A profound relational revolution is underway, not orchestrated by tech developers but driven by users themselves. Many of the 400 million weekly users of ChatGPT are seeking more than just assistance with emails or information on food safety; they are looking for emotional support.
“Therapy and companionship” have emerged as two of the most frequent applications for generative AI globally, according to the Harvard Business Review. This trend marks a significant, unplanned pivot in how people interact with technology.
Yes they are. The genders are massivenly different in a lot of ways, and failure to acknowledge that is sexist.
But keep screaming that anything that disagrees with your particular narrative that women are great and perpetual victims of men and men are always bad, I guess? Because that’s not sexist, at all. lol
it couldn’t be that both men and women are people and both suffer from the same bullshit that they themselves perpetuate? nah.
and even if you think that the psychology of genders isn’t different, society treats genders differently and this either from the therapist who reacts differently to different genders, or from the patient who expects difference the point is the same: the construct of gender forces artificial difference, even if it’s not based in real “our brains are the same” science (which they aren’t - same as our biology isn’t quite the same)
equity is different to equality, and equity is actually what is needed
amen. brother, sister, or whatever preferred identity you want to be.
more treating people as individuals, less as treating them as stereotypes
Incel talk
read the whole comment
I did, but your main assertion that therapists are women, women don’t understand the male perspective therefore mental healthcare for men, (like talk therapy and counseling) are ineffective. Is not just completely wrong, it is dangerous. You start talking about how gendered biases effect the outcome of therapy. Ignoring that psychology is an incredibly complex, extremely well-documented, highly diverse and well regarded field of study, That’s like saying you wouldn’t trust a female virtuoso guitarist to perform ‘Master of Puppets’ because her female perspective would bias her against playing a solo written by a man. I am a man, I have had some success in therapy and counseling. I need more work, I’ll admit. But, all of the best practitioners I have worked with have been women. If you go to counseling, with a social worker, or a master’s student in psychology, yeah that can be a bit dodgy. But the idea that a registered psychotherapist, a doctor, would not be able to provide effective treatment because women can’t understand men is absolutely petulant. It is a myth, pervaded by a lot of influential male voices online and pop-psychology. It misunderstands the whole purpose of talk therapy and then it’s mis-characterised as “giving advice” and “putting biases in your head.” When psychotherapists are literally just there to help you confront and come to terms with things that you identify are affecting your ability to live. This stupid argument is always propped up by the same idea of women not being able to understand the male perspective, goes hand-in-hand with reported instances of mental health disorders. When really, the disparity between the sexes in terms of reported mental issues, is actually because people make arguments like yours. They say “all therapists are women and women don’t understand the male perspective” and “women report higher levels of depression and anxiety, therefore mood disorders are women’s issues.” When, in fact, it is men that dominate the field of psychotherapy, psychology and psychiatry. It is also us men that are killing themselves in record numbers, it is us that drive cars into street markets, it is us that shoot into crowds of people and then turn the gun on ourselves and it is boys that go online and see men like you. Making these harmful, disingenuous, ignorant arguments that makes them believe that their mental health is unimportant and that any pain, or issue they are having difficulty with is their problem and a flaw in themselves. Which just leads to self-victimisation.
