Post by greatcoastal on Jan 14, 2023 7:50:16 GMT -5
medium.com/modern-women/feminine-power-is-not-the-toxic-belittling-of-men-47a7e2a2733d
Feminine Power Is Not the Toxic Belittling Of Men
My extended family’s messed up ideas of ‘feminine power’ through the toxic belittling of men
This is a bit of a rant, but I’m honestly kind of upset.
For some reason beyond me, my extended family and my mother, think it’s somehow okay to make rude, personal, and even hurtful jabs about the men in my family, as some kind of ‘women’s power’ funny thing.
Let me explain.
Over the weekend, we had a huge extended family reunion. The toxicity started while watching my little second-removed niece and nephew on a slide. The boy, who was about four, wasn’t very athletic and was trying to sit down to go down the slide. He was being very polite and quiet, just taking a little extra time to get seated, when his little sister who was about three, walked up behind him and smacked him in the face.
For the life of me, I thought the mom would scold her. That was my internal reaction if that were my child, but to my surprise, not only the mom but the children’s grandmother, instead, scolded the boy to stop taking so long. They told the boy he deserve it if he didn’t move. They laughed and talked about how hilarious it was, that his little sister was being more aggressive than the boy as if it were cute, and ‘power to the girls!’
In fact, they even said, ‘You go, girl! You make him move!’ while they were laughing.
It made me sick. I felt so bad for this nice quiet boy who was just taking an extra minute to position himself on the slide.
The second time I noticed this behavior, was when my sister’s husband was in the kitchen with my mom. She was baking something when she turned to him, and said some zinging comment to him about his intelligence and worth as a guy in the kitchen, that was really actually hurtful sounding.
Yet, right after she said it, she fake jostled him with a laugh, as if saying, ‘you’re a guy. You know I’m teasing. You can deal with it.’
But I saw his facial expression. He did not find it at all funny and was forcing himself to be polite to his mother-in-law, my mother. I felt very awkward sitting there and I think he did, too.
What really got me the most upset, was when this toxic male, whatever you even call this, landed on my sixteen-year-old son.
My son suffers from extreme social anxiety. He’s been diagnosed and has even been on medication for it. For months knowing we had this big family gathering, he’d been struggling with anxiety over having to see his extended family and ‘especially’ the three teenage girls that he hadn’t seen since he was five.
He was really nervous to the point that he didn’t want to go, but he got himself together enough to brave the trip, and even said hello to the girls and was hanging around with this huge group of people. It was a big step for him. I was very proud of him for doing it. There was a time when he wouldn’t have been able to do this at all.
After, a bit, the kids all went off in their own directions, and my aunt, who is the grandmother of the teen girls, approached me. She said with a laugh of amusement, “Guess what the girls said?” Insert more laughing. “They said, ‘Wow great party, where our male cousin doesn’t even want to do anything with us?”
My first reaction was, ‘ouch…’ This was my son. That was a little forwardly mean. Then …, why was she laughing? Why is this funny? She was literally talking and making a jab about my son. I’m his mother.
Now, if this was seriously something they thought and were concerned about, then it was something that warranted a discussion so feelings could get explained, etc, but she kept laughing and saying it in a kind of a snobby teasing way, that showed she found great amusement in this insult to my son, which was the reason for her sharing it, not an actual concern.
It was the ‘girls making fun at the expense of males,’ thing. They were making fun of my son and found joking about his shy insecurities somehow amusing.
Considering this was my son who was doing everything he could just to be there and social through his anxiety disorder, I found this ‘joking’ incredibly mean and it made me furious.
After this aunt of mine moved on to share the ‘funny’ story with my mother who walked in, I finally chimed in with a straight face, that my son is just really shy and has anxiety. The girls may need to make the first move to help make him feel welcome.
The look on her face was as if I had just completely just shut her up. I honestly don’t even think she realized she was insulting my child right to me until I said that, that’s how toxic and twisted this family’s mindset seems to be when it comes to being a socially acceptable thing for the women to make fun of the men.
It’s sickening.
I don’t know if it’s like this everywhere, but it’s definitely a very real issue in my entire extended family.
Does anyone else see and experience this? Because this is definitely not okay.
We, as women, talk all the time about wanting to dismantle toxic masculinity. If as women, we are teasing and emotionally mocking men for any weakness and putting them down, we are just as much a part of the problem.
This isn’t ‘women's power’ by jabbing and making fun of men. It’s emotional abuse, toxic, and feeds them into feeling they’re supposed to be that Toxic Masculine Alpha, not the opposite. This is literally teaching boys and men that they shouldn’t have feelings and can just ‘take it,’ ’cause they’re a guy.
That’s not what we want if we are trying to dismantle toxic masculinity. If we want more sensitive, feeling, empathic, and caring men, we need to stop this.
