Shrug.

I don't think about it.

It's like someone asking me to share what I think sucks about being 5'10" tall. I barely ever think about.

It is ideologues, medical professions, science and religions who turn something insignificant, being born male and/or being in the role of "man", into a divisive, high-stakes, controversial matter.

The same applies to almost all of the identies and roles that we have constructed. I am a native and lifelong resident of a U.S. city and state that people consider to be part of the South but I have never thought of myself as a "Southerner". I don't even know what it means to be a "Southerner". It is something that other people came up with, that I have barely been conscious of, but people arbitrarily apply to me because of where I was born and where I have lived my whole life.

To be frank, from my sideline seats being a "man" has always looked like foolishness.

I am not an economist, but I imagine that the amount of resources we spend on confining people to identities and roles must be astronomical. Maybe it made sense when humans lived in small nomadic hunter-gatherer groups or the small agricultural settlements of early civilization, but we now have 8 billion unique individuals on this planet each separated only by their access to a computer with an internet connection yet we still have people spending large amounts of time, money, calories, electricity, etc. trying to confine or free people from constructs like "man", "American", "Southerner", etc.

If it sucks being a man then stop being a man. It is that simple.

I really can't relate much to the things listed in the story or the comments. Maybe that is because I have never been concerned about being a "man".

But whether you are a "man" or not doesn't seem to matter much. I had to register with Selective Service--I had to register for the draft--because I am a male, not because I was a "man".

Yes, people in the identity and/or role of "man", whether they chose to be in it or not*, have a unique set of issues, struggles, challenges and problems facing them. Yes, it seems clear that that set is mostly ignored, neglected, etc. Yes, it needs to be more of a presence in the public's consciousness and needs to be addressed. But let's not think and act like it is spread out to evenly correspond with everybody who it has historically been associated with: males.

It is now cliche to say it, but it is true: "men" are not, and never have been, a monolith.

Yet, the more of us who populate this planet, and the more interconnected we all become, the more determined we seem to be to make "men"--and males--a monolith.

If we are making "men" a monolith for pragmatic reasons--it is more efficient and effective to respond to groups rather than respond on a case by case basis, maybe--that is one thing. But if people are doing it for personal political and economic gain they should at least have the awareness and intelligence to know what they are doing.

If other people, because they don't live in the categories that you assign to them, know what you are doing better than you know what you are doing, then that's the real problem we are dealing with. People are inhabiting separate realities and we are spending tons of resources--sustaining tons of opportunity costs--futilely trying to cope with it.

So maybe before anybody ever again asks someone else about being a "man", "Southerner", "American", etc. they should consider that maybe even though the person is male*, lives in a certain place, etc. the identity and/or role in question does not necessarily apply.

*I am talking about when someone is a cisgender male, but I suppose other people--non-binary people--as well can be confined to "man" against their will.