"Secure" men

_name_of_the_user_ · 2025-06-27T20:00:50+00:00

Why is being insecure an insult only for men. When a woman is feeling insecure people will try to support her. But when a man is feeling insecure people belittle him. It's absurd that calling men insecure is even an insult to anyone other than the person calling men that.

Ok-Acanthisitta-8145 · 2025-06-27T16:01:35+00:00

I'd love to ask them - why is catcalling a problem then? Why don't women just read The Four Agreements over and over until THEY become black-belts of boundaries and learn not to take those comments that they find disgusting or hurtful seriously? Why is being approached by a man you're not interested in a problem? Just boundaries your way out of it like I'm supposed to.

The famous merry-go-round of "taking it personally":

Feminist: "All men are terrible"

Man: "I don't like that"

Feminist: "Well why are you taking it personally? If you were one of the good ones you wouldn't worry about it"

Man: "Well if I'm one of the good ones it can't be all men now can it?"

Enzi42 · 2025-06-27T17:15:33+00:00

I know this a bit if a tangent from the OP (and I'm sorry for that) but I always wonder what the "progenitor" of this particular manipulation tactic is.

It's clearly a clever strategy to obtain compliance from men, it plays into a lot of our emotional and mental weaknesses from our socialization and biology like keys to a lock. But where did it spring from?

Did a group of women just sit down one day and hatch it in order to make life easier for themselves? Or did it just spring up organically in the constant gender war and spread like a memetic virus as people saw it's effectiveness?

I also want to note, as a slight disclaimer, that the reason I thought of a "group of women sitting together and plotting" isn't just mindless misogyny, there are two reasons for it.

The first is that this If you are offended by what I said about your kind, you are one of the bad people seems to be one of a few toxic conversation tactics that are uniquely female, just as there are ones I've seen belong solely to males.

The second reason is that years ago I once had an interesting online conversation with a woman about the toxic influencers that prey on men and women. Something she shared with me was that her childhood lessons included how to emotionally manipulate men, as taught to her by older female relatives. It was only after years of toxic and failed relationships in her adult years that she even began to question those "lessons" and it took even longer to unlearn them.

So I was drawing on that long ago conversation when I wrote this.

DemolitionMatter · 2025-06-27T18:32:38+00:00

The reason feminists overuse the term insecure is to silence people who oppose them because insecurity is stigmatized, especially in men.

aslfingerspell · 2025-06-27T18:46:55+00:00

"A secure man is always working on improving himself and doesn't blame other people for his faults." = "Man up. Your problems are your fault. Keep your negative emotions to yourself."

"A secure man doesn't get upset at rejection, and knows its not important." = "A real man is stoic and unaffected."

"A secure man doesn't trauma dump or force others to do his emotional labor." = "A real man stays silent and doesn't open up to his family or friends."

Due-Heron-5577 · 2025-06-27T16:03:40+00:00

Agreed. It seems that this rhetoric is just adding to an ever-growing list of gendered expectations for men.

It’s a bit like that old meme where there are 14 different standards for phone chargers. Someone comes along and goes “what a mess, I’m going to make a single standard for phone chargers that supersedes all of these”. And that’s how you end up with 15 standards for phone chargers.

As you’ve pointed out, some of these merely regurgitate the restrictive gendered expectations of old in more modern language. Others are more contradictory, leaving young men in particular with a set of mutually exclusive demands that are impossible to satisfy.

Another example of where modern rhetoric mirrors that of the past would the accusations of insecurity that are included within these goads. These are really just an attempt to manipulate men into compliance using shame. They sound an awful lot like the accusations of cowardice that are levelled at men who don’t or won’t deliver to more traditional demands.

Training-Cook3507 · 2025-06-27T16:18:42+00:00

A "secure man" is a man that permits emotional affairs by his partner. Affairs that eventually lead to a relationship's demise in one way or another.

BhryaenDagger · 2025-06-27T18:55:32+00:00

“If you were a real man, you’d suffer insults without speaking up against it.”

vegetables-10000 · 2025-06-27T20:06:49+00:00

This is just "positive masculinity" in a nutshell. Feminists cherry picking parts of traditional masculinity that benefits women, and harm men.

"A secure man won't get upset when you say All men" = "Men don't get upset" also = "A masculine man doesn't care about a womans opinion," But they're not willing to accept that's what they're saying.

