Trust the Torygraph to find an alarmist angle while reporting on social change beneficial to men.
"The rise of the ‘bromance’ could threaten heterosexual relationships, academics have warned, after discovering that many men find their close male friendships more emotionally satisfying than relationships with women."
"Intense male friendships have grown more acceptable in recent decades as attitudes towards homosexuality changed, meaning men no longer fear showing affection towards each other."
@starbreaker arrgh. Heaven forbid men actually learning and enjoying emotionally supporting each other. Is this just an English/American issue? I feel like maybe other countries aren’t hung up on this as much?
@starbreaker interesting point.
@Boudicca Or, if we don't want to drag religion into it, we could suggest that any culture that places a premium on military prowess is going to harshly police boys and men and force them into a straitjacket of masculinity that allows no room for gentleness, tenderness, or emotional vulnerability. It will also practice routine genital mutilation on infant males without anesthesia because the trauma makes boys and men more aggressive.
@starbreaker that has some merit, but there were plenty of military nations that had no issue with ‘shield brothers’ and/or women in the military. I tend to think our issues really date to the 40’s-50’s and the rise of mass media, the need to move women out of war industry by glorifying the so-called nuclear family that never really existed. That seems to be the tipping point of gendering work and and assigning value and structure to it.
@Boudicca I suspect it's mostly a issue in cultures tainted by Abrahamic monotheism (the real curse of the pharaoh).