8 ms·

It's simple, generally it's more common in men that they don't ask for help, don't reconcile with their own true feelings, don't allow for their own full self e

It's simple, generally it's more common in men that they don't ask for help, don't reconcile with their own true feelings, don't allow for their own full self expression, don't hug, don't cry, don't share emotions with naked confidentiality, and macho culture preys on any signs of weakness, to their own detriment. This carries on to the kinds of hobbies, interests and all that puts men further away from a simple emotional comfort than women. It took me two decades before it didn't feel awkward hugging my brother in earnest, and I consider myself a very sensitive person, so take that for what you will. Maybe it just takes longer for boys to become emotionally mature men. It varies culturally a lot for men and women by city and country, of course.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
thwy12321 8y ago
This isn't why. This is what feminism tells men, that their problems stem from them not being able to handle and process their emotions correctly. That's propaganda. The real reason is more along of the lines of their being less of a safety net for men, less people willing to give them the benefit of the doubt, and no attraction from women for men in the bottom 10%.
- MFLoon 8y ago
  Any data to support those assertions? FWIW I think the reasons you point to are just as plausible contributing factors as the ones GP mentions, but there's no reason it can't be both. And dismissing the effects of machismo/toxic masculinity as simply "feminist propaganda" is just not realistic.
  - nyolfen 8y ago
    https://web.archive.org/web/20180304005047/https://theblog.okcupid.com/your-looks-and-your-inbox-8715c0f1561e https://web.archive.org/web/20180304005047/https://theblog.o...
- otikik 8y ago
  > no attraction from women for men in the bottom 10%. That's what misogyny tells men.
  - shard972 8y ago
    Is this what listening to men looks like? If so I can see why many men don't talk about their issues....
    - zbentley 8y ago
      > Is this what listening to men looks like? Interpreting this as charitably as possible (though I suspect it might be a lost cause): yes, that is exactly what it is. GP didn't suggest that GGP was wrong, stupid, harmful, evil, or any of the above. They understood what GGP wrote, and suggested that it might be based in an opinion formed due to a skewed cultural influence, with the implication that re-examination of said opinion might be in order. That's understanding a claim, thinking about it, and issuing compassionate criticism. Whether you think it's correct or not is up to you, but it certainly isn't a failure to listen.
      - shard972 8y ago
        > That's understanding a claim, thinking about it, and issuing compassionate criticism. Whether you think it's correct or not is up to you, but it certainly isn't a failure to listen. So is it listening or criticising? I'm not even making an argument that the claims either way are wrong or right but when people say listen these days, it's usually implied that you aren't supposed to turn around and criticise them, thats at best giving constructive feedback. I'm just pointing out how men are being told to speak up, but often when they speak up they are spoken down to by the current culture for holding "wrong" views. Considering we are talking about people committing suicide it seems like this isn't exactly helping the situation.
  - vuhepuravi 8y ago
    No, these are feelings that men actually have, without anyone telling them anything. And this is a perfect example of how people are often completely unsympathetic with men when we do complain about our problems. I'm not even close to the bottom 10% of men, and I don't feel like I get much attraction from women. It takes a lot of work and failures to even get a single date sometimes. This is a really shitty feeling and is one of the biggest causes of me feeling down. It can really make one feel like a worthless person sometimes.
- krapp 8y ago
  >This is what feminism tells men, that their problems stem from them not being able to handle and process their emotions correctly. What "feminism" would probably say is that masculine culture doesn't allow men to display emotions as openly as women, especially when those emotions betray a sense of physical or emotional vulnerability. The common term for this is "toxic masculinity," which is often confused by persons like yourself to mean that masculinity itself is toxic, whereas it really means that masculinity can be toxic, and can manifest in negative ways, such as an inability to express one's emotions for fear of being seen as weak, effeminate or possibly gay. This isn't propaganda, it's an obvious and self-evident sociological and cultural phenomenon, a flaw in society, not in men themselves. >and no attraction from women for men in the bottom 10%. Oh. I see you've fallen down the rabbithole. It's unfortunate that the lunatic fringe of redpillers and incels seem to taken over and undermined any legitimate credibility the mens' rights movement might have. Women aren't evil, and feminists aren't entirely wrong, and no, aren't driving men to mass suicide because they don't find them attractive.
  - fromthestart 8y ago
