i swear to god, men raising their voice is the most terrifying thing in the whole world. they dont understand, like its an immediate panic response, game over
I actually had no idea women found this so scary
my downstairs neighbors fight on a regular basis, and every time he starts yelling i’m a little afraid he’s going to kill her. i have no reason to think this except that he is a man and he is angry
My math teacher has a loud voice and a temper and he scares the living shit out of me almost everyday. He’s made me and other kids cry more than once and he and his teacher buddies make a joke out of terrifying students.
this was women in general? i knew my gf didn’t like it but I was unaware if this affected most women
Yes, it does
As a woman, I had no idea it effected other women like this. I was too afraid to even talk about it. I thought I was weak. Thanks for bringing attention to this.
My dad has a horrible temper and when he yells it scares me and my mother both badly. He got into such a hissy fit over one of the cats while my moms friend was over, and her friend said that it brought on her abuse PTSD. He’s horrid.
any guy comes along and gets loud, boom, instant shutdown. Lights are off, nobody’s home, ready to leave the building
Women are raised on horror stories of how dangerous the world is for us. We’re told not to ride too far on our bikes because there have been so many cases of grown men snatching little girls off the side of the road. Our mothers tell us not to wander away when we’re out shopping because someone could grab us, and if we don’t listen and go off on our own our mother’s panicked response when they find us confirms that we were in real danger. When we get a little older and start going out on our own we’re given countless lectures about how many women get attacked every year, often by people they know and are close with, to instill in us a need to be constantly vigilant about our own safety. This creates an automatic response. When a male starts getting aggressive our subconscious reminds us that we could end up a statistic, we could be the next victim that a parent will see on the news and use our story to warn their little girl about the dangers of the world. Not all men who raise their voices are going to get violent but we have no way of knowing what kind of man you really are until it’s too late. Aggressive anger causes us to panic because we’ve been trained to take that as a warning and worry that it might escalate.
All men are potential threats. A man who raises his voice or loses control of his anger confirms that he is a man we need to be afraid of.
I really like that this is a…conversation.
not trying to derail this, but i think masc-of-center women and non-binary people (who have more traditionally masc physical qualities) should also be aware that we can be sources of this as well. I have a deeper androgynous voice that has scared women and femmes when I yell. my partner also gets sensory overload easily ON TOP OF THIS, so the first thing I try to do during arguments and apologies is to watch my volume and apologize for raising my voice
it sucks because my own dad would do this to me and my brothers before spanking and hitting us, and even though I know the fear of loud voices, I find myself subconsciously following his lead anyways
toxic masculinity reaches beyond just cis men, it’s good to be aware and start the unlearning process
