Woman Sparks Debate After Saying That Men Created Insecurities For Both Men And Women
It's easy to blame the patriarchy, but is that true?
Professor25, A's Images, themacx, gregory_lee | Canva A recent TikTok video has sparked a lot of controversy after one woman tried to explain where she believes other women’s insecurities come from — men. She says they came from men.
However, the issue isn’t just about the insecurities that women face, she also believes that there are societal expectations being placed on men to look good, something she also blames men for.
She believes female and male insecurities make sense because they were ‘created by men.’
“Female insecurities make sense because they were created by men. Male insecurities were literally ALSO created by men,” she claims in her video. “What girl has EVER turned a guy down because of his negative canthal tilt or upper eyelid exposure.”
As a male, my Google search history will reveal that I was not aware of what either of those things are, and so my sentiment is shared among several of the people in the comments who felt the same way. “Bro I didn’t know what a canthal tilt was until two seconds ago when my friends mentioned it and now it's all over my fyp,” one man wrote.
As such, how could we possibly have created these insecurities when we had no idea they even existed? Now of course, I’m not so dense as to ignore what she’s actually saying, but it’s funny to consider the reality that a lot of times, men don’t even know about the things women may get insecure about.
Everyone deals with insecurity from time to time — it’s an extremely common, sometimes even natural emotion to possess. According to WebMD, it could appear in all areas of life and could come from a variety of sources. Insecurities could stem from a traumatic event, patterns of previous experience, social conditioning, or local environments such as school, work, or home. The social conditioning part is the one we want to focus on for this particular argument.
Now, her video has thousands of men and women duking it out in the comments. Men are calling out women, saying “y'all want a 6ft+ guy all the time,” among other things, while women point to the patriarchy. Part of this is true.
Some women argue that because men control everything, they set the societal standards.
The conventional ideas of beauty and societal standards for men and women could arguably have come from men — and that might be a winning argument.
The patriarchy means that men have historically laid claim to what is marketed and talked about in the media, so they’ve set the beauty standards for hundreds of years. I mean, women were literally treated as the property of their fathers until they were passed over to their future husbands.
That’s why she’s saying that men created insecurities for women, and she makes a strong argument — but what might be a little more accurate is to say that they’ve laid the groundwork for insecurities to stem from.
As many people in the comments seemed to settle on, men and women create insecurities for themselves and others. Insecurities are a feeling of inadequacy or not being enough or not measuring up, but who is doing the measuring? A potential mate, maybe? And that’s because you’re in competition with other men/women who are also searching for a mate. Not to mention many people have preferences when it comes to certain looks.
It’s cyclical, and insecurities come from everywhere — both men and women in the comments recognized this when questioning where their own insecurities came from. “I've never met a guy that made me feel insecure about my hip dips. it's girls who did, most guys don't even care in my experience,” one woman wrote. “Men compete with men,” another man wrote. “The insecurities come from the idea of competition.”
Maybe, when all is said and done, it doesn't matter where insecurities originate. Instead of playing the blame game, we should all focus on being better people in the future and stop ourselves from perpetuating the cycle of body shaming.
Isaac Serna-Diez is an Assistant Editor for YourTango who focuses on entertainment and news, social justice, and politics.