Three Hundred Ways It Can Hurt to Be a Man — Disclaimers

[This post is part of a longer series; see the Index for an overview.]

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CATEGORY 0: Disclaimers. [36 items]

1. By necessity, each item is a rough generalization across men and across women. When I say “men are more X, women are more Y”, what I mean is that if you were to graph the prevalence of traits X and Y among men and women, you’d likely get bell curves that are in large part overlapping, but for which the means differ slightly. As an example: if an entire third (but only a third) of all women have more of some trait X than the average incidence of this trait in men, it is mathematically the case that on average, ‘men are more X than women.’ Unless specified otherwise (and I don’t think I ever do or would), “men are more X than women” never, ever means that every single man is more X than every single woman, or even more than the average woman.

2. An unusual and possibly unfamiliar concept that I’d like to introduce, is that when I say “X is bad,” I am not necessarily asking to get not-X, or for X to end. It may very well be true that the costs of changing X would be far worse than X itself is. The items in the list are sometimes, but certainly not always, calls for change. Please don’t assume that each item on the list is me saying it would be worth reconfiguring society so as to make it no longer true; this would be a far stronger claim than the baseline of what I intend to say, which is, quite simply, “some men suffer from this.”

3. I don’t personally believe every single item on this list; but for each item, I know some man out there believes it. My goal in creating this list is less ‘truth’ than it is ‘completeness.’ Similarly, though many items on the list have been personally relevant to my life, there are also many items that aren’t, and which are present here solely by virtue of other men’s sharings.

4. The list contains a number of double entries. When you’re trying to say 300 things at once, it can be tough to keep clarity as to whether item 254 was really just item 32 in a slightly different framing.

5. Though I delve into emotions, interpersonal dynamics, self-image, societal norms, and more, the focus of this series skews somewhat heavily towards sexuality. In my private life, I frequent intimacy spaces, meaning that the topic of sexuality is very alive for me; sadly, in these spaces (as in most cultures I’ve experienced), there is often a much greater and more positive focus on female sexuality than on male sexuality, with many aspects of male sexuality going underappreciated and misunderstood, if not altogether mocked. I devote a disproportionate part of the list to counterbalancing this.

6. Some items on the list become more true as you move deeper within certain cultural circles, and become more false as you move away from them. Some items do not. In particular, I expect many items will only be true within modern progressive feminist circles.

7. It is easy to enter this post holding the notion that none of the suffering I describe, holds up against women’s suffering, since men have physical power over women, and physical violence is often viewed as the worst kind of violence. Unfortunately, men are overwhelmingly the world’s primary victims of physical violence. With that settled, let’s talk about social and psychological violence instead.

8. I use the term ‘attractiveness’ very generally. To me it refers not merely to how many people want to go to bed with you, but also more generally to how much people are likely to like you, and specifically how people view you. Attractiveness is that which aids not merely after dark; it has benefits in every public sphere, ranging from how society and specific communities treat you, to how your friends treat you and even how you treat yourself. Other words expressing relevant sides of this concept would be: likeability, lovability, perceived deservingness, and inspiring aid from others, plus, indeed, fuckability.

9. I use the term ‘culture’ not in any geographic sense. To me, a ‘community’ refers to any group of people that have shared beliefs, values, and frameworks, and a ‘culture’ refers to the beliefs, values, and frameworks of such a group, as well as to the normalization (and at times, enforcement) of these things.

10. For simplicity’s sake, I use the term ‘porn’ to refer to heterosexual porn videos made for men, unless where specified otherwise. This is not to erase many other valid forms of, or audiences for, porn.

11. I generally use the terms “dominant” and “submissive” as non-kinky terms, which is to say I view these terms as relating not just to sex but to all the ways (including wholly nonsexual ones) in which we may relate to other people and indeed to the world at large.

12. Depending on the context, I use the terms ‘masculinity’ and ‘femininity’ to refer either, in a few rare cases, to superficially gendered behaviours (e.g. using lipstick vs watching football), or, much more commonly, to entire approaches to life (e.g. whether you prioritize intellectual or embodied wisdom, whether your primary focus lies on pursuing your desires or on protecting your boundaries, whether your natural social and physical inclinations are towards leading or towards following (in the partner dance sense of the words, where both roles are viewed as valuable, enjoyable, and indeed mutually necessary modes of being), whether your reaction to pain tends towards externalizing it or internalizing it, and so forth). What’s important to note here is that I view both masculinity and femininity as inherently valuable philosophies of life. They necessarily imply each other, and indeed they often complement each other in profound and valuable ways. I do not think that masculinity is worse than femininity, and I do not think that femininity is worse than masculinity; both are very important roles to play, and indeed they tend to keep each other balanced. I think society is at its best when it gives its people great affordances to explore and embody both roles. Finally, as I hope is clear from the way I describe myself as a feminine man, I do not mean these terms in a gender normative way at all. If you find these terms to be too normative after all, I warmly invite you to substitute other framings as better suits your sensitivities. Better or worse alternatives, each emphasizing a different angle merely implied by my own framing, include: “force & flow”, “self-oriented & world-oriented”, “order & chaos”, “goal & journey”, “directness & indirectness”, “cold & warm”, “mind & body”, “agency & trust”, “nature & grace”, “kiki & bouba”, “yin and yang”, or even just “A & B.” For the sake of intuitiveness, as well as to lampshade the fact that these ways of being tend to be gendered both culturally and from a numbers perspective, I will stick with “masculinity & femininity.”