I have read your comment, I have read all of your comments in this thread and your rhetoric is not just wholly emblematic of someone who has never done any meaningful work in therapy, it is dangerous and invalidating to kids who don’t have the experience and don’t know any better. That’s why you expand your argument, from “women therapists” to the entire field, because then it goes from sexist nonsense, to a broader discussion on the existence of human bias in the field. Conveniently, then you don’t have to confront the obvious flaws in what you’re saying. Personally, I wouldn’t trust someone, who has never so much as opened a textbook on abnormal psychology, to be a great judge of the existence of gendered biases in contemporary psychological care. I swear, if more men could be brave enough to admit that we endure psychological strain and experience issues through that strain that manifest in ways that effect our lives, we wouldn’t have Trump. Roe V Wade would be codified. So many of today’s problems exist because of the stigma round men seeking professional help with their mental health. So, yes I read your whole comment, I recognise your arguments and your perspectives. I say they are categoriaclly prejudiced, unhelpful, disingenuous and dangerous. When young men see this stuff and haven’t developed a sense of identity yet, they adopt this. Because this is what they think they’re supposed to believe, because boys look to contemporary male ideas and figures to emulate what they perceive to be masculinity. That’s how you get idiots on the Internet trying to discredit what is arguably the single most needed field of medicine in the world right now. When those men face crises, in their lives and need help, where do they go? If the main medical avenue of psychotherapy is seen as weak, or feminine or ineffective. Where do they go? That’s how you normalise male loneliness and hopelessness. You make young men feel like no one can understand what they’re going through, or help them understand themselves and navigate it. That is how you get drug addicts, that is how you get alcoholics. That’s how you get radicalisation, incels, domestic terrorists and victims of suicide. So, maybe just stop with the whole injustice over the feeling of being a man whose feelings are not understood. “But therapy doesn’t work, because nobody can understand me bro” and actually go to therapy. It might help you empathise with other people’s perspectives, perhaps you could analyse why you have these uninformed beliefs about this field of healthcare.
Which you seem so impassioned about discrediting and maybe it could even help you understand why it feels like no one gets you. Why you feel this is the correct way to approach mental health issues. The effect your words have on the well-being of impressionable members of our sex and what that stigmatisation of mental health problems and empathetic emotional recognition means, for men as a whole. What it means for our feelings about our place in society. It would help all of us, a lot more, than you maligning being told to “man up” whilst also perpetuating the concept of “man up” by spreading actual lies that psychotherapy doesn’t work for men. If society’s view of male mental health is so troubling to you. Maybe, don’t regurgitate misinformation about mental health that specifically invalidates the feelings and experiences of men struggling with addiction, or trauma, or grief, or psychological disturbance? Men, who would otherwise be comfortable enough in their masculinity and strong enough emotionally, to admit they have a problem to seek out professional help. Mental healthcare is healthcare, it is not a moral failing, personal flaw, or emasculating experience. If you actually gave a shit about men’s issues you’d understand that. Instead of just, first, trying to sound above it (by being incorrect about what therapy is and largely sexist), then posturing victimhood by co-opting men’s issues and trying to make the conversation about how society disregards male feelings and how nobody gets us. Your feelings are your own and you can feel however you’d like about anything. But you don’t preface that it’s your feelings, or your opinion based on shit you have absorbed from other male figures and spaces. You say this is how it is, before saying that therapists are women who are biased against men. Which is not true and reinforces this idea that men and women are completely diametrically opposed opposites and not just humans with the same breadth of emotions and very similar psychological conditions. Bi-polar depression doesn’t care what genitals you have. Trauma effects everyone. Mental health is NOT a gendered issue. Your reasoning throughout this entire thread is deeply flawed, divisive and doesn’t even make sense. If you feel like nobody cares about men’s feelings and men’s psychological and social issues, why is your position to take away one of the only recognised avenues by which men who are suffering can have those issues validated and explore their feelings in a safe, non-judgemental way? That is what you do when you lie like that and misrepresent the purpose and efficacy of psychotherapy.
You argue for positions directly in opposition to men’s issues. It’s quite extraordinary. I doubt everything you say about your experiences with therapy, just based on how you talk about it as a gendered issue. Also, the idea that people with biases put ideas in your head. Which is genuinely, just a fallacious red-pill talking point, that completely goes against the process and purpose of talk therapy. It allows men to live in denial about their actions and feelings and also validate those insecurities because nobody understands the male position, society doesn’t care and it’s not our fault. Which is all well and good, until your misrepresentation leads to someone’s death. So, I’ll say it again.
Godamn son, didn’t have to nuke him
Well put, though.
Again. Coping skills are not gender specific they’re individual specific.
Nobody is screaming. And yes women are victims of men, have you spoken to any of them about it? Because it’s rather helpful to have those conversations.
