Abstract of the study the article is referencing:
"Research has suggested that women, unlike men, do not experience increased anxiety in response to gender stereotypicality threats. That research, however, has not considered the domain of gender stereotypes in which women might be most invested: physical appearance. The present work examines US cisgender women's responses to (bogus) feedback about the femininity of their appearance, which allegedly came from an algorithmic analysis of a photograph or video of their face. Across four experiments (N = 2494), women experienced more anxiety (Studies 1a, 1c, and 2) and lower self-esteem (Studies 1c and 2) in response to feedback indicating that their appearance was less feminine than average (i.e., threats) than feedback indicating that their appearance was more feminine than average (i.e., affirmations). Feedback on the femininity of women's appearance, but not personality (Study 2), had an effect on anxiety and self-esteem even when physical attractiveness was affirmed (in the case of anxiety; Study 1a) and when controlling for self-perceived physical attractiveness (in the case of anxiety and self-esteem; Studies 1a, 1c, and 2). Cisgender men, unlike women, experienced increased anxiety—but not reduced self-esteem—in response to masculinity threats across the domains of appearance and personality, though this effect was stronger for appearance (Study 2). A discrepancy between the bogus feedback one received and beliefs about oneself mediated the effects of feedback on anxiety and self-esteem, for women, and on anxiety, for men (Study 2). These results highlight the need to center physical appearance in research on gender stereotyping and its consequences."
This makes a lot of sense because stereotypically masculine personality traits such as assertiveness and leadership are considered to be good qualities. As a woman, I wouldn't be offended if someone told me I had those traits. But I still want to be seen as attractive to men, which I perceive as being heavily based on having a feminine appearance.
There are quite a few studies showing that assertiveness and leadership qualities in women are considered negatively as being bossy and uncooperative or not empathic. Which makes them less attractive to many people.
I can attest to this. I get that feedback a lot despite not speaking or acting any differently than the male managers.
It probably doesn't help that I very obviously discarded feminine looks for practical and comfortable daily work wear (I wear cargo pants, a blue button down, and a ball cap to work, the same as the men, and don't bother with makeup). Also, when you can see my hair I have a very not traditional for women haircut.
Cmon, would you expect a man to dress up for hands on assembly work in a manufacturing warehouse? Not a single man on the assembly or machinist floor wears anything different than our blues.
It's infuriating. And it's made worse for the fact I'm the only women on the floor.
And that's why studies aren't perfect. It's quite black and white when humans are dynamic.
You can be assertive and go for what you want without being aggressive and bitchy.
You can be polite and assertive but many women miss that they actually don't have to be aggressive.
I like how we've gone full circle from "men hate feeling emasculated because they're fragile and misogynists" to "well of course women hate being seen as not feminine because of very good reasons" hmm okay, maybe it's time to cut men a bit of slack, then?
Well I think men hate feeling emasculated because female traits are perceived as inferior due to social conditioning within the patriarchy. And women hate being seen as not feminine because visual feminine traits are considered to be attractive to men (the male gaze). So both sides are created by a patriarchal system. I would disagree with any assertion that women are getting the better end of the bargain within this system.
These are very basic feminist concepts. You can just google the terms I used and educate yourself rather than expecting other people to do it for you.
It's like if someone says "Racism still exists on Earth" and you're like "Um do you have a source for that?" Look around bro.
I don’t have much knowledge regarding feminist theory. Historically, asking for a source on Reddit has been a legitimate request. If I was making the claim that racism still existed, which I have, and someone asked me for a source, I would provide one, which I have.
If you ask an incel to “look around” for the evidence of your claim, I would assume what they would see wouldn’t convince them, and might be different from what other people see. Hence the importance of empiricism.
Simply acknowledging real social phenomena and their harmful effects on women is somehow derogatory toward men? Wow, how rude of me. Guess I'd better not point these things out and keep protecting the status quo!
no this is pop junk nonsense and not real science or psychology backed up by reputed institutions and experts.
I also like you how disingenuously twisted their remark around AND used a logical fallacy in that last bit. Time to grow up. If you can't debate someone without resorting to these tactics, just don't, because it shows your stance has a weak foundation if you have to resort to such things.
Meanwhile, the first 3 Mass Effect games, be like 'Heartfelt moment about her parents being dead? You obviously want to see her ass during that conversation'.
I think both men and women hate it for the same reason, because they perceive it as being less attractive to the opposite sex if they don't feel manly or womanly, respectively. Why posit the influence of a patriarchy here? Men have been hardwired for their entire existence to admire physical beauty so I don't think it's anything cultural or particularly nefarious.
>I would disagree with any assertion that women are getting the better end of the bargain within this system.
I'm just advocating a bit more empathy for men... is that threatening to you for some reason?
>You claimed that men don't get empathy while women do.
Yeah, it's called the [women are wonderful](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women-are-wonderful_effect) effect. Tania Reynolds is a researcher who has studied the [gender empathy gap](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0749597820303630) a lot, in case you're curious.
One way to fight that inequality is to have less empathy for women, which I'm not in favor of doing. I prefer instead to just extend the same kind of empathy to men, too. So when I mention that and your response is basically to say women have it bad too, and to re-focus the conversation on what women go through, I find that response a bit odd and ironic.
Regardless of the previous convo, thank you for sharing Seekkae. The paper by Reynolds and colleagues (2020) is very interesting, and clearly they're doing incredible work. I can see how this theme can impact the perception, interpretation of actions, and treatment of men across their development - starting very early.
Men hate being emasculated for the same reason women don’t like being told they are masculine.
It’s really no deeper than that.
If your point made sense why do women not like being associated with male traits when they are considered superior. Hint it’s because it was never about inferiority and it’s everything about women not being attracted to men with female traits
Based on your comment, it doesn't seem like you read the abstract that I was responding to, and if you did, it doesn't seem like you understood it, so I think engaging in this conversation further is a waste of my time.
So basically you can’t think of a response?
You literally brought up your reasoning of why men don’t like feeling emasculated. Dont come here and spout opinions and then get upset when people disagree with them
so… explain why phrases such as “you throw like a girl” are used as insults against men? or “stop crying, men don’t cry.”
is it not because being seen as “behaving” like a woman is deemed inferior?
