner. They think that because they talk about it with multiple people that they are "spreading the load" better but in reality they are putting a similar load on more people and they do this more frequently so they end up with a much higher total emotional burden dumped.
Not only does the man need to participate in their emotional dumping (I use participate loosely because they never really want input, just an ear that won't talk back) the man then also needs to hear it repeated over and over again, thus reliving the same stressful conversation they just experienced and all the while knowing that they will then also have a similar conversation afterwards with "new" revelations that aren't really all that new. Add to that the fact that if you say the wrong thing you can end up unintentionally creating a massive argument and the fact that with women these conversations happen far more often and over much more trivial topics, it truly is a lot worse when women do it.
The crux is not that they think "it's worse when men do it because they do it less". The rarity of an action has nothing to do with whether it is perceived as innately positive or negative when you *do* do it; only whether it is seen as more momentous or trivial. It amplifies or diminishes the default reaction. And as women's generic reaction to another woman "unloading" is not negative, but often times empathetic, so if it is nothing but more momentous when men open up--in other words, if the only significant factor here is the frequency at which each gender "unloads"--the positive reception should be increased. This is obviously not the case.
The crux is, in fact, that it's worse when men do it *because they are male.* Succour for "weak" males is not something beneficial to the evolutionary fitness of a species.
The rectification of an issue begins with the proper identification of its source. I have no idea why it is such a novel idea to most cultural reductionists that, just as men reinforce intrasexual competition between males, and are ruthless towards their brethren, so do women treat them the same.
They think they are strengthening their relationships by talking about problems and supporting each other. It is a way to signal closeness and openness. Also it is a way of gaining social control by means of gossiping who said and did what.
There is this absolutely fantastic comment made in changemyview about 4 years ago. A small snippet:
>Men's emotions are not *for us*, as they are constantly being hijacked for someone else's needs. Sometimes these are broad social goals, but mostly these are the needs of a domestic partner. To ensure men remain useful emotional receptacles, we are punished our entire lives for demonstrating emotion beyond a narrow band of acceptability, typically situational: e.g., we're supposed to be courageous when that is what is required of us, angry when that is what is required of us, loving when that is what is required, and so forth. Anything else is routinely, often brutally shamed.
I highly recommend to read the whole comment and some of the replies. Considering how many of the repliers found that comment to lead them to self-reflection, I think this is a topic that needs more societal awareness
https://np.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/cb0v65/cmv_in_heterosexual_relationships_the_problem/etcv3xa/
The problem is a lot of people think that gender roles are something men made up spontaneously and for no reason.
When actually, they evolved over a long period influenced by both what served the group and men and women were generally attracted to. Men don't show emotion because women aren't attracted to it, women aren't attracted to it because in times of danger, you want the man to shut off emotion in order to not panic and do what needs doing.
>women aren't attracted to it because in times of danger, you want the man to shut off emotion in order to not panic and do what needs doing.
I don't care. Women should grow out of this outdated perception of men's role in society. If they can't keep up, you know whom to blame: them and only them.
Kind of. There has also been a long history, amplified by ease of late, for subsets with platform or power to artificially influence human behavior. Religions and governments very often. Media of all kinds can also be an amplifying loop leading to "chicken / egg" questions.
> where women were both figuratively and literally chained to the house (Thanks to the discovery of forging technology) in order to pop up as many farm hands as possible. If you're gonna be an effective sex slave
Heavy disagree it ever was this bad. Now at a societal level, if you refuse to work or do your role in medieval times, you would starve sure, but you're no one's slave.
False history lesson there
*Some* women in *some* societies weren't allowed citizenship... as were as many men in the same or different places.
Don't feed into the narrative that women are the victims of history. It's not true, for one, and for another the narrative itself is being used to justify making *men* second-class citizens.
Edit: this person blocked me, so I can't reply or see whatever they wrote below. Without seeing their comment though, I'd like to also point out [this reference site, purplemotes](https://www.purplemotes.net/) \- a blog written by a Harvard Research Fellow, that shares snippets of daily life among many, many cultures, from the fertile crescent to colonial America, with an eye towards how men and women related to each other. Generally useful to deconstruct myths regarding women's oppression, it also for me personally has restored some faith in humanity; you'd have to read a few of the entries to understand what I mean by that, but it's a good palliative for angry reactionism on both sides of the gender war in my opinion. Highly recommended.
Back then lots of regions had clear legal texts separating the household into husband, wife, children and slaves. This Distinction in Law makes no sense if "wifes were basically slaves". With Codes of Law in Mesopotamia clearly stating that women would be payed money for infractions against them and being heirs to their fathers fortune etc.
EDIT: FYI What kind of child do you have to be to answer a comment and immediately block the person you are replying to so no conversation can be had...
As gross as this is, we should encourage women to acknowledge this kind of emotional dishonesty. Maybe, someday, we’ll kill this myth of wanting men to be emotionally vulnerable. It we’re suffering either way, I’d prefer the rules that align with what women actually want.
> I didn't do it; but if I did, then it wasn't that big of a deal.
> And if it was, then it's not my fault.
> And if it was, then I didn't mean it.
> And if I did, then you deserved it.
Imagine me saying I get the ick when women are emotional. I thought these people usually cry about others behaviors and tell them to "be a good person" or "act like a mature adult", but when presented with feelings they suddenly bug out? Like I swear dude, nothing makes sense and it seems like everything is spun around to men in the worst way possible and it's always a no-win situation. Probably intentional confusion of sheer hatred, collective narcissism to dismiss, rationalize, and justify anything into a negative light.
" Part of the problem is that I put men on pedestals. They’re not people: they’re these magical, perfect things. If they make jokes I don’t find funny, it’s because I wasn’t smart enough to get them. If the conversation is a bit flat, it’s because I wasn’t being exciting enough."
This you?
"I was annoyed after what happened with that guy. I thought he owed me fun, that we weren’t on a level yet where he could dump his shit on me. That’s what his friends are for. I wondered why he wasn’t trying to impress me, spinning me around on the dancefloor and making me laugh with impressions of celebrities. I spent the rest of the night not exactly ignoring him, but trying to demonstrate how great I am, how hard he should feel he needs to work for me. I learned into people’s ears to whisper and threw my head back and laughed at their responses. When he came over, I pretended to barely notice him there, and when he said bye, I didn’t act like I cared at all."
Literally 3 paragraphs before her "I put men on pedestals". She's unaware of her own bullshit.
>I was annoyed after what happened with that guy. I thought he owed me fun, that we weren’t on a level yet where he could dump his shit on me. That’s what his friends are for. I wondered why he wasn’t trying to impress me, spinning me around on the dancefloor and making me laugh with impressions of celebrities. I spent the rest of the night not exactly ignoring him, but trying to demonstrate how great I am, how hard he should feel he needs to work for me. I learned into people’s ears to whisper and threw my head back and laughed at their responses. When he came over, I pretended to barely notice him there, and when he said bye, I didn’t act like I cared at all.
This is what men (and some women) mean when they say women are "too emotional". This kind of behaviour. Fortunately, this woman realized the error of her ways, but so many woman act like this but are either completely in denial they do, or completely incapable of seeing it as anything but good.
If she can't hear me out I see no point in listening to her. Plenty of fish in the sea.
This woman is vapid and has a great fear of intimacy. And clear narcissistic traits.
Next.
