Thread by @elamin88

Hoooo boy, finally read through #TheManSurvey, and boy, do we need to talk, fellow men. I’m grateful for @Chatelaine for this thorough jumping-off point into a necessary conversation about masculinity. We gotta use it though.

A thread:
chatelaine.com/survey-define-…

This might explain why we’re not so good at talking about fears and emotions. We might not have had role models to tell us it’s okay to be a man *and* be scared, *and* be vulnerable, *and* be down or lost etc etc etc. We need more of that.

We CAN do that for one another though, no? We can be examples of a different kind of...presence? Talk to one or two or three of your friends about the shit that’s genuinely going sideways in your life.

Because here’s the thing: on top of fears and emotions, men have lots of insecurities. The only one on this list that I’ve heard men be publicly insecure about is the job insecurity. The rest: private hells.

No wonder so many men feel lonely. 45% of 25-29 year olds feel lonely. That is staggering.

46% of dudes said they suspected other people of having more sex than them. Y’all, no one is having more sex than you. Except for that guy Brad, but Brad has work-life balance and contributes to his RRSP.

Also Brad is a figment of your imagination. But other than that.

8% said they watch porn every day, and another 23% said they watch porn a few times a week. So porn is a relatively substantial part of men’s schedules. Pretty substantial number of men are like "nah, this is a thing I do alone."

*long whistle* we should talk about this. 25% said they feel “nothing” about the pervasiveness of sexual harassment.

That’s a lot of men who think it isn’t their problem, and it isn’t their conversation to be involved in.

This stat is a lot to unpack. 82% said they’ve never pushed a woman to go farther sexually than she wanted to.

On one level: if this were true, we wouldn’t be having this massive #MeToo conversation. On the other: I … believe they believe that?

A big ol' 🤔 to this one, though. 82% said they don’t identify as feminists. Would love to talk to those men — indeed the vast majority — about what they believe the project of feminism to actually *be*.

More than half of men surveyed said they did not benefit professionally from being a man.

Come on, dudes. Many of you likely did. I did. You can admit it. I’ve been in rooms where I was listened to more seriously because I’m a man. *So have you*.

For the big takeaways, I cede the floor to noted national treasure @rachelagiese: “this conversation holds an opportunity for men, too — to start talking about how the rules of manhood are holding them back.” chatelaine.com/living/toxic-m…

I don’t know about you, but I feel we are at a moment where we could pick what we want of the old ways of defining masculinity, and discard the waste. The tired, the worn. And expand the idea of being a man, to include a whole wide range of possibilities.

That includes the possibility of defining a man as someone who is lonely and talks about it vulnerably and openly and honestly, without needing to refer to some limited stoicism as his only reference point to being a man. 😅

Now that @Chatelaine has asked these questions, it’s kind of up to men to ask the next set of questions.

What questions should we ask to get there? Anyway, read/watch/enjoy #TheManSurvey and maybe send it to the group chat. chatelaine.com/survey-define-…

Like, OH MY GOD, YOU'RE ALL LONELY AND NO ONE WANTS TO TALK ABOUT IT, WHAT ARE YOU EVEN DOING, TALK ABOUT IT.

Okay, fin.

Since this thread has gone live, I have received:
-Tweets telling me it’s unmanly to talk about mental health
-tweets telling me masculinity is fine, just ruined by feminism
-A DM instructing me to cut off my dick (???)

Got a bit of distance to go, fellas.

The range of responses has been a hell of a thing to behold.