    >>The common term for this is "toxic masculinity," which is often confused by persons like yourself to mean that masculinity itself is toxic, whereas it really means that masculinity can be toxic, and can manifest in negative ways And what modern feminists like yourself struggle with is that men are inately predisposed more toward certain personality traits than women. You want to talk about obviousness and self evidence? Look at evolutionary pressure. Look at our closest related primates (and most mammals) and how much more agressive males tend to be, and how with, for example, gorillas, few males will mate with many females, while less dominant males go mateless. Yet you do not even consider the possibility that humans are hard wired towards certain average behaviors, that men are almost certainly predisposed towards agression, that females may very well be attracted to dominance (hell, it's all over our culture if you look with an open mind). Instead, you deny biology, hand waving away all discrepancies and differences with words like "toxic masculinity" and "patriarchy." You deny the pain and loneliness that unnatractive men experience daily because of factors beyond their control - height, build, facial structure, social difficulty. You cannot fix society by ignoring biology, and you are only alienating these men, who are human beings like you and me, by slandering them as incels for having the same desires for companionship and affirmation unfulfilled while simultaneously blaming them for the problems in society. Pride, agression, drives for achievement and competition, these natural, "toxic" masculine traits BUILT the modern world. Yes, there was plenty of bad along the way, but one cannot ignore all of the good that has resulted from these drives, and in truth, modern society cannot exist without them. Nor should it.
- majormajor 8y ago
  What makes the least physically attractive men less appealing than the least physically attractive women?
  - deanmoriarty 8y ago
    In general, women have way more power than men when it comes to choosing who they mate with, so women are always more appealing than men at the same level of attractiveness. Try an experiment where you sign up an online dating profile for a woman, and see how much action you get as compared to a similar man profile. Or go to a coffee shop and count how many times a woman is being approached by men over an hour, and how many times a man is being approached by a woman (hint: 0)
DanBC 8y ago
> It's simple, No it isn't.
belorn 8y ago
When statistics show a over-representation for a disadvantage for men, its men and male culture fault. When statistics show a over-representation for a disadvantage for women, its men and male culture fault. It must be that it is very convenient to blame men and male culture, but honestly I have a hard time seeing any truth in that. Suicide is connected with depression, culture and unemployment. We know from studies that men are more often misdiagnosed when it comes to depression, with experiments where doctors rate identical profiles more correctly if the name is that of a woman. We also know that culture has a major impact on suicide rates with a strong link to gender expectations, the same gender expectation that researcher suggest is causing misdiagnoses for depression in men. We also know there is a strong correlation for increased suicide rates for men when unemployment goes up but not for women, again pointing towards gender expectations as the culprit. If we ignore that, at least make a study and look if men who do not express emotions is a valid predictor for suicide. I expect it is not but it would make for a interesting validation to read.
- goldfeld 8y ago
  Statistical disadvantages are almost always on women's side on a variety of societal issues, yet women cope and mostly aren't loud complainers on a day-to-day (when they get together to do so male culture calls them out). It's easy to blame (some) men because older sexist men call the shots pretty much everywhere (even areas where most effective practitioners tend to be women, like cooking.) In this way women get used to coping, with injustice, unfairness, offense, from early age and in the presence of other women in their family. This may help explain further the learned ability to commiserate, so to say. I don't know, maybe men who don't express feelings like being tough dudes and won't consider suicide, maybe the ones who suicide are the ones who do have and express lots of feeling, but misplace the venting somehow, or can't control well, who knows.
  - spurcell93 8y ago
    "(even areas where most effective practitioners tend to be women, like cooking.)" Source?
dokem 8y ago
You sounds like an alien that learned about human men from sitcoms and insurance commercials.
- goldfeld 8y ago
  I learned a lot working at tech companies, though I've since moved on to other line work where I tend to be the only man in the room.
derefr 8y ago
A contrary view/hypothesis: women have higher average levels of social anxiety (as measurable by prescriptions for anxiety meds, and also on demographic studies of the Big-5 personality traits of agreeableness+neuroticism.) And people with social anxiety don't want to take risks that could result in increased happiness/relief from suffering, but which also have the potential for greatly decreasing their social status. Examples of such actions: romantically initiating (see "Lesbian sheep syndrome"), asserting one's worth in interviews (= a non-negligible part of the wage gap, after materity effects are removed), "saying no" to unwanted advances, and... committing suicide. (Fun corollary hypothesis: anti-depressants like SSRIs increase suicidality precisely by removing the inhibitory effect of social-anxiety upon this class of positive-utility-but-disapproved-of actions.)
- darpa_escapee 8y ago
  Antidepressants increase suicidality because their mechanism of action relies on rapid up-regulation and then gradual down-regulation of autoreceptors. For some people, the initial result is a paradoxically anxiety-ridden and dysphoric state.
guskel 8y ago
Men don't ask for help because nobody cares about them and they can't get good help. They don't expressed their feelings because they get shunned for doing so and are perceived as being weak. And it's not always men who are forcing this gender role upon men -sometimes it's women.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