13. I will assume that men tend to be more masculine, and women tend to be more feminine. (For clarity’s sake I repeat that statements like these refer to population-level averages.)

14. I moreover hold that everyone has differing capabilities for both masculinity and femininity (as opposed to solely for whichever fits their sex or even their gender); the question is less whether someone is masculine or feminine, but how masculine and how feminine they are. For simplicity’s sake, however, I will still refer to people as being primarily ‘masculine’ or ‘feminine’; this should be understood as ‘people who are primarily masculine or feminine within the context which this item loosely defines (and whose psychology outside of this context is left undefined)’. My own very approximate and definitely nonscientific gut sense is that the average person may well be understood as having, let’s say, 60% the energy corresponding to their own gender, and 40% the energy corresponding to the other. (40-60 may sound like a small difference, but keep in mind that 60 is one and a half times 40. Now it may sound like a big difference, but keep in mind it’s just 40-60. Anyway, the numbers are just a gut feeling, and I invite you to make up your own instead if you feel like it.)

15. My definitions of ‘masculinity’ and ‘femininity’ are absolutely culturally determined, and the culture in question is WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, Democratic). In other cultures, entirely different models may be more fair, more useful, and more true. For example, my model fails to properly integrate relational vibes such as those depicted in this wonderful Twitter thread showing depictions of intimacy between Hindu deities Krishna and Radha. As it is said, all models are wrong; some are useful. Thus ask not whether mine is correct; ask instead what it can offer you. Do not cling to it; whatever it cannot give you, you may feel free to look for elsewhere.

16. On top of my models of masculinity and femininity being incomplete, they are also inconsistent. For example, one axis which I think these ideas express themselves as, is the framing of self-orientedness (masculine) vs. world-orientedness (feminine). When we look at society, this model generally seems to work pretty well: women seem to care more about cultural norms; women seem more sensitive to, and more likely to prioritize, the feelings and desires of those around them; most activism around improving the world seems to be led primarily by women; and so forth. But in other areas the opposite seems to be true: for example, men are often understood in terms of their actions in the external world (human doings) whereas women are often understood in terms of their internal experiences (human beings). My gut tells me the framing of masculine as self-orientedness and feminine as world-orientedness has enough to offer and teach us, to be worthwhile; but like most other ways I cash out the model of masculine/feminine, it is imperfect and very frame-dependent. Another example of such inconsistency is the following. At some point in the list, I frame gatekeeping as masculine behaviour, since it is something many primarily-male communities are often judged for nowadays, and it stands in contrast to the radical inclusivity which many primarily-female communities espouse; but one might perfectly well make the point that gatekeeping is a primarily feminine activity (i.e. as the careful act of protecting a space’s energy by being particular about who gets to enter it) whereas male groups can often take on a much more “all those and only those who feel welcome in this group and under its norms, are welcome here”; feminine spaces may be said to be other-selective whereas masculine spaces would be more self-selective. Is the truth then in the middle? Is gatekeeping simply ungendered? Reader, I can’t speak for you, but this conclusion doesn’t seem right to me; it seems to me rather that there are specific, gendered ways in which masculine communities perform gatekeeping, and specific, gendered ways in which feminine communities perform gatekeeping, and the masculine ways are masculine while the feminine ways are feminine. I feel on a gut level that the inconsistency here would be resolved if I were able to better phrase and frame these subtly different forms which gatekeeping may take. But I have not yet delved deeply enough here to do this, nor have I done this for many, many other supposed inconsistencies in what I regard as masculine versus what I regard as feminine. I would be grateful, reader, if you could recognize virtue in my attempt to communicate imperfect models that I think yet hold sufficient value. Perfecting these models would be more than a life’s work.

17. I use the terms “men’s role” and “women’s role” descriptively, not normatively. It would be exceedingly tiresome for the reader if, in a long post about the ways men suffer from e.g. the roles society expects them to fulfill, I constantly clarified that I’m perfectly fine with men (resp. women) diverging from these masculine (resp. feminine) roles.

