Masculinity, feminism and love

Musings of a feminist lover girl

[Read time: 20 mins]

Recently I went on a date with a man who told me he identified as a ‘meninist’. At first I thought it might be a joke or some kind of flirty game, but as we talked it through, it became clear that he was totally serious. This handsome, funny, smart man told me over our fourth glass of wine that he didn’t believe women had been historically oppressed, didn’t agree that equal rights are a worthwhile goal, and felt that feminism was just wokeness gone too far. We had a calm conversation about it - I was looking for a hot date, not a heated debate - but frankly I just couldn’t be bothered with that Andrew Tate nonsense. It’s the ultimate red flag. So I polished off my vinho verde and went home alone.

As I walked home, it struck me how much mis- and disinformation there is out there about gender issues, particularly what feminism means and who it serves. On the one hand, I empathise with some of the points my meninist date made about the struggles of men. And it’s easy to see why many men feel that feminism is not for them, that it is spiky or even anti-male. On the other hand, there is an overwhelming torrent of evidence from women and people of marginalised genders as to why feminism is still desperately, urgently, ardently needed. You only have to get off the manosphere and read the news to see why women are still angry, and why our calls for change are imperative. This stuff is complex, messy and omnipresent. The polarisation around it keeps me up at night.

As the zeitgeist curious whybird that I am, I dance with ideas about feminism, gender and love all the time. I feel into them in ways that feel playful, painful and hopeful in equal parts. My take on these topics is always in flux, whereas the act of capturing it in words feels very static, so writing this has been a challenge! I can speak only from my perspective as a cis-het lover girl in my early 30s. But here are a few things that do feel clear to me today.

Gender myth busting

Mainly, I just want to debunk the dangerous myths and misunderstandings around what feminism is and isn’t; what gender is and isn’t; what femininity is and isn’t; what masculinity is and isn’t. There’s such a circus around all this stuff these days in the media: divine feminine this, masculine energy that, ‘low value’ woman the other. Some of it is innocent or helpful or fun (love a goddessy vibe every now and then), but a lot of it is the same tired, retrogressive gender crap repackaged and sold as empowerment or hot takes or spiritual awakening. We must engage critically. We must discern. If there isn’t nuance or a solid evidence base, it’s probably questionable at best. Proceed with caution!

From where I sit, the reality is that there is some truth in gender stereotypes, but there’s also a load of conditioning and other unhelpful, limiting, damaging shit. It’s another paradoxical both/and situation (my favourite). For some people, in some contexts, at some points in life, those more traditional roles and notions of gender do feel like the natural order of things. It can be lovely and even liberating to surrender to that by choice. But also, for many people, in many contexts, at many points in life those traditional roles and notions of gender are not the natural order of things at all. Sometimes they feel rigid, unnatural or downright harmful. Most of the time, it’s some kind of grey area - an ever emergent, personal way of being and relating that feels more authentic for whoever you are as individuals. Because this stuff is always new. It is always different. It is always changing. That is the beauty of people and life and relationships.

At its core, robust, modern, intersectional feminism is about freedom, choice and love. Much of the rest is just a distraction. Gender is dynamic and political, yet it can also be a lot of fun (hence my addiction to RuPaul’s Drag Race). Wouldn’t it be great if we could all treat gender as an opportunity for curiosity, fluidity and play?! Some of the sexiest men in the world display this kind of confident, curious playfulness around gender (think Harry Styles, Lenny Kravitz, David Beckham, or - my favourite - Bad Bunny). Coincidence? I think not!

But, from what I’ve experienced, the biggest opponents to this are usually cis-het men (and sometimes women with internalised misogyny). Obviously not all men and not all the time, so let’s take that as a given as we proceed. Assume nuance, please! It’s those who see exploring gender more as a bore or a threat than an invitation for curiosity and an opportunity to learn about yourself and others. Often men like this - whether they know it or not - are more preoccupied with protecting their egoic mask of masculinity than knowing love. In fact, from his 30 years of studying men and masculinity, psychology professor Robert Levant identifies ‘the avoidance of femininity’ as the number one marker of Western masculinity as we know it. Based on this evidence, a disdain for or discomfort with ‘the feminine’ is integral to the commonly acceptable form of masculinity. No wonder there’s so much conflict here!

This is why professor, activist and all round icon bell hooks argues in her groundbreaking book about learning to do love, All About Love, that dismantling rigid notions of gender is essential to creating a truly loving society, as well as healthy, enduring romantic relationships. Published in 1999, this book has had a renaissance through TikTok and apparently has become a bit of a bible for the so-called ‘softbois’ of Lisbon. More and more people are starting to engage with this stuff, which is wonderful! But reading or talking about it is really just the start - the juiciness lies in what we do with it.

Love lessons learned

My ex gave me a copy of that famous bell hooks book while we were together. It was in the bag of stuff I gave back to him when we met in the park to exchange toothbrushes, cancel holidays and pretend our hearts weren’t breaking. I had read it several years prior and I know I was applying its lessons in how I loved him, however imperfectly. I’m not self-aggrandising here - it was clear how transformational our time together was for him. During our relationship, he began to unmask and explore his inner world for the first time; he surfaced long lost pains and pleasures alike; he 10x-ed his own personal growth (his words, not mine). Our love catalysed his evolution from charming boy to glorious man. Part of me was so in awe and in love with him for this, but another part of me grew tired. I started burning out, shutting down and pushing him as I became more and more exasperated by his struggles to understand, communicate and take responsibility for his own emotions, behaviours and needs, let alone to reciprocate effectively in providing space and grace for me with mine.