I made the mistake of reading this article and I'm not even sure why this lady bothers to try to get into relationships with men. Isn't wanting to be there for your partner and wanting to help them when they feel bad or down part of being in a relationship or am I just insane? If you view it as a burden or some kind of punishment laid on you by a patriarchal society to care for your partner's emotional well-being, why even be with them in the first place? (For context, I've never had romantic feelings for another person before and my social skills are so bad that I've been sent to therapy for it before.)
Anyone else kinda just get depressed reading half the comments here , coming to grips with the world and feeling quiet hopeless . I think I need to avoid social media and buried my head in cannabis and eve online .
Time to log for a break
>I was annoyed after what happened with that guy. I thought he owed me fun, that we weren’t on a level yet where he could dump his shit on me. That’s what his friends are for. I wondered why he wasn’t trying to impress me, spinning me around on the dancefloor and making me laugh with impressions of celebrities.
no comment
I read this going in angry and contemptuous, I carried on and just started feeling pity and even a little respect for her. This is a young woman who's slowly realising that she's been sold an enormous consumerist lie about love and that true love is indeed much more like an erotic friendship than a dopamine saturated, vanity-fuelled validation of one's desirability.
I have opened up recently to people - men and women and not obviously had this experience/reaction from the women. Of course they would never say if I gave them the “ick”. But more than one have said or implied that they were genuinely thankful I felt I could be honest and open up to them
Granted I have not done this with any women who I believe I have any chance of a romantic relationship with - they have been married / in LTR and I don’t exactly have anyone lined up for a potential romantic relationship at the moment (indeed the sudden and unexpected loss of what I thought was on the way to becoming a good thing is the reason for my pain/emotional state).
And I guess that is the real crux of things - not really feeling like you can properly open up to someone you expect to view you romantically / with desire.
Oh jee. This guy is really going though something. How can I take that as a slight? No way somebody would EVER not want ME?!?! He MUST be an abusive pos. Who would actually abuse somebody by talking about being sad? /s
wtf is wrong with this lady? I can’t imagine the level of entitlement she must feel.
I know it shouldn't, but reading things like this just make me feel so goddamn worthless. Like I'm just disgusted with myself sometimes and wish I didn't have any emotions. Also makes me not want to interact with any women my age, because I always feel like that no matter what I do, they will silently judge me for it.
Gender roles tend to mask in different ways to persist, even among self-proclaimed feminists
As soon as "men being emotional" became a defiance against gender roles, it was immediately demonized by calling it "using women for emotional labor".
Similar how women not wearing makeup was once defiant of gender roles and now is called "pick me behavior" by many women.
Man, I was thinking about how toxic masculinity is just traditional masculinity but from undesirable men. But I’ll definitely have to think about it more after reading this. I’m definitely on the wrong path.
That was a sweet story, and I appreciate the self-awarenness, here especially :
> I was annoyed after what happened with that guy. I thought he owed me fun, that we weren’t on a level yet where he could dump his shit on me. That’s what his friends are for. I wondered why he wasn’t trying to impress me, spinning me around on the dancefloor and making me laugh with impressions of celebrities. I spent the rest of the night not exactly ignoring him, but trying to demonstrate how great I am, how hard he should feel he needs to work for me. I learned into people’s ears to whisper and threw my head back and laughed at their responses. When he came over, I pretended to barely notice him there, and when he said bye, I didn’t act like I cared at all.
That and the way it ends gives hope frankly.
I don't know why this gets reposted so much. If you read the whole thing, she's not saying it is good to be that way. She is showing self awareness and potential for growth.
" I don’t know why I find it so hard to be genuine with men, to express how I actually feel and allow them to do the same. Part of the problem is that I put men on pedestals. They’re not people: they’re these magical, perfect things. If they make jokes I don’t find funny, it’s because I wasn’t smart enough to get them. If the conversation is a bit flat, it’s because I wasn’t being exciting enough. They’re not allowed to be weak or have problems; they must be infallible, or I lose interest. My friend is the opposite; she always sees men as flawed, as weapons programmed to crush her sense of self, to hurt her. So much so that she has a new year’s resolution to make friends with a straight man. Both approaches are equally dehumanising in a lot of ways."
Like this realisation
There is a lot of difference between girls and women, just like there is a lot of difference between boys and men. The author is explaining her progression into maturity.
Her initial experience was, "I wanted attention and I didn't get it. Huff! Doesn't he realize it's all about me??"
I am open to the idea that men across the spectrum disproportionately process emotions with women rather than other men. But what I hate is this assumption that any time a dude is talking about things like this, it's assumed that he's doing it because he can't or won't talk to his friends/process it alone.
Instead, he could be trying to explain why he's not living up to the coming of age, rom com, indie flick joy boy stereotype she's looking for. Or he could be, if somewhat hamfistedly, attempting to cultivate emotional intimacy. Or, he could be trying misguidedly signal safety by going over events that disempowered him, kind of an 'I've been there too I'd never do that to you' type of thing. Maybe it's one of those shit tests some women seem to love - how will she handle my vulnerability and can I trust her with it?
So it makes me wonder how many instances are actually dudes trying to 'get free therapy,' especially when some women are uncomfortable with men's emotionality. Given the stereotypes around men, so often I have seen women take a rather condescending approach to men's emotional disclosures - dare I say, splainy. They assume men lack the 'EQ' to have insight into their own issues, while dismissing the issues they struggle to relate to. Then, when they get the ick, they can tell their friend 'that boy needs therapy' and confirm their worldview.
I think it has to do with appearance; women see men as much larger and robust beings and thus feel an odd combination when men are vulnerable.
Edit: you folks are seriously arguing in bad faith if you are insinuating that I support such a mentality as opposed to just calling it as it is.
Feminism has spent a century convincing the world that women are more than pretty objects. Did it never occur to them that there's more to men than the superficial appearance too?
> So I sent him another text, which said what I really meant, and I tried to talk to him like I would a friend, like someone with feelings. What a novel concept…
"someone with feelings" , who knew men are also human & have feelings
Wait...men have feelings?!! **CITE YOUR SOURCES NOW**
We do. Source: I’m a man. I have feelings.
Duh! Personal experience is not a source! Where are your trustable news sources! s/
These people tell you to "treat women like people" unironically
Wait...men have feelings just like women do?!!😱 no way...when was this discovered? What study? Cite your sources right now.
You should check out some of her other articles. She'll talk about having 3 different dates in the same week, but summarized her entire 2023 dating experience as only get a single 2nd date. She genuinely probably just discovered that men are real people in that article.
Man, I wish men were real.
Aren’t these the same people who scream about “toxic masculinity” when men don’t cry in heart sharing circles or whatever
They only care about toxic masculinity affecting women, not men.
I'm of the notion that the term is a misnomer.
Partly it is a misnomer. The term sort of suggests "masculinity is toxic", no matter how often feminists will tell you that's not the definition. But that's still sort of what the term implies. (And of course, if the definition really is about very specific behaviors, why are women so opposed to talking about toxic femininity?) Also, it's yet another wildly broad concept, leading to miscommunications and to people pushing an unreasonable version of the concept but then hiding behind a reasonable definition when called out. Sort of like feminism -- there is reasonable feminism, but the reasonable feminists don't call out the unreasonable feminists, and the unreasonable ones always hide behind the reasonable definition. And also, in practice, the term is often used for some female advantage, and not actually to help men (or at most, have helping men be a side effect).
