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.
I have to push back here and say that I think that the “emotions are feminine” explanation gives 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.
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.
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.
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.
Just because you were taught to say stupid things on the Internet doesn’t make them not stupid.
You chose to say a stupid thing on the Internet, and you’re responsible for that choice.
Don’t erode your agency. Don’t erode the agency of women.
Just because you think women are mindless slaves implanted with doctrine by whatever they are taught doesn’t mean we all have to believe it.
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.
This wasn’t an invitation for you to speak up. You don’t have to center feminism in a topic about how masculine emotions are belittled by women, undermined by women, and appropriated by women to further their agenda. If you do, you suffer the consequences.
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.
I understand that you feel discomfort when men talk about the alienation of experiencing women being shitty, but you’re out of your lane now.
Blaming the patriarchy online does nothing to further your agenda, it just makes you look like someone who appropriates issues thoughtlessly and carelessly, as well as selfishly.
I understand that in your limited viewpoint “abolishing patriarchy” will solve every problem men have, but I think that’s stupid. Your ideology is not a cure; the only thing your spreading it cures you of is your own discomfort, and that’s inappropriate here.
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.
I’m going to assume you meant listening (and agreeing). Because there are people listening and disagreeing, for example me. But how do you know anyone else is agreeing with you? Do you have anything empirical to show that would indicate what you believe or is it just something you want to believe?
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.
And if you were listening instead of just screaming you’d notice that their statement does not center around women. Their argument is that patriarchal beliefs can be adopted by both women and men and in this case the patriarchal belief is that men shouldn’t express their emotions and in the image it is a woman perpetuating that belief by refusing to accept what was said.
I like to imagine they’re one of those “I agree with what you’re saying as long as you don’t mention socialism” kind of people, except for them the big bad taboo word is patriarchy.
I’m not saying that patriarchy centers women, I’m saying its invocation here centers feminism in a topic about a masculine issue, which is to, say, it’s rude and counterproductive.
Do you have anything empirical to show that would indicate what you believe or is it just something you want to believe?
Getting upvotes on my main points.
People who disagree with me right now are still in a backlash phase. They’ll either listen and think about it and accommodate the obvious truth that feminism isn’t a panacea for men’s issues because that’s just stupid.
Or they’ll keep on bleating about the patriarchy every time a man expresses some feelings.
And if you were listening instead of just screaming
I’m not screaming, I’m lecturing.
The centering of women in a topic about men’s feelings being undermined by women centering their perspective is an obvious problem. It’s not that difficult to understand that if a woman were talking over a Black woman’s experience to talk about patriarchy instead of racism, that woman would be out of line.
C’mon.
Your patriarchy concept isn’t working. You can’t reach men by talking about the patriarchy. Joe Rogan doesn’t talk about the patriarchy. It’s not that complicated, you just hold to your ideology hoping that if everyone nods their heads and says “yes the patriarchy is to blame” the problem will get fixed. That’s stupid.
their statement does not center around women.
That’s stupid.
Their argument is that patriarchal beliefs can be adopted by both women and men and in this case the patriarchal belief is that men shouldn’t express their emotions and in the image it is a woman perpetuating that belief by refusing to accept what was said.
And yet every reply is in disagreement and almost every follow-up reply made by you is heavily downvoted.
People who disagree with me right now are still in a backlash phase. They’ll either listen and think about it and accommodate the obvious truth that feminism isn’t a panacea for men’s issues because that’s just stupid.
Another argument that was never made. You’re the one who brought up feminism in the first place and nobody said feminism should solve men’s issues.
I’m not screaming, I’m lecturing.
The lecturers I remember would address questions instead of ignoring them.
The centering of women in a topic about men’s feelings being undermined by women centering their perspective is an obvious problem. It’s not that difficult to understand that if a woman were talking over a Black woman’s experience to talk about patriarchy instead of racism, that woman would be out of line.
So if it was another woman talking over a White woman’s experience that wouldn’t be out of line? It wouldn’t be a patriarchal issue if the person talking over had been a man instead of the woman?
The argument you’re refusing to address is that the gender does not matter when it comes to patriarchy.
Your patriarchy concept isn’t working. You can’t reach men by talking about the patriarchy. Joe Rogan doesn’t talk about the patriarchy. It’s not that complicated, you just hold to your ideology hoping that if everyone nods their heads and says “yes the patriarchy is to blame” the problem will get fixed. That’s stupid.
Just because the vast majority of people are unwilling to question their beliefs does not mean the concept is wrong. That’s like saying socialism is wrong because the large majority of society is taught “capitalism good, socialism bad” so they wouldn’t question capitalism and would view socialism as something bad.
And once again, nobody said if everyone agree patriarchy is to blame that would solve the problem. It wouldn’t, but it would at least be a step in the right direction because people would at least acknowledge there’s a problem.
