it's stressful, spending a lifetime pretending to not be as sensitive as a de-scrotum'd testicle
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Maybe I’m just slow, but I don’t get the gist of your remark. You taking a jab at men denying their sensitivity or at men being too sensitive? The two things are sometimes two sides of the same coin I guess.
I think they’re saying they have to hide sensitivity with some colorful imagery to describe being very sensitive
men denying their sensitivity
mostly this, but
men being too sensitive?
for too many men apparently any amount of sensitivity is too much
but from my experience, it's the guys who are most obsessed with how their manliness is perceived by the rest of the world who are the most sensitive of all. and they're also the most miserable
An evergreen bell hooks quote:
The first act of violence that patriarchy demands of males is not violence toward women. Instead patriarchy demands of all males that they engage in acts of psychic self-mutilation, that they kill off the emotional parts of themselves. If an individual is not successful in emotionally crippling himself, he can count on patriarchal men to enact rituals of power that will assault his self-esteem.
For any men near the beginning of their journey to adopt of a more healthy masculinity, The Will To Change by bell hooks is an excellent read
If anyone's interested in reading through it with others, we have a book club going for this book right now! It's a fantastic read so far and we just started!
Yeah, but ...hexbear? Ferreal? 🫣
I understand the hesitancy. Hexbear’s not for everyone. If you were only going to interact with a single corner of Hexbear and ignore the rest, this book club would be a good place to do so. It’ll be low on snark and full of people doing earnest discussion.
Everyone involved in the book club is taking it seriously and we've had great discussions so far without any irony poisoning. You don't need to be a commie or an anarchist to get a lot out of the experience, we just want more people who will earnestly engage with the work.
I might, in all honesty, and thank you. I'll have to go find how thoroughly I've blocked that instance (TIL: my filters are not fully synced between devices), but I appreciate knowing this is out there, at the least.
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That tracks, traditional gender roles are overly restrictive and force people to deny their needs.
Men, nothing wrong with being masculine if you want, but if a woman demands you “man up” for her at the expense of your emotional needs, you’re better off single.
Yeah, it's sick. No man should be expected to be able to provide for a small to large family alone, not in this capitalist society that is designed to grind you into nothing. They should be allowed to enjoy hobbies like cooking, art, and home making. They should be allowed to give and recieve affection. The normal gender roles we were taught are trash. They are not meant for everyone but only for some class of people that existed at one point in time and that even then they were unique in the amount of wealth they all shared.
a particularly high risk of suicide
As is expected from the traditional gender role.
If you're someone who frequently looks at your gender and then complains "my gender typically suffers from x malady" and it's not something that's being forced upon you by external factors (such needing your partner to confirm your personal medical decisions with your doctor concerning future procreation or needing your partner's permission to file for divorce), then maybe you should consider not being a typical example of your gender.
I have suicidal ideations and intrusive thoughts because a little voice likes to pop in every so often and tell me that killing myself would be super cool. So I take medicine to quiet the voice and tattle on it to my friends and family whenever it speaks up so they can help me assess if the advice is helpful or not. Is it "manly" to tell people close to me "I'm having suicidal thoughts and I don't know why"? Nope. But I'd rather be a weirdo than hurt my family.
Tradmen and tradwives are terrible examples of how to be a human human.
The key to happiness is not having expectations haha. (Oversimplification, of course)
As a woman whose male friends have made the same choices as you I gotta say, I’ve always preferred spending an evening supporting a friend to spending it mourning him.
I'd be interested to see what the rates of suicidal ideation are compared between men who do and don't conform to traditional gender roles. Because there are a lot of contributing factors I can think of off the top of my head, like men who don't conform as strictly to traditional gender norms are probably more likely to go see a therapist, so they are more likely to see a way out of their situation that doesn't involve suicide. Also, men who more strictly conform to traditional gender norms probably are more likely to have guns in the home, and (as other studies have shown) men tend to prefer suicide by gun over pills/meds/other methods, so I'm curious if that has an impact as well.
Anecdotally I am both of those. I grew up in a deep south military family, and I used to have a sidearm that I assigned way more of my identity to than I should have and thought about using on myself more than i ever thought about using in any other way. I didn't try therapy for the first time until my 30s, after I quit working for the airforce. Telling a man he needed therapy where I used to work was an insult no matter the context, and it was an open secret that you'd get fired if you sought any kind of mental healthcare. (not directly, but some security manager somewhere in the system would revoke your clearances and it would domino from there)
I'm still amazed I made it through that; it feels like almost every week I'm still blown away by how much different the world can be when it isn't just a deluge of bigotry and hatred and doomsday weapons. If you can help it, don't ever fucking make weapons. No matter how much they offer to pay you or pretend you're a hero. It's not worth your will to live
I would have been that statistic too before I transitioned and found gender roles are fucking dumb
Gender roles are pretty dumb even for people happy living in their birth-assigned gender. But I guess you see it twice as bad, because you've experienced them from both sides now. Fixing yourself doesn't fix the world, I guess.
A long-term study in the US involving around 10,000 young men has already shown that they are more likely to commit suicide over a period of 20 years if they identify strongly with traditional masculine roles. These norms are characterized by ideas that originated from the previously strongly patriarchal social framework. They prescribe the characteristics that men should have and how they should behave. These include, for example, independence, controlling their emotions and not showing their vulnerability. In science, this is summarized under the term traditional masculine ideologies.
Toxic Masculinity is very real.
The Woke is trying to prevent REAL men from exercising their right to unalive themselves!
There is no non-traditional gender role for a man to assume. A man who does not work and provide, protect and defend is shamed as a deadbeat. His is the only end of the old social contract no one wants to throw away.
Men who don't conform to traditional gender roles are at a higher risk for being called "ha gay".
They spend their entire life worrying about what everyone, from their family to complete strangers, will allow or not allow them to do. Can't imagine the stress. So glad my parents raised me to just be myself, do what I want, and tell anyone who complains to fuck off.
as always the problem is capitalism and its highest form, imperialism
Fuck I just typed out such a long and thoughtful response. It was the perfect balance of addressing all the misconceptions in the comments and giving my opinion on the actual issue without at all relating anything women vs man.
My finger slipped and I hit the back button on jeboa and I lost the whole comment. I'm really feeling the traditional masculine urge to express anger and engage in risky behavior.