Thank you for this great article. You have expressed beautifully the surface effects of what my work analyses at the subconscious level.
What we’re dealing with are what I describe as subconscious cages - these cages are distinctly different for men and women and are created from generations of patriarchal rules, control, expectation, law and threat. We aren’t aware of them but they control huge parts of our reactions, stress and personal power. They sabotage everyone, and men and women are undermined in two distinctly different ways.
Everything you cite is the result of the inner conflict between our conscious ideals and freedoms, and the old programming of the cages.
This creates power drain which triggers all kinds of negative responses and reactions. From the external relationship conflicts, the manosphere, men’s mental health problems and so much more. Women suffer very differently because their subconscious cage is different.
Here’s the problem we all face; while these cages are operating it is not possible for anyone - man or women - from experiencing true freedom to be themselves. Or to know what their full power feels like. So we are all compensating and sunning in empty.
We are all fighting the deeply ingrained heritage and this cannot simply be released by intention or awareness.
The cages of course trigger every time men and women interact, dragging dynamics backwards to old benchmarks while we fight to express our true selves.
We won’t know what our world can become until enough people release the cages to shift consciousness.
I need to hurry up and finish writing the book on all this!!! 😆
While I still compliment both men and women, I tend not to worry what I compliment men about, I try to make the compliments I give women about them, something they had agency in, e.g. “I like your shoes” thereby complimenting her taste, rather than their looks.
The industrial revolution framing is the thing I keep coming back to. "Masculinity" as a stable identity category is newer than we tend to assume. Yet, it came bundled with a particular economic arrangement that told men they belonged outside and women inside, and now that arrangement has changed, a lot of men are experiencing the concept itself fraying. I am a stay-at-home dad, for example, and have to walk through the societal distinctions. Peterson and the incels are both responses to that fraying, just especially loud ones. What I keep wondering is whether the answer is to rebuild a new definition or to hold identity a bit more loosely. Maybe the point of fatherhood isn't to perform a role but to show up for specific people. That's a harder thing to platform, though, which might explain my low subscriber count ;)
Jordan Peterson's "enforced monogamy" sounds much like arranged marriage-a vestige of time-worn patriarchy. It may prove a shallow, and temporary, salve to "involuntary celibacy", but ignores the notion that we humans are more than just sex machines. We are essentially spiritual beings in a physical body.
Once I decided to stop numbing my emotions, I was better able to "negotiate a new, better kind of relationship" with the women around me. Ironically, many men numb their emotions to preserve their masculinity. It has the opposite effect. When we are numb, we weaken our ability to tolerate disruptive emotions and become pawns being jolted around by everyone and everything around us. When we learn to feel our emotions and regulate them, we connect with other men and women in healthy, meaningful ways. I wouldn't argue that emotional numbing is the only issue with masculinity and gender relations, but it is a major contributor/disruptor.
Thank you for this great article. You have expressed beautifully the surface effects of what my work analyses at the subconscious level.
What we’re dealing with are what I describe as subconscious cages - these cages are distinctly different for men and women and are created from generations of patriarchal rules, control, expectation, law and threat. We aren’t aware of them but they control huge parts of our reactions, stress and personal power. They sabotage everyone, and men and women are undermined in two distinctly different ways.
Everything you cite is the result of the inner conflict between our conscious ideals and freedoms, and the old programming of the cages.
This creates power drain which triggers all kinds of negative responses and reactions. From the external relationship conflicts, the manosphere, men’s mental health problems and so much more. Women suffer very differently because their subconscious cage is different.
Here’s the problem we all face; while these cages are operating it is not possible for anyone - man or women - from experiencing true freedom to be themselves. Or to know what their full power feels like. So we are all compensating and sunning in empty.
We are all fighting the deeply ingrained heritage and this cannot simply be released by intention or awareness.
The cages of course trigger every time men and women interact, dragging dynamics backwards to old benchmarks while we fight to express our true selves.
We won’t know what our world can become until enough people release the cages to shift consciousness.
I need to hurry up and finish writing the book on all this!!! 😆
While I still compliment both men and women, I tend not to worry what I compliment men about, I try to make the compliments I give women about them, something they had agency in, e.g. “I like your shoes” thereby complimenting her taste, rather than their looks.
The industrial revolution framing is the thing I keep coming back to. "Masculinity" as a stable identity category is newer than we tend to assume. Yet, it came bundled with a particular economic arrangement that told men they belonged outside and women inside, and now that arrangement has changed, a lot of men are experiencing the concept itself fraying. I am a stay-at-home dad, for example, and have to walk through the societal distinctions. Peterson and the incels are both responses to that fraying, just especially loud ones. What I keep wondering is whether the answer is to rebuild a new definition or to hold identity a bit more loosely. Maybe the point of fatherhood isn't to perform a role but to show up for specific people. That's a harder thing to platform, though, which might explain my low subscriber count ;)
Jordan Peterson's "enforced monogamy" sounds much like arranged marriage-a vestige of time-worn patriarchy. It may prove a shallow, and temporary, salve to "involuntary celibacy", but ignores the notion that we humans are more than just sex machines. We are essentially spiritual beings in a physical body.
Once I decided to stop numbing my emotions, I was better able to "negotiate a new, better kind of relationship" with the women around me. Ironically, many men numb their emotions to preserve their masculinity. It has the opposite effect. When we are numb, we weaken our ability to tolerate disruptive emotions and become pawns being jolted around by everyone and everything around us. When we learn to feel our emotions and regulate them, we connect with other men and women in healthy, meaningful ways. I wouldn't argue that emotional numbing is the only issue with masculinity and gender relations, but it is a major contributor/disruptor.