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I disagree with your take on men being emotionally weaker. It’s merely an excuse to avoid learning emotional intelligence and it’s just a symptom of how they are socialised. Men don’t learn how to properly channel and express their emotions, instead being told to bottle them up or repress themselves from early childhood (stuff like being told “You’re a boy, stop crying” or “Man up and get over it”). It leads to a less empathetic world and makes people insensitive and inconsiderate.
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People in general can learn something from stoicism. From a philosophical standpoint it can be a good place to provide tools for improving yourself from within. However, I also find it hard to accept that men are inherently emotionally weaker than women for many of the reasons mentioned by LoreleiSankTheShip.
Modern societies extert incredible pressure on people to conform to unreasonable expectations which greatly repress individuality. These pressures start early and are persistent. Emotionally intelligent men exist and have always existed. I could easily believe many of these men couldn’t even begin to define or explain stoicism. Their emotional intelligence could have been learned from family, friends, partners or community.
A broad and over generalized expectation of modern men are that they be strong and courageous. That they act as independent individuals to care for their family or community. Traits which could be mistaken for a surface level of stoicism.
What we are seeing today in is very much a lack of emotional intelligence. There is a very noticeable deficiency in emotional intelligence in men when compared to women. Unable to reflect inwards about their motivations and outward actions. Unable to empathetically understand how their actions affect those around them. Unable to to identity, verbalize or express the emotions which are happening within them. As a result, men don’t have the proper understanding of themselves to begin the process of improving themselves. Trans men offer a unique insight into this as they have had the opportunity to experience two worlds of gender expectations.
But humans are social animals. Many mammals exhibit social needs. We can look to our closest friends such as cats and dogs and see how true that is. We’ve reached a point where our social communities are fragmented and broken. The ideal of a strong man is heavily expected to replace that missing sense of community.
It’s become and issue so deep and entangled that it’s hard to know where to even begin. I wish there was a simple -ism to unravel this mess but a person is complex. Eight billion people with eight billion unique perspectives is a level of complexity we just don’t know how to even comprehend or manage.
We can start by teaching emotional understanding from within, by being good examples, by creating and maintaining communities or by calling out bad behavior. Unfortunately, these actions can be attacked. It’s an uphill battle and the hill is looking very steep.
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In order to engage you in meaningful discussion, I need to understand your thoughts and perspectives more from your own words.
Why do you not trust the personal view of another lemmy user? We are on a social platform made for discussing a variety of topics and we will always encounter different views. Hopefully this leads to exploring and expanding our own views on the topics we bring up.
I would also like to stay on the topic of men and emotional intelligence which was brought up by LoreleiSankTheShip. I currently do not see how neurodivergence and generational workforces fit into this discussion unless you can clearly state the connections for me.
I do agree with you that the importance of mental health and it’s approaches are not very well explained. However, empathy carries a lot of weight in the discussion of mental health and should not be undermined or under valued.
Lastly, it’s easy to link a video of an expert, but experts are human and can fall for personal biases too. If you can explain to me your interpretation of what this expert is saying, we can begin to have a thorough discussion. Otherwise, I fear we may be deadlocked and nothing more will come of this.
I did watch your recommended clip and am still struggling to understand your view point.
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Unfortunately I feel this conversation has become deadlocked for a number of reasons.
You have clearly dismissed a fellow person with a valid observation and left no room for open discussion. When given the opportunity to express why you do not agree, you continue to be dismissive.
You have ignored the topics that has been brought up and are being discussed. In this case emotional intelligence, particularly among men.
You have not made an attempt to clearly connect your various points into a cohesive argument.
You have not expressed what you have studied in your own words. To express ideas in your own words would show the rest of us how you perceive and understand a topic. This would be a great base for having a meaningful conversation.
Lastly, you have done nothing but blindly praise an individual on a podcast. If the words in your initial post are true, we should never worship anyone.
Taking a step back away from everyone and everything to think of why we react to other peoples words may help us to understand ourselves better. And that’s a good thing.
At this point I am done. As a fellow individual with ADHD (and Autism), I wish you the best on your mental health journey and I hope you approach it with an open heart and open mind. Thank you for giving me a new perspective for me to think about and hopefully understand in the future.
I agree in principle but this is a slippery slope and they’re not “easy” skills to learn as OP have asked.
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