"much more invested in protecting men from maybe occasionally being talked to slightly more harshly than is absolutely necessary than protecting women from the widespread exclusion and hostility they're already definitely facing."

Wow. I think you've summed up the behavior of every older relative and school official of my childhood. I mean, this is an apt description of any space in society that's not explicitly feminist, too, but putting it like, it's so obvious how the devaluation of ourselves is learned.

Are you my invisible roommate? I live here too. This is spot on. I have more recently developed some explicit scripts for indicating that I can't solve their problems/make everything better or de-escalate seriousness when someone brings up a heavy topic early on in the getting-to-know stage. But I still have trouble really grokking what a healthy balance is. I am starting to ask for what I want and need and do find comfort and happiness in the receiving (It's possible...not only for others, but for me, too!) but always wonder if I'm being too selfish. Partly from the exact same upbringing story as you note here, but also general emotional labor expectations of women.

For me it wasn't so much of a line as a gradual transition of a critical inner voice* to a positive and accepting inner voice. The critical inner voice made me angry at myself, so I was radiating a angsty melancholy a lot, even as my brighter me strengthened. Now when I hear critical inner voice, it's less of a trap and more like a tree root I've tripped over on a walk. I curse it, pep talk it, put it in perspective, go through the flow chart: Am I sleep deprived, low blood sugar, staring my period, getting a migraine or sinus infection? How big of a deal is this thing I don't like in the greater scheme of things? Am I spending my time and energy on more important priorities? And if something is really tugging at me, I try to take some kind of action immediately. I hear the thought; feel it; attend to it; and act or not depending on time, energy, competing priorities. I think it's when the self-critical angsty tension persists without us dealing with it that we can catch ourselves falling into "traps" as opposed to knowing we're simply dealing with the self-critical inner voice in a healthy way.

For me, learning to set boundaries in and leave toxic situations/people (and because I grew up in "toxic as normality," it took me a while to realize how bad many later life situations were) much sooner was probably the most important thing I did. Certainly helped me achieve the "Fuck-Its." But really, all the suggestions above are things I've done in different doses, ways, combos throughout my life.

*Note that self-critical inner voices have to be learned somewhere. I learned mine so much from my family, but also from my childhood peers, my school, my church. #2 and #4 for me meant really striking out on my own to discover whole new worlds (and joyful accepting voices!) in many ways.

"So if ya had the time an' money fer computers, yer dad musta been a scientist er worked for NASA er somethin'."

er somethin = dad's middle management salary financed Commodore Vic 20 :-p

Also there are still a lot of countries where a woman on her own in public, even when clearly performing her occupation, is considered to be outright asking for sex. I've been asked for sex after someone helped me on a project for a day; literally he looked at me and said, "Sex?" I've also experienced a tongue in my ear from a stranger in a cafe at 10:30 in the morning. Certainly these are more minor than the brutal assaults far too many women experience when they go out on their own in public, but they do start to add up and, for me, led me to feel panicked at having to do the daily work my project required. And it took a while for the anxiety/panic to subside (and this level of panic/anxiety is not typical for me) once I was back in a place where I could lead my independent life without regularly harassed. Strong boundaries against public approaches are absolutely required.

Now these same types of things are often unwelcome from strangers at parties or bars or on dates with someone I've just met particularly if I have not been flirting/escalating with someone whatsoever and it happens out of the blue, but I know if I'm not in the mood to deal with such advances, I can stay home or go to social events where they are very unlikely to happen or leave early.

One aspect of psychology is that people tend to need to maintain cognitive consistency. So if someone has lousy self-esteem, maybe they need the outside to match how they feel about themselves. I had an ex who had very attractive features but always seemed to wear his hair and clothes in ways that made him look dorky old-fashioned. He HATED it when I would style his hair away from his face, get very cranky when I suggest he invest in something other than ratty tees and jeans, and he was always hunched over with bad posture. I think it was partly depression/low self-esteem. But he also grew up in a clean-cut religious community, and thought that all the guys were arrogant pricks, so I definitely think he equated clean-cut and well-groomed with being an arrogant prick. He also was proud of his rural roots and I think he wanted to reflect that by rejecting dressy clothes. And yeah, the living area was worse.

