Patriarchy does this thing where it tells men that knowing how to take care of ourselves makes us un-manly. Ya know, things like cooking, cleaning after yourself, good hygiene...

You know who doesn't know how to take care of themselves? Children. So manliness = being a child.

And as @TheJulieGillis immediately pointed out: "Indeed. And who takes care of children/men?"

That's the point. The ultimate goal of making "growing up" unattractive to men is that such men will forever need to be taken care of - by women.

So oppressing women, closing the doors of opportunity to them, making the outside too dangerous for them to force them indoors has a practical purpose: men *need* women to take care of our extremely basic needs. If women have lives outside us, we might literally die of neglect.

This isn’t division of labor in the sense that men will earn a living and women will take care of the home. For one, division of labor requires informed consent not forced servitude. Second, this is a bogus argument: women can earn a living AND take care of themselves. Men can’t.

Even in societies where women can’t work outside the home, you’ll be hard pressed to find a man who works harder and longer hours than a woman. Even in impoverished agrarian societies, women frequently work at home AND in the fields. Men only do fieldwork.

And don’t get me started on tge, Men are stronger so they do work that requires strength”. Women in agrarian societies often work from the second they wake up till the minute they sleep. And you think THIS is a job for a weakling?

And how does patriarchy describe such work? It doesn’t. That’s it. Jobs open to men are work. Jobs open to women in patriarchal societies isn’t “work”. You know what a “stay-at-home mom” does? She works to keep ppl alive and healthy! But try getting a retirement check for that.

But even in societies where jobs that were previously male only (read jobs that aren’t about keeping a family fed, clean and healthy 24/7 no holidays) continue to teach men that we should not take care of ourselves. That it’s a woman’s job to make sure YOUR clothes are clean.

...That we are fed. That we live in a pile of our own excrement. So the male refusal to do our job - taking care of our own fucking self - is packaged as sexy/manly. And woe on to any man who does try to take care of himself. “Man card” lost in a jiffy!

That is why cishet men mock clean, healthy and well-fed men with nice living spaces and call them being gay? You can’t be a manly if you know how to take care of you! And what could be less manly than not opressing a woman every fucking day just so you don’t live like a pig...

And you know why the myth of gay men being cleaner than cishet dudes was born? Because cishet dudes are SHOCKED to see a man actually be able to cook, have good hygiene and a clean living space without the forced labor of a woman. There you have it.

Legions and legions of such men are raised and thrown into the society by patriarchy, counting on them to keep the oppression of women going. The bitterness isn’t just about lack of access to women’s bodies as sex objects. It’s equally about losing their free labor.

Of course cishet men aren’t the only ones holding up patriarchy. Keeping women oppressed economically benefits all men regardless of sexual orientation, race and religion and even trans men benefit from it.

But cishet men are uniquely indoctrinated into this bs even before we know who we are. Maybe if we - and by that I mean all of us, all society - raised all our children able and ready to live healthy lives on our own, we could defeat this dimension of patriarchy.

And it starts with teaching all kids that taking care of yourself is a skill that everyone needs to acquire just to be functioning members of society. And redifing manliness as also the ability to take of your own body and living space’s needs on your own.