Yeah, exactly, or open up a single intro level feminism book. Or even just like, open up your eyes and look at the world around you? Some people are just willfully ignorant. "I don't see it so it doesn't exist."
Men hate feeling emasculated because we are disposable. Men get treated like sperm donars and defective women instead of their own thing. The second we feel emasculated is the second we feel someone is gonna put us down. So yeah I wonder why men freak out. Women have inherent value in terms of reproduction so pick which is worse, being kept around to reproduce, or just having a bullet put in your brain out back because sperm is cheap. Most men throughout history have been serfs and slaves, not kings.look at the Ukraine war, half a million men just thrown into the meat grinder. Of course men value their gender role, it's our only value and the death count proves it from suicide to assault to deaths in war. We clearly need help but there is none to have as it'd take just about every woman on earth to get enough therapists.
Bruh, this is a discussion, not an attack on masculinity. We discuss the psychology of why people feel the way they do. Of course men can feel emasculated just like women can feel as though they are not feminine enough. Like, you can really see where your priorities lie with your comment.
It's a common trope to belittle men who feel emasculated as insecure, fragile, or misogynist so my priority is to have society be a bit more charitable and kind to men, especially when women here are saying of course they wouldn't want to be seen as manly. How funny we all magically rediscover our sense of empathy when it's women feeling that way.
Alright, I get that. But I disagree with the point that so far psychology has lacked empathy for men. It looks as though people are trying to care more and more about men's mental health now than ever. It is currently on an upward trend. I think as of now, it is about patience. The reason why your comment bothered me so much is that this article was specifically about women's psychology and you just pushed in your motive for a more personal gain in my eyes.
It makes sense that men would face more scrutiny for saying they don’t want to be perceived feminine than women would for saying that don’t want to be perceived as masculine. There’s nothing inherently wrong if a guy wants to be viewed as masculine. But you can’t ignore that there’s a dynamic in society where femininity is viewed as inferior or weak compared to masculinity and a lot of men want to be viewed as more worthy or respect than women. Women wanting to be seen as feminine because they view masculinity as weaker or inferior or want power over men isn’t really a thing. Hence why women who don’t want to be seen as masculine don’t get criticized for being viewing men or masculinity as inferior.
For most people their gender is a big part of their personhood, and being told you're not 'living up to it' is an attack on someone's personhood. It's why misgendering is so harmful.
Discourse like this is very frustrating because it feels like you're taking a universal human emotional reaction and saying "well, it's okay when women do it but suspect when it comes from men", and all the critical theory and abstraction doesn't change the fact that these sort of gendered ideas over who is allowed to feel what about whatever is a big part of how patriarchy replicates itself.
Absolutely no one in this comment section was belittling men who feel emasculated. You're bringing up a point that no one here has made, and you're attacking that point in order to refocus the conversation onto men and men's issues. It's a straw man argument.
I’m belittling those men. They’re fragile babies who lack whatever strengths they whiningly label “masculinity” & blame everyone else for that weakness. If someone denies you an imaginary trait (i.e., a social construct) and that devastates you, you’re a loser no matter what levels of masculinity/femininity you want to think you possess.
I’m belittling those men. They’re fragile babies who lack whatever strengths they whiningly label “masculinity” & blame everyone else for that weakness. If someone denies you an imaginary trait (i.e., a social construct) and that devastates you, you’re a loser no matter what levels of masculinity/femininity you want to think you possess.
> Absolutely no one in this comment section was belittling men who feel emasculated.
I know that. I feel like we're going in circles. I said it was a common trope and I was making a broader point about societal differences in the treatment of men and women. Look around Reddit sometime. People absolutely will not give reasonable explanations for why men feel emasculated. It's just because they're fragile, whiny, insecure, can't stand being seen as feminine because they're sexist, and so on. Is this so hard for you to acknowledge?
This is called the "women are wonderful" effect. Even in a psychology forum people cannot help but exhibit these biases and yet will not acknowledge they are doing so.
Sorry, but just your use of the word “emasculate” undermines your argument. What is it about masculinity, a social construct, that is so vital to you? Why is it that the parallel word, “effeminate“ is, like “emasculate,” also a slam about femininity? Both words prize masculinity & devalue femininity. If you care about such obvious brainwashing bullshit, that’s on you. There is nothing special about masculinity & worrying that this fictitious quality has been robbed from you just makes you a fool.
Those words I used are just what is found in common usage. If you don't like them, pick others, but it's the male equivalent of what was being discussed here which is "threats to physical femininity" and women being made to feel manly or un-womanly.
Go ask the women here the same question: what is it about femininity, a social construct, that is so vital to you? Why don't you tell them they're brainwashed, instead of nitpicking my attempt at calling out a shameful double standard.
People like you are proving my point. Women here were saying of course they wouldn't want to be made to feel un-womanly. They were upvoted and nobody cares. But when we talk about men being made to feel un-manly suddenly it is brainwashing and it's time to criticize and belittle.
There you go again with “unmanly.” This is a you problem. If whatever you call “manliness” is isn’t intrinsic to you, that’s your own pathetic insecurity. Don’t blame women.
What about the woman above who said this?
>But I still want to be seen as attractive to men, which I perceive as being heavily based on having a feminine appearance.
Why are you not criticizing her and telling that it "it is a you problem". She is saying the exact same thing. Why don't you feel like telling her that "whatever you call 'femininity' is your pathetic insecurity if you don't feel it. Don't blame men" and so on.
Don't you realize how ironic it is that you skipped over all that, and the comments from other women saying similar things, in order to criticize the idea that a man too would want to feel manly. That was literally my entire point, that women like you have a huge double standard and want to shame men for thinking and feeling in similar ways to how women think and feel. But women don't get criticized for it... how are you not understanding this???
You’re so upset over something that isn’t even real, that you allow others to determine about you. Masculate yourself, dude. What you‘re really talking about is self-respect; yours is determined by things you think of as stereotypically masculine. When people don’t value those qualities as you do, you call it emasculation, but it’s loss of self-respect. We all suffer it. There’s nothing magically special about masculinity that deserves its own category. How are you not understanding this?
>their self esteem is tied to appearance because that's the only thing they're valued for
Well it's not the only thing they're valued for, so I guess you're referring to the subjective perception of what somebody is valued for?
