More often than not, being a man comes with the expectation to act in a certain way. The toxic stereotype of the masculine, macho guy tells us that they are supposed to be strong and unemotional. As a result, thousands of men never speak about their feelings and fight problems like depression, loneliness and low self-esteem in silence.
So when user slowskyincog22 asked to share some men’s issues that are often overlooked, Redditors quickly rolled up their sleeves. The thread went viral, collecting more than 41.8K upvotes and 18K comments and inspiring people to open up about how the male gender is a tough role to play.
Take a look at some of the most illuminating answers Bored Panda has collected from this thread. Make sure to upvote the ones that you agree with and don’t forget to share your thoughts in the comment section below.
Read More: Someone Asked “What Are Some Men’s Issues That Are Overlooked?”, And 30 People Delivered
#1 Abuse From Women
I saw a woman attempting to hit her boyfriend outside a local supermarket. He walked away from her. She followed him and kept hitting him. After this went on for about 90 seconds he shoved her away roughly once.
2 cars immediately stopped and men jumped out of them shouting at and threatening this guy for shoving her.
Nobody did anything when she was attacking him.
Edit: there are a lot of people commenting that I didn’t help him either.
I reported the incident to the security guard. Both the man and the woman were bigger than me. I’m not a big/tough person, there are limits to what I would ever get physically involved in plus when the other people jumped out of their cars they could just as easily have targeted me if I had got involved.
I did what I could without endangering myself.
Image credits: Random_Guy_47
#2 People Not Trusting Men Around Kids
So I’m at the park playing tag with these kids I’m babysitting and out of nowhere this old lady comes up to me and starts asking all sorts of questions. Do you know these kids? What are there names? Can you call their parents for me? Even asking the kids if they knew me and when they answered yes, she responded with “you don’t have to lie, if you don’t know this man, you can tell me and I can help you.
Image credits: WalkingonCoffee
#3 Short Paternity Leaves
The miserable Paternity leaves. Cause what man wants to spend time with his new born kid and a recovering wife right ! ಠ_ಠ
Image credits: amrav_123
#4 Loneliness
Loneliness. Many men tend to have a lot of friends, but never close friends or people they feel like truly care about them, which leads to declining mental health, and maybe worse.
Image credits: themom_destroyer
#5 The Entire Child Custody System
The entire child custody/child support system.
Image credits: 4GotMyFathersFace
#6 Emotional Abuse
Emotional abuse of men. My BF suffered that in both his marriages and I am SO CAREFUL to not say or do anything that could make him feel the way they made him feel. I try very hard to be sure he knows I value him for who he is, just the way he is, every single day. Even he doesn’t know how much damage they caused him.
I will never get over this 1950s assumption that women can’t abuse men. Women abuse men way more often than anyone realizes, and the system is stacked against men in so many different ways.
To the men who have been emotionally abused, I am so sorry, and I would encourage all of you to seek therapy. It really does help. To the women who love them: don’t stop loving them.
Image credits: Ok_Mathematician2087
#7 Jokes About Height
Height is a common thing to joke about, nobody sees a problem with it but it can really whittle away at your self worth when people always make fun of you for it
Image credits: backstreetbalogna
#8 Less Shelters Available To Homeless Men
There are almost always more shelters available to women experiencing homelessness. In my city, the split is about 75% beds for women and children and 25% for men.
I understand that society considers women more vulnerable, but I live in a city where it routinely gets below zero in the winter. Hypothermia doesn’t care about your gender.
Image credits: SalemScout
#9 A Pressure For A Male To Be A Breadwinner
Society doesn’t seem to support a man who is without a job. There is pressure and programming for a male to be a breadwinner and no sympathy for when they want to be a house-dad.
Reason for my rant: My brother left a job due to a health issue. He has a 4yr old boy. His wife makes better money than him and they are financially secure. He worked too much which probably led to the health issue. I told him to take his time and heal. If he felt that urge to ‘provide’ that he could take over the house duties and give the nanny the summer off to connect with his son. I shared with him that I had been laid off a few times and each time I rushed back to getting a job even though we were secure enough because of the guilt I felt everyday of not ‘providing’. He took the advice, I could see him smiling more, he started a garden with his boy, he cooked every meal and realized he loved to cook. I was happy to see him being happy again. Enter my brother’s wife who says to us, “I’m the only bread winner now. I am so stressed out having to provide for this family by myself.” I saw the happiness drain from him and anxiety filled that place. He is now set to start the same job he had prior just appease the guilt he has from not ‘earning’. The guilt was confirmed by his wife’s statement on top of the male programming of not contributing unless he is making money.
TLDR: Men don’t need to be pressured to earn or be the bread winner. Society has already told us we are not contributing unless we are making money.
Image credits: HiPlainsDrifter14
#10 Angry Men And Boys Being Targeted By Extremist Groups
Radicalisation. Joja Rabbit is such a sweet film about this. There are a lot of young, lonely and understandably angry men and boys who are targeted by extremist groups into that kind of failsafe ideology. You can almost see it happening.
Image credits: New_Satisfaction2566
#11 Not Being Allowed To Express Feeling Lonely
Crushing, black, empty, cold, never-ending, screaming-into-the-void loneliness and everyone’s casual shrug when I even hint about it.
