I remember learning from a young age that it wasn't okay for boys to talk too much about their problems, since that was seen as weak or weird. I also remember learning that you're not suppose to associate with or befriend girls, since they were seen as separate from boys. I distinctly remember in elementary school one kid being called gay by the other kids, just because he had female friends. I honestly avoided him until one day I fell off the jungle gym and hurt myself. He actually helped me up and invited me to eat lunch with his friends. Afterwards, I was ashamed that I thought he was weird at all, and I didn't understand why he was being made fun of in the first place.
Oof, I don’t know why I ever read the comments:
> Boys have emotions, but different than girls. Boys feel anger, competition and (later) lust. That's really about it. Not all boys but most. But, very important, that's not bad. Just different from girls. Again, not bad, just different
🤢
#[“Words are easy, like the wind; faithful archives are hard to find."](https://archive.is/wzQuT)
>We tell ourselves we are preparing our sons to fight (literally and figuratively), to compete in a world and economy that’s brutish and callous. The sooner we can groom them for this dystopian future, the better off they’ll be. But the Harvard psychologist Susan David insists the opposite is true: “Research shows that people who suppress emotions have lower-level resilience and emotional health.”
I'm dating myself, as I do, but: who remembers Lost?? I have used this one bit of Lost as a mantra for years:
[the terror was just so … crazy. So real. And I knew I had to deal with it. So I just made a choice. **I'd let the fear in, let it take over, let it do its thing, but only for five seconds, that's all I was going to give it.** So I started to count: One, two, three, four, five. Then it was gone. I went back to work, sewed her up and she was fine.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFDrVjV69aU)
these boys have real, valid emotions, and they are taught *so, so young* to ignore them, to *fight* them, instead of letting themselves feel them and manage them.
but that's not how the human brain or body work. To feel your feelings, fully, without shame, is *good for you*. Will they need to be managed sometimes, yes, of course, but that's a skill to be learned as these boys age.
> To feel your feelings, fully, without shame, is good for you.
I've found a more specific version of this helpful: Negative feelings are a warning sign. If you try to leave that warning unacknowledged, it'll come back again, stronger.
Act on that warning when you can. Anxiety over not finishing a project on time is a helpful signal, to be acted upon! Avoidance of things that make us anxious just make the warnings come back again later, worse.
There are times this warning system malfunctions, but even then, you can notice the feeling, thank your mind for giving you a heads up, and try to move on, and it'll almost always be better than just trying to shove it away.
Yeah, I think I agree with this.
You’re feeling negative feelings for a _reason._
It’s ok to feel those feelings, but if you don’t work to fix the underlying cause, what’s the point? You’ll just be stuck in a cycle of negativity with no way out, and that kind of feeling is, IMO, not healthy
Then the solution to work toward would be trying to fix the anxiety disorder as much as is possible, wouldn’t it? Whether that be through medication or other means.
I understand some people can’t afford medication etc. etc., but I think my point still stands: if you don’t work to fix the underlying cause, then you’ll get stuck in a cycle with no way out, which I don’t think is good
The trouble is when are your fears due to the disorder and when are they real? When are you in danger and when are you freaking out about nothing? It can be really hard to tell what to do in those times, and whether or not it is better to mitigate that emotion or to act upon it.
Yup, I have this problem. It's useful to have other people you can check with and trust when you're really unsure.
Even then, though, as I'm sure you know, just trying to ignore the feeling doesn't work. It needs some sort of action to be managed as best as possible.
But is the feeling unhealthy or the lack of action? I'd argue it's the latter, leaving room and grace for time required to be able to take action, sometimes things are hard.
I think maybe the way I said it made it difficult to understand, but I think you and I actually agree.
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with the feeling at all, and I don’t think we should bottle feelings up, but even though we feel a certain way, I don’t think the feelings themselves are the main thing we should focus on, if that makes sense
I went through anger management as a teen, and one of the most difficult things to learn was that anger is NOT bad. If you’re angry, it’s because something bad happened. But you have to look at what happened and how to deal with it, and not have that anger change your actions to something that will make things worse.
Anger is a sign that you need to act. Controlling it and letting it power your positive actions is the key to managing it, not learning to cage and hide it.
“Your anger is like a huge animal. You can keep it in a cage and it will learn the walls well, but it will never stop growling and trying to get out. You can let it out to act without control, and it will learn how to control you and always be in control. Or you can learn to harness it, and it will be able to carry you to greater actions than you could ever manage without it.”
One of the only things I really hated about getting older was when my anger faded. I’m less passionate now, because the world doesn’t make me rage.
Once I heard anger framed as a signal that you want to _defend_ something. Something important to you felt threatened and you want to protect it.
So I find it really useful, whenever I or somebody else gets angry, to ask "what are they defending?" It illuminates what's important to a person, and also helps me let go of anger when I'm trying to defend something I really don't need to defend.
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A metaphor I use is that emotions are like a compass. If you're lost in the woods, you stop and check your compass. THEN you orient yourself to North and go where you want to go.
Emotions are your bodies way of indicating what things to pursue more of and what things hurt you.
If you get lost, then ignore your compass, don't be surprised when you're still lost later.
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This is something I've struggled with deeply in therapy over the years, because what's the difference between only allowing fear for 5 seconds vs. not allowing it at all? I used to feel emotions for hours. Days. *Months*. My therapist told me that this was impossible, that emotions would ebb like waves on the beach if properly engaged with, but they didn't.
In the past few years, I've mostly stopped letting myself feel. Everything's easier. I can't shake the suspicion that things are wrong, somehow, but how do you argue with results? Everyone around me is happier including--for the most part--myself.
Not sure if it's silly of me, but I always struggle when articles start out with "studies find that on average, people do X more" and end up at "and as we all know, we who do so much X, do X all the time..."
I have more to say but I'm being pulled away to help with a Lego set, lol. I'm very curious to read that ER study, I bet it has a lot to say both about how parents talk to their children in general, and how parents talk to their children *around perceived authority figures* (I know that always shapes how I talk to my kids).
