You Don't Need to Man-Up! (Page 3)

[Juxtapose]

Children should be taught that they must control their emotions or their emotions will control them. Cold, calculating logic should rule the human mind.

That being said, I hate that phrase too because it tries to dictate my behavior strictly due to my genitals.

If anyone tells "me to man up" I tell them to go fuck themselves.

[Ailaw22]

Showing emotions when it is appropriate is extremely important and manup when required
I remember my soft skill teacher in college once pointed out at my friends and said look at them full of emotions and you.
I was in denail mode back then but yes , i face difficulty showing emotions

[passinby]

Only women need to man-up since they will be defending us all in the future. Men/boys need to pansy ass down and take it easy.

[Anonymous]

Welcome to the wussification of America. Sorry, but I disagree. While telling someone to "man up" tends to be overdone, it's not like it isn't necessary. We can't have a country overrun by snowflakes.

[coralee]

I find the people who use the term snowflakes are generally the most snowflakey of them all. Learning to process emotions is part of being a healthy individual. There is a difference between crying because someone is mean to you, and crying when a loved one dies. The bravest men I know are men I've seen cry. Or are you seriously going to tell me that tears a mine rescue team had in their eyes when they pulled a dead coworker out of the mine made them weak?

[Opinion Owner]

No, it's acceptable and healthy for a guy to cry in certain situations, death being one of them. In war you have to put your emotions aside until your out of danger, hence 'man up'. Their have been times girls want their boyfriends to 'man up' and protect them when threatened by others.

[coralee]

And I'm not saying men have to cry all the time, I'm saying that sometimes it's okay to cry.

[OatsnWhey]

No, we actually need more of “man-up” in our generation. Raising a bunch of pussies who don’t know how to suck it the fuck up and keep moving through thick and thin.

[Stephen5577]

It's because of weak, emotional men that feminists have achieved so much power and control. We need more alpha masculine men to defeat feminism and the war against men.

[bubble_tea]

I agree. I don't like people who say such things to little boys or girls.

[MonaLee]

Any tag or cliche is a wrong thing to say... And I'm proud I never said this one for 15 years to my son... Now it looks he will become a soldier (his passion). What's a paradox.

[Streamers]

Depends on the context, if a guy is showing his emotions, so be it. He has emotions, let him express them. Don’t tell him to “man up”, bc for all you know, his little sister just passed away, or his wife divorced him. He is a man, and he can show his emotions.

Now, if he is being disrespectful, he should man up, and be more like a gentleman. If he is not treating someone how they should be, then he is not being a gentleman, in which case he does need to man up.

[WhistleForTheChoir]

I've honestly never heard anyone use the phrase "man up" to encourage someone to treat someone with MORE respect. In fact, the way I hear the phrase used, it's usually the opposite of that. It's like, "Be a man and do what men do! Take what you want!"

[Wizard-of-bras]

I don’t think showing emotion over the loss of a loved one makes a man less manly at all. I don’t want to do away with the phrase “man up” though. I just don’t know how to explain why.

[coralee]

I was on a rant and got a little too caught on the phrase. It isn't the phrase that I have an issue with it being used it to belittle people for displaying emotion.

[Wizard-of-bras]

Ya well then in that sense, I’m with you. I’ll tell you right now openly, if I lost my mom or dad or sister, I’m gunna cry like you’ve never seen

[Diesel4]

In my opinion boys should man up. Manning up doesn't even necessarily mean having no feelings at all.

[WhistleForTheChoir]

No, not at all! Just suppressing them and making sure no one else ever knows about them.

[WhistleForTheChoir]

Unless it's anger. That's an ok feeling.

[hellionthesagereborn]

@WhistleForTheChoir Where the hell did you get that? Oh right, the very people who claim thats what man up means, you know feminist who have no idea what it means to be a man. Man up means taking action, something bad happens you can absolutely feel bad about it, their is nothing wrong with that and no one has ever said that, but sitting around being depressed doesn't rectify the situation, actions do. Thats what man up means, it means don't give in to your emotions, don't let them control you your suppose to control them. Doesn't mean not feel, just don't let htem take control. Like if a guy ends up knocking a girl up, we tell him to man up, he isn't allowed to give into his fear and run away, he has responsiblities now. He created a child thast going to need him and he doesn't have the luxury of giving into his fear and abandoning it. Thats what man up means.

[WhistleForTheChoir]

@hellionthesagereborn Oh yeah, you go ahead and tell me what context I heard this phrase in. When I hear it, it's specifically to stop me from expressing pain, anxiety, depression and and sometimes even happiness. When I was young and I got seriously injured in the horse-barn, I went into shock in front of my grandpa's friends. He took me to the house and beat the shit out of me and told me I better "cowboy up". When I used to go to relatives with problems and say, "You know, I'm really worried about this," and all I hear in response is "man up", it's not really helpful. I've had a girl I was seeing tell me to man up because I was giddy about a raise for several hours. and probably just some dumb-ass who spends all day repeating "Man-O-Sphere" slogans so you can pretend like you're a free-thinker while telling everyone else what to think, because you're stuck in 2nd grade, thinking the world is "Boys vs. Girls" and boy ALWAYS WIN because girls are icky.

