This quote by [email protected] is a good thing to keep in mind. I'm not going to lock it because it genuinely seems to be helping some people. I'm getting reports though, so remember to be excellent to each other please.
this comment section is a memorial of injured experiences.
That's what I've heard. It probably respects it if you were a sh.itjust.works instance member, but not if you're not? That's from people talking about it last time this came up.
Mine is set to sort oldest first and it comes up top for me, though I don't see any other indication that it's pinned... It being there is most important though...
I don't know what to tell you, the mod tools for Lemmy are pretty minor. All I can do as speak as moderator and then it goes to the top for my instance and I think fellow instance members. All bets are off for other users. There's no way to actually sticky or pin anything to top that I'm aware of other than to speak as moderator as a top comment.
I have a very different friend group. Yeah people still like to project success and their kids whatever at the moment. But even that's only my local friends. Many of us love to talk shit about the state of the country/world and try to take care of each other through mental and emotional issues.
It's funny, I generally prefer to talk to a woman professionally, but I'd rather talk to a man friend about specific emotional problems. Of course I'm lucky to have a wife I would talk about most of these things with, but not everyone has a good partner.
Not the person you replied to, but just listening and allowing the person to express themselves and feel heard goes a long way. Getting it all out to someone and not being bottled up inside your own head can be a huge relief, even if the problem itself remains the same.
The instinctual reaction is to want to offer fixes. However, whatever the hearer thought of in five seconds, the sufferer probably also already thought of, and spent days/months/years attempting to make it work and it just didn't, and now the listening session gets diverted into kind of an argument where the suffered has to justify they have already put in sufficient effort to the fix the listener is pushing that it's not worth continuing on that road.
OK, be concerned. Now, please tell me how to be better. I am the first to admit that I suck at inter-personal things.
Let's say you are hanging out with a good friend, it is late in the evening, and they tell you about some fucked up shit happening to them.
"That sucks, man hang in there," doesn't quite cut it, as someone else pointed out, no solution you can up with in five minutes is going to help them, and just awkward silence is awkward to both of you.
When i was a kid it was the opposite... but in my adult years it's been overwhelmingly women that tried to enforce masculinity on me any time I stepped out of the bounds of masculinity and did something feminine (wear feminine clothes, cry, make a comment getting hit on by men to name a few). I was a closeted trans woman in denial which made it extra annoying whenever it happened. Now that I'm out the women in my life have been extremely supportive so there is that. However whenever I go out in full femme with outfit and make-up I noticed it's women who stare at me, had one lady look me up and down three times pretty deliberately while standing 4ft away from me. I don't always see it as malicious (not that i would care), more like they're curious or maybe even liking fit. But it's an interesting contrast compared to men who seem to give me almost no mind or attention by comparison. It was something I didn't expect.
My wife makes way more than me, with the potential to be sole provider in less than 5 years. I told her id love to stay home and take care of the house/kids. She got offended, and said itd probably end our marriage because that wouldnt be masculine.
Shes always been a big proponent for gender equality... i guess she always only ever thought of one gender
Take precautions. Seriously. Economic abuse is just as if not even more common than physical abuse. And you already know she's got emotional abuse locked and loaded.
Funny how that works, right? Both my mom and my ex, super feminists, all down with the gays and progressive but were some of the worst people when it came to enforcing my masculinity. My mom is coming around now after putting my foot down pretty sternly more than a few times. But when I was closeted that shit was really fucking hurtful and kept me from expressing myself.
Yes, and many women are strict enforcers of the patriarchy, too. Boys are raised to deny their feelings by both parents, because both parents were raised that way, too. There’s a focus on hyper masculinity that hurts both men and women, and is perpetuated by both men and women. Society has been leaning away from that, but it’s caused a backlash that’s kinda hurting us right now. And some social media is amplifying it.
We’ll get past it, but it’s going to hurt for a while.
Yes, it was written up back then. Which is a large reason why many more GenZers were raised without those toxic values, because their GenX parents actually read that shit.
So this upcoming generation are being called woke pussies for being raised with empathy and against the historical gender norms, and that’s causing the normal pendulum of conservative panic to swing society in the other direction right now.
If you’ve watched history happen and really read about it critically, this is all very predictable.
I think the ideology you think of when you say it's for everyone, is egalitarianism. Feminism can't be for everyone in the same way that patriarchy can't mean "womens oppression of men".
Unless of course, you're looking to confuse with the terminology.
Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social equality of the sexes.
But that is not how it ends up working. There are very little places to talk about men's issues. It either turns in some incel shit or reddits menslib.
feminine adjective (WOMEN)
Showing qualities that people generally think are typical of women
There is an opposite term to feminism, masculinism, which then leads to the idea that it can't be completely equal.
But i assume people will keep using the term to mean "equal rights for all", since thats usually how it goes with languages.
I just worry that the implication is changing so that women = equality and men = inequality.
That train of thought is mainly what drives younger men to go off the wall with their chauvinistic tendencies.
Actions speak louder than words, and despite all the No True Scotsman-ing, many, many words and acts of sexism against males have occurred under the banner of feminism.
I've read public press releases from mainstream feminist organizations like NOW proclaiming that the only reasons a father would ever seek custody of his child in a divorce is because he's either a wifebeater who wants to retain access to the woman he's abusing, or he's a deadbeat who's just trying to get out of paying child support.
There is a reason that the vast majority of people believe in equal treatment for both sexes, but only a small minority self-identify as "feminist".
So how about maybe not judging the whole of a thing on those that claim to align with it- yet show no similarities to it.
Maybe if the people who are pro-equality shouldn't grasp onto their gendered term so hard. Kinda weird that out of one side of their mouths so many people will say it's about equality for all but insist we must use the feminine term over the genderless one we already have
Don't want to be judged on gender lines? Don't use gendered terms to describe yourself, simple
I won't get into the rest of the stuff in this thread, but I'll disagree with your first point.
Feminism is a word. An English word. And that means it's definition is driven by common usage not a book. If the common usage shifts to a toxic place, the meaning shifts with it.
If you disagree I'd love to hear your gymnastics around the word invcel, it's evolution into incel, and then that further extension to femcel (even though the person who coined invcel was a woman).
It's ironically self-unaware victim-blaming to use the male-based word "patriarchy" to describe a set of societal norms and expectations that both sexes are equally responsible for creating and perpetuating. Puts the blame entirely on men and takes women completely off the hook.
I say the same about calling the movement feminism
If men are equally welcome in it, it's not feminism anymore, it's egalitarianism, but every woman I've ever seen it suggested to flips their shit while every man I've seen it suggested to goes "yeah that makes sense"
This has nothing to do with men being in position of power, this has everything to do with people having no empathy. If we lived in a matriarchy and people acted the same way they would still be assholes.
By patriarchy, I mean it in the context of feminism, as in the ideology that attempts to rationalize the idea of that men are better than woman, by using things such as religion, bioessentialism, and more. There are many definitions.
Toxic masculinity is an effect of the patriarchy. These are the toxic traits that eminate from masculinity as defined by the patriarchy.
But hey at this point we're arguing about semantics. There are traits that men and women are taught as being bad to do as men, even though some of those traits are actually necessary, or just part of someone's personality.
Stop using "the patriarchy" as an excuse for vile behaviour. Yes, it exists, but it's made up of a large group of people behaving badly, and one way to break it is to address the individuals one at a time.
I went through the worst depression of my life around 2017, tried to express these feelings to my gf at the time and explain why our romance was failing or why I spent half the day in bed.
Basically got told "poor you", everyone has struggles, snap out of it and be a man. That definitely helped, and didn't push me even deeper into feelings of worthlessness..
I'm doing ok now, but it was the first time I felt comfortable enough with someone to express those emotions, I was at my wits end. The response was eye opening, never again.
Instead of saying to yourself “never again”, how about “never again with someone who will betray my vulnerability”? Because what happened to you sounds really horrible, but there are people out there who will be with you in your struggles and nurture and build you up in your vulnerable moments.
As a man someone who also struggles with vulnerability, there are ways to test the waters in a relationship (family, friend, partner, etc) when it comes to vulnerability so that you won’t be hurt like that again. I actually watched this video recently and found it really helpful: https://youtu.be/WyKFHd7cSaU?si=J8zSMvZt_7WouQb7
Of course, none of this is easy, but it can be life-changing to open up to someone and feel cared for. I’m glad you’re doing better, and I wish you the best.
I've been in a relationship with my partner for 12 years now and I am lucky that I found someone that was supporting of my issues since pretty much day one.
In the last year, after many years of therapy, I was able to finally be totally vulnerable to my partner even if she always was supportive, not holding anything back, and it was liberating and almost addictive for a while.
The feeling is indescribable and one of the best feeling of my life.
A given group of people are not a monolith. While we do share a lot of similarities, we also all have the potential to be a little different from one another.
I hope you get a chance to find someone that will allow you to be open like that again. Sharing those emotions and having someone their to empathetically receive them is one of the most gratifying things as a human.
It’s cultural. The problem is bigger than any one person. As soon as honest men speak out, they either deal with minimization like in the meme, or worse, support from chauvinistic incels who invalidate their message entirely.
It includes people who under the guise of 'pure feminism' rail against 'patriarchy' whenever men's issues come up. Feminists are not immune to propaganda.
Yeah, I agree, this has the beginnings of incel vibes. Just like every generation has good, bad, poor, rich, each person of any fluid gender has the same. Some are mature in their teens and some don't mature until their 30s. Sounds like his girlfriend was super immature and ignorant.
That's fucked. If I was dating a guy and he cried in front of me it would make me happy to know that he feels safe being vulnerable around me. I would treasure him forever after that.
Crazy thing is that I literally just connected that dot in this thread thinking out loud. I never once had the thought that expressing my emotions was unsafe, I just kind of took that feedback onboard and proceeded to not process grief for two decades.
Fuck, I can't remember the last time I cried openly. I know I HAVE in the last few years, but I can't remember when or why. Nothing romance related, but I just can't remember...
On a similar note, my ex-girlfriend of two years was ranting about how men do not go to therapy. Then I mentioned that I do go to therapy, and been going from even before we met... and I will never forget the look on her face, she immediately stopped me mid sentence and told me she didn't need to hear about it.
She broke up with me the next week and said something like she didn't want to be with someone that goes to therapy, but rather one that went.
My sympathies for that rough experience. I hope you have a wider family and friend group that supports you taking care of yourself, and have or will find a better match of romantic partner.
I don't know if I want to blame the patriarchy or the toxic masculinity that goes with it, but crap. My ex was so not ok when I cried over the discovery of her affair.
She genuinely thought I was trying to manipulate her. I was "too extremely emotional" over it. We were highschool sweethearts, had a kid, and she always talked about how she was disgusted with her own mother for having an affair. Even to the point where she cut off contact with her mother until they ended that relationship.
"No man goes to bed crying because their wife cheated on them or sends nudes to the same guy 4 years later."
There were red flags earlier than that. "Why are you crying over a movie?" (I always do at emotional bits). "Man up, no one wants to be with someone expresses sadness."
What's worse is that it's pretty much why I don't bother going out, or have much motivation to get back into the dating game. The patriarchy and toxic masculinity has ruined being human to me. I don't want to be friends with people who cover up all their emotions. I don't want to be friends with guys who are clearly over compensating. Then the girls turn around complain about these men being cruel to them, yet state things like this.
Then you have all the men who have this strange belief that they are owed women, and by behaving like that they get the women they are owed. I won't take part in that. I will not hurt someone else just to satisfy my desires. If that means I don't date, I'm much more comfortable being a good person and alone.
I also try to bring it up in conversation, and then people turn around and act like my refusal to participate in patriarchal behavior is anti-social. I had one person point out "technically, you aren't getting any, even though you want it, making you an incel." I was so shocked. Its not the fault of women I'm not out getting laid. Its men. It's the patriarchy. It's this system set up to isolate me because I have an intense emotional awareness.
you know her better obviously but sometimes you're too close to see some things so here goes my opinion: I think she didn't genuinely think you were trying to manipulate her.
I think she knew it was the appropriate response and she was the bad person so instead of facing that situation and losing the upper hand she thought she could use toxic masculinity to manipulate you to feel bad about yourself as a way to take the heat off of herself.
"you're overreacting", "you're being too emotional" these are very common tactics that men use on women all the time. it's just that it has the added toxic masculinity aspect when the roles are reversed.
That... Actually makes more sense and a thought I was trying to avoid. I know she said a lot of things where she said things to avoid feeling like the bad guy. Unfortunately for her, cheating on your marriage doesn't have a defense.
did you not read anything before or after that quote? we were already talking about a woman doing it. this is me talking about, in response to their comment about whether it's about toxic masculinity, that it is done the other way all the time as well, and this way has the added layer of toxic masculinity.
now I haven't added anything to my original comment but this is what you missed.
My friend, I am so sorry you went through that. I understand it is incredibly hard to get over a betrayal coupled with an attack like that, but I know you can do it. Let yourself breathe and take your time but when you're ready, there is a whole world of love out there for you.
There are so many people who will cherish the exact part of you that she took for granted. It is easy to go through something like that and come to the conclusion that you should stop feeling. I hope you don't.
As for people saying you're an incel... I literally have no advice other than no longer talking to them. There are people in marriages who are "involuntarily celibate". This could become a rant about the awful nature of even the term "incel" but I think that would be a waste.
I hope you continue to show your strength by refusing to hide your vulnerability.
Thank you. That means a lot. I guess that's the part I'm most uncomfortable with - why is expressing emotion seen as vulnerability? It's one of our most effective methods of communication, particularly of empathy.
I think that maybe a different way to look at it would be to ask: why is vulnerability a bad thing? Everyone has emotions. Everyone is impacted and affected by things. To use your situation as an example - your partner betrayed you. You SHOULD be vulnerable to that. The fact that they can't fathom having that level of vulnerability, to the point that they claimed you were trying to manipulate them, is the problem. That kind of emotional invulnerability is what leads people to do the kinds of things they did.