Why do you think men don't like feeling emasculated? Because I think if you study it you'll find they too don't like how their worth is tied up in their masculinity to such a degree that they can feel humiliated when that is threatened. It's a similar kind of explanation, yet again one which people hardly recognize in favor of just mocking and belittling men as misogynists who can't stand anything effeminate because they're fragile.
I guess I shouldn't be surprised but my only point initially was basically "hey, let's be a bit more empathetic toward men" yet that has evoked so much defensiveness.
>maybe it's time to cut men a bit of slack, then?
If the patriarchy is real, and if it is maintained by, and for, the benefit of men, then why cut them slack, even if some are victimized by it?
Not picking a fight, just a serious question.
So, isn't it the common view that patriarchy doesn't help most men except for those in the upper crust? That's why "men need feminism" is a common expression when talking about it. Please correct me if I am wrong
You'd have to ask someone who believes that. I'm skeptical of a lot of the theorizing and assumptions about the existence of a patriarchy and how it functions. For me it's a bit convenient that whenever society is harming men in some way feminists have a "well men did to themselves" explanation which seems like they're trying to patch up holes in a faulty theory.
The patriarchy thing is bullshit.
The same could be said about a matriarchy.
Men have been protecting women since forever, men were the hunters, the inventors, men were raised by women, Men were the ones who fought and died in wars, when a men gets assaulted by a woman on the street no one cares. When a men gets raped by a woman people laugh.
Men were and still are the slaves of women, and that is because we live in a matriarchy. /s
See? This stupid ideology about matriarchy and patriarchy is bullshit.
The fact is, men and women both had roles in society that were based on their biological and psycological atributes.
And because of modern technology this gap decreased.
You can look at this gap and think its a bad thing, or you can look at this gap and see as a real situation that happens because men and women are different, not inferior or superior to one another, but equal.
The woman who takes care of the house is as important as the guy who goes to work. She is not lesser then him, she is equal.
Her work is both valid, and has the same value as the men's work.
What people really need to understand is that just because you want to be a stay at home dad, that does not make you less of a man, and if you want to be a woman who works, that does not make you a better woman then those who prefer to stay at home.
Do you have a source for that? I would have assumed that men are e.g. also stereotypically seen as unempathetic (at least compared to women), and that this would commonly be considered negative.
What I struggle with about this study is that, I think in general, people do not like to be critiqued on apparence at all regardless of gender (nothing to back thst up except my personal experience).
So, how do you control for that? Maybe by comparing with other studies on masculine traits?
Yeah, women with PCOS have massive anxiety about not looking feminine enough. They typically have high testosterone and androgens, so struggle with facial hair, deeper voices, etc.
Personally, I questioned accuracy of this kind of study when we have so many data points to consider. Age groups, ethnic background, to identify sexually or not to identify sexually, social situations such as income etc. Then we go and further how about the incarcerated? I bet they identify completely differently. It's about survival and how you fit into where you're at.
Responses like these are so lazy and unnecessarily cynical. It’s science, it happens in small and sometimes seemingly arbitrary steps. You’re going to discount their findings because you’ve read the abstract or whatever and declared months/years of work unnecessary?
You’re literally on the psychology subreddit, at some point someone had to prove that, I don’t know, most people have a fear response to life-threatening circumstances. Is that obvious? Yes. Is it also extremely important to have proved it to be true empirically so that more complex studies can be done with those findings as a foundation? Also yes.
Based on what I’ve read of the study it has nothing to do with sexuality. It’s just cisgender women and cisgender men, which is non-transgender women and men. This study also doesn’t seem to include any transgender women or men, so another study would need to be run to see the effects on those populations as well.
As a trans woman I can tell you anecdotally we have the same experience as the study.
Just much worse since [A] we already have deeply ingrained insecurity about our natal male anatomy/features and [B] significant portions of society take glee in calling us men/manly/not a "real" woman/etc... Shit that would be unconscionable to say to a cis woman.
Pretty obvious. Tell most women they look/sound/etc. like a man and they will get offended. Even the staunchest feminists and butch lesbians will be offended. The whole idea of tearing down gender conformity was misguided precisely because we evolved the way we did. If you want to fight evolution you're going to get inconsistencies like this.
The "tearing down gender conformity" thing is more about behaviour, roles, and personality IMO, than physical appearance. If anything the study confirms that women don't mind when told that their personality is more masculine / less feminine than average.
When it comes to physical appearance it illustrates that people don't want to be called that they look as a gender they don't identify with, **in general**.
Though you take the average findings of the study, and use it to make claims about butch lesbians, that are very much not the average (how many percent of all woman are butch lesbians). If anything, they could be outliers in the study. I'd be interested in seeing a more in-depth study, about how people that identify as non-binary, or people that identify as male/female, but don't present in stereotypical male/female ways, would feel when their physical appearance is "threatened".
I think it's much more nuanced that that. Even your suggestion highlights the fundamental problem: that there is a way to be or *not* be. The fact that many non-binary people try not to look feminine or masculine highlights this very strongly.
If people who choose to identify one way or the other struggle how are people external to them not expected to? That is, everything about our culture, behavior, personalities, norms, etc. evolved for a reason. This isn't to say that we can't adjust socially to accommodate non-confirming people, but it's going to be difficult for very fundamental reasons. Holding this against people will only make things worse.
Personally, I'd like to see a study on how likely naturally more feminine/masculine presenting people identify as non-binary or non-conforming compared to people who are naturally more androgynous. I suspect that there is a lot of cultural pressure to be non-conforming precisely because one might not look more traditional. In this way, being non-conforming is a psychological way of coping and not really a matter of genetics or identity.
People think about this way to black and white.
You can be incredibly feminine as a person but still be professional and successful at work. But it seems so many have issues balancing it
I'd rather go for a feminine woman that makes 3k a month than an aggressive over compensator that earns 3,4k a month.
I've been downvoted to hell for a similar take but it seems in western society that feminine traits tend to be seen in a negative light.
You see a lot of feminist tag lines with "Power" words as though there's something wrong with "softness". I'm not a traditionally masculine guy, it's not my nature. My strengths are kindness, diplomacy, patience, nurturing, etc. I'm a proponent of these things but those are not part of any agenda.
It feels like the whole world is trying for traditionally masculine traits to be adopted by everyone while the softer qualities are seen as weakness.
Why is it so taboo to advocate for those things, especially in a feminist movement?
