No bigger than the one you’re making to the contrary:
I think most men are growing up in an unhealthy environment.
We’ll have to agree to disagree.
Unless you want to quantify what a healthy environment is, or provide meaningful research that suggests you’re right here, I’m unwilling to do either for you. I’m not going to believe you’re right just because you say you are, and you clearly feel the same.
The term “Karen” is a product of modern day socioeconomic conditions…
Agreed.
However, I disagree about it not involving anger.
Yes, absolutley they act in an entitled way. But that entitlement is very often expressed through clearly angry or upset behaviors. Specifically: frustration / violence / “I wanna speak to your manager” verbal harassment.
In all seriousness, could you provide an anecdote, even a made up one, where someone gets called a “Karen” yet their behaviour doesn’t involve frustration / anger / verbal harassment?
I honestly cannot imagine one in which that person would be called a Karen, and not simply entitled. (However, I admit I very much could be wrong here.)
For your overall point that exposure to an emotion makes it easier to control, I don’t think it holds up. Statistically, men are much more likely to commit acts of violence…
You do realize if I’m wrong about that, it would be ALL men who commit acts of violence right?
What, in your opinion, is the difference that seperates violent and non-violent men if not the development of the capacity to emotionally regulate themselves better over time?
It has to be something, so if not that what is it?
The higher frequency of violence in men is actually more proof I’m right. Because that violence could be a result of those who haven’t learned to well manage the amplified feelings their testosterone generates. As men, they have T, but getting used to what that does to you after puberty isn’t easy. Those that adapt, cause no violence, those that struggle with it, do. Overall, the average rate of violence increases among men, but is not seen in all of them. Which is what’s observed in most studies as you’ve said.
I think it’s just as likely that a high degree of exposure to a particular emotion will be buried or suppressed in an unhealthy way, leading to outbursts.
This is very much a big part of the point I’m making too.
When first experiencing emotions that are intensely enhanced by sex hormones, people get easily overwhelmed. They don’t know how to stop those feelings from happening, so some end up burying them.
Doing so, PREVENTS those emotions from actually being felt or experienced. So the longer those go bottled up, the more explosive it becomes because the emotion has now compounded in its intensity, and the person who bottled it still has little to no experience or knowledge in which to handle it.
To be clear, running from or bottling emotions is not the same as experiencing them. And it’s certainly not the same as experiencing them frequently.
Those that FREQUENTLY experience the same intense emotions, eventually, have no need to bottle them. They understand what it feels like to be intensely sad, angry, etc and will not be afraid of that experience or lack the tools to well manage it. They learn, over time, to work with those feelings rather than against them.
Basically, the intensity of an emotion matters, but so does the frequency in which it is felt.
For example:
If you are frequently, once a month, feeling amplified saddness due to your own hormones (NOT Depression, that’s entirely different) you probably have a damn good way of regulating that feeling so you can continue to function when you feel it.
In this example, there was likely a time that sadness was bottled, but because it was unavoidably happening once a month, over time, the use of bottling it becomes pointless. You quite literally get used to it, and learn to live with it. Bottling it is just a step on that journey.
For an emotion like sadness, that journey is much slower for men because they aren’t exposed to it as frequently as someone with sadness as a period symptom once a month.
This form of emotional adaptation is also looking pretty scientifically solid these days:
… the emotions are often misunderstood as entailing inflexibility and invariance. [There is] convergent empirical and theoretical work indicating that emotion adaptations calibrate to particularities of the situation, the self, and the socioecological environment.
I’m not going to “agree to disagree” on this any more than I’d “agree to disagree” on any other well-known facts. Here’s the APA:
The APA defines traditional masculinity as “a particular constellation of standards that have held sway over large segments of the population, including: anti-femininity, achievement, eschewal of the appearance of weakness, and adventure, risk, and violence.” The guidelines, which were highlighted in the January issue of the APA’s Monitor on Psychology magazine, say the pressure boys and men feel to conform to certain aspects of traditional masculinity can lead to poor health outcomes, including higher rates of suicide, substance abuse, violence and early death.