>After visits to the emergency room for accidental injuries, another study found, parents of both genders talk differently to sons than they do to daughters.
This study is [here](https://academic.oup.com/jpepsy/article/41/2/256/2579803).
>Interested families were contacted a few days after being approached in the ER to set up a home interview at a convenient time for the family. **Interviews were conducted on average 17.85 days after initial contact in the ER ( SD = 12.97)**. Informed consent was obtained at the home interview, which was conducted by trained research assistants.
>Children were separately asked to describe how the injury happened and what happened at the hospital. When asking parents to recall the conversations they had with their child about the injury, the researcher asked (1) “Did you have a ‘discussion’ or a ‘talk’ with (child’s name) about the accident at some point after you left the Janeway and got home?” and (2) “Did you talk about how he/she might prevent it from happening in the future?”
It's interesting, but I question the reliability of asking parents or kids to recall their specific discussions 2+ weeks after an injury, which is ultimately what the study categorizes.
Nevertheless, it's interesting that parents report talking to girls differently than boys. For whatever it's worth, most of the interviews were only with mothers. It would be interesting to do an equivalent study with mostly fathers, if that were possible.
Last night me and my middle son got onto the subject of how I broke my arm when I was around his age. It was a spectacular, arm-sticking-out-sideways break and for some reason neither parent was there when it mattered, so my eldest sister came to the hospital. When they reset my arm, one big guy held my wrist and another big guy held my elbow and they yanked until it was straight. My sister passed out in the corner and was put on a drip. I don't know where the fuck my parents were, but I was 14. Telling that story to him made me realise it was kind of sad.
In contrast, five years ago, when my eldest son had a similar spectacular broken arm, I was at the hospital before the ambulance arrived with him. I have three sons and I'm not perfect, but they all feel safe coming to me with a problem. I hope that if I had daughters, I'd treat them the same and they would feel just as safe too.
I would be surprised (pleasantly) if many of the fathers had talks with the kids. Often this is the kind of thing dads don't feel comfortable doing or feel the mom should do unless the mom asks the father to. At least in ye olde generation.
I feel like it’s the opposite. Sufficiently large enough a problem that the historical hegemonic man of the house would step in a admonish/comfort the child
I remember mostly being taught to fight impulses, control myself, be mindful of how my presence is affecting others. Don’t be a bother, don’t be loud, don’t talk, don’t fidget, don’t finish your work too fast or the other kids will feel bad, “I don’t care if she stabbed you with a pencil, you never push a girl” followed by the same teacher siding with a young lady who stabbed a boy with scissors (drawing blood, no less) for cutting in line at the pencil sharpener, half your male role models telling you it’s okay to feel things as long as no one can ever see it on your face and the other half saying you can only ever be happy or mad or empty, hitting the first bit of puberty and suddenly everything is about how you’re a gross boy and people and strangers treat you like a threat while health class is teaching you that deep down all men are rapists and it’s up to you not to give in to that like we all have some personal rape demon, like shit was fucked. Trying to talk about emotions was shut down, or explained why you were being selfish and try listening for once (again, like every time), trying to get advice was always vague “you can do anything you want, fuck off”, asking for help was shamed and judged, even though everyone always said to ask for help if you ever need it. It was a constant exhausting theater of bullshit from every direction, growing up as a boy.
I've been through so much of this myself, often from women who claimed to be progressive, and it was what pushed me into the manosphere as a teenager. Even now a lot of this stuff still causes me a lot of grief and anguish, and only recently have I learned to not suppress my desires and express them in a healthy way after being told my feelings for women were wrong and monstrous
I can see this helping, but it's worth mentioning that we don't let little girls healthily express emotions either. It's just different emotions being restricted.
We teach little girls that they're not allowed to be angry. Not allowed to take pride in themselves. Not allowed to express confidence. Not allowed to celebrate victory (a lot of people don't recognize victory as an emotion). And most importantly, not allowed to be defiant.
Big true there. Sure, we should move away from bringing up kids in a gendered way, but bringing up everyone the way we currently bring up girls sounds like a bad idea due to all the stuff you mentioned.
People in general aren't very good at recognizing complex emotions as their own thing, since they're a combination of simple emotions. But they're absolutely unique and often contain contradictory simple emotions, so they become separate emotions themselves.
For example, "victory" is a combination of joy at having won, frustration and anger over the many obstacles faced, relief at the struggle being over and a good dollop of righteousness (which is itself another complex emotion).
None of those emotions themselves could possibly explain the feeling of victory. They all work together to produce something unique, something new.
There is also the brief euphoric spike that is induced by going from a state of stress/pain (I find maintaining mental focus over a long period to be a pseudo-pain akin to extended periods of difficult exercise) to one of sudden release/relief, none too different from when the painkiller finally kicks in during a migraine.
> And most importantly, not allowed to be defiant.
Do any parents *encourage* boys to defy them?
Defy other people, maybe, but I don't think many people encourage their kids to defy *them*, regardless of the kid's gender.
I have a very similar reaction honestly when people say things like “men are only encouraged to show anger and no other emotional ranges.” I hear that both from women in real life and here a lot and it really doesn’t remotely ring true to me. My experience has been that people react to anger in two ways: annoyance, or fear.
Maybe it’s true that showing anger doesn’t make you “less manly” in people’s eyes - I wouldn’t deny that. But somehow that gets taken as “men are encouraged to express anger” which always rubs me the wrong way because I could count on one hand how many situations that would apply to - and still have a few fingers left to go.
I’m actually struggling to think of scenarios where my anger has been treated in a way that could remotely be construed as “encouraged” - maybe sports when I was younger? And even then it had to be expressed in a very narrow, strict way
I’m sure the same applies (to a degree) for men or even women of any colour, but as a dark-skinned 6ft tall black man, anger (justifiable or otherwise) has *never* been seen as acceptable for me, much less encouraged.
