If you think "The Patriarchy"^TM exists, you have a very simplistic, univariate understanding of reality. You're associating causality for whatever negative things happen to you in your life, not with your own set of circumstances, choices, or human agency, but rather with one single factor-- some ethereal 00.00001% group of conspiratorial, ostensibly straight white old men... with whatever happens to you in life. It…
There are many problems with your argument, but I’d like to focus on the fact that your understanding of the definition of The Patriarchy is wrong. From Wikipedia[0]: > Patriarchy is a social system in which men hold primary power and predominate in roles of political leadership, moral authority, social privilege and control of property. How many female presidents have we had here in the USA? What percentage of Fortu…
Men Are Waiting to Share Some Feelings (2018)
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Re: Men Are Waiting to Share Some Feelings (2018)
#342If you think "The Patriarchy"^TM exists, you have a very simplistic, univariate understanding of reality. You're associating causality for whatever negative things happen to you in your life, not with your own set of circumstances, choices, or human agency, but rather with one single factor-- some ethereal 00.00001% group of conspiratorial, ostensibly straight white old men... with whatever happens to you in life. It…
There are many problems with your argument, but I’d like to focus on the fact that your understanding of the definition of The Patriarchy is wrong. From Wikipedia[0]: > Patriarchy is a social system in which men hold primary power and predominate in roles of political leadership, moral authority, social privilege and control of property. How many female presidents have we had here in the USA? What percentage of Fortu…
Re: Men Are Waiting to Share Some Feelings (2018)
#343Earlier quoted context omitted.
To your point, that same stigma about LGBT guys being weak, feminine, and emotional is one of the many factors that stops a lot of people from coming out too.
Its understandable why we make those assumptions because those camp and effeminate LGBT members stand out so much. The LGBT members that don't have those characteristics you would never know they were LGBT.
Re: Men Are Waiting to Share Some Feelings (2018)
#344Earlier quoted context omitted.
Having sex with a 14 year old person is completely ok in a lot of countries, including places like Germany & Italy [1], with no pedophilia panic going on. -- [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ages_of_consent_in_Europe
I live in Sweden where the age of consent is 15. On paper it's technically legal for me (35 years old) to have sex with a 15 year old. Almost everyone in society would castigate me if I actually went ahead and did that, some going so far as to call me a pedophile but definitely labeling me a creep going after children. Don't confuse the laws with what people think.
What are you basing this on? Is there wide-spread castigating going on in Sweden that would lead you to think this? I certainly agree that laws don't always match what people think, e.g. laws helping same-sex couples in countries where public polling goes against it. However laws in a well operated democracy generally seem to match either public opinion or a lobbied interest. Which makes me wonder, why do you think the law allows for it in Sweden? Is someone with deep pockets lobbying for it? Is the law so obscure in Sweden that the general population doesn't know it exists? To me as a neighbor Sweden seems to be quite progressive in allowing sexual variety.
Re: Men Are Waiting to Share Some Feelings (2018)
#345Earlier quoted context omitted.
That glass ceiling limit seems to be at the CEO level, in the case of Elizabeth Holmes and other various "confident phonies" that get posted here on HN every few weeks. So, there doesn't seem to be a practical limit to how far overconfidence can get you in your career.
>> That glass ceiling limit seems to be at the CEO level, in the case of Elizabeth Holmes and other various "confident phonies" that get posted here on HN every few weeks. Are you joking? Yes - she was the CEO, but she's also facing up 20 in prison after being that CEO [1]. It's not just about getting to the top. It's about whether you'll remain there and whether the history will try to forget you as soon as it can.…
Can you please edit swipey bits out of your posts to HN? Your comment would be fine without that.
Re: Men Are Waiting to Share Some Feelings (2018)
#346Earlier quoted context omitted.
Those are things humans do to other humans, it's not the emptyness of space, the harsh reality of the universe, doing that to us. To "stand guard" at the edge of humanity as if to ward of some outside intrusion of evil just doesn't make sense. There is still plenty of suffering to be had even if all humans were excellent to each other, but that would take so much bite out of it.
The outside of the bubble isn't space. It sounds like you're on the tail end of existentialism, which is good. It does keep going for a while passed that. Seems like you may be heading towards Absurdism. If so, I recommend Optimistic Nihilism instead. It's much less of a kick in the shins to the envious tortured souls you never notice watching you.
I don't think the world is that cruel. I think people, both individually and as a group, are tremendously cruel and capable of terrible things that in turn make the world cruel.
In short, to borrow the words of Rorschach from Watchmen, “...God didn't kill that little girl. Fate didn't butcher her and destiny didn't feed her to those dogs. If God saw what any of us did that night he didn't seem to mind. From then on I knew... God doesn't make the world this way. We do.”
Re: Men Are Waiting to Share Some Feelings (2018)
#347Earlier quoted context omitted.
Its understandable why we make those assumptions because those camp and effeminate LGBT members stand out so much. The LGBT members that don't have those characteristics you would never know they were LGBT.
