Wore nail polish at work this week, because I’m a bloke in his 40s who works in an office so fuck it, why not.
Our HR manager - a man in his 50s who fairly recently sent out an email reminding us to talk about our feelings to help our mental health - asked me (half jokingly) if I was “going through some life changes”
I will be when I find a better company to work for.
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Dude, be kinder and don’t start fights.
The guy insinuated some pretty mean things about his colleague. But thats okay, since his colleague doesn’t read lemmy?
You might be right, this thread is a little overwhelming. Hopefully teslasaur understands if I took it the wrong way.
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No offense taken. Trying to bring some sanity is all. I still haven’t received an honest answer to the question, so i guess it struck a bit to close to home.
Pretty hilarious that you try to paint me as sensitive, when you’re the one getting upset on someone else behalf. 🙃
I’ll once again give you the benefit of the doubt: the entire first paragraph was me deliberately mirroring you as well as I could in an attempt to make it clear why you’re getting downvoted to hell. Apparently you’re immune.
Did you though? You called me an asshole for asking a pretty non-judgemental, open ended question about the headspace of the person in question. I wrote nothing in there that i wouldn’t say to their face if they said what they said in the comment. You talk to me in a demeaning manor, which i didn’t do.
Please don’t call people assholes, please report it and I’ll remove it as soon as I can. Thanks.
To be fair, that could have been a genuine attempt to reach out to you. Coming in with painted nails when they’ve never seen you present yourself that way could be interpreted as you going through some life changes, and maybe you want to talk about them given an opportunity?
But also HR is never your friend. If he opens up it’s just a document in a file and if he gets fired it’s ammunition on why he wasn’t performing up to spec based on “life changes.”
Wrong
HR is always your enemy
:(
Lol lots of HR supporters here. I suppose I do have to correct my claim: if you’re a manager or executive HR is not your enemy.
Who talks to hr out of their own volition anyway?
Toby apologists
It’s a small firm, so I know our HR manager pretty well. But yeah.
Nah, he knows me well enough to know what I’m about. And ultimately he doesn’t really care whether I do it or not, but he’s an ex-army man of a certain age, and me wearing nail polish doesn’t jive with his view of what’s ’normal’.
the comments aren’t making it to my instance but i peeked over to how they look on slrpnk and just want to say good job all for approaching this with so much respect and decency
certain communities over on .world could never 😜
This sort of situation is how I knew my wife was/is a keeper. When I was pushed to the point where my negative emotions got too much, she was there for me. She didn’t shy away, but stepped in to help and support me.
In many of my previous relationships, showing negative emotions was lethal to their feelings. I could be happy, or stoic, but never upset or depressed.
On a side note, I had a chat with a trans friend once, regarding emotions. When they transitioned, the intensity of their emotions didn’t change much. However, their ability to contain them plummeted. Basically, men and women feel emotions similarly. Men are just a lot more able to bottle them up.
Imho the worst are those who crucify the patriarchy at every point, then a man chimes in to criticize calmly the words chosen are inappropriate for the given situation, or outright hurtful, then the radical anti-patriarchy combatants shut down that person as the most vile being they deserve to feel terrible. And that guy ill-adjusts, be it on a personal level of despair or combative misogyny, and the anti-patriarchy combatants continue their cycle, because clearly they were right from the get-go, men are misogynistic and don’t speak about their problems. Rinse and repeat.
Please, don’t be that type of anti-patriarchy fighter. It doesn’t matter that you describe yourself as super leftist progressive, if you behave like crap and reinforcing the worst of stereotypes.
I have noticed a pattern in myself, which I suspect could be true for others too. Namely, that I am much more likely to care about someone if the feeling is mutual. On a rational level, I can recognize that this or that person has had a bad time and deserve better, and I want to help them, but if they are hostile or indifferent to me, I kind of stop caring. And vice versa, if I feel that someone cares about me, I will care a lot about them. If this is the case for two people, it can quickly spiral either towards more mutual caring, or more mutual indifference.
Now here’s the tricky part, how do we influence this trajectory? The only way I can think of is to care even if the other person isn’t caring back. Polarizing language can feel good, to assert yourself when you feel hurt, but… is it helpful or detrimental for the bigger picture? It’s so circular and self-reinforcing. So hard to escape.
