Yeah, also like 97% of murders are done by men, BUT more to the point, if men had good mental health care and had a culture that gave them better mental health outcomes, this would mean a lot of murder would never happen. People think ‘toxic masculinity’ means ‘men are bad’ but that’s not it, it’s that I grew up in a culture where a man saying he mistakenly thought he might actually be gay at one point because a bunch of kids in middle school ganged up on him repeatedly and attacked him for ‘‘being gay’’, was responded to by the other guys walking out of the room and calling him gay. Or when me and one other roommate resolved an argument by discussing our shared religious beliefs concerning Jesus’s words to love one another, the other roommates with the same religion called us fags. These were adult men. Point being, our culture is toxic TO MEN. It’s not doing much besides creating a lot of men who can’t talk about their feelings, and have to be constantly on guard about being attacked for being ‘gay’ by admitting they have feelings or affection. There’s a lot of guys married to someone that will mock them for getting too emotional or bringing up their feelings. It’s often clearly communicated that those aspects of a man are not appreciated, nor welcomed. A lot of guys would much rather feel welcomed and appreciated for being fully human.
In my area, cis het women are largely dividable into groups that understand this and wish cis het men would (it maybe admit it if they secretly understand), and cis het women who understand this and grow hostile when other women point it out, endangering the largest vector of exploitation. And I get it, since most of the cis het men do it to women, when they can (red state). But an eye for an eye is really not making anything better for anyone, it’s just who can con who first and worst, for the longest time frame. It’s kind of like narc-ing the narc turns you into the narc. I wish everyone would just go work on personal healing and growth and encourage others it’s ok and desirable to do this, rather than making a competition of who can be the sickest. But that wouldn’t be profitable to the overlords, who stigmatize it, make it inaccessible, and exploit our illnesses, mental and physical.
Yeah I agree, and it’s frustrating people do this to eachother, solidarity is so deeply necessary and so difficult to convince people about.
Yes it is. Men and women can support each other holistically and as a whole. We just have to realize there are opportunists among us, and they are also unwell, more unwell than us. I’m not sure how to handle persistent, demonstrable undermining, but I’d gather after a couple or few instances, sadly, somehow segregating them if and until they seek serious professional therapy from experienced therapists trained in personality disorders with a proven track record of the behavior being curtailed over long periods of time. But I am not a therapist.
