The conditioning is definitely there, and I would be lying if I said I never felt this. Self reflection is sort of my thing, though, prettty much to a fault. That combined with being lucky enough to have (recently) married a woman who sees me for much more than that goes a long way.

EDIT: Whoops, just saw this was an older post. Sorry! Was buzzed and doom scrolling through random subs

I’d say the expectation to be a strong provider is still very present in society.

Interesting timing for this question: My answer is definitely “Yes”. I am dealing with this a lot right now in my life.

It’s interesting because if you’d have asked me four years ago I’d have said ‘no’, but a lot has changed and with the changes comes new perspective.

My advice to everyone reading this is to understand that things can change so reading everyone’s answers might be very enlightening, someday, if not today.

I feel driven to be a useful man.

I don’t feel any pressure whatsoever and honestly I would appreciate a little, if only to see some agreement between me and my surroundings.

Yes I do

Abilities, skill set, work ethic, and motivation are all elements by which I judge character, man or woman.

Any pressure to perform for me is largely self-imposed. I want to be useful and make a difference. It’s integral to who I am as husband, father, son, brother, friend, and teammate.

I feel like I’ve been falling into that stereotype for a while, but it’s purely because I DON’T want to be that, ironically. As a bilingual software dev in a third world country, being able to get jobs with US-level salaries means I earn more than pretty much every salaried worker in my country, and probably still earn more than most business owners as well. I have the kind of salaries that congresspeople of my country earn. I can easily 2x my salary as well, if I sacrifice mental health. This means I’m the provider by default. Thus, I feel the pressure of having to be the provider, not because of gender roles, but because having such ease of access to high salaries puts me there. The goal, as it should be for everyone, is to save up and retire young, to not work ever again. I don’t care what my role is as long as I get me and my family there, but I do indeed feel that pressure to provide.

Not really, men are not pressured to be useful anymore. They are forced for a lot of things, but usefulness is not the most important, even more since women have jobs and can do the same things as men. The pressure was there up to the 50s but it started to fade down after the sexual revolution.