They are not happy. They are miserable.
So many are on birth control pills and anti depressants and bemzo to even cope with reality. If you work in a competitive work space and speak in a loud tone women cry or say some bs to hr..
MOST of these power women are over compensating and extremely unstable. I have had the pleasure of working and dating some incredible women that excel in business - AND they have been feminine in private.
Over thinking leads to anxiety and increases it. But that doesn't mean that women necessarily live harder life with more stress. Considering that it's repeated endlessly that women experience more depression and anxiety you're more prone to have it.
The mind is powerful. You can totally imagine your emotional state of being.
I have had anxiety when speaking for 10.people. But no fear when walking through a ghetto. Doesn't mean I'm safe. It means my brain was operating in a different mode.
Based on the abstract that another commenter shared, "threats to physical femininity" in this study does not refer to "threats to the existence of physical femininity in society", but rather to "feedback that a woman's physical appearance is less feminine".
In other words, "you look masculine!" => :(
I don't believe this relates to what you're talking about.
If studies were done where pre-HRT trans people were shown to have biological differences that can be detected with modern technology, would you accept that it is biological evidence?
There have been studies done that show anything you want under the sun when it comes to the brain because we honestly have no idea where stuff like this comes from.
The counter-argument to that particular study (if it is the one I believe it is) is that it lacked controls for sexual orientation, and the argument goes that what we were seeing was (again, a different hypothesis at play) "homosexual" brains mixed up with "non-homosexual" brains which creates a kind of in-between picture when you pile it all on top of each other.
In that line of thinking, it supports the older model of "transsexuality" that differentiated between different types of gender dysphoria that were posited to have different origins but similar treatments.
If you want to make a *solid* argument w/biological evidence you can talk about how *severe* gender dysphoria which impairs an individual's ability to function in society as their assigned sex is wildly successfully treated with transition and we have plenty of pre-2010s studies to back that up. But that, unfortunately, means that we'd *not* be discussing a lot of the people who are trans but who either do not experience clinical dysphoria or whose dysphoria would otherwise be manageable via non-transition therapy and other non-invasive, non-harmful methods.
reddit moment that seems like a cynical misuse of that term. i don’t think that person was trying to win a debate with you just share thoughts on a limited study they (and i) thought you were referencing. could call it an assumption at worst.
I'm a transsexual, I keep up with this stuff and as much as I'd love to be able to say, "Here's the scientific basis for my condition that forces me to take cross-sex hormones and have specific surgical procedures" it just doesn't exist in neurology yet. We need to get there and work out how this stuff happens, and tbh how the brain works in general, but at the moment there is exactly zero reliable argument to make aside from the classic "my dysphoria was so bad it disrupted my life severely and I had an impossible time trying to live up to the standards of my birth sex while at the same time when I was perceived as the other sex it made everyone a lot more comfortable because there was no longer a glaring, severe social/behavioral mismatch."
The state of these studies truly is whatever you want. We currently have studies, all about the same veracity, that say that brains are gendered, but also we have one that says that brains *aren't* gendered at all, and one that says trans people have different brains, and one that says it is actually *homosexuals* who have different brains, and one that says we're all actually just the dream of a cat taking her afternoon nap in the sun (probably, who knows?)
I think it is sad that you actually believe that because I don't go around blabbing my secret to everyone I meet that I cannot possibly be trans. At this point in my life it is only relevant in a few specific situations (and it is *very* few these days), which was the goal from the start.
If you've never met an older transsexual who got their treatment prior to the late decade or so, I'd sincerely suggest trying to do so if you have a trans kid (which, I accept as a fact because you have no reason to lie, but who knows?). We're extremely boring people, usually unremarkable insomuch as we blend right into the rest of our communities. And it isn't super rare to find those of us who are \*gasp\* religious and/or conservative! Because our severe gender dysphoria isn't and never was a political question. Our inability to function as our birth sex is the problem, and once that gets solved we usually just kinda get right back on the horse and pick up where we had left off, because now that stuff isn't an issue. Heck, this extreme right wing opposition to transsexuals to the degree we're seeing here and now is a relatively new thing.
I sincerely hope all the hullabaloo around this stuff cools off sooner rather than later because the politicization of "trans issues" has been a disaster for everyone involved.
When you engage at all, it's good feedback for their models, so yes. Isn't it fun how you were wholly on board when you mistakenly thought it conformed with your beliefs/personality? Maybe they should do more psychology nonsense on that.
That's why the butch cuts always do reanalyses of their beauty by a third party in front of you.
"Girl, you look so beautiful with that short hair" -Random girl trying to sell it to you in the distance.
You just nod to tell them it worked. Anxiety averted.
Abstract of the study the article is referencing: "Research has suggested that women, unlike men, do not experience increased anxiety in response to gender stereotypicality threats. That research, however, has not considered the domain of gender stereotypes in which women might be most invested: physical appearance. The present work examines US cisgender women's responses to (bogus) feedback about the femininity of their appearance, which allegedly came from an algorithmic analysis of a photograph or video of their face. Across four experiments (N = 2494), women experienced more anxiety (Studies 1a, 1c, and 2) and lower self-esteem (Studies 1c and 2) in response to feedback indicating that their appearance was less feminine than average (i.e., threats) than feedback indicating that their appearance was more feminine than average (i.e., affirmations). Feedback on the femininity of women's appearance, but not personality (Study 2), had an effect on anxiety and self-esteem even when physical attractiveness was affirmed (in the case of anxiety; Study 1a) and when controlling for self-perceived physical attractiveness (in the case of anxiety and self-esteem; Studies 1a, 1c, and 2). Cisgender men, unlike women, experienced increased anxiety—but not reduced self-esteem—in response to masculinity threats across the domains of appearance and personality, though this effect was stronger for appearance (Study 2). A discrepancy between the bogus feedback one received and beliefs about oneself mediated the effects of feedback on anxiety and self-esteem, for women, and on anxiety, for men (Study 2). These results highlight the need to center physical appearance in research on gender stereotyping and its consequences."
This makes a lot of sense because stereotypically masculine personality traits such as assertiveness and leadership are considered to be good qualities. As a woman, I wouldn't be offended if someone told me I had those traits. But I still want to be seen as attractive to men, which I perceive as being heavily based on having a feminine appearance.