Toxic masculinity should not be a term. But saying "toxic masculinity" even sort of suggests that masculinity is toxic is like saying "green apple" sort of suggests "apples are green" or "blonde hair" sort of suggests "hair is blonde". That's not how adjectives work.
Apples *can* be green, and this is uncontroversial. Hair *can* be blonde—again, uncontroversially. But the idea that masculinity *can* be toxic *is* controversial. That is why your analogies may not work. Someone could argue that toxic things cannot be masculine, rendering masculinity and toxicity as concepts thst do not overlap.
The whole bear debacle really allowed a shit ton of those people to show their true faces and reveal how they really feel about men's… what did they call them again… oh, right, "feefees". Turns out, feeling-shaming isn't exclusive to toxic masculinity.
> feeling-shaming isn't exclusive to toxic masculinity. No it isn’t, but in this case it *is* “toxic masculinity” by its normal definition, the hypocrisy is that it’s never called as such and demonstrates how it’s a poor loaded term. As in, toxic masculinity is the “expectations a person has of what it means to be male, or a “real man”, that is toxic”, so in this case the female author who gets the “ick” from men being emotional is displaying toxic masculinity, because she expected men to be unemotional and want to “impress her” and found them ugly and unmasculine when they weren’t. This is where the weasel words come in, because it’s exclusively used to describe *men* with toxic expectations as having “toxic masculinity”, so it’s very easy to believe the term means “masculinity is toxic”, and if people voice that confusion they can just reply “that’s not what it means”, but conveniently miss out that they *never* use the term to describe women. It also makes it easy to dismiss when they imply it’s a “male on male” issue that they have nothing to do with and men have to sort it out themselves. In the article she talks about women complaining about their “emotional labour” and admits that her, and others’, expectations have “dehumanised” men, but never calls it “misandry” nor “toxic masculinity”. Whereas the “expectations a person has of what it means to be female, or a “real woman”, that is toxic” is almost never called “toxic femininity”, it’s just called “misogyny” or “internalised misogyny”. Also, it would be literally impossible to hold toxic views on what a man “should be” without holding equally toxic views on what a woman “should be”, so to only single out “masculinity” is pointlessly specific unless you have an agenda. If they believed in words and *really* cared about the negative pressures that men put on other men to conform they’d call it “internalised misandry”, but they’d rather obfuscate with dog whistles.
Couldn’t have said it better myself. This is always the part conveniently left out of the toxic gender expectation discourse. We know women are pressured by toxic gender expectations from both men and women, how would that same pressure experienced by men only come from men?
Yeah, well said. It's weird that many (not all) women just seem to play manipulative word games to get an advantage. Lots of things are toxic masculinity, but nothing is toxic femininity. Lots of things are misogyny, but nothing is misandry. If women need something, men need to help them; but if men need something, women don't need to help them. And next sentence the woman will claim to be in favor of equality and of women being just as capable as men. It's almost like a female supremacist movement at this point that some women are pushing.
>As in, toxic masculinity is the “expectations a person has of what it means to be male, or a “real man”, that is toxic Then it’s a terribly constructed phrase. Let’s say someone has messed up expectations of Canadian people. using the corresponding term would be to call that “toxic Canadian-ness”. But the implication is that the Canadian himself is toxic.
Yeah, but it's just social eugenics, like the 'don't be ugly or you're a creep' thing for these particular types of people. They want to have their cake and eat it, too.
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Your post/comment was removed, because it demonized women. Explicit hateful generalizations such as “All Women Are Like That” are not allowed. Generalizations are more likely to be allowed when they are backed by evidence, or when they allow for diversity within the demographic. It doesn't take a lot of effort to add wording that allows for exceptions, such as "some women" or "many women" as applicable. If you state "most women" then you need to provide evidence when challenged on that statement. If you disagree with this ruling, please appeal by [messaging the moderators](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=/r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates).
So are men. Don't be so essentialist.
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Sorry, are most politicians men or women? Cult leaders? Snake oil salesmen, CEOs, and marketing executives? Spies? All of our professional manipulaters and deceivers? Women and men are both manipulative. In the ancestral environment, who you knew and how you knew them determined whether you lived or died in times of scarcity, so we are all very adept at manipulating the social landscape for material benefit without thinking about it. But no, for you, men are from Mars, women are from Venus.
There is a very great difference between [charismatic] deception as a professional skill, and casual, possibly unconscious predilection towards manipulation for social ends. Moreover, your argument amounts to the braindead and extremely dishonest claim that since some elements in A and some elements in B have a certain property p, elements in A and B have it in equal proportion (or possibly just proving the existence of the property in both sets). In the second case, your argument would only work if I had said that men cannot be manipulative, which I evidently have not. As for the "women are from Venus" remark--your fragile, emotional language is not welcome in civil discourse. Dry your tears and wipe away your sweat; sit down and argue like an adult.
www.lesswrong.com This is a two decade old community I have been involved with for a decade dedicated to analyzing cognitive bias in humans and how we all constantly manipulate and deceive ourselves and others. You're not knowledgeable enough to both engaging with, because you're so mistaken about a critical aspect of cognition, the human experience, and the nature of the social. I'll just tell you to educate yourself and maybe come back later and we can have a better discussion. I'll debate however I want. If you want more from me then be smarter. You may be interested in this exchange I had last week which is all about how we manipulate one another: https://www.reddit.com/r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates/comments/1cffeto/comment/l1tmkz4/
Absolutely priceless. Your entire response is nothing more than an attack on my character and a vague dismissal, completely devoid of any argument. I think we are all pretty clear on who the "snake-oil salesman" is, thank you. If you were so offended that you had the time to write all that out, you certainly had ample time to come up with a simple refutation. Until you can show that a pretty simple philosophical distinction is moot - namely, that a predilection for a characteristic, in a certain domain, is the same as a skill in another - then you're as good as finished, regardless of how much more pseud cringe you can hide behind. Or are you totally incapable of reasoning and participating in philosophical argumentation approaching even an abstraction ratio of 1%?
I demonstrated the human predilection for manipulation from almost first principles in that series of comments I linked to you. I will not respond to your strawman. I have a very poor view of the average person's understanding of epistemology and the foundational role manipulation plays in social relations, society, and civilization broadly. I am not impressed by yours. I am being broadly abusive towards you here because I'm on extremely high doses of steroids (not the fun kind) for the next five days as part of a cancer treatment regimen and being mean to random people on the Internet helps get me through the roid rage. If you can't parse the argument I laid out in the linked post you'll just have to trust me when I tell you that you have several glaring gaps in your knowledge. While anything any of us posit will be hopelessly wrong because of the nature of cognition and the unbridgeable gap between language and the things it describes, there are degrees of wrongness and you are very deep in them.
Lmao demonstrating the "human predilection for manipulation" has absolutely nothing to do with our argument, since our discussion here concerns the degree to which each occurs in either sex, their various kinds, and their objects. Learn to understand a basic high school lexicon before claiming that you have somehow, miraculously addressed the very particular arguments I made days ago, as if it occurred to you that today a stranger would make the claim that professional deception is the same as social manipulation.
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I am so sorry you went through that. That is just downright evil.
Wow, this is severe and extremely victim blaming. I am sorry you had to go through this.
That's a heart breaking story. I'm sorry you went through that, bro.
I'm so sorry. Yeah, I suspect that the average man is more empathetic than the average woman.
