Elisa Mariño
2 min readNov 10, 2021

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I don't know. We are taught to look for others. But to me, many of men's problems can be solved by teaching them a few skills. So it is more practical to teach them and let them talk for themselves.

Also, talking about having problems or about things that are unfair is not victim mentality. Is pointing out a problem, which is the first step to solve it. First you identify the problem, then you analyze the root causes, then you look for potential solutions and you try one after another until something works.

To offer an historical example: people who complained about slavery, weren't victims for saying that slavery was a problem. They fight for their freedom. But the solution in the long term, didn't depended exclusively on them. We might even consider that the problem haven't been completely fixed today, since we do still see situations of slavery and descendants from slaves still have it worse.

But going back to women talking about men's problems, when we talk about "toxic masculinity", some men agree, while others think is an attack. And the part about "toxic masculinity" is that it hurts men's emotional wellbeing (from our perspective) because is something that push men to do things that make them unhappy and deny parts of them that make them happy. Like a man who enjoy things deemed "femenine" who won't do them to not be called "gay". Feminist see that as a problem, and some men agree. Yet other men think that it is an "attack" on masculinity and on "all men" because for them it is "natural" that men enjoy certain things while hating others.

Take the supposed struggles of boys at school. If you take a look at why, many times what you find is that boys like sports better. Their idols are people at sports, while boys with good grades are called "nerds" and considered "losers". Of course a healthy boy won't want to be a "loser". So the boys who study, are the ones who have their parents support and have stronger personalities and won't mind what other say. and not surprisingly, those are the boys with good grades. And why it is considered that kicking a ball is better than working with computers? Because it is seen as more "manly". More physical = more manly. At least that is the theory. And that weird belief is hurting boys/men opportunities. But when feminist point out this, we are accused of wanting to emasculate men.

That is why it works better if it is men speaking out for men. We are not being listened to. Not when we talk about women's rights, not when we talk about men's rights. XD

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Elisa Mariño
Elisa Mariño

Written by Elisa Mariño

Fiction is the art to tell lies to show truths. Politics is the art to use truths to tell lies.

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