| Men just have to laugh it off...and succeed anyway.
If you're a kid trying to make sense of the world, these never-ending messages that there is something basically wrong with you can be unnerving, because it appears that it's all true. It's on TV, it's in the comics, you see and hear adults saying these things all the time. I don't think it's healthy to be doing this on such a widespread basis. Even kids understand that jokes are jokes, but that's not what goes on with this stuff. It's presented as science, or common knowledge. I think it's doing enormous damage to developing minds of both sexes. |
That is easier to do if you are already an adult when it starts. I used to laugh at this stuff too, until a 12-year-old nephew of mine tried to kill himself. He was thoroughly convinced that he was doomed to mature into a wife-beating, daughter-raping, deadbeat dad -- and he just didn't want any part of it. He would rather be dead than grow up to be an — ugh — man.