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Comment by winter_blue | Hacker News Reader

> “The men in this society were not expected to express emotion,” Barjamovic says. “They occasionally do, and they’re admonished for it. Women could show a little more emotion.”

Oh, my, why is this still true in many societies today? Is this deep deep flaw endemic to humanity across cultural lines?

Are millennials/ Gen Z the first generation where men anre (perhaps?) allowed to be almost as emotional as women?

One sad adjacent fact about millennials and Gen Z is that the men who do decide to be emotional sometimes tend to be ignored (or despised) by women, and thus (unfortunately) turned into involuntarily celibate men.

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It's seemed to me that there was a real turn in western society at some point in the last decades. Our family has been watching Star Trek TOS and one thing that's really stood out is how open Kirk, Spock, and Bones can be about their feelings. In the first episode Bones is talking casually to Kirk about his feelings for an old flame, how he still misses her and wonders if he made a mistake. It was almost startling.

Of course where all that got us was the origin of 'slash' fiction. Men speaking affectionally to each other has gotten popularly reclassified as a coverup for deeper feelings. I think that explains a lot about where we are now.

> men who do decide to be emotional sometimes tend to be ignored (or despised) by women

And other men. No need to make this a gender war.

> Is this deep deep flaw endemic to humanity across cultural lines?

Yes, almost certainly.

> Are millennials/ Gen Z the first generation where men anre (perhaps?) allowed to be almost as emotional as women?

This does not appear to be the case in my experience (as an elder millennial with Gen Z acquaintances). Although it surely varies by subculture and individual, in my experience women in the dating market still pretty strongly enforce pretty traditional gender roles for men. You can also see this in social media, notably TikTok - if you're familiar with the trend of young women talking about their "icks" (things that turn them off in men), you'll notice that the "icks" are usually about men being emotional, or being affected by their environment, or showing weakness in some (often trivial) way.

The degree to which someone's emotionality is endearing to another depends on how attractive they find the emotional person..

> One sad adjacent fact about millennials and Gen Z is that the men who do decide to be emotional sometimes tend to be ignored (or despised) by women

I don't think that's as true as you're making it sound, but I don't spend much time in straight spaces so maybe it's cultural.

Two very different behaviours are getting conflated here.

Man who expresses and controls his emotions > man who doesn't express emotions > man who is controlled by his emotions.

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