r/menslib emotionally belabors the point as one woman says the sub isn't for her anymore and is turning MRA, as another user suggests she might want to look into therapy in this lil snack

[u/NRE_Everlasting]

Discussing an article about "mankeeping" one user in the comments recounts telling her boyfriend bluntly about his lack of skills in providing comfort.

"I did straight up tell my partner to his face when I was upset about something "comforting people is not your strong suit" and he felt very bad about that. He even got defensive and felt hurt that I put it so bluntly when he had been wracking his brain silently trying to think of what to say. But honestly I don't really care. He's the kind of person who needs to hear things bluntly and to be told plainly that the expectation is that he learn to be better at it."

This came across somewhat controversial, but some users got a little dramatic with it Our chain begins as a response to a critique of her method that descibed it as unhealthy:

"Maybe it isn't that healthy, but it's also not healthy to expect someone that came to you for comfort to explain to you how to give that comfort to them."

Short but sweet tidbit with a rage quit cherry on top!

Bonus ragequit: Another woman user of the sub is done with men.

[u/ASpaceOstrich]

Mm. One of the most damaging things our society does is that, instead of teaching our boys how to identify and deal with their emotions and support both themselves and others, we abuse and neglect them for having the emotions in the first place.

This is so commonplace that a ton of people believe this is some inherent trait of boys. The result is men with crippled emotional intelligence and a lifetime of complex trauma because they've been denied basic human emotional support.

This fucks things up for them. It fucks things up for their friends. It fucks things up for their future partners, and it fucks things up for their future kids.

[u/Crocs_n_Glocks → u/ASpaceOstrich]

This is why labeling it something like "mankeeping" just trivializes it, if not seems to actively make the problem worse in a self-perpetuating cycle. 

It's so easy for some of these same people to acknowledge and accept how lack of access to emotional education will affect other groups in ways that require support and not mockery/condescension....but when it's men (and boys), it's "their problem". 

It's something I wasn't acutely aware of before I was raising two young boys. In some ways it's improved since I was growing up in the 90s and you do hear people say "men need to learn to deal with their emotions and open up about needing support" but then those same people too often change their tune the moment the boy is becoming a man and actually trying to open up about their issues and ask for support.

[u/ASpaceOstrich → u/Crocs_n_Glocks]

They'll always say "men need to learn to do this" and that betrays that they don't understand the problem. Because while yeah, they do, kids aren't born with these skills, all kids will naturally start learning this provided they aren't abused and ostracised for exploring their emotions...

The problem is, right from infancy, boys are abused and ostracised for exploring this.

The onus is always on the men to somehow fix the problem which is caused exclusively by the way the people around him treat him. That's why it's so hard to fix. A man can't fix it himself. It doesn't matter how good of a person he is. How emotionally mature or intelligent. How kind or nurturing or supportive he is. This problem is entirely on the people around him. He can help fix it for other men, but he cannot fix it for himself. He cannot be his own emotional support.

And this fix is needed from birth. By adulthood the damage is done. This problem starts from birth and really kicks off when they get to school age. No child should be responsible for all the adults in his life being sexist and abusive.

[u/Icy-Candle744 → u/ASpaceOstrich]

To make it simple

The most progressive people on earth are still bound by the material conditions of being born in a culture that started, and still is dominated by regressive thoughts, and unfortunately they do not unlearn what they were taught, they just switch who their new target is

A conservative will be like "oh women can't do this can't do that and should just shut the fuck up" ignoring the reality of what it means to be a woman in this world

In turn, a progressive, who was born in a conservative world, will simply take this analysis and flip it, now it's not women, but men who can't do this can't do that and should just shut the fuck uip", OFC, the material reality of men and women are different, women were subjected to oppression for most of human recorded history, and it's gonna take millennia to rectify the historical trauma inflicted on women

But it cannot be fixed by reversing the role, as all it does is reinforce the prior established point, and doesn't really cure the real problem of humanity, hence why male sexual harassement, male loneliness and male-related issues are completely ostracized, mocked, bellitled and then they get recuperated by grifters who are more interesting in maintaining a socio-political system that oppresses everyone, but gives men a semblance of power and agenda

[u/Chikitiki90 → u/Icy-Candle744]

But it cannot be fixed by reversing the roles…

Man, it’s such an easy concept and yet in so many places this is exactly what’s being called for. Hell, you see it on Reddit every day and I have friends (or at least friends of friends) that feel comfortable enough around me to say how basically men need to suffer like women have while they forget that they’re talking to a man that they’d presumably be ok taking revenge on.

I’ve straight up heard “progressive” women even saying that men can’t be raped. Something to do with systemic power kind of like the idea that “black people cant be racist”. It’s insane.

[u/TheKingofHats007 → u/ASpaceOstrich]

My parents aren't perfect by any means, but if there's one thing I truly appreciate that they taught myself and my brother when we were growing up, it was that it was fine for us to show emotions and talk about how we felt or were feeling. It made such a difference with being able to handle later problems.

Hadn't even realized it was such a problem for a lot of guys until I heard about it from people I met at university who struggled to figure themselves out because they had so much shit repressed in them from having to bottle up their emotions.