In all seriousness, could you provide an anecdote, even a made up one, where someone gets called a “Karen” yet their behaviour doesn’t involve frustration / anger / verbal harassment?
You’ve moved the goalposts. You were claiming that women are more prone to outbursts of anger specifically, because of being less used to testosterone. Now you’re adding “frustration” and “verbal abuse,” which aren’t inherently linked to testosterone. Let’s stick to anger, shall we?
With that in mind, here is one of the prime examples that I remember being used for an example of a “Karen.” She’s not expressing anger, she is expressing distress (played up on the phone), but it’s primarily about exercising her privilege against a minority, weaponizing the police to win an argument. That’s 100% Karen behavior.
You do realize if I’m wrong about that, it would be ALL men who commit acts of violence right?
That’s completely idiotic, no. Your claim is that exposure to testosterone makes men less prone to angry outbursts generally speaking compared to women. For that to be wrong would not require every single man to be prone to angry outbursts, let alone acts of violence. It would only require them to be more prone to those things relative to women, which they are, objectively.
The higher frequency of violence in men is actually more proof I’m right.
How fascinating. It seems that no matter what evidence actually exists out in the world, you’re able to twist it around to support your conclusions. There should be a word for ideas like yours that are so obviously true, may I suggest the word, “unfalsifiable?”
To be clear, running from or bottling emotions is not the same as experiencing them. And it’s certainly not the same as experiencing them frequently.
You’ve played a very interesting trick of language in this section. Your argument rests on the fact that testosterone makes men more prone to feelings of anger, that is, to make them “experience” anger, but then you say that those who bottle up anger or react to it in unhealthy ways are not actually “experiencing” anger. This would imply that you think that testoterone doesn’t merely cause the physiological symptoms that make people more prone to anger, but also inherently, biologically, causes men to respond to those symptoms in psychologically healthy ways. This of course contradicts your whole argument that it’s necessary to learn through practice how to handle those emotions.
If “experiencing” anger means not only experiencing the symptoms, but also handling them in a healthy way and not bottling them up, then testosterone doesn’t make people “experience” anger (only because you’ve redefined the word “experience” in a nonsensical way). If “experiencing” anger means feeling the symptoms of anger, regardless of whether it’s handled in a healthy or unhealthy way, then what you’re saying in this section is all nonsense. You can choose whatever definition you prefer, but you can’t switch back and forth.
This form of emotional adaptation is also scientifically proven:
The paper you linked is very tangentially related to your point. Yes, people adapt emotionally to their environments. That has very little with your bizzare claim that men are less prone to angry outbursts or acts of violence than women because of biology.
No bigger than the one you’re making to the contrary:
We’ll have to agree to disagree. Unless you want to quantify what a healthy environment is, or provide meaningful research that suggests you’re right here, I’m unwilling to do either for you. I’m not going to believe you’re right just because you say you are, and you clearly feel the same.
Agreed.
However, I disagree about it not involving anger. Yes, absolutley they act in an entitled way. But that entitlement is very often expressed through clearly angry or upset behaviors. Specifically: frustration / violence / “I wanna speak to your manager” verbal harassment.
In all seriousness, could you provide an anecdote, even a made up one, where someone gets called a “Karen” yet their behaviour doesn’t involve frustration / anger / verbal harassment?
I honestly cannot imagine one in which that person would be called a Karen, and not simply entitled. (However, I admit I very much could be wrong here.)
You do realize if I’m wrong about that, it would be ALL men who commit acts of violence right?
What, in your opinion, is the difference that seperates violent and non-violent men if not the development of the capacity to emotionally regulate themselves better over time?
It has to be something, so if not that what is it?
The higher frequency of violence in men is actually more proof I’m right. Because that violence could be a result of those who haven’t learned to well manage the amplified feelings their testosterone generates. As men, they have T, but getting used to what that does to you after puberty isn’t easy. Those that adapt, cause no violence, those that struggle with it, do. Overall, the average rate of violence increases among men, but is not seen in all of them. Which is what’s observed in most studies as you’ve said.
This is very much a big part of the point I’m making too.
