Original by u/Oncefa2 on Reddit. Still very relevant today:
This is something I noticed in a thread where men were asked what it meant to them to be a man.
There was only one response, which could probably be summed up as, “meh”.
And I honestly think this is how a lot of men feel.
You are yourself first, but also you’re a man, if you’ll even admit to it.
Women on the other hand seem to be proud of their gender and actively celebrate their womanhood. You see this in popular media and on places liked Twitter. And it even shows up in psychological association tests. Women are associated with traits like “good” and “valuable” whereas men are associated with traits like “bad” and “worthless”.
Men are never told that they can be proud of who they are. And many are made to apologize just for being alive. Instead of celebrating men, we attack and demonize them on a daily basis. And I think this difference in treatment and identity has an overall negative effect on their mental health.
Society thinks we are useless, and it is time for a change!
That’s bullshit
In no way we’re women more socially constrained than men, at any point in history
Simply look at all the male deaths. You’re putting that against your perception that women weren’t allowed to leave the kitchen (which is wrong) and just completely dismissing all of the far, far worse and more burdensome things men were expected to do under threat of violence and death
Adding on to this, it’s also weird to me to never hear class or race acknowledged in their one dimensional view of history as something that solely benefited men at all times. Like are they gonna seriously argue the black men who were literally hunted down and tortured for sport in American history were still somehow above the white women sitting comfortable at the sides?