u/futuredebris

Hey y'all, curious your thoughts on this! I wrote about how many women are demanding that men speak up, call out our friends, and stand up to misogyny when we see it. If we’re going to take that demand seriously—and I believe we should—we also need to address the utter lack of community among men who want misogyny to stop. And by “we,” I mean men like myself.

In my experience, it feels (and often is) risky to speak up. We face potential shaming from other men, exile from friend groups, physical violence. I can’t imagine that every single one of the 50 men in the group chat was a “monster” and felt nothing wrong was happening. Yet the pull to stay silent and fit in was stronger than the push to do what’s right.

I wasn’t in a frat and steered clear of them in college. But they’re called fraternities for a reason. They offer what’s becoming increasingly harder to find in this isolating, disconnecting, alienating society: belonging, brotherhood, structure and routine outside of working a job.

The alternative to staying quiet and going along with misogyny can’t be a neoliberal, individualist vision of being the one “good” guy who turns against the stream. The majority of men will keep choosing to stick with the pack.

Because shame, loneliness, and fear are some of the strongest emotions in the human psyche. Because even if those around us are misogynistic, at least we feel like we’re part of something bigger than themselves. Because we’ve been socialized—through sports teams, the military, workplaces, fraternities—to compete in the pecking order of power. Because the bro code is too powerful.

If we’re going to demand that men stand up, the alternative has to be a broader, more inclusive movement for us to step into. That movement has to be aimed not only at ending misogyny but also transforming society away from all forms of domination, including those that impact all but the most rich and powerful men. And it needs to be mostly in real life, giving men opportunities to hang out, do things, and touch grass together.

Thoughts, reactions, feelings?

It amazes me how many of my therapy clients (I'm a therapist) have traumatic memories of school lunch. That’s where I felt the most unlikable and unwanted too. Ninth grade, packed tables, windowless room. Sitting off to the side near the bathrooms eating a floppy piece of lukewarm pizza. My one friend who had the same lunch period beside me. Both of us hoping the popular girls would look our direction. The girls who were beautiful, yes, but what mattered more was their social power. They could make you cool just by laughing at your jokes. If you were funny. If you could just lighten up.

There’s something about me I don’t like anyone knowing. I often feel unlikable. Awkward, unfunny, too serious. The opposite of Matthew McConaughey or Idris Elba. Shy, introverted, a downer.

It gets triggered these days as an adult in big groups. Parties, shows before the band goes on, corner conversations with neighbors. Times you’re supposed to lighten up, make small talk, have a good time. I’m shot back to my high school cafeteria, bouncing between clunky conversations, restless and turned inward, never landing on solid ground.

Then comes the shame. Why is everyone else normal and fun? Why can’t I just relax? What’s wrong with me? I try to bum a cigarette from the other freaks on the edges or order another diet Coke at the bar. Or leave, picking at myself inside for giving up.

I didn’t understand much about myself back then. What teenager does? Especially a teenage boy who felt like he didn’t belong anywhere except his room playing video games.

I didn’t know the weight I’d carry for years of my mom telling me when I was younger, “You’re just shy, like all the men in this family.” I now appreciate she was trying to cheer me up about being quieter than other kids. But it landed inside of me as shame. Why is everyone else normal and fun? Why can’t I just relax? What’s wrong with me?

I didn’t know yet that holding a guitar in my hands and singing could save me. Later in high school I started a pop punk band with my friends. I still felt awkward before and after shows, but on stage I became someone else. Actually, I became more myself. I could express my feelings through my songs. And some people were interested, even some of the popular girls.

I didn’t understand yet that I was being cheated out of the full, vast, mystical experience of being human. I didn’t know that gender played into it at all. Everyone gets shafted by this society organized to maximize profits for the rich and powerful. Men get it a certain way, though.

The rest of the linked post is about how socialized gender norms play into it. Let me know if you can relate or something I wrote isn't quite sitting right with you!

Hey y'all. Dolly's passing hit me hard. Partially because she reminded me of my grandma who grew up in a big poor farming family in Appalachia too. But also because Dolly was one of a handful of public figures who taught me, a cisgender, straight man, that gender is a performance. The T-shirt and shorts I’m wearing right now might not seem as contrived as her bleach blonde hair, caked-on makeup, and long nails. I might look like just a “normal dude.” Like I’m not choosing to wear my hair short and let my armpit hair grow out while having a five o’clock shadow on my face. But I am. I’m choosing to stay within the comfortable performance of a man in this particular society at this particular time in history. I get to choose. We all can choose. It’s all made-up. That’s the unspoken point of Dolly’s whole “dumb blonde bimbo” act.

