Thread by @VividVoid_

It's technically true that patriarchy is responsible for the male mental health crisis, and many of men's struggles with emotional vulnerability.

But to put it this way is itself benevolent sexism: it hides the deep emotional and psychological damage done by female aggression.

When women get aggressive, it tends to be social and symbolic, not physical. That is, they tend to attack relationships, rather than bodies - they sabotage bonds, smear reputations, and attempt to damage others' egos - self-relationships - via emotional wounding.

Men are not uniquely victims of this, ofc, women can be especially vicious with one another, as any woman can attest. Intrasexual competition is real, and in many ways, women have unique vulnerabilities to emotional and relational damage, as their power is so linked to the social

But since the time of the MeToo movement, men have also become much more vulnerable to women's aggression. An accusation carries far more weight. A woman's tears, her emotional distress, shuts down debate and greatly limits men's social options - and ability to defend themselves.

The presumption of male-as-aggressor and female-as-victim remains culturally unassailable, despite the new asymmetries. So many men - including me, and many I know - have been deeply damaged by female aggression, with absolutely no prospect for justice or recourse.

If our discourse were ecological, we would recognize men are inseparable from the women in their lives. We'd talk less about "toxic masculinity" and a lot more about traumas that alienate men from the natural authenticity and vulnerability that is their birthright as human beings

Vulnerability is a human need. When ppl feel safe, we naturally express our true selves. We are naturally vulnerable with each other.
It's impossible to *be* authentic. Being authentic is not trying to be anything, it's relaxation and belonging and aliveness to the moment.

A lot of times, men maintain stoicism because our experience with women, and with culture broadly, is that vulnerability is not rewarded. It is in fact ruthlessly manipulated and exploited, you can do nothing to protect yourself from it, and absolutely no one cares. No one.

But culture projects hyperagency, or "rugged individualism" onto men, expecting them to heroically transcend their environment and experience and perform vulnerability, while simultaneously maintaining stability and stoicism.

This is a recipe for schizophrenia - but more than that, it's a demand that men deny their reasonable feelings of protectiveness around their emotional well-being.

To frame our self-protective instincts as "toxic masculinity" is in fact a pathologization of male authenticity.

It's an impossible cultural double standard for men.
And who is better poised to be able to empathize with and understand than women, who have to navigate a thicket of impossible cultural double standards in almost every facet of their lives?

I don't know what the solution is. I don't think the MRAs are ever going to get any traction and frankly, they don't deserve any.
A mass movement isn't going to work for men because at least in this case, it's not really an issue of rights as much as norms and expectations.

I hope that women will learn that they do, in fact, have a lot of power over the men in their lives, and that they have an equal responsibility to exercise self-control over their aggression, because the consequences, the damage, can be just as bad or worse than physical abuse.

I also hope more women start socially confronting other women when they see abusive behavior, in the exact same way that some men will physically confront a man who assaults or bullies women.

But honestly, I'm not holding my breath. Not because women in particular are evil...

On the contrary, I've found that women are about as decent and virtuous on average as men, which is to say, occasionally, and only a little.

But if all of us really could see ecologically - if we could really understand that we're all one thing, that everyone is connected...

We would understand that if we're ever going to see true liberation - the ability for all of us to be authentically ourselves, to be vulnerable with one another, without defense or pretense - it's going to have to be universal.

The alliance has to go both ways.

I haven't gone deeply into the myriad horrors and injustices perpetuated by men and culture onto women in this thread, but I hope you'll believe me when I say that I am a believer and an ally to the women in my life. The project of sexual equality is noble and worthwhile.

It doesn't take away from the social needs of women, nor their unique vulnerabilities to male power, to acknowledge the power and damage of female aggression.
In fact, it is a long overdue acknowledgment of women's very real, equal agency in shaping gender and culture.

There is a male mental health crisis right now, and much of it stems precisely from the intersection of unhealed trauma and the social stigma attached to male weakness.
The insane relationship our culture has to male vulnerability and authenticity is absolutely wrecking us.

Ladies, we badly need your allyship. We can't do it alone, because we're the same thing: differing, complementary manifestations of the same ecology.

If we want to break the cycle, all of us have to do it all at once. There is no separation between us.

There never was.