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Comment by JediLuke | Hacker News Reader

> women are not as capable as men at life.

I don't know if it's "impolite" but I do know that you can't troll HN like this. We've banned the account.

If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. They're here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

Men cry in the office too, but they're better at hiding it because the social expectations are different. A few times during crunches I've heard men sobbing in the restroom instead of at their desk. Men get told to 'man up', so they bottle it up or hide it.

counterpoint: no. i been in some pretty stressful environments and never reacted like that. same for most guys i know. maybe it's different where you are but i never seen it even in private like that or with close friends.

Men commit suicide 3.8x more than women[1] due to cavalier attitudes such as yours about the mental struggles men face. I'm not saying you're a "part of the problem", I'm just saying you could really benefit from admitting to yourself that yes, men do cry. Yes, men do feel the same emotions as women. Yes, men do have to hold it in for fear of being labeled a "pussy" or be seen as "crying like a little bitch".

1: https://afsp.org/suicide-statistics/

This is a little misleading. Men attempt suicide with more reliably lethal methods like firearms, whereas women attempt suicide using more unreliably lethal methods like overdosing on medication [1]. In fact, according to your link, women attempt suicide at a rate of 1.8x that of men [2].

[1]: https://www.verywellmind.com/gender-differences-in-suicide-m...

[2]: https://www.datocms-assets.com/12810/1649682186-14296_afsp_2...

>Men attempt suicide with more reliably lethal methods like firearms

And succeed ~4x times as much. In other words, GP is correct and you just needed to scratch an itch to nitpick.

The claim was that the number was due to cavalier attitudes, which is unsupported. I think the added context is important. Maybe you don’t, but others might. The drastic 3.8x number is more a function of the mode of suicide rather than cavalier attitudes, as far as I see it.

Unless you were raised in a forest, you’re also a product of the same environment, that tells boys and men since they are little that they shouldn’t cry.

lots of men do the opposite of crying by reacting with some sort of anger/rage in whatever public outbursts (verbal or physical). I present my younger self as exhibit A to verbal stupidity and admit guilt to all charges in this manner. It wasn't until maybe 10ish years ago that I got tired of just being angry at everything. Maybe I could have gotten there sooner with professional counseling, but that wasn't the manly thing to do.

The stigma of men seeking therapy is something that can only improve. Just don't know how to do it other than speaking positively about it at appropriate times

This. Patriarchy sort of collectively defines the "emotion" out of the ways that men act out. When women cry, they're being emotional, when men get angry, it's a rational response to people acting the wrong way. (Not to mention the fact that the idea of being "emotional" is itself, considered bad somehow!) When you start to notice the ways that men act out emotionally for what they are, it becomes apparent that men are easily as emotional as women (I'd argue much more so), it just manifests in ways that society has deemed manly.

This is the most insightful comment I've read in weeks and I've never thought of things this way before. This changes the way I look at people.

Men and women are just as emotional: The main difference is that men are shamed for being sad/crying, so our emotions end up manifesting as anger instead. Men get angry because they aren't allowed to cry.

I don't know if "They're better at hiding it" is sufficiently negated by responding with "I've never seen it."

Also crying isn't the only form of emotional breakdown. It can also get sublimated into rage which manifests as screaming at subordinates, punching walls, road rage incidents, and domestic violence.

And it also sublimates into depression, which can manifest as substance abuse disorders and self-harm.

I think the OP claim that women are incapable of handling the same workplace pressures as men are is eliding a lot of information.

If women yelled and threw their weight around in the office as much as men they’d be fired immediately. Being emotional isn’t a woman thing, we just react differently to string emotion from men than women.

This is an uninformed and sexist viewpoint of differences between men and women. Women cry more.. men bottle it up and let it out as a form of aggression usually to people who are no the source of stress.

Ask yourself why are men the ones committing mass shootings and not women? There is probably a large mental health gap that needs to be addressed, and the resistance to getting therapy or being in touch with feelings has to do with this “men don’t cry” BS.

> Ask yourself why are men the ones committing mass shootings and not women?

1 reason: testosterone

it promotes aggressive and risky behavior

I agree that sexism is a problem and should be addressed properly, but the untold truth is that mass shootings are the cultural product of a violent society.

while the real issue, IMO, is that Globally, death by suicide occur about 1.8 times more often among males than among females

The bottom line is most men (especially young men, suicide is one of the primary - if not the most common - cause of death for teenagers all around the World) prefer to kill themselves than kill someone else.

Also men make up almost 80 per cent of all homicide victims recorded worldwide.

They are also globally much more involved in protecting other people from life threatening situations.

That's something we should actually focus on, IMO, instead of the derogatory "boys being boys".

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