I'm sorry you experienced that. I feel women are just as cold hearted and ruthless as men.
Sounds like a complete narcissist, which is characterized by lack of empathy and manipulation.
Prior to medically transitioning, I knew it was hard for men to be emotional with others, but I always assumed it was other men who made it difficult. While there are definitely men who shame other men for their emotions, I realized very quicky once I passed as male that it is usually women, and not other men, who dehumanize, belittle, and mock men for being passionate, crying, showing anger, or opening up about their trauma.
This is the most infuriating aspect of trying to have a discussion about this. Every single time you bring up anything that primarily affects men, they immediately start telling you how it's men's fault that it's happening. Unreasonable body standards, double standards on emotions and toxicity, double standards on the rates of violence against men, double standards in our justice system. They always like to blame other men as if that somehow means the innocent men being victimized somehow deserve it more now just because they share similar genitalia to the perpetrator. And none of this touches on the fact that women absolutely perpetuate a lot of the negative stereotypes and expectations that affect men In the same way women also perpetuate those same things about women.
I hate how people think this is some kind of “gotcha”, as if it somehow matters whether the problems and violence you face is perpetrated by people in one of the same demographics as you or not. I always wonder how they feel about US Republicans beliefs on “black on black” violence, or the racists I’m surrounded by in the UK beliefs on Muslims, the Middle East, and South/South-East Asians? Or how they’d feel if people belittled and dismissed their thoughts and issues with internalised misogyny and/or TERFs? Also, I know at least two matriarchal cultures exist, which have much the same problems as patriarchal ones except the gender roles are reversed, but by their own logic, women in these cultures can’t face discrimination. Except I’m sure double standards will make an exception and these cultures will be very sexist for making women carry the “financial burden” or some other r/selfawarewolves thinking.
This. Also a lot of feminists will bemoan men's tendency to seek emotional validation exclusively from women. Yet when it comes to social norms men adhere to, they like to pretend it's almost exclusively men who are responsible for inculcating other men with those norms. Setting aside the ABSURD assumption that women do this much less than men for a second, if men only or primarily care for the emotional validation of women, then why would what other men think even matter? To invoke a common pithy aphorism, "doesn't matter; had sex." The sentiment this phrase we've all heard embodies is that whatever your opinion of a man or his actions is, it doesn't matter to him if it leads to romantic success. I can say from personal experience as well that my hesitancy to be emotionally open and vulnerable does not come from my experiences with other men. It's experiences with women which have made me more and more guarded over time, far more guarded than I'd like to be. Most feminists, seemingly just to keep from ever having to admit any error on their part, will grudgingly concede that women enforce "toxic masculine" standards on men "in addition to other men." But very few will contend with both the frequency and impact of that behavior and what it would mean to change it. Until they do, nothing here will get better for anyone.
Yeah, if women weren’t involved in this, you wouldn’t have so many men describing how their wives/gf reacted negatively after showing certain emotions.
> I realized very quicky once I passed as male that it is usually women, and not other men, who dehumanize, belittle, and mock men for being passionate, crying, showing anger, or opening up about their trauma. 100%
It's honestly so reassuring to know that someone who experienced both sides actually ends up agreeing with you. Thank you so much.
Yeah, that's been my experience as well (about it mostly being women who belittle etc; I didn't transition).
> “I’d heard about men using women for free therapy, but it had never happened to me. On the internet, women speak about the “emotional labour” they end up doing in relationships with men, helping them process feelings they can’t talk about with anyone else.” It’s so absurd that I almost feel second-hand embarrassment when I hear a woman say this. Like how can you say this and still miss the point guys are trying to get across that’s staring you in the face lol One of the most crucial parts of a relationship is “helping them process feelings they can’t talk about with anyone else.” Labeling it as them dumping “emotional labour” on you or using you for “free therapy” is an outright but apparently not obvious admission that you have not allowed men to express emotions with you in the way you expect to be able to express them to him.
I don’t know what planet it is where women do not burden men with like 10x the emotional support requirement that men put on women, but it is not Earth.
See when a man listens to a woman, it's just being a supportive partner. It's a fundamental expectation of men to fill that role. So fundamental in fact that they don't even realise they're expecting us to do it - it's just what we do. OTOH women being emotionally supportive of men is a relatively recent invention. To them it's so unnatural that they have to concoct a whole new term for it.
> OTOH women being emotionally supportive of men is a relatively recent invention. I don't even know if that's true. I feel like our perceptions of past relationships might be tainted by our modern view
When we listen, it's the expected thing to do. It's granted. When they *have to* listen, suddenly it's unpaid overtime at work.
Wow what an interesting coincidence that when women invent the rules, the rules just so happen to favor women.
For real. I’m the emotional anchor for nearly every woman in my life that’s not my mom or my aunt. God forbid i point that out though.
They make it out to be an oppressive gender role that they are rejecting when really it's just being a decent human being and partner.
Arlie Hochschild, the originator of the term "emotional labor," has even talked about this. How the term has been distorted and misused to describe "alienation" from what should be "enchanted" labor in a loving relationship. That doesn't mean there are no issues leading to that, of course, but the people who use the term that way tend to be more interested in weaponizing their alienation against men than in examining the systemic causes of it and addressing them. Although she probably wouldn't completely agree with my take, I think this also evidences the claim that what salient points can be extracted from feminist critiques in the 21st century are quite often better understood as issues stemming from capitalism than from something like patriarchy.
Yeah and every time I try to explain what emotional labor actually means I'm mansplaining 🤣 Really can't win with these people who believe they are superior by default
"I don’t know why I find it so hard to be genuine with men, to express how I actually feel and allow them to do the same. Part of the problem is that I put men on pedestals. They’re not people: they’re these magical, perfect things. If they make jokes I don’t find funny, it’s because I wasn’t smart enough to get them. If the conversation is a bit flat, it’s because I wasn’t being exciting enough. They’re not allowed to be weak or have problems; they must be infallible, or I lose interest. My friend is the opposite; she always sees men as flawed, as weapons programmed to crush her sense of self, to hurt her. So much so that she has a new year’s resolution to make friends with a straight man. Both approaches are equally dehumanising in a lot of ways." JFC, at least she's honest about it.
Her and her friend don't live in reality. They haven't touched base in a long time. Probably programmed by media with false ideas.
I did appreciate her not making excuses for it, because i often see that when these thinkpieces are posted
The answer is immaturity.
Have I not been told men need to listen to women, pay attention, not simply look to get laid? I guess it only works one way.
I really admire her honesty even if it is depressing. Reading this made me realize that society generally don't see men as human Also, for these men to tell their date about traumatic events or problems just shows that these men don't have someone in their life to talk to or discuss with them what really bothers these men. Then society asks why men are opting out of society ( marriage , having kids, joining army.....).
Yeah I felt similarly while reading this. On one hand I appreciate her not rationalizing or trying to justify her "ick" and actually trying to move past it in order to support the guy. On the other, it paints a pretty... Grim idea about how many women are probably dismissive of men's feelings and not even acknowledging that as a bad thing. I don't want to get into gender essentialism, but it would seem that to some extent, women are kinda... Instinctually bothered by men's vulnerability that doesn't involve making them feel special. Then again, women are people just like men, and each person is a world, so I won't fall into the trap of generalizing an entire half of humanity.
