Are gender roles inherently problematic ?

[Ikarus]

Obviously for gender non conforming people but also for cis people. I think people overlook how inherently toxic gender roles can be. 
 

What are the problems I find with the mainstream gender roles? Generally speaking men are aggressive and emotionally suppressed. Woman are either passive or nurturing.

Men generally never discuss their emotions and woman are exploited by abusive broken men to nurture them as a personal psychiatrist.

Men are uncomfortable with seeing psychiatrists or discussing emotions with friends. Also friendships and socializing in general has eroded dramatically from how it once was so theres that big hole in mens lives. 
 

Men unload all of their unprocessed and suppressed emotions on one woman and expect her not to be overwhelmed but to nurture him. This is not smart and not right for both people.

woman become exploited since they’re socialized to perform their nurturing gender role towards men. This is often exploited by men and society.

Men are exploited by having their emotions suppressed due to not wanting to appear weak. This is exploited by the war machine in a way. Men find brotherhood and strong bonds during war. Men share feelings in these spaces and form friendships deeper than high school buddies who dip out after college.

A lot of this can go further back to the patriarchy but thats another discussion and one I am just now beginning to truly understand.

What do you find problematic about masculine and feminine gender roles? Do you find these gender characteristics negatively influencing your life, or pressuring you to act certain ways that feel uncomfortable?

[Atypique]

I agree with all of what you said, except I don't think that friendship used to be better. Friendship is friendship. Patriarchy influences it, no doubt, but it's not deleting it.

 

The worst thing I think is using this stereotypes when you're queer. As a non binary person, I would like people to see me as androgyn, or something like that. However, in order to do so, I would need follow the stereotypes of society, and I'm against these stereotypes. This is an awful eternal loop

[Balfrog]

I can imagine gender roles being less toxic, but that would involve getting rid of the ones we have rn and constructing new ones.

Of course I could be wrong since gender roles have always baffled me, at least masculinity and femininity. Maybe this is because of me being agenderish and maybe it is because my dad always cooked and both parents work.

On the emotional stuff I don't know how much growing up thinking I was a man and how much anxiety, depression, and lack of community are the reasons for feeling a bit emotionally stunted. Despite being able to share my opinions freely on most topics, I do kinda struggle to write this paragraph without letting emotions flood out that I don't know how to process on my own. Good therapy is really hard to find and I would much rather get to a point where I feel comfortable sharing strong feelings of longing and loneliness. It also doesn't help that I have been told by a therapist to act on emotions I hadn't fully processed and it hurt my friend, and took away the possibility of processing my emotions with them. It was that circumstance that lead me to me to realize that I am arospec which is good, but I still hurt someone that I shouldn't have.

I also definitely feel that "no homo" has ruined friendships of men. Skinship is only expected to happen with lovers and children, so since a lot of people feel the need for touching and hugs and shit, men's friendships have gone down the drain since they aren't allowed to weave their legs together while sharing a seat. Same with hanging out too often with one person, I remember being told doing this would make me look gay at least twice, although I didn't really understand what this meant then. Sharing feelings as a man is taught to be seen as gay as well due to the assumed femininity of homosexuality and having emotions other than anger.

Also like beauty standards make it a little hard sometimes being nonbinary. I don't want to be seen as a man, but bodyhair is coded masculine (although if you look at leading men from the 90s till now it looks like hairy guys are going out of fashion). This took a while to unpack and hormones helped but I still can't do facial hair,it is too thick and itchy for me. Chest and arm hair I have made my peace with, which kinda sucks since my armpits are the only place it doesn't hurt to shave. I will probably learn this next summer if I am ok with leg hair. It's kinda funny I spent so much of highschool feeling uncomfortable when I saw other people or my own knees, I guess that was me egging or something. It does kinda suck trying to separate what I want to look like and what society thinks men and women should look like. Thinking about it I was told I have an androgynous jawline and cheekbones a few years ago and I don't know what that means.

[hemogoblin]

On 3/20/2023 at 12:36 AM, Ikarus said:

What do you find problematic about masculine and feminine gender roles?

Rigidity and exclusion.

Quote

Do you find these gender characteristics negatively influencing your life, or pressuring you to act certain ways that feel uncomfortable?

Yes.