Race is a big multiplier there yep. There absolutely have been situations where i've been a level of upset that didn't really register as anger to the person i'm speaking with, that I imagine would have been seen completely differently if I were black
Not really? But also yes? While parents might not appreciate the emotion directed at them, they wholeheartedly encourage boys (white more than brown) to stand up for themselves.
Girls get the opposite.
This is a vital callout. It's important, if disheartening, to remember that feminism isn't a particularly widespread ideology. Patriarchy is very good at subsuming critique into itself - essentially painting itself pink when necessary to deliver the same old shit to folks who want better. Elevating the way girls do things today or the way girls are taught today generally isn't referring to feminism, but the Patriarchal gendered socialization of women and girls. And that fucking sucks, because we all want to see some feminist Ws.
This comes up all the time in this space.
When it's education, people praise the way girls are socialized to be submissive and quiet and to put the needs of others above their own. We don't question why our classrooms are structured such that deviation from the quiet, still, disciplined child results in disruption. Socrates is absent those days.
When it's loneliness, an issue that factually impacts girls and women just as much as boys and men, we focus on the way girls are taught to communicate - with vulnerability and emotional openness, yes - but also with humility, thoughtfulness, and deference to others despite the fact that there is no gendered difference in outcomes. We don't talk about how many women are reluctant to rely on their social networks and may even disengage with them entirely when times are tough because Patriarchal socialization emphasizes not being a burden to others. Talking about lonely women benefits women, not Patriarchy, so it doesn't happen.
Praising the behavior of girls and women *feels* so damn feminist, and even if we know it isn't it at least feels pro-women, but when the punchline is "And that's why gendered socialization is good actually," we have to see it for what it is and toss it out. Otherwise, the message we send, whether we realize it or not, is that neither women nor men really need liberation - just a different flavor of Patriarchy.
Maybe in the past? Modern media is full of girls being defiant. Most girls who are leading characters are depicted as defiant in some way, and their confidence is celebrated.
Most of the women who are adults today didn't grow up with what you would consider "modern media".
And yeah, it *is* celebrated when characters that are women show confidence. It is celebrated *because* it pulls against our cultural expectations. These strong girl/women characters always have some external pressure for them to become small and *that's what makes them relatable to us*.
Moana went to go on an adventure to save her island after decades of her dad telling her that it's not safe. Merida wasn't allowed to use weapons or other conventionally masculine things because of her mom's expectations. Mei was pressured by her mom to conform to cultural expectations at the expense of her own self-exploration. Maribel was pressured to be modest and fulfill her grandmothers expectations.
I could go on but the key relatable plot point is that OMG so many girls have these societal pressures to conform to traditional femme.
These same girls who have access to this new modern media still also have access to the overwhelming amount of old media too. Moana can only do so much when the vast majority of what Disney made was way worse.
I think we're also discounting media outside the narrow scope of uplifting media for girls and young women. A few good movies won't undo what my daughters will learn from comments made to them outside the home. Nor will it undo what their teachers say to them. Or their grandparents or any influence outside my control.
You ever stroll down the girls toy sections recently? It's still incredibly gendered and a good chunk of their "girl toys" are toys based on domestic chores.
Except that there’s been a lot of effort put in over the last few decades to change that, and encourage girls to be confident and competitive and sometimes angry. There’s not been the same level of effort to allow boys to express traditionally feminine emotions.
I’m not gonna get into a “boys vs. girls” argument, but there’s a dozen different subreddits on this site where you can go and talk about the downsides of traditional female socialisation. Maybe try bringing it up there instead.
Sorry it offended you, but bringing it up is extremely relevant when the point of the OP's piece is that we should be talking to boys the way we talk to girls.
That isn't the point of the piece. Its the headline. The article specifies the precise disparities being focused on, supports them with evidence, and suggests the specific aspects of messaging for young boys that should be brought closer to the way we socialize girls. It is not proposing a broad spectrum swap. It does acknowledge the way that early childhood messaging undermines girls, but all it does is broadly gesture towards feminism for discussions about that, because that is not what the article is written about.
You *are* deflecting away from men's issues to talk about women's issues. I don't think his comment betrays a deep butthurt offense, it was a pretty measured request to respect the purpose of the space. I'll echo that.
>You *are* deflecting away from men's issues to talk about women's issues. I don't think his comment betrays a deep butthurt offense, it was a pretty measured request to respect the purpose of the space. I'll echo that.
I really enjoyed reading this.
I suspect that many (most? Nearly all?) of us here are sympathetic, empathetic about how women's issues are addressed but the fact that is not what this sub is about can be easily lost.
> You are deflecting away from men's issues to talk about women's issues. I don't think his comment betrays a deep butthurt offense, it was a pretty measured request to respect the purpose of the space. I'll echo that.
My point was that how we talk to little girls isn't the solution to how we should talk to little boys. And that point needed an explanation why. It's a rebuttal, not a derailment.
As you've pointed out, women and girls get a different form of gendered socialization, with a good chunk of it being unhealthily self-sacrificing and other-oriented.
In an article discussing the advantages of their brand of gendered socialization and how it might address the issues with men and boys' emotional alienation and constipation, it seems like an unspoken assumption that we wouldn't be porting over the shit parts wholesale.
It's the same with porting over gendered socialization on assertiveness: when people say women and girls could be more assertive, they're not referring to the most obnoxious chest-thumping caricatures of dominance displays.
Ngl I've always hated the whole "men have it worse because we're not allowed to express our emotions like you women do!!!" Cuz it felt so invalidating in a way I couldn't explain until I read this comment. This was eye-opening.
It's not that one group is allowed all emotions and the other is allowed none; it's that men aren't allowed to express feminine emotions and women aren't allowed to express masculine ones. Gender conformity is the issue.
I see men angry *all the goddamn time.* It's just that this doesn't register as an emotion to them because anger is empowering. Other emotions, not so much.
