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Notes -
I agree that part should probably be left out. But it is a sentiment I feel and agree with.
I do have a wife and two kids that love and care about me. I have family and friends that care about me, and have been there for me when I've been hit with health or social issues.
There is a definite sense that the only unconditional love I've ever received has been from my mother. And I feel that unconditional love back towards her. I love and respect my father, but it absolutely does not feel unconditional. I feel like if he had seriously fucked up in some way I'd hate him. My mother did fuck up in one or two major ways, but its not even a blip on my feelings towards her.
But that unconditional motherly love feels almost like a birthright to being human. Even though I know some unlucky people never had it.
So in familial relationships men only ever get the one opportunity for mutual unconditional love, and at some point even that goes away when our mothers die.
A when we have our own families, men can feel like a replaceable cog in the machine. I think most people are better off with a father figure in their lives. But that's the thing its a father figure, not necessarily the father. As a man you can have the job as long as you qualify for it. Which can sometimes be a very low bar of qualification (just show up). But at other times can be an impossible hurdle (the mother of the children hates you, but you need to convince her to let you stay around the kids).
In general society, you've definitely picked out the ways in which men are at the bottom of the list when it comes to caring about strangers.
I think it is mostly a sense that being a man affords you no special privileges that are not earned through blood, sweat, and quickly dried eyes. Yes, men tend to earn more on average. They also tend to take dangerous and unfulfilling jobs that only have on redeeming characteristic: higher pay. Yes, men tend to be in higher positions at companies. Do women think that men are nice to each other on the way up the corporate ladder? God no, the ones at the top are there through some form of merit, even if that merit is just the ability to backstab earliest.
By coincidence, I already posted a Chris Rock link in this thread.
However, there's also another relevant Rock bit on conditional/unconditional love. "Only women, children, and dogs are loved unconditionally. A man is only loved under the condition that he provides something."
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