Edit: Okay, wow. if the statement from a woman of “we owe you nothing” immediately sets you off emotionally, I would really encourage you to think through why that might be.
A more systemic phrasing could have been “we owe the patriarchy nothing”. I changed it to that for a second before realizing, again, that it was fine. A guy that has worked through internalized patriarchy around this will understand it’s not about them.
Patriarchy on the whole conditions men towards having a sense of entitlement towards women’s bodies, time, attention, labor, etc. It also conditions women that they should feel obligated to provide this without setting boundaries or expecting reciprocal solidarity.
Remember, we literally all have degrees of internalized bigotry, misogyny, racism, transphobia, etc because these are systemic issues. Our responsibility to ourselves and our comrades is to work through that. You are not a bad person for finding those brainworms in yourself, only if you refuse to do the work to address them.
Sure, but is it reciprocal? A lot of times men (not all) around me will just dump a lot of heavy stuff, then will just interrupt or ignore whenever I would like to share too. It feels dehumanizing. That's the main thing I see that I think this poster tries to point out.
This is my experience too a lot of the time but I think we have to recognize that it’s the capitalist programming that causes people to act that selfishly/without consideration for others. The brainworms run deep and the process of prying them out in order to build sincere and stable relationships takes time and often encouragement and support. Don’t waste your time on people unwilling to unlearn but in my experience the friends worth keeping are the ones open to criticism and self-improvement towards being a better friend
this is the exact dismissive sentiment people were complaining about in reverse
you could just as well ask why men don't simply make male friends who can provide them with emotional support
You keep twisting both comrades words and talking at them instead of listening and discussing in good faith
my point was both cases are simple solutions that are also not nearly as easy as they sound
like telling a depressed person to cheer up
terf shit
Literally not terf shit. it is strange for you to throw that at people for standard third-wave queer feminist critiques of patriarchy
get better friends
You literally just did exactly what she was talking about…
Yeah but they're paid and trained to do this? I feel like this is a major difference that feels disingenuous to leave out.
This 100%. They’re being paid for their time and are opting into that role.
Someone agrees with me on the site.
3 or was 2 up bears can’t deny I am right to some people here.
You shouldn’t assume women will do that work. At no point does this say you should get a therapist, although that is a good idea if you can afford it or find community-funded group therapy.
It is the 1st of May, I just came home cause it is too cold to run around with other at night being a good socialist protestor.
Log on to Hexbear
Read the first big struggle session in month while still being slightly high on the May solidarity
Closing the browser
Not sure I can formulate why but this feels like it sucks ngl
This feels like that tweet the other day with the woman talking about her son confiding in her and she was like "I don't want to reinforce the femme dynamic by being therapy for him".
We mock men for being emotionally closed off, and mock them when they open up to people. Not sure what the end goal is.
Just buy a therapist :maybe-later-kiddo:
Men should be able to talk to each other and support each other equally to women, this post feels like lib punching down tho
Yeah it feels like it's missing the actual issue.
Especially the "insecure" part. Like damn, way to diminish men's feelings down to insecurity.
We mock men for being emotionally closed off, and mock them when they open up to people
I don’t at all. This post is about misogyny and the belief many men have of being entitled to women working around or helping them unpack their fragility or sexism.
It’s the same thought process as expecting every trans person to help cis people not be transphobic. People can choose to opt into that work of helping people not bigoted towards them, but there should not be an expectation that they will.
As people have pointed out though, using "unstable and insecure" in there drowns whatever point you wanted to make in connotations of mocking mental health, and going around writing long explanations about the real point doesnt erase how the actual post comes off and is read by many people on the site who have experience with mental health issues.
I have been called insecure and mocked when I have talked about certain anxieties I have.
You could have said anything like what you just said above but the original post comes across as very demeaning.
Men will get their revenge in by ending the earth so enjoy the ride. I am enjoying it
I am looking forward to this at least
I cautiously have to agree with you here. Something seems off, but I'm not sure if it's because the message is reactionary or I am.
The whole "Fuck you men, we're WOMEN" thing just smells a heck of a lot like TERF language. It's activating all those brain cells in me and ringing a bell.
It's not inclusive, it's not welcoming, it's not empathetic (it's literally the opposite of empathetic). It defines an ingroup and and outgroup, and takes joy in the suffering of The Other.
Terf essentially just means radical feminist at this point. Or even just any type of feminist. Or not even feminist at all, like when it's used to describe conservatives.
Basically, terf is like tankie. It had a meaning but at this point it just denotes "one of the bad feminists / socialists".
Is that not how it's used at this point? I've heard people call Ron DeSantis a terf
Yeah, I know we are disposable and universally despised, don't need to rub it in. :shrug-outta-hecks: Are we suiciding enough yet?
Yeah, I know we are disposable and universally despised, don’t need to rub it in. :shrug-outta-hecks: Are we suiciding enough yet?