Towards the end of our time together, he said I wasn’t growing like he was. It was a classic deflective move, but on this he was right: I couldn’t err or grow much within that dynamic as it was. Despite his perky words, sincere efforts and sweet gestures, he just couldn’t hold it; not without projecting, people pleasing or panicking. It felt like our relationship had become his training ground (I see you, Dua) and I his teacher/coach - a role I never wanted for myself in this context, but can see how I took on accidentally. Really, I wanted a partner, not a project. So I knew we both needed to make some changes. Yet when I began to collapse under the weight and call for the dynamic to evolve, it broke. When I tried to step away from those roles, he couldn’t step up. We both wanted him to take the lead more, but at his first chance, he froze. We were on the same page of the bell hooks book about love in theory, but he did not yet have enough self-awareness, emotional maturity or relational skills to do it all in practice - something he later admitted, in his twisty turny way.

Of course I played a role in it all too - it always takes two to tango. I have my own shadows and sharp edges and I made mistakes amidst the mess. There are many things I wish I had done differently. That dynamic distorted us both. And I too had some growing and healing to do - I had been extremely transparent about wanting that at some stage. In hindsight, I probably should have never have let myself be his first ever girlfriend - the test drive woman he kept saying he was so very grateful for. As we broke up, he joked that his next girlfriend should send me a thank you letter. It was an innocent, awkward comment meant as a compliment, but it was maddening. I didn’t want platitudes of gratitude - I wanted love. I wanted action. I wanted him to show up for me as he continually promised to do, not give up and go apply all of his learnings to another woman.

Although I wasn’t sure about our future yet, I didn’t want to leave him either. I loved him more than I had ever loved another man. I just wanted him to make me feel emotionally safe with him again after a few months of pretty chaotic behaviour. I was bruised and needed a break, but I remained open-hearted. He was always so good at listening, mollifying me and saying all the right things to keep the door to my heart ajar, even after we broke up. He was so emphatic about his love and admiration for me, even asking if I might take him back one day. So for a long time I remained curious as to whether we might one day try again. I thought maybe, just maybe, if we could both own our shit, communicate better and approach each other with open, honest, tender hearts, then we might be able to re-balance our roles, doing what relationships expert Esther Perel so movingly calls ‘splitting the ambivalence’ by slowly turning our polarisation into the paradoxical dance of love together.

But alas - none of this ever happened. If anything the opposite, in that he couldn’t seem to make his own sense of it all without giving me a fat dollop of the ‘crazy ex’ narrative - to our shared friends and once even to my face. So that really sucked. He had called me crazy in the first argument we ever had, so maybe I should have guessed he would spin his story this way. I understand logically the various reasons why he might have done this, and I can hold deep compassion for him in them, but it hurt. Plus it’s just so gendered and lazy and tired. It’s not even real feedback; it’s just hot air! Yet the worst part was that, for a while, I believed him. In my attempts to learn from and honour his perspective, I repeatedly questioned my experience, my worth and even my sanity, when I probably should have just told him to go fuck himself.

Honestly, it was all a massive head-fuck. Because I still don’t believe he did any of this on purpose (although others have challenged me on this), especially as he was such a great friend and family member to his other loved ones, and a good boyfriend to me until things spiraled. I really thought I had discerned well with him; it felt almost like a bait and switch situation. But I get that his shit had to come up and out sometime; I would never blame anyone for that, but I will always hold them accountable for how they deal with it. I suspect he would have brought pretty much the same projections and paranoias to any woman in his first ever real relationship. And I’m confident I handled it all better than most! I know in my bones that he is capable of doing that bell hooks kind of love, yet his good intentions did not translate into the reality of my experience of him as a partner, which was incongruent, immature and deeply insecure. My continued belief that he is a fundamentally kind, smart, sweet, good person who loved me very much and tried his best just made it all the more confusing.

Over time, I have made my peace with how that chapter played out. Because I know that, ultimately, despite all the tenderness and possibility between us, he was not ready for the kind of partnership we both wanted. He just couldn’t (or, perhaps, wouldn’t) do it. Not with me, anyway. Plus, trying to make sense of the gaps between his thoughts, words and behaviours was truly crazy-making! It didn’t make much sense, even to him I suspect. I don’t think I'll ever really know what was going on inside him. It’s not my business anymore. And I have come to understand that, in my efforts to hold space for him and for our relationship, I completely lost myself. In the name of love, I exhausted myself, doubted myself and let myself be hurt by him. In the end, we both ended up failing to love me well. That’s on me, too.

With true poetic irony, I grew a lot and learned some important lessons in the wake of this heartbreak: firstly, if your man cannot dance with you in the dark, it's better to flow solo. Secondly, you have to take people as they are - not how you believe they could be. Because a partner can either lighten life’s load or exacerbate it; they can bring you gloriously close to yourself or perilously far away; they can make you feel safe and seen, or insane and alone. Lastly, there has to be a level of reciprocity and generosity between you that means you can both mostly own your shit, give and receive both tough and soft love, and magnanimously sub in for each other as a team to make life overall easier - not harder - than it has to be, especially during difficult seasons. Otherwise it becomes more like work than love. We all do enough of that already!