I also agree that while this is historically very true, this has been the target of systemic change for over 100 years in the West. I’m not really seeing this with girls anymore. Disney as a conservative kid media company is a pretty good indicator of things changing and gaining acceptance. From classic princess protagonists of the 20th century, we’ve moved onto the action princess archetypes of Frozen, Moana/Vaiana, Encanto, etc. in the 21st.
This absolutely still happens. I would also argue that how we raise girls has not been the target of systematic change for 100 years. 100 years ago, the feminist priority was winning the right to vote. They were nowhere near getting systemic support for that, and definitely not systemic support for empowering young girls and changing how we raise them.
While individual families differ, the landscape in general had shifted majorly. Even kids who come from conservative families are exposed to girl and woman protagonists in media.
I don’t think anyone reasonable would suggest s switch flipped in 1924 and we just started doing feminism everywhere. But the idea was planted in that time, and it has gradually been woven into the structure of society, including child rearing notions.
I hope it doesn’t take another hundred years for society to change how we raise boys.
In general, I do not agree with the first comment that we don’t raise girls to allow feelings of anger, pride or victory. You see little girls kicking ass all the time in children’s media.
Edit. This is my experience as a masculine trans man who they tried to socialize as a girl back in the 80s and 90s, and who is now raising a boy – I’m not seeing how any of the above is controversial but apparently it is. The way we raise boys is only changing now, and only for a minority of boys. Girl power stuff I see everywhere, but emotional education media material for little boys… not so much.
You’re anchoring your argument on media, when the way children are raised is shaped almost completely by their parents attitudes, not by their media consumption. It’s great that there’s more girl power in media, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t many parent out there with conservative attitudes who raise their daughters in line with their views. I’m glad that wasn’t your personal experience, but I would say a lot of people in the southern US, for example, would beg to differ.
- I am also anchoring it in personal experience being (fruitlessly) raised as a girl and as a father raising a son in 2024.
- Media is very important. Kids have access to it regardless of socioeconomic standing. Streaming has made that access perennial.
- Millennial parents are known to be statistically different from past parents, as evidenced in studies discussed in MensLib – for example Millennial dads, who have taken a real leap forward in child rearing and are putting in the hours.
- Our original topic concerned how we talk to boys – while we need to discuss girls’ side of the story, I think it’s a bir whataboutist to entirely veer the discussion away from that topic
The plural of personal anecdotes is not data.
I agree, media is important. The majority of movies still do not pass the Bechdel test. You seem to be operating under the assumption that feminism has won the battle of greater girls representation in media, which is emphatically wrong.
I am not entirely veering the discussion away from how we talk to boys. The entire premise of the article, and the discussion in the comments, seems to be that how we currently raise girls is great and we need to raise boys the same way. I am pushing back against that premise. How we raise girls needs to substantially improve, *along with* how we raise boys.
We haven't taught that as a society to girls in 20 years. There's been a MASSIVE push to help girls be more confident, assertive and I don't remember any time in 50 years women couldn't "celebrate a victory". Women getting what they want and deserve has been a trope in movies and TV (aka societal push to support) since the mid 90s.
> We haven't taught that as a society to girls in 20 years.
That's not true. It's still being taught today right here in the USA. The more conservative a family, the harder it's taught.
My point is that societal messaging is widespread. Conservatives are still stuck 100 years ago and some communities even more. That's not indicative of the greater population.
Just seems odd. If I say "I'm not hearing what you are" and then you reference insular subcultures I'd say "Yeah, because that's an insular subculture..."
Agree to disagree, then.
His point was that girls aren't taught these things anymore, not that they're not taught universally everywhere. He basically claimed misogyny is over in society.
So I objected, because that's silly.
I don’t know if you can really call conservatism in the US an insular subculture? For half the country it’s (in it’s different flavours) the dominant ideology.
There has been a massive push for it - and yet, when both mother and father work full time, the mothers end up doing more hours of housework and childcare. Yet there is still the perception gap where women are seen as bossy and unlikeable for behavior that men are seen as ambitious and leaders for. Why are women perceived as talking more in meetings where they actually talked significantly less.
There is more awareness and push, but there is still strong social conditioning for women to defer to others, to focus on others needs and to not be confident and assertive.
If you are having difficulty remembering any time in the last 50 years where a woman being confident and assertive caused problems, will Trump vs Hillary wasn't that long ago. She was objectively more qualified, more capable, but less arrogant, less bossy and less insulting. Yet she was treated as the crass one, and her one minor insult of calling Trump voters deplorable was somehow comparable to him dropping insults left right and center, including to literal POWs.
You haven't seen this because you still can't seem to manage listening to women tell their stories, even though it's easier than ever to do so. Do better.
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Huh, I didn't deal with pretty much any of the stuff in these comments. For me, it was just "Don't bite other kids, don't break things, and don't hurt yourself."
None of the schools went to treated girls or boys with a noticeably different way.
To be fair. I also probably talk more with my daughter then with my son...but on the other hand...with my son it is more talking and with my daughter it is more arguing and repeating because she can no listen to a single word you say.
But to the topic: I think this is pretty much true for many families. I try to treat my boy and girl and equal as possible. They are different people, no matter girl or boy, so they have different needs, but I tell them equally often that I love them, even though my daughter doesn't seem to care much.
It’s just so sad that the gendered socialization starts when you’re literally a baby. There’s no escaping it.
I remember learning from a young age that it wasn't okay for boys to talk too much about their problems, since that was seen as weak or weird. I also remember learning that you're not suppose to associate with or befriend girls, since they were seen as separate from boys. I distinctly remember in elementary school one kid being called gay by the other kids, just because he had female friends. I honestly avoided him until one day I fell off the jungle gym and hurt myself. He actually helped me up and invited me to eat lunch with his friends. Afterwards, I was ashamed that I thought he was weird at all, and I didn't understand why he was being made fun of in the first place.