18. When I say “many”, I do not mean “all” or even “most.” I also don’t mean “you.” I mean “many.”

19. When I say that A is more ‘legible’ (literally: ‘readable’) than B, what I mean is that it is easier for people to recognize when A is happening in their own lives or those of others, than when B is. Having one’s identity or one’s problems be culturally illegible brings great disadvantages, since people often won’t appreciate that your identity or problems exist; you will be much less likely to find guidance and acceptance in common cultural narratives and communities; you may in many contexts feel less understood and, as an extension, less loved; and so forth.

20. In general, I will in this post default to the contemporary notion that differences in outcome are due to differences in nurture, i.e. culture, rather than differences in nature, i.e. biology. Thus instead of saying “men are inherently less X and this is bad for them,” I will say “men are taught less how to X, and this is bad for them.” Wherever this sounds incongruent with reality, you retain the option of interpreting my statements in ways that seem more congruent with reality as you are perhaps used to viewing it. I will at any rate mostly ignore factors that are generally accepted as being biological, e.g. men’s increased susceptibility to many diseases, men’s lower overall life expectancy, etc. If I were trying to argue that men have it harder than women, this omission would make my argument a good bit more biased, since women tend to have biologically more difficult lives than men (due to e.g. childbirth, periods, men’s sexual selection for physical youthfulness in women, and in modern times, women’s forms of contraception being much worse than male ones, etc.). So it is a good thing that I am arguing no such thing.

21. Most (though not all) of the items on this list focus not on systemic sexism against men (e.g. wages, workplace deaths), but rather on social sexism: how men are raised, viewed, and treated. Of course, much systemic sexism is downstream of social sexism.

22. Unless otherwise mentioned, each of these items pre-assumes the traits of cis-ness and straight-ness in both men and women. Exponentially more nuance per item would be required for them to incorporate other ways of being, and in a post that’s already this large, I simply don’t have space for this nuance. Let that not imply that I think said nuance doesn’t exist. I am moreover generally talking about young to middle-age men and women, as the vast majority of the communities I’ve been in, whether in the real world or online, have featured few older people.

23. If it helps you to parse the list, I invite you to interpret it as being merely a list of 300 ways in which a man may think it can hurt to be a man. After all, that is essentially what it is! I would be perfectly happy if you viewed this list not as offering any insight into the world at large, but merely as helping you understand lenses that the men in your life may hold and which may inform their experiences and frameworks, whether these lenses accurately track reality or not. There are very few statements I make in this series that I view as authoritative and conversation-ending; they are best understood as observations which (even as their number exceeds 300) may or may not point to a larger pattern, but which are sufficiently inconsistent with the frameworks espoused by many cultural environments that I think they warrant a discussion of said frameworks. My primary motivation is not to convince readers that all my statements are true; it is simply to argue that it is neither insane, nor misogynist, nor unkind, to make these observations and to be confused about their inconsistency with certain societal frameworks.

24. The list is completely and unfairly one-sided. This is because I get to talk about men’s suffering as its own topic. If you want a more fair overview, I warmly invite you to create one yourself by reading feminist literature. If, reading this list, each item makes you want to yell out that women have a precisely mirrored problem, then I think it’s likely we’re on the same page; but since those women’s problems are by now oft-mentioned and well-known, let’s here focus on their counterparts which men suffer from.

25. I won’t be citing any statistics. Vibe with me or don’t.

26. This list is internally inconsistent. This is to say that sometimes, item X will imply a framework that invalidates item Y, and vice versa. Fortunately this is OK, since this list is not intended to be a single consistent framework, rather it is but a collection of ways men suffer under the many common and mutually inconsistent frameworks that they, being a varied group of individuals, may hold. My gut feeling is that it would be hard to collate from this list a single consistent value framework that invalidates less than a hundred of its entries. My gut feeling is also that this is no worse an internal consistency than most other people’s frameworks have.

27. If less than 15% of the items on this list are wholly incorrect, I will have been too careful in deciding which points to include. Many good things can only be achieved when there is sufficient space for mistakes; many true things can only be said when there is sufficient space to speak falsehoods.

28. In particular, exactly the 15% of this list that makes you most mad, is indeed wrong, and was included solely for completeness’ sake. This is a blogpost, best read to gain insight into, and validation of, some men’s experiences. If you would seek to interpret it as a scientific article, don’t.

29. This list is not exhaustive.

30. This list is moreover not authoritative. Nearly all of it is sourced merely from my own interpretation of what I’ve experienced, seen, read, and heard. I undoubtedly miss many dimensions of what it means to be male, positive and negative. (Of course, I also miss many dimensions of what it means to be female.)

