When I was growing up, my mother nearly only ever expressed emotions related to anger / resentment / irritation, etc. When she did express “joy” or laughed, it *always* sounded fake (i.e.: not the least bit spontaneous — nothing like the way most men in our society cheer when their team hits a home run or scores a goal), and her “null” states just seemed like masked fear/anger. My father was the one who more often expressed any caring, could laugh genuinely, express happiness, and could emote sadness on extremely rare occasions.

Feminists decry this as one way the patriarchy harms men, but I am not going to use their language, even if I am using their arguments.

I'm not sure what you mean: you just did use our language to describe it. I know there are some in the social justice community who tend to throw the baby out with the bathwater when it comes to feminism, but feminism isn't nearly as narrow a thing as people from either the SJ communities nor the MRA / gamergater communities insist it is. You're every bit the feminist that I, my mother, and my sister are, even if you don't like that word because some SJers (or MRAs? or even SJers who bought MRA's bs?) define it in a repugnant — and for the vast majority of us inaccurate — way.