The labour of love

Generally speaking, research shows that women do more than their fair share of emotional labour (or, perhaps more accurately, hermeneutic labour) in relationships. It is invisible, thankless work that takes its toll over time. Men often do not see or appreciate this until women start to put their foot down and cry out for more, or else until we just stop doing it and things crumble. Then they feel hurt or confused by the breakdown that they probably could have avoided if they had paid better attention. Repair and re-balancing is possible, and usually exactly what both parties deeply desire, but apologies and accountability must be embodied and acted upon, not just spoken. This is true for both sides, as needed. Otherwise it's just fluff. Often, this is what learning to love each other well looks like in action. I believe that imperfect yet consistent effort at practicing emotional attunement is the only thing that can change such dynamics. Unless both parties have the basic mindset and applied skills needed to approach it like this, you might be a bit screwed. hooks nails it when she says:

‘The labor of love is futile when the men in question refuse to awaken, refuse growth, refuse reciprocity. At this point it is a gesture of self-love for women to break their commitment and move on.’

But at the same time, the practical reality is that many women report doing this kind of emotional education work in relationships. As hooks also notes:

“Women are often belittled for trying to resurrect these men and bring them back to life and to love. But they are in a world that would be even more alienated and violent if caring women did not do the work of teaching men who have lost touch with themselves how to love again.”

Therein lies the challenge: we as women often end up having to do some of this kind of work in order to be in lasting relationships with men, but we also must do all our other actual day job work and make space to discern when enough is enough. It’s a lot. It can be a difficult line to tread. Many, many women I know relate to this - too many. More men, like relationships coach Derrick Jaxn, are also starting to talk about it too, which is refreshing and welcome!

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There is of course more nuance here than social media sound bites allow. We are all forever works-in-progress! I certainly do not believe anyone needs to be ‘healed’ before they can love and be loved. Sometimes we have to just hang out and have fun in the mess. But my current belief is that, for the labour of love to be worthwhile, the investment of time, energy and effort must be based on strong evidence in favour of mutuality. That is, evidence that you both really want to and (most of the time) can roughly meet, match and complement each other; and do so with overall more joy and fun than stress and strife! This evidence must come from lived experiences, not just seductive promises and glimmers of greatness. Because potential is not reality. Small imbalances, different roles and contrasting strengths and are normal - good even - especially in the first year or so as you're learning to love each other, but the ebb and flow of emotional labour required to sustain a truly loving relationship has to more or less equal out over time. Otherwise, you might be doomed to repeat the same age old gender patterns that lead to more conflict than love.

I have seen far too many relationships fail along these lines - some after one year and some after thirty. Of course, nothing and no-one is perfect; love means accepting each others’ gnarlier bits. The safety and comfort this creates is part of love’s abiding appeal! But romantic love must have some limits. You cannot unconditionally love and stay loyal to a partner if they are continually hurting you. I would love for love to know no bounds, but it has to. The pragmatist in me has to override the romanticist on this! Where those limits lie is deeply personal and context dependent, but here's my current conclusion: if you notice that over time your relationship is making the inevitable ups and downs of being human and loving yourself well harder rather than easier, it’s time to reassess. And if you are voicing it or working on it but not really seeing steady movement towards reciprocity, balance and ease within your dynamic, it might not be the right person, the right time, or both. Honour this. Let them go. If it’s meant to be, they’ll boomerang back around eventually. If not, a better match will come along and make you realise in hindsight that, no matter how shit at the time, it all worked for the best in the end. Hold your nerve and trust in this. Many break ups are a radical act of bravery, surrender and self-love. Breathe and ride the wave! I’m right there with you.

Doing love

Of course the roles are not always gendered in this way, but the truth from where I sit is that women generally find it easier to do love than men. We are socialised for it. This is not to diss men: we all have our individual foibles, toxic traits and messy moments that we must take responsibility for. Of course women do too - I know I certainly do! I just want to be held and loved through them with the blend of accountability and grace that I know I can give. We all deserve this! As hooks puts it:

“Men theorise about love, but women are more often love's practitioners. Most men feel that they receive love and therefore know what it feels like to be loved; women often feel we are in constant state of yearning, wanting love but not receiving it.”

Unfortunately this notion of what I call the ‘love skills gap’ is one that many women (and some very honest, humble men) I know relate to in some way. Because women in heterosexual relationships (not always but often) tend to give more - and better - love than their male partners. Such mismatches create imbalanced dynamics that are commonly part of the complex interplay between gender, feminism and love. It’s frustrating because, frankly, I don’t think it’s actually that hard to fix. At the heart of it is simply this: we must all commit to slowly but surely learning to do love better so that we can relate with more mutuality and ease. This is particularly true for men, who tend to find it harder. There are many, many factors that affect this; I do not pretend to understand them all!