Curious if you feel similarly about her. Or not. I wish I had been able to fit in that the political-economic analysis that capitalism constrains the performance for some of us and forces it on others, depending on where we fall in the gendered division of labor. But I can't fit everything in every newsletter post. Appreciate you giving me your thoughts!

I wrote about how men are told in capitalist society that being caring and expressive aren’t valuable skills. So we disown the natural, human emotionality we were born with. We avoid being vulnerable and asking for help. We worry we’ll be judged if we put effort into our friendships. When we’re suffering we overfocus on what we think will make us valuable to other people: productivity, discipline, and competence. And while this might help us in some ways, it often leaves us feeling lost, isolated, and lonely.

Curious y'all's thoughts about my latest newsletter post! I've been going back and forth with some folks on another sub about misandry. It's helped me understand why more and more men are blaming feminism as the source of their oppression, even though I think the true source is capitalism. Let me know what you think!

Hey guys, I'm co-leading a retreat for dads near Annapolis, MD, in November! I'm obviously sharing this for promotional purposes. But if the timing or cost or whatever doesn't work for you, I'm curious if you could give me feedback on whether you'd be interested in this sort of weekend. Would you find something like this helpful?

I work mostly with men in therapy, and I've noticed a few patterns with dads, especially ones with young kids.

Like all parents these days, dads aren't just physically exhausted, but they're also but also emotionally tapped out. Yet, they still feel like they're coming up short everywhere—at work, as a parent, as a partner. They're nervous system is stuck in "just handle it" mode. Which makes them tend to snap over small things and mentally check out more than they'd like.

The retreat will allow dads to take their “dad hat” off and recover parts of themselves they’ve had to hide since becoming a parent. They'll get a chance to connect with other dads about shared experiences and speak the truth about what it’s really like to be a dad today. My co-leader Kyle and I will help them get closer to being the parent and partner they really want to be.

Let me know what you think!

Hey y'all, I used the recent Supreme Court ruling as a springboard to talk about why I have hope for American men, even if things look bleak.

I can feel so hopeless about us sometimes—like we’re too far gone, too isolated, too anti-social. But the core of my politics and work with therapy clients is honoring the human instinct to belong. To connect. To relate.

No matter what the billionaires and billionaire-funded politicians say about human nature being competitive, we’re truly wired to cooperate. No matter what the manfluencer grifters say about men not having emotional needs—which is a lie—we need each other to survive. No matter what some people even on “my side,” the left, say about some people being “bad,” labeling them criminals, rapists, and abusers, unworthy of redemption.

Our need to belong is the very thing that people at the top of capitalism channel to get what they want. They get seduced by the power that comes with turning people against each other, which lets them off the hook for hoarding wealth and resources.

I hate to give them credit, but they’re like sorcerers of making some people think they belong by “othering” others. They encourage and amplify white supremacy and misogyny. They stoke anger and shame to keep us fighting over crumbs. They’re damn good at it.

They’ve got us men in a bind. They want us to think feminism and trans people are the reason we don’t feel like we belong. They blame “radical feminism” for everything from school shootings to rising rates of suicide by men. They ban trans girls from girls’ sports. They throw expensive combat fights on the White House lawn with jokes about Michelle Obama’s gender. They question the masculinity of political candidates who dare challenge them. They’ve introduced 804 anti-trans bills in 43 states so far this year alone.

The truth is men don’t feel like we belong right now because of them, the rich and powerful. Because of the system they orchestrate and benefit from. Because of capitalism.

Hey y'all, just a heads up, because I get this feedback a bit from you guys, this post isn't specifically about the "male loneliness epidemic," so the headline might be a little misleading. It is about loneliness though, and how I've learned to manage it and heal the wounds that originally caused it for me. And I do mention that it can be particularly difficult for men to connect with others ("co-regulate") because of the way we're socialized in this society. Let me know what you think!

Hey y'all, excited to hear your feedback on this one. You've probably heard the claim that anger is the only emotion men are allowed to show. I don’t like it. Not because it’s wrong, but because it’s easy to misinterpret.

In the newsletter I linked, I wrote about an example of me yelling at my mom at Thanksgiving and feeling horrible about it. Would love if you read that, but the gist of my argument is: Saying that anger is “allowed” makes it seem like men aren’t judged for it.

I think a better word for how men’s anger is treated is “tolerated.” Our anger is tolerated because it can be scary. People protect themselves in response. They freeze up or try to appease or leave. Some get angry back, which often escalates the intensity and potential danger. Because it’s scary to interact with an angry person, they have to let it go. They have to tolerate it.

Still, in my experience, anger is not unlike sadness, fear, and other more “vulnerable” emotions. Admitting that it’s there feels weak. Expressing it makes me feel like less of a man. Letting it get out of control feels shameful.