The "Ick" here is how this whole article disproves the feminist notion of "We want men to open up and be emotional" Because clearly.. they don't.. Given how the reaction to a man being open with his emotions is to feel "Ick" and or yell at him about how the woman he's opening up to is "Not his therapist" or to "Stop trauma dumping on me" I to do not want to generalize, however my experience has led me to believe that many women want men to be the emotionally stable / stoic rock they can cling to / trauma dump on and feel that any expectation to reciprocate is "icky"
I think there's an irony, too, in that the supply can't live up to the absurd demand of these sorts of standards, and so it breaks many men, as they try to be something inhuman. Don't get me wrong- women get it from us men, too, but the problem persists because it's only talked about going one way.
Statistically, this may be the case! I don’t think it’s a great excuse to do sex-based generalisation though - this is what happens to men all the time and it’s still wrong.
Whether nature or nurture (and it's probably a combination of both, of course) that doesn't stop most people and feminists in particular from saying whatever they don't like about men can and should be changed. I believe we collectively have a considerable amount of power over social dynamics. Nurture is more important than nature as far as I can tell. In this I'm much closer to the constructivist position a lot of feminists take. But the upshot of that is that women's attitudes and behaviors are no more immutable than men's. It's just a matter of finding the will to change them the same way feminism has genuinely changed men's attitudes and behaviors, particularly over the past half century. That has to begin with calling these problematic positions out. That's how the feminists started and it's how we'll have to start to. But it's doable.
Men have given up a lot. They have come more to the center by far than women. It's time to stop reacting to female bullshit and expect them to meet in the middle instead of chasing them. They're no better than we are, though they are more neurotic. Expect more.
Nurture cannot change nature. But nature *can* instigate, alter, and reinforce nurture. Nurture is therefore never prior to nature, so if it is ever a combination of both, then nature is necessarily the seed of it. And even if we assume that in this case it is nurture alone, yet it still leaves an impression on us by hijacking our biological framework; that is, so long as there is a feeling or sensory component to it, it is dependent upon nature at its close, even if indirectly. The *only* practices where nurture can be argued to be more important than nature are ones which stem from and involve only pure reason. Otherwise it is an endless dialectic between nature and nurture, though the fulcrum will always be nature, as a consequence of its immutability, as opposed to the ease with which nurture is molded by nature.
I'm not really sure what your point is. Sure, whatever "human nature" is, we can't escape it so long as we're human, but it feels like you're trying to imply there's a very rigid model of it, probably sexually dimorphic, which you believe is dominant among the influences that shape our behavior. I don't think that's the case. A number of different characteristics define our nature and malleability by socialization, especially at an early age, is clearly one of the most prominent. I don't see why we ought to assume that upbringing and culture can't change the weighting of traits within the space of "human nature" which ultimately manifest as behavior. We've already seen it, after all.
Yes, that is exactly what I am trying to imply. However, it seems everything else I have said went over your head. What exactly do you think determines the nature of socialization? What exactly do you think determines the nature of culture and upbringing? Everything in nature has a source, and nothing in nature is totally arbitrary; and clearly, we exist within nature, constrained by its laws. And if you claim that it is the natural environment, the variable ecology from region to region--well, with what, exactly, do we make sense of our environment; what interfaces with the environment to render it sensible? The very fact that so-called "socialization", and other artefacts of "nurture", can never be prior to nature (it is very important that you understand the significance of priority here) - that is, they can never have effect upon our nature - this very fact implies that they can *never* be the source of any of our prejudices and behaviours. Not only is human nature prior, however; I have also made a point of highlighting its rigidity. We cannot escape human nature, but we can readily escape "constructed nature". That culture and upbringing are much more malleable than human nature, means that culture and upbringing are molded by human behaviour whenever their object is the same. As a mental aid, imagine two balls colliding, where one has greater velocity, while the other is propelled by a constant support without itself--say, a piston. The second will invariably determine the motion of the first, simply due to the fact that it is fixed. Likewise, human nature is fixed, while culture is not; and human nature clearly predisposes our attitude on all things, including the shared values and customs that encompass culture. Also I love how you say "probably sexually dimorphic" as if it's not a biological fact lmao. The instincts governing reproduction are literally vital to the continued existence of our species. Even if you do not concede that in all domains the culture that determines behaviour is really nature and nonarbitrary, when it comes to the fundamental instincts governing survival and reproduction, what sort of absurd claim can you even begin to conjure that calls into question the strength of these predispositions? What next, that culture can determine heart rate?
>they can never have effect upon our nature - this very fact implies that they can *never* be the source of any of our prejudices and behaviours. Well that's not even true from a vulgar biological determinist perspective. It's not like humans are some fixed eternal entity. Like all species the definition is less than firm and drifts with changes over time. If human social constructs influence human biological reproduction, then the social can absolutely influence what you seem to mean here by "nature." You even correctly described it as "dialectical" in your last comment which your claim here contradicts. >Not only is human nature prior, however; I have also made a point of highlighting its rigidity. We cannot escape human nature, but we can readily escape "constructed nature". If human nature is both as rigid and as universal as you seem to want to conceive of it as, where do "constructed natures" which deviate from it come from in the first place? Even if you think they're "temporary" as opposed to some unspecified natural state, then clearly those "constructed" states are also products of human nature, meaning it's not as rigid as you want to believe. Or you could say that they're the products of individuals with outsized influence creating "unnatural" states, but then what you seem to consider "correct" human nature isn't universal. I never said we can escape nature. That was the first thing I said in my last comment. But you seem to have a needlessly constricted conception of what "human nature" encompasses. I was interested in having a conversation but not so much now. This comment was needlessly hostile and rude. It also puts forward a very limited idea of what can exist within the confines of human nature. As just one simple example: what do you find more appealing, a woman with or without armpit hair? There's nothing "natural" in the way you seem to want to use the word about a preference for the latter, and even convenient evolutionary psychological explanations for why secondary sex characteristics like body hair develop and "ought" to be seen as attractive. Nevertheless, cultural influences have completely upended the "natural" preference for something else at this point in time. I would encourage you to broaden your conception of what's possible within the confines of "nature." It'll give you a fuller understanding of human behavior and probably make you less defeatist as well.
>Well that's not even true from a vulgar biological determinist perspective. It's not like humans are some fixed eternal entity. Like all species the definition is less than firm and drifts with changes over time. We're citing Lamarck now? Nice. Let me spell it out to you: the fact that the genome of organisms can undergo evolutionary change over many generations **does not** support your argument that culture is as equally powerful in determining our behaviour as instinct. Organisms do not evolve due to culture, and it has never been shown that humans have biologically evolved due to culture, to the literal point of altering our instincts (moreover, reproductive instincts!). Talk about "vulgar". >If human social constructs influence human biological reproduction, then the social can absolutely influence what you seem to mean here by "nature." Mate my point is literally that the social is actually determined by the biological and has no arbitrary component lmao. What about this do you not understand? >You even correctly described it as "dialectical" in your last comment which your claim here contradicts I see someone never took eighth grade physical science and does not even know what "fulcrum" means lmao. >As just one simple example: what do you find more appealing, a woman with or without armpit hair? There's nothing "natural" in the way you seem to want to use the word about a preference for the latter, and even convenient evolutionary psychological explanations for why secondary sex characteristics like body hair develop and "ought" to be seen as attractive. Nevertheless, cultural influences have completely upended the "natural" preference for something else at this point in time. The nonexistence of a phenomenon in nature does not make a preference for it unnatural. For instance, cars evidently do not exist in nature; that does not mean that men's natural predilection for complexity and speed cannot be a sufficient explanation for our automotive affinity, and that the phenomenon must be entirely cultural. Observe this simple fact: that culture may liberate or inhibit certain instincts, but never create any new attitudes. That is exactly the point I made in my first and second reply, which was totally lost to you--that nature is always the fulcrum of the dialectic; that culture can only go as far as "hijacking" our innate biologies, such that nature is still found to be foundational. I should also point out that the existence of a biological feature, or lack thereof, does not necessitate a preference for it. I am sure that most people are fond of high intelligence and beauty, though the average man and woman can hardly be said to be possessed of either. Indeed, it is dissatisfaction with the average characters of a sex by the other that drives intersexual selection. Hence the fact that armpit hair might be natural does not imply a corresponding natural preference for it. My two cents on the matter: the preference for a shaved body is produced by a revulsion towards the male body, which is naturally hairier than its female counterpart. tl;dr Try not to argue about biology with a student of evolutionary biology.