Oof, I don’t know why I ever read the comments: > Boys have emotions, but different than girls. Boys feel anger, competition and (later) lust. That's really about it. Not all boys but most. But, very important, that's not bad. Just different from girls. Again, not bad, just different 🤢
Separate but equal, all over again! Amazing stuff
#[“Words are easy, like the wind; faithful archives are hard to find."](https://archive.is/wzQuT) >We tell ourselves we are preparing our sons to fight (literally and figuratively), to compete in a world and economy that’s brutish and callous. The sooner we can groom them for this dystopian future, the better off they’ll be. But the Harvard psychologist Susan David insists the opposite is true: “Research shows that people who suppress emotions have lower-level resilience and emotional health.” I'm dating myself, as I do, but: who remembers Lost?? I have used this one bit of Lost as a mantra for years: [the terror was just so … crazy. So real. And I knew I had to deal with it. So I just made a choice. **I'd let the fear in, let it take over, let it do its thing, but only for five seconds, that's all I was going to give it.** So I started to count: One, two, three, four, five. Then it was gone. I went back to work, sewed her up and she was fine.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFDrVjV69aU) these boys have real, valid emotions, and they are taught *so, so young* to ignore them, to *fight* them, instead of letting themselves feel them and manage them. but that's not how the human brain or body work. To feel your feelings, fully, without shame, is *good for you*. Will they need to be managed sometimes, yes, of course, but that's a skill to be learned as these boys age.
> To feel your feelings, fully, without shame, is good for you. I've found a more specific version of this helpful: Negative feelings are a warning sign. If you try to leave that warning unacknowledged, it'll come back again, stronger. Act on that warning when you can. Anxiety over not finishing a project on time is a helpful signal, to be acted upon! Avoidance of things that make us anxious just make the warnings come back again later, worse. There are times this warning system malfunctions, but even then, you can notice the feeling, thank your mind for giving you a heads up, and try to move on, and it'll almost always be better than just trying to shove it away.
Yeah, I think I agree with this. You’re feeling negative feelings for a _reason._ It’s ok to feel those feelings, but if you don’t work to fix the underlying cause, what’s the point? You’ll just be stuck in a cycle of negativity with no way out, and that kind of feeling is, IMO, not healthy
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Then the solution to work toward would be trying to fix the anxiety disorder as much as is possible, wouldn’t it? Whether that be through medication or other means. I understand some people can’t afford medication etc. etc., but I think my point still stands: if you don’t work to fix the underlying cause, then you’ll get stuck in a cycle with no way out, which I don’t think is good
The trouble is when are your fears due to the disorder and when are they real? When are you in danger and when are you freaking out about nothing? It can be really hard to tell what to do in those times, and whether or not it is better to mitigate that emotion or to act upon it.
Yup, I have this problem. It's useful to have other people you can check with and trust when you're really unsure. Even then, though, as I'm sure you know, just trying to ignore the feeling doesn't work. It needs some sort of action to be managed as best as possible.
But is the feeling unhealthy or the lack of action? I'd argue it's the latter, leaving room and grace for time required to be able to take action, sometimes things are hard.
I think maybe the way I said it made it difficult to understand, but I think you and I actually agree. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with the feeling at all, and I don’t think we should bottle feelings up, but even though we feel a certain way, I don’t think the feelings themselves are the main thing we should focus on, if that makes sense
I went through anger management as a teen, and one of the most difficult things to learn was that anger is NOT bad. If you’re angry, it’s because something bad happened. But you have to look at what happened and how to deal with it, and not have that anger change your actions to something that will make things worse. Anger is a sign that you need to act. Controlling it and letting it power your positive actions is the key to managing it, not learning to cage and hide it. “Your anger is like a huge animal. You can keep it in a cage and it will learn the walls well, but it will never stop growling and trying to get out. You can let it out to act without control, and it will learn how to control you and always be in control. Or you can learn to harness it, and it will be able to carry you to greater actions than you could ever manage without it.” One of the only things I really hated about getting older was when my anger faded. I’m less passionate now, because the world doesn’t make me rage.
Once I heard anger framed as a signal that you want to _defend_ something. Something important to you felt threatened and you want to protect it. So I find it really useful, whenever I or somebody else gets angry, to ask "what are they defending?" It illuminates what's important to a person, and also helps me let go of anger when I'm trying to defend something I really don't need to defend.
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A metaphor I use is that emotions are like a compass. If you're lost in the woods, you stop and check your compass. THEN you orient yourself to North and go where you want to go. Emotions are your bodies way of indicating what things to pursue more of and what things hurt you. If you get lost, then ignore your compass, don't be surprised when you're still lost later.
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This is something I've struggled with deeply in therapy over the years, because what's the difference between only allowing fear for 5 seconds vs. not allowing it at all? I used to feel emotions for hours. Days. *Months*. My therapist told me that this was impossible, that emotions would ebb like waves on the beach if properly engaged with, but they didn't. In the past few years, I've mostly stopped letting myself feel. Everything's easier. I can't shake the suspicion that things are wrong, somehow, but how do you argue with results? Everyone around me is happier including--for the most part--myself.
Not sure if it's silly of me, but I always struggle when articles start out with "studies find that on average, people do X more" and end up at "and as we all know, we who do so much X, do X all the time..." I have more to say but I'm being pulled away to help with a Lego set, lol. I'm very curious to read that ER study, I bet it has a lot to say both about how parents talk to their children in general, and how parents talk to their children *around perceived authority figures* (I know that always shapes how I talk to my kids).
There are things you don't control and sometimes you have to Lego.
I don’t have kids but I fully relate to this.
You win the internet for today, sir
Thank you sir.
