One day I thought out loud: “what if men could identify their feelings in a way that the patriarchy won’t give them hell about it? I bet if they had a smartwatch that would help.” And that’s how we got here.
I came across a quote by bell hooks about how patriarchy disconnects men from their own emotions:
“To indoctrinate boys into the rules of patriarchy, we force them to feel pain and to deny their feelings.”
― bell hooks, The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love
Wow. Dudes don’t know how they’re feeling most of the time because patriarchy just hardwires the connections right out of there. They’re not allowed to feel softer feelings because men are supposed to be what they do, not what they feel. It’s pretty fucked up when you think about it. When I’m happy and at peace, I know it. When I’m stressed, I know it. When I’m frustrated, I know it. When I’m sad and lonely, I know it. Imagine feeling all these huge things and not even knowing why.
So I figured let’s fix it with some speculative tech, presumably from Apple!
What if this silly little gizmo could lead to less mass shootings, less domestic violence, less people signing up to work for the Police, and overall, less misery?
You see movies like Joe versus the Volcano, Groundhog Day or The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. They’re all about some capitalized schlub, stuck in his corporate life, and having no real idea why he’s so distraught. In those movies, the soul-destroyed corporate dude would end up going on a wacky adventure, usually culminating in a cool cishet relationship with an attractive lady and come out better for it. There’s gotta be a name for a miserable, disconnected dude looking for a Manic Pixie Dream Girl to save him and reconnect with himself. Otherwise that genre wouldn’t be a thing.
Depressed Normal Reality Boy? I’ll workshop it.
Anyway, we could skip all that misery if we just allowed men to feel their feelings, and even better if they could do it in a way where they won’t get bullied by other, shittier men who probably pay for Twitter (lol). I could speculate about it as a stupid Apple Watch, but this is the one idea I wish the tech bros would steal from me. Please take it. I don’t care if I don’t make billions off it. Seriously, Silicon Valley. I would love it if you fixed this. You’d be useful for the first time since the rise of the Smartphone. And maybe someone would even touch your penis about it. I won’t. But someone might.
Let’s get men to feel their feelings and start the revolution already.