askchapo

The absolute fucking rancid vibes everybody emitted when I took my kids out alone in public. I even had the cops called on me once, when one of them was throwing a tantrum at the grocery store. I am so grateful that I was paranoid about that exact scenario happening, and carried copies of the kids' birth certificates at all times. No officer, I'm not a stabber. Just a very tired dad. Kindly stop detaining me, thanks.

It's well over a decade since any of them have been that small, but the experience is still haunting.

edit: I just realized I still have the laminated birth certificate copies in my bag. I should probably get rid of them. Carrying around another grown-ass-man's birth certificate is weird for entirely different reasons.

Having mental illness and being a man seem like they're not compatible under the patriarchy. I've had my dad tell me straight up to my face I'm just faking it and looking for sympathy with my anxiety, depression, OCD, because according to him my life is good. So there's that.

In a moment of vulnerability, I expressed my feelings of weakness, frustration, and just general helplessness in regard to mental issues, financial issues, and a few other things that I can't quite remember because the response was so strange. I was talking to a partner, and I don't really remember what spurred it, but I kinda broke down a little bit and just expressed how things weren't really going well for me.

She was quiet for a few seconds and just looked at me, with what looked like a feeling of disgust, and said something along the lines of, "Men aren't supposed to act like this." So, since then, I've kept a lot of my emotions in check and withdrawn a lot. I don't do it intentionally, but that wasn't the response I expected, especially since I had consoled them many times without complaint or judgement because that's what you're supposed to do.

Another example is with an ex that accused me of being gay because I didn't want to have sex 24/7. Sometimes I think I'm maybe aromantic or asexual, or maybe just haven't found someone I'm really compatible with sexually.

I engage with a lot of "traditional" masculine hobbies like boxing, weightlifting, etc, and even though I still feel comfortable adhering to certain traits or roles considered masculine, I guess this is why I sometimes don't feel comfortable with the label of cis. Like, I used to have people say "you're the gayest straight man I've ever met." Which is weird cause I'm a big bald dude with tattoos and a beard but having interests outside of the traditional gender norms is weird for some folks I guess.

Well for instance where I come from, men are not allowed to cry and boy did I cry a lot as a kid. Got called a "crying pussy bitch" as a kid a TON. Even by my dad.

Now I have anxiety, keep to myself a lot and I'm afraid of standing up for myself because I'm scared of being physically overpowered. So yeah, "good" stuff.

I was having a panic attack and my mother laughed at me.

There is a very narrow range of acceptable expression as a cis dude.

I grew up in the norwegian equivalent of the bible belt. Think, small town, less than 10k inhabitants surrounded by endless farmland.

There were only two socially acceptable ways to be a guy. You could be a Car Guy, or you could be a Sports Guy.

Anything else, and you'd automatically be labelled as a [homophobic slur] and become an outcast.

Being a book loving, neurodivergent weeaboo was beyond the pale, so I spent my entire youth as an outcast.

Though life didn't seem better for the other guys trying to squeeze into the only two available moulds you could fit into.

I remember one guy was so neurotically competitive that he absolutely HAD to be the first or number 1 in everything, or else he'd have a mental breakdown.

Even during warmup in PE, he had to be FIRST, when running from one end of the field to the other, and he'd be so exhausted that spittle would fly from his mouth just from having to be the first in everything sports related, no matter how insignificant.

It's no wonder Norwegians are so socially broken. There are so many ways to be a dude, but the only acceptable ways to be one are so restricted and narrow that it's easier to just drop out of society and cling to the same 2-3 people you've known since kindergarten, instead of socialising and interacting with new people.

We men are so insanely varied, naturally curious and seeking. It's almost comical how hard so many men cling to strict patriarchal ideas when most men don't really benefit from it or even live up to the patriarchal ideas.

I don't know where I'm going with this. I'm drunk and exhausted from nonstop working. I'll hit the pipe and go watch a movie or something.

I read books, sometimes cried under stress, was not big or very good at sports, and stuck up for a friend in a ridiculous hypothetical (would you still be friends with someone if they had AIDS) and so obviously I was gay. This was 30 years ago when being gay was more synonymous with bad, to both kids and teachers, authority figures alike.

When I was young, this affected me by getting bullied and me spending a lot of time ashamed, alone and angry, though I still had friends in the other weirdos. As I grew up, I developed better social masking skills around manly men and the idiotic women who also internalized and weaponized those kind of gender norms. I now exclude a lot of people from my actual life and generally get along with women better than men.

I still carry baggage around. Recently one of my close female relatives was cheated on by her manly man husband. While I am mostly sad and frustrated for her and their kids, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't also mad for my own reasons. He's openly friendly, but inside he's the kind of misogynist asshole that told me I wasn't a man when I was younger. He was a cop too. Never trust a fucking cop.