thwy12321 8y ago

This isn't why. This is what feminism tells men, that their problems stem from them not being able to handle and process their emotions correctly. That's propaganda. The real reason is more along of the lines of their being less of a safety net for men, less people willing to give them the benefit of the doubt, and no attraction from women for men in the bottom 10%.

MFLoon 8y ago
Any data to support those assertions? FWIW I think the reasons you point to are just as plausible contributing factors as the ones GP mentions, but there's no reason it can't be both. And dismissing the effects of machismo/toxic masculinity as simply "feminist propaganda" is just not realistic.
- nyolfen 8y ago
  https://web.archive.org/web/20180304005047/https://theblog.okcupid.com/your-looks-and-your-inbox-8715c0f1561e https://web.archive.org/web/20180304005047/https://theblog.o...
otikik 8y ago
> no attraction from women for men in the bottom 10%. That's what misogyny tells men.
- shard972 8y ago
  Is this what listening to men looks like? If so I can see why many men don't talk about their issues....
  - zbentley 8y ago
    > Is this what listening to men looks like? Interpreting this as charitably as possible (though I suspect it might be a lost cause): yes, that is exactly what it is. GP didn't suggest that GGP was wrong, stupid, harmful, evil, or any of the above. They understood what GGP wrote, and suggested that it might be based in an opinion formed due to a skewed cultural influence, with the implication that re-examination of said opinion might be in order. That's understanding a claim, thinking about it, and issuing compassionate criticism. Whether you think it's correct or not is up to you, but it certainly isn't a failure to listen.
    - shard972 8y ago
      > That's understanding a claim, thinking about it, and issuing compassionate criticism. Whether you think it's correct or not is up to you, but it certainly isn't a failure to listen. So is it listening or criticising? I'm not even making an argument that the claims either way are wrong or right but when people say listen these days, it's usually implied that you aren't supposed to turn around and criticise them, thats at best giving constructive feedback. I'm just pointing out how men are being told to speak up, but often when they speak up they are spoken down to by the current culture for holding "wrong" views. Considering we are talking about people committing suicide it seems like this isn't exactly helping the situation.
- vuhepuravi 8y ago
  No, these are feelings that men actually have, without anyone telling them anything. And this is a perfect example of how people are often completely unsympathetic with men when we do complain about our problems. I'm not even close to the bottom 10% of men, and I don't feel like I get much attraction from women. It takes a lot of work and failures to even get a single date sometimes. This is a really shitty feeling and is one of the biggest causes of me feeling down. It can really make one feel like a worthless person sometimes.
krapp 8y ago
>This is what feminism tells men, that their problems stem from them not being able to handle and process their emotions correctly. What "feminism" would probably say is that masculine culture doesn't allow men to display emotions as openly as women, especially when those emotions betray a sense of physical or emotional vulnerability. The common term for this is "toxic masculinity," which is often confused by persons like yourself to mean that masculinity itself is toxic, whereas it really means that masculinity can be toxic, and can manifest in negative ways, such as an inability to express one's emotions for fear of being seen as weak, effeminate or possibly gay. This isn't propaganda, it's an obvious and self-evident sociological and cultural phenomenon, a flaw in society, not in men themselves. >and no attraction from women for men in the bottom 10%. Oh. I see you've fallen down the rabbithole. It's unfortunate that the lunatic fringe of redpillers and incels seem to taken over and undermined any legitimate credibility the mens' rights movement might have. Women aren't evil, and feminists aren't entirely wrong, and no, aren't driving men to mass suicide because they don't find them attractive.
- fromthestart 8y ago
  >>The common term for this is "toxic masculinity," which is often confused by persons like yourself to mean that masculinity itself is toxic, whereas it really means that masculinity can be toxic, and can manifest in negative ways And what modern feminists like yourself struggle with is that men are inately predisposed more toward certain personality traits than women. You want to talk about obviousness and self evidence? Look at evolutionary pressure. Look at our closest related primates (and most mammals) and how much more agressive males tend to be, and how with, for example, gorillas, few males will mate with many females, while less dominant males go mateless. Yet you do not even consider the possibility that humans are hard wired towards certain average behaviors, that men are almost certainly predisposed towards agression, that females may very well be attracted to dominance (hell, it's all over our culture if you look with an open mind). Instead, you deny biology, hand waving away all discrepancies and differences with words like "toxic masculinity" and "patriarchy." You deny the pain and loneliness that unnatractive men experience daily because of factors beyond their control - height, build, facial structure, social difficulty. You cannot fix society by ignoring biology, and you are only alienating these men, who are human beings like you and me, by slandering them as incels for having the same desires for companionship and affirmation unfulfilled while simultaneously blaming them for the problems in society. Pride, agression, drives for achievement and competition, these natural, "toxic" masculine traits BUILT the modern world. Yes, there was plenty of bad along the way, but one cannot ignore all of the good that has resulted from these drives, and in truth, modern society cannot exist without them. Nor should it.
majormajor 8y ago
What makes the least physically attractive men less appealing than the least physically attractive women?
- deanmoriarty 8y ago
  In general, women have way more power than men when it comes to choosing who they mate with, so women are always more appealing than men at the same level of attractiveness. Try an experiment where you sign up an online dating profile for a woman, and see how much action you get as compared to a similar man profile. Or go to a coffee shop and count how many times a woman is being approached by men over an hour, and how many times a man is being approached by a woman (hint: 0)

