- you're not allowed to show emotion (unless it's anger)
- you must get all of your emotional needs met through first your mother, and then your girlfriend / wife
Our culture really looks down on the strong male archetype.
PS: Don't believe me? Try growing a natural aka full beard.
Granted this is mostly from the east coast of the US (DC). And having a styled bearded seems to make a large difference.
Isn't finance the place where being clean shaven is almost necessary if you want to succeed?
Required. I'm in graduate school right now and you won't get a call back for 2nd rounds if you have a beard. It's some sort of irrational proxy for discipline.
Is Philly a "hipster" region?
A full (groomed) beard in SanFran will be seen completely differently than full (groomed) beard in Los Angeles. You'll fit right in with the SF hipsters but you'll be seen as a bum/idiot in LA.
There is a drastic difference in perception against say.. the Dollar Beard Club [0] and "manly-men" beards. The difference in perception is a source of comedy [1].
The source of this perception difference is that people "allowed" to grow beards for work were/are typically blue-collar workers. Blue-collar work is associated with those of lesser intelligence (sorry to any hard working blue-collars out there....) while white-collar professions are seen as "more intelligent" and have typically required being clean shaven. As it follows, facial hair = blue collar worker = less intelligent. That's just how things are currently.
Obviously this is changing, but more-so in "hipster" areas where people do white-collar work and grow their beards out. As the requirement/stigma against facial hair dies out.
[0] https://www.dollarbeardclub.com/
[1] http://www.primalunleashed.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/...
Have you considered keeping your facial hair washed and groomed.
I'm in the southeast, here a shaved (or nearly shaved) head and a full beard (if the guy can grow it, goatees otherwise) are incredibly common, and (mostly) disjoint from the skinhead crowd.
It includes traits such as:
- Protecting women and children - Not crying when a tiger attack - Attacking the tiger instead, and to do so, requires - Forming a group of hunters, to go and kill that tiger, aka leadership - This also requires some amount of muscles, and aggression - because you can't kill a tiger with love and passivity - Declaring war on other men who want to rape your wife and daughter - Not wanting to, but having to fight wars against other group of men who want to rape your wife and daughter - Letting your son fight, and practice fighting with friend, so that they can defend themselves against enemies, who want to rape your wife and daughters, and... tigers, who wants to eat your wife and daughters - Also, if a tiger attacks, the brother has to save the sister, and if necessary, sacrifices himself to make sure the sister survives - Most important of all, a guy must be able to acquire resources in some form (food, woods, money, cows, etc) to provide for his family (without complaining, whining, crying, or any other emo bullshit that doesn't help him in his goal of acquiring resources) - etc. etc.
You know. The traditional traits that a woman look for in a man. Obviously, as we have found out, these traits are bullshit and toxic and men MUST get rid of these traits that helped humanity survived for millions of years, because, like they said, they're all toxic.
Also, just look at ISIS. Whenever they conquered a new place, they rape and sold all the women/girls into slavery. You seriously don't think rape exist anymore?
Outlets (like male-only spaces for one, or sports, for another) that have been demonized by those same people who create this generalized talking point. Many of our boys have lost that outlet. Or don't even know it exists anymore.
Even if we posit what you say is true, there are no alternate expression and communication toolboxes presented as a set of life skills. The only thing society has offered are signals that society wants men to cry more, and only in the situations they're socially cued to cry.
The comment you're replying to says "Masculinity is not something to be feared or ashamed of, teaching that is what creates dysfunctional men."
What other impression do you expect men to get when they're told the problem with masculinity is that it's too masculine? For them to act LESS stoic? Is society going to accept with open arms an entirely new form of expression?
Especially when the people who fancy themselves able to understand the problems with masculinity cue men to be more stoic while pretending to want the opposite. (The more degenerate form of it from people that get all their philosophy from blogs with Fox News levels of bullshit even has a cute little hastagh for it #MasculinitySoFragile)
The shitstorm from women was huge. "Think about the children not adopted." It's illogical argument, made for logical reasons.
Young women are potential mothers, then they are mothers, and then they get to be grandmothers. That's their special value to society and their privileges are based on that capability. When someone hint's about losing that special status, women get really defensive.
It's easy to joke about fragility of masculinity, when status of femininity is hard coded to bodies of women. Women talk about femininity a lot, but they have not had to really question it yet.
That being said, humor seems to be so integral part of masculinity that it's only fitting to laugh about it.