[Harvest-Unity]

On 3/20/2023 at 5:36 PM, Ikarus said:

Men are uncomfortable with seeing psychiatrists or discussing emotions with friends.

This is true in some ways, but there is another side to this issue:

Plenty of men are seeking help, plenty of men are discussing emotions with friends.

The problem is that a) therapists and other mental health professionals are not always informed on men's issues, or do not know how to work with men in general because a big part of it was designed for womenand b) peers, including not just other men but women too, will ridicule men when they do express emotions.

In other words: there are men who are talking, speaking out, breaking these gender roles, but as a society we're not listening enough. I wish instead of focusing so much on getting men to talk about their feelings and more on us as a society creating an environment where it is safe for men to talk about their feelings. I dislike the individualistic approach some people (not saying you do this btw) have where they say stuff like 'men just need to express themselves more', because it makes it seem like its all the fault of their actions and not also society's reactions.

anyways here is a article on the topic of therapy for men: https://www.sbs.com.au/news/the-feed/article/high-therapy-dropout-rates-reveal-failure-to-connect-with-men-study-shows/ytmwmbjke 

[DeltaAro]

On 3/20/2023 at 7:36 AM, Ikarus said:

Men are uncomfortable with seeing psychiatrists

Sorry for the nitpicking, but this example is a bit weird, since this isn't even obviously 100 % bad on the level of society.

Mental health isn't like e.g. cancer screening, where the resources exist, but are underutilized. Instead, the demand for mental healthcare services is very high, but there are not nearly enough mental health providers.

So the stereotypically masculine trait like stoicism isn't always negative. It depends...

On 3/20/2023 at 7:36 AM, Ikarus said:

What do you find problematic about masculine and feminine gender roles?

To me, this is like asking what I find problematic about romance. Sure, I could provide a long list, but then someone comes along and tells me that this is unfair because it's all just an expression of amatonormativity. OTOH, if you remove all the strange stuff from romance, is it even romance anymore?

Most cliché masculine and feminine traits aren't bad per se. It depends on the situation. But again:

[Queerdo]

I see gender roles as a bit like a rubber band. You can get away with stretching it in a few directions, but if you try to stretch too far or in too many directions, you'll exceed the elastic limit and things start breaking.

[Ikarus]

@Harvest Your absolutely right.
 

On 3/23/2023 at 12:12 AM, Harvest said:

I wish instead of focusing so much on getting men to talk about their feelings and more on us as a society creating an environment where it is safe for men to talk about their feelings. I dislike the individualistic approach

I haven’t considered that some people blame men on an individual level for not talking about their feelings along with talking about their feelings. A double bind … sheesh!
 

Also you’ve convinced me to rephrase the issue whenever I mention it. I assume everyone knows the why around men not talking about their feelings, but they might not, especially women who haven’t been given these roles, nor live with the same gender expectations. 
 

 

[Ikarus]

 

@HarvestYour absolutely right.
 

On 3/23/2023 at 12:12 AM, Harvest said:

I wish instead of focusing so much on getting men to talk about their feelings and more on us as a society creating an environment where it is safe for men to talk about their feelings. I dislike the individualistic approach

I haven’t considered that some people blame men on an individual level for not talking about their feelings along with talking about their feelings. A double bind … sheesh!
 

Also you’ve convinced me to rephrase the issue whenever I mention it. I assume everyone knows the why around men not talking about their feelings, but they might not, especially women who haven’t been given these roles, nor live with the same gender expectations. 
 

@DeltaAro Piggybacking off your nitpick examples, mental health is also costly. Hard to get it, and hard to keep going to get good results. Double wammy.

 

On 3/20/2023 at 12:11 AM, Atypique said:

I agree with all of what you said, except I don't think that friendship used to be better. Friendship is friendship. Patriarchy influences it, no doubt, but it's not deleting it.

@AtypiqueI want to clarify, Im saying people use to socialize more, go bowling maybe. Now people bowl alone more. Im not talking about the quality of friendships , im just saying the the culture has changed dramatically. Im reading a book right now on this phenomenon called bowling alone. 

Edited March 25, 2023 by Ikarus

[apprehensiveanne]

Yes.

[nonmerci]

The problem with roles is that it limits people. So I won't say they are great.

