overbearing mother figures who emasculate their sons. Poor socialization/not learning our gender role.
I wouldn't say my parents emasculated me.
I would say I was emasculated simply by not being born naturally muscular, well off financially, and/or good at anything.
I don't blame them for that, rather I always thought of it as just the way it is, the body, brain, mind, traits, nature, and overall person I was dealt. Nevertheless, it made me feel inferior, insulted, pissed me off, got me down. It's hard to feel bold, or even to know who you are and can be, or what to get interested in at all, when you feel like you're holding no cards.
Not learning the gender role is a big one though - what women expect a guy to be, why, and how to be it. I wish I'd learned this earlier, but I wasn't in a headspace to. For most of my life, I thought there were no rules, that a person could just be. I thought "it's a free country, I can do what I want as long as I'm not hurting anyone". And I thought that the rules were made up in order for the a-holes to prop themselves up on top of the hierarchy of "popularity"/"being cool". I thought they were as real as we chose to believe them to be, and since they didn't benefit me, but instead benefitted people I didn't like, I chose not to believe in them at all. Now I see that there are rules, and they work the way they do for a reason. It isn't for nothing, and it's not just so "the cool kids" can prop themselves up. It's because women generally like certain traits in men. Sure, you can
not go along with it if you want, but you won't hurt "the cool kids"/"the system", you'll only hurt yourself.
Part of me wishes the aspects of the male gender role were explained to me as a youngster - that I need to be a protector/provider (so you HAVE to go into skilled work, regardless of political beliefs), and I need to be impressive and interesting (so you HAVE to get into doing some kind of skill instead of just consuming), and I need to get to a strong position in life so I can feel better about myself, and feel the way I'm supposed to feel, confident, proud, secure, interested in myself and liking myself, and that being in a weak position in life was why I felt so lousy about life and myself, despite the fact that I thought I was doing all I needed and wanted to do. I wish it was explained that I needed to do more than just what's required of me, and then wanting to relax and consume entertainment made by others, and consume information for curiosity's sake, that I have no real intention of using. But I always hated feeling like things were forced on me, or "do as you're told"/"because I said so". I've always needed to have the "why's" of something explained to me, and it's always needed to feel like it's my choice. I would have resented being forced to participate in some kind of skilled activity, for example. But if it was explained to me, "you have to have something cool you do yourself, and you have to get good at it, in order to get a woman interested in you and feel better about yourself", I would have felt better about doing it. Same goes with grooming, fashion, skilled work, having conversation pieces, and so on. When instead of being forced to conform to someone else's rules because they're stronger/"better" than me, but rather I feel like it's my choice, it's my idea, that I'm doing something beneficial for myself, that's what makes all the difference.
I think about this constantly, as I don't want to live like this, but I worry there isn't anything I can do to fix it because I worry I don't have the body to build muscle, the brain to do anything that makes money, or the mind to be good at anything.