Anyway. I’m done with your comments. As I said in the very first comment, you’re not here to listen. You just want to get on a soapbox and scream about your deeply rooted personal beliefs you refuse to question. I feel I’ve made my points about how you don’t listen and your points are nonsense and I really have no desire to talk to you because you won’t actually address the core arguments anyone is making. You’ll just pile on irrelevant information to try and shift the discussion to something adjacent and it’s just not worth the effort.
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.
I have to push back here and say that I think that the “emotions are feminine” explanation gives 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.
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.
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.
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.
Just because you were taught to say stupid things on the Internet doesn’t make them not stupid.
You chose to say a stupid thing on the Internet, and you’re responsible for that choice.
Don’t erode your agency. Don’t erode the agency of women.
Just because you think women are mindless slaves implanted with doctrine by whatever they are taught doesn’t mean we all have to believe it.
This wasn’t an invitation for you to speak up. You don’t have to center feminism in a topic about how masculine emotions are belittled by women, undermined by women, and appropriated by women to further their agenda. If you do, you suffer the consequences.
This is an opportunity for you to listen.
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.
You should really learn to ‘respect my no.’
I understand that you feel discomfort when men talk about the alienation of experiencing women being shitty, but you’re out of your lane now.
Blaming the patriarchy online does nothing to further your agenda, it just makes you look like someone who appropriates issues thoughtlessly and carelessly, as well as selfishly.
I understand that in your limited viewpoint “abolishing patriarchy” will solve every problem men have, but I think that’s stupid. Your ideology is not a cure; the only thing your spreading it cures you of is your own discomfort, and that’s inappropriate here.
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.
I’m going to assume you meant listening (and agreeing). Because there are people listening and disagreeing, for example me. But how do you know anyone else is agreeing with you? Do you have anything empirical to show that would indicate what you believe or is it just something you want to believe?
And if you were listening instead of just screaming you’d notice that their statement does not center around women. Their argument is that patriarchal beliefs can be adopted by both women and men and in this case the patriarchal belief is that men shouldn’t express their emotions and in the image it is a woman perpetuating that belief by refusing to accept what was said.
I agree with them, for one.
He’s not going to accept the concept of patriarchy as anything other than a feminist idea that centers women.
I like to imagine they’re one of those “I agree with what you’re saying as long as you don’t mention socialism” kind of people, except for them the big bad taboo word is patriarchy.
Why shouldn’t feminist ideas center women?
I’m not saying that patriarchy centers women, I’m saying its invocation here centers feminism in a topic about a masculine issue, which is to, say, it’s rude and counterproductive.
Getting upvotes on my main points.
People who disagree with me right now are still in a backlash phase. They’ll either listen and think about it and accommodate the obvious truth that feminism isn’t a panacea for men’s issues because that’s just stupid.
Or they’ll keep on bleating about the patriarchy every time a man expresses some feelings.
I’m not screaming, I’m lecturing.
The centering of women in a topic about men’s feelings being undermined by women centering their perspective is an obvious problem. It’s not that difficult to understand that if a woman were talking over a Black woman’s experience to talk about patriarchy instead of racism, that woman would be out of line.
C’mon.
Your patriarchy concept isn’t working. You can’t reach men by talking about the patriarchy. Joe Rogan doesn’t talk about the patriarchy. It’s not that complicated, you just hold to your ideology hoping that if everyone nods their heads and says “yes the patriarchy is to blame” the problem will get fixed. That’s stupid.
That’s stupid.
You’re not listening. Try again.
And yet every reply is in disagreement and almost every follow-up reply made by you is heavily downvoted.
Another argument that was never made. You’re the one who brought up feminism in the first place and nobody said feminism should solve men’s issues.
The lecturers I remember would address questions instead of ignoring them.
So if it was another woman talking over a White woman’s experience that wouldn’t be out of line? It wouldn’t be a patriarchal issue if the person talking over had been a man instead of the woman?
The argument you’re refusing to address is that the gender does not matter when it comes to patriarchy.
Just because the vast majority of people are unwilling to question their beliefs does not mean the concept is wrong. That’s like saying socialism is wrong because the large majority of society is taught “capitalism good, socialism bad” so they wouldn’t question capitalism and would view socialism as something bad.
And once again, nobody said if everyone agree patriarchy is to blame that would solve the problem. It wouldn’t, but it would at least be a step in the right direction because people would at least acknowledge there’s a problem.
Anyway. I’m done with your comments. As I said in the very first comment, you’re not here to listen. You just want to get on a soapbox and scream about your deeply rooted personal beliefs you refuse to question. I feel I’ve made my points about how you don’t listen and your points are nonsense and I really have no desire to talk to you because you won’t actually address the core arguments anyone is making. You’ll just pile on irrelevant information to try and shift the discussion to something adjacent and it’s just not worth the effort.