25 People Describe Problems In Modern Society That Put Social Pressure On Boys And Men
1. Being a Great Dad
Being a loving father is not “creepy”.
I have an 11 year old boy, an 8 y/o boy and a 4 y/o daughter.
I’ve gotten really weird looks giving my kids kisses on the cheek in public. My oldest son got the worst of it because he was my first kiddo. I constantly gave him hugs and kisses as a baby because my dad couldn’t even be bothered to tell me he loved me.
So I vowed to be a loving sweet father, unlike mine. There are days we go to the store and I’ll snuggle into my daughter’s neck and tell her how much I love her. I still call her “princess” to this day.
Every now and then I get weird looks. It hurts because it was so common for my dad to walk 5 yards ahead of me in a store and not care, but I care. So I love my kids. And to some people this is some how weird.
Edit: I also want to add that for those of us dad’s who give a shit, women, you can ask us questions. Just because I’m a single father doesn’t mean I don’t know anything about my kids. I know all their birthdays by heart, what food they like, what movies they love… Just because I’m a dad doesn’t mean I’m oblivious to my children. You can talk to me the same as you would a mother and I’ll respond the exact same way: with love, compassion, and understanding.
Edit #2: Wow, thanks so much for all the kind words and awards. Y’all are wonderful, thank you!
Edit #3: Oh my gosh, y’all are just too kind! Thank you to everyone who had something positive to say. This really made my day!
Lelio-Santero579
2. Being Supportive
Mental health, domestic abuse, showing emotions, body image…. I could go on. What I do to help my partners is be completely open about my problems and allow them to do the same. I let them talk. I listen. And when the conversations come to an end, we work on it. Want counseling? We can do it together. Want to lose weight? Let’s go on a diet. However they want to deal with their problems is alright by me so long as it isn’t self-destructive. I think we should be supportive.
PibbyChullz
3. Vulernability
A large part of my life has been spent opening up to people who only used my vulnerability as an opportunity to gather ammunition on how to really hurt me later on. That’s why I walk around like nothing’s bothering me cuz if I’ve learned anything about being a man, it’s that my feelings don’t matter one fucking bit unless they’re hurting someone else or they can later be used to hurt me. As men, it’s simply more convenient and safer to suffer in silence. That’s all that is accepted or expected of us and to do otherwise would only bring more suffering.
“Hit him where it hurts because he’ll have no choice but to take it like a man.”
Zack_WithaK
4. Male Privilege
When I feel a particular way about something or have a belief about something it often gets labeled by “that is because of your male privilege”.
I am so afraid to share my opinion, particularly since I am an anthropologists (grad student) because of how critical people of any comment I make.
I recently said “I think we could make a study group and people will want to join. People are more willing if we already establish something.” And the first response was “You just think that way because of your male privilege.”
Brasdefer
5. Mental Health
This hits pretty close to home. Opened up about my declining mental health to a friend of mine who proceeded to tell me ‘You don’t know what depression even is’ and told me how he had it worse and that I didn’t know what I was talking about. That was ten years ago and I only recently became comfortable opening up about mental health again after feeling invalidated from a trusted person. Doesn’t take much to reinforce the idea of hiding your feelings away.
Thoughtnight
6. Expressing Feelings
When you ask us to express our feelings, you need to let express our actual feelings and not just the feelings you want us to express. This also needs to be entirely free of judgement or punishment.
As men, we’re constantly told we need to express our feelings more. But all too often, if we express anything other than strength we are judged, quite harshly, as being weak, selfish, unattractive, and less of a man.
r0botdevil
7. Parenting
Main ones for me are the inability to properly be a parent in public with out being judged and things like use PARENTING rooms to change a nappy or whatever which are unisex without being looked at as some creep (my friend once actually had the mall security called in him by a lady claiming there was a man in the womens toilets ) or me being by myself with my own kids automatically makes me some sort of criminal especially if the kid throws a tantrum at a mall and it’s crying,screaming etc and I could be trying to put them back in their pram with them screaming and random women would be giving me dagger eyes . Where if my wife has a shouting screaming kid other women just give her a kind understanding smile and walk along … if women can cut down on that sorta judgemental stuff it would be great … I know this isn’t the case every time you go out in public but just having it happen a few times always leaves it in the back of your mind.
katofan1
8. Double Standard
Every time I took my daughters alone (without my wife) for a scheduled heath check up (like those that take place to verify whether their development is healthy), I got asked whether their mother wasn’t going to join us.
