It's not just MY point of view, it's that of the American Psychological Association who spent 13 years going through 40 years of research on this topic, and it's the point of view of 96% of studies done on how norms of masculinity as they appear in this culture today affects men (and everyone else).
If you're too bought into the cult of patriarchy to care that it's literally killing men and if you'd rather cling to artificial binaries constructed to police you into being a particular sort of person, then I feel kind of sorry for you.
https://www.apa.org/monitor/2019/01/ce-corner
Men commit 90 percent of homicides in the United States and represent 77 percent of homicide victims. They’re the demographic group most at risk of being victimized by violent crime. They are 3.5 times more likely than women to die by suicide, and their life expectancy is 4.9 years shorter than women’s. Boys are far more likely to be diagnosed with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder than girls, and they face harsher punishments in school—especially boys of color.
APA’s new Guidelines for Psychological Practice With Boys and Men strive to recognize and address these problems in boys and men while remaining sensitive to the field’s androcentric past. Thirteen years in the making, they draw on more than 40 years of research showing that traditional masculinity is psychologically harmful and that socializing boys to suppress their emotions causes damage that echoes both inwardly and outwardly.
The main thrust of the subsequent research is that traditional masculinity—marked by stoicism, competitiveness, dominance and aggression—is, on the whole, harmful.
Why on earth do you think that this is good, or even remotely acceptable? Is your unearned privilege really more important to you than authenticity and individuality (to say nothing of sanity and mental and physical health)?
“At a time when boys should be expressing and constructing their identities in more diverse, grounded, and authentic ways, they are brutally conditioned to suppress authentic expression and instead cleave closely to the expression of male privilege as identity. Locker room talk and the denigration of women become central to proving they are “real men” in their social circles.”
As the mother of a son, I have a hard time not flat out saying, “What the actual fuck is wrong with you?”
