I don’t know how one can learn to respect another’s ability there based on social media
Well i haven’t used Facebook in a long time but i have seen (both through reading accounts on social media and a few guys personally that use Facebook successfully for their side-work. Facebook gets like 2B eyeballs daily (if not our 4)
Edit:
edit: I’m also super annoyed at op to tie it to ‘positive masculinity’ while describing the quintessential male trait - they like teaching or displaying their abilities
But toxic masculinity is definitely not asking others for help. as a tradesperson i can speak to the fear of outting myself to ridicule if i all for help. Not just me either, I’ve seen whole days of work wasted cuz guys are afraid to ask. I don’t of it’s all jobs but Construction definitely be that way.
Op reached out even so and got help instead of ridicule and are now partners instead of competitors. Like what’s not to like here?
Can’t forget the fun flip side too, where some guys who know a lot are unwilling to share, because they (being fuckin cowards) feel it’s necessary to protect their job security by being the only one who knows how to do certain things.
Or! The guys who know how to do things - have decided they hate doing some of those things (usually for good reason in my experience) - and therefore pretend they don’t know how to do them. I kinda sympathize with this one sometimes.
But yeah, “likes to teach” as the toxic trait? Anyone who thinks that is the toxic version of knowledge sharing is kinda just revealing how little time they’ve actually spent around men.
Bud, there’s a term around men over explaining things because it’s such a thing: mansplaining. There’s also a real big trope in many relationships about men trying to solve problems instead of saying “wow that sucks”. This behavior is so ubiquitous that it’s in sitcoms and has been for as long as TV has existed.
The hilarious part about your comment is you’re the one over-explaining to me here. I’m super familiar with about every way a man can be characteristically shitty, happen to have witnessed most of it first hand over the years, committed some of the milder stuff before I grew up and learned how to behave, but here you are kindly helping me understand things about men. Interestingly, of all the things I have witnessed, what I don’t really see often is “mansplaining”. What I do see sometimes is a dude earnestly doing his best to offer help and someone else being totally uncharitable about that, like it’s some affront. And never to the dude oddly enough, only in a mocking, condescending way to others behind his back. The reason I see those ugly hidden reactions, incidentally, is because my behavior makes it clear I’m a solid ally of the people making those comments, and they trust me.
So I dunno. Way I see it, there’s a catalog of valid complaints about stereotypical dude behavior. But being super critical about sincere (if clumsy) attempts to support or help someone just always strikes me as deliberately nasty, for fun. But you do you.
Don’t bother with the TV sitcoms, please. “Bumbling idiot father who fucks up even the most trivial things constantly and is roundly shit on by everyone including his own children” is a core, continuous joke behind so many shows. And fuck it, often it’s hilarious, I’m not gonna get bent outta shape about it. Your “see, look how toxic, it’s been on TV forever” feels pretty weak.
Bingo. Toxic masculinity in the trades is thinking you know everything and acting like it. And it makes working with those people, especially foremen like that, terrible. No one knows everything, and the best tradesmen I’ve ever met are the ones that know they don’t and will never know everything, but they try to learn something new every day.
I have an electrical business, and hired a buddy that was a union operator for years to help out. I learn something new from that dude every day just from his years of adjacent experience, it’s pretty rad.
Well i haven’t used Facebook in a long time but i have seen (both through reading accounts on social media and a few guys personally that use Facebook successfully for their side-work. Facebook gets like 2B eyeballs daily (if not our 4)
Edit:
But toxic masculinity is definitely not asking others for help. as a tradesperson i can speak to the fear of outting myself to ridicule if i all for help. Not just me either, I’ve seen whole days of work wasted cuz guys are afraid to ask. I don’t of it’s all jobs but Construction definitely be that way.
Op reached out even so and got help instead of ridicule and are now partners instead of competitors. Like what’s not to like here?
Can’t forget the fun flip side too, where some guys who know a lot are unwilling to share, because they (being fuckin cowards) feel it’s necessary to protect their job security by being the only one who knows how to do certain things.
Or! The guys who know how to do things - have decided they hate doing some of those things (usually for good reason in my experience) - and therefore pretend they don’t know how to do them. I kinda sympathize with this one sometimes.
But yeah, “likes to teach” as the toxic trait? Anyone who thinks that is the toxic version of knowledge sharing is kinda just revealing how little time they’ve actually spent around men.
Bud, there’s a term around men over explaining things because it’s such a thing: mansplaining. There’s also a real big trope in many relationships about men trying to solve problems instead of saying “wow that sucks”. This behavior is so ubiquitous that it’s in sitcoms and has been for as long as TV has existed.
The hilarious part about your comment is you’re the one over-explaining to me here. I’m super familiar with about every way a man can be characteristically shitty, happen to have witnessed most of it first hand over the years, committed some of the milder stuff before I grew up and learned how to behave, but here you are kindly helping me understand things about men. Interestingly, of all the things I have witnessed, what I don’t really see often is “mansplaining”. What I do see sometimes is a dude earnestly doing his best to offer help and someone else being totally uncharitable about that, like it’s some affront. And never to the dude oddly enough, only in a mocking, condescending way to others behind his back. The reason I see those ugly hidden reactions, incidentally, is because my behavior makes it clear I’m a solid ally of the people making those comments, and they trust me.
So I dunno. Way I see it, there’s a catalog of valid complaints about stereotypical dude behavior. But being super critical about sincere (if clumsy) attempts to support or help someone just always strikes me as deliberately nasty, for fun. But you do you.
Don’t bother with the TV sitcoms, please. “Bumbling idiot father who fucks up even the most trivial things constantly and is roundly shit on by everyone including his own children” is a core, continuous joke behind so many shows. And fuck it, often it’s hilarious, I’m not gonna get bent outta shape about it. Your “see, look how toxic, it’s been on TV forever” feels pretty weak.
Bingo. Toxic masculinity in the trades is thinking you know everything and acting like it. And it makes working with those people, especially foremen like that, terrible. No one knows everything, and the best tradesmen I’ve ever met are the ones that know they don’t and will never know everything, but they try to learn something new every day.
I have an electrical business, and hired a buddy that was a union operator for years to help out. I learn something new from that dude every day just from his years of adjacent experience, it’s pretty rad.