My wife has never been asked the same question when I wasn’t there.
…..
When my children were in daycare. We always stated and repeated: if there is a problem call the father’s phone. As I am the one with a flexible job, closest to the day care. They never called me. They always called my wife.
frozen-dessert
9. Signs of Weakness
My dad yelled at me for crying at my grampa’s funeral because my grampa wouldn’t improve. Any sign of weakness in sports or anything he gets upset with me for looking “soft”. but he tells me he loves me everyday and gives hugs and stuff so its confusing.
Waffle-Azul
10. Dick Stigmas
Yeah – the notion that someone’s penis size or function is attributable to his character and worth. Guys don’t have control over that, so the stigma around small dicks and ED has always seemed unfair and uncompassionate.
gaweenbob
11. The Fear of Not Enough
I am of average height, and average size, I know this, yet all I feel in that I’m just not enough, lowkey sucks lol
Arzakhan
12. Post Partum Depression
Men can get postpartum depression. But they aren’t screened for it; only mothers are (in our experience in the US).
My husband suffered from it after we had our first child. They screened me, the mom, for it in the hospital, at my follow-up OBGYN appointments, and at our baby’s pediatrician appointments. My husband was there for all of those except the OBGYN. Nobody ever even asked how he was feeling.
DenversTrain
13. Being a Victim
Men face a greater stigma for mental illness and being a sexual assault victim… try to not demasculate a man who brings it up… both of those fucked me up beyond repair.
DrowLivesMatter
14. Childhood Trauma
Or men with any kind of childhood trauma. That smelly or unkempt kid who wears the same clothes every day and sleeps in class most likely has a terrible life at home. I know too many quiet and nerdy guys that seem ok now, but when they open up, they get horrible responses. Like wtf? If this was a woman, she’d get a shoulder to cry on. I knew a guy that lost his entire friend group because he opened up about child abuse for the first time in his life and broke down for a while. Girlfriend cheated on him because he has “deep seeded issues” and was a “pussy”. He couldn’t handle that and put a shotgun in his mouth. No wonder why men don’t talk about their issues.
An edit for y’all: I love how much you are supporting each other.
MasterPresident2
15. Rape Victim
As a male rape victim, in my experience, the worst things I ever was told about it came from women. Most men weren’t emotionally equiped to really engage it, if I told them, in any meaningful way.
But some women, men. Wow. Some downright evil things have been said to me because of what I went through.
PhatJohny
16. Danger and Anger
Just because I’m a man doesn’t mean I’m dangerous, or angry all the time.
I took my son to the ER for a broken leg years ago, and got the third degree from EVERY person that came in and examined or worked with him. The innuendo about his injury being due to me was palpable, yet they never came out and straight accused me of it. It caused additional stress that wasn’t needed, and embarrassed me to no end.
TheMrDetty
17. Feeling Safe at Home
It’s tough. I got the 3rd degree when my wife went to the ER due to a panic attack. She got asked the battery of questions like “do you feel safe with your husband present” and I was livid. I can understand that there are people in this world that need that safety mechanism and it’s more tragic for something like that to go undiscovered and continue than my feeling embarrassed or offended. I can intellectually weigh those options and will assert that asking those questions is absolutely the right thing to do.
That said, I’ve NEVER been asked “do I feel safe at home” or “would you prefer to speak without your wife present”. You’re telling me there’s not one man out there that might need that safety net too? I say the protocol should be 1) ask the questions to everyone, and then 2) formally apologize and/or explain to the other person there the importance of that question.
Acknowledging the elephant in the room can go a long way to dispelling the tension.
pazdispencer
18. No Close Friends
Men have no close friend.
I just realized this after deep reflection. Men have tens of “buddies” but we see each other every half year. We share bbq and beer but not sadness, worries or our goals in life.