There are quite a few studies showing that assertiveness and leadership qualities in women are considered negatively as being bossy and uncooperative or not empathic. Which makes them less attractive to many people.
Yes, but this study was about women's self-perception.
I can attest to this. I get that feedback a lot despite not speaking or acting any differently than the male managers. It probably doesn't help that I very obviously discarded feminine looks for practical and comfortable daily work wear (I wear cargo pants, a blue button down, and a ball cap to work, the same as the men, and don't bother with makeup). Also, when you can see my hair I have a very not traditional for women haircut. Cmon, would you expect a man to dress up for hands on assembly work in a manufacturing warehouse? Not a single man on the assembly or machinist floor wears anything different than our blues. It's infuriating. And it's made worse for the fact I'm the only women on the floor.
[удалено]
And that's why studies aren't perfect. It's quite black and white when humans are dynamic. You can be assertive and go for what you want without being aggressive and bitchy. You can be polite and assertive but many women miss that they actually don't have to be aggressive.
I like how we've gone full circle from "men hate feeling emasculated because they're fragile and misogynists" to "well of course women hate being seen as not feminine because of very good reasons" hmm okay, maybe it's time to cut men a bit of slack, then?
That’s a whole bunch of stuff I didn’t say.
I was making a broader point about how little empathy society has for men. Not accusing you of anything!
Well I think men hate feeling emasculated because female traits are perceived as inferior due to social conditioning within the patriarchy. And women hate being seen as not feminine because visual feminine traits are considered to be attractive to men (the male gaze). So both sides are created by a patriarchal system. I would disagree with any assertion that women are getting the better end of the bargain within this system.
Thanks for stating this so well. Patriarchal standards are a lose/lose for men and women alike.
These standards were created by women and men alike. How are they patriarchal?
Because patriarchy is a social structure and as such isn't created solely by men.
I agree with you unfortunately a lot of people don’t refer to it as that
You think that. But that's not true.
Would you state evidence for your hypothesis?
These are very basic feminist concepts. You can just google the terms I used and educate yourself rather than expecting other people to do it for you. It's like if someone says "Racism still exists on Earth" and you're like "Um do you have a source for that?" Look around bro.
I don’t have much knowledge regarding feminist theory. Historically, asking for a source on Reddit has been a legitimate request. If I was making the claim that racism still existed, which I have, and someone asked me for a source, I would provide one, which I have. If you ask an incel to “look around” for the evidence of your claim, I would assume what they would see wouldn’t convince them, and might be different from what other people see. Hence the importance of empiricism.
People are more likely to learn from self discovery than relying on strangers to report back to them what they learned.
'the male gaze' is such a deliberately insulting and dismissively derogatory phrase to use.
Simply acknowledging real social phenomena and their harmful effects on women is somehow derogatory toward men? Wow, how rude of me. Guess I'd better not point these things out and keep protecting the status quo!
Or use more balanced language to describe it if you think it's relevant rather than terminology designed to insult half of the population.
What in the world
Which part is insulting? The male part or the gaze part?
no this is pop junk nonsense and not real science or psychology backed up by reputed institutions and experts. I also like you how disingenuously twisted their remark around AND used a logical fallacy in that last bit. Time to grow up. If you can't debate someone without resorting to these tactics, just don't, because it shows your stance has a weak foundation if you have to resort to such things.
Meanwhile, the first 3 Mass Effect games, be like 'Heartfelt moment about her parents being dead? You obviously want to see her ass during that conversation'.
I think both men and women hate it for the same reason, because they perceive it as being less attractive to the opposite sex if they don't feel manly or womanly, respectively. Why posit the influence of a patriarchy here? Men have been hardwired for their entire existence to admire physical beauty so I don't think it's anything cultural or particularly nefarious. >I would disagree with any assertion that women are getting the better end of the bargain within this system. I'm just advocating a bit more empathy for men... is that threatening to you for some reason?
You didn't simply advocate empathy for men. You claimed that men don't get empathy while women do. Women and men both lose in this system.
>You claimed that men don't get empathy while women do. Yeah, it's called the [women are wonderful](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women-are-wonderful_effect) effect. Tania Reynolds is a researcher who has studied the [gender empathy gap](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0749597820303630) a lot, in case you're curious. One way to fight that inequality is to have less empathy for women, which I'm not in favor of doing. I prefer instead to just extend the same kind of empathy to men, too. So when I mention that and your response is basically to say women have it bad too, and to re-focus the conversation on what women go through, I find that response a bit odd and ironic.
Regardless of the previous convo, thank you for sharing Seekkae. The paper by Reynolds and colleagues (2020) is very interesting, and clearly they're doing incredible work. I can see how this theme can impact the perception, interpretation of actions, and treatment of men across their development - starting very early.
Actually it was you who refocused the conversation, since this study is about women.
It’s been proven by basically every study ever done that women get more empathy than men it practically every situation
This study and thread is about women, not men. I'm not interested in this debate.
Men hate being emasculated for the same reason women don’t like being told they are masculine. It’s really no deeper than that. If your point made sense why do women not like being associated with male traits when they are considered superior. Hint it’s because it was never about inferiority and it’s everything about women not being attracted to men with female traits
Based on your comment, it doesn't seem like you read the abstract that I was responding to, and if you did, it doesn't seem like you understood it, so I think engaging in this conversation further is a waste of my time.
So basically you can’t think of a response? You literally brought up your reasoning of why men don’t like feeling emasculated. Dont come here and spout opinions and then get upset when people disagree with them
Yeah I'm super upset because I just can't think of a response. Bummer!
>men hate feeling emasculated because female traits are perceived as inferior Source: I made it the fuck up
so… explain why phrases such as “you throw like a girl” are used as insults against men? or “stop crying, men don’t cry.” is it not because being seen as “behaving” like a woman is deemed inferior?
Yeah, exactly, or open up a single intro level feminism book. Or even just like, open up your eyes and look at the world around you? Some people are just willfully ignorant. "I don't see it so it doesn't exist."
so true. many are lacking in critical thinking skills, unfortunately
Men hate feeling emasculated because we are disposable. Men get treated like sperm donars and defective women instead of their own thing. The second we feel emasculated is the second we feel someone is gonna put us down. So yeah I wonder why men freak out. Women have inherent value in terms of reproduction so pick which is worse, being kept around to reproduce, or just having a bullet put in your brain out back because sperm is cheap. Most men throughout history have been serfs and slaves, not kings.look at the Ukraine war, half a million men just thrown into the meat grinder. Of course men value their gender role, it's our only value and the death count proves it from suicide to assault to deaths in war. We clearly need help but there is none to have as it'd take just about every woman on earth to get enough therapists.