I get the feeling that many people argue that “well, when they start treating me right, then I will start treating them right, but until then I don’t care”, and sure, I understand that feeling. But the feeling is probably mutual.There is no patriarchy, there is an overwhelming majority of misandrists online though.
I often see an issue when trying to communicate your point here, (which I agree with and I also agree that that Patriarchy is a problem), there is no good way to name and call out those as you put it “radical anti-patriarchy combatants.”
Very few are willing to name or talk about “the Matriarchy” or “toxic Femininity.” So we either end up trying to use a long string of less impactful words, (like you did), or we just sweep those “radical anti-patriarchy combatants” under the too broad umbrella of Patriarchy and end up hidden from sight.
So the next time you need to call out one of those radical anti-patriarchy combatants, name them for what they are-- a toxic feminist and are adding to the problem of the Matriarchy. Just as you would call out any toxic male as being a problem part of the Patriarchy. Then sit back and watch them come unglued.
Because we desperately need equality for all and we need to support each other as best we can and when we can. To quote the famous Canadian philosopher, Red Green-- “Remember, we’re all in this together.”
“I’m a man. It’s my fault. But i can change. If i have to. I guess.”
Remember: I’m pullin’ for ya, and we’re all in this together.
Keep your stick on the ice.
Kind of describes the issues for many men don’t it.
There are far worse role models.
Boy you got the wrong lesson from red green, son.
Why are your feelings hurt because somebody was mean to the patriarchy? The patriarchy sucks. It doesn’t deserve your sympathy.
Been dumped, more than twice, immediately after crying in front of a woman. Make of that what you will.
Happened to me in high school once. Haven’t really been able to cry openly ever since.
I’m lucky I recently upgraded from a biannual sob to a quarterly sob. We’ll see what that does for…
*gestures at everything*
Crazy thing is that I literally just connected that dot in this thread thinking out loud. I never once had the thought that expressing my emotions was unsafe, I just kind of took that feedback onboard and proceeded to not process grief for two decades.
Fuck, I can’t remember the last time I cried openly. I know I HAVE in the last few years, but I can’t remember when or why. Nothing romance related, but I just can’t remember…
You’re fine. I didn’t cry for years, maybe a decade+. Not because of any macho idealism, I simply didn’t.
Feels good when I do drop that oxytocin. That positive feedback led me to crying more often.
LOL, I’m not a whimpering mess, but I can let loose more easily, and that’s a good thing.
That’s fucked. If I was dating a guy and he cried in front of me it would make me happy to know that he feels safe being vulnerable around me. I would treasure him forever after that.
And my wife is exactly like you. But just sayin’, in my experience, most women are not.
And I get it! No woman craves a weak man. No woman says to herself, “I wish my man was a sobbing pile of goo!”
Women want a strong man, a man that protects her from the slings and arrows of life. We can be those men and still cry. But it ain’t easy.
These are generalisations and just aren’t true.
This is absolutely the way to look at that level of intimacy IMO because that’s how I view it.
The day my dad died, nearly 23 years ago now, was also the day that I knew I’d ask my wife to marry me.
It was a long illness and he was relatively young. We were living together and I had just sucked it up for 18 painful months. Never cried once.
Anyway the day came and I got home and just cracked when we went to bed. I just sobbed in the bed with her. Like a real, deep, deep sobbing.
She just held me and rubbed my hair and I will never, ever forget that.
Anyway about 8 months later I asked her to marry me and we’re married over 20 years now and have a beautiful family together. I love her so much.
Not everyone is a good person.
I doubt that was it, but okay
Absolutely hilarious lack of self-awareness
…
more than twice
So, three times?
At least
Or more. Didn’t want to exaggerate, could only think of 3 lately. Been dumped a lot over 4 decades of dating.
But I’ve finally found the one! Took me that long to find a Filipino. (Guys, drop the American women, seriously, I’d never date one again.)
On a similar note, my ex-girlfriend of two years was ranting about how men do not go to therapy. Then I mentioned that I do go to therapy, and been going from even before we met… and I will never forget the look on her face, she immediately stopped me mid sentence and told me she didn’t need to hear about it.
She broke up with me the next week and said something like she didn’t want to be with someone that goes to therapy, but rather one that went.