When first experiencing emotions that are intensely enhanced by sex hormones, people get easily overwhelmed. They don’t know how to stop those feelings from happening, so some end up burying them.
Doing so, PREVENTS those emotions from actually being felt or experienced. So the longer those go bottled up, the more explosive it becomes because the emotion has now compounded in its intensity, and the person who bottled it still has little to no experience or knowledge in which to handle it.
To be clear, running from or bottling emotions is not the same as experiencing them. And it’s certainly not the same as experiencing them frequently.
Those that FREQUENTLY experience the same intense emotions, eventually, have no need to bottle them. They understand what it feels like to be intensely sad, angry, etc and will not be afraid of that experience or lack the tools to well manage it. They learn, over time, to work with those feelings rather than against them.
Basically, the intensity of an emotion matters, but so does the frequency in which it is felt.
For example: If you are frequently, once a month, feeling amplified saddness due to your own hormones (NOT Depression, that’s entirely different) you probably have a damn good way of regulating that feeling so you can continue to function when you feel it.
In this example, there was likely a time that sadness was bottled, but because it was unavoidably happening once a month, over time, the use of bottling it becomes pointless. You quite literally get used to it, and learn to live with it. Bottling it is just a step on that journey.
For an emotion like sadness, that journey is much slower for men because they aren’t exposed to it as frequently as someone with sadness as a period symptom once a month.
This form of emotional adaptation is also looking pretty scientifically solid these days:
https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2023-25436-001
I’m not going to “agree to disagree” on this any more than I’d “agree to disagree” on any other well-known facts. Here’s the APA:
The APA defines traditional masculinity as “a particular constellation of standards that have held sway over large segments of the population, including: anti-femininity, achievement, eschewal of the appearance of weakness, and adventure, risk, and violence.” The guidelines, which were highlighted in the January issue of the APA’s Monitor on Psychology magazine, say the pressure boys and men feel to conform to certain aspects of traditional masculinity can lead to poor health outcomes, including higher rates of suicide, substance abuse, violence and early death.
You’ve moved the goalposts. You were claiming that women are more prone to outbursts of anger specifically, because of being less used to testosterone. Now you’re adding “frustration” and “verbal abuse,” which aren’t inherently linked to testosterone. Let’s stick to anger, shall we?
With that in mind, here is one of the prime examples that I remember being used for an example of a “Karen.” She’s not expressing anger, she is expressing distress (played up on the phone), but it’s primarily about exercising her privilege against a minority, weaponizing the police to win an argument. That’s 100% Karen behavior.
That’s completely idiotic, no. Your claim is that exposure to testosterone makes men less prone to angry outbursts generally speaking compared to women. For that to be wrong would not require every single man to be prone to angry outbursts, let alone acts of violence. It would only require them to be more prone to those things relative to women, which they are, objectively.
How fascinating. It seems that no matter what evidence actually exists out in the world, you’re able to twist it around to support your conclusions. There should be a word for ideas like yours that are so obviously true, may I suggest the word, “unfalsifiable?”
You’ve played a very interesting trick of language in this section. Your argument rests on the fact that testosterone makes men more prone to feelings of anger, that is, to make them “experience” anger, but then you say that those who bottle up anger or react to it in unhealthy ways are not actually “experiencing” anger. This would imply that you think that testoterone doesn’t merely cause the physiological symptoms that make people more prone to anger, but also inherently, biologically, causes men to respond to those symptoms in psychologically healthy ways. This of course contradicts your whole argument that it’s necessary to learn through practice how to handle those emotions.
If “experiencing” anger means not only experiencing the symptoms, but also handling them in a healthy way and not bottling them up, then testosterone doesn’t make people “experience” anger (only because you’ve redefined the word “experience” in a nonsensical way). If “experiencing” anger means feeling the symptoms of anger, regardless of whether it’s handled in a healthy or unhealthy way, then what you’re saying in this section is all nonsense. You can choose whatever definition you prefer, but you can’t switch back and forth.
The paper you linked is very tangentially related to your point. Yes, people adapt emotionally to their environments. That has very little with your bizzare claim that men are less prone to angry outbursts or acts of violence than women because of biology.