Also I think that some people think you have to fit all the cases to be a real man or a real woman, which will only limit themselves more.

So I don't think that having gender "categories" is bad per se, but the way they are now and the way they are used are bad.

Edited March 27, 2023 by nonmerci

[Guest]

Like in the lizard thinking meme posted above, yes, roles are limited because they are specific.

And they are bad IF you use them to tell people: one half does this, and the other half does that, and don’t you dare even cross the line! Or when you focus on the negative parts of it, such as the parts that say if you xyz you’re less of your gender, which is dysphoric isn’t it? Reminds me of this other thread: 

 

Now let’s compare it to religion, where as a follower of a particular faith your role is to follow the rules outlined by the faith. Some of the rules are good such as be a kind person and don’t do bad things, while other rules are limiting such as don’t eat certain foods, or don’t touch certain objects or do certain activities, and they often have back-up reasons that are just pretty limiting, such as to differentiate who is a true follower of a certain faith, or reasons such as threats of hell, which can cause religious trauma. Similarly, the gender roles about not doing certain activities often have back-up reasons such as being more true to your gender by not overlapping another gender’s role, or less of your gender, which causes dysphoria.

Now you know why I brought religion (neutrally!) into this, because the concepts of how we identify with them and interact with them in society are very similar, easy to compare with!

Religions have their churches, temples and whatnot, and people can also create gender-specific clubs.

But even within gender-specific clubs, how are they using the club? If the club consists of members telling each other to stick to the rigidity of the gender role, whether they like it or not, that’s bad because it’s limiting, it might as well be a cult.

If the club consists of members encouraging each other to break gender roles? Now that’s a different story! But no matter which set of roles you’re following, if you force members to follow it whether they like it or not then it’d just be the same as a cult.

Especially when it’s the negative aspects of gender roles.

Gender roles and religious rules have negative parts, and I already explained above how it can be bad if it’s misused by focusing on the negatives, or by forcing people who don’t like it.

BUT they can also be used in a positive/neutral way. Both religion and gender expression have positive parts, maybe you find prayer relaxing, or you find a certain gender presentation/expression euphoric. Or neutrally, maybe you’re just used to being raised in it, and you can’t even imagine being raised a different way.

If a gender-specific club encourages a positive/neutral set of presentations/expressions that society has already stereotyped as being very gendered, and the people want to do it because the activity appeals to them at a personal/individual level, regardless of what society says about the activity, it should be encouraged, because even if society had gendered it another way, they still find the activity appealing!

Unless someone gets turned off if society had assigned it another gender, then maybe they should ask themselves do they really want to embody a limiting gender role, will they be happy just to embody a limited gender role? Or do they just want to be themselves, regardless of whatever gender-focused remarks society would comment about it?

Back to comparing how society/individuals treat gender to how society/individuals treat religion, what draws people to a specific religion or even multiple religions? Everyone will have different answers, same as what draws someone to identify with a specific gender role? Everyone will have different answers too, but several I can think of, and works for both scenarios of gender and religion is because it’s assigned to them (neutral), and because parts of it make them comfortable (positive).

 

TL;DR Using roles to control and limit people, especially punishing them for crossing the line, is bad, BUT if you find aspects of it comforting then it can also be good. Just like religion, using gender roles to control and limit people and punish them is bad, but if someone finds aspects of following them comforting, then go for it. Gender is like religion as much as “tea is like sex” (a very famous video you would’ve seen at some point), feel free to relish in aspects of it if it makes you comfortable/euphoric, but don’t force/control/limit others with it.

[lillia]

What we consider "feminine vs masculine" is solely based on culture. A skirt in one culture might be "top tier lady fem" but "majestically masculine" in another.

On their own, separate from everything else, it's just how humans try to simplify things because our brains are programmed to want "easy/nice/simple organization" to make digesting information either. However, considering on the internet the attention span is that of a squirrel's, especially with a younger demographic on social media like TikTok and Twitter (30s and younger), it can be difficult to say the least to have much needed, complex, nuisance conversations relating to gender.

It's basically the Barbie movie - it's simple at first glances and you can enjoy the conversation but ultimately, you could spend HOURS of in depth conversation about power dynamics, social roles, how one might be mostly harmful under most circumstances, etc. This is why "gender studies" is an entire academic field.