: Starbreaker’s “A Masculine Mystique”
Was catching up on starbreaker.org (he frequents the 32-Bit Cafe) and found this post of his from last year entitled “A Masculine Mystique.” It gives the “rules of masculinity” as the author has experienced them. Almost all of them ring true to my experience, too, but the one that jumped out for me was this one:
A man will perform unacknowledged emotional labor that women will not be willing or able to understand, accept, or appreciate even if it is explained to them, while being accused of expecting the women in his life to shoulder “the mental load”. He will do so in order to refrain from alienating those around him, keeping his true feelings and opinions to himself and denying the urge to lash out in anger as even those closest to him mistreat him without realizing it.
I see this in my circle. Women perform emotional labor that is highly visible, though often not recognized or appreciated. They comfort, they take care of elders, they perform cheer. Men’s emotional labor often takes the form of restraint: holding back words, holding back tears, holding back anger. It is hard to recognize “what you don’t do” as a form of labor unto itself.