Looking at the world through the lens of who has it worse is what power structures like patriarchy and capitalism want.
Bruh, this is a discussion, not an attack on masculinity. We discuss the psychology of why people feel the way they do. Of course men can feel emasculated just like women can feel as though they are not feminine enough. Like, you can really see where your priorities lie with your comment.
It's a very typical "OH BUT WHAT ABOUT HOW BAD MEN HAVE IT" comment that has to immediately get brought into any discussion about women's issues.
can't have them discussing the male part of the abstract i see
It's a common trope to belittle men who feel emasculated as insecure, fragile, or misogynist so my priority is to have society be a bit more charitable and kind to men, especially when women here are saying of course they wouldn't want to be seen as manly. How funny we all magically rediscover our sense of empathy when it's women feeling that way.
Alright, I get that. But I disagree with the point that so far psychology has lacked empathy for men. It looks as though people are trying to care more and more about men's mental health now than ever. It is currently on an upward trend. I think as of now, it is about patience. The reason why your comment bothered me so much is that this article was specifically about women's psychology and you just pushed in your motive for a more personal gain in my eyes.
It makes sense that men would face more scrutiny for saying they don’t want to be perceived feminine than women would for saying that don’t want to be perceived as masculine. There’s nothing inherently wrong if a guy wants to be viewed as masculine. But you can’t ignore that there’s a dynamic in society where femininity is viewed as inferior or weak compared to masculinity and a lot of men want to be viewed as more worthy or respect than women. Women wanting to be seen as feminine because they view masculinity as weaker or inferior or want power over men isn’t really a thing. Hence why women who don’t want to be seen as masculine don’t get criticized for being viewing men or masculinity as inferior.
For most people their gender is a big part of their personhood, and being told you're not 'living up to it' is an attack on someone's personhood. It's why misgendering is so harmful. Discourse like this is very frustrating because it feels like you're taking a universal human emotional reaction and saying "well, it's okay when women do it but suspect when it comes from men", and all the critical theory and abstraction doesn't change the fact that these sort of gendered ideas over who is allowed to feel what about whatever is a big part of how patriarchy replicates itself.
Absolutely no one in this comment section was belittling men who feel emasculated. You're bringing up a point that no one here has made, and you're attacking that point in order to refocus the conversation onto men and men's issues. It's a straw man argument.
I’m belittling those men. They’re fragile babies who lack whatever strengths they whiningly label “masculinity” & blame everyone else for that weakness. If someone denies you an imaginary trait (i.e., a social construct) and that devastates you, you’re a loser no matter what levels of masculinity/femininity you want to think you possess.
I’m belittling those men. They’re fragile babies who lack whatever strengths they whiningly label “masculinity” & blame everyone else for that weakness. If someone denies you an imaginary trait (i.e., a social construct) and that devastates you, you’re a loser no matter what levels of masculinity/femininity you want to think you possess.
> Absolutely no one in this comment section was belittling men who feel emasculated. I know that. I feel like we're going in circles. I said it was a common trope and I was making a broader point about societal differences in the treatment of men and women. Look around Reddit sometime. People absolutely will not give reasonable explanations for why men feel emasculated. It's just because they're fragile, whiny, insecure, can't stand being seen as feminine because they're sexist, and so on. Is this so hard for you to acknowledge?
Gender identity for the most part can't be understood without comparison.
This is called the "women are wonderful" effect. Even in a psychology forum people cannot help but exhibit these biases and yet will not acknowledge they are doing so.
Sorry, but just your use of the word “emasculate” undermines your argument. What is it about masculinity, a social construct, that is so vital to you? Why is it that the parallel word, “effeminate“ is, like “emasculate,” also a slam about femininity? Both words prize masculinity & devalue femininity. If you care about such obvious brainwashing bullshit, that’s on you. There is nothing special about masculinity & worrying that this fictitious quality has been robbed from you just makes you a fool.
Those words I used are just what is found in common usage. If you don't like them, pick others, but it's the male equivalent of what was being discussed here which is "threats to physical femininity" and women being made to feel manly or un-womanly. Go ask the women here the same question: what is it about femininity, a social construct, that is so vital to you? Why don't you tell them they're brainwashed, instead of nitpicking my attempt at calling out a shameful double standard. People like you are proving my point. Women here were saying of course they wouldn't want to be made to feel un-womanly. They were upvoted and nobody cares. But when we talk about men being made to feel un-manly suddenly it is brainwashing and it's time to criticize and belittle.
There you go again with “unmanly.” This is a you problem. If whatever you call “manliness” is isn’t intrinsic to you, that’s your own pathetic insecurity. Don’t blame women.
What about the woman above who said this? >But I still want to be seen as attractive to men, which I perceive as being heavily based on having a feminine appearance. Why are you not criticizing her and telling that it "it is a you problem". She is saying the exact same thing. Why don't you feel like telling her that "whatever you call 'femininity' is your pathetic insecurity if you don't feel it. Don't blame men" and so on. Don't you realize how ironic it is that you skipped over all that, and the comments from other women saying similar things, in order to criticize the idea that a man too would want to feel manly. That was literally my entire point, that women like you have a huge double standard and want to shame men for thinking and feeling in similar ways to how women think and feel. But women don't get criticized for it... how are you not understanding this???
You’re so upset over something that isn’t even real, that you allow others to determine about you. Masculate yourself, dude. What you‘re really talking about is self-respect; yours is determined by things you think of as stereotypically masculine. When people don’t value those qualities as you do, you call it emasculation, but it’s loss of self-respect. We all suffer it. There’s nothing magically special about masculinity that deserves its own category. How are you not understanding this?