I learned that from this patriarchal capitalist society, which shames men for showing any emotion. If we’re sad, we’re soft. If we’re too happy, we might be gay (like that’s bad). If we’re afraid, we’re like a little boy or woman (like that’s bad).

Except for rich and powerful men, like Trump dancing to “YMCA” or Brett Kavanaugh crying in his senate hearing or Pete Hegseth lashing out at reporters. They want the rest of us to fall in line in the pecking order of wealth and power, so they tell us lies about so-called “traditional” masculinity and turn our vulnerability against us. They sure are quick to throw anti-ICE protestors in jail and beat up men protesting the detention of pro-Palestine activists and arrest striking workers.

So, men try to keep our emotions all bottled up inside rather than just saying how we feel. And that’s when we can lose control. We do or say things we don’t really want to. We push people away. People get hurt. Relationships fall apart.

All of this is to say that anger is healthy and good. There are tons of reasons to be angry in relationships with other people. There are tons of reasons to be angry in this society. The billionaires (and world’s first trillionaire) are stealing more and more resources and wealth. Trump is cutting food stamps while building a golden ballroom. The government is bombing Iran and murdering people in boats in the Caribbean. The arctic is inching closer to being ice-free because of climate change.

The problem isn’t our anger. It’s the society that shames us for it.

Curious your thoughts about my take! When I heard that Trump is hosting an MMA fight on the White House lawn, I chalked it up to yet another money-making spectacle in a long line of money-making spectacles. But it also reminded me of something I’ve been researching and thinking about a lot: the history of rich people stoking anxiety about masculinity to redirect working-class anger away from them.

Like when a famous British army officer helped found the Boy Scouts in the early 1900s during one of the most militant eras for labor organizing. Elites were worried that industrialization and urbanization were making young men weaker and unready to fight in imperial wars. The Boy Scouts convinced boys that masculinity was defined by chivalry, patriotism, military discipline, and peak physical fitness.

And like when Teddy Roosevelt didn’t tell American men to join their fellow workers to fight for a better life during that same era of organizing but instead to become a “more manful race.” He crafted a cowboy, hero, tough guy image, staging photos in fringed buckskin and inviting boxers to work out at the White House (sound familiar?).

It’s not a coincidence that it’s happening again. Americans favor unions now more than ever before. Most of us also want to tax the rich, including nearly half of Republicans. A democratic socialist nearly won the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020, and a democratic socialist is now mayor of the country’s most powerful city.

They aren't going to admit it but they're scared, so they want men to fall in line, play our so-called “traditional” role (which isn’t actually traditional), put women in their place, reject gay and queer men as men, and otherwise be compliant workers.

Curious what this makes you feel/think! A few weeks ago, I teared up out of nowhere and figured out quickly that it was about something I’d just lost.

Earlier that day my partner had told me she’d started her period. We were (and, as of this writing, are) hoping to have a kid. That meant we’d have to start again, waiting for the few days between her periods when her body is most fertile. Hoping that her eggs and my sperm were in good enough shape.

When she’d told me, I’d frowned, hugged her, and said something like, “Bummer, we’ll have to try again.” We both had moved on with our days, me seeing therapy clients in my upstairs home office and her working out in the front sunroom. I hadn’t thought about it again until the tears got my attention.

See, there was very little reason to expect she might be pregnant. We were only a couple months into trying. Her period wasn’t late. She’d had no physical signs. I’d just been excited the few weeks beforehand, daydreaming about what our little family would be like, what she’d be like as a mom (amazing), how we’d struggle because capitalism makes parenting harder than it should be but we’d figure it out.

I’d lost something that only had existed in my head, a fantasy, but it still hurt. Not all hope was lost, there will be more chances, but the tears didn’t seem to care. Grief doesn’t seem to care.

I’m not sharing this to minimize the emotional and physical pain many people experience trying to get pregnant. I’m sharing because men don’t talk about pregnancy struggles—big and small—enough.

This patriarchal capitalist society teaches us that we’re not supposed to have feelings and that we’re just there to support our partner, be strong, don’t complain.

But this keeps us from getting what all humans need, deep connection and belonging. And it’s driving us crazy, messing up our relationships, making us lonely, causing us to hurt people, and pushing too many of us to hurt or kill ourselves.

We need to talk about this stuff together and stop trying to carry it all alone.

I wrote about missing my new dad friends, who disappear into an abyss of seemingly endless child care, bad sleep, constant sickness, and Bluey. And how I don't blame them, because they're up against a lot. A whole political and economic system that’s made parenting hard for centuries. A historic shift in who spends time parenting and for how long (millennial dads are spending double the time parenting than our boomer dads did). A crisis created by 40+ hour workweeks, dwindling public support for families, and unprecedented social isolation, created by the billionaires who want to keep stealing our time and resources. Curious your thoughts!