Yet it was upon reading hooks’ follow up book, The Will To Change: Men, Masculinity & Love, that it all started to make a bit more sense to me. Pretty much every other page, I had to pause and clutch the book close to my chest and just feel it all. It moved me, mind, body and soul. This book articulates so much of what I have wanted or tried to say to men I have loved, whether that has been students, clients, friends, boyfriends, or family. It showed my brain what my heart already knew: all this gender warfare is in many ways just a big (and frankly quite dangerous) misunderstanding. And that for feminism to truly serve its purpose, men and masculinity must not just be included on the sidelines, but actively involved at its core - not just as allies but in their own right too. We need men to be proper feminists and pioneers of new kinds of masculinity. And men need this too!

Masculinity ≠ misogyny

The main thesis of this lesser known book from hooks is this: the problem is not men and masculinity (nor women and femininity) - it is patriarchy and patriarchal masculinity specifically. Because patriarchal conditioning prevents people of all genders from really knowing love. According to patriarchal code, emotions (except anger) are categorised as feminine, so men are taught to avoid or critique them. The sad truth is that many men are out of touch with their emotional worlds in a way that creates varying degrees of internal fragmentation, external incongruence and a lot of hurt or even abuse (not to mention epidemics of male suicide and femicide alike). This phenomenon is heavily researched and even has a fancy name: normative male alexithymia. But men often do not even notice it because it is normalised and they don't know any different. Therefore, relationships (or the lack thereof in the extreme case of incels) are the mirrors where it may become apparent. It is harder for these men to relate to others authentically because they struggle to relate authentically to themselves.

But neither men nor masculinity are innately unemotional, misogynistic or violent - they have been constructed this way over the millennia via patriarchy. More and more men are speaking up about this, including prominent positive masculinity activist and musician Jordan Stephens, who talks beautifully about his own path to understanding that:

“The true, almost divine nature of what masculinity is, is not synonymous with misogyny.”

Like hooks, he differentiates clearly between his own self-defined modern masculinity and what he now calls hyper-masculinity or even hegemonic masculinity. His u-turn on the infamous term ‘toxic masculinity’ has been interesting to follow, as it speaks to a wider trend in more men seeking to create distance between misogyny and masculinity in their knowledge that they are not one and the same. It hurts men for masculinity to be synonymous with toxicity and harm. It isn’t fair on (most of) them. It also creates resentment and confusion around their identity as men and how they are perceived by women that can cause them to run straight back to the source of the problem (i.e. patriarchy) instead of doing the work to deconstruct it for themselves and those they (want to) love. This is very dangerous for us all.

The concept of domination and power-over-women and femininity is integral to patriarchy, but not masculinity. While this undertone of violence remains within the popular paradigm of masculinity as conceived under patriarchy, I believe we will all struggle to love and be loved by men at times. Because, according to aforementioned psychology professor and masculinity expert Robert Levant, the Western model of ‘femininity’ prizes things like empathy, patience and softness, while ‘masculinity’ involves traits like ‘restrictive emotionality’, ‘toughness and dominance’ and ‘preoccupation with sex’. But this is not set in stone - it can and must evolve. Many men - not just women - are waking up to this and how it impacts men and their relationships. People are catching on to the idea that, as sex & relationships writer Christopher Sexton so pithily observes:

“Toxic masculinity is not masculinity. It’s the wound of its absence.”

In hindsight, I think I was asking my ex to try to embody a more positive kind of masculinity - for both our sakes. There was no way I could have given him the reassurance, adoration and unwavering commitment he so badly desired without experiencing a healthier expression of his masculinity - one led by him. I wasn’t seeking perfection, just presence, progress and persistence. Because I wanted to trust and feel safer with him so that I could surrender into giving him my unbridled love. It wasn’t actually that personal or complicated - I just didn’t have the words for it then. Plus, there is still very little credible research into what ‘positive masculinity’ actually looks like - just more and more anecdotal examples and lived experiences. When men engage in answering these questions themselves, it gives me hope. And when they do it with real balls and poetry, it makes me excited for the future of masculinity!

Ultimately, the status quo about masculinity cannot hold. Because under rigid, retrogressive gender rules, emotionality becomes weakness, inconvenience, too-much-ness or even mental illness. And women’s bodies become men’s birthright. Our patriarchal culture dictates that for men and ‘the masculine’ to reign supreme, women and ‘the feminine’ must be derided, disappointed or dominated within ourselves and our relationships. Then men and masculinity cause harm, get rejected and are branded as villains while the women they hurt along the way become victims, often ridiculed for reacting in pain. It’s a tragic vicious cycle that must end. Because this is no way to live. It is certainly no way to love.

More often than not, these things play out in subtle, maybe even subconscious processes that are rooted in deep seated falsehoods about gender. It actually has very little to do with women or people of other genders or sexualities at all - it's a patriarchal masculinity issue. Men projecting it outwards instead of exploring it inwards serves to reinforce male power and easy-to-miss misogyny and even homophobia. This keeps women trapped and small and wanting. But maybe that’s the point? Patriarchy works in covert ways.

Overt misogyny actively intended to subjugate women is still everywhere too, lest we forget. Just look at how the ‘your body, my choice’ slogan spread like wildfire online within days of Trump’s re-election. Look at the Gisèle Pelicot case and how at least 51 seemingly normal dudes with normal jobs raped her. Look at the Telegraph report that uncovered groups of over 70,000 men joining communities to share advice on how best to drug and rape women, including partners, sisters, and even children. And this is just in the privileged Western world! 50% of the population across the globe feel unsafe because of this shit. We carry it in our bodies and souls every fucking day. Men must remember that just existing as a woman in the world is exhausting sometimes. My meninist date reminded me that antiquated gender stuff seeps into all of our psyches in insidious ways. It is frighteningly common in this era of algorithms and echo chambers; the micro really is inextricable from the macro.