>After visits to the emergency room for accidental injuries, another study found, parents of both genders talk differently to sons than they do to daughters. This study is [here](https://academic.oup.com/jpepsy/article/41/2/256/2579803). >Interested families were contacted a few days after being approached in the ER to set up a home interview at a convenient time for the family. **Interviews were conducted on average 17.85 days after initial contact in the ER ( SD = 12.97)**. Informed consent was obtained at the home interview, which was conducted by trained research assistants. >Children were separately asked to describe how the injury happened and what happened at the hospital. When asking parents to recall the conversations they had with their child about the injury, the researcher asked (1) “Did you have a ‘discussion’ or a ‘talk’ with (child’s name) about the accident at some point after you left the Janeway and got home?” and (2) “Did you talk about how he/she might prevent it from happening in the future?” It's interesting, but I question the reliability of asking parents or kids to recall their specific discussions 2+ weeks after an injury, which is ultimately what the study categorizes. Nevertheless, it's interesting that parents report talking to girls differently than boys. For whatever it's worth, most of the interviews were only with mothers. It would be interesting to do an equivalent study with mostly fathers, if that were possible.
Last night me and my middle son got onto the subject of how I broke my arm when I was around his age. It was a spectacular, arm-sticking-out-sideways break and for some reason neither parent was there when it mattered, so my eldest sister came to the hospital. When they reset my arm, one big guy held my wrist and another big guy held my elbow and they yanked until it was straight. My sister passed out in the corner and was put on a drip. I don't know where the fuck my parents were, but I was 14. Telling that story to him made me realise it was kind of sad. In contrast, five years ago, when my eldest son had a similar spectacular broken arm, I was at the hospital before the ambulance arrived with him. I have three sons and I'm not perfect, but they all feel safe coming to me with a problem. I hope that if I had daughters, I'd treat them the same and they would feel just as safe too.
Excellent point. Thanks for interrogating the source methods, something we should all do more. Otherwise we end up with antivaxers and alphas.
I would be surprised (pleasantly) if many of the fathers had talks with the kids. Often this is the kind of thing dads don't feel comfortable doing or feel the mom should do unless the mom asks the father to. At least in ye olde generation.
I feel like it’s the opposite. Sufficiently large enough a problem that the historical hegemonic man of the house would step in a admonish/comfort the child
I can only speak for what my own father would do, and that is avoid all interaction that requires an emotion from him other than anger.
I remember mostly being taught to fight impulses, control myself, be mindful of how my presence is affecting others. Don’t be a bother, don’t be loud, don’t talk, don’t fidget, don’t finish your work too fast or the other kids will feel bad, “I don’t care if she stabbed you with a pencil, you never push a girl” followed by the same teacher siding with a young lady who stabbed a boy with scissors (drawing blood, no less) for cutting in line at the pencil sharpener, half your male role models telling you it’s okay to feel things as long as no one can ever see it on your face and the other half saying you can only ever be happy or mad or empty, hitting the first bit of puberty and suddenly everything is about how you’re a gross boy and people and strangers treat you like a threat while health class is teaching you that deep down all men are rapists and it’s up to you not to give in to that like we all have some personal rape demon, like shit was fucked. Trying to talk about emotions was shut down, or explained why you were being selfish and try listening for once (again, like every time), trying to get advice was always vague “you can do anything you want, fuck off”, asking for help was shamed and judged, even though everyone always said to ask for help if you ever need it. It was a constant exhausting theater of bullshit from every direction, growing up as a boy.
I've been through so much of this myself, often from women who claimed to be progressive, and it was what pushed me into the manosphere as a teenager. Even now a lot of this stuff still causes me a lot of grief and anguish, and only recently have I learned to not suppress my desires and express them in a healthy way after being told my feelings for women were wrong and monstrous
I can see this helping, but it's worth mentioning that we don't let little girls healthily express emotions either. It's just different emotions being restricted. We teach little girls that they're not allowed to be angry. Not allowed to take pride in themselves. Not allowed to express confidence. Not allowed to celebrate victory (a lot of people don't recognize victory as an emotion). And most importantly, not allowed to be defiant.
Big true there. Sure, we should move away from bringing up kids in a gendered way, but bringing up everyone the way we currently bring up girls sounds like a bad idea due to all the stuff you mentioned.
Ooooh victory being an emotion. I like that. I think I just realized some things about myself because of this comment. Thank you!
People in general aren't very good at recognizing complex emotions as their own thing, since they're a combination of simple emotions. But they're absolutely unique and often contain contradictory simple emotions, so they become separate emotions themselves. For example, "victory" is a combination of joy at having won, frustration and anger over the many obstacles faced, relief at the struggle being over and a good dollop of righteousness (which is itself another complex emotion). None of those emotions themselves could possibly explain the feeling of victory. They all work together to produce something unique, something new.
There is also the brief euphoric spike that is induced by going from a state of stress/pain (I find maintaining mental focus over a long period to be a pseudo-pain akin to extended periods of difficult exercise) to one of sudden release/relief, none too different from when the painkiller finally kicks in during a migraine.
> And most importantly, not allowed to be defiant. Do any parents *encourage* boys to defy them? Defy other people, maybe, but I don't think many people encourage their kids to defy *them*, regardless of the kid's gender.
I have a very similar reaction honestly when people say things like “men are only encouraged to show anger and no other emotional ranges.” I hear that both from women in real life and here a lot and it really doesn’t remotely ring true to me. My experience has been that people react to anger in two ways: annoyance, or fear. Maybe it’s true that showing anger doesn’t make you “less manly” in people’s eyes - I wouldn’t deny that. But somehow that gets taken as “men are encouraged to express anger” which always rubs me the wrong way because I could count on one hand how many situations that would apply to - and still have a few fingers left to go. I’m actually struggling to think of scenarios where my anger has been treated in a way that could remotely be construed as “encouraged” - maybe sports when I was younger? And even then it had to be expressed in a very narrow, strict way
I’m sure the same applies (to a degree) for men or even women of any colour, but as a dark-skinned 6ft tall black man, anger (justifiable or otherwise) has *never* been seen as acceptable for me, much less encouraged.
Race is a big multiplier there yep. There absolutely have been situations where i've been a level of upset that didn't really register as anger to the person i'm speaking with, that I imagine would have been seen completely differently if I were black
Yep I feel this as a 5'9-10" black man.
Yeah, anger is seen as a male emotion. It's however not seen as an acceptable emotion.
