I agree with your comment that the history, and how that history has affected marginalized groups, specifically, is important to learn and recognize–and I think this is true of most of western culture.
Like [email protected] said, this article doesn’t feel like that. It cherry picks its sources and the author seems to fundamentally misunderstand Stoicism. In fact, it seems to me that the author is misattributing the failings and misunderstandings of some of Stoicism’s bad actors to the philosophy itself.
I have personally found Practical Stocism to be a useful tool in my own mental health journey, especially where it relates to recognizing and controlling my responses to things other people do or say in my relationships, why my responses are what they are and what I can do about those responses. It has never been taught to me as a tool of suppression, but of experience, acceptance, and, ultimately, control. If I am able to recognize what I am feeling and why, I am better able to decide for myself whether or not it would be valid to respond out of that emotion, or if doing so would perpetuate a cycle it would healthier to break. It’s not about not feeling, it’s about giving me the tools I need to decide how best to respond to what I’m feeling.
That being said, I fully recognize that language evolves and changes and that the word stoicism without the illumination now has negative connotations for mental health, and is mostly associated with unhealthy coping mechanisms and behaviors. Perhaps it would be more useful to ask where the disconnect between Stoicism and stoicism truly lies, and how we, as men (or as humans, since a lot of this ties into basic concepts of emotional maturity) can display different and better behaviors to change the association (if, indeed, we’re even interesting in doing so?).
Single parent chiming in. I might have a unique perspective on this since I live in a conservative suburb of a major Texas metro.
The biggest thing I’ve noticed is that I’m not allowed to simply be a parent, at least as far as social opinions are concerned. Whenever I take my son out to, say, the park, or for afters, other parents willing to strike up conversations take one of two stances: I am either babysitting my son (i.e. giving mum a break), or I’m suspicious for spending time with him alone (the implication being that men can’t be trusted with childcare unsupervised).
I am acquainted with the parents of my son’s friends, but outside of major events like school functions or birthday parties, I have to take the initiative on giving him opportunities to socialize with his peers because those parents won’t include my son otherwise–because the mums won’t text a single man first under any circumstances and the mums are ones who do all the planning. And while I don’t believe this slight is intentional or malicious, it’s difficult not to take it personally when they’ve collectively only met his mum once (at an end-of-year school function) and they’ve only ever known us in the context of me being a single parent.
I have twice in the last year had to explain to the old bill that I am not, in fact, a predator using my child as an excuse to scope out the local park for victims, and that my son is, in fact, my son. That one is impossible not to take personally–his mother, who is a violent, cocaine-addicted terror of a person–would never be accused of such by a stranger. The assumption would simply be that she is his mum. As a dad, I am afforded no such courtesy, and it is astonishing to me the sheer level of impropriety in which conservative white women feel justified because “they’re just looking out for the children.”
And if that sounds bitter, well, as I said, it’s hard not to take the latter personally when it has the potential to forever (negatively) alter my son’s future, especially when I’m a single parent primarily to protect him in the first place.
If custody agreements in Texas didn’t come bog-standard with geographic restrictions that carried multiple felony penalties for breaking, I’d have left the States a long time ago. But I absolutely refuse to jeopardize my son’s future or my custody of him, so here we are.