by t-writescode | 2025-10-18 18:15:05+00:00
I am *not* a sociologist or a psychologist or anything in that realm, so I do NOT know the implications of what I'm saying or how much accuracy I have.

I think you're right that it's wrong to hate on boys (and the men they grow up to be) for wanting to mold themselves into society's current reflection of what a man is.

It's often said that the Left has a branding problem - and that a lot of the Left's stances are too cerebral for the sound-bite and gossip culture we have lived in since forever (and that has gotten more extreme in the world of micro-form content). I think that's correct.

I think there is much to be said about the Left doing a poor job right now of separating and giving strong examples of toxic and non-toxic masculinity - I do think the Left is getting way better at that now, with some very left-leaning men, who DEEPLY fit the Masculine Archetype starting to reveal themselves - there's a specific Afghanistan Vet running for office whose name escapes me that comes to mind; and also that one guy chopping wood.

I think a reasonable argument could be made that, at least in relative recency, Masculinity has been experiencing the kind of transition that Femininity went through in the 80s - a complete reversal and even rejection or hatred of recently feminine roles[0]. I've heard that women were hated for wanting to be stay-at-home mothers, like they were rejecting the progress that had been made. Recently, we've started to reverse that again and now a woman can be anything she wants, including a CEO and a stay-at-home mom, without being ostracized (as much) or hated for her choices. We'll get there with men, too, I hope. At least, we will in some circles.

I also think that the Right (and especially the Alt-Right Pipeline) are taking advantage of the framing and blurring of Toxic Masculine traits vs. Non-Toxic Masculine traits. Even the wording: "toxic v non-toxic" puts the negative as the stronger term and the positive only as a negation of the negative. And this conflation and attack reads *very* well for anyone that struggles to find acceptance in both their community and within themselves.

It's not just that, either, it's the whole culture. I'm sure we've all seen the stories of men who, when they do open up to a woman they thought was safe, the woman reflects that she doesn't feel "like he's a man anymore" and so even in places people think should be safe, they have working examples (either in video or in personally lived experiences) of when that DOESN'T work, and the contradiction and pain is exacerbated.

Being accepted for who you are is really, really hard. The generational trauma of a great grandfather who was told by his father to not show emotion, and then carried that same emotion down through the lineage gets us here. The orator who uses their platform to blames others and then how those negative feelings permeate generation after generation. Pain is continued through so many through-lines. And underneath it all, unique people with different life-starting circumstances and different wants and desires just want to be able to be who they are - or who they *want* to be, and there's always someone, somewhere, that tells them what they want is wrong. That person gained their perspective through the same hell and is probably facing the same pain, possibly without even knowing it. And so the cycle continues.

[0] I don't like using the word "Traditional" because gender roles are very fluid and our "Traditional Gender Roles" is mostly a myth that was basically from the post WW2 period through the Vietnam War.