it's interesting how often dysphoric males attribute their supposed "connection" to "womanhood" through their insistence that they prefer to socialize with women / are generally interpersonally "closer" to women / feel more "comfortable" in female company, and/or aspire towards typical female-to-female modes of communication. this, combined with mainstream discourse about masculine/male social customs and rituals ("the male loneliness epidemic", "we teach men not to feel", "men aren't allowed to be emotionally or physically vulnerable with each other", etc etc etc), demonstrates how people at large completely ignore how female conditioning affects our very modes of social interaction, most of all in mixed-sex company, but still so in single-sex company as well
coerced feminine modes of communication are held up as more "untainted" and "natural" than the supposed extreme repression on the side of men (= we are considered to be unlike men, for whom emotional sensitivity is discouraged, while in us, supposedly, let be) - and at the same time, it is implied that the negative outcomes of feminine conditioning are synonymous with female nature. women are considered virginally emotionally pristine, uncoerced and unburdened - but also "two-faced", "manipulative", "liars", "untrustworthy", "jealous", "passive-aggressive", "snakes". guys "have it out in the open", "fight it out", while women are vicious, backstabbing bitches. but vicious, backstabbing bitches that are also supposedly perfectly socially adept, adequate, emotionally intelligent and secure! in this picture of the world, we are the ones granted the general social license to experience and express the full spectrum of human emotion - we are just too stupid and petty to ultimately do so
i see how we are taught to hold back and hold things in in myself constantly, and i see how it prevents me from connecting with other women with security and authenticity; i aim to be gentle with others, but i am rarely close to them. i see the same in other women, and i also see the defensiveness, the injured security, the reactiveness that stems from this internalized idea that our feelings and thoughts will not matter, we cannot expect them to matter, to hold up space - so the only way to protect ourselves is to remain on the defensive, deflecting any inquiry that risks invalidating our most basic emotional truths. for all that dysphoric males may say about the ways we supposedly relate to one another, we are actually rarely able to. the obstacles to true and comfortable female connection and solidarity are severe - in huge part precisely because of how often we are taught and expected to prioritize, comfort and coddle men.
and that's the other aspect of it! women are conditioned to be pleasant peace-keepers at all times, but especially with a male present; we are conditioned to be understanding, empathetic, nourishing, especially when presented with vulnerability; so of course when an emotionally vulnerable male, one that has suffered adverse treatment by other males or simply felt severely alienated from them, comes around, the male-centered impulse + the nurturing impulse combine into something especially potent. the male is, as a default, more important than any female friend present, and also vulnerable and injured, and so must deserve double the resource, support, attention
this self-sacrificial, nurturing, motherly instinct is a death and erasure of self. women disappear in the placating, the peace-keeping, in acts of service. they start living for the social benefit of others. they are no longer present in the conversation, situation, relationship - they are soothing agents, supporting actors in others' - men's - personal emotional dramas
so when a dysphoric male absorbs that treatment, finds comfort in being comforted, takes pleasure in this erasure of the woman's personhood, and then claims that this is a social context in which he is "meant" to exist - he takes at face value the intense, pervasive conditioning all female people go through, validates our internal deaths as natural and authentic, reaps the benefits of our (self-)injury and believes we are nourished by nourishing him; that this is what "socializing" with us as full, uncensored people is truly like. that we are truly, essentially ourselves when he is at peace around us
when they say "i always felt more comfortable around women", "women are great/wonderful/kind/amazing", "i want to be like women", i worry and i seethe and i hurt because this is not what women are like. the true heart of all our messes and pains and anger and resentment and injured sense of justice, our ugly uncharitable judgments stemming from all the bullshit we absorb from our circumstance, our secret, stifled demands, our uncompromising dignity, our needs, our desires - they're locked and buried more often than not. we are not what you see! we do not even see ourselves or each other for most of our goddamn lives. and when we dare to allow ourselves a fraction of it, we are back-stabbing bitches or man-haters or crazy or petty or jealous or bigoted or any other convenient brand of evil
so i guess a psa to any dysphoric males out there who think that being more comfortable in female company validates their dysphoria and/or transgender identification: it is a social and existential imperative for us to make you comfortable. regardless of any genuine affection they may hold for you, it is more likely than not that your female friends experience at least a degree of societal coercion that means they will put in an extra effort to help you relax and feel emotionally safe and content around them. this is neither authentic nor natural to us. you do not feel this way because you are a woman. we make sure that you feel this way, because you are a man, and comforting and uplifting men is what we do
ellievsbear
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areudirty
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jacobvanloon
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