I truly believe that being vulnerable in front of someone, especially when they have hurt you so much, is strength. Showing someone how much they hurt you is really hard. Find people you can be vulnerable with. They're out there.
A lot of people are deathly afraid of self reflection, of thinking about themselves, about their own behavior and how it affects others. Because if you reflect on it, you might come to the conclusion that you have to change something about yourself. And that is hard work, that a lot of people simply don't want to do (which I think is the reason for many things going wrong in the world).
Being able to express emotion is a sign of the ability to self reflect, to be aware of how one feels and being able to communicate that. In a way it makes people aware of their own shortcomings, which is why they want to avoid it.
I'm still surprised people use the old definition of "incel" considering that the connotations changed to "radical misogynist" or "terrorist" in the eyes of the mainstream nowadays. Personally I wouldn't be caught dead using the term to describe anyone who simply doesn't get laid. In 2013 it would be fine but nowadays it's almost slanderous.
Wore nail polish at work this week, because I’m a bloke in his 40s who works in an office so fuck it, why not.
Our HR manager - a man in his 50s who fairly recently sent out an email reminding us to talk about our feelings to help our mental health - asked me (half jokingly) if I was “going through some life changes”
I will be when I find a better company to work for.
To be fair, that could have been a genuine attempt to reach out to you. Coming in with painted nails when they've never seen you present yourself that way could be interpreted as you going through some life changes, and maybe you want to talk about them given an opportunity?
But also HR is never your friend. If he opens up it’s just a document in a file and if he gets fired it’s ammunition on why he wasn’t performing up to spec based on “life changes.”
Nah, he knows me well enough to know what I’m about. And ultimately he doesn’t really care whether I do it or not, but he’s an ex-army man of a certain age, and me wearing nail polish doesn’t jive with his view of what’s ’normal’.
No offense taken. Trying to bring some sanity is all. I still haven't received an honest answer to the question, so i guess it struck a bit to close to home.
Pretty hilarious that you try to paint me as sensitive, when you're the one getting upset on someone else behalf. 🙃
I'll once again give you the benefit of the doubt: the entire first paragraph was me deliberately mirroring you as well as I could in an attempt to make it clear why you're getting downvoted to hell. Apparently you're immune.
Did you though? You called me an asshole for asking a pretty non-judgemental, open ended question about the headspace of the person in question.
I wrote nothing in there that i wouldn't say to their face if they said what they said in the comment. You talk to me in a demeaning manor, which i didn't do.
“patriarchy” in this context means something other than you think, I.e. it means a system that upholds gender roles that benefit a (majority male) ruler class, e.g. by encouraging worker class men to go to war for their benefit, worker class women to be caretakers, and so on.
The counterpart to this definition of “patriarchy” is a society with no stratified gender roles, not “matriarchy”.
This is exactly why its such a bad word to use to describe this, it automatically puts people on the defensive and needs to be explained to people that it doesn't mean what the word means (rule of the fathers).
Everybody living in this world should be aware that words have context and don't always literally mean what their parts mean. And even then “patriarchy” is one of the more literal ones: it comes from “pater”/father in the same vein as “paternalistic”, with the same connotation of overbearing-yet-out-of-touch.
So just from word meaning that clearly doesn't mean all men, and obviously it also doesn't refer to literal fathers either.
I never claimed it wasn't. Shitty people are going to be shitty but they feel comfortable being shitty in the way that they are, in public, because the patriarchy has made that normal. I never excused her behavior, I identified it as being connected to a much broader sociological issue.
Hey comrade, I am seriously glad that comment like yours are starting to not be accepted anymore.
I somehow agree with you, the patriarchy harms everyone. But it does not help anyone to slap it in the face of men who are suffering, and also I disagree that a faceless concept has more responsibility than the people pushing it forward.
Honestly, 'patriarchy' is a terrible term that leads to so much confusion. Too many people use it as 'blame men' and forget that it's supposed to be about men being culturally cast as perfect leaders and therefore punished for not meeting those impossible standards.
I have high hopes that the spreading acceptance of transfolk will start to break down the weird gender roles we've got, and maybe we can talk about some of this stuff more directly.
Thank you for pointing out this. I hat the term 'patriarchy'. I can see the people here using this term are trying to make a point. But it seems to me, that the wording 'patriarchy' hints towards to that ultimately men are to blame.
It is also unnerving that feminism tends to excuse problems that women really have is systemic, while trouble that men have is caused by individually shitty behaviour.
I very much would like a society, where every human regardless of gender is being met with the same empathy.
You know, I hadn't really thought about the benefit that LGBTQ+ acceptance plays in this.
Of everyone who has been so supportive of me, it's been my queer and non-binary friends.
I am a straight white male with money. While it upsets me to see women saying stuff like this post, I also know that I am not going to blame the women perpetuating the problem, because they themselves are victims of toxic masculinity and established gender norms.
I have a lot of queer friends (being pansexual myself) and I love the general awareness of mental health at least within my social circle (mainly well educated people throughout their 20s). For example it’s incredibly refreshing not to have to make excuses if you don’t feel like being around people that day, instead just being able to say just that without judgement.
Yeah this comment section has not brought me hope. I'll admit that this may not have been the best place and time for this conversation but it needs to be spoken of, especially to the people who want to hear it least. I need these people to understand that societal issues cannot be solved at an individual level. You cannot simply be angry at a woman for being cold and heartless. This helps no one. The people who perpetuate patriarchal society won't stop doing it because we get mad at them. They must be confronted about their behavior first and foremost with an understanding of the material conditions that drive them.
Yes, the perpetrators of patriarchy are responsible for its continuity but they do not realize this. They do not recognize the very existence of a patriarchy and this is why the world struggles to fight it. Often the biggest perpetuators of patriarchy are the most harmed by it and they don't even know. They are as much victims as they are villains. How can we call them responsible on an individual level when patriarchy is the only thing they have ever known?
You cannot simply be angry at a woman for being cold and heartless.
Yes, we can. Patriarchy or not, there are some awful people and behaviours being described in these comments. And while the "patriarchy" no doubt plays a role in enabling that, people also need to take ownership of their behaviour.
I don't understand why it cannot be both? Yeah these people are responsible for their actions and should be confronted on it on an individual basis but their actions are also influenced by the society in which they live. We need to confront and discuss that too.
It's terrible to see. It's another feature of the patriarchy and toxic masculinity - blaming the victims. It's why it has been going on for so long.
In a similar vein: Why do women not report rape? This is why. Because even women have been so oppressed by the system that they will even question "if they were asking for it."
Some women would be shit to men and women and fucking anyone and everyone even if we lived in a matriarchy. Just like some men are shit to everyone and some men and women are nice with everyoneat.
I never advocated for a matriarchy. People will continue to be shitty to eachother but the deconstruction of gender based discrimination and violence would benefit us all. In order to do that we must recognize that what holds us back from this is patriarchy.
My point still stands, no matter if there's discrimination or not, some people will continue being shit to others and pretending they're shit because of the system we live in is removing all their agency. "It's ok if you're a bad person, it's just because [insert reason that is out of their power]."
Stop deflecting blame from shitty women. There are shitty women who do shitty things and "the patriarchy" does not excuse their behavior.
Stop worshiping the patriarchy. The patriarchy is not God. The patriarchy is not to blame for every shitty thing a shitty woman does.
Sometimes women are shitty and you make the problem worse by telling everyone it's not their fault because the patriarchy is God in your idiot doctrine.
Edit: I'm not saying the patriarchy isn't real, it definitely is and should be dismantled. But you need to interrogate your own righteousness or you're just spreading neoliberal schlock to make yourself feel better about how women can be shitty to men.
Women thinking men are icky when they express emotions is because they're taught from a very young age that expressing emotions is feminine and feminine, especially feminine men, is bad. This wasn't a reach to blame on the patriarchy at all.
The patriarchy isn't "men are harming people all by themselves." It's the gender roles and gender hierarchy that both men and women perpetuate.
I have to push back here and say that I think that the "emotions are feminine" explanation doesn't give the whole picture. There's also instrumentalization of men.
We're all familiar with objectification, the tendency of (some) men to ignore women's agency, and treat them as objects for their own use. On the flip side, in my experience, (some) women instrumentalize men. That is, treat men as agents to be used as tools to achieve their own goals. As a result, I think that (some) women use men as a bulwark against the stresses and existential terror of human existence, or sometimes even literally, like a bodyguard, or the one who has to deal with the spider in the house.
You want your vacuum cleaner to suck up dirt when you pull it out of the closet, and then disappear quietly back in there once the job is done. You don't want to have to change the bag, and clean the motor, and replace the belt every time. More metaphorically, you don't want to find out that your emotional ramparts against a scary world are built on sand, and that's what kind of happens when (some) women find out that their partner has fears and weaknesses, too.
I've heard the same story many, many times from men whose partners begged them to open up emotionally, only to flee once they found out that those emotions included fears and self-doubt. It doesn't make sense that they'd do the first part, if emotions were unattractive, per se.
I think you're quite correct in this analysis as well. Historically, women have often had to depend on a husband for financial security and to be this instrument of protection. This archetype of the provider and protector husband is still baked into our patriarchal culture and leads women who don't deconstruct this attitude to treat their male partners as you describe, and men in straight marriages to feel this burden alone. I've seen it often lead to insecurity and self doubt among husbands who feel they can't live up to this impossible expectation, who also for the reasons widely discussed in this thread don't feel able to express this insecurity and doubt, or are punished for doing so because it goes against their culturally-prescribed gender role of the strong male protector.
That's like saying the road is the cause of all car crashes.
The road is the context in which all (mostly all) crashes occur, its contours or grading maybe contributed to the crash, but it almost never would be the sole cause.
Most people who just wave their hands and say "patriarchy" are parrots who just know they get a cracker when they say the line. It's resulted in trash discourse.
It's resulted in people just tuning out when they hear the word, too.
Kinda sucks, because it's a really useful foundation to talk about society through a certain lens. It'd be hard to talk about traffic if I didn't understand what a road was.
But, I admit, many people who pipe up with "patriarchy" don't really want to talk any farther, and that does make dealing with those people pretty frustrating. Like if a cop showed up at every crash and excitedly pointed out the existence of a road and then left.
I am biased because I own (small) parrots who genuinely love crackers, and any reference to that cute behavior is positive for me. But I believe this would be a great metaphor even if I weren't biased in favor of parrots.
It's just the broad description of the gender roles/hierarchy present in our society. Being aware of them and how they negatively impact gender interaction seems fairly useful to me. Usually it's helpful to understand the current structure of something and how that's causing problems to make any meaningful and positive changes.
On the contrary, the term is performing exactly as designed - blame men for men being shitty (toxic masculinity), and blame men for women being shitty too (internalized misogyny).
How is "women are also perpetuating and engaging in the patriarchy, this is a problem" blaming it on men? "The Patriarchy" is not blaming stuff on men, it's a descriptor of the gender-roles-system we live in and people of all genders can be perpetuators of its toxic aspects.
Because "patriarchy" isn't just a neutral, ivory-tower descriptor of a system of gender roles. Just look at Twitter, or Reddit - the number of feminists using the word patriarchy on a daily basis to blame men far outnumber the tiny number of academic feminists that (supposedly) use the term without misandrist intent. Words' meanings are determined by their use, and going by its use, "patriarchy" is a misandrist term that is used to blame men for all of society's ills, which has resulted in demonstrable negative societal outcomes for men and boys. It's naive or disingenuous to act otherwise.
And even among more academic feminist circles, it's naive to think the term "patriarchy" isn't being used in a misandrist way by a significant percentage of feminists - radical feminism, just to target the low-hanging fruit, is entirely organized around mistaken and harmful ideas of "male supremacy", and as a result most of feminism's terminology is also entirely organized around men being the oppressor, and women being the oppressed.
This is where we get the real brilliance of feminist thought: "academic", "neutral" terms like "toxic masculinity" and "internalized misogyny" ensure that all discourse about society's ills are entirely framed around oppressor/oppressed language (where, of course, men are always the oppressors and women are always the oppressed), which, as discussed above, ensures that the public at large will blame men for literally anything that goes wrong. And, of course, this is exactly what we see on social media, from both men and women. It's a brilliantly designed system. Horrible, but brilliant.
The consequences of this inherently misandrist philosophy have been felt throughout society for decades. There are practically no domestic violence shelters or rape resources for men, even though men constitute almost half of rape victims. Men having lower rates of graduation from both high school and college (and of course all of the feminism-funded scholarships are for women, even though they're currently approaching 60% of graduates - gEnDeR eQuALiTy). Generations of boys having now grown up internalizing this misandry, being told that they're inherently aggressive rapists and being forced to take re-education classes. The results of this widespread, societal internalized misandry are clearly visible here in this thread.
And, of course, as mentioned above, the incredible brilliance of the system is that all of these failings (and countless, countless others) are conveniently deemed due to the totally neutral academic term "patriarchy", and not due to feminists pushing misandrist policy for decades that have had demonstrable negative outcomes for men. So, out here in the real world, men get blamed for women's problems, and they get blamed for their own problems as well.
Feminism doesn't have a monopoly on gender equality, as much as people claim it does ("If you believe in gender equality, you're a feminist whether you like it or not!"). Feminism is fundamentally built on decades of misandrist philosophical baggage, and it's time we threw it all out, burned the system down, and started over with a philosophy that's actually dedicated to gender equality, from the ground up.
Pointing out shitty behavior is systemic doesn't absolve the person of their responsibility for that behavior. It helps illustrate the issue is systemic and not just some crazy one off occurrence. It also gives an angle of attack on solutions to the systemic problem.
The patriarchy is just as much a men's lib issue as it is a feminist issue. The gender roles and hierarchy harms men. Women being shitty to a guy for expressing emotion is an example of just that.
There wasn't an invitation for you to speak up either. But you chose to speak up so you should expect some push back. Looking at how you've presented yourself so far I seriously doubt you'll listen to me, so I'll just put my argument very plainly. Nobody should listen to you because you refuse to listen to anyone else.