I'm a Han Chinese who grew up partially in China and in Australia. While I avoided a bunch of expectations for certain forms of classic Western masculinity because I am an inscrutable removed, other aspects were unavoidable. It wasn't a faux pas to not play footy or whatever, and it was probably expected that I was more academically inclined over playing contact sports.

Half my family are CPC revolutionaries and cadres. The other half are the peasantry that we fought for, regardless of how money hungry and reactionary.

A lot of conflicting ideas of what I should be, from 老百姓 from the country, Western liberalism and hardline Communists have been... Bestowed upon me. I have to be a breadwinner, I have to service the people, I have to be stoic (or at the very least not beheld by emotion), I have to find a high paying profession, I have to be a protector, I have to produce an offspring, I have to consider the greater good, I have to be assertive, I have to change or suppress myself to get women. As the only male heir from the one child policy, it's a lot.

A (white) girlfriend once asked me how I was feeling after a particularly gruelling double shift where smarter workers than I walked off the job. I didn't answer immediately. Should I be reserved because it was nothing compared to someone that walked the Long March? Or someone who immigrated to a different continent to seek a better life? Or the Platonic ideal of a masculine man? I replied "I will be fine", which was an honest response. A bad day doesn't mean I won't overcome it. My grandfather became the man of the house at the age of 13 because his father was killed by Japanese, his mother couldn't work because her feet were bound because it was the style. We were living on land stolen after a genocide. My Sous chef worked 19 hours to my 16 and a bit. Our bills were paid. There was food on the table. There was a roof over our heads. There were no bombs or snipers aiming for us. I genuinely meant what I said. I will be fine. I was 22. Now that I've learned to communicate better, after learning that your gender, racial and class identity aren't as separate as you'd think, I probably would have answered differently. I could have communicated better.

My hardships didn't stem from being a cisgender male. Nor would being trans or gay make it better. The world isn't kind to the proletariat. It's why I'm a communist. Your identity plays a role, it's why I didn't fall into stupidpol.

Who knows, I may have been able to speak about my emotions properly before I was 30.

Circumcision. Give me my whole dick back.

Several of them have been in the past.

I've always preferred to wear my hair a little long, when I was in elementary school the other kids called me transphobic slurs several times. To be clear, I am cis, but it still hurt seven year old TheLepidopterists's feelings.

The idea that expressing feelings other than anger is inappropriate for boys was also not great for me growing up, but the folks in the bell hooks book club thread have elaborated on that way more eloquently than I could.

EDIT: just realized this said cis-het which is only half true, but in spite of being attracted to men as, I've only ever dated women (I wasn't even consciously aware of being attracted to men as well until I was years and one kid into a relationship with my wife, who rules and is the only person I'm interested in a relationship with). I do present fairly straight though, I think and socially I'm I think effectively cis-het.

You've gotta be so weird about women to fit in with other dudes. Trying to understand women as people and not as some mysterious alien species makes you an immediate outcast.

Fairly benign example: men will frequently complain about how women will "complain about something and then get mad when you tell them how to fix it". Trying to explain the concept of venting (they're doing it right now! They're venting right now about women!) has usually gotten me reactions that range from weird looks and disbelief to arguments that women actually just love not solving problems.

Obvs this isn't as big of a problem as having to put up with men refusing to understand you but it still sucks being expected to participate in it

I agree with a lot of what others have to say but what makes me upset is how no one gives a shit about it. People will pay lip service to the idea of loosening these norms but the vast majority of people still expect it. Even among more progressive people, they won't make you a pariah but they'll still treat you differently. It's just like everyone agrees that women should be allowed to have both a career and children. But in practice the woman is expected to take on the burden of childcare. People can say that men should allowed to be emotional but if they catch you crying then you're forever something different in their eyes.

I've talked with a lot of my friends and I genuinely believe a lot of men are aware of how toxic these behaviors are. But the second they get in front of their partners they're back to that cold, confident mask. Most young men understand it's bullshit but they see it as a requirement for relationships and societal respect. While there are always exceptions, I wouldn't say they're wrong.

I'll keep it light. I'm for all intents and purposes, a dude's dude. I work out, BBQ, drink beer, and in general, am loud and obnoxious. But...

I hate sports and in particular American Football. And to a plurality if not majority of supposed free society I might as well turn in my bro card.

It's completely incomprehensible how society could convince itself that skirts are for women. I'd happily bet that a majority of men would generally be a in a much better mood if they just wore a skirt when the sun comes out.

I think I'm emotionally underdeveloped because of male gender norms. Specificly the norm that men are not emotional. It feels like my non-male friends run laps around me when it comes to navigating their/others emotions.

