What does it mean to be a man?
The commerce of masculinity is the trading of wit-covered put-downs. Your son will experience it in junior high school. And he’ll experience it even more powerfully if he joins a fraternity. Despite the negative stereotypes, fraternity brothers often bond for a lifetime, sometimes becoming among the few long-lasting friends men have.
John Gray PhD • The Boy Crisis
Back in the 1980s, the Oxford psychologists Michael Argyle and Monika Henderson wrote a seminal paper titled “The Rules of Friendship.” Its six takeaways are obvious, but what the hell, they’re worth restating: In the most stable friendships, people tend to stand up for each other in each other’s absence; trust and confide in each other; support ea... See more
Jennifer Senior • It’s Your Friends Who Break Your Heart
The dynamic of friendship is almost always underestimated as a constant force in human life. A diminishing circle of friends is the first terrible diagnostic of a life in deep trouble: of overwork, of too much emphasis on a professional identity, of forgetting who will be there when our armoured personalities run into the inevitable natural disaste
... See moreRoger's Bacon • Friendship Forever
The insatiable goals to acquire more, succeed conspicuously, and be as attractive as possible lead us to objectify one another, and even ourselves. When people see themselves as little more than their attractive bodies, jobs, or bank accounts, it brings great suffering…You become a heartless taskmaster to yourself, seeing yourself as nothing more
... See moreArthur C. Brooks • The Satisfaction Trap
Men find meaning in one role — provider.
Carlyn Beccia • A Researcher Studied the Most Common Last Words of Suicidal Men
Like girls, boys openly express their desire for genuine connections with others, including with boys. They reveal the human capacity for mutual understanding, care, and empathy and demonstrate remarkably astute abilities to read the human world. Yet as they reach middle to late adolescence and as expectations of manhood intensify, they begin to ex... See more
I have suggested that women look at men this way: if they took away their own network of intimate friends, those with whom they share their personal journey, removed their sense of instinctual guidance, concluded that they were almost wholly alone in the world, and understood that they would be defined only by standards of productivity external to ... See more
But another Pew Research Center study shines a harsher black light on masculinity. Researchers asked women and men where they found meaning, fulfillment, and satisfaction. They found women found happiness through multiple sources, but men did not.
Carlyn Beccia • A Researcher Studied the Most Common Last Words of Suicidal Men
Sehr viel. Toxische Männlichkeit ist ja nicht nur für Frauen und Kinder zerstörerisch, sondern sie schadet auch den Männern. Sie führt unter anderem zu einem Gefühlsverbot: Männer dürfen nicht ängstlich, traurig, schamhaft sein, das ganze mittlerweile bekannte Programm. Diese Gefühle schon in der Kindheit abzuwehren, macht Männer krank. Das ist vie
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