Your comment is just very one sided and that’s the side that has the most power on the planet and as a member of that side I have just as much perspective of you and I’m here to say – nah to most of what you said.
Men’s #1 issue is lack of empathy towards women, they isolate half the planet from supporting them. There’s your solution.
Men’s inability to open up is a trained behavior, and is reinforced the most by the group doing the most child care: women. Everytime a boy that cries gets told to “man up” that stereotype is repeated to them. This produces an echo that reverbs through most of society, and especially children, who then mock peers that express emotions.
Women are training their own oppressors. There is enough blame around for all genders.
No that’s ridiculous and hilarious to say. I’d agree there is enough to blame everyone but you’re not, you’re blaming women.
I’ve never been told to man up by a woman, only men. Ridiculous to say that.
Is it really that ridiculous? Biologically seen, men’s properties are mostly due to genetic selection by women over thousands of years, if they are conscious about it or not. Men that are more attractive to women are preferred partners, and the selection pressure is mostly on men, since women have a much higher biological cost in pregnancy, therefore they are much more “picky”. That is pretty proven science, and this pressure is also found in culture: men have the attributes that women want them to have to give them an advantage.
It would only take 2-3 generations of women AND men doing child care to fix those issues by reinforcing openness and acceptance, but that takes education, esp in the human sciences, and education for the masses in the US has been dismantled long ago even before the current razing.
Yes that is ridiculous because the intent is to lay responsibility at women’s feet, again. Like always.
This stuff about how women see men or whatever weird breeding shit you’re rambling about is irrelevant you’re just trying to argue women have a choice in some weird way to make the men they want and “choose” not to. That’s so silly.
The simple fact is men are allowed to not take part in their kid’s lives and having one parent do the job isn’t gonna work regardless if they are male or female. As you suggested that is a comment on our social structure which i agree with but again, not what is being said in this thread it’s very clear they are blaming women directly and entirely.
Now again there’s dozens of factors at play here but the bottom line is men are responsible. They hold power in society, they are allowed to disregard children and they are the ones bullying boys into being the way they are. Do women have a role in that? Sure. Is it their responsibility or fault? No that’s silly as fuck especially cause most couldn’t have jobs, couldn’t vote and still can’t do either across the globe.
Bottom line is men are failing men and the first step to a solution is empathy especially towards women which this thread lacks hard. Women are literally the ones leading the charge in reinforcing openness and education, don’t believe me? go to your local elementary school and check out how the teachers speak to kids. Some will be men most will be women and they’re impressively kind and open and teaching a variety of skills to help kids be better people. Men as a whole are not doing that, in fact most men in power are actively trying not to let that happen. They call it sissyfication.
You know what i see? Men being afraid of going alone with their kid to the park, because the mom’s there believe they are a sexual predator just by gender. Men not appliying for kindergarden or school jobs because of a tendency of mothers to see every man in childcare as a pedophile. Men getting called the cops onto them in the parking lot when going to their car after shopping.
And it’s the same with violence against women - every man is automatically seen as a brutalizer, or someone who would daterape.
As long as those prejudices exist - and they are mainly female prejudices! - men will not open up. When you are seen as a threat even if you aren’t one (see the man and the bear in the woods), there is no way they will become empathic, because innocently playing with your child in the park could have lifelong consequences for you.
Either you don’t talk to women or you have some insecurities you need to reconcile.
I’m sure some of this exists in some people, but this isn’t the whole of reality.
I don’t give a single fuck what happens when I open up, and if anyone around me doesn’t like it, I do not give a shit.
Just be yourself unapologetically, and if the people around you don’t like it, find new people. And this isn’t to say be that person that’s always just a giant shithead and go “I’m just blunt, I say it like it is, I’ve always been this way so it’s fine” What I mean is be kind, be yourself, talk about your emotions, communicate, and if you can’t do that around the people you know, fix whatever hangups you have with yourself in doing that, or fix the people around you.
Most of my friends are women, i have more issues with men than women; and they also aren’t judging when i open up. But i know that they aren’t representative.
