It drives me nuts the kind of things guys think they can share with me. “Women should be seen, not heard” and so on.
Yup. I just play dumb.
“What do you mean?”
Make them explain it then hit them with,
“Why would you say that about your wife?”
Anyone who has ever looked to me for validation on those things gets a long talikng to. If we’re in public everyone around us will hear it too.
Make bigots uncomfortable
Make them explain why they say the bigoted things they say, make them explain why their jokes are funny, and if they try to side step that make sure you tell them you are aware why they are a bigot and why they think those jokes are funny, loudly.
Maybe I’m sheltered, or lucky, or just anti-social, but I’ve never associated with other guys who do shit like that. I don’t doubt that assholes like that are common, but they’ve never been part of my friend group.
Amen to that! Curate your feed, curate your life. If you see something growing, wait till you can ID it, if it’s noxious, then pull it. No mercy.
Probably a combo of the three! It hadn’t been too prominent until I found myself in a position to interact with a wider variety of men from all different backgrounds. It’s a depressing reminder that while we’ve made a lot of social progress over the years, the things we’re told are history still very much live today.
Guys learned to steer clear of me real quick when they’d spout off nonsense like that to be part of the “club” and I’d go off on them. Did it make me many friends at work? No. Did I care? No.
Not really, no.
I spent 10 months trying to get fired from my last job in the trades. After dealing with lawyers and finishing with that part of my life, I cancelled my apprenticeship.
I’ve spent most of my life in manual labour or trade jobs and I can’t stomach going back into these fields. The men I have to deal with in those fields are awful and they act so gross.
I could go forever about their shit behaviour. The lockdowns from 2020 amplified that shitty behaviour. It was unbearable. The shit they would say about women and the shit they would say to women were gross and fucked up.
These guys basically used their shitty attitude towards women as a way to gain attention from other men. It’s weird and really, really gay in a gross, repressed and unattractive way.
The comment on homoeroticism strikes me. It’s a sensitive subject but I think I get what you mean. A lot of the things “straight” guys say and do really gives me pause. Like even just the obsession with male genitalia, or the concept of “bromance”. I really think it’s the culture of patriarchial misogyny that’s pushing guys into resenting their honest feelings towards other men, and so they find culturally acceptable ways to feel intimate with men in a world that demands confirmity to heterosexuality. I think we’d have a lot more happy, loving bi/pan men in this world who were kinder to women and each other if we could wave a magic wand and make the patriarchy disappear.
I tend to view the types of people who strongly identify and present themselves as straight to be people that are living in a state of near absolute hypocrisy. Their actions are often the opposite of what they say. This really spreads out and changes the people and culture around them.
When looking at modern masculinity, how often do these contradictions appear? So many men feel they must present themselves as strong and emotionless yet are quick to express explosive anger. It’s as if anger does not exist as an emotion to them. But anger is an emotion.
Then while feeling hurt and angry, they will point to anyone else who feels their own hurt and anger and accuse those other people of being something less than a man. All while feeling the same types of emotions.
Dominance and submission is also an interesting part of the masculinity confusion. Men are often told or shown examples of men who are strong and independent. So they want to be strong and independent. And they say they are strong and independent.
Then they are told to be loyal and that they must respect their elders, especially the men. Now that strength and independence must submit to their elders. Everything they are told to be gets cancelled out by how they think they must act. They can scream in your face that they are men, they are strong and they are independent, yet cower at presence of a man who they see as someone with authority and power.
This view that I have of people who strongly see themselves as straight gets very weird and very uncomfortable when you start applying it to sex, sexuality and kinks. Think “virile, black stallion” or cuckoldry for example.
I’ve reached a point where I personally no longer view those who identify themselves as gay to be gay. They are simply people doing people things. Because they are simply people, nothing more, nothing less. Those who use the word gay as an attack are often everything they are afraid to being. Which is sad because there’s nothing wrong with loving another person.
Living in such a constant state of hypocrisy is confusing. For everyone. To be a man, you are very much at a war with everyone including yourself. To be on the outside of masculinity, you are forced into a war with people who are at war with everyone including themselves. It’s exhausting because this war is fueled by everyone else’s time, energy and patience.
Early days of my career in Southern Ontario, yes. the coworkers were often disgusting, and there was no PC movement yet, but it just seemed so wrong to me so I found different circles.
When I moved to BC I found the office culture much different, discussions were normal. The companies had actual rules and expectation surrounding respect and boundaries.
For the most part now its not common place in my bubble, but occasionally I have been in sales meetings (I’m not sales) and clients and sales often bond over stupid jokes , golf and discussing hot ladies. Its like it all goes together somehow.
Back in college yes, but nearly 20 years later my friends have changed or I have changed friends. I think there was a lot of “just trying to be funny” and fortunately most of my friends learned better jokes.
I remember in my twenties, guys in the pub describing intimacy with women they were seeing. Graphic detail. They named them and everything. It was so vulgar and degrading. It’s one reason I don’t go to pubs anymore.
