NOTE: So I get that the last discussion about Men's Rights got locked for being unproductive, so if a mod decides the same with this I'd understand it. However, I think it's important to acknowledge the disparity between the two male activist groups on a topic that isn't political at all.

So I was browsing through RslashMensRights, and I stumbled upon this stickied post. And I found it interesting, because "Men should show their emotions" is such a core part of Men's Lib dialogue that it's easy to take for granted the fact that people here all agree about this.

I read through the post, and sure as expected there are some outlier crazies talking about wild feminist conspiracies, but the vast majority of upvoted comments were really, really reasonable. To make a long topic short, showing your emotions as a man is hard, and while perhaps personally gratifying it is rarely immediately rewarded in society.

And it also brings up the fact that not all emotions are desired by society. Yes you (stock cis female mainstream feminist) might say "I wish my boyfriend cried more", and you might be completely okay with him crying (even if it hurts his reputation at work, his relationship with his peers, and his sense of self), but it's harder to say that about his anger, or fear, or bitterness. Because as much as we like to claim that Toxic Masculinity ^TM is to blame for all of this, these "bad emotions" are as much a part of everyday life as all the "good" emotions. It is, plainly put, easier to be emotional as a woman than as a man (albeit at the cost of being seen as always emotional and thus untrustworthy).

And there IS an advantage to stoicism. Being able to function under distress, panic, tragedy, etc. is a large part of how society functions on a day to day basis. Being able to remove your feelings out of your job, or major decisions, or when under heavy pressure, or during moments when other people are in distress is very important, and we all (should) practice it regularly.

And yet I think there IS a problem when society doesn't let men be not men, AND the (more liberal, if not necessarily feminist) idea that a man can either bottle up his feelings and be miserable or revoke his mancard and be super feminine and touchy feely (in the way that women like) with everything to find happiness. Not feeling emotions is not a good thing, I know because I'm still working through that shit. But that doesn't mean I should drop everything and buy ten vinyls of Wicked on Broadway.

In short... they have a point. And while they still see us as a more spineless, self flagellating version of themselves, I still hope that we can have more of these weird cross board discussions.