The issue is that it only takes one overzealous woman to ruin a mans life in the US: having trouble with cops on the playground, losing a job over social media accusations without proof - at least for the large majority of men. (things are different when we look at people in power, where hard facts aren’t enough to remove them - this enrages me just as much as any woman)
In that way, women are as much an aggressor as men are, it’s just that their tools are different. Where a aggressive man might tend to physical violence, aggressive women are able to dish it out with social violence.
I just wanted to show up that painting men as the source of all evil is shortsighted. There are a lot of women applying pressure to keep men in the role they are in, cementing the patriarchate just as much as men are.
And why shouldn’t they? If you don’t want to work outside of passion projects, or want to be a homemaker while your husband brings in the money? If you shy away from responsibility and feel safer when a strong father figure decides? Or being fine with men being in charge, as long as they have control over their husband? Those lifestyles are all valid too, and they profit directly from the patriarchate in one way or another, even if it might not be healthy at all.
There is no (or next to none) help for men to step outside of this structure. I am totally for helping women to get their rightful place side by side to men, but there also has to be a discussion about how not only men are oppressing everyone, but also how women are using their tools to oppress everyone, and how it is harmful to just paint one side as the perpetrator here.
There also should be more of an discourse about how life and values for men should look after achieving equality, because just replacing the patriarchate with an matriarchate is not gonna cut it.
The only ‘side’ that has power is the wealthy. But keep banging your gender war drum, it probably gives you meaning and purpose in life to collectively blame 'me’n for all the worlds ills as if anyone who has a penis or wants a penis is entirely the same.
Drink that kool aid. yum yum. Donald Trump and his buddies thank you for your vote.
Pivot to wealth inequality because?
You are the one who made the issue about differences in sex and/or gender.
No wonder you made no progress in therapy. You’re completely obtuse.
Also, no one is blaming men for their life’s problems. That person, would need therapy. Also, please don’t speak for men as a pejorative, your views are not reflective of any kind of monolith within my sex as a class of people and continually self-victimising under the guise of speaking for men’s issues is disingenuous and pathetic.
i pivot to wealth inequality because the wealthy have all the resources and the rest of us don’t have enough.
that includes access to medical care and mental care. easiest way to get healthcare and therapy is to be rich so you can pay out of pocket and skip the limits/lines imposed by insurance companies.
a lot of people’s mental and health problems would also simple be alleviated by being able to have better food and a better work-life balance, both which are privileges of the wealthy that the less economically fortunate do not have access to.
these are straight facts, but i’m sure you’ll go into denial mode about how the poor and mentally unwell should just become their own therapists or something.
No, you pivot to wealth inequality because wealth inequality is a populist left argument popular on populist left platforms like lemmy. Your blanket statement about therapists being women and women not understanding the male perspective are sexist and incorrect and so you move the goal posts by reframing the argument as opposed to address the rightful criticisms of your previous statement. What is with people on the internet trying to speak like politicians? We can read the words you typed.
You just lack the self-awareness and victimise yourself under the guise of “men’s issues” so that other guys can emapthise with you and give credence to the idea that men are simultaneously completely forgotten about and that mental healthcare is a soft-science, or doesn’t work for us. When clearly you can see how in this male dominated space, your feelings are not forgotten about. But, because you’ve never actually been to therapy and don’t understand the core concepts. Everything falls back to “society treats women like this and treats men like this” and “this is the reason therapy is bad.” When the reality is that self-reflection and analyses is hard and a skill and very taxing. That’s why people do drugs instead of going to therapy. It’s why men coalesce around the idea that we’re treated “worse” by “society” forgetting that men and women basically make up all of society. Ironically, making your own safe space where you can appeal to shallow emotional arguments around injustice and inequity, while also complaining that the tools, knowledge and science we have at our disposal don’t work.