You haven't addressed anything the other person has said. All you've pretty much done is try to put words in their mouth so you could counter an argument that was never made. There's no discussion here, it's just you screaming into the void and the other person wanting to believe you're a normal person.
You haven’t addressed anything the other person has said.
So?
My point is about the nature of their statement and how it centers women in a topic that is about how when men speak about feelings women center a feminine perspective.
Just because you're not listening doesn't mean others aren't.
Idk why you thought I was doing any of that. What I meant was this woman feels that it is normal or okay to act in the way that she is because the patriarchal society in which we live makes that normal. It is not an excuse, it is an explanation and identification of a much broader issue.
Edit: I'm not saying the patriarchy isn't real, it definitely is and should be dismantled. But you need to interrogate your own righteousness or you're just spreading neoliberal schlock to make yourself feel better about how women can be shitty to men.
"neoliberalism is when you want to dismantle patriarchy"
so are these women naturally "shitty" this is a deterministic take.
a more is grounded in material approach is the patriarchy / modern culture teaches us to behave in certain ways etc, women need a strong man as women are weak according to western cultural norms.
I am a man, I have been hurt by women who would not have done so if the society in which they live did not deem it normal and ok. While these women are responsible for their actions and should do better, they would not have acted this way if patriarchal society didn't deem men to be lacking in emotion or "emotionally strong".
What do you expect from a feminist perspective? Their philosophy already has an answer and that answer is men are the oppressors and women the eternal victim. I grew up the only man in a family of women, it was hell. I was always too loud, too big, too expensive because I couldn't wear my sisters hand me downs and once the mental health issues being hammered into a mold I don't fit began to crop up. Feminism contributed more to my suicidal young life than anything else. The only reason I am alive today is I found male friends, even the toxic ones helped more than feminists ever did. My toxic friends taught me to stand up for ME. Feminists told me to shut up and let people abuse me, to smother my sense of right and wrong.
Super socially awkward and anxious in middle school and high school and was also bullied a ton. Girls would ask me out as a joke, and there's no good response. If you say yes you're a dumbass for thinking they're actually interested in you, if you say no you're gay and should kill yourself. Combined with being an impressionable teen with incredibly negative self esteem on reddit at a time where something along the lines of all men are rapists was a common sentiment, it really honestly fucked me up. I still am not comfortable with romance and intimacy with women to be honest.
Got married in August 2018, the beginning of the next month my dad died of cancer. Obviously I was mourning him and was in a shitty place, my then wife took that as me not being active enough in our relationship and decided to start cheating on me with multiple guys. Once I found out and called her out on it, and also subsequently kicked her out all of a sudden I was the bad guy. I can't even imagine the mental gymnastics she was hopping through to think that was justified.
Anyway I've moved across the country since then and have met who I believe is my soulmate, and things are amazing with her. Just had to go through sewers to find my green pasture I suppose
A bit related to this, so many times throughout my life when I've mentioned I'd like to be friends with, take up lost contact with or just mention a woman has a currently present woman reacted like "you know she has a boyfriend, right?", "I don't think you're her type" etc.
It makes sense that so many men have very few or no female friends, because they experience exactly that. It's like many women have decided that all men are incapable of being friendly with women without it being about sex or more than friends. We get scared of trying because it'll just be misinterpreted as wanting to fuck them.
I've always had a lot of friends who are women, but the ones who were in my "league" or higher almost all eventually asked why I never hit on them, or blatantly hit on me. It was a weird mix of them being upset I hadn't like it was a judgement on their attractiveness, and being frustrated because they thought it was an eventuality and were tired of waiting.
But, humans are pattern recognition machines, we don't even realize we're doing it most of the time.
Especially for a very attractive woman in her 20s, if a guy is interacting with her, it's likely because they want sex.
So you can't fault them for the assumption, but then when they run into a guy that legit is cool just being platonic friends, they tend to pursue a relationship because they see that as a desirable trait. Even just for a FWB thing, you've shown that you're "safe" and it can become a conquest thing as well because they're not used to the rejection of not being pursued and want the ego boost of changing your mind.
There's just an absolute shit ton going on, so it's hard to judge anyone because their life experiences are why they hold their current beliefs.
As a trans woman who came out the other side... well there's no modest way to put it- pretty damn attractive I'm told, I never understood why women just assume guys are hitting on them until I lived it.
I don't even do it on purpose. It's just that the vast, vast majority of the time, guys are trying to hit on me, and my brain has connected the "guy talking to me" neuron and the "guy hitting on me" neuron so tightly that it doesn't even occur to me that they might not be unless they prove it through extended interactions, usually over years, of never showing any interest.
And yeah, I've definitely fallen for people largely because they simply hadn't shown any signs of being into me. You're right that there is an immense sense of safety in knowing they've never tried to get in my pants. Unfortunately, that also means, 99% of the time, that they're gonna say no if I ask them out (I generally prefer to make the first move because it feels safer.)
For the sake of example and because it's relevant to the thread, I asked a dude out who'd shown no interest, and it turned out he was actually attracted to me, but wasn't interested because he'd been heavily abused in a past relationship and he wasn't ever willing to give it another shot.
And on that subject, having life experience as both a man and a woman really does open your mind to how differently abuse is treated between men and women. I was heavily abused as a kid, both by men and women, and telling the story before I transitioned, people always desperately searched for a reason it was my fault (even though I was a kid at the time it happened) and when they couldn't find one, spouted lines like "at least you're stronger for it."
As a woman, people, not having knowledge that I wasn't always a woman, immediately recognize how horrible my abuse was, zero attempts to justify it, and hell, even direct me to support groups (albiet I've attended said groups before and they're fucking useless trauma feedback circles in my experience.)
Well, that turned into a half irrelevant rant, but it's nice to have some of that off my chest.
With your last comment there, you're like 1 step away from "nobody can ever be blamed for their actions because they are all just meat and chemical automatons on a deterministic path". I mean, we are. But society can't work that way.
You literally said its hard to judge anyone. I said that's one step away from impossible to judge anyone, and life can't work that way. Where is the fallacy?
Oh yeah, gender relations are a mess. The belief of not being able to be friends with genders you’re attracted to is bullshit, and I’m really tired of it. It’s cost me some relationships to the point where I had to make that a rule.
I’m not attracted to everyone, and beyond that, I have a healthy respect for boundaries. Their boundaries and my boundaries.
One note, maybe quit mentioning you’d like to be friends with them and just be friends with them? Mentioning “I’d like to be friends with…” to other people is coded as “Hook me up with...”.
I've been scrolling the comments on this post for a while (longer than I should) and just want to say it is one of the most refreshing collective displays of thoughtfulness and empathy I have read online in far too long. Even the back-and-forwards where people disagree on details or semantics are still overwhelmingly positive, insightful, and respectable on all sides. Another comment here used a brilliant term "merciless insincerity", and personally I've been leaning in a dangerously cynical direction lately about its prevalence. Although I know I am old & resilient enough to not let it capsize me I despise when so much lowest-common-denominator thinking hardens my shell and wallpapers a layer of apathy over who I really am (the angry-yet-optimistic teenager from the 80s/90s who screamed into the void about the climate-emergency, the corrosion of democracy by short-term vote-winning & fundraising, and - more relevantly - the toxicifying impact men and women have had on society - at interpersonal, familial, regional, national, and international scales - by regurgitating thoughtless archetypes and flagwaving in lieu of questioning reality from a fearless standpoint of "open-minded but critical, optimistic but sceptical, confident but fallibilistic". Discussions like these are some of the very few bastions of antidote left for that cynicism and apathy. What blows my mind is that it is apparent a nontrivial proportion of you who are young (well, much younger than me) are introspecting and expressing yourselves about the subject better than I ever could. When I see the flood of toxic (and idiotically childish) nonsense almost everywhere else, discussions like these truly help bolster a dangerously scarce resource called "hope for the future", and reinforces for me why about 99.9℅ of my "social online reading" time is spent on Lemmy lately. Gandhi said "be the change you wish to see in the world", and it's worth considering that what you are all writing here is a good example of you doing exactly that (even if you hadn't realised or intended). It adds up, when groups of people give each other the chance to be truly unafraid (instead of "playing tough" - which merely broadcasts how truly afraid someone really is).
And this is what needs to change. In order to trust someone, a level of vulnerability is required. We must demand that expression of emotion is not seen as vulnerability, but as a human need.
Yeah, it's hard. We had a miscarriage a few years before our kid, and nobody really gave a shit about the effect it had. Hell, my fuckstick boss made me take (bullshit noise) after hours alerts from the fucking hospital room.
One of the many times I've used malicious compliance to change policies.
I don’t have any tattoos, but if I ever got one it would be 4 small circles. Three would be filled in and one would be just an outline. It’s not much, but as a father of four pregnancies but three kids it would be a small little reminder just for me. My logic has always been if I’m going to be marked on the outside, it should reflect how I’m marked on the inside.
Four years later it still stings. I wish you peace; I wish I could say talking about it with other people has helped, but I can’t.
I mean, duh? There's enough vile Americans that Trump was democratically elected twice after being known as an out and proud child molestor and rapist.
That doesn't mean the patriarchy hasn't caused issues for other parts of the world though, just that America can be viewed as its end goal.
I'm so sorry. My wife and I are trying to conceive and after two years of trying we got a positive. Then another a few days later. We were aware that we shouldn't get our hopes up, but despite that how can you not? We were so excited.
Then the spotting started. Then another test still showed positive but it was so faint. It turned into desperately trying to bargain with the universe and convince ourselves that these signs didn't point to the obvious. But the obgyn confirmed it a few days later.
For us it was only ~2 weeks after the first positive, and I can't even imagine how hard it must be to lose it later on. I'm still devastated. We're still trying, but I'm not sure how much fear is going to be mixed in if we manage to get another positive.
That's a rough place. You don't want to bring it up to often, nor allow any situation make them feel as if your sadness or grieving is due to them at all. Been through a situation like that, not fun. You want to be a rock, but also human, while not allowing that humanity.. which is part of the problem.
That sucks. A miscarriage is basically losing a baby, if you've been thinking about it like one. I still think about life with the son that my wife and I lost in a miscarriage.
I've thought about this a fair bit, and I can definitely recall a bunch of cases from primary school and high school when I opened up about my feelings and personal stuff; and it ended badly for me. It ended badly every time, and I reckon that's why I basically don't tell anyone anything about myself now as an adult. I don't even share most stuff with my partner, or my family - such are the scars of past experience.
It certainly is for me. I still have difficulty whenever someone tries to compliment me on anything as a result of childhood bullying that frequently took the form of merciless insincerity.
I hope you're doing better. Your life is worth sharing.
That term "merciless insincerity" is an amazingly concise yet thorough way to capture one of the pervasive things I get most frustrated by (across the many countries I've lived in, so it is not a georestricted behaviour). Whenever I try to describe it I get too wordy. I'm stealing that.
People are uncomfortable when a guy expresses negative emotions. Even those that process it well often seem unable to accept it. I hope you (and the rest of you in the comments) have either found a space or a person that you can be yourself around, instead of what everyone else needs you to be.
When they ask about express more emotions they mean positive emotions about them. So don't be bother by it. If you express the "wrong" emotions you will be dumped too.
This sort of situation is how I knew my wife was/is a keeper. When I was pushed to the point where my negative emotions got too much, she was there for me. She didn't shy away, but stepped in to help and support me.
In many of my previous relationships, showing negative emotions was lethal to their feelings. I could be happy, or stoic, but never upset or depressed.
On a side note, I had a chat with a trans friend once, regarding emotions. When they transitioned, the intensity of their emotions didn't change much. However, their ability to contain them plummeted. Basically, men and women feel emotions similarly. Men are just a lot more able to bottle them up.
A classic reddit moment, reading some very heartfelt words on the emotional journey of overcoming the loss of a loved one, you start typing a reply to thank... PantSniffer69
Meanwhile somewhere out in the world a poor lad born in '69 whose parents decided to call him Pant Sniffer is crying as the tiny 'puter people think he's just a shitposter instead of a loving and caring fella.
I decided to end a relationship and marriage, after being together for 13 years. For the first time in years I put myself first and realised that I needed to be out of the relationship. Coming out of this has been very difficult and I've been struggling with my mental health since.
I started dating again, and have had two horrible experiences where my feelings were just put aside and it really hurt. Both of which ended up with the relationship ending. It's like I'm not allowed to have feelings or struggle. 😞
Imho the worst are those who crucify the patriarchy at every point, then a man chimes in to criticize calmly the words chosen are inappropriate for the given situation, or outright hurtful, then the radical anti-patriarchy combatants shut down that person as the most vile being they deserve to feel terrible. And that guy ill-adjusts, be it on a personal level of despair or combative misogyny, and the anti-patriarchy combatants continue their cycle, because clearly they were right from the get-go, men are misogynistic and don't speak about their problems. Rinse and repeat.
Please, don't be that type of anti-patriarchy fighter. It doesn't matter that you describe yourself as super leftist progressive, if you behave like crap and reinforcing the worst of stereotypes.
I have noticed a pattern in myself, which I suspect could be true for others too. Namely, that I am much more likely to care about someone if the feeling is mutual. On a rational level, I can recognize that this or that person has had a bad time and deserve better, and I want to help them, but if they are hostile or indifferent to me, I kind of stop caring. And vice versa, if I feel that someone cares about me, I will care a lot about them. If this is the case for two people, it can quickly spiral either towards more mutual caring, or more mutual indifference.
Now here's the tricky part, how do we influence this trajectory? The only way I can think of is to care even if the other person isn't caring back. Polarizing language can feel good, to assert yourself when you feel hurt, but... is it helpful or detrimental for the bigger picture? It's so circular and self-reinforcing. So hard to escape.
I get the feeling that many people argue that "well, when they start treating me right, then I will start treating them right, but until then I don't care", and sure, I understand that feeling. But the feeling is probably mutual.