31. I come at this topic from a primarily feminine-valuing perspective, which may alienate people who think masculinity is inherently better than femininity. One egrerious example of my being biased in this way, is that I think men’s archetypical forms of social interaction (e.g. playing or watching sports together, playing videogames against each other, and so forth) are often qualitatively worse than women’s (e.g. discussing emotions & relationships, relating to one another deeply, being mutually vulnerable and loving, and so forth). Even when men tell me they know perfectly well what their options here are and that their preferences are valid and are pursued freely, I still cannot bring myself to reject the notion that if they really knew what’s up, they’d approach life differently. Similarly, I feel strongly that many feminine visual and spatial aesthetics (of items, rooms, places, and so forth) are simply superior to the vast majority of masculine aesthetics I see represented in culture; if a man were to tell me that after considering it carefully, he really does prefer masculine aesthetics, I would adversarially chalk this down to an insensitivity in him towards his own physical environment and the way different spaces make him feel. These kinds of attitudes, it should be clear, constitute a quite hostile position to take towards many men, and indeed for all I know I could be wrong. It’s well possible that I’m failing to properly appreciate many of manhood’s and masculinity’s positive traits. (Of course, from my point of view it seems the case instead that many other people are routinely failing to see many of femininity’s positive traits.) My primary defense is that I’ve seen many men who for years identified with masculine ways of being and relating, but who, once they learned to practice feminine ways of being and relating, unanimously agreed the latter greatly improved the quality of their lives. But indeed, since I am given to reside primarily in feminine spaces, I would fail to notice any men for whom the opposite is true. Having said that, there are many masculine traits that I do view positively, and I dedicate an entire category of items to the suppression of said valuable masculinity. Ultimately, in the face of epistemological difficulties, I can but hope that I am not doing men a disservice in my framing of these matters.

32. When I say this list is unfair, I’m not joking. Across three hundred items, many of which describe states of affairs that harm men and women both, I will be choosing over and over to ignore women’s suffering, at times so precisely that it might feel nearly hostile, all so that I may instead shine a clearer light on men’s suffering. In doing this, I do not mean to imply that women do not suffer; they absolutely do, and their suffering is in many, many ways no less than men’s is. Rather, my goal is entirely to highlight men’s suffering, and men’s suffering only, because there are far too few contexts nowadays where men’s suffering may take center stage, and I want there to be more. This list will be unfair. Please be ready for that.

33. Having said that, if you are not a man, but there are items on this list that resonate with you, I invite you to feel spoken to. For example, there are many queer women who internalize negative messaging about male gynephilic sexuality, as relating to their own gynephilic sexuality as well. (Queer journalist Kelsey Piper eloquently discusses her own experiences with this here.) Much suffering that gets sent men’s way, is sent imperfectly and leaks outwards, hurting other groups too. The suffering that results from this can often be every bit as hurtful, as real, and as valid, as the suffering that men experience. So no matter who you are, my ideas are yours too, if you would take them.

34. If you’re a woman and you’re reading this post because you want to help the men in your life, but you haven’t delved into feminist blogposts and books, I encourage you to do that first. It is OK, indeed often necessary, to take care of yourself before you endeavour to take care of others. Even if you are for whatever reason suspicious of feminist thinking, I’m confident it can offer you invaluable insights.

35. If even after reading the entire list, you think you’ve seen very little of it within your life and your community, and much of the opposite, I invite you to let your own context coexist with mine. Our experiences can be true at the same time; neither need erase the other.

36. The list ignores more than just women’s suffering; it also ignores the many good things women do for men.

A particular type of person will have read this far and say, “Right, you did a good job saying this isn’t a competition about which gender has it easier, but now that we’re here anyway, I’m curious which gender you think has it harder.”

To them I would like to say, “It is not a competition about which gender has it harder.”

And they might say, “Right, right, OK. But given that you’re publishing a piece titled like this, you know you’re risking having people think you’re saying men have it harder than women, and given that you’re nevertheless not clarifying your position here, I can’t help but make a few assumptions…”

To them I would like to say, “#*&$ me, I literally said it is not a competition about which gender has it harder.”

And they might say, “Ah, so if you’re still refusing to clarify, you must indeed be trying to imply…”

And to that I would like to respond:

1. I know too little about non-WEIRD cultures to say anything at all about what the gender dynamics in those cultures are like.

2. If I had to bet on it, I would say that I am genuinely nearly clueless as to which gender has it harder in WEIRD cultures. There is an overwhelming amount of factors to consider for both genders; the landscape is changing dramatically and quickly; epistemologically, it is an unusually difficult area to learn trustworthy information in; and I could not hope to prove my knowledge on this topic is sufficiently complete to make any such grand conclusions. (As you might guess, I am not a betting man.)

3. If you held a gun to my head, I would tell you that, on average, WEIRD women have it harder than WEIRD men.

4. But I think that even if men have it easier than women, it is nevertheless important that we also spend time understanding the ways it can be hard for men to be men. I believe that compassion for men does not compete with compassion for women; in fact I believe they are both a crucial component in each other.

5. I really wish you wouldn’t hold a gun to my head.