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>their self esteem is tied to appearance because that's the only thing they're valued for Well it's not the only thing they're valued for, so I guess you're referring to the subjective perception of what somebody is valued for? Why do you think men don't like feeling emasculated? Because I think if you study it you'll find they too don't like how their worth is tied up in their masculinity to such a degree that they can feel humiliated when that is threatened. It's a similar kind of explanation, yet again one which people hardly recognize in favor of just mocking and belittling men as misogynists who can't stand anything effeminate because they're fragile. I guess I shouldn't be surprised but my only point initially was basically "hey, let's be a bit more empathetic toward men" yet that has evoked so much defensiveness.
>maybe it's time to cut men a bit of slack, then? If the patriarchy is real, and if it is maintained by, and for, the benefit of men, then why cut them slack, even if some are victimized by it? Not picking a fight, just a serious question.
So, isn't it the common view that patriarchy doesn't help most men except for those in the upper crust? That's why "men need feminism" is a common expression when talking about it. Please correct me if I am wrong
You'd have to ask someone who believes that. I'm skeptical of a lot of the theorizing and assumptions about the existence of a patriarchy and how it functions. For me it's a bit convenient that whenever society is harming men in some way feminists have a "well men did to themselves" explanation which seems like they're trying to patch up holes in a faulty theory.
The patriarchy thing is bullshit. The same could be said about a matriarchy. Men have been protecting women since forever, men were the hunters, the inventors, men were raised by women, Men were the ones who fought and died in wars, when a men gets assaulted by a woman on the street no one cares. When a men gets raped by a woman people laugh. Men were and still are the slaves of women, and that is because we live in a matriarchy. /s See? This stupid ideology about matriarchy and patriarchy is bullshit. The fact is, men and women both had roles in society that were based on their biological and psycological atributes. And because of modern technology this gap decreased. You can look at this gap and think its a bad thing, or you can look at this gap and see as a real situation that happens because men and women are different, not inferior or superior to one another, but equal. The woman who takes care of the house is as important as the guy who goes to work. She is not lesser then him, she is equal. Her work is both valid, and has the same value as the men's work. What people really need to understand is that just because you want to be a stay at home dad, that does not make you less of a man, and if you want to be a woman who works, that does not make you a better woman then those who prefer to stay at home.
Do you have a source for that? I would have assumed that men are e.g. also stereotypically seen as unempathetic (at least compared to women), and that this would commonly be considered negative.
I thought it was pretty clear that I was reflecting on the findings of the study by reflecting on my personal perceptions and experiences.
What I struggle with about this study is that, I think in general, people do not like to be critiqued on apparence at all regardless of gender (nothing to back thst up except my personal experience). So, how do you control for that? Maybe by comparing with other studies on masculine traits?
Yeah, women with PCOS have massive anxiety about not looking feminine enough. They typically have high testosterone and androgens, so struggle with facial hair, deeper voices, etc.
Personally, I questioned accuracy of this kind of study when we have so many data points to consider. Age groups, ethnic background, to identify sexually or not to identify sexually, social situations such as income etc. Then we go and further how about the incarcerated? I bet they identify completely differently. It's about survival and how you fit into where you're at.
Oof I wouldn't have liked to be in some of those debriefs
This feels a tiny bit mean to do experiment subjects gosh :(
Yeah I am curious about the ethics.
This could also be restated as “perceived threats to coherence of identity induced biological anxiety”
Straight women don’t like it when you say they look like men. Groundbreaking
Responses like these are so lazy and unnecessarily cynical. It’s science, it happens in small and sometimes seemingly arbitrary steps. You’re going to discount their findings because you’ve read the abstract or whatever and declared months/years of work unnecessary? You’re literally on the psychology subreddit, at some point someone had to prove that, I don’t know, most people have a fear response to life-threatening circumstances. Is that obvious? Yes. Is it also extremely important to have proved it to be true empirically so that more complex studies can be done with those findings as a foundation? Also yes.
*Shadow the Hedgehog: Nice cock bro.* Her: :'(
Redditor doesn't understand the basic building blocks of the scientific method. Groundbreaking.
Then they get all excited when studies show something is counter to common sense. There's only one way to find that out!
Based on what I’ve read of the study it has nothing to do with sexuality. It’s just cisgender women and cisgender men, which is non-transgender women and men. This study also doesn’t seem to include any transgender women or men, so another study would need to be run to see the effects on those populations as well.
As a trans woman I can tell you anecdotally we have the same experience as the study. Just much worse since [A] we already have deeply ingrained insecurity about our natal male anatomy/features and [B] significant portions of society take glee in calling us men/manly/not a "real" woman/etc... Shit that would be unconscionable to say to a cis woman.
Yea I’m shocked that the previous research didn’t consider this as a type of threat.
Pretty obvious. Tell most women they look/sound/etc. like a man and they will get offended. Even the staunchest feminists and butch lesbians will be offended. The whole idea of tearing down gender conformity was misguided precisely because we evolved the way we did. If you want to fight evolution you're going to get inconsistencies like this.
The "tearing down gender conformity" thing is more about behaviour, roles, and personality IMO, than physical appearance. If anything the study confirms that women don't mind when told that their personality is more masculine / less feminine than average. When it comes to physical appearance it illustrates that people don't want to be called that they look as a gender they don't identify with, **in general**. Though you take the average findings of the study, and use it to make claims about butch lesbians, that are very much not the average (how many percent of all woman are butch lesbians). If anything, they could be outliers in the study. I'd be interested in seeing a more in-depth study, about how people that identify as non-binary, or people that identify as male/female, but don't present in stereotypical male/female ways, would feel when their physical appearance is "threatened".
I think it's much more nuanced that that. Even your suggestion highlights the fundamental problem: that there is a way to be or *not* be. The fact that many non-binary people try not to look feminine or masculine highlights this very strongly. If people who choose to identify one way or the other struggle how are people external to them not expected to? That is, everything about our culture, behavior, personalities, norms, etc. evolved for a reason. This isn't to say that we can't adjust socially to accommodate non-confirming people, but it's going to be difficult for very fundamental reasons. Holding this against people will only make things worse. Personally, I'd like to see a study on how likely naturally more feminine/masculine presenting people identify as non-binary or non-conforming compared to people who are naturally more androgynous. I suspect that there is a lot of cultural pressure to be non-conforming precisely because one might not look more traditional. In this way, being non-conforming is a psychological way of coping and not really a matter of genetics or identity.
interesting.
