there’s this phenomenon i’ve noticed on youtube which i dub “man math” which is when men STEM-ify hobbies/activities/art forms in order to make them more masculine. it’s very noticeable in the cooking video sphere where there’s an endless stream of videos made by men along the lines of “the SCIENTIFICALLY PROVEN best way to cook an egg” (and dgmw, i watch them and find them helpful, but the observation stands), but i notice it also in the way men approach ceramics (a lot of focus on mold-making and slip-casting to perfection, basically reinventing one man mass-production rather than play and discovery), tailoring/sewing/knitting/textile art, gardening and other nature-oriented hobbies, interior decor, furniture making and woodworking, journaling/planning/productivity, even drawing and painting, there’s always some man math angle to it that although interesting it often strikes me as some sort of overcompensation to move away from the inherent vulnerability that comes with art making and once you notice it it’s literally everywhere
Taking up Japanese as a side project for myself has reminded me of something.
So like a long time ago I had a professor that I absolutely adored. She happened to be Japanese American. She grew up speaking Japanese at home but never really spent a lot of time in Japan. She mostly spoke with other Japanese Americans and read books.
So one day early in her teaching career there’s an exchange student from Japan who’s having a hard time understanding a concept so she explained it to him in Japanese and then he looked absolutely rattled. Like in shock. Pale.
This is how she learned that the way she speaks Japanese makes her sound like a gang member.
Japanese doesn’t exactly have cuss words in the same way as English does but imagine that the nicest professor you’ve ever had pulls your paper over and says “Okay listen here you little piece of shit I’m gonna fucking explain this to you. Violently.”
The United Nations recognises it as a form of torture.
It increases suicide risk by 191 times.
It increases the risk of dying from heart disease and stroke by 3.5 times (no shit on that one, forcing extremely high doses of heavy drugs on someone without even titrating it does that)
45% of patients in psych wards have experienced sexual violence during an admission.
You are a shitty person if you try to get someone involuntarily committed.
Some links to back this stuff up, sorry if u posted ur own links op I’ll reblog those if u did
The UN Humans Rights Council report which includes discussions of how stripping the rights of people to accept or decline care erodes their dignity and personhood. Section V: Recommendations subsection 2 explicitly advocates for an end to involuntary hospitalization. This report also cites lots of other relevant data and is worth reading.
“Danger to Self and Others” a study that showed that in “compliers” (ie: people who are edge cases and are committed by some physicians but would not have been by others) rates of suicide and violent crime within three months of involuntary hospitalization rose significantly.
A comparative study that assesses a lot of other studies’ conclusions about the harm of involuntary holds compared to voluntary holds. This one is dense but worth it to understand that this isn’t an issue of data collection, the harm is visible in the aggregate
2023 study that found 45% of patients report being sexually assaulted in the psych ward. This study also notes that the numbers could be more, due to patient fears of reporting.
Here’s an article I personally find fascinating on the odd legality of psych holds in the US (do the cops have the right to seize your stuff if they think you’re a danger? Why the fuck are cops being allowed to make these assessments? How the fuck is this legal? Should it be legal?)
Having a loved one going through a mental health crisis is a horrible feeling. And it can feel right to try to send them to a “professional” or call in a wellness check when you can’t handle it or can’t get to them physically. But it really can’t be overstated: involuntary psych holds are proven to harm those who are struggling far more than they are proven to help.
If you are being involuntarily committed or fear you might be, you do still have rights and you are not subject to the same restrictions as if you were being arrested. The legal article I linked talks about it a bit for the US, and here’s a document on it for California.
Also a lot of calls to get someone involuntarily committed end with that person being murdered by the cops & not just in the US. In the Netherlands, half of the people murdered by the cops were killed during a mental health crisis. Never ever ever call to have someone involuntarily committed, unless you want their blood on your hands.
Please take this story’s moral not as “this woman was being stupid and shortsighted” or “this is a problem you as an individual fix by making your health more of a priority”
But as “a society that puts anyone in this position must be transformed in a fundamental way”.
my corner store guy is a 50 year old man who’s my best friend in the world and recently he was like “you’re too pretty to be single I have some nephews you should meet. very handsome!” and I was like “a niece might be more up my alley” and he just got more excited and said “ah even better! I was overselling my nephews but my nieces are very beautiful”
ALT