Just work, pay taxes, walk the dog, keep your mouth shut, don’t have feelings, don’t be short, try to keep up appearances of virility, and never, ever, whatever you do, don’t let anyone know how lonely you are because they’ll just sort of awkwardly giggle and change the subject.
Image credits: [deleted]
#12 Being Treated As Expendable
Men are frequently treated as expendable.
Even in countries with mingled militaries, men are the overwhelming majority of combat troops and thus casualties. Not to mention pretty much all child soldiers are male.
If you are male been the ages of 14-60 and happen to be anywhere near a combat zone, even if it’s your own backyard, you are considered a “military age male” and a possible target.
News media regularly says things like “100 killed including 14 women and children” as if the other 86 men don’t matter as much.
Something like 90% of all workplace injuries and fatalities are male. Whether men seek out more dangerous jobs or only men are selected for those jobs is debatable.
Image credits: shogi_x
#13 Underestimating Men’s Issues
If you ever bring up male-centered issues in conversations with women, it always turns into “well at least you don’t have it as bad as women.” or “well women deal with X, so why are you complaining?” or my personal favorite “Yeah, well then change it, it only happened because the patriarchy.”
Image credits: National_zero_phucks
#14 Male Disposability
Male disposability. If something is dangerous, send men. Your partner can replace you easily. Your only value is what you offer to other people and the minute you are not useful anymore people cast you aside like the fungible commodity you are. I would like to be treated like I have inherent value as a person, not like I’m something to be tolerated until I’m no longer useful.
Image credits: Glutenberg_Bible
#15 Isolation
Isolation. I’ve felt this myself, and I’ve done some reading about it. Men tend to become more isolated and lonely as they get older. After a certain point they don’t make an effort to gain friendships and tend to shy away from any type of social engagement. I feel this way, because as of right now, I don’t have a close male friend. At least not someone I can talk to about things going on with me personally. I know a lot of people, but I’m less and less engaged with them as each year passes. It concerns me as of late, because I don’t want to end up a hermit, but without a solid relationship, I could see myself headed this direction in my older years.
Image credits: ekimlive
#16 Lack Of A Good Support System
The lack of a good support system. Just because a guy has people that he hangs out with, doesn’t mean he’s comfortable telling them serious personal issues.
Image credits: Pennsyltucky-79
#17 Lack Of Financial Support For Prostate Cancer Patients
Prostate cancer is second only to skin cancer in men. Lots of money goes to breast cancer research, but how much goes to prostate cancer?
Image credits: Plaid_Zucchini
#18 Double Standards
Easy look at the case where the guy got banned from twitch. When his computer rebooted and logged him in as he was walking passed in his boxers.
The same time a cam girl accidentally didn’t log out of twitch and did a full strip on stream. She didn’t get banned. In fact she got a few sponsors for it.
Image credits: [deleted]
#19 Not Being Allowed To Talk About Mental Health Struggles
Mental health. And this is coming from someone who has lived on the ideas of “you’re a guy, get over yourself”. It was taught to me, I didn’t think much of it, and now that I’m about to hit 20, I can feel the effects like a ripple. It’s actually hard for me to open up to people and when I do I feel like I’m wasting everyone’s time.
Image credits: Mr_Valeyard
#20 Pattern Baldness
Male pattern baldness and the impact it can have on mental health and body image. Imagine being in college surrounded by guys with perfect NW1 hairlines with all these cool fades and modern trendy hairstyles while you’re stuck looking like Moby or Varys from GOT. Brutal. The worst part is nobody really talks about it, it’s a very hidden and taboo issue that many men go though but society refuses to truly address, so they are forced to suffer in silence.
Image credits: ImpSong
#21 Mental Illness
I work at a psychiatric hospital and out of the thirteen wards, only three are for women. The huge problem to face men is mental illness and most, if not all the patients are there because they kept taking drugs as well.
Image credits: Precursor_7
#22 Your Job Defining You
In western culture, men are defined by what they do and not by who they are (being). So, when they retire they often develop mental illness because they are no longer “doing”. this often leads to suicide.
Then there’s the whole nonsense of the stoic emotionless man getting on with the work.
Image credits: tanktametet-pwemskan
#23 Pressure To Be Emotionless
You can’t cry. You can’t have emotional issues. You are supposed to know the answer to all problems
Image credits: level 1 int9r
#24 A Lack Fashion Options
Tldr: fashion options When I get ready to go out somewhere nice I find a dress shirt and tie, perhaps a jacket. Comb my hair in the one style I can as its cut to that style. Choose between brown or black shoes, belt to match and maybe add a watch. My wife picks a shirt, on or off the shoulder, low cut or high. Pants or skirt, short or long. Stockings or not, shoes open or closed, tall or short heel. She can wear her hair up or down or a combination. Bracelets, necklace, earrings. Makeup and perfume. One could argue that these choices complicate her life but I beg to differ. She has the options to be who she wants to be at the time, to garner more attention or less, draw attention or stand out less. I get to look the same as I do at every wedding, funeral or night out.
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Image credits: LitterGrabber