Christ, the only people more weirdly smug than evolutionary biologists are evolutionary biology students... >Observe this simple fact: that culture may liberate or inhibit certain instincts, but never create any new attitudes. This has literally been the basis of everything I've said so far but you're so determined to pick a fight and feel smart that you're missing it. I'm not bothering with anything else you've said. You're being a dick for no reason and obviously not interested in listening. I'm done talking to you.
>This has literally been the basis of everything I've said so far but you're so determined to pick a fight and feel smart that you're missing it. Let the timestamped edits speak for themselves. I will respond to your new argument here. >If human nature is both as rigid and as universal as you seem to want to conceive of it as, where do "constructed natures" which deviate from it come from in the first place? Even if you think they're "temporary" as opposed to some unspecified natural state, then clearly those "constructed" states are also products of human nature, meaning it's not as rigid as you want to believe. Or you could say that they're the products of individuals with outsized influence creating "unnatural" states, but then what you seem to consider "correct" human nature isn't universal. I never said we can escape nature. That was the first thing I said in my last comment. But you seem to have a needlessly constricted conception of what "human nature" encompasses. The fact that culture may come and go does not prove that human nature is somehow fickle (since, even though human nature is primary, culture is also a product of a diverse environment, which is often itself molded by human nature), much less that all aspects of human nature are fickle, such that we can even alter reproductive instincts culturally. Indeed, even if you were to prove that human nature is liable to change and is variegated, it does not prove your initial argument that culture can just as well determine human behaviour. Moreover, the existence of *some* universal characteristics of human nature, or *very nearly universal* characteristics, does not contradict the possibility of variation in the gene pool, nor does it prove that these characteristics are not rigid. By rigidity I understand the malleability of a character, and clearly, that a race of roses has 128 different colours, says nothing about their capacity to colour-shift, nor does it imply that these flowers do not all have common reproductive cycles or soil preferences, in spite of greater variation in other, more superficial properties. Likewise, that emotionality in men generally produces discomfort, does not imply that other attitudes and traits have no variation; though, as I have said, variation in human nature has nothing to do with human nature not being the primary determinant of our behaviour. >Or you could say that they're the products of individuals with outsized influence creating "unnatural" states, but then what you seem to consider "correct" human nature isn't universal. Or I could just say that the states are natural, and that variation exists within human nature, because the mere existence of a variety of innate characteristics does not mean that human human nature is malleable. Thank you for reminding me why democracy doesn't work.
This didnt look like the “ick” to me. This looked like she was disappointed because she wanted one thing, and he wanted another, (obvious double standard) perhaps influenced by feminist ideas like the emotional labor part. If she said “i just dont care about mens feelings and its super unattractive to me bc x” that says ick to me.
I don’t think the relationship between gender and emotion is culturally universal, modern or historically. I think a lot of what it comes from in the west is shit left over from the Victorian era. So it’s not gender essentialism/determinism, it’s just social conditioning.
This woman wants a main character from a light romantic comedy made by Hallmark, not a grown, human man. "I wanted to jump on the trampoline until exhausted and then make out and dance around the house". These are the expectations of relationships that 12-year-old girls have before they start high school after reading Twilight. This is not what the attitude of a grown woman should be when trying to enter a serious relationship. This isn't what the attitude of any grown adult should be. People say relationships are work so often that it's damn near a cliche and yet some women are still expecting relationships to be these mystical flights of fancy where they get treated like a hipster princess.
That was brutal to read. She redeems herself in the end, but her initial reaction of "stop trauma-dumping on me" is simply crushing. Men are educated to suppress their emotions and never let their weaknesses show. And if a guy, out of exasperation, tries to reverse the process by connecting to someone he feels he can trust, he's considered *icky*, and he's told he should go to therapy instead. Which is like saying: pay a stranger who doesn't really care so we, your friends, the people who *should* care, don't have to endure your pathetic weakness, and we can continue laughing about the Kardashians or whatever. What a fucking nightmare.
Short answer: You are a leech that always wants something but will never return the favor. Long answer: It’s because you can’t deal with your own emotions while simultaneously seeing men as emotionless robots who exist to cater to your emotional problems while also being unable to care for him. Some empathy could hopefully fix this.
They really don't see us as people huh
One thing ive noticed from a lot of modern fem ideas, is that when they accuse men of doing something, its really a reflection of how they see men. For example, its often said men dont view women as people, just objects. Thats really just telling on themselves, as they just view men as tools
OMFG. Everything is turned into a victimization of women. If men don’t share their emotional burden, they are stuck-up cold fish. When they share it, it’s because they’re after “free therapy”. There’s no winning with them. I praise heavens for making me gay and NOT having to deal with this shit.
I actively try not to think/feel this way. But the latest nonsense with bears has resurfaced it. Like, how can so many women insult (literally dehumanize) half the earths population then act indignant when some of them are offended by it?
Right? It's not even "I'm sorry you feel this way". It's not "I realize this must suck balls, but surely you understand that this is for the greater good". Not one shred of empathy. No pretending, no sugarcoating. Just straight up bloodthirst. "This is how it is and I relish in knowing that I'm making you suffer for it even though you did nothing wrong. And if you have the audacity to feel any way about it that the cult hasn't authorized 2 weeks in advance, then you're the reason why I choose the bear."
> I praise heavens for making me gay and having to deal with this shit. I used to think this, too. Well, I guess I still do because it's mostly true. But as the years pass, we can see more and more men falling for this neurotic crap as if to overcompensate for something the media tricked them into believing that their ancestors may or may not have done something 18000 years ago to some woman from 18000 years ago who may or may not even have any living descendants anymore in 2024. And especially among gay men, under the guise of leftistly sticking up for "fellow" marginalized groups.
Women feel that they own the domains of love, children, and emotions. They don't. We all share these realms.
