Boys & Men in todays Society

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Unfortunately in todays society Males are taught from a young age that it is wrong to show emotions other than anger.

This video is about it:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hc45-ptHMxo[/youtube]

We know what is wrong with this world. The question is: How can we put it right?

The problem with this is simple, as men, we're not allowed to have these issues. All the attention is focused on women's rights, gay rights, racial rights - men have always had the right, since the beginning of time. So, it's just that, society doesn't care. If we're lacking self-confidence, if we aren't comfortable with our masculinity, our job is to do just what the video is against, man up, handle it, shut up about it and be a man. Society isn't ready to tackle this issue and they might never be for those reasons.

Don't take what I said the wrong way, I fully side with the video and I'm definitely not the most confident man in the world for a variety of reasons, and I definitely struggle with it on a daily basis, it just means I know first hand how little society gives a damn.

Actually, we're taught as boys that any expression sorrow, sadness, depression, sympathy or mercy is wrong.

Then we're taught as men that showing any emotion other than happiness or joy is also wrong.

Meanwhile, we continue to feel the same emotions that women feel, but if we express them, we're somehow "flawed" -- we're expected to be the strong, stoic ones to whom women can run to whenever they have a bad day, instead of "whiners" and "complainers" who are "always griping" about something. So what do we do? We bottle up our emotions to be popular, and then we let the stress and anxiety eat away at our mental and physical health, until eventually we die, kill ourselves, or "snap" and kill others before being killed by the cops.

Women do not seem to want men who are in touch with their own emotions; instead, each woman seems to want only a man who is in touch with her emotions (and no one else's). I also think it distresses a woman just as much to see a man cry as it does to see a man shouting and swearing. The general attitude against men is to simply "get over it", "deal with it" or "ignore/accept it", whatever "it" may be.

... and people wonder why men are more successful at suicide than women, why men are more involved in mass murders than women, and why men just generally seem to die younger than women ...

It may be a man's world, but it's also a misandric world, as well.

Yes, this is an issue. Though I am not sure it is limited to contemporary American society. Briefly thinking through history and other cultures it seems rather pervasive and ancient. Sparta, anyone?

I wonder if it might not apply to most cultures where males are raised to have something of a warrior spirit, i.e. repressing emotions other than those that support a domineering and aggressive presence.

What EVERYONE that has posted has said each make a lot of sense.

Society dictates & enforces that the genders should behave in a certain way. I have no idea where those ideals come from.

I think that Autism & Anxiety go "hand in hand". It's no wonder really because of the world we live in being so chaotic, unpredictable, and against logical reasoning.

boo!

Why in today's society? Wasn't this kind of gender role programming actually a lot worse in the past? Western societies have only developed a greater, not lesser, tolerance for male displays of emotion, just like there is a lot more tolerance for non-normative sexual behavior and gender expression nowadays. Not quite as much as I'd like to see, but we're slowly getting somewhere.

Of course this may be different in the US. From what I've seen, the US appears to cultivate a hyperaggressive, extremely warlike, paranoid, emotionally detached and overly competitive society. A hypermasculine society, if you so will. But in the rest of the developed world, boys are increasingly allowed, if not outright encouraged, to be emotionally sensitive and express their individuality in non-traditional ways.

Personally, I've never seen it - I've seen society lean towards accepting everything short of a man who displays emotion and weakness in any form. The only thing I've seen is a higher no-tolerance policy for bullying, which is all good and well, but it doesn't take anything away from what's expected of men/boys in today's society.