The fact that being stoic, emotionless or even cold is seen as a trait of masculinity is incredibly frustrating. I feel men should be encouraged to be passionate and expressive with their emotions. Anger shouldn’t be the only one we encourage as a society. Have you ever seen a man glow up about his lego collection, or cry at a beautiful scene in a movie they love? More of that please.
Also, men are just as deserving of support networks as anyone else. Though we all experience life differently, we are all human in the end.
The fact that people took Stoicism, a philosophy that’s basically cognitive behavioral therapy for emotional awareness, and twisted it to mean “stiff upper lip” or “repress everything lest you seem weak” is depressing as hell.
It’s one of the reasons I’ve taken a liking to Diogenes’ Cynicism, seeing past the “social norms” and dumb social organization ideas humans come up with.
I also prefer the Cynics. Diogenes is metal as fuck, but my favourite part of Cynicism is that in my opinion, it contains the only true love story in Greek philosophy, Crates and Hipparchia who influenced Zeno, the founder of Stoicism. I’m a sucker for a good love story.
That, and at the same time it’s manly to be angry.
So you’re supposed to be emotionless, unless the emotion pushes towards violence.
This is one reason that Star Trek and Spock and data resonate with me
As a trans woman who grew up being taught boys don’t cry, it’s taken me the better part of 6 years to learn how to connect with my emotions healthily. I’m so sorry that society treats y’all like this. 💜
I basically had suppressed my emotions my whole life. Since puberty I could count on one hand with fingers to spare the number of times I legit cried before transition and it was usually something like death of a pet or family member.
Some of thst was from running on the wrong hormones, but plenty of cis men are able feel emotional on T. A lot was being scared of showing I had emotion.
I’ve faired better as I’m not 2 years into transition and already feel like a different person.
My theory is that because our brains are “wired” to be women, T causes our emotions to be more out of whack. Anecdotally, I’ve met a couple of trans men who felt more attuned to their emotions after starting T.
But yeah, I know what you mean about feeling scared. I’m really glad your transition is going well. Keep on shining your light!
It’s the same for women… “Keep your head up” is also super solid advice.
“YoU sHoUlD sMiLe MoRe.”
This is great context. Particularly as it highlights the differences in gendered experiences. For women it’s in some ways a demand for attractiveness while for men it’s more of a literal command that is more likely to be used in self policing (that is men policing masculine expectations of other men). Also notable that both sentiments seem to be more likely to come from men.
As someone who presents masculine, I have gotten the “be a man” treatment from women several times. Ultimately it does come from a patriarchal standard of society, but its something that is perpetuated by everyone, consciously or otherwise. Not discounting what you are saying, but I think it’s important to highlight that toxic masculinity can come from anywhere.
This is absolutely true. I’ve thought about this a lot in reference to a study I once saw on how early education professionals are far more likely to be right-leaning women and how that plays into this phenomena (a cursory google search did not turn up a wealth of evidence so take that with a grain of salt). Particularly because I think that policing of masculinity from women in positions of authority can be incredibly salient for young boys. Unfortunately, for some it is unlikely that they will be exposed to a more feminist perspective until later in life, sometimes much later.
I think “be a man” is a demand for attractiveness too. It’s said by women that want A MAN.
All your symptoms are caused by being a woman!
Half a year later: just kidding, it was cancer, too late now.
I think it is getting better. I have a “Boys Get Sad Too” hoodie (recommend them wholeheartedly) and so far I have gotten only positive comments, even from people where you might not have expected it.
It’s gotten better
In my experience it’s gotten better amongst men. Men telling each other to “man up” has largely died, and they are much better at supporting each other. A lot have gotten much better at recognizing when to ask for help too.
However, I think there are a lot of men in relationships under pressure to always be the rock, the protector and provider. They’re not allowed to have a problem or a weakness. I mean it’s a great way to flush out awful candidate partners. Show a little vulnerability and see how disinterested they get, but it gets tiresome.
I mean it’s a great way to flush out awful candidate partners
I’d say the opposite. It’s an obvious red flag that someone doesn’t open up about anything.
Show a little vulnerability and see how disinterested they get
Not my experience, but something not too different.
In every relationship, someone has to be the safe harbor for the other to withstand the occasional emotional crisis. This role can and should be taken in turns so that each one gets each other’s back. But when your insecurity/vulnerability matches with the other person, it takes a freaking HUGE amount of emotional intelligence and energy to be the person that tanks the crisis this one time and open up about this later, when the other person is ready to take turns.
What I observe in practice is that people (man and women) only learn how to deal with this situation in two extreme ways: 1) spiral into the storm along the partner - which is a fuckup because the other person is not ready for this; 2) suck it up forever and ever - which builds up resentment long-term.
There is a middle path. It takes time to acquire it, it takes even more time to teach it to a partner, but it’s one of the main ingredients of constructive conflict resolution.
This is so true. I think for a lot of us this advice (or often command) was most frequently heard in these exact words during adolescence. That said this sentiment can at times feel very present.
Why does society do this? Mysterious as the dark side of the moon if you ask me…
Dark but true…
There’s only one context “Be a man” should be used in…
LET’S GET DOWN TO BUSINESS
Females aren’t in any better of a situation. Mental health support funding is non existent and fucking me over right now :(
When discussing men’s experiences the most important thing is switching the conversation to women’s experiences.
High fives all around!
I think you’re being a little disingenuous. The two conversations are not only both important, but they’re both closely related to each other. It’s impossible to talk about the mental well being of half the population without the other half coming up, since a lot of the problems and their solutions are the same.
It is very possible to focus on half the population being told to ‘man up’ and the gender specific meaning that phrase has since it does not apply to the other half. Just like we can focus on women being told to smile more without needing to drag men’s vaguely related experiences into it.
I’m saying it’s not a gender specific issue, but I guess you’d rather play a victim. If you want experience from a men’s perspective, I have zero issue with emotional support when I’m talking to girls I can trust.
Guess which hand you are in the picture.
I’m saying the complete opposite of “be a man” that support is out there for men. Are you even attempting to read comments in good faith, or are you reading some completely different text that isn’t there?
So you disagree with the premise that men who reach out are told by society to be a man instead, and want to bring up women’s problems instead of acknowledging the problem because you have ‘girls you can trust’. To top it off you respond to someone pointing out your whataboutism by accusing someone of ‘playing the victim’.
That is what I am responding to, you dismissing the issue while claiming that are aren’t and doing the exact thing being discussed in your responses.
Alright I think this convo is done since you are clearly taking this in bad faith after I clarified multiple times that is nothing close to what I said. Find a strawman somewhere else to argue against.
Saying “I am not hitting you” while hitting someone doesn’t mean you aren’t hitting them.
I think that you are both wrong and right. Societal treatment of mental health issues is indeed quite poor regardless of gender. However, it is important to realize that there ARE differences that relate directly to one’s presenting gender.
Just as women are not taken seriously by health professionals, men are frequently treated as less-than by western culture at-large, if we show anything but chauvinistic bravado. This lack of care has had a profound impact on both young and old men who have any mental illness, leading to isolation, and becoming vulnerable to radicalization by those actively preying on them and using them as tools of violence or suicide.
It’s a real, gender-specific problem that is well-encapsulated in the proverb “A child not embraced by the village will burn it down to feel its warmth.”