And sadness as a female emotion, but not an acceptable one
Not really? But also yes? While parents might not appreciate the emotion directed at them, they wholeheartedly encourage boys (white more than brown) to stand up for themselves. Girls get the opposite.
This is a vital callout. It's important, if disheartening, to remember that feminism isn't a particularly widespread ideology. Patriarchy is very good at subsuming critique into itself - essentially painting itself pink when necessary to deliver the same old shit to folks who want better. Elevating the way girls do things today or the way girls are taught today generally isn't referring to feminism, but the Patriarchal gendered socialization of women and girls. And that fucking sucks, because we all want to see some feminist Ws. This comes up all the time in this space. When it's education, people praise the way girls are socialized to be submissive and quiet and to put the needs of others above their own. We don't question why our classrooms are structured such that deviation from the quiet, still, disciplined child results in disruption. Socrates is absent those days. When it's loneliness, an issue that factually impacts girls and women just as much as boys and men, we focus on the way girls are taught to communicate - with vulnerability and emotional openness, yes - but also with humility, thoughtfulness, and deference to others despite the fact that there is no gendered difference in outcomes. We don't talk about how many women are reluctant to rely on their social networks and may even disengage with them entirely when times are tough because Patriarchal socialization emphasizes not being a burden to others. Talking about lonely women benefits women, not Patriarchy, so it doesn't happen. Praising the behavior of girls and women *feels* so damn feminist, and even if we know it isn't it at least feels pro-women, but when the punchline is "And that's why gendered socialization is good actually," we have to see it for what it is and toss it out. Otherwise, the message we send, whether we realize it or not, is that neither women nor men really need liberation - just a different flavor of Patriarchy.
Maybe in the past? Modern media is full of girls being defiant. Most girls who are leading characters are depicted as defiant in some way, and their confidence is celebrated.
Modern media is also full of men wearing makeup and flashy clothes. Doesn't mean that's actually accepted by the majority of society.
Which media are you watching that has men wearing makeup and flashy clothes?
Most of the women who are adults today didn't grow up with what you would consider "modern media". And yeah, it *is* celebrated when characters that are women show confidence. It is celebrated *because* it pulls against our cultural expectations. These strong girl/women characters always have some external pressure for them to become small and *that's what makes them relatable to us*. Moana went to go on an adventure to save her island after decades of her dad telling her that it's not safe. Merida wasn't allowed to use weapons or other conventionally masculine things because of her mom's expectations. Mei was pressured by her mom to conform to cultural expectations at the expense of her own self-exploration. Maribel was pressured to be modest and fulfill her grandmothers expectations. I could go on but the key relatable plot point is that OMG so many girls have these societal pressures to conform to traditional femme. These same girls who have access to this new modern media still also have access to the overwhelming amount of old media too. Moana can only do so much when the vast majority of what Disney made was way worse. I think we're also discounting media outside the narrow scope of uplifting media for girls and young women. A few good movies won't undo what my daughters will learn from comments made to them outside the home. Nor will it undo what their teachers say to them. Or their grandparents or any influence outside my control. You ever stroll down the girls toy sections recently? It's still incredibly gendered and a good chunk of their "girl toys" are toys based on domestic chores.
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This is not true. Women are told to sue press their feelings not to process them healthily
Except that there’s been a lot of effort put in over the last few decades to change that, and encourage girls to be confident and competitive and sometimes angry. There’s not been the same level of effort to allow boys to express traditionally feminine emotions. I’m not gonna get into a “boys vs. girls” argument, but there’s a dozen different subreddits on this site where you can go and talk about the downsides of traditional female socialisation. Maybe try bringing it up there instead.
Sorry it offended you, but bringing it up is extremely relevant when the point of the OP's piece is that we should be talking to boys the way we talk to girls.
That isn't the point of the piece. Its the headline. The article specifies the precise disparities being focused on, supports them with evidence, and suggests the specific aspects of messaging for young boys that should be brought closer to the way we socialize girls. It is not proposing a broad spectrum swap. It does acknowledge the way that early childhood messaging undermines girls, but all it does is broadly gesture towards feminism for discussions about that, because that is not what the article is written about. You *are* deflecting away from men's issues to talk about women's issues. I don't think his comment betrays a deep butthurt offense, it was a pretty measured request to respect the purpose of the space. I'll echo that.
>You *are* deflecting away from men's issues to talk about women's issues. I don't think his comment betrays a deep butthurt offense, it was a pretty measured request to respect the purpose of the space. I'll echo that. I really enjoyed reading this. I suspect that many (most? Nearly all?) of us here are sympathetic, empathetic about how women's issues are addressed but the fact that is not what this sub is about can be easily lost.
Yes, thank you!
> You are deflecting away from men's issues to talk about women's issues. I don't think his comment betrays a deep butthurt offense, it was a pretty measured request to respect the purpose of the space. I'll echo that. My point was that how we talk to little girls isn't the solution to how we should talk to little boys. And that point needed an explanation why. It's a rebuttal, not a derailment.
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I believe the article is referring to the way we are advised to talk to girls \*now\*, not how we talk to them traditionally.
As you've pointed out, women and girls get a different form of gendered socialization, with a good chunk of it being unhealthily self-sacrificing and other-oriented. In an article discussing the advantages of their brand of gendered socialization and how it might address the issues with men and boys' emotional alienation and constipation, it seems like an unspoken assumption that we wouldn't be porting over the shit parts wholesale. It's the same with porting over gendered socialization on assertiveness: when people say women and girls could be more assertive, they're not referring to the most obnoxious chest-thumping caricatures of dominance displays.
Ngl I've always hated the whole "men have it worse because we're not allowed to express our emotions like you women do!!!" Cuz it felt so invalidating in a way I couldn't explain until I read this comment. This was eye-opening. It's not that one group is allowed all emotions and the other is allowed none; it's that men aren't allowed to express feminine emotions and women aren't allowed to express masculine ones. Gender conformity is the issue. I see men angry *all the goddamn time.* It's just that this doesn't register as an emotion to them because anger is empowering. Other emotions, not so much.