[WhistleForTheChoir]

@hellionthesagereborn TL;DR If you are here to argue that men are allowed to have a full-breadth of emotions (as opposed to just anger and mild mirth) and the attitudes behind "Man up" actually ENCOURAGE emotional control as opposed to just emotional suppression or transmutation, then you have been presented with a very different reality than the rest of us.

[hellionthesagereborn]

@WhistleForTheChoir anecdotal evidence isn't evidence. By your rational since I was abused as a child that must mean every one was. That's not how the real world works. As I said, its not used in that context as a whole (yes their will be a few people who will use it that way but where not talking about the exceptions where talking about the rule), its used to call them to take charge, take responsibility and to address the problem rather then sit by and do nothing. You are the product of rampant self pity clearly, your insulting some one who never insulted you because you don't like what they have to say. That's why you need to man up, some times you don't like anothers opinion but you still show respect because at the end of the day we are all still people wanting the same things. As for the "Tldr" comment, yes generally people who have short attention spans do remain ignorant yet some how still think they know best, so I'm not surprised you didn't bother reading it.

[hellionthesagereborn]

@WhistleForTheChoir See I've had a hard life, I know what it means to man up. When you get beaten, starved and raped, when you have some one try to kill you, that screws with your head. No one told me to suppress my emotions, but what I had to do was get them under control because I did not have the luxury of wallowing in self pity, that didn't solve any problem, it was not healthy to wallow in my fear either, nor was it appropriate to let my anger dominate my life because it would hurt other people. No one told me to not feel, but I did have to get those things under control. That's what manning up is about. Learning to take control of your feelings so that you don't do something stupid, like as you seem to be doing, wallowing in self pity which makes you weak and prevents you from being the best you can be, from giving into anger and hurting others. Its to encourage you not to act on fear (you probably have never experienced it but fear can kill you.).

[WhistleForTheChoir]

@hellionthesagereborn It's not anecdotal evidence, because your point was definitional. You say "man up" means ONLY one certain thing, and then ask "where the hell" I got my impression of the phrase from. Anecdotal evidence would be if you said, "85% of the time man up means this," and I said, "Well, no, I've also heard it used like this." Then yes, it would be a fallacy, but in this case it isn't don't try to invoke a fallacy if you don't understand it. But the reason you forgot that you asked "where the hell did you get that?" was because it was rhetorical and you don't really want to hear anyone else's perspective, because you would rather make it up for them so it fits your script (as evidenced by you going on to speculate on where I got my definition from). The TL;DR was a summation of my point, not yours, nice try. You didn't directly insult anyone, your tone is just condescending in general (as you fully know was intended) and people will take offense to that, believe it or not.

[WhistleForTheChoir]

@hellionthesagereborn But here is the thing, is you have already wrote a script around me and who you think I am and what you think my point is, and you won't be able to see past that. Because you see yourself as a very rational, level-headed person with no caveats, so you're not aware of your bias (you'll claim to be, but you don't actually make any effort to acknowledge it) so you'll accuse others of wallowing in self-pity (as if that adds anything to the argument) and try to make their points and retroactively write their story for them. So let me ask you this. Is there any point in having a discussion with you? Or are you just going to "man" your way through having a superlative opinion/belief system challenged.

[WhistleForTheChoir]

@hellionthesagereborn But my point is: "Man up" more often than not is not a phrase to keep people from wallowing in emotion, but rather one to keep them from expressing it. In children it could be when they cry after getting hurt or are afraid of the dark; problems that would need to be overcome, but the best cure might not be to belittle them and invalidate their feelings. Maybe in the University of Man-Psyche that sounds like a good idea, but that's generally not how human behavior is properly motivated in the long-term. Human behavior is pretty predictable like that. In adolescents and adult men, it's usually used to quash any expression of emotion or restraint at all. "Who cares if you don't like her? Man up, just fuck her!" Humans are social creatures. If we can't ever be vulnerable with one another, we tend to go crazy.

[hellionthesagereborn]

@WhistleForTheChoir Yes the bias argument, great. I don't agree with you ergo I must be bias, that itself is a bias. Yes I am bias, but so are you, so is every single other human being on the planet because it is an unavoidable state of being. I stated that it has nothing to do with suppression of emotion because it doesn't. Because if it did then we would have a suppression of emotion for hundreds of thousands of years to the point where we wouldn't even feel any more. That's not the case however. In fact if you look back in history men wrote poetry and stories about their feelings all the time, yet then more so then now you where expected to "man up". Some one was trying to suggest that the phrase "man up" causes men to suppress their emotions to the point of suicide, yet again, if you look at the data we actually see an increase in male suicide AFTER the sixties, meaning when the phrase was most commonly used we had fewer suicides in men.

[hellionthesagereborn]

@WhistleForTheChoir Your argument is that you are right and because I don't agree with you not only am I wrong (with out any evidence to back it) but that I am wrong because I am bias (and you are not). That is a terrible argument, it is circular reasoning. Both my experiences and reason itself shows that its not about suppression of emotions, if that was the case we would be seeing far worse problems with men because suppressing emotions is damaging, and we would have seen far more of these issues in the past with a decline in them as time progresses yet we see the opposite.