In what world are men universally despised? Men dominate capitalist society. I think you have some MRA brainworms to work through, comrade.
You all need to watch your tone and speak to each other with respect. Thread locked.
A lot of men are having some knee-jerk response to this, saying "this poster is blaming men for the state of their mental health".
Guys. This isn't some anti-men poster. This is saying exactly what it says: women should not be the sole providers of emotional labour to men in their life. Women do not exist as your friend so that you can vent to them. I'm not saying that they never should; but the point is, a lot of women feel that their male friends rely on them for emotional support while offering none in return.
This is not an attack on men, no more than any other feminist argument is. The fact that there's a lot of men here not engaging with anyone else, just saying "this poster sucks because it assumes that men are bad" is worrying. Listen to your female comrades when they have something to say about misogyny, don't just discount it and move on.
Guys. This isn’t some anti-men poster
:doubt:
women should not be the sole providers of emotional labour to men in their life. Women do not exist as your friend so that you can vent to them.
Literally no man thinks this. If anything, they just think they should suck everything up. Proven by the high rates at which men kill themselves or end up addicted instead of going to therapy. Which is made worse by posts like these which just tells men to fucking deal with it already. This is literally perpetuating toxic masculinity.
That's not the point of this post at all? In what way does this post tell men to not talk about their feelings? Its saying not to use women as emotional dumping grounds and give nothing in return. Nobody is saying "just deal with it" here, you're drawing that out of thin air.
Literally no man thinks this Most men don't think they're misogynists either. If you ask a random guy on the street if he hates women, he probably wont say yes. But yet misogyny persists. No men will verbatim say this, but if you ask women, a lot of them will have experienced it. Its very telling that you're handwaving away the experience of women and making this about men's issues.
Its very common for men, especially depressed, alienated, young men, to believe that getting a girlfriend will make them happy. They project their happiness on to women.
Obviously the state of men's health is disastrous. Obviously toxic masculinity makes it worse. But if you see a woman asserting that she is not a tool of emotional labour for men, and your response is to bring up the problems that men face while discounting the problems that women face, then you need to do some serious self-crit
it just says men aren’t entitled to female support
Yes. Do you disagree with this?
should fuck off
and that's what the problem is: thats not what this says. At no point does this post say "I don't ever want to deal with men's emotions". People are instantly assuming that and becoming angry.
I'm going in circles making the same points here.
If someone is your friend, including if they are a woman, you can expect some support from them.
You should not expect support from someone by virtue of them being a woman. You can and should expect support from someone by virtue of having a personal relationship with them.
Many women have had problems with men, especially online, telling them their intimate problems when they don't know each other very well and expecting the woman to have an answer.
YES. This :10000-com:x. Thank you for doing the work here to explain it further.
Yes making women do emotional labour is bad. Women owe nothing to men by default. Women do not have to do something that men do not by virtue of them being a woman. They can choose to give men their time and emotional labour, but no man has a right to it. Do you disagree with that?
This post does not say "women are never going to do any emotional labour". It says "men are not entitled to women's emotional labour
say I have a girlfriend and after reading that I say wow, I really want to make sure I’m not making my girlfriend do any emotional labor. what do I do/stop doing?
This is an awesome question! You can start by asking her if she feels like you ever put too much on her without asking first. Checking in with people about how they’re feeling before you vent is important. You should also ask her how much she feels you are reciprocating with emotional support.
A ton of straight couples straight up do not talk about this and it leads to women breaking up with men. I have a lot of straight friends who have ended relationships because the guy just couldn’t even communicate. At the point you’re breaking up with someone for that, you also probably aren’t going to talk to them about it because they’ve already shown they’re unwilling to do that.
Men have an incredible capacity for emotional depth, the same as anyone else. Patriarchy victimizes men by pressuring them to suppress and close off that part of themselves.
Looking for support from a romantic partner, or even a close friend or a family member, is not making them. They choose to do it because they're in a close relationship with you.
The problem is exactly what you said in the second paragraph, and that's what this poster is saying. The problem we're having here is that a lot of men are seeing a woman saying we don't owe you anything by virtue of being a woman, and getting up in arms about it. Men are seeing this poster and instead of engaging with the core point of it - that women are expected to be kind, and always able to deal with men's problems - are getting angry and going off on tangents about men's mental health and accusing people of saying things they never said
Emotional labor by definition isn't really a thing outside of the workplace btw. Emotional labor is the process of managing feelings and expressions to fulfill the emotional requirements of a job. Stuff like not getting angry at the customer who is freaking out at you for no reason. If you consider people confiding their problems in you as "emotional labor" and a problem then you are just a horrible person.
Yes I consider the person who made this poster to be intentionally misusing the term to try and rationalize being a horrible person.
Sure, I can adapt phrasing if that really matters to you. I’d encourage you to read through the comments of other women in this thread about this if you want to understand.