Most men feel isolated after breakup and divorce because we realize we dont really have anyone.
Llanite
19. Can’t Defend Ourselves
Men aren’t allowed to defend ourselves from physical attacks by women. Solution, keep your hands to yourself and call out other women when they do this. If I’m expected to intervene when you are being attacked by a man, you should be expected to do the same when roles are reversed. Raise your daughter to keep their hands to themselves.
To be clear, I only believe in self defense in these cases, not first strikes.
i_need_a_username201
20. More Income
There’s a weird pressure for men to make more than women in their employments. It is slowly changing, but there are a lot of women who refuse to date any guy who makes less than them. There’s some weird “trade up” mentality that people embrace.
I saw a lot of it on online dating a while back. Women would say things like “I make $55k per year, please make at least that or more”. Those were the ones I would not talk to.
zomgitsduke
21. Relationship Responsibility
One problem I’ve had in past relationships was responsibility. If she’s unhappy, it’s my responsibility to make her happy. If I’m unhappy it’s my responsibility to make myself happy. If I want something done around the house then I have to do it. If she wants something done around the house I have to do it. Men are loved conditionally and women are loved unconditionally. Make an effort to make men feel valuable and not replaceable.
quackerzdb
22. Toxic Phrase
“Happy wife, happy life” is much more toxic and abusive then people realize. It implies that the wife’s happiness is all that matters and that your overall happiness lives or dies by what she alone will allow. If she’s not happy, you’re not allowed to be happy. If you’re not happy, it’s probably because she’s not happy and that’s automatically your fault and your responsibility. That’s not a happy life or a healthy relationship, that’s being held emotionally hostage.
Zack_WithaK
23. One-Sided Sexism
One thing that really bogs me (28m) is how sexism apparently only exists if women are the ones suffering from it.
Like, its absolutely not OK when you expect a woman to do the laundry or the cooking. (And I absolutely agree that that’s no OK, just to point this out). But for some reason its perfectly fine to expect a man to fix stuff around the house, change the cars tires, instruct and help the plumber/electrician/whatever. Like wtf?
Also in my country (Austria) adult men are forced to waste 6-9 months of their life serving the military, while women are not. Imagine this was the other way around. That would cause an unimaginable shitstorm and probably be reported in media all across the globe.
Wundawuzi
24. Acceptable Fashion
Being a guy means you’re limited to like 4 types of acceptable fashion, without being judged or called slurs. Wearing pants all the time sucks.
ViscachaBlue
25. Domestic Abuse
People generally don’t take domestic abuse too seriously when the victim is a man. To help out with that, women can either stop abusing us, or stop trying to justify it or doubt us when we finally feel comfortable enough to open up about it. It’s so disheartening when I finally feel like I can safely be vulnerable enough to mention my past abuse but then I get questions and comments that would be deemed abhorrent if they were said to a female abuse victim. But as men, all we get is “Just don’t do that again and she won’t hit you” “Maybe she just had a bad day” or the classic “MaN uP”
And for the love of all that is holy and fun, please STOP asking us what we did to make her that mad. No one would ask a woman what she did to provoke such abuse so it’s insulting and disrespectful for that to be the first, last, and only thing people tend to wonder. I am so tired of having to justify myself when I say “I was abused” because people seem to universally gatekeep that kind of pain away from us. When a man is a victim of domestic abuse, all I ask is to please just treat us with the same courtesy, respect, sympathy, and human decency that’s normally reserved for women. A woman can’t stub her toe in the same area code as a man without movements and hashtags and support groups popping up out of the woodwork overnight. But when a man is abused, his abuser gets every benefit of every doubt possible, assuming people actually believe him in the first place.
“He hit me but I deserved it for making him mad enough to do that. I know I shouldn’t make him that mad so it’s my fault for making him hit me.” That is absolutely appalling and unacceptable.
“She hit you but you deserved it for making her mad enough to do that. You know you shouldn’t make her that mad so it’s your fault for making her hit you” That’s just normal advice on a normal Tuesday.
Zack_WithaK