Maybe like Brad Pitt as Achilles. Who was bisexual. Which, I gather, was common at the time among warriors.
The Greek concept of sexuality was quite different than ours, and their class system played a very predominant role in what we would call gender. Also, age.
Re: Men Are Waiting to Share Some Feelings (2018)
#348Earlier quoted context omitted.
I want to push back on your assertion that vulnerability is inherently equivalent to weakness. Our society currently says it is, but I could equally imagine a future in which being vulnerable and honest about your feelings is seen as a feat of strength and courage -- because it DOES take a lot of courage, and even confidence, to be open and honest about your feelings.
It does require courage and even confidence but not of the masculine type. When a female exposes herself she receives an abundance of emotional support so there isn't much courage needed, just a little bit. So is easier for a female to feel confident about doing it. But if people see that you are a strong guy, then is natural for them to expect to "man up" and support yourself instead of elaborating victimist narrati…
Say you're in a group situation and it is affecting you in some way that's not ok—not merely annoying, but touching something of deep importance in your experience. If you bring that information into the group and state what you're experiencing, you make yourself vulnerable. That takes confidence and strength. Then it takes strength to face the effects of that action, whether in the group or from an authority. And another strength too: by speaking of what you're personally experiencing, rather than accusing others of doing something wrong in the abstract, you preempt many conflicts that would otherwise arise. That is self-responsible.
To be vulnerable in that way is very much to "support yourself instead of elaborating victimist narratives". The victim reaction would be to say nothing, feel bad, and carry a residue of resentment. That's what most of us mostly do.
Vulnerability that comes from strength does impress others. When someone shows the capacity to speak coherently from a wounded place in a situation where it is called for, the quality that fills the air is dignity. The reactions I've observed in people at moments like that are admiration and a sense their own experience was touched, as if the one who spoke had spoken for them as well.
It's important not to confuse confident vulnerability with reactions that come from unprocessed woundedness getting activated in stressful situations—"bursting into tears during a code review", as a commenter memorably put it. Those reactions may be vulnerable but they don't show vulnerability in the sense of making a conscious choice to show oneself in that moment. They are more like a buffer overflow, with emotional bytes streaming through a breach in one's facade. Uncontained reactions make a situation more complicated because they are usually "too much" for the moment—the energy in them is coming from some other place more than what's happening right now, and not under conditions that offer opportunity for healing. That tends to result in wounds getting repeated rather than integrated.
The reason it's important not to confuse those things is that if you do, you'll probably get stuck with two shitty options: (1) push your pain away even further, stiffen your facade and pretend to be what you're not; or (2) expose yourself in uncontrolled ways that show weakness and that others find unattractive. Actually, you'll probably get stuck with both: #1 as your default and #2 bursting out in stressful moments. (I don't mean "you" personally, but generally, or at any rate about traditional male roles.) An alternative is to stop pushing away pain, face what one is denying, feel it fully and allow whatever happens in response. That brings healing and strength—genuine strength that one can feel in oneself, as opposed to pretend strength that one doesn't really feel. This doesn't happen all at once; it's one piece at a time, but usually each piece provides enough relief that the process sort of 'pays' for itself as it goes.
The other thing is—much as a lot of us, me included, would prefer otherwise—it seems to need to take place in the presence of others. The value of the work described in the OP, or some of it anyway, is that many men who would never otherwise take such a step find it possible to do so in the presence of other men, when the process is organized a certain way. This is a surprising phenomenon—it surprised me anyhow—and I don't think it's widely understood, but it's a good thing to take advantage of if one feels a pull in that direction.
Re: Men Are Waiting to Share Some Feelings (2018)
#349Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are many problems with your argument, but I’d like to focus on the fact that your understanding of the definition of The Patriarchy is wrong. From Wikipedia[0]: > Patriarchy is a social system in which men hold primary power and predominate in roles of political leadership, moral authority, social privilege and control of property. How many female presidents have we had here in the USA? What percentage of Fortu…
If people consider a patriarchy bad does that mean a matriarchy is also bad? Or just that there isn't an even number of each type?
Re: Men Are Waiting to Share Some Feelings (2018)
#350Earlier quoted context omitted.
I live in Sweden where the age of consent is 15. On paper it's technically legal for me (35 years old) to have sex with a 15 year old. Almost everyone in society would castigate me if I actually went ahead and did that, some going so far as to call me a pedophile but definitely labeling me a creep going after children. Don't confuse the laws with what people think.
> Almost everyone in society would castigate me What are you basing this on? Is there wide-spread castigating going on in Sweden that would lead you to think this? I certainly agree that laws don't always match what people think, e.g. laws helping same-sex couples in countries where public polling goes against it. However laws in a well operated democracy generally seem to match either public opinion or a lobbied int…
It's not an obscure law at all, everyone is well aware of it and we've even got a colloquialism for it so there's no chance this is something the lawmakers tried to slip by us.
The law exists because 15 year olds want to have sex with each other, and penalizing that is crazy.