Ironically this benevolent sexism, being perpetuated by feminist here. Saying a man shouldn't care about a woman's opinion. Therefore saying that women's opinion don't matter.

rammo123 · 2025-06-27T20:42:12+00:00

"Secure man" sounds awfully like "doormat" to me.

IntrepidDifference84 · 2025-06-27T18:21:53+00:00

Secure man is a backhanded compliment

Competitive_Side6301 · 2025-06-27T17:31:30+00:00

LMAO if this is the case I am proudly NOT a secure man.

linx28 · 2025-06-27T18:12:26+00:00

so is this just another attempt at manipulation ?

sunyata150 · 2025-06-27T21:38:42+00:00

In general know when I hear "secure man", "real man", "Step up" , etc It just sounds like refurbished labeling for man up. You aren't following your script to sacrifice for everyone else based on a list of double standards we wont apply to others! In which case they can call me whatever they want. It starts becoming difficult for me to take there rhetoric seriously.

Euphoric_Passenger · 2025-06-27T19:59:59+00:00

The solipsistic mind can only project itself onto others. She's insecure with herself, causing her to project in onto anyone who would critic her as a means of deflection.

Saerain · 2025-06-27T20:30:55+00:00

This has driven me crazy in the 28 years since puberty.

he is willing to work two jobs to make ends meet and pay for everything and whatnot.

I'm willing, eager to work any number of jobs within each 16 hour waking period, it's neither "this is work" nor "this is hard" nor "I need more entertainment" nor "this is bad for my identity" that's a problem; rather the consequences of my upbringing put me in a position of catch-22 with regards to the jobs for which I qualify. It looks like this is pretty common among American males on at least the East Coast, although that might be a function of population density:

Middle class parents who put everything on a semi-affluent public school system so they could keep partying
Resulting in a pretty smart kid whose parents are strangers
Adolescence full of messaging that masculinity is scary and bad, men have systematically oppressed women for the benefit of men and so on
Mother regularly talks about how bearing children is such an awful unfair infliction upon women and so on, fragile male ego, misogyny and perverts and Jews and monkeys (?)
Parents divorce over something like "he called a phone sex hotline 5 years after my secret hysterectomy"
Each parent takes an attitude toward the kid's future that's all "I'm here for you" and no "Hey I have an idea"
Going to them with concerns about this results in reactions like "Ask your father," and "Oh don't worry about it, it'll just happen when you're older," and "Oh that's weird, well let me know when you figure it out."
So you arrive at this young adult in a world of working elders, plenty of information, no resources, no guidance, no connection... all information, you figure it out, have fun.

You can learn all you want, at some point a school or an employer expects you to be able to show up via a vehicle owned or rented or something.

So we end up, if we're lucky, dependent on a partner cool with nontraditional gender roles, becoming these depressed know-it-all househusbands because even in this situation this partner is never going to bring in enough money to make possible your transport to your job.

I know this seems remarkably specific, but I keep encountering others. Except for the racism, that's just my mother.

And still well into adulthood, those parents' "It'll just happen when your older" takes have now turned into "No one said life would be easy." Ackchyually...

To top that off, you're a disappointment for not doing those things that they whimperingly don't know how to do.

God, is there just an anti-Boomer venting sub somewhere?

Codexe- · 2025-06-28T02:25:12+00:00

Lots of people say lots of things.

There comes a point where you have to discern when you can disregard somebody because they're just bullshitting.

It seems like you're taking people seriously, when you shouldn't be taking them seriously because they're fools.

There's nothing wrong with the idea of security or insecurity. At least, not when it's used properly. It comes from psychology and it's about how we look at the world.

But people do like to use it carte blanche. It's become pop astrology nonsense. People like to use it to discredit somebody or insult somebody. That's not what it's supposed to be about.

SanguinPanguin · 2025-07-02T00:23:01+00:00

Tangentially related, but not wanting your girlfriend to wear slutty outfits and go clubbing without does not make you an insecure man at all. In fact it makes you a secure man with boundaries.

Trying to justify the insecure take just makes you a bad person.

Dio_Landa · 2025-06-27T19:19:00+00:00

I will use myself as an example. When folks say "all men" I know for a fact they don't mean me.

I see the word "secure" as someone who is "safe". That includes being a man that makes folks, men and women, feel safe around them.

Title	"Secure" men
Author	Ok_Structure2545
Upvotes	203
Comments	85
Date	June 27, 2025 11:41 AM UTC (1 year ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates/comments/1llrps9/secure_men/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates/secure-men.1555722 https://theredarchive.com/post/1555722

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