Hi! I (23M) am recovering from complex childhood developmental trauma. I've considered myself an outside observer to human society because I was unable to bond with or relate much to other people until this year.
I grew up in an environment with abusive parents where any kind of softness or vulnerability in men was considered "gay". Subsequently, I encountered a lot of male peers in school who had the same attitude. It seemed like the entire world had the same message: wanting to be vulnerable as a man represents a sexual perversion because it is a "feminine" trait. I was bullied for the bits of vulnerability that I showed, echoing my abusive parents punishing my vulnerability. This sent me into a suicidal spiral that I thankfully made it out of.
I had this inexplicable desire to be vulnerable that I couldn't suppress. It made me believe that I was somehow "gay" despite only being attracted to women, and that women who like men could never find me attractive because they were only attracted to "straight" masculinity -- invulnerable, competitive, and dominating -- consigning me to a permanent ontological friendzone. Ultimately, I decided to take the Faustian bargain of trading my sexual potential for the freedom to be soft, releasing me from the internal pressure to conform to patriarchy.
(To clarify, I was confused in a specific way where I thought "straight" = patriarchy and "gay" = anything that challenges patriarchy. I concluded that the latter was morally superior and adopted softness and progressive beliefs on purpose even though I falsely believed at the time that this would lead to my celibacy based on the right-wing echo chamber I grew up in.)
Through healing from my trauma and talking to friends years later, I'm starting to think that this belief was kinda bullshit? How can you avoid being vulnerable when merely existing in the presence of your partner opens you up to their potential judgement? How can you avoid being vulnerable when you ask someone out, knowing they can reject you? It's almost like I actually didn't want to be vulnerable despite thinking otherwise, and refusing to even appear in front of people actually made me the most invulnerable and therefore manliest man who ever manned, or something. Also, accepting my fate of being in the perma-friendzone led to me making a female friend who emphatically told me that I actually could find a girlfriend because I have this adorable charm and clumsiness that seems to make her instinctively want to baby me, which I always thought was the exact opposite of desirable. I'm slowly coming around to believing her after 6 years.
Most importantly, love requires both partners to be emotionally vulnerable, right? So then under gender roles, men can't love women, only objectify them? Wouldn't this make society one giant trauma factory where men are traumatized into detached sociopathy and women are traumatized into servitude? So what the hell are conservatives doing in relationships? Are they all loveless relationships, or did all of the men cheat their gender role to develop romantic feelings? If men didn't cheat a little in the past decades where gender roles were the strongest, shouldn't we see a kind of generational trauma so severe that violent crime is rampant and secure attachment is very scarce?
He knows that and is asking how people operate who do believe in strict gender roles.
They don't function as healthy people
They're fundamentally fucked-up and should be disregarded as any sort of example other than a warning
Now explain to OP how society has survived for millennia.
I mean, even the orthodox Christians don’t practice what they preach. Republican senators turn out gay. Priests fuck little boys. All through the ages, speakers of societal virtue have written all kinds of exceptions for themselves behind closed doors.
Many households get to write their own history, present it in a kind manner; and so you get Sherlock Holmes’ terrible prediction that the idea of a peaceful countryside is an illusion; that there’s far more crime out there that goes unnoticed, even if their family record was that of a willing and happy Lord and Lady.
We’re getting better about things. But the betrayals of humanity, and of the supposed “traditional roles” became a lot more visible.
"Society" hasn't survived in this state for millennia, it reeks of white supremacy to suggest there's some monolithic thing the world over called "society". The phenomenon OP is talking about has been a part of western european and especially American culture for a century or two, but other societies exist now and in the past
Society has been good enough to survive.
Just because something has survived doesn't mean it's good or healthy.
The best we have doesn't mean the absolute best.
It's quite simple.
What you think of "traditional gender roles" isn't real
It's very much a modern construct, and a stupid one at that
It's a great way for men to subjugate women though, so if you're into that shit, I can see why you like the idea
I'm going to assume you're not talking to me specifically when you say "you".