Same sentiment here. I always try to care a bit more than the other person so that, assuming most people use proportional caring implicitly, the mutual care can increase steadily.
I often see an issue when trying to communicate your point here, (which I agree with and I also agree that that Patriarchy is a problem), there is no good way to name and call out those as you put it "radical anti-patriarchy combatants."
Very few are willing to name or talk about "the Matriarchy" or "toxic Femininity." So we either end up trying to use a long string of less impactful words, (like you did), or we just sweep those "radical anti-patriarchy combatants" under the too broad umbrella of Patriarchy and end up hidden from sight.
So the next time you need to call out one of those radical anti-patriarchy combatants, name them for what they are-- a toxic feminist and are adding to the problem of the Matriarchy. Just as you would call out any toxic male as being a problem part of the Patriarchy. Then sit back and watch them come unglued.
Because we desperately need equality for all and we need to support each other as best we can and when we can. To quote the famous Canadian philosopher, Red Green-- "Remember, we're all in this together."
I wish I could give you a hug.
My husband is similar, he struggles with emotions and has always been "the calm rock." Everyone compliments him on his patience and temper, he is an extremely chill person to be around. Because of this, he struggles heavily with any time he does not fulfill that role. His self worth is tied to how much he can fix or do for others and in a non-bothersome way. We've been together for about 10 years and he's gotten more comfortable expressing his emotions but still feels immense shame when he cries or breaks down. Your last sentence is such a good point I've never really thought about. I should start paying more attention to how he needs and wants to express those emotions earlier. He's bottled and masked for so long I don't think he's ever been able to give different forms of expression a chance.
I'm sorry the people closest to you struggle to give you the space you need when things get overwhelming. Life isn't made to be easy, and you've worked hard for a long time. I hope you get some time for whatever you feel like now that the holidays are over.
I know how that feels, and I know a few more people of any gender who have been made that way.
I eventually gained it back, but it sometimes I still feel like I'm close to tears yet can't go there. Feels like a sneeze that doesn't come except more emotional.
That's one of the reasons why I love stories that make me cry. It's literally the only place where I'm able to do it and allows me to release some of the stress that way.
Some of the modern stuff, but mostly stuff from 20-30 years ago that's just sad as fuck.
Just get in your own head and start thinking of past regrets and people who are gone.
Like, "having a good cry" honestly helps, so it's worth putting the work in to "learn" to cry. It's flushing out hormones and neurotransmitters, and can lower cortisol which has a whole bunch of benefits.
So maybe not country, but find some music that makes you emotional and start a straight up "crying playlist" to get you in that headspace. It'll get easier overtime
Yupp, have the same general problem. Although maybe not fitting to the stereotype of men and masculinity, I am also basically incapable of getting angry. The only responses I have to stress are shutdown and fawning, I think it (partially) stems from a combination of mostly absent father and an overwhelmed mother with a lot of unresolved mental health issues, that sadly wasn't able to properly handle children being normal children, lots of essentialist sentences about me being horrible still floating in my head from that childhood.
What helps me with anger is aggressive-depressive music. While that channels it just as a primal feeling, it's also a good stimming time. Crying is harder, though, although I had moments - some years back I was able to cry for over an hour while with my best friend, that really was a watershed moment in my life, but it unfortunately did not just make the underlying problems and blockade go away.
Other things that sometimes manage to tease anger and tears out of me is watching some true crime shit, or stuff like holocaust documentaries. Getting angry and disturbed for someone else comes a lot easier for me, but even there, the wall is high to climb.
I'm so sorry for all those commenters having sad stories and being told to "man up". That's very sad
I might be wrong but I have a feeling that it is a very US influenced problem (so now a very English speaking country problem). Maybe I'm wrong, maybe I'm influenced because it is Internet and there's plenty of Americans and everything is written in English.
Being born in a French speaking culture, I don't feel that way. My friends don't, my non French speaking friends don't as well. Most men of my generation (millennial) that I have met could express emotions without much problems, and women would not react badly to it, but maybe I'm just lucky.
Of course, there's always some shitty people, some overly manly jerks or non caring women, but I would say that they represent less than 15% of the population I've met in my life (data source: My ass).
So, am I wrong ? Am I influenced by Internet ? How is it for German/Spanish/Portuguese/Italian/Japanese/Whatever cultures ?
And if I'm right, well that sucks. How can we help ?
I lost my little brother last year and I would say I already wasn't a very "manly" man before that but that put things into a new perspective. It was a horrible time but also one that showed me that I chose my friends and family very wisely.
Although I don’t actually cry that often, and will still tend to shut my self off and wallow when I start to feel down; which is something that happens intermittently several times a year where I just feel hopeless, unhappy, lacking purpose, and not really wanting to do life.
So when I’m in these moods my friends have realised the signs, mainly me being hard to reach and absent from gatherings etc. they will all reach out and make me leave the house and have a talk about how I’m feeling, have some hugs, and then just go to roasting each other. This helps massively as isolating makes me worse so being around friends and just being in the moment is a really good antidote for me.
I guess my point is that the men around me are a bit more accepting of mental health issues. It’s not like they’re all hipster kind of mates. I am unusual in that I’m a nerdy software developer that is also very street wise and has mates that are completely the opposite. Most are trades people, a few sell drugs, are handy with their hands etc. basically my friends are chavs, but they’re accepting and not what you would think.
Edit: I should add that we all range from 30-40 years old.
I like to have a cry every so often, like if I'm starting to feel overwhelmed easy and constantly, I'll go watch one my insta cry shows or movies.
One that works really well and lets me cry but over a more uplifting way mostly, is Ricky Gervais show Derek, I ugly cry so damn much in that show and afterwards I come out feeling great.
I used to hide it, but now I'll tell anyone, I don't care anymore, I'm nice, I'm caring and helpful, I'm a good person who uses crying as a form of self therapy, you're the negative one belittling me over a childish viewpoint that makes you feel uneasy because you lack the ability to actually express your emotions, so others shouldn't either.
When I got home after being away for a few months my mom said I got a little fatter. Told her the same thing, and she told me I can't say such things...
Sure, and I wouldn't be bringing up the same subject when consoling a friend who was just treated this way by their partner, or talking to a friend who just treated their partner this way. But the context here is the discussion section of a post of a screenshot of a post of a stranger recounting their experience. I'm not trying to help Silverwing Secundus; they're not here in this thread. There's a lot of discussion in this comment section about common experiences and gender relations. So it seems perfectly natural to bring up one of the most significant influences on the way people of opposite genders interact in our society.
Patriarchy isn't "men bad", it's a social system that places men and women into predetermined, rigid boxes. This harms both men and women, since none of us are as rigid as the system demands us to be.
"Boys don't wear pink"
"Girls play with dolls"
"Men don't cry"
"Women who dress 'that way' deserve it"
All of those are patriarchy reinforcing statements. Again, this harmful belief that "men shouldn't have feelings" and them then bring rejected by women due to opening up is, on a macro level, due to the patriarchy. On an individual level, they're just people being assholes to their loved ones.
I honestly wish that a better word had been chosen than "patriarchy". Because at first blush it does look like "men bad" in an environment in which there are people who are predisposed to dismiss it as such.
Particularly since the patriarchy harms everyone. It can smack of "you're the enemy and it's your fault you're suffering" to the uninitiated. And bad faith actors are using that to misrepresent feminism and perpetuate the patriarchy.
Yeah, if it's not intended to be anti-men there's plenty of other words that could be used. Patriarchy as a concept is as the other poster described, but weaponization of the term is a different layer from the term itself. There's all sorts of mental gymnastics involved when you talk to people whose main patriarchy problem is their mother.
That having been said it's important to remember that in terms of the overall bulk of humanity, men are significantly more externally violent and rapey than the general population of women by at least an order of magnitude. My gut feeling on the situation is that a lot of the sentiment in this thread is directly related to that outcome, but it's still important to remember that on average if you put a woman and a man in a locked room, the woman is in far more danger.
That's not what that word means. “patriarchs” aren't men in general, that's why it's possible (and in fast true) that the patriarchy harms people of all genders.
As this post demonstrate, men don't benefit from it, e.g. it makes us live shorter, it encourages suppressing our emotion, it encourages our aggression. Because some (mostly) men in power benefit if we don't unionize, let ourselves be pressed into shit jobs or the military, and so on.
Read the other messages here and you might understand.
For every 50 sensitive men out there, there's a sociopath using a sensitive man persona to try to gain an advantage with women. Believe that men are sensitive, but verify, look for red flags.
the comments aren’t making it to my instance but i peeked over to how they look on slrpnk and just want to say good job all for approaching this with so much respect and decency
This quote by [email protected] is a good thing to keep in mind. I'm not going to lock it because it genuinely seems to be helping some people. I'm getting reports though, so remember to be excellent to each other please.
Edit: fixed author's username.
I think the username ends peb not pep
Also you might want to pin your comment to put it at the top
It is at the top for my instance, it doesn't work on some clients though. Thanks, I'll fix his name.
Right :) top is variable by user settings, is it pinned and my client just doesn't respect pins?
That's what I've heard. It probably respects it if you were a sh.itjust.works instance member, but not if you're not? That's from people talking about it last time this came up.
Mine is set to sort oldest first and it comes up top for me, though I don't see any other indication that it's pinned... It being there is most important though...
I don't know what to tell you, the mod tools for Lemmy are pretty minor. All I can do as speak as moderator and then it goes to the top for my instance and I think fellow instance members. All bets are off for other users. There's no way to actually sticky or pin anything to top that I'm aware of other than to speak as moderator as a top comment.
FYI, I see it pinned as a top comment even from my instance
Also just an fyi that my instance and app display it as pinned (slrpnk and connect). Also my default is to sort by top.
Idk what it means, just figured I'd also chime in with some extra data lol
I also see this pinned on my instance.
this comment section is a memorial of injured experiences.
tread carefully.
Thank you for the warning, kind stranger.
I prefer "monument to all your sins" but hard to disagree.
"Why are men in general so emotionally constipated? omg stop crying like a pussy; we just asked a question!" - the patriarchy, oppressing us all
feminism is for everyone. patriarchy is both against and enforced by everyone
I have a very different friend group. Yeah people still like to project success and their kids whatever at the moment. But even that's only my local friends. Many of us love to talk shit about the state of the country/world and try to take care of each other through mental and emotional issues.
It's funny, I generally prefer to talk to a woman professionally, but I'd rather talk to a man friend about specific emotional problems. Of course I'm lucky to have a wife I would talk about most of these things with, but not everyone has a good partner.
Genuine question, how would you wish a good friend/partner would react?
Not the person you replied to, but just listening and allowing the person to express themselves and feel heard goes a long way. Getting it all out to someone and not being bottled up inside your own head can be a huge relief, even if the problem itself remains the same.
The instinctual reaction is to want to offer fixes. However, whatever the hearer thought of in five seconds, the sufferer probably also already thought of, and spent days/months/years attempting to make it work and it just didn't, and now the listening session gets diverted into kind of an argument where the suffered has to justify they have already put in sufficient effort to the fix the listener is pushing that it's not worth continuing on that road.
OK, be concerned. Now, please tell me how to be better. I am the first to admit that I suck at inter-personal things.
Let's say you are hanging out with a good friend, it is late in the evening, and they tell you about some fucked up shit happening to them.
"That sucks, man hang in there," doesn't quite cut it, as someone else pointed out, no solution you can up with in five minutes is going to help them, and just awkward silence is awkward to both of you.
What do you do?
When i was a kid it was the opposite... but in my adult years it's been overwhelmingly women that tried to enforce masculinity on me any time I stepped out of the bounds of masculinity and did something feminine (wear feminine clothes, cry, make a comment getting hit on by men to name a few). I was a closeted trans woman in denial which made it extra annoying whenever it happened. Now that I'm out the women in my life have been extremely supportive so there is that. However whenever I go out in full femme with outfit and make-up I noticed it's women who stare at me, had one lady look me up and down three times pretty deliberately while standing 4ft away from me. I don't always see it as malicious (not that i would care), more like they're curious or maybe even liking fit. But it's an interesting contrast compared to men who seem to give me almost no mind or attention by comparison. It was something I didn't expect.
My wife makes way more than me, with the potential to be sole provider in less than 5 years. I told her id love to stay home and take care of the house/kids. She got offended, and said itd probably end our marriage because that wouldnt be masculine.
Shes always been a big proponent for gender equality... i guess she always only ever thought of one gender
Take precautions. Seriously. Economic abuse is just as if not even more common than physical abuse. And you already know she's got emotional abuse locked and loaded.
Man your wife is fucked up. I'd love to give the husband an ejection seat for the rat race
lolwut y she so going so 1950s on you
Taking care of the kids is a masculine thing to do! 💪
Funny how that works, right? Both my mom and my ex, super feminists, all down with the gays and progressive but were some of the worst people when it came to enforcing my masculinity. My mom is coming around now after putting my foot down pretty sternly more than a few times. But when I was closeted that shit was really fucking hurtful and kept me from expressing myself.
Start wearing a frilly pink apron around the house. Gotta have some fun while you can
But also yeah, good luck with the divorce 😶🌫️
Yes, and many women are strict enforcers of the patriarchy, too. Boys are raised to deny their feelings by both parents, because both parents were raised that way, too. There’s a focus on hyper masculinity that hurts both men and women, and is perpetuated by both men and women. Society has been leaning away from that, but it’s caused a backlash that’s kinda hurting us right now. And some social media is amplifying it.
We’ll get past it, but it’s going to hurt for a while.
Eh, this is all stuff that was written up in the 70s and 80s, it's gonna take a while before anyone even attempts to do anything about it.
Yes, it was written up back then. Which is a large reason why many more GenZers were raised without those toxic values, because their GenX parents actually read that shit.
So this upcoming generation are being called woke pussies for being raised with empathy and against the historical gender norms, and that’s causing the normal pendulum of conservative panic to swing society in the other direction right now.
