Elle Beau ❇︎
2 min readOct 18, 2021

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Patriarchy is a dominance based social hierarchy maintained by violence. It harms men in all sorts of ways, including the ways that you are describing by forcing men to act only in certain prescribed ways that have been deemed "manly" and keeping them from full humanity. There is a long-standing word for what you are describing called The Man Box. Women sometimes try to keep guys in The Man Box, but primarily it is other men who do so, which is a part of the difference in the dynamic.

https://remakingmanhood.medium.com/why-we-fight-to-destroy-the-man-box-8e73e2b87ef

I'm not making a value judgement in the same way you are about those two terms because I see the social system of patriarchy to be at fault (not men). Most of the men who engage in misogyny do it subconsciously adhering to the things they've been indoctrinated into believing about what is appropriate for women, just as they have been indoctrinated into what is acceptable for men. Women who are misandric are blaming men, rather than blaming the social system of patriarchy, so no, I don't see that as acceptbale or righteous. I was just noting that it all revolves around the social system of patriarchy, which while it does harm men, also advantages them in many ways. It's a zero-sum dynamic were both by law and by custom women were disadvantaged in the extreme. The vestiges of that are still alive in society today. But that doesn't mean that patriarchy is good for men - something that I write about with a fair amount of regularity. Mark Greene, who wrote the article I linked above, writes about the constraints and problems of The Man Box with regularity and I read and reference him regularly.

But, I also agree with you that it needs to be talked about a lot more. Unfortunately, I've encountered many, many men who want to defend patriarchy, even when it's pointed out how it harms them, even when they are shown what the male suicide statistics are. Patriarchy has indoctrinated them too well so that to question the system is in itself "girly" or "faggy" and so they refuse to do it. I encounter this All.Of.The.Time. In fact, I'm probably going to write something about it soon because we can't really challenge this destrictive social system until more men get on board and agree that it needs to go.

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Elle Beau ❇︎
Elle Beau ❇︎

Written by Elle Beau ❇︎

I'm a bitch, I'm a lover, I'm a child, I'm a mother, I'm a sinner, I'm a saint. I do not feel ashamed. I'm your hell, I'm your dream, I'm nothing in between.

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