Anonymous #1 1d

What you do to others, you do to yourself. A system built on men dominating also boxes men in: you're told emotions are weakness, so you bottle it up. Asking for help is "unmanly," so men die by suicide at nearly 4x the rate of women. Dads get treated as backup parents. Male abuse victims get laughed off. Your worth gets tied to income and toughness. The same system that holds women down holds men to a script too.

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Anonymous #1 1d

bell hooks nailed this in The Will to Change: patriarchy's first act of violence isn't against women, it's demanding men kill off their own emotional lives. Men learn they're loved for what they provide, not who they are. But we're social mammals. Babies are loved before they can do anything; attachment is a biological need, not a reward for output. Patriarchy teaches men their worth is conditional, then wonders why they're lonely, numb, and angry.

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Anonymous OP 1d

objectively it’s worse for women, while what you are saying is valid (for the most part) women are put down significantly more than men. Women are underrepresented in the government, hold less ceo positions(and other higher positions) ,women work the most underpaid jobs (teachers, nurses, etc), women are expected to work and stay at home and risk have their salaries cut and job loss after having kids but men don’t.

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Anonymous #1 1d

My point still stands. I never said it's worse for men. You're right that women get hit harder in most measurable ways. But it's not a competition. The same system that underpays women and pushes them out of power is the one telling men their only value is earning and dominating. Naming how it hurts men doesn't take anything away from women. It's how you get men to want to dismantle it too.

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Anonymous #1 1d

The male loneliness epidemic is not separate from patriarchy, it’s patriarchy's bill coming due. Men with no close friends jumped from 3% in 1990 to 15% in 2021 (Survey Center on American Life). Boys learn early that tenderness between men is "gay" or weak, so friendships stay surface-level: sports, jokes, no vulnerability. Many men end up with one emotional outlet, a female partner, and lose everything if she leaves. hooks' point: you can't be loved if you're never allowed to be known.

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Anonymous #1 1d

And gay and queer men get it worst. Patriarchy decides who counts as a "real man," and queer men get kicked out of the category entirely. "Gay" is the insult used to police every man, which makes queer men the warning. Many get rejected by their families, mocked, or attacked just for existing. But queer men are men. Their manhood isn't up for a vote. A system that has to deny some men their manhood to keep the rest in line was never about protecting men.

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Anonymous #1 1d

I know that sounds shocking, since we're told patriarchy is about men. But look at who benefits. hooks always said "imperialist white supremacist capitalist patriarchy" because they work together. A man whose worth is his paycheck will work himself to death and never question it. Women's unpaid care work keeps labor cheap. Men too isolated to organize don't unionize. Patriarchy doesn't protect men; it protects the people profiting off their exhaustion.

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