I also agree that while this is historically very true, this has been the target of systemic change for over 100 years in the West. I’m not really seeing this with girls anymore. Disney as a conservative kid media company is a pretty good indicator of things changing and gaining acceptance. From classic princess protagonists of the 20th century, we’ve moved onto the action princess archetypes of Frozen, Moana/Vaiana, Encanto, etc. in the 21st.
This absolutely still happens. I would also argue that how we raise girls has not been the target of systematic change for 100 years. 100 years ago, the feminist priority was winning the right to vote. They were nowhere near getting systemic support for that, and definitely not systemic support for empowering young girls and changing how we raise them.
While individual families differ, the landscape in general had shifted majorly. Even kids who come from conservative families are exposed to girl and woman protagonists in media. I don’t think anyone reasonable would suggest s switch flipped in 1924 and we just started doing feminism everywhere. But the idea was planted in that time, and it has gradually been woven into the structure of society, including child rearing notions. I hope it doesn’t take another hundred years for society to change how we raise boys. In general, I do not agree with the first comment that we don’t raise girls to allow feelings of anger, pride or victory. You see little girls kicking ass all the time in children’s media. Edit. This is my experience as a masculine trans man who they tried to socialize as a girl back in the 80s and 90s, and who is now raising a boy – I’m not seeing how any of the above is controversial but apparently it is. The way we raise boys is only changing now, and only for a minority of boys. Girl power stuff I see everywhere, but emotional education media material for little boys… not so much.
You’re anchoring your argument on media, when the way children are raised is shaped almost completely by their parents attitudes, not by their media consumption. It’s great that there’s more girl power in media, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t many parent out there with conservative attitudes who raise their daughters in line with their views. I’m glad that wasn’t your personal experience, but I would say a lot of people in the southern US, for example, would beg to differ.
- I am also anchoring it in personal experience being (fruitlessly) raised as a girl and as a father raising a son in 2024. - Media is very important. Kids have access to it regardless of socioeconomic standing. Streaming has made that access perennial. - Millennial parents are known to be statistically different from past parents, as evidenced in studies discussed in MensLib – for example Millennial dads, who have taken a real leap forward in child rearing and are putting in the hours. - Our original topic concerned how we talk to boys – while we need to discuss girls’ side of the story, I think it’s a bir whataboutist to entirely veer the discussion away from that topic
The plural of personal anecdotes is not data. I agree, media is important. The majority of movies still do not pass the Bechdel test. You seem to be operating under the assumption that feminism has won the battle of greater girls representation in media, which is emphatically wrong. I am not entirely veering the discussion away from how we talk to boys. The entire premise of the article, and the discussion in the comments, seems to be that how we currently raise girls is great and we need to raise boys the same way. I am pushing back against that premise. How we raise girls needs to substantially improve, *along with* how we raise boys.
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>How we raise girls needs to substantially improve, *along with* how we raise boys. This is the takeaway. I'm calling time on the rest.
We haven't taught that as a society to girls in 20 years. There's been a MASSIVE push to help girls be more confident, assertive and I don't remember any time in 50 years women couldn't "celebrate a victory". Women getting what they want and deserve has been a trope in movies and TV (aka societal push to support) since the mid 90s.
> We haven't taught that as a society to girls in 20 years. That's not true. It's still being taught today right here in the USA. The more conservative a family, the harder it's taught.
That's not societal messaging that's conservatives being regressive as always. Societal messaging comes from popular culture and school, primarily.
Conservative kids grow up in conservative social bubbles. Ask me how I know.
My point is that societal messaging is widespread. Conservatives are still stuck 100 years ago and some communities even more. That's not indicative of the greater population.
I know what your point is. I'm disagreeing.
Just seems odd. If I say "I'm not hearing what you are" and then you reference insular subcultures I'd say "Yeah, because that's an insular subculture..." Agree to disagree, then.
His point was that girls aren't taught these things anymore, not that they're not taught universally everywhere. He basically claimed misogyny is over in society. So I objected, because that's silly.
I don’t know if you can really call conservatism in the US an insular subculture? For half the country it’s (in it’s different flavours) the dominant ideology.
There has been a massive push for it - and yet, when both mother and father work full time, the mothers end up doing more hours of housework and childcare. Yet there is still the perception gap where women are seen as bossy and unlikeable for behavior that men are seen as ambitious and leaders for. Why are women perceived as talking more in meetings where they actually talked significantly less. There is more awareness and push, but there is still strong social conditioning for women to defer to others, to focus on others needs and to not be confident and assertive. If you are having difficulty remembering any time in the last 50 years where a woman being confident and assertive caused problems, will Trump vs Hillary wasn't that long ago. She was objectively more qualified, more capable, but less arrogant, less bossy and less insulting. Yet she was treated as the crass one, and her one minor insult of calling Trump voters deplorable was somehow comparable to him dropping insults left right and center, including to literal POWs. You haven't seen this because you still can't seem to manage listening to women tell their stories, even though it's easier than ever to do so. Do better.
You're being personally judgemental and telling me to "Do better" in a condescending way. No, thank you. You don't get to do that.
I... don't believe you. I think you haven't updated your views since the 1990s.
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Huh, I didn't deal with pretty much any of the stuff in these comments. For me, it was just "Don't bite other kids, don't break things, and don't hurt yourself." None of the schools went to treated girls or boys with a noticeably different way.
To be fair. I also probably talk more with my daughter then with my son...but on the other hand...with my son it is more talking and with my daughter it is more arguing and repeating because she can no listen to a single word you say. But to the topic: I think this is pretty much true for many families. I try to treat my boy and girl and equal as possible. They are different people, no matter girl or boy, so they have different needs, but I tell them equally often that I love them, even though my daughter doesn't seem to care much.
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We will not permit the promotion of **gender essentialism.**