The Masculine Heart: Felicia Townsend - Men Also Hurt: Dealing With Gender Stereotypes Against Men

Good article - there is a serious issue in this culture with men not being able to express hurt, and the people around them expecting them not to feel hurt and pain. We need to change that.

Men Also Hurt: Dealing With Gender Stereotypes Against Men

A recent discussion about why a man would cheat on a wife who is beautiful, rich and famous in her own right brought out a lot of stereotypes among the women participants, to the extent that men complained about being stereotyped.

“Men are sexual predators by nature and many will step over the line whether they are with men or women, whether their partners are willing or not, pretty or not, sexy or not,” one commenter said.

“Not all men are fuckwits, neither are all woman… but some really try and change your mind!” said another female commentor.

Another discussion looked at why we stereotype men as the bad guys in multiple concurrent partnerships. “How do men come to be so demonised, and we seem to allow it huh?,” asked a male commentor.”

“It takes two to tango. So why do the men get singled out! If anything the women bear as much responsibility as the men,” another female commentor said.

To help us think through some of the stereotypes women may have against men, here is an article by Felicia Townsend. We sourced the article from Ezine Articles.

Men Also Hurt

By Felicia Townsend

I’m as guilty as the next woman of complaining about why men act as they do and do the things that they do.

I’m often quick to blame them for hurting women and children, for being the takers of life in a certain twisted way because they can’t give birth to life.

Usually I will draw on the facts and the statistics of crime through domestic abuse, rape, incest, assault, and murder to highlight the obvious facts that men all around the world have some real psychological wounds that are not being addressed.

What I fail to mention during my own times of anger and self righteousness is that these same men are products of their environment and many of them have seen and experienced abuse that I can’t even imagine.

Let’s do away with stereotypes

Believing that all men are bad is like saying that all gays are sick, or that all Black people are ignorant, and all women are weak. These are general stereotypes that unfairly put people into categories that rob them of their individuality.

There are people in every part of the world, in all types of families and backgrounds who have been damaged emotionally, psychologically, physically, and or spiritually. And men just like women make up a huge percentage of that abuse.

However, we live in a society that gives men this god-like status where they are told that they need to be protector, provider, authoritarian, enforcer, and ruler of all that is within their domain.

And to make matters worse, we expect and demand them to be completely intact, aware of some ability that we, as women, don’t possess and in addition take everyone in their family with them to this illusive pinnacle of freedom and happiness.

I still hear women telling their little boys that “boys don’t cry.” That couldn’t be further from the truth and I believe it’s a kind of psychological abuse that if repeated over time can teach a young man to be detached from his feelings.

And as adult women we complain about how the men in our lives are emotionally distant and not able to communicate with us on certain emotional levels.

Women, just like most men, fail to see the link between how little boys and men are taught, to how this conditioning goes on to harm them. It is also one of the big causes for relationships between men and women to fail.

I’m reminding you of the fact that men hurt too. They have emotions similar to women.
The only difference is that many men keep their emotions locked down unless they have been fortunate enough to have seen beyond the lies surrounding them about what it means to be male.
I’m not saying this in an attempt to excuse any wrong behavior that they do, because at some point in their lives, we must all take responsibility for our own emotional, physical, psychological, and spiritual health.

But keep in mind that some men are still hurting and have yet to find healing while others have moved beyond the emotional pain of their past to a freer and more spiritually mature self. Who you attract will depend on your own emotional state. So, before you look for somebody to hook-up with, heal yourself.

Author Bio

Felecia Townsend is a relationship enthusiast and personal coach. She has spent years learning the art of successful relationships and through her philanthropic writing is giving back to the community that has given her so much.

She is the author of “The Art of Endurance,” a book which chronicles the hidden path to personal freedom. She is also a relationship enthusiast and everyday adventurer of human relations. She firmly believes that in order to have a healthy, wholesome, loving, and lasting relationship with another consenting individual, you must first be able to have that relationship with yourself.