If you’ve watched history happen and really read about it critically, this is all very predictable.
You or @[email protected] in somewhere like the SF Bay Area, California?
Curious cuz this ain’t cool and I dare say my circles ‘round these decently progressive parts would concur
Wait you know people here who have genuine opinions they share and aren't just being performative?
I think the ideology you think of when you say it's for everyone, is egalitarianism. Feminism can't be for everyone in the same way that patriarchy can't mean "womens oppression of men".
Unless of course, you're looking to confuse with the terminology.
But that is not how it ends up working. There are very little places to talk about men's issues. It either turns in some incel shit or reddits menslib.
The word literally derives from feminine
feminine adjective (WOMEN) Showing qualities that people generally think are typical of women
There is an opposite term to feminism, masculinism, which then leads to the idea that it can't be completely equal. But i assume people will keep using the term to mean "equal rights for all", since thats usually how it goes with languages.
I just worry that the implication is changing so that women = equality and men = inequality. That train of thought is mainly what drives younger men to go off the wall with their chauvinistic tendencies.
Thou I'd love to hear your thoughts on veganism. Suffice it to say you're wrong this time champ.
Feminism is explicitly about the social equality of sexes.
Actions speak louder than words, and despite all the No True Scotsman-ing, many, many words and acts of sexism against males have occurred under the banner of feminism.
I've read public press releases from mainstream feminist organizations like NOW proclaiming that the only reasons a father would ever seek custody of his child in a divorce is because he's either a wifebeater who wants to retain access to the woman he's abusing, or he's a deadbeat who's just trying to get out of paying child support.
There is a reason that the vast majority of people believe in equal treatment for both sexes, but only a small minority self-identify as "feminist".
In theory, yes. In practice, not always.
Many feminists would not agree with you.
I prefer talking about equality when talking about equality.
Maybe if the people who are pro-equality shouldn't grasp onto their gendered term so hard. Kinda weird that out of one side of their mouths so many people will say it's about equality for all but insist we must use the feminine term over the genderless one we already have
Don't want to be judged on gender lines? Don't use gendered terms to describe yourself, simple
I won't get into the rest of the stuff in this thread, but I'll disagree with your first point.
Feminism is a word. An English word. And that means it's definition is driven by common usage not a book. If the common usage shifts to a toxic place, the meaning shifts with it.
If you disagree I'd love to hear your gymnastics around the word invcel, it's evolution into incel, and then that further extension to femcel (even though the person who coined invcel was a woman).
Really? Who? Give me some names and citations.
Read the rest of the comments, there's a few good examples.
So, people who aren't notable feminists and who could be trolls or bots? Gee, thanks, those sound like great sources.
Sometimes it even meets that aspiration!
Thanks, buddy. A needed statement.
It's ironically self-unaware victim-blaming to use the male-based word "patriarchy" to describe a set of societal norms and expectations that both sexes are equally responsible for creating and perpetuating. Puts the blame entirely on men and takes women completely off the hook.
Pure sexism.
I say the same about calling the movement feminism
If men are equally welcome in it, it's not feminism anymore, it's egalitarianism, but every woman I've ever seen it suggested to flips their shit while every man I've seen it suggested to goes "yeah that makes sense"
This has nothing to do with men being in position of power, this has everything to do with people having no empathy. If we lived in a matriarchy and people acted the same way they would still be assholes.
Patriarchy says that men can't be "soft" because that's a womanly trait, and women are inferior.
So they where practicing the first part. Do we have a word for that?
No, patriarchy is men having power, it doesn't define what they can or can't do otherwise.
By patriarchy, I mean it in the context of feminism, as in the ideology that attempts to rationalize the idea of that men are better than woman, by using things such as religion, bioessentialism, and more. There are many definitions.
So toxic masculinity, not patriarchy.
Toxic masculinity is an effect of the patriarchy. These are the toxic traits that eminate from masculinity as defined by the patriarchy.
But hey at this point we're arguing about semantics. There are traits that men and women are taught as being bad to do as men, even though some of those traits are actually necessary, or just part of someone's personality.
Are people this shitty to women when they express sadness?
Yes
Stop using "the patriarchy" as an excuse for vile behaviour. Yes, it exists, but it's made up of a large group of people behaving badly, and one way to break it is to address the individuals one at a time.
Stawp ghashlighting meh
Hey you, you're attractive. *Hugs
His hugs can be attractive I guess.
Awwww you should’ve left the comment alone.
I love you!
I think I changed your to you're. I couldn't unsee it haha
Can I change your mind about using the Calvin template instead of the waste of oxygen template?
Don't worry bro, you'll always have us internet homies!
Dude, you are looking sharp today. Don't ever think you can't look good.
🫂
I went through the worst depression of my life around 2017, tried to express these feelings to my gf at the time and explain why our romance was failing or why I spent half the day in bed.
Basically got told "poor you", everyone has struggles, snap out of it and be a man. That definitely helped, and didn't push me even deeper into feelings of worthlessness..
I'm doing ok now, but it was the first time I felt comfortable enough with someone to express those emotions, I was at my wits end. The response was eye opening, never again.
Instead of saying to yourself “never again”, how about “never again with someone who will betray my vulnerability”? Because what happened to you sounds really horrible, but there are people out there who will be with you in your struggles and nurture and build you up in your vulnerable moments.
As a man someone who also struggles with vulnerability, there are ways to test the waters in a relationship (family, friend, partner, etc) when it comes to vulnerability so that you won’t be hurt like that again. I actually watched this video recently and found it really helpful: https://youtu.be/WyKFHd7cSaU?si=J8zSMvZt_7WouQb7
Of course, none of this is easy, but it can be life-changing to open up to someone and feel cared for. I’m glad you’re doing better, and I wish you the best.
I've been in a relationship with my partner for 12 years now and I am lucky that I found someone that was supporting of my issues since pretty much day one.
In the last year, after many years of therapy, I was able to finally be totally vulnerable to my partner even if she always was supportive, not holding anything back, and it was liberating and almost addictive for a while.
The feeling is indescribable and one of the best feeling of my life.
Im sorry that happened, but never again what?
Like, “never again open up about a huge important part of my life to”
a) anyone, or b) someone you don't know too long
Because only b) is healthy. I don't think trying to mask your depression can work in a serious relationship.
A given group of people are not a monolith. While we do share a lot of similarities, we also all have the potential to be a little different from one another.
I hope you get a chance to find someone that will allow you to be open like that again. Sharing those emotions and having someone their to empathetically receive them is one of the most gratifying things as a human.
It’s cultural. The problem is bigger than any one person. As soon as honest men speak out, they either deal with minimization like in the meme, or worse, support from chauvinistic incels who invalidate their message entirely.
Thanks to Culture War grifters, men's issues are unfairly stigmatized as something associated with incels and the alt-right.
I really like this phrase. These people need to be called out more often.
It includes people who under the guise of 'pure feminism' rail against 'patriarchy' whenever men's issues come up. Feminists are not immune to propaganda.
Sadly, they’re not. Propagandized feminists make all feminists look bad.
Yeah, I agree, this has the beginnings of incel vibes. Just like every generation has good, bad, poor, rich, each person of any fluid gender has the same. Some are mature in their teens and some don't mature until their 30s. Sounds like his girlfriend was super immature and ignorant.
What
No sex before marriage? 🙃
Been dumped, more than twice, immediately after crying in front of a woman. Make of that what you will.
That's fucked. If I was dating a guy and he cried in front of me it would make me happy to know that he feels safe being vulnerable around me. I would treasure him forever after that.
Not everyone is a good person.
This is absolutely the way to look at that level of intimacy IMO because that's how I view it.
The day my dad died, nearly 23 years ago now, was also the day that I knew I'd ask my wife to marry me.
It was a long illness and he was relatively young. We were living together and I had just sucked it up for 18 painful months. Never cried once.
Anyway the day came and I got home and just cracked when we went to bed. I just sobbed in the bed with her. Like a real, deep, deep sobbing.
She just held me and rubbed my hair and I will never, ever forget that.
Anyway about 8 months later I asked her to marry me and we're married over 20 years now and have a beautiful family together. I love her so much.
And my wife is exactly like you. But just sayin', in my experience, most women are not.
And I get it! No woman craves a weak man. No woman says to herself, "I wish my man was a sobbing pile of goo!"
Women want a strong man, a man that protects her from the slings and arrows of life. We can be those men and still cry. But it ain't easy.
These are generalisations and just aren't true.
I doubt that was it, but okay
Absolutely hilarious lack of self-awareness
Happened to me in high school once. Haven't really been able to cry openly ever since.
I'm lucky I recently upgraded from a biannual sob to a quarterly sob. We'll see what that does for...
*gestures at everything*
Crazy thing is that I literally just connected that dot in this thread thinking out loud. I never once had the thought that expressing my emotions was unsafe, I just kind of took that feedback onboard and proceeded to not process grief for two decades.
Fuck, I can't remember the last time I cried openly. I know I HAVE in the last few years, but I can't remember when or why. Nothing romance related, but I just can't remember...
You're fine. I didn't cry for years, maybe a decade+. Not because of any macho idealism, I simply didn't.
Feels good when I do drop that oxytocin. That positive feedback led me to crying more often.
LOL, I'm not a whimpering mess, but I can let loose more easily, and that's a good thing.
So, three times?
At least
Or more. Didn't want to exaggerate, could only think of 3 lately. Been dumped a lot over 4 decades of dating.
But I've finally found the one! Took me that long to find a Filipino. (Guys, drop the American women, seriously, I'd never date one again.)
On a similar note, my ex-girlfriend of two years was ranting about how men do not go to therapy. Then I mentioned that I do go to therapy, and been going from even before we met... and I will never forget the look on her face, she immediately stopped me mid sentence and told me she didn't need to hear about it.
She broke up with me the next week and said something like she didn't want to be with someone that goes to therapy, but rather one that went.
My sympathies for that rough experience. I hope you have a wider family and friend group that supports you taking care of yourself, and have or will find a better match of romantic partner.
thanks for your kindness, I did not have a support network back then but I do now after moving out to a new city
I don't know if I want to blame the patriarchy or the toxic masculinity that goes with it, but crap. My ex was so not ok when I cried over the discovery of her affair.
She genuinely thought I was trying to manipulate her. I was "too extremely emotional" over it. We were highschool sweethearts, had a kid, and she always talked about how she was disgusted with her own mother for having an affair. Even to the point where she cut off contact with her mother until they ended that relationship.
"No man goes to bed crying because their wife cheated on them or sends nudes to the same guy 4 years later."
There were red flags earlier than that. "Why are you crying over a movie?" (I always do at emotional bits). "Man up, no one wants to be with someone expresses sadness."
What's worse is that it's pretty much why I don't bother going out, or have much motivation to get back into the dating game. The patriarchy and toxic masculinity has ruined being human to me. I don't want to be friends with people who cover up all their emotions. I don't want to be friends with guys who are clearly over compensating. Then the girls turn around complain about these men being cruel to them, yet state things like this.
Then you have all the men who have this strange belief that they are owed women, and by behaving like that they get the women they are owed. I won't take part in that. I will not hurt someone else just to satisfy my desires. If that means I don't date, I'm much more comfortable being a good person and alone.
I also try to bring it up in conversation, and then people turn around and act like my refusal to participate in patriarchal behavior is anti-social. I had one person point out "technically, you aren't getting any, even though you want it, making you an incel." I was so shocked. Its not the fault of women I'm not out getting laid. Its men. It's the patriarchy. It's this system set up to isolate me because I have an intense emotional awareness.
you know her better obviously but sometimes you're too close to see some things so here goes my opinion: I think she didn't genuinely think you were trying to manipulate her.
I think she knew it was the appropriate response and she was the bad person so instead of facing that situation and losing the upper hand she thought she could use toxic masculinity to manipulate you to feel bad about yourself as a way to take the heat off of herself.
"you're overreacting", "you're being too emotional" these are very common tactics that men use on women all the time. it's just that it has the added toxic masculinity aspect when the roles are reversed.
That... Actually makes more sense and a thought I was trying to avoid. I know she said a lot of things where she said things to avoid feeling like the bad guy. Unfortunately for her, cheating on your marriage doesn't have a defense.
did you not read anything before or after that quote? we were already talking about a woman doing it. this is me talking about, in response to their comment about whether it's about toxic masculinity, that it is done the other way all the time as well, and this way has the added layer of toxic masculinity.
now I haven't added anything to my original comment but this is what you missed.
The patriarchy is a system, and it's both men and women who promulgate it
Then it shouldn't be called "patriarchy".
that's not how things work. some prisoners helping the guards doesn't suddenly put them at the same position in a prison.
I'm glad your ex is an ex. I believe it's experiences like yours that highlights how sexism goes both ways. My heart goes out to you.
It only goes one way: from people using gender stereotypes to manipulate others to the victims.
The fact that you can manipulate any gender while being any gender logically follows.
My friend, I am so sorry you went through that. I understand it is incredibly hard to get over a betrayal coupled with an attack like that, but I know you can do it. Let yourself breathe and take your time but when you're ready, there is a whole world of love out there for you.
There are so many people who will cherish the exact part of you that she took for granted. It is easy to go through something like that and come to the conclusion that you should stop feeling. I hope you don't.
As for people saying you're an incel... I literally have no advice other than no longer talking to them. There are people in marriages who are "involuntarily celibate". This could become a rant about the awful nature of even the term "incel" but I think that would be a waste.
I hope you continue to show your strength by refusing to hide your vulnerability.
Thank you. That means a lot. I guess that's the part I'm most uncomfortable with - why is expressing emotion seen as vulnerability? It's one of our most effective methods of communication, particularly of empathy.
I think that maybe a different way to look at it would be to ask: why is vulnerability a bad thing? Everyone has emotions. Everyone is impacted and affected by things. To use your situation as an example - your partner betrayed you. You SHOULD be vulnerable to that. The fact that they can't fathom having that level of vulnerability, to the point that they claimed you were trying to manipulate them, is the problem. That kind of emotional invulnerability is what leads people to do the kinds of things they did.