As activist Jordan Stephens explores, this is sometimes true even among seemingly lovely, well-intentioned, outwardly feminist men. It can be particularly tricky with these kinds of men because it’s harder to detect. Unbeknownst perhaps even to them, the feminist signposting can become smoke and mirrors, hiding some of the same old attitudes or behaviours, often packaged in misappropriated therapy speak like ‘people pleasing’ or ‘boundaries’ or ‘attachment styles’. The lines are fine - this is tricky stuff - but the more we gently explore and expose things like this, the quicker we can oust it. And hopefully more men (and women) can be secure enough in themselves to see this as an opportunity to learn, and maybe even play or laugh!

Spotting the difference

The real question is this: do you walk the talk in your closest relationships? Do you make the women in your life feel safe and seen and loved? In my opinion, as poet Christopher Sexton so beautifully articulates, this is what separates boys from men.

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The truth comes out in small, quiet actions over time, as well as conversations with or about their partners, exes, female friends, family, coworkers or even strangers. Listen carefully. Notice. They will show you where they really are. Trust this more than their words. Relate to them accordingly.

Of course it’s a not all men situation - I shouldn’t have to make this obvious point. The large majority of men don’t take it to the extremes and are appalled by those who do. But many more men than we think do dodgy stuff, or else are deeply passive when witnessing other men do dodgy stuff, or else perpetuate patriarchy in barely noticeable, every day ways they don’t realise are also dodgy. As a man, it takes great courage to examine and admit where this might be true for you. It’s much easier to flip the script, projecting it back onto women in subtle acts of abuse and psychological warfare. Anything to avoid facing yourself and your trickier emotions properly!

This shit ruins relationships through death by a million paper cuts. Women’s frustration with and sometimes rejection of men, as well as seemingly man-hating feminism such as the 4Bs movement, is often simply a reaction to this. It’s not what anyone wants, really. It causes everybody to lose out on love. Confronting this truth, taking ownership for your part in it (however big or small) and dropping the projections is a crucial step towards knowing real love.

Ultimately, love and domination cannot coexist. Like oil and water, they cannot mix. As hooks says:

“Masses of men haven’t even begun to look at the ways that patriarchy keeps them from knowing themselves, from being in touch with their feelings, from loving. To know love, men must be able to let go of the will to dominate… They must be willing to change.”

Because, frankly, most modern women will not have it; we will no longer submit to patriarchy as the natural or inevitable order of things. Any efforts to make things go backwards will be met with fierce resistance from empowered women. We want equality, respect, and, ultimately, love. Because equal rights were just the start. I can see why some of the prickly feminism we see today alienates men, and sometimes that’s OK - we need spaces to rage and heal. But so do they.

In fact, hooks notes that the biggest historic flaw of feminism - one that could be its undoing - is its unwillingness to look at or validate male pain. This dimension of the feminist movement harms our cause more than helping it, contributing to the increasing polarisation in ideologies between genders that we see today. Many women do not condone this, and, more often than not, modern feminist women are looking for men to work with us and do their all-important part in the crusade for more freedom, choice and love for all, including them. We want this for ourselves, our safety, our self-expression and our self-love, but also because we believe it will benefit men too; because we believe that men and masculinity are more than this; because we love men and we want them to love us too.

We’re on the same side, guys

Integral to this is the understanding that we are on the same side. Underneath it all, we want the same things! Because the thing is, it’s not men’s fault. It’s how they are raised. It’s a societal issue over and above an individual one. The war on men is subtle. From a very young age, boys are indoctrinated into the cult of patriarchal masculinity as if there is no other way to be a manly man. This is simply not true. It is heartbreaking to see boys and men fragment and diminish themselves like this. I watched it happen in my classroom several times as a teacher - buoyant, lively, sweet boys slowly hardening themselves and becoming cold or cut-off or even cruel. It gained them social approval, and something that probably felt like love, but wasn’t. I fear for those young men still; I wonder what has become of them.

This is one of intersectional feminism’s most important offerings: appreciation of how men suffer at the hands of patriarchy too. The truth is that men are in many ways just as complex and sensitive and emotional as women. My ex used to say that he didn’t understand whether I wanted him to be ‘strong or sensitive’. While I empathised with his confusion, it exasperated me because it felt like a red herring. I wanted him to be both because I believed that he already was both. It has never been and never will be an either/or situation - it’s a juicy both/and: we can all be both strong and sensitive. Or as Brené Brown puts it, we can all have ‘strong backs, soft fronts, wild hearts’.

I realise now that this complaint of his had very little to do with me; it was much more about his relationship with himself. I tried both tough and soft love, but nothing I could say or do was enough to land this truth properly. He wasn’t really ready to hear it. Our relationship was a pretty confronting mirror for him, so I suppose it was psychologically easier for him to flip things back onto me than to face his own shadows and step up fully into that multi-faceted, dynamic, strong and sensitive version of himself as a man - my man. Because that’s the only kind of man I could ever really be with.