My sympathies for that rough experience. I hope you have a wider family and friend group that supports you taking care of yourself, and have or will find a better match of romantic partner.
thanks for your kindness, I did not have a support network back then but I do now after moving out to a new city
It’s cultural. The problem is bigger than any one person. As soon as honest men speak out, they either deal with minimization like in the meme, or worse, support from chauvinistic incels who invalidate their message entirely.
Yeah, I agree, this has the beginnings of incel vibes. Just like every generation has good, bad, poor, rich, each person of any fluid gender has the same. Some are mature in their teens and some don’t mature until their 30s. Sounds like his girlfriend was super immature and ignorant.
incel vibes
girlfriend
What
No sex before marriage? 🙃
Thanks to Culture War grifters, men’s issues are unfairly stigmatized as something associated with incels and the alt-right.
Culture War grifters
I really like this phrase. These people need to be called out more often.
It includes people who under the guise of ‘pure feminism’ rail against ‘patriarchy’ whenever men’s issues come up. Feminists are not immune to propaganda.
Sadly, they’re not. Propagandized feminists make all feminists look bad.
This whole thread needs to listen to Samaritans by Idles.
This whole comment needs to explain why if you expect a real response other than downvotes.
this comment section is a memorial of injured experiences.
tread carefully.
I prefer “monument to all your sins” but hard to disagree.
Thank you for the warning, kind stranger.
For every 50 sensitive men out there, there’s a sociopath using a sensitive man persona to try to gain an advantage with women. Believe that men are sensitive, but verify, look for red flags.
I like to have a cry every so often, like if I’m starting to feel overwhelmed easy and constantly, I’ll go watch one my insta cry shows or movies.
One that works really well and lets me cry but over a more uplifting way mostly, is Ricky Gervais show Derek, I ugly cry so damn much in that show and afterwards I come out feeling great.
I used to hide it, but now I’ll tell anyone, I don’t care anymore, I’m nice, I’m caring and helpful, I’m a good person who uses crying as a form of self therapy, you’re the negative one belittling me over a childish viewpoint that makes you feel uneasy because you lack the ability to actually express your emotions, so others shouldn’t either.
I’ve been scrolling the comments on this post for a while (longer than I should) and just want to say it is one of the most refreshing collective displays of thoughtfulness and empathy I have read online in far too long. Even the back-and-forwards where people disagree on details or semantics are still overwhelmingly positive, insightful, and respectable on all sides. Another comment here used a brilliant term “merciless insincerity”, and personally I’ve been leaning in a dangerously cynical direction lately about its prevalence. Although I know I am old & resilient enough to not let it capsize me I despise when so much lowest-common-denominator thinking hardens my shell and wallpapers a layer of apathy over who I really am (the angry-yet-optimistic teenager from the 80s/90s who screamed into the void about the climate-emergency, the corrosion of democracy by short-term vote-winning & fundraising, and - more relevantly - the toxicifying impact men and women have had on society - at interpersonal, familial, regional, national, and international scales - by regurgitating thoughtless archetypes and flagwaving in lieu of questioning reality from a fearless standpoint of “open-minded but critical, optimistic but sceptical, confident but fallibilistic”. Discussions like these are some of the very few bastions of antidote left for that cynicism and apathy. What blows my mind is that it is apparent a nontrivial proportion of you who are young (well, much younger than me) are introspecting and expressing yourselves about the subject better than I ever could. When I see the flood of toxic (and idiotically childish) nonsense almost everywhere else, discussions like these truly help bolster a dangerously scarce resource called “hope for the future”, and reinforces for me why about 99.9℅ of my “social online reading” time is spent on Lemmy lately. Gandhi said “be the change you wish to see in the world”, and it’s worth considering that what you are all writing here is a good example of you doing exactly that (even if you hadn’t realised or intended). It adds up, when groups of people give each other the chance to be truly unafraid (instead of “playing tough” - which merely broadcasts how truly afraid someone really is).
I feel like another level of lack of self awareness is going into the comments and finding that actually it’s the patriarchies fault.
Like wow thanks its so helpful to know that this isn’t my fault “a man” it’s men’s fault (you being a man remember).
So many people blaming “the patriarchy” for the terrible behaviour of women.
No, that doesn’t justify treating the men in your life as soulless servants.
Yeah you won’t convince anyone to change by insisting that they aren’t being toxic and that they’re actually victims of society lmao
That’s not what that word means. “patriarchs” aren’t men in general, that’s why it’s possible (and in fast true) that the patriarchy harms people of all genders.
