Rex Kerr
1 min readOct 21, 2022

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It's very trendy to say that bottling up emotions and not asking for help is a big problem for men. That asking for help is "supposedly weak", but not doing so is the problem.

Is there actually any good data on this that you're aware of?

From a dominance hierarchy perspective, any kind of advice that sounds like "act like a low-ranking member of the tribe" also sounds like "experience high stress, low self-esteem, and nurse anger about one's status". Male interactions, whether because of socialization or because of innate factors (e.g. testosterone), tend to be very dominance-hierarchy-aware.

I wouldn't assume, without evidence, that what makes a situation psychologically safe for an average woman in, say, the United States is precisely the same as what makes a situation psychologically safe for an average man. I'm totally open to evidence...I just don't think it can be assumed.

After all, there is very sound evidence that indicates that a strong male presence in a boy's life is a major factor in helping the boy transition to being a socially well-adpated young man as opposed to getting involved in gangs or crime or drugs or whatever. This is a very counterintuitive result if the primary problem is not admitting you need help, because one would assume, at least, that boys without much of a consistent male presence in their lives would be less conditioned to typical male behaviors like "asking for help is weak".

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Rex Kerr
Rex Kerr

Written by Rex Kerr

One who rejoices when everything is made as simple as possible, but no simpler. Sayer of things that may be wrong, but not so bad that they're not even wrong.

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