I really appreciate how easy this book is to go through, and how gentle it is for men even though I dont feel like a lot of men deserve that kindness (maybe myself included)

1. my initial biggest takeaway was just how pervasive patriarchy is in all things. Its inescapable, even when the source is unintentionally perpetuating it. Realizing that family, society, media pushed masculine expectations on to me, whether intentionally or not, has made me have to reexamine a lot of my personality that I feel is pretty foundational in who I am. Maybe not always negatively, but they are parts of me that I accepted uncritically because I was supposed to, not because I wanted to.

Its also much more clear how very strongly intertwined capitalism and patriarchy are. Being emotionless beasts who give pats on the head to good performance and unbridled unempathetic anger to missing expectations is a perfectly binary cog in the profit machine. Everything that makes us human gunks up the machine, so as long as we can put on our Man Mask at work were doing a great job. Women are expected to do this too, if they want to advance.

2. Finding out all this so late in my life is a little crushing but I can at least try to raise my kids without those toxic expectations. I have already had to talk to my parents about how they interact with their grandchildren and Im positive it will get more complicated as they age. Something that has helped me is labelling my emotions in front of my kids and partner. Instead of falling back on anger or more commonly some cold emotionless numbness, I try to say "That made me feel sad." I also try to check in on other peoples feelings because I will usually notice when someones in a certain mood but I try to dance around it rather than engage with it - even good moods.

3. Elephant in the room question - reading all the struggle session posts makes me feel guilty even though I rarely post and dont think i've posted anything hugely reactionary, but dwelling on it some more I think being silent is part of the problem. I have seen some misogynistic posts on here and just kept moving on. I think all users should make it a point to correct them or at least tell the user to clarify what they said as it comes off mysogynistic or promotes toxic masculinity. And at least reporting the stray hitlerites that wander in from other instances.

That being said this site is really great and we can always do better. I feel like I don't have a lot of ways we as a community can improve without everyone saying theyll try to carry some of the mental load we leave to the power posters and mods.

Thanks for hosting this the book is great for rereading and dewormed my brain a lot. I wish I could have been more active but I did appreciate reading everyone elses comments.