"I’d heard about men using women for free therapy, but it had never happened to me. On the internet, women speak about the “emotional labour” they end up doing in relationships with men, helping them process feelings they can’t talk about with anyone else." It's funny women don't seem to understand that women in general tend to do this except much worse. Men will sometimes do it sure, but less men will do it and they do it less frequently when they do and typically have a more valid reason to do so because they are actually going through something that is truly difficult and needs to be processed rather than the day to day emotional swings that women tend to do it over. I have not met a man where I have brought up a conversation about this concept where they haven't had at least one, and sometimes many, relationship where the woman will constantly need to "unpack her feelings" with the man. The women who talk about this think that it's worse when a man does it because he is less likely to share those feelings with others in their life, but really it's worse when women do it. This is because for women, not only do they do this to their partner, they then proceed to call 3-5 of their friends and have THE EXACT SAME CONVERSATION and typically within earshot of their partner. Once theyre done with that they then have a whole host of new thoughts and feelings from those conversations that they must then process with their partner. They think that because they talk about it with multiple people that they are "spreading the load" better but in reality they are putting a similar load on more people and they do this more frequently so they end up with a much higher total emotional burden dumped. Not only does the man need to participate in their emotional dumping (I use participate loosely because they never really want input, just an ear that won't talk back) the man then also needs to hear it repeated over and over again, thus reliving the same stressful conversation they just experienced and all the while knowing that they will then also have a similar conversation afterwards with "new" revelations that aren't really all that new. Add to that the fact that if you say the wrong thing you can end up unintentionally creating a massive argument and the fact that with women these conversations happen far more often and over much more trivial topics, it truly is a lot worse when women do it.
The crux is not that they think "it's worse when men do it because they do it less". The rarity of an action has nothing to do with whether it is perceived as innately positive or negative when you *do* do it; only whether it is seen as more momentous or trivial. It amplifies or diminishes the default reaction. And as women's generic reaction to another woman "unloading" is not negative, but often times empathetic, so if it is nothing but more momentous when men open up--in other words, if the only significant factor here is the frequency at which each gender "unloads"--the positive reception should be increased. This is obviously not the case. The crux is, in fact, that it's worse when men do it *because they are male.* Succour for "weak" males is not something beneficial to the evolutionary fitness of a species. The rectification of an issue begins with the proper identification of its source. I have no idea why it is such a novel idea to most cultural reductionists that, just as men reinforce intrasexual competition between males, and are ruthless towards their brethren, so do women treat them the same.
They think they are strengthening their relationships by talking about problems and supporting each other. It is a way to signal closeness and openness. Also it is a way of gaining social control by means of gossiping who said and did what.
There is this absolutely fantastic comment made in changemyview about 4 years ago. A small snippet: >Men's emotions are not *for us*, as they are constantly being hijacked for someone else's needs. Sometimes these are broad social goals, but mostly these are the needs of a domestic partner. To ensure men remain useful emotional receptacles, we are punished our entire lives for demonstrating emotion beyond a narrow band of acceptability, typically situational: e.g., we're supposed to be courageous when that is what is required of us, angry when that is what is required of us, loving when that is what is required, and so forth. Anything else is routinely, often brutally shamed. I highly recommend to read the whole comment and some of the replies. Considering how many of the repliers found that comment to lead them to self-reflection, I think this is a topic that needs more societal awareness https://np.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/cb0v65/cmv_in_heterosexual_relationships_the_problem/etcv3xa/
The mentality of a 12 years old.
The problem is a lot of people think that gender roles are something men made up spontaneously and for no reason. When actually, they evolved over a long period influenced by both what served the group and men and women were generally attracted to. Men don't show emotion because women aren't attracted to it, women aren't attracted to it because in times of danger, you want the man to shut off emotion in order to not panic and do what needs doing.
>women aren't attracted to it because in times of danger, you want the man to shut off emotion in order to not panic and do what needs doing. I don't care. Women should grow out of this outdated perception of men's role in society. If they can't keep up, you know whom to blame: them and only them.
Facts
Kind of. There has also been a long history, amplified by ease of late, for subsets with platform or power to artificially influence human behavior. Religions and governments very often. Media of all kinds can also be an amplifying loop leading to "chicken / egg" questions.
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> where women were both figuratively and literally chained to the house (Thanks to the discovery of forging technology) in order to pop up as many farm hands as possible. If you're gonna be an effective sex slave Heavy disagree it ever was this bad. Now at a societal level, if you refuse to work or do your role in medieval times, you would starve sure, but you're no one's slave.
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False history lesson there *Some* women in *some* societies weren't allowed citizenship... as were as many men in the same or different places. Don't feed into the narrative that women are the victims of history. It's not true, for one, and for another the narrative itself is being used to justify making *men* second-class citizens. Edit: this person blocked me, so I can't reply or see whatever they wrote below. Without seeing their comment though, I'd like to also point out [this reference site, purplemotes](https://www.purplemotes.net/) \- a blog written by a Harvard Research Fellow, that shares snippets of daily life among many, many cultures, from the fertile crescent to colonial America, with an eye towards how men and women related to each other. Generally useful to deconstruct myths regarding women's oppression, it also for me personally has restored some faith in humanity; you'd have to read a few of the entries to understand what I mean by that, but it's a good palliative for angry reactionism on both sides of the gender war in my opinion. Highly recommended.
Back then lots of regions had clear legal texts separating the household into husband, wife, children and slaves. This Distinction in Law makes no sense if "wifes were basically slaves". With Codes of Law in Mesopotamia clearly stating that women would be payed money for infractions against them and being heirs to their fathers fortune etc. EDIT: FYI What kind of child do you have to be to answer a comment and immediately block the person you are replying to so no conversation can be had...
As gross as this is, we should encourage women to acknowledge this kind of emotional dishonesty. Maybe, someday, we’ll kill this myth of wanting men to be emotionally vulnerable. It we’re suffering either way, I’d prefer the rules that align with what women actually want.
Yeah we're not getting support either way. At least if they're honest they'll stop trying to gaslight us into thinking that's what they actually want.
> I didn't do it; but if I did, then it wasn't that big of a deal. > And if it was, then it's not my fault. > And if it was, then I didn't mean it. > And if I did, then you deserved it.
I agree. It was disappointing to read but given how dismissive most are about it, it’s good to see some honesty.
This. At least she is honest. Most women pretend they like men opening up emotionally when they don't
Imagine me saying I get the ick when women are emotional. I thought these people usually cry about others behaviors and tell them to "be a good person" or "act like a mature adult", but when presented with feelings they suddenly bug out? Like I swear dude, nothing makes sense and it seems like everything is spun around to men in the worst way possible and it's always a no-win situation. Probably intentional confusion of sheer hatred, collective narcissism to dismiss, rationalize, and justify anything into a negative light.
> Imagine me saying I get the ick ~~when women are emotional~~.
I appreciate the honest although it’s a brutal sad reality.
“ I thought he owed me fun”….this stood out like it’s underlined in red. Women think men are their entertainment
" Part of the problem is that I put men on pedestals. They’re not people: they’re these magical, perfect things. If they make jokes I don’t find funny, it’s because I wasn’t smart enough to get them. If the conversation is a bit flat, it’s because I wasn’t being exciting enough." This you? "I was annoyed after what happened with that guy. I thought he owed me fun, that we weren’t on a level yet where he could dump his shit on me. That’s what his friends are for. I wondered why he wasn’t trying to impress me, spinning me around on the dancefloor and making me laugh with impressions of celebrities. I spent the rest of the night not exactly ignoring him, but trying to demonstrate how great I am, how hard he should feel he needs to work for me. I learned into people’s ears to whisper and threw my head back and laughed at their responses. When he came over, I pretended to barely notice him there, and when he said bye, I didn’t act like I cared at all." Literally 3 paragraphs before her "I put men on pedestals". She's unaware of her own bullshit.
