Edit: Okay, wow. if the statement from a woman of “we owe you nothing” immediately sets you off emotionally, I would really encourage you to think through why that might be.
A more systemic phrasing could have been “we owe the patriarchy nothing”. I changed it to that for a second before realizing, again, that it was fine. A guy that has worked through internalized patriarchy around this will understand it’s not about them.
Patriarchy on the whole conditions men towards having a sense of entitlement towards women’s bodies, time, attention, labor, etc. It also conditions women that they should feel obligated to provide this without setting boundaries or expecting reciprocal solidarity.
Remember, we literally all have degrees of internalized bigotry, misogyny, racism, transphobia, etc because these are systemic issues. Our responsibility to ourselves and our comrades is to work through that. You are not a bad person for finding those brainworms in yourself, only if you refuse to do the work to address them.
A lot of men are having some knee-jerk response to this, saying "this poster is blaming men for the state of their mental health".
Guys. This isn't some anti-men poster. This is saying exactly what it says: women should not be the sole providers of emotional labour to men in their life. Women do not exist as your friend so that you can vent to them. I'm not saying that they never should; but the point is, a lot of women feel that their male friends rely on them for emotional support while offering none in return.
This is not an attack on men, no more than any other feminist argument is. The fact that there's a lot of men here not engaging with anyone else, just saying "this poster sucks because it assumes that men are bad" is worrying. Listen to your female comrades when they have something to say about misogyny, don't just discount it and move on.
:doubt:
Literally no man thinks this. If anything, they just think they should suck everything up. Proven by the high rates at which men kill themselves or end up addicted instead of going to therapy. Which is made worse by posts like these which just tells men to fucking deal with it already. This is literally perpetuating toxic masculinity.
That's not the point of this post at all? In what way does this post tell men to not talk about their feelings? Its saying not to use women as emotional dumping grounds and give nothing in return. Nobody is saying "just deal with it" here, you're drawing that out of thin air.
Its very common for men, especially depressed, alienated, young men, to believe that getting a girlfriend will make them happy. They project their happiness on to women.
Obviously the state of men's health is disastrous. Obviously toxic masculinity makes it worse. But if you see a woman asserting that she is not a tool of emotional labour for men, and your response is to bring up the problems that men face while discounting the problems that women face, then you need to do some serious self-crit
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Yes. Do you disagree with this?
and that's what the problem is: thats not what this says. At no point does this post say "I don't ever want to deal with men's emotions". People are instantly assuming that and becoming angry.
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I'm going in circles making the same points here.
If someone is your friend, including if they are a woman, you can expect some support from them.
You should not expect support from someone by virtue of them being a woman. You can and should expect support from someone by virtue of having a personal relationship with them.
Many women have had problems with men, especially online, telling them their intimate problems when they don't know each other very well and expecting the woman to have an answer.
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YES. This :10000-com:x. Thank you for doing the work here to explain it further.
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Yes making women do emotional labour is bad. Women owe nothing to men by default. Women do not have to do something that men do not by virtue of them being a woman. They can choose to give men their time and emotional labour, but no man has a right to it. Do you disagree with that?
This post does not say "women are never going to do any emotional labour". It says "men are not entitled to women's emotional labour
Emotional labor by definition isn't really a thing outside of the workplace btw. Emotional labor is the process of managing feelings and expressions to fulfill the emotional requirements of a job. Stuff like not getting angry at the customer who is freaking out at you for no reason. If you consider people confiding their problems in you as "emotional labor" and a problem then you are just a horrible person.
Yes I consider the person who made this poster to be intentionally misusing the term to try and rationalize being a horrible person.
Sure, I can adapt phrasing if that really matters to you. I’d encourage you to read through the comments of other women in this thread about this if you want to understand.
If someone confides a bunch of problems with me without checking in about how I’m at capacity or mental health wise, that’s not cool and they can’t be surprised if I’m not able to offer much beyond “hey, that sucks”. Men can easily reply with that, women often get shamed if they do for “not being nuturing” or we’re called slurs like “heartless bitch”.
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This is an awesome question! You can start by asking her if she feels like you ever put too much on her without asking first. Checking in with people about how they’re feeling before you vent is important. You should also ask her how much she feels you are reciprocating with emotional support.
A ton of straight couples straight up do not talk about this and it leads to women breaking up with men. I have a lot of straight friends who have ended relationships because the guy just couldn’t even communicate. At the point you’re breaking up with someone for that, you also probably aren’t going to talk to them about it because they’ve already shown they’re unwilling to do that.
Men have an incredible capacity for emotional depth, the same as anyone else. Patriarchy victimizes men by pressuring them to suppress and close off that part of themselves.
Looking for support from a romantic partner, or even a close friend or a family member, is not making them. They choose to do it because they're in a close relationship with you.
The problem is exactly what you said in the second paragraph, and that's what this poster is saying. The problem we're having here is that a lot of men are seeing a woman saying we don't owe you anything by virtue of being a woman, and getting up in arms about it. Men are seeing this poster and instead of engaging with the core point of it - that women are expected to be kind, and always able to deal with men's problems - are getting angry and going off on tangents about men's mental health and accusing people of saying things they never said
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The fact that it says "unstable and insecure men" makes it sounds more hostile and kinda mocking towards men that do struggle with mental health, compared to making a point about women not being obligated to provide mental health support.
I think the point is that men who are alienated and depressed tend to project their hopes for happiness on to a woman, usually someone they like romantically. Maybe it could have worded that better, but I didn't take away any kind of mockery or disdain towards men with mental health issues
I mean, clearly many did take that away though, labeling someone as unstable is already something that can be extremely invalidating when it comes to mental health, and combining that with insecure makes it worse.
Doesn't mean that it was intentional, but it should be done better.
Sure it is. It oozes hostility from its every pore, from the venomous look on the woman's face to the language that takes pleasure in the suffering of The Other.
Honestly I don't mind the poster so much as the title of this post.
"Fuck you bro I don't owe you anything get a therapist" just feels unnecessarily hostile to me, especially since I personally demanded emotional labor exactly 0 times in my adult life because uuuh I'm supposed to be a manly mans man or something.
Sorry bro but this is kinda just liberal tone-policing. Every time a marginalised group speaks out about something, they're expected to do it civilly, to not be angry about it, to be a Ben Shapiro debatelord.
I'm too insecure to ever bring up my emotional state with anyone, probably from the deep seated pathology that I'm tolerated at best and don't want to make anyone uncomfortable.