The harm of this deficiency it no doubt obvious to most. But it took me a long time to even recognize that it was a problem. The harm I've experienced from this is the damage I've done to my relationships throughout my life.

Caveat - I'm not sure how much responsibility societal pressures bear alone since my parents were not great emotional models.

Other then that, I think I've only benefited from gender norms.

The norm that "men shouldn't feel any emotion except for anger" was drilled into my head by every male role model in my family for my entire childhood, and I still struggle to actually express my feelings IRL.

Not hetero, but I had a borderline eating disorder as a teen. At the time it was regarded as "men don't have that problem." Thankfully I traded in my purging habits and preference towards food and medicines with appetite-suppressing side effects for... obscene levels of distance running. I worked that stuff out myself.

As of last week I put back two pink clothing items on the store rack cause I just didn't want the drama.

I experience normative masculinity as almost entirely violent and oppressive. There's nothing good about it. Even the things that advantage me are advantages because people are afraid of me. I've chewed on this for years and there's nothing in my life I can identify as distinctly masculine that is positive.

The thing I find most upsetting as a cisgendered heterosexual male, is that “manhood™©®” as a social and cultural concept is so disturbingly rigid and narrow that most males can't even do the performance of what is accepted as what “manhood™©®”. It's very frustrating that we are all meant to live up to an impossible artificial archetype. An archetype that never really existed and the values of which don't benefit the man nor the society in which the man lives in. It feels like I have been set up for failure my entire life. I cannot ever be the guy I think I'm supposed to be, nor am I ever capable of being the guy that some rhetorical “other” thinks I ought to be. It's a lose-lose situation for everyone.

Check out c/menby for more

Disclaimer: I know it's a sensitive subject, if anyone thinks there is any kind of misogynistic feeling please call me out so I can correct myself

I might be biased since I'm bisexual (heteroromantic tho) and grew up experiencing some form of gender nonconformity because I was often called a girl when I was a kid (I had long hair because I was rebellious). However I can say I mostly live the life of a cishet dude. Oh and I'm autistic so that might play a role.

So yeah I think het relationships are poisoned by heteronormativity, heterononogammy, male-female power dynamics and misogyny. Being in a serious relationship for me always meant having to provide a number of things that no one can actually provide. I feel like all hetero traditional relationships are doomed to devolve into boredom at best, abuse at worst, because people will consider that falling inlove means moving in together and have kids at some point.

I just wish we could fall inlove and treat this as an experience that doesn't imply building a life together. I can't be the center of somebody else's existence, and I think no one should put somebody else at the center of their own existence. But fucking Disney princess "happily everafter" bullshit made everyone collectively obsessed with treating love as some kind of feudal economic-political business

Of course I must reaffirm that the biggest victims of this system are queer people and women. I'm "playing on easy mode" but the game is still shit. Liberation of an oppressed group often means liberating the dominant group from their oppressor position, can't be true enough for queer and women's liberation imo

It's probably the 'tism but I never understood gender norms in general. They just seem like arbitrary rulesets with no real point behind what norm gets put into which bucket. Your question is sort of the type of thought that got me to make my post here yesterday about questioning gender.

With that said, I think a major aspect of cishet normativity that I would get dinged for is that I'm extremely emotional. I wear my emotions on my sleeve so to speak. I cry all the time and for random things that often don't even make much sense. I think if I had gone the traditional route for an autism diagnosis, there is a real chance I would have been diagnosed with "highly sensitive person syndrome" or whatever it's called.

That coupled with the fact that I don't really understand "man culture" is probably why I never really had many male friends growing up. And mostly all my firends all suffer from some mental disability anyway so they don't even fit that cishet normative role. But I never really could get into sports or cars or hunting or any of the stuff that men are supposed to do. I guess I did enjoy fishing for what it's worth.

My dad ingraining misogyny in me at a very young age and not realizing it was there until my 20s was a rough awakening and even now, I still catch some remnants of that coming out that I have to check. So that is probably the other big one. I'm still embarrassed about it. I'm not embarrassed about my emotions though. That's something I've accepted and grown to love about myself in a weird way. I have to mask it when I'm around others a lot though.

not sure if it's technically correct to call it a gender norm per se, but the way in which cishet men are conditioned to approach personal relationships with other cishet men in general can be very frustrating. i think it's sort of a compounding effect of various societal norms regarding what is considered "masculine and respectable" that causes a lot of friendships amongst men, and amongst cishet men especially, to be very shallow and impersonal. relationships like this are often more socially draining than anything else, and it just creates this depressing culture of emotionally illiterate men who only talk to other emotionally illiterate men.

on a personal level, it's straightforward enough now for me to recognize shallow friendships and to build deeper ones, but i fear that because i grew up within that culture prior to gaining awareness of the patriarchy or the privilege i have in society, i have internalized enough of it that i still haven't learned to open up enough and be as good of a friend as i want to be.