In recent years as feminism has advanced, women have begun to be allowed to be multiple things: strong, sassy, sensitive, soft, sexual, smart. Reclaiming that freedom to self-define and self-express is the epitome of empowerment for many women. Now men need to allow and be allowed the same freedom to be multiple things, so that these kinds of binary, either/or, ‘strong or sensitive’ questions become a thing of the past. No gender can be truly free in this kind of black and white world. We cannot really know and love the full spectrum self of another person well unless we can begin to know and love our own full spectrum selves. Real love will support and catalyse this process.

I admit: even as a smart, strong, feminist woman, I have diminished myself to please men I have loved. I have let them make me feel like I'm ‘too much’ to appease their feelings of being ‘not enough’. I have annexed important parts of myself to assuage their aches, pains and insecurities. But if you end up reducing yourself in order to be loved, it is more like control than love - control that you yourself are complicit in enabling. Oh that stinging irony! In reality, love should expand - not restrict - both people. This I have learned the hard way. One person should not grow while the other shrinks. That is not how love works - not really. What we really need is for men and masculinity to expand so that none of us ever have to diminish ourselves again.

Because the truth is that we’re all complex and a little crazy! That’s just being human. Pretending otherwise is a recipe for inauthentic relationships and/or loneliness. In fact, admitting, accepting and embracing the quirks and craziness in ourselves and each other is a pre-condition for love, according to philosopher and author Alain de Botton in his acclaimed The Course of Love. For me, going through this process with others - whether they be friends or lovers - has always been a source of healing, connection and fun. This way, everyone can just breathe out and have personalities. Letting it be there and treating it with some lightness takes the edge off anyway. Plus, things can only get crazy good if we stop trying so hard to not let them get crazy at all!

At their core, men too just want to know love - love of full self and of others. All this dominating, polarising, insecure patriarchal masculinity shit just is in the way of that. No matter your gender or sexuality, this stuff affects everyone. We have all been hurt by men who (knowingly or not) were more concerned with avoiding their darkness, denying their complexity or protecting their masculinity than loving us well. They hurt themselves this way, too. It’s the ultimate form of self-sabotage. There is so much healing to be had when men are humbly and confidently committed to doing things differently. As hooks puts it:

‘Any time a single male dares to transgress patriarchal boundaries in order to love, the lives of women, men, and children are fundamentally changed for the better.’

The compound impact of this effort could be revolutionary. And it would certainly be life and relationship saving for people of all genders. But for this to happen, many men will need to have the humility, resilience and courage to embrace change.

A call to (in)action

Here’s how: we must actively include men in feminism and support them to question, explore and redefine masculinity for themselves. We must be partners in this, because women play a role in rewarding patriarchal masculinity too. We must be willing to confront that truth. We must be willing to accept that men need safe spaces to express themselves fully. We must be willing to challenge the way we relate to male pain. It can be a tricky balance to strike, and we must not now prioritise men’s emergent progress over women’s hard won, ongoing progress. They must advance together. We must listen and learn together.

That said, redefining masculinity is an endeavour that ultimately men must lead. Hence the title of hooks’ book: having ‘the will to change’ means taking responsibility for their individual wounds and re-imagining collective masculinity in less violent, more loving ways. Women can cheer them on and be their sounding boards and forgive their mistakes (as long as we are not abused in the process), but we cannot and must not do it for them. This is men’s work.

Relationships reveal the growth we all need to do in order to love better, but some of that must be done outside the relational container. If heterosexual men rely on their female partners too much for this, the cycle continues, forcing women into doing the lion’s share of emotional labour. To balance things back out, men need to take the lead on doing their part so that the relationship can be a place to meet roughly in the middle. Everyone has their shit - that’s rarely the problem. I know many people with some pretty hefty baggage that have created beautiful, healthy, healing relationships. It’s about awareness, ownership and the ability to collaborate. I believe that, for all of us, taking responsibility for ourselves like this is the biggest gift we can give to those we love, or may love in the future. Only if both parties are doing this in some way can our relationships become places for mutual growth, acceptance and love.

Ironically, as part of this, sometimes we also need to let men just be. Men feel a lot of pressure to do stuff. Manly stuff, like earning lots of money, getting really ripped, drinking loads of pints, doing freezing cold ice baths, fucking loads of women, or fucking just one woman insatiably. Sometimes, we need to remind men that they are still loveable underneath all of this activity. We need to gently encourage them to explore all that they already are beneath the choke-hold of patriarchal masculinity and its demands on them. We need to hold them as they meet and commune with the gnarliest parts of themselves. And we need to try to meet and commune with them as they learn to just be their full spectrum selves, even if it means they may not do as much of the manly stuff we are so accustomed to wanting from them.

This can be difficult for both sides, especially within a capitalist, patriarchal culture that rewards men and masculinity based on power, strength and activity. Because, in truth, women often are looking to their male partners for safety - physically, emotionally and sometimes financially - especially during child-rearing years. And because, frankly, as professor and philosopher Martha Nussbaum puts it:

“Men fear being laughed at; women fear being killed.”

