Men Talking About Their Feelings, And Is It The Real Issue?

So I'm sure most of you have already seen a comic from Sarah Andersen where she pokes fun at fragile masculinity. In it, there's a guy dressed in Roman centurion armour boasting that masculinity is strong and tough. Then a girl dubbed "the slightest threat of femininity" pokes him with a spear and says "it's ok to talk about your feelings". This causes the guy's armour to crack and a look of shock and terror has befallen his face. Now I personally found the comic funny, as it perfectly illustrates all the broflakes I've encountered spreading the good word of feminism across the internet. However, just as I suspected, the broflakes in question took to Twitter to aptly prove the comic's point, with many of them strawmanning Sarah, a couple of them making stupid edits that were just clear MRA whining and projection, and just overall creating a whole mess. Sarah later clarified that she wasn't intending to mock men as a whole, and actually encourages men to talk about their feelings, and it got me to think about whether or not that's the actual problem and if we should even be telling men to do that.

Here's the big question: Should men talk about their feelings? As a counselor, my answer might surprise you, but I don't think men talking about their feelings is the problem, or at the very least, it's not that simple. Why is that? Because they already are. When sexist men ramble about how women are stupid and whiny, or how they call women who wear revealing clothes sluts and whores who deserve to be raped, or incels creating whole bloody manifestos about how "fEmAlEs" are property and that they should be equally distributed amongst virgin men for a chance to score, they're letting you know how they feel. Men love nothing more than to insert unnecessary commentary onto anything that has nothing to do with them simply because they think they know more about it than those pesky womz. If the goal is to have men be open with their feelings, then I'd say mission accomplished. 

Saying that men should talk about their feelings just simplifies the issues and completely misses the actual problems that we should be discussing. Men not talking about their feelings isn't the problem, how they deal with their feelings is. As a whole, men are told from day one that sensitivity is bad and that anger is the only acceptable way they're allowed to showcase displeasure. That certainly is the catalyst, but there's more to it. Men always claim that they're held responsible for everything wrong in the world, but when you look at it, men jump at the first opportunity to point fingers at someone else for random problem X. Boy becomes a violent criminal? Blame his single mother. Father is a moody and angry? His wife must be such a nightmare. Young men following incel culture? Well this wouldn't have happened if feminism just stopped talking about toxic masculinity, even though most of these fuckers don't even understand what we mean when we say toxic masculinity. I've talked to death about toxic masculinity so I won't do it again here, but it really is to blame for this issue. It's not that men are bottling up their emotions, they're just replacing any and all sensitivity with rage. They can blame feminism all they want, but it won't help them. 

And don't even try coming at me with that bollocks about depression is only taken seriously when it comes to women, because that's not true and you know it. Women's mental health has repeatedly been used to justify why women should never be taken seriously and how we're "too emotional to handle anything" when in reality, we're not anymore emotional than the average person should be. Patriarchy treats women as the opposite end of the spectrum, the "extreme" if you will. It tells men that you should never be vulnerable or else you're as bad as a woman, and no matter how "woke" you think you are, you still possess a subconscious bias not be "that kind of woman". Even women fall into this trap to avoid being dismissed as crazy or anything. 

So what can be done about it? First and foremost, deconstruct gender roles. Listen to what feminists say about toxic masculinity and what it means instead of knee jerking to think it means all men are toxic. Second would be to end the false causes. Women being "slutty" or wanting reproductive rights isn't what's causing male suicide or depression, capitalism and patriarchy are. Third, teach men how to properly manage their emotions. For instance, anger is ok, lashing out at innocent people is not. And finally, show men proper outlets for their emotions. This means not using your girlfriends as your emotional baggage btw. Toxic masculinity coupled with the the irrational fear of femininity is what ultimately creates a dangerous environment not just for women but men as well. No one's demanding men become women when we say it's ok for them to be sensitive. It's time to correctly allow men to explore an emotional spectrum, one that benefits them in ways that actually work instead of boiling everything down to "talking about their feelings".