Dear Women

(I am mostly speaking to cis-gendered heterosexual women, and I also invite anyone who identifies as a woman to inquire into this as applicable.)

It’s time to stop with the shaming of men.

I get that you’re angry and maybe scared. I’m fucking angry and scared too.

I get that it’s hard to get our voices heard much less believed, after 3,000+ years of being considered men’s property.

I get it too that our hard-won rights seem shaky right now.

But that’s exactly why I’m writing this.

Do you want men with us or not?

Do you want an incredible lover and partner by your side?

Shaming men without recognizing how we as women have become pawns of patriarchy is counter-productive.

Yes, the external threats to our sovereignty are real and we need our anger to fight.

But if we direct our anger at men as the problem rather than systems of oppression that we all play into –

If we keep belittling men as a knee-jerk reaction –

It’s not going to solve things.

Sometimes it may feel hopeless.

And I know that making fun is sometimes the only way to make our point when women are dismissed and infantilized for showing any emotion whatsoever.

But after working with men around sex, love, and relationships, I can say that it’s driving a further wedge.

We need to examine our own treatment of the feminine and this pervasive shaming of men (yes, I know, the shaming of women is pervasive too, and that also needs to fucking stop, but this post is for women right now).

We’ve been taught to shame men for expressing deep feeling.

We need to look at that.

We’ve been taught to shame men for anything less that perfect sexual performance.

We REALLY need to look at that.

We’ve been taught to only value men who have 6-packs and huge paychecks.

We need to look at that.

We’ve been taught to see men as blundering, heartless fools, poor at parenting, under the control of their sexual desire.

We need to look at that.

We were taught to taunt boys in school for not being ‘manly’ enough.

We need to look at that.

We were taught to manipulate men with sex and backstab our fellow women to get ahead.

We need to look at that.

We were taught that the only way to be respected is to act like a man.

We need to look at that.

(Asking women to look at this does NOT mean giving men a free pass for misogynistic behavior. )

We have our own internalized sexism — beliefs that anything associated with the feminine is weak and shameful. This means anything around emotions, nature, communication skills, cyclical as opposed to linear, nurturing, receptivity and collaboration. And the belief that women don’t really like sex, and wanting it is shameful anyway.

If we haven’t done our own work to uncover these beliefs, when our man expresses any of these traits, we shame him.

AND we do not treat ourselves or other women well either.

It’s time to step up and do our own inner work to reclaim our feminine. (Just because you are a woman doesn’t mean you have to be feminine, and we all possess a potential spectrum of gender expression, yet it is mostly characteristics having to do with the feminine that have been shamed in our culture, hence reclaiming).

To respect ourselves BECAUSE OF our feminine qualities. Not in spite of them.

To find true friendship with other women and refuse to play into the jealous, bitchy, manipulative stereotypes that try to pit us against each other.

To demand a world where the masculine and feminine is equally respected within all of us.

We need to welcome men as full human beings and stop unconsciously expecting them to be the angry, unfeeling, stiff, dominating, sex-obsessed, macho, over-achieving, brute automatons painted by patriarchy.

We need to acknowledge our own sexual desires as a natural, beautiful part of us. All of us.

We need to acknowledge the ways we may have been taught to use sex and manipulation to get ahead.

And we need to take responsibility for our own emotions, acknowledge and integrate our cyclical biology, and learn to speak our truth and our needs non-violently in relationship.

This is in NO WAY meant to ignore the power imbalance and the cruelties perpetrated every day on women under patriarchy.

It’s real, it’s heartbreaking, and it’s time for men to recognize their role in it.

AND:

The time for us against them is over.

The war of the sexes is bullshit and outdated.

We can choose to lead by example. Many of us already are. There are many established and growing communities of women reclaiming the sacred feminine, recognizing internalized sexism, and refusing to act it out anymore.

And as we are doing this, men are starting to do their own work, to rise to meet us.

But if shame stays predominant, we may rise temporarily, but we keep men down.

And that’s damn lonely-making.

I’m not saying not to fight, I’m not saying to ignore that being a feminine woman is dangerous and disrespected, I’m not saying that with looking at our own role we do not then hold men accountable.

Our fight is far from over.

But if we ONLY do that –

We lose the men.

What’s our endgame, when we stop to think? What do we want, deep down?

I reckon we want to be together. We want to love each other.

It’s why we’re here.

Who’s with me?

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This post was previously published on MEDIUM.COM.

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From The Good Men Project on Medium

What Does Being in Love and Loving Someone Really Mean?

My 9-Year-Old Accidentally Explained Why His Mom Divorced Me

The One Thing Men Want More Than Sex

The Internal Struggle Men Battle in Silence

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