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Original poster

Myth that men suppress their feelings more than women

34 replies

Ava6 · 08/11/2017 07:21

This is utter BS. Men are only taught to suppress UNSELFISH feelings such as sympathy. The entire world caters to their absolute worst selfish emotions. Women are coerced into building their whole lives around mens' insecurity, dominance fantasies, fear of rejection, violent outbursts, sexual "needs", jealousy. All those are emotions that men get free reign on.

I'm undergoing ASD assessment and I took an empathy test. Guess what: the average NT man tests only slightly below the average woman (42 to 37). My result is typical for an ASD woman: 23. It's leagues below the vast majority of men and yet I still exercise an awful lot more empathy in my daily life than them. Which means that they are TAUGHT to keep a lid on all that sympathy towards women.

It's human females that are truly emotionally suppressed by the patriarchy. They are supposed to repress their anger, fear and resentment towards men and sense of degradation just to function in society everyday. They are taught to mistrust their instincts, sexuality, holistic unity with their body. They are expected to reign in their ambition, independence, dominance, creative drive, intelligence, dislike of children (for those that have it), need for orgasms and masturbation. They are gaslit when they figure out their oppression and PTSD from certain elements of it. They are supposed to keep quiet when suffering from pain due to their reproductive system and channel their spirituality into male-worshipping religions. Lately they are supposed to erase their whole existence to accomodate the genderfeelz of dudes.

I struggled with severe anxiety and derealisation (with painful physical effects) for close to a decade due to porn culture-induced body anxiety and worry about not performing femininity well enough . In large part, becoming a radfem and resolving not to give a hoot about those things has reunited me with my own body - and the disassociation disappeared overnight, as if waived away by a magic wand. The general anxiety's been greatly reduced too - because I don't repress my feminist feelings anymore. And males have the gall to say they're emotionally suppressed by society???

OP posts:
thecatfromjapan · 08/11/2017 08:54

... and, of course, I haven't touched on the fact that ava has suggested we think carefully about what we mean when we say men suppress their emotions. Where? When? To whom? For what? Which emotions?

And the whole thing about "men suppress their emotions more than women" ... the importance of that word "more" cannot be emphasised enough.

I totally dispute that.

And, lastly, there are a whole load of "male emotions" - which are currently prevalent or even legitimised - that could really, really do with "suppression".

thecatfromjapan · 08/11/2017 08:50

The thing is, we're told about men suppressing this, that and the other - and I have a son, and I sympathise, and I work on the assumption he needs emotional help, and I put the work in to help (which is an issue in and of itself).

What is less spoken about is what alba has spoken about:

  • the nature of the suppressed emotions of men
  • the fact that women are suppressing a hell of a lot of emotions and knowledge - mainly about fear and anger - and the cost of doing a lot of emotional work for men
  • the implicit power relations in all this talk about suppressed emotions: men's suppressed emotions matter, women's suppressed emotions don't
  • the how and where of emotions being suppressed: alba points out that men can be fairly self-aware of the emotions they are publicly suppressing: women, on the other hand, suppress a lot of emotions (anger, fear) even to themselves. Utterly, massively damaging.
beingsunny · 08/11/2017 08:15

If this is true, don’t we feel pity that men are taught not to express themselves?
That kind of social conditioning is quite damaging and I imagine that repressing emotions make them far more sufferable.

claraschu · 08/11/2017 07:58

I am not disagreeing with you, but:

I think that lots of men have trouble expressing grief, disappointment, feelings of rejection. I know that one of my sons had a very hard time talking about how upset he was at being bullied, at not achieving the results he wanted, etc. Lots of men don't have friends they confide in about problems they face, and are more likely to talk about football than to discuss their fears for their marriage or their kids.

I worry about my young sons bottling up their feelings, being unable to confide in friends, unable to express grief.

QuentinSummers · 08/11/2017 07:48

Grin love it! Needed that today, thank you Flowers Cake

GuardianLions · 08/11/2017 07:39

That is a BRILLIANT post!!!!!

SweetGrapes · 08/11/2017 07:39

Great post! Agree with every word! I am getting free-er and angrier and 'don't give a damn'er as I get older. Smile
Meet me when I am 80 - I shall be one kickass grandma - zimmer frame and all. Granny from the ice age is my goal. Just looking to befriend a whale and Booyaah!!!! to the patriarchy!

thecatfromjapan · 08/11/2017 07:31

I want to give you smile emoticon for such a great insight and for the fact that such an insight is healing - and I genuinely think it is: insights such as that are a big step on the way to mental health and a fuller life, I reckon.

But a smile emoticon is hardly the right response, is it? Smile + rage, perhaps? Because anger - which women have to suppress, a lot - is also a really important step towards mental health and a fuller life, too.

Good post. Wishing you personal joy and also thanks for sharing - it helps others.

TheCountessofFitzdotterel · 08/11/2017 07:26

Really good points, thank you.

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