DanBC 8y ago

> It's simple, No it isn't.

belorn 8y ago

When statistics show a over-representation for a disadvantage for men, its men and male culture fault. When statistics show a over-representation for a disadvantage for women, its men and male culture fault. It must be that it is very convenient to blame men and male culture, but honestly I have a hard time seeing any truth in that. Suicide is connected with depression, culture and unemployment. We know from studies that men are more often misdiagnosed when it comes to depression, with experiments where doctors rate identical profiles more correctly if the name is that of a woman. We also know that culture has a major impact on suicide rates with a strong link to gender expectations, the same gender expectation that researcher suggest is causing misdiagnoses for depression in men. We also know there is a strong correlation for increased suicide rates for men when unemployment goes up but not for women, again pointing towards gender expectations as the culprit. If we ignore that, at least make a study and look if men who do not express emotions is a valid predictor for suicide. I expect it is not but it would make for a interesting validation to read.

goldfeld 8y ago
Statistical disadvantages are almost always on women's side on a variety of societal issues, yet women cope and mostly aren't loud complainers on a day-to-day (when they get together to do so male culture calls them out). It's easy to blame (some) men because older sexist men call the shots pretty much everywhere (even areas where most effective practitioners tend to be women, like cooking.) In this way women get used to coping, with injustice, unfairness, offense, from early age and in the presence of other women in their family. This may help explain further the learned ability to commiserate, so to say. I don't know, maybe men who don't express feelings like being tough dudes and won't consider suicide, maybe the ones who suicide are the ones who do have and express lots of feeling, but misplace the venting somehow, or can't control well, who knows.
- spurcell93 8y ago
  "(even areas where most effective practitioners tend to be women, like cooking.)" Source?

dokem 8y ago

You sounds like an alien that learned about human men from sitcoms and insurance commercials.

goldfeld 8y ago
I learned a lot working at tech companies, though I've since moved on to other line work where I tend to be the only man in the room.

derefr 8y ago

A contrary view/hypothesis: women have higher average levels of social anxiety (as measurable by prescriptions for anxiety meds, and also on demographic studies of the Big-5 personality traits of agreeableness+neuroticism.) And people with social anxiety don't want to take risks that could result in increased happiness/relief from suffering, but which also have the potential for greatly decreasing their social status. Examples of such actions: romantically initiating (see "Lesbian sheep syndrome"), asserting one's worth in interviews (= a non-negligible part of the wage gap, after materity effects are removed), "saying no" to unwanted advances, and... committing suicide. (Fun corollary hypothesis: anti-depressants like SSRIs increase suicidality precisely by removing the inhibitory effect of social-anxiety upon this class of positive-utility-but-disapproved-of actions.)

darpa_escapee 8y ago
Antidepressants increase suicidality because their mechanism of action relies on rapid up-regulation and then gradual down-regulation of autoreceptors. For some people, the initial result is a paradoxically anxiety-ridden and dysphoric state.

guskel 8y ago

Men don't ask for help because nobody cares about them and they can't get good help. They don't expressed their feelings because they get shunned for doing so and are perceived as being weak. And it's not always men who are forcing this gender role upon men -sometimes it's women.