I don't know how to ask for support, so I just give it freely in the hopes that someone else will offer it to me

Idinno if cishet is still what I am, I just feel such a sense of "I don't gives a shit" about my own gender

I was thinking about my next move in socks, then remembered my last move in socks and then this post.

One of the things holding me back from being a shorts guy was that I never had socks I was happy to show the world when I wore them. I went to the store to address that and found these low-cut ballerina-slipperesque socks in the mens' section. I checked the package to confirm that it had the "M" of approval, bought them and took them home. Only after trying to wear them did I realize that they failed the most basic test of a sock, separating my foot skin from my shoes.

Another time, I was looking for a scarf but felt compelled to seek out an employee to confirm that the scarves were unisex and I wasn't going to commit a faux pas by buying from the wrong pile. Now that I search, though "women's scarves" does appear to be a real category.

And then there was my first winter somewhere really cold. I went to a bougie store and got a winter hat ahead of when I would actually need it. When I did put it on, it was really roomy. I have a big head so I had never experienced that before. The only explanation that I could think of was that the hat was designed to allow a big elaborate hairstyle underneath to maintain its shape underneath. "Had I bought a women's hat?" I asked not one, but two friends and we didn't come to any definitive conclusions but since I had been wearing the hat around for a week, decided to keep doing so.

I wish I hadn't been programmed to care so much about the appropriateness of clothes to my gender.

Back to socks, though; the ballerina socks were among the few I've thrown out before wearing holes into them. All of my other socks have fallen into the "fine" or the "bad but I'll still wear them" categories. Some have to be thrown out and I want to be a little more deliberate in my shopping this time because I'm traveling for a while and can't take the whole drawer with me. Does anyone have socks they really like? They will be subject to much walking in warm but not scorching temperatures. Brand, fabric or style recommendations would be great.

Yes, even being totally aware of how masculinity is enforced and knowing it’s bad, the tulpas still show up. My fiancé offered to help w getting my car repaired, and my gut reaction was ‘no I’m supposed to be self-sufficient, in fact I should be making more/paying for her not the other way around’

Direct toxic masculinity in my subconscious

Havent read rest of the thread yet so maybe this has been brought up already, but biggest thing for me especially when younger is the stigma towards men having female friends. I've always been the sort of guy that finds it easier to connect and form friendships with women than men, and as such most of my closest friends throughout my life have been women.

It was always exhausting to explain to extended family or whoever that just because I'm close friends with a women doesnt mean that there is a romantic or sexual aspect to our relationship. It can be frustrating to be out in public with a female friend have it be assumed that you are in a romantic relationship of some sort by restaurant staff or similar. I would say it has also impacted my ability to actually have a relationship like that with someone as well because people assume that I'm not straight because of my close relations with various women, and it is frustrating to be asked if you are gay just because you are out at the club with your female friends. The stereotype of the "gay best friend" I really do not like because I don't think sexuality and attraction is cut and dry like that and I feel uncomfortable trying to explain this to people, especially in the context of being at a club or party. I've also had a tough time in the past with women I'm trying to see in romantic capacity being upset that I have female friends that I want to spend time with as well, despite the fact that we've been friends for over a decade and our relationship has never been anything other than platonic.

Basically I've always struggled with the fact that many social forces make it seem like it is not acceptable for a guy to be close with a woman if they aren't trying to fuck them. Really bothers me and has definitely made me doubt myself in the past, and sadly also caused me to drift away from some previously close friends.

I suspect I’m autistic and have adhd and have usually felt a sort of “but why” instinct to all gendered expectations put upon me. This is how I feel with all sorts of social pressures so I’m not sure if it’s a function of dysphoria specifically. I identify with my body and pronouns but that’s about where it stops.

Middle school was probably the only time I didn’t feel confident enough to just handwave the malign pressure boys can put on other boys. That middle school thing of being left alone, having friends and not being bullied being (or seeming) incumbent on walking a fine line and not looking uncool.

High school was great, I was as weird as I wanted to be. My sibling and dad also exhibit traits of autism and weren’t at all interested in putting gendered expectations on me; again I don’t know if the possible autism is the reason it just feels like analytical thinking is paramount in my family. Way later in adulthood I have a boss who does schrodingers jokes saying shit like “men don’t read manuals”, but I’m completely comfortable calling him a boomer and rallying my colleagues against his bad boomer opinions. I have no aspirations to his cliched vision of masculinity.

I saw demigender or Demi-boy as a possible name for someone who feels kind of male. Maybe that’s me? Or is society just building a huge house of cards on top of the concept of masculinity that doesn’t serve but a very small subset of men at best? Apologies for the ramble.