Nope. Sorry. I have known many nerds, many socially awkward people, and many non-neurotypical people. Try as I might I can only think of one or two have sexually harassed/abused/assaulted someone. A handful have made me feel uncomfortable but not for anything sexual harassy. Examples: when any boys are trying to wipe their boogers on you to gross you out, that doesn't make girls want to be anywhere near them (and those are the reputations they can't escape through high school, and no, not all of us were mature enough to stop the "eww gross" even when they were approaching us without boogers on their hands anymore). In college, I had a lecture where a man who appeared to be non-neurotypical repeatedly sat very close to someone (different person each time; both men and women) and leaned over to them and spoke very loudly to person throughout the lecture, and you could tell no one wanted to "be mean," call attention to him, and tell him to be quiet and stay in his personal space. Later a guy wanted to glom on to me quickly once, stressing he wanted to be my friend, that his invitations weren't for "dates", but there had been no real basis for the long, date-like social outings he proposed except small talk at a shared activity (which was totally polite and not harassing). I didn't want to be mean and be all "but I don't want to be your BFF and have these intimate "non-date" solo hangouts with you" because there was no "good reason," so it made me uncomfortable.

Among the men who have harassed and/or violated/not respected boundaries: an ex-minister (partly for that reason no doubt), two poets, an arrogant government worker. All of them had charismatic personalities and had some level of respect from the community and/or in their fields, but they were super creepy because they seem to know exactly where the lines were so they could walk along them and squick women out but not in a way that would be hard to prove because they weren't EXACTLY the letter of the law/rule of what sexual harassment or abuse was. Three of them were much older and were clearly, deliberately, putting younger women in awkward situations. I suspect the 78-year old professor would entirely fit this profile.

We know the difference between uncomfortable and harassed most definitely. Non-harassing socially awkward males maybe make a "mistake" once and learn from it. If someone's repeatedly getting shamed past high school (or beyond the immature pretty party girls in college/young adulthood who have their cool capital to protect--which is a very small albeit visible minority of young women), they are almost certainly using "awkwardness" (just as their charismatic peers are using their charismatic important person status) as manipulative tools to try to get off on their sick sick power trips.

My high school ex-(short, fedora-wearing, Star Trek watching, computer-liking, D&D playing at least occasionally if I remember correctly but its been a while so...) boyfriend was a charming drunk and asked a lot of women to sleep with him and many of them did. I learned this was happening while I was dating him, including after he told me he only wanted me and I was the love of his life, when I proposed keeping things not too serious. It is the stuff in the last sentence that made him a creepy, gaslighting (he told me when I confronted him that I knew about the other women and was okay with it) douchebag; not the stuff in the first sentence.

Yes, some people continue with what gave them earlier success and don't become adults very successfully. There are a subset of people who were very cool in high school and could use their charm and popularity to get dates. But this subset doesn't necessarily develop adult relationship skills, so even if they want to settle down, people don't want to settle down with them because they're still acting like teenagers. I have seen every indication that they are deeply hurt by rejection, that they use strategies like PUA, angry or snarky/sarcastic persona, uber-casualness to defend against ever getting hurt again. It's not that they're not hurt or afraid, but they are more likely to, for example, drink/drug excessively and into hook-ups as a way to deal with the fear rather than sitting at home blogging or gaming and letting themselves think too much about their worries. Their biggest fear is often that of being alone. But it's also up to them to recognize this and develop adult relationship skills, just as it is for the socially anxious to develop social skills.

The longer I live, the more I am unsure that anyone can figure it out all that well. I've watched straight beautiful high school power couples (yes, the ones who were actually nice, well-adjusted, not bullies!) end in middle age emotional abuse and people who seemed to make a good match in their 20s after one or two relatively serious relationships end in ugly bitter divorces. They're starting the second half of their lives feeling like a huge chunk of their life was a mistake. I started dating early enough to make an awful lot of mistakes, I'm sure partly due to the awful models for heteronormative relationships I saw in my family. The gay and lesbian couples who were beginning to form serious relationships in their mid-20s were the first models I had for good relationships, partly because they were so open about processing their relationships, not having, at that time, a whole lot of personal and public examples to draw on. The one anecdotal evidence constant I've seen so far (and caveat: all of this post is anecdotal evidence; YMMV) is that most women who have enjoyed casual company from a plethora of men end up in some really great marriages. They may have also made some mistakes along the way, but it clearly showed them how to quickly spot and stay away from the jerks. I've also noticed that once the later-start-due-to-reasons men (and women!) do start dating, they don't seem have any more problems/mistakes than anyone else and are as likely, if not more likely, to be in a happy healthy relationship at mid-life.