If someone confides a bunch of problems with me without checking in about how I’m at capacity or mental health wise, that’s not cool and they can’t be surprised if I’m not able to offer much beyond “hey, that sucks”. Men can easily reply with that, women often get shamed if they do for “not being nuturing” or we’re called slurs like “heartless bitch”.
The fact that it says "unstable and insecure men" makes it sounds more hostile and kinda mocking towards men that do struggle with mental health, compared to making a point about women not being obligated to provide mental health support.
I think the point is that men who are alienated and depressed tend to project their hopes for happiness on to a woman, usually someone they like romantically. Maybe it could have worded that better, but I didn't take away any kind of mockery or disdain towards men with mental health issues
I mean, clearly many did take that away though, labeling someone as unstable is already something that can be extremely invalidating when it comes to mental health, and combining that with insecure makes it worse.
Doesn't mean that it was intentional, but it should be done better.
This isn’t some anti-men poster.
Sure it is. It oozes hostility from its every pore, from the venomous look on the woman's face to the language that takes pleasure in the suffering of The Other.
Honestly I don't mind the poster so much as the title of this post.
"Fuck you bro I don't owe you anything get a therapist" just feels unnecessarily hostile to me, especially since I personally demanded emotional labor exactly 0 times in my adult life because uuuh I'm supposed to be a manly mans man or something.
Sorry bro but this is kinda just liberal tone-policing. Every time a marginalised group speaks out about something, they're expected to do it civilly, to not be angry about it, to be a Ben Shapiro debatelord.
I'm too insecure to ever bring up my emotional state with anyone, probably from the deep seated pathology that I'm tolerated at best and don't want to make anyone uncomfortable.
Damn I didn't realize we were getting into pop psych TikTok meme discourse. The theoretical idea is fine, I guess, the presentation is lacking and comes off as femme-libertarian.
There are some states which are teaching emotional intelligence as part of their required curriculum and I’m hoping that it makes a big dent in the sort of patriarchal conditioning that’s so widespread.
Love this. Emotional communication really is a learned skill and something I hope to see taught more in schools.
Men are typically raised to avoid their own emotions to the point many feel they don’t have any at all. It’s deeply sad and also something that only they can work through.
I'm not quite sure how saying Men shouldn't go to women for help with their emotional problems helps this?
Is this just the leftist version of 'go to therapy'?
Yeah it's like this is literally the idea that men who have emotions are a burden and a failure that is perpetuated by toxic masculinity, but couched in feminist language. Or at least that's how I read it, maybe I have some brain worms to purge
I think their point is that it's not women's responsibility to fix the pathologies of male socialization. They disproportionately bear that burden because men won't talk about that stuff to other men.
Okay, so that's a clear and valid point. All I get from the poster is a #Girlboss vibe about how being asked to display empathy towards your family and loved ones is oppressive.
While I do think other skills are more important what is thought I have this creeping feeling that schools are not a good place in capitalist countries of the core to teach children about emotional intelligence.
I worry one way it can be framed is to individualize the structural problems: Kevin you shall be more chill and nice and open up your emotions! While Kevin lives in shit material conditions and a state which constantly hurts the social relations.
Though I do agree that we would have to create structures and also have space and practice in these structures in which emotional intelligence, good emotional practice and practical solidarity is present and can grow.
Tbh, men do be making women be their therapist instead of talking to other men about it
The fact you bring up therapy like that is something "other men" can do just pathologies healthy emotional support.
Getting some real "'Defunding the police' is bad because I need to invoke some though to understand the slogan" from this thread. Like, it's okay to take a second to listen, gang.
no, defunding the police is unequivocally good and the slogan describes precisely what needs to happen. not really the same as misusing "emotional labor" to describe the experience of other people daring to be mentally ill near you.
Same, I'm getting "b-but I don't have white privilege!" vibes.
Learn to do self crit, people.
I think we're encountering the problem that men need someone to talk about their issues with, therapy is expensive and sometimes pointless, and other men often look down on you for needing help, so women end up being the only available avenue. However, the distaff side of that is that women have additional emotional labor to do with no real benefit to themselves very often, as they are expected to talk to other women about their issues, not men. So for men this kinda sounds like "screw your mental health, just be stoic" which is what they're already told by society, while the message women get is the positive "dont be an unpaid laborer for men's benefit." The counter that men should just talk to other men is a bit like telling an American to just ride the train; it's just not a realistic option for most of us. Obviously everyone's opinion here will be touched by misogyny because they live under a misogynist system, but just calling it misogyny is missing the mark I think.
I do agree with you but this only makes more frustrating. Is this just not supposed to be brought up then? That feels like being back at square one or closer to a "deal with it until capitalism dies." Which doesn't sit right with me.
Gonna be honest, I have no clue how to fix this one, and I'm not even gonna try to suggest something. In your personal life prioritize your mental health and physical safety over the comfort of random men, and in this discussion I guess I'm just saying be patient with your male comrades.
If you live in a society, you owe other members of said society something. If you are friends with someone, who owe that someone double something.
