Toxic masculinity. -Toxic masculinity is thus defined by adherence to traditional male gender roles that consequently stigmatize and limit the emotions boys and men may comfortably express while elevating other emotions such as anger-. An entire concept of a lot of bad blood, bad history, and an oppressive present and not only for the others forced to tolerate it but also for the men themselves as we see the expectations and the gatekeeping of what masculinity should be putting a lot of men down without them even realizing it.https://www.focusforhealth.org/how-toxic-masculinity-harms-men-and-society-as-a-whole/
Gender-based violence. anyone can experience gender-based violence. women may experience it more what with a number of men just being perverts and abusive but it doesn’t mean that men don’t go through it.https://conflictandhealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13031-019-0189-x
Why do we rarely hear about it then? because they’ve been taught to shut up about it. the toxicity behind this idea comes into play when a woman experiences gender-based violence, it is looked into, maybe never quite fixed, but definitely given a chance and they may get it worked out even. men on the other hand cannot even say it to their friends because for one they will be seen as weak for having a woman beating them or abusing them as if a woman is a weaker or less important thing for a man to abuse such that the idea of the opposite happening would make a man weak in their peers’ eyes.https://odi.org/en/insights/male-gender-based-violence-a-silent-crisis/
Sexuality in men isn’t allowed by society to be as fluid as it is in women. this is especially seen in school settings and social scenes where a woman is seen as flexible and fluid and is given a little bit of leeway to explore what they call a ‘phase’ of their sexuality, and the repercussions for not being straight is harsher for men than it is for women as seen even in schools when boys are beaten to a point of death or hospitalization by other boys because they’re seen as predators towards the other boys in schools.
The worst thing about this reasoning, other than the fact that this person has been maimed, mentally, physically, and emotionally, is that these men are indirectly promoting rape culture by showing us that they are randomly afraid of what a man would do to them because those are the same acts they do to women, objectify, mishandle and demean. In girls’ schools, however, the main punishments would be stigmatization, expulsion and rarely do cases of physical abuse appear among girls.
Binary rules. as an AFAB individual who identifies as non-binary, I have personally noticed the major differences between how females are allowed to explore gender whereas males are more constricted to a smaller brand. makeup is considered only for females and as soon as a man is seen in anything feminine, be it make-up, feminine clothing, feminine demeanor, it is automatically assumed that they’re fruity or gay.
The name-calling and abuse begin and condemn them to an existence of secrecy for their own security, whereas as much as tomboys and nonbinary afab individuals do not face as much stigma and social danger because the laws on females are a bit more lenient. A man in a dress threatens a cisgender straight male because it forces him to accept that men can be fluid too, can be expressive as well even without identifying as nonbinary or as queer.
Sexual assault. sexual assault in males as opposed to females. the number of females who are abused and sexually assaulted might exceed the number of men who go through it by quite a long shot, to such a point that from birth, there are specific lessons that parents indirectly teach their female children, to fear men, to stay safe, to trust no man.
They are taught to respond if a man says hello in case they follow you in a corner and molest you, not to go out in the night, not to dress a certain way because it enables rape(as if women’s clothing is what would stop a rapist from molesting an 80 yr old woman and a two-month-old baby-because these are actual incidents that have happened and are happening.)
All this isn’t to say that men don’t experience it. if anything the number recorded for assault in men only refers to the ones who came forward and they’re not many, they don’t even reach a quarter of the actual males who have gone through sexual assault, from other men or from women.
Males are less inclined to report these incidents because of how society will view them, other males specifically, because men are hardly ever viewed as the victim, even by themselves, which would, in turn, mean that rape, as a victimizing act, is only expected to happen to women, who in men’s eyes and society in general, are allowed to be weak, to be victims, to be vulnerable, to be taken advantage of, to be assaulted, and men are considered too”strong ” to allow this act to happen to them.
These cases bring up the thought of “perhaps if men and women were seen as equals then men would be listened to more, viewed as human instead of destructive beasts that never get hurt and who are the source of a lot of the harm that befalls other humans”
The shaming and shunning that happens to males who have gone through sexual assault, which stems mostly from other men, is stigmatizing and humiliating and they end up worse off than before hence a lot of them choose to stay silent not adding the fact that it is considered a win for them, especially if it was a female, not putting in mind the fact that as long as it wasn’t consensual, it was indeed a sexual assault.
Depression in men. A global pandemic. yes, mental health, in general, is a global pandemic, but the number of silent men, the number of men who think a man should face everything alone, never talk to another person because of his weakness, because they’ll be shunned for being weak, for whining, for crying, for sharing, for breaking, for simping is actually a large number, a frighteningly large number of men.
One would say that society has done this to them, and yes I would absolutely agree, but a crucial detail to add there is that other men are the main reason for this, it even seems funny if a guy cries and asks for a tissue as if their emotions shouldn’t exist.
Yes, some people have found themselves succumbing to the cruel endgame that is the call of suicide, but should it be that it drops to your mind as the resort you go to before you talk to someone? just because you’re a man? because you’ve been taught to be ashamed of feeling this feeling, yet in your mind, a woman is allowed to have these feelings, even go for therapy if they want, but you’re not?
Is that big pandora’s box of emotions only set aside for a gender? As if you didn’t deserve help, because the ones before you taught you you didn’t, that as a man it wasn’t necessary, that you can handle all of it on your own and if you cant it makes you some sort of failed man, isn’t that too low of an expectation to give yourselves?
These acts of rejecting help tend to spill over into society, just because you’re holding it in, you resent your son for even crying because you don’t get to cry so no other man should cry, making yourself and everyone around you bitter and sad.
There’s a lot of other problems, problems that everyone is facing, you included, holding on to toxic aspects of masculinity isn’t supposed to be one of them. there are a lot of reasons why people don’t seek help, having an XY chromosome shouldn’t be one of the reasons.
The binary idea of femininity and masculinity as seen by a retrogressive and oppressive society should be diminished, let men ugly cry if they want to without gatekeeping their methods of handling their emotions. A person, of whatever gender or lack thereof, should only be left with the kind of principles and traits that they’re comfortable with.
Treating everyone with equal rights as per how they need it without the unfair degradation of what society has taught you to view it as, accepting everyone as they are and as who they want to be with only one condition; that they hurt no one.
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