This US thing baffles me. It goes “whoa, a man cannot possibly buy tampons, or hold his friends handbag, or whatever…” because some braindead six year old idiot character out of Beavis and Butthead might magically pop out of thin air and guffaw “Haha, tampons!”, which is somehow, potentially terminally embarassing and will end your public life.
While it’s globally available, it’s really much much much more prevalent in the US. And it has been for, litterally, decades. Fourty years ago, a US girlfriend was already complaining about it, and I didn’t understand what it was about (Yes, I might be older than you are). It’s also completely obvious in US mass media.
It really isn’t, BUT American media is a power house globally and makes many of our cultural events more prevalent than reality. If you travel the world, you’ll find things far worse in India, Brazil, Mexico, and really most non-first world countries. I mean theyre so afraid of homosexualty in parts of the world they consider you a demon and kill you.
One of the reasons you hear about it in the USA is that its considered newsworthy. If it was as common as you were implying it would be like reporting on the prevalence of turkey sandwiches for lunch. We dont eat them all the time but its not weird or rare.
Modern men are engaged with their children of both genders and youtube has further propped up the narrative that being a good father means doing so at only a positive reflection of your masculinity.
It’s also, because you bathe in it, that you don’t realise how utterly different the US is in so many ways from the rest of the werstern world. No, really.
From the innumerable religious sects, the numerous racial things, the bizarre poliltics, the relationship to the body (like the ritual cock cutting to avoid masturbation, or the fear of areolas), the extremely strict gendered roles (see above), the love of money (which, admittedly, was kind of a global thing, until it became Gelt Uber Alles! and fucked up your whole society, even though it was the one that started with the most progress for the working class, inspiring people everywhere else… what the fuck happened?).
And that’s probably just scratching the surface. Of course, you can start to find some of this here and there in other “western” countries nowadays. And you can find more of it in “nonaligned” countries.
That’s not the point though. What I meant to say is that the US mindset is on average very different from that of the other western countries when you start to dig a bit (and yes, of course you’ll find lots of exceptions). So the rise of something weird in the US isn’t really surprising. Although I would have expected something more explicitly religious than a rapist paedophile.
I’ve travelled and it seems to me like every country has their own insecurities when it comes to gender roles. Like, in some countries they have hangups about men in the kitchen. But, those same countries don’t have hangups about men dancing that the US sometimes does. Other countries have hangups about hairstyles or shoes, but it’s ok for men to show physical affection by hugging or holding hands.
This US thing baffles me. It goes “whoa, a man cannot possibly buy tampons, or hold his friends handbag, or whatever…” because some braindead six year old idiot character out of Beavis and Butthead might magically pop out of thin air and guffaw “Haha, tampons!”, which is somehow, potentially terminally embarassing and will end your public life.
Its not a US thing. Its a loser thing. This brand of machismo is globally available.
While it’s globally available, it’s really much much much more prevalent in the US. And it has been for, litterally, decades. Fourty years ago, a US girlfriend was already complaining about it, and I didn’t understand what it was about (Yes, I might be older than you are). It’s also completely obvious in US mass media.
It really isn’t, BUT American media is a power house globally and makes many of our cultural events more prevalent than reality. If you travel the world, you’ll find things far worse in India, Brazil, Mexico, and really most non-first world countries. I mean theyre so afraid of homosexualty in parts of the world they consider you a demon and kill you.
One of the reasons you hear about it in the USA is that its considered newsworthy. If it was as common as you were implying it would be like reporting on the prevalence of turkey sandwiches for lunch. We dont eat them all the time but its not weird or rare.
Modern men are engaged with their children of both genders and youtube has further propped up the narrative that being a good father means doing so at only a positive reflection of your masculinity.
It’s also, because you bathe in it, that you don’t realise how utterly different the US is in so many ways from the rest of the werstern world. No, really.
From the innumerable religious sects, the numerous racial things, the bizarre poliltics, the relationship to the body (like the ritual cock cutting to avoid masturbation, or the fear of areolas), the extremely strict gendered roles (see above), the love of money (which, admittedly, was kind of a global thing, until it became Gelt Uber Alles! and fucked up your whole society, even though it was the one that started with the most progress for the working class, inspiring people everywhere else… what the fuck happened?).
And that’s probably just scratching the surface. Of course, you can start to find some of this here and there in other “western” countries nowadays. And you can find more of it in “nonaligned” countries.
That’s not the point though. What I meant to say is that the US mindset is on average very different from that of the other western countries when you start to dig a bit (and yes, of course you’ll find lots of exceptions). So the rise of something weird in the US isn’t really surprising. Although I would have expected something more explicitly religious than a rapist paedophile.
I’ve travelled and it seems to me like every country has their own insecurities when it comes to gender roles. Like, in some countries they have hangups about men in the kitchen. But, those same countries don’t have hangups about men dancing that the US sometimes does. Other countries have hangups about hairstyles or shoes, but it’s ok for men to show physical affection by hugging or holding hands.