Both fears and the pain they cause are valid and very real - it is essential to acknowledge this. But they are not the same. The former may feel existential, but only the latter actually is, in that it genuinely threatens our very existence. Being able to step out of the feelings and be aware of the socio-political context is pivotal, especially in our most intimate moments. Men are terrified of being mocked or rejected if they expose or explore their full selves - their sadness, their fear, their vulnerability, their anger. This is a tragedy that must be addressed. But it’s also terrifying for women when men start to do this because we often have no clue what will come up and out. It's hard to really know the men in our lives if they don't really know themselves.

For women to be able to feel safe enough to let men just be more, we need to trust that they will not harm us, physically or psychologically, when they are emotional. We need to trust that they can make us feel safe and show up with love most of the time, even when things are messy, which they inevitably will be sometimes because life is messy. And if they fuck up, we need to see them reflect, apologise and make efforts to rectify it of their own accord (i.e. do some emotional labour). As they proceed with their own cause, men must remember this: we must not laugh at them when they show vulnerability, and they must not harm us (or each other or themselves) when they’re hurting. It is no exaggeration to say that lives and loves are at stake here.

Together we urgently need to keep trying to create spaces, build cultures and nurture relationships that make both halves of Nussbaum’s statement less and less true every day. This is how we start to loosen the polarities and minimise the suffering, miscommunication and violence around gender issues. In our patriarchal culture as is, men are in many ways the gatekeepers of that utopian reality. We women must be open and patient and receptive when hearing about their pain, but in turn men must get it and take action of their own. There are many things they could do, but the simplest one is learning to look beyond the limitations of patriarchal conditioning and just be the complex, sensitive, multi-faceted men that they already are so that so they can embrace all of that in others without feeling triggered or threatened or overwhelmed. This is how the cycle breaks. It takes great bravery to cultivate a new kind of masculine strength. It also involves a real reckoning with how to deal with and express male pain in non-violent ways. I believe this is the next frontier of feminism - one men must lead.

Love and criticism

Even through the title of bell hooks’ second book and its plea for men to change, men may feel criticised. Perhaps the language hooks uses is misleading because on the surface it does seemingly imply that men suck and need a radical makeover. This is not true! The point is that men need to unlearn unhelpful stories and behaviours around masculinity and relearn something healthier for everyone. It’s not really a criticism - it’s an imploration to evolve that benefits them too. I get why it may feel like a criticism and there needs to be space for men to feel all the feels about this, but getting stuck on it being a criticism is an avoidance tactic - a sign of fragile ego and resistance to listening, learning and growing towards love. We get it, guys. We get that it’s hard. And we’re sorry about that, but to know real love we must go beyond this together. Because being a woman has been hard for millennia and we need you to help us so that we can break these cycles for future generations once and for all. Poet and activist Lucas Jones’s poem Dangerous Men speaks to this powerfully - watch it and be moved!

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It also does not mean that women are beyond reproach on this stuff - if anything the opposite. We fuck up and make mistakes in love too. Sometimes, between couples these gender roles are reversed or totally different to what I’ve described - remember that all important nuance. The crux of this is that we all need to cultivate solid love skills, such as self-awareness, emotional intelligence and direct yet non-violent communication. We all need to aim to generously give and receive feedback/criticism rooted in these skills. Otherwise the feedback is sadly not very trustworthy or useful; it's just a recipe for further relational chaos.

I learned this the hard way with my ex. It took time and a lot of processing to see that many of his comments and bits of ‘feedback’ were just not very constructive - they were too sloppy and unclear and muddled up with his own stuff. Searching for the nuggets of truth and usefulness was such hard work. Eventually I gave up. I certainly gave him some pretty tough love too - maybe too tough at times given his significant insecurities, which sometimes bordered on paranoia. But even he admitted that I was largely pretty clear and fair; he knew he was fucking up a lot. And I also showed him great patience and gentleness as he met and began to transmute his pain, even when he was messy with it or projected it outwards as my problem. This was partly why he grew so much during our time together: I held him accountable and held space for his growth. He may not have always liked that, but he fucking needed it! And I never once even thought let alone suggested that there was something fundamentally wrong with him. Because I knew that it was the dynamic, roles and certain behaviours that were faulty, not him as a person. It seems he couldn’t offer me the same generosity. Instead, he took my most vulnerable moments, twisted them into accusations of ‘sickness’ (among other things) and then blamed me for being sensitive and defensive to his alleged ‘feedback’… Let’s be real: that’s not feedback - it’s something far more toxic.

The reality is that most women (and many men) are hungry for that radical candour style loving feedback from their partners so that they can give and receive love better too. We all need both tough and soft love, because both are love - one without the other is just an under-nourished kind of half love. I've realised that the ability to love both hard and soft is one of the qualities I prize the most in the people close to me. Neither force nor fragility cut the mustard - fluidity is where it's at. Of course no-one gets it right all the time, but we can all keep learning, keep trying and keep showing up. This is how love goes from theory to practice - through cycles of reflection, accountability, and action (with a side of silliness to lighten the load, always).

In truth, the call for men to change that bell hooks talks about is an act of (hopefully temporary) tough love that engenders a softer, more flexible, reciprocal kind of love; the kind that can mellow and breathe and last; the kind that focuses less on growth and more on simply enjoying life and each other. Love like this serves to redress the power and labour imbalances that patriarchy creates. It’s an acknowledgement of suffering on both sides and invitation for men to break up with patriarchy. It’s an invocation for them to end the toxic relationship so many of them are in with patriarchal masculinity in an effort to save their other relationships, and maybe even themselves. It’s a call to action for both sides to put down their arms and collaborate so that we can all soften, be more real and know more love. For me, this one of the key goals of feminism.

