askchapo

I don't think we have to reject the idea of masculinity altogether but I do think we have to reject our current understanding of masculinity and start over so to speak

So, we all live in the same liberal shit pit, women's friends circles will have some of the things I listed to some degree. There are often unspoken hierarchies that go unaddressed. However, women have a few things better in their social relationships:

• Women are generally more open to sharing their emotions about relationships with each other, specifically about each other and their mutual connections.
• Women are generally more open to complimenting each other about almost everything. With men, while there might be compliments, they are often in jest or pulled in a way that means compliments wind up either being jokes or insincere. Not saying men don't at all, and sometimes I see that changing among guy friends, but it's a very stark difference. The internet trend of "I got complimented once about my shirt 5 years ago and now its tatters" speaks volumes.
• Women de-escalate more. Always a generality, but paired with the first point it means that compromising or dealing with their emotional problems with each other means that their relationships and connections are deeper.
• Women do more platonic physical contact. idk what to say
• Women are more eager to be vulnerable with each other. Not just the negative things (e.g. I like the same person you like), but eager to get unashamedly excited in a really physical way with their friends. If we think about the average cishet man, how often do they do a happy dance and hug one (or all) of their friends because one of their favourite songs came on? This is something that the anglosphere specifically is worse for (e.g. latAm are very open about singing and dancing as part of their masculinity). I am stereotyping here a bit and the example is a bit trite, but I hope you see what I mean

I want to be clear, both men and women do all of the things I've described here and in the original post. It's just a case of probabilities and why we feel like we're in an epidemic of "male loneliness" (masc loneliness? I honestly don't hear trans dudes discussing this, but maybe I'll ask).

Also to both men and women, it's unlikely to "fix" one individual man on your own (and really, you shouldn't approach relationships that way), it's not up to any one individual to fix men generally. If you are a man in your video game circle and you try to make the entire group be more open with their feelings, you're probably going to get burned out and even if semi-successful if you take a break the boys are probably going to fall back into their ways.

As for what is to be done... I personally think the concept of masculinity has so much baggage that we have to reject it and look for something beyond it.

Part of me agrees, but I don't think its remotely a resolved issue, either for me or "the left".