Thread by @RemakingManhood

THREAD: Women are triangulated on by man box culture in a range of dehumanizing ways. /1

We shame and police emotional expression in very young boys by calling such expression "girly or gay." Thus, cementing in place a drumbeat pattern of the denigration of the feminine as a way to police emotional expression in boys and men. /2

Then we tell boys and men that "conquest" of women is proof of their masculinity. Conquest of the very same girls and women that have been defined as second class human beings through years of man box culture denigration. /3

Boys are expected to treat women as a "conquest" to prove they are men. And many men carry deep shame about these initiations into manhood, either because they did it, or failed to do it. An ugly trap for men and a dangerous trap for the women they are expected to dominate. /4

By falsely gendering our universal capacities for human connection as feminine and using the drumbeat denigration of the feminine to shame boys for wanting connection, we condemn men to a lifetimes of isolation, anxiety, anger, stress-related illnesses and early mortality. /5

The policing of boys and men to treat women as disposable objects never stops. Men who stand up for their own wives are called "p***y whipped." Sexual conquest, ghosting, and the denigration of women drives "locker room talk." The message: Join in abusing women or be suspect. /6

Boys and men must reject the shaming and abuse of man box culture in their own lives in order to also end that culture's constant encouragement of abuse towards women.

Brothers. Save yourselves. Save your sisters. /7

Men, if you are seeking to break out of man box culture, organizations like @mankindproject are ready to help you do your work. /8