i don’t know why this isn’t common sense but uh calling men whiny/sensitive/hysterical/emotional etc is not a cutesy gender-reversal-fighting-against-the-patriarchy
WHEN THE MAN IN QUESTION IS TRANS.
Better yet, don’t use men being emotional as an insult, period.
Doing so perpetuates toxic masculinity that is so often shoved onto men since birth, that feminists also say should be overcome and left behind.
You can’t push for healthy masculinity when you’re also perpetuating toxic masculinity.
You can’t push for healthy masculinity when you’re also perpetuating toxic masculinity.
it’s never fighting the patriarchy to call men whiny, sensitive, hysterical, etc., bc as a matter of fact, this behavior actually reinforces the patriarchal idea that men should never be emotional, unless that emotion is anger or carefully restrained joy. i think a lot of self-proclaimed feminists don’t actually learn about the patriarchy and how it works, and just get the idea in their heads that anything they say about men/boys that’s negative, and anything they say about women/girls that’s positive is feminist.
this is how you get people saying things like, “men are inherently dangerous and women are inherently safe,” and thinking that’s feminist, when that’s actually a very prevalent misogynistic line of thought. men = strong = dangerous and women = weak = safe. there’s nothing feminist about that. men and women are all people and neither inherently dangerous nor inherently safe. all men and all women experience a wide range of human emotions, including anger, fear, sensitivity, sorrow, joy, and many other complex emotions.
if you’re reading this and finding that it challenges your worldview in some way, but you’re open to that challenge and unlearning this angle of misogyny, that’s amazing and i’m so glad! please read feminist theory that discusses this. i recommend ‘the will to change’ by bell hooks. here’s a free pdf of that here’s the audiobook on youtube in the form of a playlist with separate videos for each chapter here’s the audiobook on youtube in one single 6-hour video
One of the happiest moments of my life was seeing Kung Fu Panda with my dad and hearing him laugh out loud in public. My dad is a rather stoic man. But it made him laugh like that. And it also made him realize he didn’t do enough things that could make him laugh.