As this post demonstrate, men don’t benefit from it, e.g. it makes us live shorter, it encourages suppressing our emotion, it encourages our aggression. Because some (mostly) men in power benefit if we don’t unionize, let ourselves be pressed into shit jobs or the military, and so on.
Read the other messages here and you might understand.
patriarchy is a social hierarchy system, not the set of all men. It harms women and men in distinct but very real ways
Claiming everyone is a victim of social hierarchy isn’t helpful and is belittling to tell a victim
is belittling to tell a victim
Good thing I’m not telling that to a victim then.
Claiming everyone is a victim of social hierarchy isn’t helpful
Analyzing cultural and systemic issues is good, actually.
It’s good, but not particularly helpful in 1 on 1 discussion where it’s more valuable to focus on the individual behaviors first.
Sure, and I wouldn’t be bringing up the same subject when consoling a friend who was just treated this way by their partner, or talking to a friend who just treated their partner this way. But the context here is the discussion section of a post of a screenshot of a post of a stranger recounting their experience. I’m not trying to help Silverwing Secundus; they’re not here in this thread. There’s a lot of discussion in this comment section about common experiences and gender relations. So it seems perfectly natural to bring up one of the most significant influences on the way people of opposite genders interact in our society.
Thank you.
Patriarchy isn’t “men bad”, it’s a social system that places men and women into predetermined, rigid boxes. This harms both men and women, since none of us are as rigid as the system demands us to be.
“Boys don’t wear pink”
“Girls play with dolls”
“Men don’t cry”
“Women who dress ‘that way’ deserve it”
All of those are patriarchy reinforcing statements. Again, this harmful belief that “men shouldn’t have feelings” and them then bring rejected by women due to opening up is, on a macro level, due to the patriarchy. On an individual level, they’re just people being assholes to their loved ones.
Yes ultimately it comes down to toxic gender roles but I think calling those roles patriarchy is unfair and inherently ties blame to men. Doing so in a context where a man is clearly the victim is belittling and I would argue adding to the idea that men need to shoulder the burden of a sexist society.
Yeah, if it’s not intended to be anti-men there’s plenty of other words that could be used. Patriarchy as a concept is as the other poster described, but weaponization of the term is a different layer from the term itself. There’s all sorts of mental gymnastics involved when you talk to people whose main patriarchy problem is their mother.
That having been said it’s important to remember that in terms of the overall bulk of humanity, men are significantly more externally violent and rapey than the general population of women by at least an order of magnitude. My gut feeling on the situation is that a lot of the sentiment in this thread is directly related to that outcome, but it’s still important to remember that on average if you put a woman and a man in a locked room, the woman is in far more danger.
Curiously, lesbian relationships show similar rates of domestic abuse to hetero relationships.
That’s straight up sexism. Its like saying if you put a black and a white person in the same room the white person is in more danger
I honestly wish that a better word had been chosen than “patriarchy”. Because at first blush it does look like “men bad” in an environment in which there are people who are predisposed to dismiss it as such.
Particularly since the patriarchy harms everyone. It can smack of “you’re the enemy and it’s your fault you’re suffering” to the uninitiated. And bad faith actors are using that to misrepresent feminism and perpetuate the patriarchy.
That’s what “patriarchy” means; rule by men. If you mean something else, say something else.
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I don’t know if I want to blame the patriarchy or the toxic masculinity that goes with it, but crap. My ex was so not ok when I cried over the discovery of her affair.
She genuinely thought I was trying to manipulate her. I was “too extremely emotional” over it. We were highschool sweethearts, had a kid, and she always talked about how she was disgusted with her own mother for having an affair. Even to the point where she cut off contact with her mother until they ended that relationship.
“No man goes to bed crying because their wife cheated on them or sends nudes to the same guy 4 years later.”
There were red flags earlier than that. “Why are you crying over a movie?” (I always do at emotional bits). “Man up, no one wants to be with someone expresses sadness.”
What’s worse is that it’s pretty much why I don’t bother going out, or have much motivation to get back into the dating game. The patriarchy and toxic masculinity has ruined being human to me. I don’t want to be friends with people who cover up all their emotions. I don’t want to be friends with guys who are clearly over compensating. Then the girls turn around complain about these men being cruel to them, yet state things like this.