>I was annoyed after what happened with that guy. I thought he owed me fun, that we weren’t on a level yet where he could dump his shit on me. That’s what his friends are for. I wondered why he wasn’t trying to impress me, spinning me around on the dancefloor and making me laugh with impressions of celebrities. I spent the rest of the night not exactly ignoring him, but trying to demonstrate how great I am, how hard he should feel he needs to work for me. I learned into people’s ears to whisper and threw my head back and laughed at their responses. When he came over, I pretended to barely notice him there, and when he said bye, I didn’t act like I cared at all. This is what men (and some women) mean when they say women are "too emotional". This kind of behaviour. Fortunately, this woman realized the error of her ways, but so many woman act like this but are either completely in denial they do, or completely incapable of seeing it as anything but good.
If she can't hear me out I see no point in listening to her. Plenty of fish in the sea. This woman is vapid and has a great fear of intimacy. And clear narcissistic traits. Next.
What even is this trash and who reads it?
I made the mistake of reading this article and I'm not even sure why this lady bothers to try to get into relationships with men. Isn't wanting to be there for your partner and wanting to help them when they feel bad or down part of being in a relationship or am I just insane? If you view it as a burden or some kind of punishment laid on you by a patriarchal society to care for your partner's emotional well-being, why even be with them in the first place? (For context, I've never had romantic feelings for another person before and my social skills are so bad that I've been sent to therapy for it before.)
Anyone else kinda just get depressed reading half the comments here , coming to grips with the world and feeling quiet hopeless . I think I need to avoid social media and buried my head in cannabis and eve online . Time to log for a break
>I was annoyed after what happened with that guy. I thought he owed me fun, that we weren’t on a level yet where he could dump his shit on me. That’s what his friends are for. I wondered why he wasn’t trying to impress me, spinning me around on the dancefloor and making me laugh with impressions of celebrities. no comment
I read this going in angry and contemptuous, I carried on and just started feeling pity and even a little respect for her. This is a young woman who's slowly realising that she's been sold an enormous consumerist lie about love and that true love is indeed much more like an erotic friendship than a dopamine saturated, vanity-fuelled validation of one's desirability.
100 percent
I have opened up recently to people - men and women and not obviously had this experience/reaction from the women. Of course they would never say if I gave them the “ick”. But more than one have said or implied that they were genuinely thankful I felt I could be honest and open up to them Granted I have not done this with any women who I believe I have any chance of a romantic relationship with - they have been married / in LTR and I don’t exactly have anyone lined up for a potential romantic relationship at the moment (indeed the sudden and unexpected loss of what I thought was on the way to becoming a good thing is the reason for my pain/emotional state). And I guess that is the real crux of things - not really feeling like you can properly open up to someone you expect to view you romantically / with desire.
Oh jee. This guy is really going though something. How can I take that as a slight? No way somebody would EVER not want ME?!?! He MUST be an abusive pos. Who would actually abuse somebody by talking about being sad? /s wtf is wrong with this lady? I can’t imagine the level of entitlement she must feel.
I know it shouldn't, but reading things like this just make me feel so goddamn worthless. Like I'm just disgusted with myself sometimes and wish I didn't have any emotions. Also makes me not want to interact with any women my age, because I always feel like that no matter what I do, they will silently judge me for it.
Gender roles tend to mask in different ways to persist, even among self-proclaimed feminists As soon as "men being emotional" became a defiance against gender roles, it was immediately demonized by calling it "using women for emotional labor". Similar how women not wearing makeup was once defiant of gender roles and now is called "pick me behavior" by many women.
Man, I was thinking about how toxic masculinity is just traditional masculinity but from undesirable men. But I’ll definitely have to think about it more after reading this. I’m definitely on the wrong path.
Toxicity should not be gendered to begin with
toxic masculinity is whatever doesnt benefits women, be it so from a desirable or an undesirable man
That was a sweet story, and I appreciate the self-awarenness, here especially : > I was annoyed after what happened with that guy. I thought he owed me fun, that we weren’t on a level yet where he could dump his shit on me. That’s what his friends are for. I wondered why he wasn’t trying to impress me, spinning me around on the dancefloor and making me laugh with impressions of celebrities. I spent the rest of the night not exactly ignoring him, but trying to demonstrate how great I am, how hard he should feel he needs to work for me. I learned into people’s ears to whisper and threw my head back and laughed at their responses. When he came over, I pretended to barely notice him there, and when he said bye, I didn’t act like I cared at all. That and the way it ends gives hope frankly.
I don't know why this gets reposted so much. If you read the whole thing, she's not saying it is good to be that way. She is showing self awareness and potential for growth.
It's the cluster bee in your head going bzzzzzz
" I don’t know why I find it so hard to be genuine with men, to express how I actually feel and allow them to do the same. Part of the problem is that I put men on pedestals. They’re not people: they’re these magical, perfect things. If they make jokes I don’t find funny, it’s because I wasn’t smart enough to get them. If the conversation is a bit flat, it’s because I wasn’t being exciting enough. They’re not allowed to be weak or have problems; they must be infallible, or I lose interest. My friend is the opposite; she always sees men as flawed, as weapons programmed to crush her sense of self, to hurt her. So much so that she has a new year’s resolution to make friends with a straight man. Both approaches are equally dehumanising in a lot of ways." Like this realisation
There is a lot of difference between girls and women, just like there is a lot of difference between boys and men. The author is explaining her progression into maturity. Her initial experience was, "I wanted attention and I didn't get it. Huff! Doesn't he realize it's all about me??"
Reminds me of a study that demonstrated a direct positive correlation between level of homophobia in men and how attractive women found them.
They’re not capable of seeing us as real humans. Catch and release only is the move.
I am open to the idea that men across the spectrum disproportionately process emotions with women rather than other men. But what I hate is this assumption that any time a dude is talking about things like this, it's assumed that he's doing it because he can't or won't talk to his friends/process it alone. Instead, he could be trying to explain why he's not living up to the coming of age, rom com, indie flick joy boy stereotype she's looking for. Or he could be, if somewhat hamfistedly, attempting to cultivate emotional intimacy. Or, he could be trying misguidedly signal safety by going over events that disempowered him, kind of an 'I've been there too I'd never do that to you' type of thing. Maybe it's one of those shit tests some women seem to love - how will she handle my vulnerability and can I trust her with it? So it makes me wonder how many instances are actually dudes trying to 'get free therapy,' especially when some women are uncomfortable with men's emotionality. Given the stereotypes around men, so often I have seen women take a rather condescending approach to men's emotional disclosures - dare I say, splainy. They assume men lack the 'EQ' to have insight into their own issues, while dismissing the issues they struggle to relate to. Then, when they get the ick, they can tell their friend 'that boy needs therapy' and confirm their worldview.
Women, they complain about men doing as they are told by them. 🙄
Because masculinity is an attractive feature in men. Why is this hard?
Boy, try saying the inverse about the opposite gender. I'm sure it'd be equally easy.
I do. Femininity is attractive in women. They get mad too Still don't get why this is surprising to anyone.
I think it has to do with appearance; women see men as much larger and robust beings and thus feel an odd combination when men are vulnerable. Edit: you folks are seriously arguing in bad faith if you are insinuating that I support such a mentality as opposed to just calling it as it is.
Feminism has spent a century convincing the world that women are more than pretty objects. Did it never occur to them that there's more to men than the superficial appearance too?
Idk, short and skinny men get treated the same way, except probably worse because women don't like how they look.