It’s not amusing it’s really messed up.
Thank you for reading. ❤
Feminine Power Is Not the Toxic Belittling Of Men
My extended family’s messed up ideas of ‘feminine power’ through the toxic belittling of men
This is a bit of a rant, but I’m honestly kind of upset.
For some reason beyond me, my extended family and my mother, think it’s somehow okay to make rude, personal, and even hurtful jabs about the men in my family, as some kind of ‘women’s power’ funny thing.
Let me explain.
Over the weekend, we had a huge extended family reunion. The toxicity started while watching my little second-removed niece and nephew on a slide. The boy, who was about four, wasn’t very athletic and was trying to sit down to go down the slide. He was being very polite and quiet, just taking a little extra time to get seated, when his little sister who was about three, walked up behind him and smacked him in the face.
For the life of me, I thought the mom would scold her. That was my internal reaction if that were my child, but to my surprise, not only the mom but the children’s grandmother, instead, scolded the boy to stop taking so long. They told the boy he deserve it if he didn’t move. They laughed and talked about how hilarious it was, that his little sister was being more aggressive than the boy as if it were cute, and ‘power to the girls!’
In fact, they even said, ‘You go, girl! You make him move!’ while they were laughing.
It made me sick. I felt so bad for this nice quiet boy who was just taking an extra minute to position himself on the slide.
The second time I noticed this behavior, was when my sister’s husband was in the kitchen with my mom. She was baking something when she turned to him, and said some zinging comment to him about his intelligence and worth as a guy in the kitchen, that was really actually hurtful sounding.
Yet, right after she said it, she fake jostled him with a laugh, as if saying, ‘you’re a guy. You know I’m teasing. You can deal with it.’
But I saw his facial expression. He did not find it at all funny and was forcing himself to be polite to his mother-in-law, my mother. I felt very awkward sitting there and I think he did, too.
What really got me the most upset, was when this toxic male, whatever you even call this, landed on my sixteen-year-old son.
My son suffers from extreme social anxiety. He’s been diagnosed and has even been on medication for it. For months knowing we had this big family gathering, he’d been struggling with anxiety over having to see his extended family and ‘especially’ the three teenage girls that he hadn’t seen since he was five.
He was really nervous to the point that he didn’t want to go, but he got himself together enough to brave the trip, and even said hello to the girls and was hanging around with this huge group of people. It was a big step for him. I was very proud of him for doing it. There was a time when he wouldn’t have been able to do this at all.
After, a bit, the kids all went off in their own directions, and my aunt, who is the grandmother of the teen girls, approached me. She said with a laugh of amusement, “Guess what the girls said?” Insert more laughing. “They said, ‘Wow great party, where our male cousin doesn’t even want to do anything with us?”
My first reaction was, ‘ouch…’ This was my son. That was a little forwardly mean. Then …, why was she laughing? Why is this funny? She was literally talking and making a jab about my son. I’m his mother.
Now, if this was seriously something they thought and were concerned about, then it was something that warranted a discussion so feelings could get explained, etc, but she kept laughing and saying it in a kind of a snobby teasing way, that showed she found great amusement in this insult to my son, which was the reason for her sharing it, not an actual concern.
It was the ‘girls making fun at the expense of males,’ thing. They were making fun of my son and found joking about his shy insecurities somehow amusing.
Considering this was my son who was doing everything he could just to be there and social through his anxiety disorder, I found this ‘joking’ incredibly mean and it made me furious.
After this aunt of mine moved on to share the ‘funny’ story with my mother who walked in, I finally chimed in with a straight face, that my son is just really shy and has anxiety. The girls may need to make the first move to help make him feel welcome.
The look on her face was as if I had just completely just shut her up. I honestly don’t even think she realized she was insulting my child right to me until I said that, that’s how toxic and twisted this family’s mindset seems to be when it comes to being a socially acceptable thing for the women to make fun of the men.
It’s sickening.
I don’t know if it’s like this everywhere, but it’s definitely a very real issue in my entire extended family.
Does anyone else see and experience this? Because this is definitely not okay.
We, as women, talk all the time about wanting to dismantle toxic masculinity. If as women, we are teasing and emotionally mocking men for any weakness and putting them down, we are just as much a part of the problem.
This isn’t ‘women's power’ by jabbing and making fun of men. It’s emotional abuse, toxic, and feeds them into feeling they’re supposed to be that Toxic Masculine Alpha, not the opposite. This is literally teaching boys and men that they shouldn’t have feelings and can just ‘take it,’ ’cause they’re a guy.
That’s not what we want if we are trying to dismantle toxic masculinity. If we want more sensitive, feeling, empathic, and caring men, we need to stop this.
It’s not amusing it’s really messed up.
Thank you for reading. ❤