[WhistleForTheChoir]

@hellionthesagereborn Yeah everyone has a bias. Never said otherwise. But the problem with you having a bias, is that you're arguing a superlative, i. e. Man-Up is ALWAYS positive. Nice attempt at a straw-man argument though, too bad you based the bulk of your rebuttal on it. Also "man up" is not universal across cultures or time, it's more to do with a Western/American concept of masculinity, which stretches back maybe 200 years (if that), nor would suppressing emotion lead to a trans-generational cessation of emotion. And I love that you brought up that I didn't provide any "evidence". What evidence did you provide, except for an up-tick in suicides which you correlated with no auxiliary evidence? That's not what I said and also not circular reasoning lol stop trying to invoke logical fallacies, you're continuously wrong about them. Circular logic would be like, "I stated that it has nothing to do with suppression of emotion because it doesn't." - You

[WhistleForTheChoir]

@hellionthesagereborn But you're kind of silly and think that invoking logical fallacies that you don't have a good grasp on and occasionally using a big word makes you right, while you essentially argue about how you think the world should be and pretend that you're arguing about how the world is. I'm not going to respond again. Go ahead and take the last word.

[hellionthesagereborn]

@WhistleForTheChoir Never said it was always positive. Not once. I said that it is not used as a negative as in its primary function is that its a positive not a negative. Why the hell would you assume that I was saying it always was a positive and their was never a circumstance where it was never used as a negative? That is a huge assumption. Its a generalization, which means that in general (as in the normal use, i. e. the most common use) is a positive. I didn't think I had to explain that, obviously their will be exceptions, their are always exceptions but in general its a positive not a negative. As for man ups history, no, its a constant theme through out all of history. To be called ergi (unmanly) in ancient Scandinavian society was a great insult (people fought in duels over it). Through out all of history and in every culture their is behavior that is encouraged in men and discouraged in men. This is nothing new nor unique to the US.

[hellionthesagereborn]

@WhistleForTheChoir As for the circular logic, it was circular. Your premise ( the assertion) was the same as your conclusion. Your assertion was that it was for suppressing emotions, that was also your conclusion and you provided nothing in between to actually bring you to that point. Your also using straw man arguments by claiming I stated it always is positive, which I never asserted at any point in time (and in other discussion on this thread even stated that yes some times its used negatively) you however have been pushing the idea that its generally or even universally negative which I was pointing out is not the case. That's why you went straight to insults because you don't like what I am saying but you don't really have a good enough grasp on the topic to argue otherwise.

[that1gi]

These types of arguments that attempt to "help" men feel okay with sharing their feelings and emotions are so short sighted its remarkable.

[ShesAmerican]

the guys who try so hard to act tough to hide their emotions are more pussies to me than the ones who aren't afraid to show their emotions lmao

[ShesAmerican]

And i bet half of them are doing this not because they want to, it's the society telling them to do so

[ShesAmerican]

at least show the emotions at the right times, that's not being sensitive that's just showing that you're a human being

[WhistleForTheChoir]

There are social consequences to men showing their emotions though. Our society does not accept vulnerability in men.

[ShesAmerican]

@WhistleForTheChoir You can change the way you think. Why do you care about the society so much

[WhistleForTheChoir]

I'm actually not super masculine myself: I'm really studious, friendly, empathetic and generall well put-together and not at all expansive, aggressive or intrusive. But my point is that if it's a social attitude, it's not going to change unless society changes. Until then "man up" is just pragmatic advice.

Humans base their behavior on reinforcement and punishment. If a behavior is reinforced, it will be likely to occur again. If a behavior is punished, it will likely not occur again. So since hyper-masculine men are consistently being reinforced by society (better jobs, better PR, more romantic partners, more respect, etc.) men will naturally shift their behavior to be more masculine; to "man up" as it were. Whereas effeminate men are generally overlooked, mocked/derided, seen as romantically unexciting or written off as feckless pussies; therefore, they learn to not draw attention to themselves. Most of any persons' beliefs and preferences are a reflection of their society.

[didigo182]

Yes... maybe because this 80% of convicted in US prisions are raised by Single Mothers.

Bullshit your take.

[veronicalynn]

Great job! Extremely important message your putting out here..

[Patsfan12344]

Thank you for speaking the truth. I was raised as I should be brave and fearless and not cry in front of anyone

[636314]

Women also reinforce this behavior as well, it isn't just men teaching men this. So you need to tell mothers and women in general this as well.

[majorG]

You may want to tell your fellow women. Could they be the prime drivers of this? After all: Who usually gets the girl (s)? The bully or the whimp? We're talking real life, not feel-good movies...

[That2kKid21]

I agree with you completely. However, the way I cope with things isn't with emotion. That's just not natural instinct for me.

[Dargil]

"Toxic Masculinity" isn't an affliction. Its a cure for Feminist Derangement Syndrome. Hooah!