[azhu]

I feel you bro. I've felt that same way and I have empathy. You have solid points and a valid perspective. You could also really use an attitude adjustment.

We're here as a society because of mishandled social responsibility. Women have only started to take up their own personal care because they can't rely on established conventions any more.

We as individuals likely have not done much, if anything, to contribute to this social circumstance. Just like women as individuals have not done much, if anything, to contribute to it. It is none of our faults. Yet they are taking personal responsibility for their wellbeing in this situation anyways. They are "manning up".

Men on the other hand... are we just sitting around crying with our thumbs up our asses? Yes. Yes we are. That shit is weak. That perspective on the situation is what's hard to empathize with, not the situation itself. Change your attitude, take personal responsibility, and bask as love and empathy showers onto you.

We can do better than looking to others to solve our problems for us. It just takes seeing an example of how. They are in short order, but they exist if you dig hard enough. I encourage any men who resonate with this to dig deeper. There is sweet sweet fruit to be had if you do. And tons of pussy.

[scarmig]

"Taking personal responsibility" is always an option, and it's usually the best option in terms of maximizing personal wellbeing.

At the same time, it's important to recognize the social forces that constrain different groups and limit the power that personal agency can exert over outcomes. The masculine gender role is extremely narrow, and if you deviate much from it, society will punish you: so-called "personal responsibility" plays the role of telling men to shut up and fit their role. As a man seeking a female partner, if I want to be a homemaker who teaches belly dance part time, I'm going to be in for a really hard time, no matter how much personal agency I embrace.

That also ignores the shittiness that even people who do manage to fit neatly into the masculine gender role still have to experience.

It's worth calling out these things in the hopes of driving social change, and it's something both men and women must participate in if we want to see a change.

[azhu]

> The masculine gender role is extremely narrow, and if you deviate much from it, society will punish you.

> As a man seeking a female partner, if I want to be a homemaker who teaches belly dance part time, I'm going to be in for a really hard time, no matter how much personal agency I embrace.

If you say so, it will be so. If you write this code, you should not be surprised when running it achieves the programmed result. Whether you believe me or not, your statements are false. I spent time thinking this way, I suffered immensely, I put in deep effort to explore a larger perspective, and I am now greatly enjoying how incomplete was the field I saw before.

Women don't all want a provider. The trust of many has been damaged beyond that. They provide for themselves now (lots of men actually say we want that). What else can a man offer? Emotional support. The ability to make her feel like a fucking goddess. Being a homemaking belly dancer more aligns with that than doesn't.

You are right that women must participate too. They already are. It's men's attitudes that need to catch up.

[scarmig]

I'm a highly emotionally-available, bellydancing bi guy who's dated both men and women, so I have a reasonable comparison point. Men are far, far more open-minded about the gender roles their partners inhabit than women are. It's not even close.

[azhu]

If that's your experience then that's your experience. Mine is different. I validate your experience, and see it as true. I do the same for my own.

[ordinaryradical]

This is either pitch perfect parody or a truly wild lack of self-awareness. I actually need the /s tag here.

Because replying with the precise tropes of toxic masculinity as a solution to… the problems caused by toxic masculinity, whew.

[azhu]

It appears that you're defining masculinity in and of itself as toxic. Masculine and feminine function as yin and yang, as dualistic complements. The masculine is simply structure, force, or closure. The feminine is flow, softness, and openness. Each human moves with a balance of both.

What's toxic is when the masculine is out of balance with the feminine. When structure, force, and closure crowd things out because there is not enough flow, softness, and openness. Simply making a decision and acting on it is not in and of itself toxic. It's the inability to adjust later that is toxic.