It’s this really apparent cognitive dissonance that you display here. i.e. You take the premise, stating that talking about your feelings, analysing your behaviour and coming to conclusions about yourself (therapy) is a waste of time. But also, nobody cares about men’s issues and your psychological state isn’t something you have any agency over, but it is a rational response to the state of the world around you. You should read Viktor Frankl. He was an Austrian Neurologist and psychiatrist who was put into forced labour at a concentration camp during World War 2. It nearly killed him, but he survived and died 50 years later. He published a book called Man’s Search for Meaning. Which is a detailed account of how happiness can be achieved in the most unthinkably monstrous circumstances. How Love, Beauty and Humour can exist if you look for and cultivate them and how those glimmers, no matter how small. Lend to his assertion that meaning can be found in the most miserable of conditions.
Which immediately discounts the doomerism you display in your other comments. I’d also say listen to some Alan Watts if you really are stuck in this mindset. He was much more a philosophical entertainer than an actual great thinker. But, one of his better opinions is that, you are your mindset and your mental health. Like, if you perceive, or tell yourself you perceive all of these horrible things about the economy, housing, the state of human loneliness. Then that is what you feel, it will be true to you and you will be unable to do anything. Alternatively, if you move away from constantly thinking about existential threats. To just actually, what is in front of you perceptively. You can find these glimmers of positivity that give your life dignity and meaning. It’s the same as before, when I confronted you on the sexism of saying, “women are therapists, women can’t understand men. Therefore, mental healthcare doesn’t work for men.”
I confronted you about that and then you made it existential by tasking me with finding how many therapists across the entire field (and there are thousands of niche categories within this discipline, just fyi) are unbiased.
Which are things no one can possibly know, which are not necessary to know in order for what your saying to be proven false, or for therapy to be effective. You purposefully make it existential by doing that. Because, now you’ve made an impossible task an essential requirement for you to change your perspective on things. You require it to change your perspective on therapy and actually go. This way, you dismiss what I am saying and then you don’t have to do the thing you don’t want to. You can just, sound like advocate for men’s issues and then you can get all the emotional validation you require from other men, who also feel disenfranchised, in the form of supportive comments and updoots. All without having to go through the painful, (coded: humiliating) and personally challenging prospect of psychotherapy. Honestly dude, you read very much, like someone who really wants therapy.
Who wants to understand why they are this way, wants to be understood and wants to improve their life. But, it’s expensive, what if I don’t like them? What if it doesn’t work? So, instead you get emotional validation anyway you can. By appealing to the male disenfranchisement sentiment, which is literally everywhere online from Andrew Tate to Sam Seeder. It perpetuates wallowing in victimhood which is tantamount to drugs in terms of emotional coping. The ultimate goal of therapy is to overcome these issues. So, that while the factually true things about the negative existential events we cannot control continue to occur. It does not become a crutch to support your failures in interpersonal communications, bad behaviours, lack of motivation, or lack of emotional fulfillment. Seriously, I recognise from what you’re saying that you’ve never been to psychotherapy. Genuinely, it would help you stop equating your personal feelings with the inequity of men’s issues, which would make those problems feel less like existential threats and help you improve your life. I’m not even trying to be condescending, I recognise this as a neuroticism I have dealt with as a younger man and I can speak from experience. Confronting it honestly and with curiosity and self-reflection has massively improved my outlook on life and helped me become much more secure in my masculinity.
Give it a try, because the other option is you just self-flagellate in this cyclical mindset of victimisation that doesn’t actually go anywhere and is only validated by others caught in this myopic and isolating worldview. Give it a shot.
But that’s not what we’re talking about
Men statically run the most businesses, hold the management positions and other seats of authority so they’re the ones dictating and deciding things in the world. That’s the disparity, not wealth
rich men do those things. poor men do not.
so do rich women.
Untrue completely. Go to your local Costco, BJs, Walmart, Best Buy and tell me what the managers look like, some will be women sure but most especially the GMs will be men.
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I thought it wasn’t gender specific? This is very sexist of you. wags finger
See how unhelpful that is to the conversation
What the fuck? Can you read?
Coping Skills are not gender specific. What a dope.
You just blamed all his so-called issues on him being a man. The question is can you read your own comment or do you just type out sentences that you yourself don’t understand?
Please quote me. I said he’s being sexist which he is.
Here you go.