Comment by slibhb | Hacker News Reader

Comment by slibhb | Hacker News Reader

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It's true that certain things are tougher on men than women. Obviously the reverse is true to a larger extent.

However, I think "traditional masculinity" is mostly positive. Men are taught to deal with their problems on a personal level, suck it up, not blame external factors, and so on. Being tough is a good thing. No man is an island, but everyone (man and woman) should strive to be a promontory. Blaming society or culture or your parents or the world or God is usually not useful, even if it's true.

For these reasons, I find it a little disturbing when people start talking about "support systems for men" or when men are pushed to "be vulnerable and talk about our feelings". We have to thread a needle here: we should help people who cannot make it on their own but we also need to acculturate people to take responsibility for their lives, for their choices, for mistakes and failures. It's very hard to help people who struggle without making them weaker. One way it may be possible is for parents (and society) to be hard on kids while they're young but gradually ease up on them as they age. Being tough on a 5 year old is likely to help him. Being tough on a 30 year old who has mostly finished developing may just be cruel.

All this messaging, if it's to be of any use, has to come with some sort of challenge attached to it. For oversocialized professionals, "be vulnerable and talk about our feelings," is no challenge at all; they've been doing it all their lives. For these sorts, the discourse around mental health/modern masculinity arms them with an array of manipulative techniques and stymies genuine personal/social development. There is absolutely a need to cultivate sangfroid.

But I'm not sure how many men the above paragraph actually applies to. When you live online, it's easy to forget how, uh, primal the world can be for so many guys. I know people with good reasons to be happy, but due to some emasculating hangup (domineering father, absent father, bad dating history, height, etc), they view life through such a paranoid lens, seeing every interaction as some sort of competition. To them, letting one's guard down, stepping away from these masculine expectations, and being open about their fears still presents a legitimate challenge with legitimate reward.

This discourse seems tired because the demographic that needs it the least engages with it the most.

You make a good point. I'm more familiar with "oversocialized professionals" but the world is big and full of people, some of whom take masculinity too far. Hell, I read a Norman Mailer novel last week...

> traditional masculinity

The problem is that traditional masculinity isn't traditional. I suspect that most people think of it as stoical silence. But I don't think thats universal.

Reading brideshead revisited(1945), the whole thing is stuffed with what one might would call "overly emotional men" but that same generation is marked as the "greatest" in the UK.

I really don't think its helpful to anyone to basically say: "here kid, you're on your own, if you can't solve it, we just keep quiet" Sure, discipline is key, but thats not the same as emotional repression. Its perfectly possible to be honest about your emotional state to someone, be stoic, self reliant and disciplined.

I think the big problem is that people think that masculinity is about repression of everything apart from getting sex and money. Any deviation is treated as weakness.

On the flip side, a woman with ambition, drive and leadership is treated like an anathema. Just as a man who cries in public.

The coin flips both ways and I can't find an argument for it being useful to wider society

> brideshead revisited

Is a novel, not a documentary.

This is a very interesting viewpoint! If by tough you mean teaching him to be self sufficient, to overcome his problems, to do the best he can totally agree. To use a concrete example teach him to tie his shoes, but don't do it for him. I think what is not good and what I have sometimes seen is parents yelling at a 5 year old for having his shoes untied or making some small error.

Completely agree about threading the needle. When I was young, men never talked about feelings. I grew up competent and successful, but also drank heavily to deal with anxiety. I didn't even know what anxiety was, that stuff just wasn't talked about when I was young. I agree though we can go too far and coddle people. This stuff is hard!

Being tough and self reliant is great. Those qualities are not abrogated in the slightest by being able to talk with others about your internal experience. You can help yourself by doing so and also help those around you in the process.

The goal is not to be immune to stress and trauma. That’s not really a thing. The goal is to be able to deal effectively with adversity and overcome it. Part of being able to do that is acknowledging that you’re not a robot and employing appropriate strategies. Discussing these things with people that share common ground with you is an effective release mechanism. Releasing pressure during downtime enables mental toughness and self reliance in critical moments.

> Being tough and self reliant is great. Those qualities are not abrogated in the slightest by being able to talk with others about your internal experience. You can help yourself by doing so and also help those around you in the process.

My experience is that, yes, toughness is abrogated by "talking with others about your internal experience". Internal experience is subjective. No one but artists can really share it and when we try, we mostly just whine.

> The goal is not to be immune to stress and trauma. That’s not really a thing. The goal is to be able to deal effectively with adversity and overcome it. Part of being able to do that is acknowledging that you’re not a robot and employing appropriate strategies. Discussing these things with people that share common ground with you is an effective release mechanism. Releasing pressure during downtime enables mental toughness and self reliance in critical moments.

No one is immune to anything. Being tough is a huge advantage and the way you make people tough is by being hard on them. "Being hard on" is not abuse. There's room for compassion and love. But, today, as far as my experience goes, we're too far on the coddling side of things.

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