I truly believe that being vulnerable in front of someone, especially when they have hurt you so much, is strength. Showing someone how much they hurt you is really hard. Find people you can be vulnerable with. They're out there.
A lot of people are deathly afraid of self reflection, of thinking about themselves, about their own behavior and how it affects others. Because if you reflect on it, you might come to the conclusion that you have to change something about yourself. And that is hard work, that a lot of people simply don't want to do (which I think is the reason for many things going wrong in the world). Being able to express emotion is a sign of the ability to self reflect, to be aware of how one feels and being able to communicate that. In a way it makes people aware of their own shortcomings, which is why they want to avoid it.
"My ex cheated on me and rubbed my feelings in the dirt. How can I blame men for this?"
You can't, if you think that women have any agency of their own lmao
I'm still surprised people use the old definition of "incel" considering that the connotations changed to "radical misogynist" or "terrorist" in the eyes of the mainstream nowadays. Personally I wouldn't be caught dead using the term to describe anyone who simply doesn't get laid. In 2013 it would be fine but nowadays it's almost slanderous.
Wore nail polish at work this week, because I’m a bloke in his 40s who works in an office so fuck it, why not.
Our HR manager - a man in his 50s who fairly recently sent out an email reminding us to talk about our feelings to help our mental health - asked me (half jokingly) if I was “going through some life changes”
I will be when I find a better company to work for.
To be fair, that could have been a genuine attempt to reach out to you. Coming in with painted nails when they've never seen you present yourself that way could be interpreted as you going through some life changes, and maybe you want to talk about them given an opportunity?
Who talks to hr out of their own volition anyway?
It’s a small firm, so I know our HR manager pretty well. But yeah.
Toby apologists
But also HR is never your friend. If he opens up it’s just a document in a file and if he gets fired it’s ammunition on why he wasn’t performing up to spec based on “life changes.”
Wrong
HR is always your enemy
:(
Lol lots of HR supporters here. I suppose I do have to correct my claim: if you're a manager or executive HR is not your enemy.
Nah, he knows me well enough to know what I’m about. And ultimately he doesn’t really care whether I do it or not, but he’s an ex-army man of a certain age, and me wearing nail polish doesn’t jive with his view of what’s ’normal’.
Dude, be kinder and don't start fights.
The guy insinuated some pretty mean things about his colleague. But thats okay, since his colleague doesn't read lemmy?
You might be right, this thread is a little overwhelming. Hopefully teslasaur understands if I took it the wrong way.
Please don't call people assholes, please report it and I'll remove it as soon as I can. Thanks.
No offense taken. Trying to bring some sanity is all. I still haven't received an honest answer to the question, so i guess it struck a bit to close to home.
Pretty hilarious that you try to paint me as sensitive, when you're the one getting upset on someone else behalf. 🙃
I'll once again give you the benefit of the doubt: the entire first paragraph was me deliberately mirroring you as well as I could in an attempt to make it clear why you're getting downvoted to hell. Apparently you're immune.
Did you though? You called me an asshole for asking a pretty non-judgemental, open ended question about the headspace of the person in question. I wrote nothing in there that i wouldn't say to their face if they said what they said in the comment. You talk to me in a demeaning manor, which i didn't do.
Always remember that the patriarchy harms everyone
An asshole is an asshole is an asshole, don't you dare act like it's not these women's fault if they have no compassion.
Saying something is the result of patriarchy doesn't absolve anybody (including women) of the responsibility for fixing it.
It's not the result of patriarchy, is the result of them being bad people. They would still exist under a matriarchy or in an equal society.
“patriarchy” in this context means something other than you think, I.e. it means a system that upholds gender roles that benefit a (majority male) ruler class, e.g. by encouraging worker class men to go to war for their benefit, worker class women to be caretakers, and so on.
The counterpart to this definition of “patriarchy” is a society with no stratified gender roles, not “matriarchy”.
This is exactly why its such a bad word to use to describe this, it automatically puts people on the defensive and needs to be explained to people that it doesn't mean what the word means (rule of the fathers).
No, that's the reactionary propaganda doing that.
Everybody living in this world should be aware that words have context and don't always literally mean what their parts mean. And even then “patriarchy” is one of the more literal ones: it comes from “pater”/father in the same vein as “paternalistic”, with the same connotation of overbearing-yet-out-of-touch.
So just from word meaning that clearly doesn't mean all men, and obviously it also doesn't refer to literal fathers either.
Probably far worse actually.
I never claimed it wasn't. Shitty people are going to be shitty but they feel comfortable being shitty in the way that they are, in public, because the patriarchy has made that normal. I never excused her behavior, I identified it as being connected to a much broader sociological issue.
Hey comrade, I am seriously glad that comment like yours are starting to not be accepted anymore.
I somehow agree with you, the patriarchy harms everyone. But it does not help anyone to slap it in the face of men who are suffering, and also I disagree that a faceless concept has more responsibility than the people pushing it forward.
Honestly, 'patriarchy' is a terrible term that leads to so much confusion. Too many people use it as 'blame men' and forget that it's supposed to be about men being culturally cast as perfect leaders and therefore punished for not meeting those impossible standards.
I have high hopes that the spreading acceptance of transfolk will start to break down the weird gender roles we've got, and maybe we can talk about some of this stuff more directly.
Thank you for pointing out this. I hat the term 'patriarchy'. I can see the people here using this term are trying to make a point. But it seems to me, that the wording 'patriarchy' hints towards to that ultimately men are to blame. It is also unnerving that feminism tends to excuse problems that women really have is systemic, while trouble that men have is caused by individually shitty behaviour.
I very much would like a society, where every human regardless of gender is being met with the same empathy.
You know, I hadn't really thought about the benefit that LGBTQ+ acceptance plays in this.
Of everyone who has been so supportive of me, it's been my queer and non-binary friends.
I am a straight white male with money. While it upsets me to see women saying stuff like this post, I also know that I am not going to blame the women perpetuating the problem, because they themselves are victims of toxic masculinity and established gender norms.
I have a lot of queer friends (being pansexual myself) and I love the general awareness of mental health at least within my social circle (mainly well educated people throughout their 20s). For example it’s incredibly refreshing not to have to make excuses if you don’t feel like being around people that day, instead just being able to say just that without judgement.
Men =/= the patriarchy. Tell a friend.
Yeah this comment section has not brought me hope. I'll admit that this may not have been the best place and time for this conversation but it needs to be spoken of, especially to the people who want to hear it least. I need these people to understand that societal issues cannot be solved at an individual level. You cannot simply be angry at a woman for being cold and heartless. This helps no one. The people who perpetuate patriarchal society won't stop doing it because we get mad at them. They must be confronted about their behavior first and foremost with an understanding of the material conditions that drive them.
Yes, the perpetrators of patriarchy are responsible for its continuity but they do not realize this. They do not recognize the very existence of a patriarchy and this is why the world struggles to fight it. Often the biggest perpetuators of patriarchy are the most harmed by it and they don't even know. They are as much victims as they are villains. How can we call them responsible on an individual level when patriarchy is the only thing they have ever known?
Yes, we can. Patriarchy or not, there are some awful people and behaviours being described in these comments. And while the "patriarchy" no doubt plays a role in enabling that, people also need to take ownership of their behaviour.
Where do you draw the line? Where do you stop blaming patriarchy and start blaming the people who have a fucked up sense of right vs wrong?
A man that screams at his wife when he's angry, that's patriarchy or that's on them?
A man that quietly belittles his wife?
A woman that does these things to her husband?
If there's physical violence I'm sure you won't repeat your previous message and say that they're victims as well.
I don't understand why it cannot be both? Yeah these people are responsible for their actions and should be confronted on it on an individual basis but their actions are also influenced by the society in which they live. We need to confront and discuss that too.
Incedible how unserious you are
It's terrible to see. It's another feature of the patriarchy and toxic masculinity - blaming the victims. It's why it has been going on for so long.
In a similar vein: Why do women not report rape? This is why. Because even women have been so oppressed by the system that they will even question "if they were asking for it."
Some women would be shit to men and women and fucking anyone and everyone even if we lived in a matriarchy. Just like some men are shit to everyone and some men and women are nice with everyoneat.
Assholes are assholes, that's it.
I never advocated for a matriarchy. People will continue to be shitty to eachother but the deconstruction of gender based discrimination and violence would benefit us all. In order to do that we must recognize that what holds us back from this is patriarchy.
My point still stands, no matter if there's discrimination or not, some people will continue being shit to others and pretending they're shit because of the system we live in is removing all their agency. "It's ok if you're a bad person, it's just because [insert reason that is out of their power]."
I never said it was ok and I never denied their agency
Yes. It is their fault that they're supporting the patriarchy.
Stop deflecting blame from shitty women. There are shitty women who do shitty things and "the patriarchy" does not excuse their behavior.
Stop worshiping the patriarchy. The patriarchy is not God. The patriarchy is not to blame for every shitty thing a shitty woman does.
Sometimes women are shitty and you make the problem worse by telling everyone it's not their fault because the patriarchy is God in your idiot doctrine.
Edit: I'm not saying the patriarchy isn't real, it definitely is and should be dismantled. But you need to interrogate your own righteousness or you're just spreading neoliberal schlock to make yourself feel better about how women can be shitty to men.
Women thinking men are icky when they express emotions is because they're taught from a very young age that expressing emotions is feminine and feminine, especially feminine men, is bad. This wasn't a reach to blame on the patriarchy at all.
The patriarchy isn't "men are harming people all by themselves." It's the gender roles and gender hierarchy that both men and women perpetuate.
I have to push back here and say that I think that the "emotions are feminine" explanation doesn't give the whole picture. There's also instrumentalization of men.
We're all familiar with objectification, the tendency of (some) men to ignore women's agency, and treat them as objects for their own use. On the flip side, in my experience, (some) women instrumentalize men. That is, treat men as agents to be used as tools to achieve their own goals. As a result, I think that (some) women use men as a bulwark against the stresses and existential terror of human existence, or sometimes even literally, like a bodyguard, or the one who has to deal with the spider in the house.
You want your vacuum cleaner to suck up dirt when you pull it out of the closet, and then disappear quietly back in there once the job is done. You don't want to have to change the bag, and clean the motor, and replace the belt every time. More metaphorically, you don't want to find out that your emotional ramparts against a scary world are built on sand, and that's what kind of happens when (some) women find out that their partner has fears and weaknesses, too.
I've heard the same story many, many times from men whose partners begged them to open up emotionally, only to flee once they found out that those emotions included fears and self-doubt. It doesn't make sense that they'd do the first part, if emotions were unattractive, per se.
(Edit: Missing word.)
I think you're quite correct in this analysis as well. Historically, women have often had to depend on a husband for financial security and to be this instrument of protection. This archetype of the provider and protector husband is still baked into our patriarchal culture and leads women who don't deconstruct this attitude to treat their male partners as you describe, and men in straight marriages to feel this burden alone. I've seen it often lead to insecurity and self doubt among husbands who feel they can't live up to this impossible expectation, who also for the reasons widely discussed in this thread don't feel able to express this insecurity and doubt, or are punished for doing so because it goes against their culturally-prescribed gender role of the strong male protector.
It could also be because they view their husband/partner as a means to an end, rather than a person with feelings.
At some point, the individual needs to take responsibility for their actions, society is made up of individuals after all.
If patriarchy is the cause of literally everything in gender interaction, it's not very useful as a concept.
That's like saying the road is the cause of all car crashes.
The road is the context in which all (mostly all) crashes occur, its contours or grading maybe contributed to the crash, but it almost never would be the sole cause.
Most people who just wave their hands and say "patriarchy" are parrots who just know they get a cracker when they say the line. It's resulted in trash discourse.
It's resulted in people just tuning out when they hear the word, too.
Kinda sucks, because it's a really useful foundation to talk about society through a certain lens. It'd be hard to talk about traffic if I didn't understand what a road was.
But, I admit, many people who pipe up with "patriarchy" don't really want to talk any farther, and that does make dealing with those people pretty frustrating. Like if a cop showed up at every crash and excitedly pointed out the existence of a road and then left.
I am biased because I own (small) parrots who genuinely love crackers, and any reference to that cute behavior is positive for me. But I believe this would be a great metaphor even if I weren't biased in favor of parrots.
It's just the broad description of the gender roles/hierarchy present in our society. Being aware of them and how they negatively impact gender interaction seems fairly useful to me. Usually it's helpful to understand the current structure of something and how that's causing problems to make any meaningful and positive changes.
On the contrary, the term is performing exactly as designed - blame men for men being shitty (toxic masculinity), and blame men for women being shitty too (internalized misogyny).
How is "women are also perpetuating and engaging in the patriarchy, this is a problem" blaming it on men? "The Patriarchy" is not blaming stuff on men, it's a descriptor of the gender-roles-system we live in and people of all genders can be perpetuators of its toxic aspects.
Because "patriarchy" isn't just a neutral, ivory-tower descriptor of a system of gender roles. Just look at Twitter, or Reddit - the number of feminists using the word patriarchy on a daily basis to blame men far outnumber the tiny number of academic feminists that (supposedly) use the term without misandrist intent. Words' meanings are determined by their use, and going by its use, "patriarchy" is a misandrist term that is used to blame men for all of society's ills, which has resulted in demonstrable negative societal outcomes for men and boys. It's naive or disingenuous to act otherwise.
And even among more academic feminist circles, it's naive to think the term "patriarchy" isn't being used in a misandrist way by a significant percentage of feminists - radical feminism, just to target the low-hanging fruit, is entirely organized around mistaken and harmful ideas of "male supremacy", and as a result most of feminism's terminology is also entirely organized around men being the oppressor, and women being the oppressed.