Then you have all the men who have this strange belief that they are owed women, and by behaving like that they get the women they are owed. I won’t take part in that. I will not hurt someone else just to satisfy my desires. If that means I don’t date, I’m much more comfortable being a good person and alone.
I also try to bring it up in conversation, and then people turn around and act like my refusal to participate in patriarchal behavior is anti-social. I had one person point out “technically, you aren’t getting any, even though you want it, making you an incel.” I was so shocked. Its not the fault of women I’m not out getting laid. Its men. It’s the patriarchy. It’s this system set up to isolate me because I have an intense emotional awareness.
you know her better obviously but sometimes you’re too close to see some things so here goes my opinion: I think she didn’t genuinely think you were trying to manipulate her.
I think she knew it was the appropriate response and she was the bad person so instead of facing that situation and losing the upper hand she thought she could use toxic masculinity to manipulate you to feel bad about yourself as a way to take the heat off of herself.
“you’re overreacting”, “you’re being too emotional” these are very common tactics that men use on women all the time. it’s just that it has the added toxic masculinity aspect when the roles are reversed.
That… Actually makes more sense and a thought I was trying to avoid. I know she said a lot of things where she said things to avoid feeling like the bad guy. Unfortunately for her, cheating on your marriage doesn’t have a defense.
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did you not read anything before or after that quote? we were already talking about a woman doing it. this is me talking about, in response to their comment about whether it’s about toxic masculinity, that it is done the other way all the time as well, and this way has the added layer of toxic masculinity.
now I haven’t added anything to my original comment but this is what you missed.
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“My ex cheated on me and rubbed my feelings in the dirt. How can I blame men for this?”
You can’t, if you think that women have any agency of their own lmao
I’m glad your ex is an ex. I believe it’s experiences like yours that highlights how sexism goes both ways. My heart goes out to you.
It only goes one way: from people using gender stereotypes to manipulate others to the victims.
The fact that you can manipulate any gender while being any gender logically follows.
My friend, I am so sorry you went through that. I understand it is incredibly hard to get over a betrayal coupled with an attack like that, but I know you can do it. Let yourself breathe and take your time but when you’re ready, there is a whole world of love out there for you.
There are so many people who will cherish the exact part of you that she took for granted. It is easy to go through something like that and come to the conclusion that you should stop feeling. I hope you don’t.
As for people saying you’re an incel… I literally have no advice other than no longer talking to them. There are people in marriages who are “involuntarily celibate”. This could become a rant about the awful nature of even the term “incel” but I think that would be a waste.
I hope you continue to show your strength by refusing to hide your vulnerability.
Thank you. That means a lot. I guess that’s the part I’m most uncomfortable with - why is expressing emotion seen as vulnerability? It’s one of our most effective methods of communication, particularly of empathy.
A lot of people are deathly afraid of self reflection, of thinking about themselves, about their own behavior and how it affects others. Because if you reflect on it, you might come to the conclusion that you have to change something about yourself. And that is hard work, that a lot of people simply don’t want to do (which I think is the reason for many things going wrong in the world). Being able to express emotion is a sign of the ability to self reflect, to be aware of how one feels and being able to communicate that. In a way it makes people aware of their own shortcomings, which is why they want to avoid it.
I think that maybe a different way to look at it would be to ask: why is vulnerability a bad thing? Everyone has emotions. Everyone is impacted and affected by things. To use your situation as an example - your partner betrayed you. You SHOULD be vulnerable to that. The fact that they can’t fathom having that level of vulnerability, to the point that they claimed you were trying to manipulate them, is the problem. That kind of emotional invulnerability is what leads people to do the kinds of things they did.
I truly believe that being vulnerable in front of someone, especially when they have hurt you so much, is strength. Showing someone how much they hurt you is really hard. Find people you can be vulnerable with. They’re out there.
The patriarchy is a system, and it’s both men and women who promulgate it
Then it shouldn’t be called “patriarchy”.
that’s not how things work. some prisoners helping the guards doesn’t suddenly put them at the same position in a prison.
I’m still surprised people use the old definition of “incel” considering that the connotations changed to “radical misogynist” or “terrorist” in the eyes of the mainstream nowadays. Personally I wouldn’t be caught dead using the term to describe anyone who simply doesn’t get laid. In 2013 it would be fine but nowadays it’s almost slanderous.
