THIS. christ, i am so here for the option of being a man who can nurture kids, and make squeaky noises over cute animals, and not have to constantly present myself as some kind of hard-hearted, aggressive asshole to keep from being beat down by other men who are afraid of getting Teh Ghey on them. toxic masculinity is TERRIBLE for men, and i refuse to participate in it.

evil feminists: we believe that men can be good and kind and experience a full range of human emotions and desires and sexualities while also treating their fellow human beings of all genders with compassion and respect

Toxic/Hyper masculinity is watching a friend of mine being mocked and shamed for crying when his big sister died. Because men don’t cry, apparently, they should punch something instead. When his cousin was told he had to stop playing piano and pick up an ‘less sissy’ instrument, and that preferring soccer to football was ‘wimpy’ and made him ‘basically a girl’. It’s when a grown man in a tow truck CRIES when he breaks down and tells me how his divorce is going, because he doesn’t feel like he can talk about it with any of his guy friends and he doesn’t feel like he’s allowed to be friends with women, so he’s been bottling up all his sadness and worry about his family breaking apart and his kids struggling to handle it. And then reacts with shame after because he should “be a man” about it and “just suck it up”. No one should be forced to bottle up emotions to the point where one kind question from a stranger unleashes a decade or more of emotions locked away.

what she says: i’m fine