This is where we get the real brilliance of feminist thought: "academic", "neutral" terms like "toxic masculinity" and "internalized misogyny" ensure that all discourse about society's ills are entirely framed around oppressor/oppressed language (where, of course, men are always the oppressors and women are always the oppressed), which, as discussed above, ensures that the public at large will blame men for literally anything that goes wrong. And, of course, this is exactly what we see on social media, from both men and women. It's a brilliantly designed system. Horrible, but brilliant.
The consequences of this inherently misandrist philosophy have been felt throughout society for decades. There are practically no domestic violence shelters or rape resources for men, even though men constitute almost half of rape victims. Men having lower rates of graduation from both high school and college (and of course all of the feminism-funded scholarships are for women, even though they're currently approaching 60% of graduates - gEnDeR eQuALiTy). Generations of boys having now grown up internalizing this misandry, being told that they're inherently aggressive rapists and being forced to take re-education classes. The results of this widespread, societal internalized misandry are clearly visible here in this thread.
And, of course, as mentioned above, the incredible brilliance of the system is that all of these failings (and countless, countless others) are conveniently deemed due to the totally neutral academic term "patriarchy", and not due to feminists pushing misandrist policy for decades that have had demonstrable negative outcomes for men. So, out here in the real world, men get blamed for women's problems, and they get blamed for their own problems as well.
Feminism doesn't have a monopoly on gender equality, as much as people claim it does ("If you believe in gender equality, you're a feminist whether you like it or not!"). Feminism is fundamentally built on decades of misandrist philosophical baggage, and it's time we threw it all out, burned the system down, and started over with a philosophy that's actually dedicated to gender equality, from the ground up.
Pointing out shitty behavior is systemic doesn't absolve the person of their responsibility for that behavior. It helps illustrate the issue is systemic and not just some crazy one off occurrence. It also gives an angle of attack on solutions to the systemic problem.
The patriarchy is just as much a men's lib issue as it is a feminist issue. The gender roles and hierarchy harms men. Women being shitty to a guy for expressing emotion is an example of just that.
There wasn't an invitation for you to speak up either. But you chose to speak up so you should expect some push back. Looking at how you've presented yourself so far I seriously doubt you'll listen to me, so I'll just put my argument very plainly. Nobody should listen to you because you refuse to listen to anyone else.
You haven't addressed anything the other person has said. All you've pretty much done is try to put words in their mouth so you could counter an argument that was never made. There's no discussion here, it's just you screaming into the void and the other person wanting to believe you're a normal person.
But people are listening to me.
So?
My point is about the nature of their statement and how it centers women in a topic that is about how when men speak about feelings women center a feminine perspective.
Just because you're not listening doesn't mean others aren't.
Idk why you thought I was doing any of that. What I meant was this woman feels that it is normal or okay to act in the way that she is because the patriarchal society in which we live makes that normal. It is not an excuse, it is an explanation and identification of a much broader issue.
Sounds like an opportunity for introspection for you, then!
Thank you for making me introspect about my snarkiness on Lemmy. You've helped me see how much of a dipshit it makes me look like
"neoliberalism is when you want to dismantle patriarchy"
so are these women naturally "shitty" this is a deterministic take. a more is grounded in material approach is the patriarchy / modern culture teaches us to behave in certain ways etc, women need a strong man as women are weak according to western cultural norms.
You are correct that I was speaking glibly and that when I said "shitty woman" I could have said "a woman who happened to be acting shitty."
Sure, shift blame away and never help feminism 101 when it comes to men
Please read the rest of my comments
I am a man, I have been hurt by women who would not have done so if the society in which they live did not deem it normal and ok. While these women are responsible for their actions and should do better, they would not have acted this way if patriarchal society didn't deem men to be lacking in emotion or "emotionally strong".
You are doing everything but blame your abuser, you've literally shifted the blame to society itself
You can blame the abusor and want a society that would not create them
Exactly. All of the internalized misandry in the comments here is really disheartening.
What do you expect from a feminist perspective? Their philosophy already has an answer and that answer is men are the oppressors and women the eternal victim. I grew up the only man in a family of women, it was hell. I was always too loud, too big, too expensive because I couldn't wear my sisters hand me downs and once the mental health issues being hammered into a mold I don't fit began to crop up. Feminism contributed more to my suicidal young life than anything else. The only reason I am alive today is I found male friends, even the toxic ones helped more than feminists ever did. My toxic friends taught me to stand up for ME. Feminists told me to shut up and let people abuse me, to smother my sense of right and wrong.
Super socially awkward and anxious in middle school and high school and was also bullied a ton. Girls would ask me out as a joke, and there's no good response. If you say yes you're a dumbass for thinking they're actually interested in you, if you say no you're gay and should kill yourself. Combined with being an impressionable teen with incredibly negative self esteem on reddit at a time where something along the lines of all men are rapists was a common sentiment, it really honestly fucked me up. I still am not comfortable with romance and intimacy with women to be honest.
I'll add to the trauma dump I suppose
Got married in August 2018, the beginning of the next month my dad died of cancer. Obviously I was mourning him and was in a shitty place, my then wife took that as me not being active enough in our relationship and decided to start cheating on me with multiple guys. Once I found out and called her out on it, and also subsequently kicked her out all of a sudden I was the bad guy. I can't even imagine the mental gymnastics she was hopping through to think that was justified.
Anyway I've moved across the country since then and have met who I believe is my soulmate, and things are amazing with her. Just had to go through sewers to find my green pasture I suppose
A bit related to this, so many times throughout my life when I've mentioned I'd like to be friends with, take up lost contact with or just mention a woman has a currently present woman reacted like "you know she has a boyfriend, right?", "I don't think you're her type" etc.
It makes sense that so many men have very few or no female friends, because they experience exactly that. It's like many women have decided that all men are incapable of being friendly with women without it being about sex or more than friends. We get scared of trying because it'll just be misinterpreted as wanting to fuck them.
I've always had a lot of friends who are women, but the ones who were in my "league" or higher almost all eventually asked why I never hit on them, or blatantly hit on me. It was a weird mix of them being upset I hadn't like it was a judgement on their attractiveness, and being frustrated because they thought it was an eventuality and were tired of waiting.
But, humans are pattern recognition machines, we don't even realize we're doing it most of the time.
Especially for a very attractive woman in her 20s, if a guy is interacting with her, it's likely because they want sex.
So you can't fault them for the assumption, but then when they run into a guy that legit is cool just being platonic friends, they tend to pursue a relationship because they see that as a desirable trait. Even just for a FWB thing, you've shown that you're "safe" and it can become a conquest thing as well because they're not used to the rejection of not being pursued and want the ego boost of changing your mind.
There's just an absolute shit ton going on, so it's hard to judge anyone because their life experiences are why they hold their current beliefs.
As a trans woman who came out the other side... well there's no modest way to put it- pretty damn attractive I'm told, I never understood why women just assume guys are hitting on them until I lived it.
I don't even do it on purpose. It's just that the vast, vast majority of the time, guys are trying to hit on me, and my brain has connected the "guy talking to me" neuron and the "guy hitting on me" neuron so tightly that it doesn't even occur to me that they might not be unless they prove it through extended interactions, usually over years, of never showing any interest.
And yeah, I've definitely fallen for people largely because they simply hadn't shown any signs of being into me. You're right that there is an immense sense of safety in knowing they've never tried to get in my pants. Unfortunately, that also means, 99% of the time, that they're gonna say no if I ask them out (I generally prefer to make the first move because it feels safer.)
For the sake of example and because it's relevant to the thread, I asked a dude out who'd shown no interest, and it turned out he was actually attracted to me, but wasn't interested because he'd been heavily abused in a past relationship and he wasn't ever willing to give it another shot.
And on that subject, having life experience as both a man and a woman really does open your mind to how differently abuse is treated between men and women. I was heavily abused as a kid, both by men and women, and telling the story before I transitioned, people always desperately searched for a reason it was my fault (even though I was a kid at the time it happened) and when they couldn't find one, spouted lines like "at least you're stronger for it."
As a woman, people, not having knowledge that I wasn't always a woman, immediately recognize how horrible my abuse was, zero attempts to justify it, and hell, even direct me to support groups (albiet I've attended said groups before and they're fucking useless trauma feedback circles in my experience.)
Well, that turned into a half irrelevant rant, but it's nice to have some of that off my chest.
With your last comment there, you're like 1 step away from "nobody can ever be blamed for their actions because they are all just meat and chemical automatons on a deterministic path". I mean, we are. But society can't work that way.
Nope, not even a little bit.
I thought people gave up on "slippery slope" when after gay marriage happened cats didn't start marrying dogs....
What made you pick up that logical fallacy so long after even the dumbest have given it up?
Did you stick with it the whole time, or are you trying to bring it back now?
You literally said its hard to judge anyone. I said that's one step away from impossible to judge anyone, and life can't work that way. Where is the fallacy?
Also, you need therapy.
Oh yeah, gender relations are a mess. The belief of not being able to be friends with genders you’re attracted to is bullshit, and I’m really tired of it. It’s cost me some relationships to the point where I had to make that a rule.
I’m not attracted to everyone, and beyond that, I have a healthy respect for boundaries. Their boundaries and my boundaries.
One note, maybe quit mentioning you’d like to be friends with them and just be friends with them? Mentioning “I’d like to be friends with…” to other people is coded as “Hook me up with...”.
I've been scrolling the comments on this post for a while (longer than I should) and just want to say it is one of the most refreshing collective displays of thoughtfulness and empathy I have read online in far too long. Even the back-and-forwards where people disagree on details or semantics are still overwhelmingly positive, insightful, and respectable on all sides. Another comment here used a brilliant term "merciless insincerity", and personally I've been leaning in a dangerously cynical direction lately about its prevalence. Although I know I am old & resilient enough to not let it capsize me I despise when so much lowest-common-denominator thinking hardens my shell and wallpapers a layer of apathy over who I really am (the angry-yet-optimistic teenager from the 80s/90s who screamed into the void about the climate-emergency, the corrosion of democracy by short-term vote-winning & fundraising, and - more relevantly - the toxicifying impact men and women have had on society - at interpersonal, familial, regional, national, and international scales - by regurgitating thoughtless archetypes and flagwaving in lieu of questioning reality from a fearless standpoint of "open-minded but critical, optimistic but sceptical, confident but fallibilistic". Discussions like these are some of the very few bastions of antidote left for that cynicism and apathy. What blows my mind is that it is apparent a nontrivial proportion of you who are young (well, much younger than me) are introspecting and expressing yourselves about the subject better than I ever could. When I see the flood of toxic (and idiotically childish) nonsense almost everywhere else, discussions like these truly help bolster a dangerously scarce resource called "hope for the future", and reinforces for me why about 99.9℅ of my "social online reading" time is spent on Lemmy lately. Gandhi said "be the change you wish to see in the world", and it's worth considering that what you are all writing here is a good example of you doing exactly that (even if you hadn't realised or intended). It adds up, when groups of people give each other the chance to be truly unafraid (instead of "playing tough" - which merely broadcasts how truly afraid someone really is).
Cried over my dog dying at school once. Made me a target for physical violence for about 6 months after that. Vulnerability is for people you trust.
And this is what needs to change. In order to trust someone, a level of vulnerability is required. We must demand that expression of emotion is not seen as vulnerability, but as a human need.
I'm still really broken about the miscarriage a few years back and most of the response I've gotten from others has been in the form of violence.
Yeah, it's hard. We had a miscarriage a few years before our kid, and nobody really gave a shit about the effect it had. Hell, my fuckstick boss made me take (bullshit noise) after hours alerts from the fucking hospital room.
One of the many times I've used malicious compliance to change policies.
I don’t have any tattoos, but if I ever got one it would be 4 small circles. Three would be filled in and one would be just an outline. It’s not much, but as a father of four pregnancies but three kids it would be a small little reminder just for me. My logic has always been if I’m going to be marked on the outside, it should reflect how I’m marked on the inside.
Four years later it still stings. I wish you peace; I wish I could say talking about it with other people has helped, but I can’t.
You deserve better people around you!
Seriously wtf, where in the world??
Nebraska
Ah.. somehow that makes sense. Condolences 😂🤙
This comment section is giving me the impression a lot of Americans are just vile people.
You have no idea. Empathy is seen as a weakness. Especially the more power you have in a career.
gestures broadly to the flaming hellscape
Ya think?
I mean, duh? There's enough vile Americans that Trump was democratically elected twice after being known as an out and proud child molestor and rapist.
That doesn't mean the patriarchy hasn't caused issues for other parts of the world though, just that America can be viewed as its end goal.
You get an upvote for that. My hometown is a terrible place l.
I'm so sorry. My wife and I are trying to conceive and after two years of trying we got a positive. Then another a few days later. We were aware that we shouldn't get our hopes up, but despite that how can you not? We were so excited.
Then the spotting started. Then another test still showed positive but it was so faint. It turned into desperately trying to bargain with the universe and convince ourselves that these signs didn't point to the obvious. But the obgyn confirmed it a few days later.
For us it was only ~2 weeks after the first positive, and I can't even imagine how hard it must be to lose it later on. I'm still devastated. We're still trying, but I'm not sure how much fear is going to be mixed in if we manage to get another positive.
That's a rough place. You don't want to bring it up to often, nor allow any situation make them feel as if your sadness or grieving is due to them at all. Been through a situation like that, not fun. You want to be a rock, but also human, while not allowing that humanity.. which is part of the problem.
That sucks. A miscarriage is basically losing a baby, if you've been thinking about it like one. I still think about life with the son that my wife and I lost in a miscarriage.
I've thought about this a fair bit, and I can definitely recall a bunch of cases from primary school and high school when I opened up about my feelings and personal stuff; and it ended badly for me. It ended badly every time, and I reckon that's why I basically don't tell anyone anything about myself now as an adult. I don't even share most stuff with my partner, or my family - such are the scars of past experience.
I'm sure this is similar for many people.
It certainly is for me. I still have difficulty whenever someone tries to compliment me on anything as a result of childhood bullying that frequently took the form of merciless insincerity.