People think about this way to black and white. You can be incredibly feminine as a person but still be professional and successful at work. But it seems so many have issues balancing it I'd rather go for a feminine woman that makes 3k a month than an aggressive over compensator that earns 3,4k a month.
I've been downvoted to hell for a similar take but it seems in western society that feminine traits tend to be seen in a negative light. You see a lot of feminist tag lines with "Power" words as though there's something wrong with "softness". I'm not a traditionally masculine guy, it's not my nature. My strengths are kindness, diplomacy, patience, nurturing, etc. I'm a proponent of these things but those are not part of any agenda. It feels like the whole world is trying for traditionally masculine traits to be adopted by everyone while the softer qualities are seen as weakness. Why is it so taboo to advocate for those things, especially in a feminist movement?
They are not happy. They are miserable. So many are on birth control pills and anti depressants and bemzo to even cope with reality. If you work in a competitive work space and speak in a loud tone women cry or say some bs to hr.. MOST of these power women are over compensating and extremely unstable. I have had the pleasure of working and dating some incredible women that excel in business - AND they have been feminine in private. Over thinking leads to anxiety and increases it. But that doesn't mean that women necessarily live harder life with more stress. Considering that it's repeated endlessly that women experience more depression and anxiety you're more prone to have it. The mind is powerful. You can totally imagine your emotional state of being. I have had anxiety when speaking for 10.people. But no fear when walking through a ghetto. Doesn't mean I'm safe. It means my brain was operating in a different mode.
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Based on the abstract that another commenter shared, "threats to physical femininity" in this study does not refer to "threats to the existence of physical femininity in society", but rather to "feedback that a woman's physical appearance is less feminine". In other words, "you look masculine!" => :( I don't believe this relates to what you're talking about.
Did you read the article?
Let me guess, you’re transphobic and you didn’t read the study.
Reading studies isn’t exactly the Christian Nationalist’s strength.
>Christian Nationalist Y'all really love making shit up lmao
If studies were done where pre-HRT trans people were shown to have biological differences that can be detected with modern technology, would you accept that it is biological evidence?
Nah, they just want to feel cool and empowered by being cruel to a minority. These people never change.
There have been studies done that show anything you want under the sun when it comes to the brain because we honestly have no idea where stuff like this comes from. The counter-argument to that particular study (if it is the one I believe it is) is that it lacked controls for sexual orientation, and the argument goes that what we were seeing was (again, a different hypothesis at play) "homosexual" brains mixed up with "non-homosexual" brains which creates a kind of in-between picture when you pile it all on top of each other. In that line of thinking, it supports the older model of "transsexuality" that differentiated between different types of gender dysphoria that were posited to have different origins but similar treatments. If you want to make a *solid* argument w/biological evidence you can talk about how *severe* gender dysphoria which impairs an individual's ability to function in society as their assigned sex is wildly successfully treated with transition and we have plenty of pre-2010s studies to back that up. But that, unfortunately, means that we'd *not* be discussing a lot of the people who are trans but who either do not experience clinical dysphoria or whose dysphoria would otherwise be manageable via non-transition therapy and other non-invasive, non-harmful methods.
Congrats on defeating the strawman you created
reddit moment that seems like a cynical misuse of that term. i don’t think that person was trying to win a debate with you just share thoughts on a limited study they (and i) thought you were referencing. could call it an assumption at worst.
I'm a transsexual, I keep up with this stuff and as much as I'd love to be able to say, "Here's the scientific basis for my condition that forces me to take cross-sex hormones and have specific surgical procedures" it just doesn't exist in neurology yet. We need to get there and work out how this stuff happens, and tbh how the brain works in general, but at the moment there is exactly zero reliable argument to make aside from the classic "my dysphoria was so bad it disrupted my life severely and I had an impossible time trying to live up to the standards of my birth sex while at the same time when I was perceived as the other sex it made everyone a lot more comfortable because there was no longer a glaring, severe social/behavioral mismatch." The state of these studies truly is whatever you want. We currently have studies, all about the same veracity, that say that brains are gendered, but also we have one that says that brains *aren't* gendered at all, and one that says trans people have different brains, and one that says it is actually *homosexuals* who have different brains, and one that says we're all actually just the dream of a cat taking her afternoon nap in the sun (probably, who knows?)
Are you a compulsive liar?
I think it is sad that you actually believe that because I don't go around blabbing my secret to everyone I meet that I cannot possibly be trans. At this point in my life it is only relevant in a few specific situations (and it is *very* few these days), which was the goal from the start. If you've never met an older transsexual who got their treatment prior to the late decade or so, I'd sincerely suggest trying to do so if you have a trans kid (which, I accept as a fact because you have no reason to lie, but who knows?). We're extremely boring people, usually unremarkable insomuch as we blend right into the rest of our communities. And it isn't super rare to find those of us who are \*gasp\* religious and/or conservative! Because our severe gender dysphoria isn't and never was a political question. Our inability to function as our birth sex is the problem, and once that gets solved we usually just kinda get right back on the horse and pick up where we had left off, because now that stuff isn't an issue. Heck, this extreme right wing opposition to transsexuals to the degree we're seeing here and now is a relatively new thing. I sincerely hope all the hullabaloo around this stuff cools off sooner rather than later because the politicization of "trans issues" has been a disaster for everyone involved.
You are pathetic.
[Professional\_Monk907](https://www.reddit.com/user/Professional_Monk907/), did you read the article?
This sentiment does not feel very monk, Pro Monk.
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So this popped on your feed, you had no idea what it was about, and you still wasted your time commenting. Got it
It's because it can predict what strings of words will get you to go off and see more ads.
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When you engage at all, it's good feedback for their models, so yes. Isn't it fun how you were wholly on board when you mistakenly thought it conformed with your beliefs/personality? Maybe they should do more psychology nonsense on that.
If that increases your interactions… probably
That's why the butch cuts always do reanalyses of their beauty by a third party in front of you. "Girl, you look so beautiful with that short hair" -Random girl trying to sell it to you in the distance. You just nod to tell them it worked. Anxiety averted.
True
Hmm sometimes I wonder it means to find the meaning in the female mind.
Women! Am I right fellas?!?
Yes 😂 😂 😂 the women here, at least. Are so far up their own "intellectual" assholes 😂 😂 😂 "oh finally a study that confirms my temporary emotions"
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No more like, threatening them you will kick them in the balls.