Way too fucking powerful for a single read. I just spent three days working with an article that touches on an empathetic response to a women’s piece by a sixty-ish guy who is struggling with precisely this. I am going to revisit that piece and link your article to it because this is what I was trying to say but couldn’t, because I am 1) not a guy 2) not this smart and 3) it needs to come from a guy who’s living it. Turning points are messy and chaotic. Horrifying in so many ways. The more we identify with The Way Things Are, the harder it is to move into The Way Things Are Becoming. It’s a death of an old self, worthy of Kubler-Ross’ death and dying stages. Which, of course begins with denial. Which is much of what we’re seeing. Which in its own way is positive, as it’s symptomatic of transition.

Massive cultural transitions take time, pain, loss and sadness. Always. See Rwanda genocide. See South Africa Truth and Reconciliation. See….you get it. To move forward we have to let go. That raises such a holy terror. Without any empathy for the journey of men, we are blind. To demonize an entire sex for its cultural training is also blind. We’re saying women were the only ones culturally trained. Bullshit. It has to happen on both sides.

Thanks for this.