I hope you're doing better. Your life is worth sharing.
That term "merciless insincerity" is an amazingly concise yet thorough way to capture one of the pervasive things I get most frustrated by (across the many countries I've lived in, so it is not a georestricted behaviour). Whenever I try to describe it I get too wordy. I'm stealing that.
People are uncomfortable when a guy expresses negative emotions. Even those that process it well often seem unable to accept it. I hope you (and the rest of you in the comments) have either found a space or a person that you can be yourself around, instead of what everyone else needs you to be.
I have been dumped for not expressing emotion, and crying, due to tragic things happening.
When they ask about express more emotions they mean positive emotions about them. So don't be bother by it. If you express the "wrong" emotions you will be dumped too.
No, they were put off because I didn't cry over the situation, or really demonstration and strong signs of despair.
This sort of situation is how I knew my wife was/is a keeper. When I was pushed to the point where my negative emotions got too much, she was there for me. She didn't shy away, but stepped in to help and support me.
In many of my previous relationships, showing negative emotions was lethal to their feelings. I could be happy, or stoic, but never upset or depressed.
On a side note, I had a chat with a trans friend once, regarding emotions. When they transitioned, the intensity of their emotions didn't change much. However, their ability to contain them plummeted. Basically, men and women feel emotions similarly. Men are just a lot more able to bottle them up.
Things everyone must learn themselves because patriarchy instills in them the opposite:
-Don't tag yourself as PantsuInspector and then get mad that people don't respect your opinion
A classic reddit moment, reading some very heartfelt words on the emotional journey of overcoming the loss of a loved one, you start typing a reply to thank... PantSniffer69
Meanwhile somewhere out in the world a poor lad born in '69 whose parents decided to call him Pant Sniffer is crying as the tiny 'puter people think he's just a shitposter instead of a loving and caring fella.
I decided to end a relationship and marriage, after being together for 13 years. For the first time in years I put myself first and realised that I needed to be out of the relationship. Coming out of this has been very difficult and I've been struggling with my mental health since.
I started dating again, and have had two horrible experiences where my feelings were just put aside and it really hurt. Both of which ended up with the relationship ending. It's like I'm not allowed to have feelings or struggle. 😞
Imho the worst are those who crucify the patriarchy at every point, then a man chimes in to criticize calmly the words chosen are inappropriate for the given situation, or outright hurtful, then the radical anti-patriarchy combatants shut down that person as the most vile being they deserve to feel terrible. And that guy ill-adjusts, be it on a personal level of despair or combative misogyny, and the anti-patriarchy combatants continue their cycle, because clearly they were right from the get-go, men are misogynistic and don't speak about their problems. Rinse and repeat.
Please, don't be that type of anti-patriarchy fighter. It doesn't matter that you describe yourself as super leftist progressive, if you behave like crap and reinforcing the worst of stereotypes.
I have noticed a pattern in myself, which I suspect could be true for others too. Namely, that I am much more likely to care about someone if the feeling is mutual. On a rational level, I can recognize that this or that person has had a bad time and deserve better, and I want to help them, but if they are hostile or indifferent to me, I kind of stop caring. And vice versa, if I feel that someone cares about me, I will care a lot about them. If this is the case for two people, it can quickly spiral either towards more mutual caring, or more mutual indifference.
Now here's the tricky part, how do we influence this trajectory? The only way I can think of is to care even if the other person isn't caring back. Polarizing language can feel good, to assert yourself when you feel hurt, but... is it helpful or detrimental for the bigger picture? It's so circular and self-reinforcing. So hard to escape.
I get the feeling that many people argue that "well, when they start treating me right, then I will start treating them right, but until then I don't care", and sure, I understand that feeling. But the feeling is probably mutual.
Same sentiment here. I always try to care a bit more than the other person so that, assuming most people use proportional caring implicitly, the mutual care can increase steadily.
I often see an issue when trying to communicate your point here, (which I agree with and I also agree that that Patriarchy is a problem), there is no good way to name and call out those as you put it "radical anti-patriarchy combatants."
Very few are willing to name or talk about "the Matriarchy" or "toxic Femininity." So we either end up trying to use a long string of less impactful words, (like you did), or we just sweep those "radical anti-patriarchy combatants" under the too broad umbrella of Patriarchy and end up hidden from sight.
So the next time you need to call out one of those radical anti-patriarchy combatants, name them for what they are-- a toxic feminist and are adding to the problem of the Matriarchy. Just as you would call out any toxic male as being a problem part of the Patriarchy. Then sit back and watch them come unglued.
Because we desperately need equality for all and we need to support each other as best we can and when we can. To quote the famous Canadian philosopher, Red Green-- "Remember, we're all in this together."
"I'm a man. It's my fault. But i can change. If i have to. I guess."
Remember: I'm pullin' for ya, and we're all in this together.
Keep your stick on the ice.
Kind of describes the issues for many men don't it.
There are far worse role models.
Boy you got the wrong lesson from red green, son.
What? We aren't all in this together?
Why are your feelings hurt because somebody was mean to the patriarchy? The patriarchy sucks. It doesn't deserve your sympathy.
There is no patriarchy, there is an overwhelming majority of misandrists online though.
Fuck, i can't even cry when I need to.
I wish I could give you a hug. My husband is similar, he struggles with emotions and has always been "the calm rock." Everyone compliments him on his patience and temper, he is an extremely chill person to be around. Because of this, he struggles heavily with any time he does not fulfill that role. His self worth is tied to how much he can fix or do for others and in a non-bothersome way. We've been together for about 10 years and he's gotten more comfortable expressing his emotions but still feels immense shame when he cries or breaks down. Your last sentence is such a good point I've never really thought about. I should start paying more attention to how he needs and wants to express those emotions earlier. He's bottled and masked for so long I don't think he's ever been able to give different forms of expression a chance.
I'm sorry the people closest to you struggle to give you the space you need when things get overwhelming. Life isn't made to be easy, and you've worked hard for a long time. I hope you get some time for whatever you feel like now that the holidays are over.
I know how that feels, and I know a few more people of any gender who have been made that way.
I eventually gained it back, but it sometimes I still feel like I'm close to tears yet can't go there. Feels like a sneeze that doesn't come except more emotional.
That's one of the reasons why I love stories that make me cry. It's literally the only place where I'm able to do it and allows me to release some of the stress that way.
Have you tried old school country music?
Some of the modern stuff, but mostly stuff from 20-30 years ago that's just sad as fuck.
Just get in your own head and start thinking of past regrets and people who are gone.
Like, "having a good cry" honestly helps, so it's worth putting the work in to "learn" to cry. It's flushing out hormones and neurotransmitters, and can lower cortisol which has a whole bunch of benefits.
So maybe not country, but find some music that makes you emotional and start a straight up "crying playlist" to get you in that headspace. It'll get easier overtime
Yupp, have the same general problem. Although maybe not fitting to the stereotype of men and masculinity, I am also basically incapable of getting angry. The only responses I have to stress are shutdown and fawning, I think it (partially) stems from a combination of mostly absent father and an overwhelmed mother with a lot of unresolved mental health issues, that sadly wasn't able to properly handle children being normal children, lots of essentialist sentences about me being horrible still floating in my head from that childhood.
What helps me with anger is aggressive-depressive music. While that channels it just as a primal feeling, it's also a good stimming time. Crying is harder, though, although I had moments - some years back I was able to cry for over an hour while with my best friend, that really was a watershed moment in my life, but it unfortunately did not just make the underlying problems and blockade go away.
Other things that sometimes manage to tease anger and tears out of me is watching some true crime shit, or stuff like holocaust documentaries. Getting angry and disturbed for someone else comes a lot easier for me, but even there, the wall is high to climb.
I'm so sorry for all those commenters having sad stories and being told to "man up". That's very sad
I might be wrong but I have a feeling that it is a very US influenced problem (so now a very English speaking country problem). Maybe I'm wrong, maybe I'm influenced because it is Internet and there's plenty of Americans and everything is written in English.
Being born in a French speaking culture, I don't feel that way. My friends don't, my non French speaking friends don't as well. Most men of my generation (millennial) that I have met could express emotions without much problems, and women would not react badly to it, but maybe I'm just lucky.
Of course, there's always some shitty people, some overly manly jerks or non caring women, but I would say that they represent less than 15% of the population I've met in my life (data source: My ass).
So, am I wrong ? Am I influenced by Internet ? How is it for German/Spanish/Portuguese/Italian/Japanese/Whatever cultures ?
And if I'm right, well that sucks. How can we help ?
I lost my little brother last year and I would say I already wasn't a very "manly" man before that but that put things into a new perspective. It was a horrible time but also one that showed me that I chose my friends and family very wisely.
I guess I’ll share too.
Although I don’t actually cry that often, and will still tend to shut my self off and wallow when I start to feel down; which is something that happens intermittently several times a year where I just feel hopeless, unhappy, lacking purpose, and not really wanting to do life.
So when I’m in these moods my friends have realised the signs, mainly me being hard to reach and absent from gatherings etc. they will all reach out and make me leave the house and have a talk about how I’m feeling, have some hugs, and then just go to roasting each other. This helps massively as isolating makes me worse so being around friends and just being in the moment is a really good antidote for me.
I guess my point is that the men around me are a bit more accepting of mental health issues. It’s not like they’re all hipster kind of mates. I am unusual in that I’m a nerdy software developer that is also very street wise and has mates that are completely the opposite. Most are trades people, a few sell drugs, are handy with their hands etc. basically my friends are chavs, but they’re accepting and not what you would think.
Edit: I should add that we all range from 30-40 years old.
Some people say that real men don't have feelings
We have feelings (we have feelings)
Some people say that we are not real men
(We're real men)
That hurts our feelings
(Hurts our feelings when you say we're not real men)
Some people say that real men are invincible
(We're vincible) we're vincible
They forgot about me...
I like to have a cry every so often, like if I'm starting to feel overwhelmed easy and constantly, I'll go watch one my insta cry shows or movies.
One that works really well and lets me cry but over a more uplifting way mostly, is Ricky Gervais show Derek, I ugly cry so damn much in that show and afterwards I come out feeling great.
I used to hide it, but now I'll tell anyone, I don't care anymore, I'm nice, I'm caring and helpful, I'm a good person who uses crying as a form of self therapy, you're the negative one belittling me over a childish viewpoint that makes you feel uneasy because you lack the ability to actually express your emotions, so others shouldn't either.
Plenty of examples out there, also see the "woman vs tree" simile.
Pretty sad comment section, hope y'all get through it.
When I got home after being away for a few months my mom said I got a little fatter. Told her the same thing, and she told me I can't say such things...
patriarchy is a social hierarchy system, not the set of all men. It harms women and men in distinct but very real ways
Thank you.
Good thing I'm not telling that to a victim then.
Analyzing cultural and systemic issues is good, actually.
It's good, but not particularly helpful in 1 on 1 discussion where it's more valuable to focus on the individual behaviors first.
Sure, and I wouldn't be bringing up the same subject when consoling a friend who was just treated this way by their partner, or talking to a friend who just treated their partner this way. But the context here is the discussion section of a post of a screenshot of a post of a stranger recounting their experience. I'm not trying to help Silverwing Secundus; they're not here in this thread. There's a lot of discussion in this comment section about common experiences and gender relations. So it seems perfectly natural to bring up one of the most significant influences on the way people of opposite genders interact in our society.
Patriarchy isn't "men bad", it's a social system that places men and women into predetermined, rigid boxes. This harms both men and women, since none of us are as rigid as the system demands us to be.
"Boys don't wear pink"
"Girls play with dolls"
"Men don't cry"
"Women who dress 'that way' deserve it"
All of those are patriarchy reinforcing statements. Again, this harmful belief that "men shouldn't have feelings" and them then bring rejected by women due to opening up is, on a macro level, due to the patriarchy. On an individual level, they're just people being assholes to their loved ones.
I honestly wish that a better word had been chosen than "patriarchy". Because at first blush it does look like "men bad" in an environment in which there are people who are predisposed to dismiss it as such.
Particularly since the patriarchy harms everyone. It can smack of "you're the enemy and it's your fault you're suffering" to the uninitiated. And bad faith actors are using that to misrepresent feminism and perpetuate the patriarchy.
That's what "patriarchy" means; rule by men. If you mean something else, say something else.
Yeah, if it's not intended to be anti-men there's plenty of other words that could be used. Patriarchy as a concept is as the other poster described, but weaponization of the term is a different layer from the term itself. There's all sorts of mental gymnastics involved when you talk to people whose main patriarchy problem is their mother.
That having been said it's important to remember that in terms of the overall bulk of humanity, men are significantly more externally violent and rapey than the general population of women by at least an order of magnitude. My gut feeling on the situation is that a lot of the sentiment in this thread is directly related to that outcome, but it's still important to remember that on average if you put a woman and a man in a locked room, the woman is in far more danger.
Curiously, lesbian relationships show similar rates of domestic abuse to hetero relationships.
So many people blaming "the patriarchy" for the terrible behaviour of women.
No, that doesn't justify treating the men in your life as soulless servants.
That's not what that word means. “patriarchs” aren't men in general, that's why it's possible (and in fast true) that the patriarchy harms people of all genders.
As this post demonstrate, men don't benefit from it, e.g. it makes us live shorter, it encourages suppressing our emotion, it encourages our aggression. Because some (mostly) men in power benefit if we don't unionize, let ourselves be pressed into shit jobs or the military, and so on.
Read the other messages here and you might understand.
It's ok to cry about sad life experiences... But not about xitter.
For every 50 sensitive men out there, there's a sociopath using a sensitive man persona to try to gain an advantage with women. Believe that men are sensitive, but verify, look for red flags.
the comments aren’t making it to my instance but i peeked over to how they look on slrpnk and just want to say good job all for approaching this with so much respect and decency
certain communities over on .world could never 😜
This whole thread needs to listen to Samaritans by Idles.
This whole comment needs to explain why if you expect a real response other than downvotes.