“Men need therapy” has become a mainstream idea in feminist circles but the conversation never, ever moves past that point because if it did it would inevitably brush up against the implication that the way we raise boys is inherently traumatizing. And that would complicate their nice neat theories about how maleness is only ever a privilege and femaleness is only ever oppressive.
way we raise boys is inherently traumatizing
One experience relevant to this I had in middle school:
My friend, a girl, got a C in chemistry. The teacher, who is genuinely a nice older woman and one of the better ones we had, responded by trying to calm her, explaining how it's not that important, she'll get a better grade next time, etc, nothing weird there.
My other friend, a guy, on another test a month or so later, also got a C in chem. He started crying too.
He was told, in an "I'm sympathetic but can't do anything here" voice, that boys shouldn't cry.
At no other moment in my life have I felt such a potent urge to strangle a grandma. I 100% believe she was doing all of that with the full intent of helping him, and that is precisely the problem.
He could have had a death in the family. He could have been going through a messy divorce, or sexual abuse, or a number of other things outside of his control.
He was maybe just a 14yo boy with chaotic emotions that couldn't be held back anymore. She didn't really consider that, I think.
Instead, his feelings were dismissed and declared as invalid and "not manly".
If this was an isolated incident, no harm would have probably been done. It wasn't, tho. It's simply the most obvious example of the constant reality of being a boy/man, and when you experience so much of that every day you stop noticing it, that's when the real harm is done.