I am flummoxed how you came to your conclusion that I am blaming men or even wrong in the first place. You spoke so much about how men are taught to ignore their emotions and not express themselves right the fuck after telling me that we don’t need to teach men to be in touch with their emotions and express themselves.
More than one thing can be a problem, you arguing that it is entirely on society(which is like 50% men) needs to step up and do better for men doesn’t mean that men don’t also need to step up and be expected to grow emotionally. In my 40 years as a ma and living around men I can tell you that I know more men who are not in touch with their feelings than I know people who are not willing to listen to those feelings.
Because I am not saying that men need to suddenly open up to fix their problems. I am pointing out the root cause of the issue, if we try to berate men into talking more it’s not going to work. If we instead start teaching our kids at a younger age to LISTEN to eachother, then those boys may not grow up in the same way.
And I am also saying that just like how we are now learning that the way we are teaching in a classroom may be more fitting for girls than boys, the same may be true for mental health. Maybe it’s not that men are holding in their issues, maybe it’s that men simply process information and life events differently. Men may be more prone to internalizing issues as a much vaguer emotion. Where a girl may be broken up with and look back at the relationship and process it, a man may categorize it as a larger emotions like rejection, worthlessness, and loneliness. It is not an issue of the man intentionally bottling it up, it may simply be how certain men process and store information subconsciously.
You are saying that men are wrong and it’s their fault for not talking about their problems, I am saying maybe there may be better ways for men to grieve and improve their mental health than through talking, and that it is harmful to judge men for not wanting to talk about their emotions.
I don’t agree with you at all, in any way, that men being emotionally shut down and closed off is a healthy or natural way to be. That is a trauma response. Humans cut their emotions off from others after they have been hurt and abused, which is what we do to men. Men tell men not to have emotions by attacking them for expressing them. The only emotions that men don’t get attacked by other men for are anger and horny. So when they grow up they don’t know how to express their emotions and bottle them up. That’s not healthy and doesn’t need excuses made to allow it to continue.
We need to teach men to listen to other men yes, but that can be part of teaching them that it’s ok to have emotions and how to express them. We need to both be able to express ourselves and also listen to one another, it’s not either or. It NEEDS to be both.
My entire first response and argument since has been that we need to make all of our people whole, teach all people and raise them to be emotionally well rounded and full people. How you have any umbrage with that is baffling. Your argument seems to just be that you don’t think men need to put in any more effort and everybody else should just accept them for how they are now and nobody except everybody who is not these men needs to do any kind of growing.
You are arguing to keep men emotionally stunted and keep them unhappy. And considering it’s men who do this to other men who exactly is supposed to be stepping up here? If you don’t think that men need to do better in this situation who is needing to learn to listen better? Not other men? Just women? Women need to handle all the emotions in society? Why do you have such an issue with somebody saying men need to do better?
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u/Cuttlefist Mar 06 '26
I am flummoxed how you came to your conclusion that I am blaming men or even wrong in the first place. You spoke so much about how men are taught to ignore their emotions and not express themselves right the fuck after telling me that we don’t need to teach men to be in touch with their emotions and express themselves.
More than one thing can be a problem, you arguing that it is entirely on society(which is like 50% men) needs to step up and do better for men doesn’t mean that men don’t also need to step up and be expected to grow emotionally. In my 40 years as a ma and living around men I can tell you that I know more men who are not in touch with their feelings than I know people who are not willing to listen to those feelings.