The dance of love

In her book, hooks explores a pattern I see so often around me: men feeling criticised and unloved, and women feeling exasperated and exhausted. This dynamic certainly played out between my ex and I, but it was bigger than us. I tell this personal story of mine with compassion for us both because such dynamics go far beyond isolated couples and deep into the fabric of inherited relational norms. It’s sad because it pushes both parties into roles than make them deeply unattractive to the other and therefore more likely to reject each other. hooks refers to it as the ‘dance of contempt’, which she defines as:

‘an unacknowledged paradigm of relationships that has suffused Western civilization generation after generation, deforming both sexes and destroying the passionate bond between them.’

Maybe it will always exist to an extent. In fact, some prominent thinkers suggest that, when managed well, this can become a beautiful dynamic for both sides, with women challenging and supporting men to become more authentically themselves, and men creating space for women to soften into safety. Maybe this is how the positive aspects of gender stereotypes can play out in relationships, as long as there’s also room for the opposite too. But in order for this depressing dance to transmute into something more flowy, freeing and fun, I believe that men must try not to panic and resort to feeling unloved when they feel criticised. They must pause, breathe, and understand that the call to change is a radical act of (albeit tough) love, the purpose of which is to make way for a more tender, easeful, mutual love - the kind that is in and of itself a ‘fuck you’ to patriarchy. The kind that allows you both to soften and be more real. And women must find ways to be patient and support men in this process without demoralising them or sacrificing ourselves. This is easier said than done - trust me - but it is vital.

Of course sometimes these situations are un-salvageable: the hurt is too deep or incompatibility too great. But sometimes, it’s worth fighting to see if the roles can change. Discernment is required here - this stuff is tough and these decisions very personal. But I believe that dealing with these issues head on - on your own, in partnership or out in the world - is very worth it. Real, robust, reciprocal love is the potential reward. From where I sit, this kind of love is quite rare, but as the rapturous reaction to the example of healthy, modern love depicted in the cheekily titled Netflix show Nobody Wants This revealed, really everybody wants this. Or at least a hell of a lot of women do (or maybe, like me, they really fancy Adam Brody)!

Good men

Like many women, my relationship with men is both complicated and extremely simple: I love and cherish men deeply, but part of me also fears them. Because I have had mixed experiences with men. I have been supported and amused and held and challenged and thrilled and inspired and loved by them aplenty. But I have also been hurt and let down by them; and women (and men) I love have been hurt and let down by them; and generations of women (and men) before me have been hurt and let down by them. Honestly, I think a lot of women feel this paradox to some degree but don’t openly admit it. Yet to deny it is to bypass the fullness of the female experience. To be a woman is to hold both truths.

Many men are good, of course! And ‘goodness’ can take many different shapes. But it is through lived experiences with good, feminist men that women come to make the love bigger than the fear. Hopefully, much much bigger, to the point where fear becomes obsolete within your closest relationships - little more than a distant memory you are sometimes reminded of through the news or media or other people's stories. The way this plays out in romantic relationships can actually be very hot and healing for all parties. Navigating these tensions and integrating these energies with good men is a sparky, sexy dance, but only because it feels safe too. hooks paints a beautiful picture of good men:

“For both men and women, Good Men can be somewhat disturbing to be around because they usually don’t act in ways associated with typical men; they listen more than they talk; they self-reflect on their behavior and motives; they actively educate themselves about women’s reality by seeking out women’s culture and listening to women…They avoid using women for vicarious emotional expression…When they err — and they do err — they look to women for guidance, and receive criticism with gratitude. They practice enduring uncertainty while waiting for a new way of being to reveal previously unconsidered alternatives to controlling and abusive behavior. They intervene in other men’s misogynist behavior, even when women aren’t present, and they work hard to recognize and challenge their own… They understand that patriarchy prevents them not only from becoming whole, authentic human beings but also from knowing the truth about the world… They offer proof that men can really know love.”

Doing this stuff doesn’t make men any less masculine; it makes them more dynamic, more whole and ultimately better lovers, in the truest sense of the word. As for any other aspects of masculinity they want to keep, as long as it’s not harming anyone, be my guest! That’s the creative bit. Be your own man! Have fun with it! Go wild! I'm excited to see what happens in the men’s work and masculinity space.

For any men out there who want to love better (whether that’s loving yourself, or women, or men, or children, or anyone really), reading bell hooks’ book on men, masculinity and love might be a good first step. Trying to live its lessons might become the next. I do not and should not know exactly what this looks like in practice, because I am not a man! But it might start out as simple as just doing some honest reflection on how you relate to this stuff, or else talking about it with a therapist or loved one or other men. There are men out there doing what sounds like great work in this area, including men's coaches and therapists, as well as organisations such as Beyond Equality and Tomorrow Man. If I were a man, I would probably start with some of these things.

No matter how they go about it, I suspect for a lot of men this process will involve delving into their pain, learning to feel and express their emotions and, crucially, embracing their own multi-faceted-ness. It might involve giving up being a ‘cool guy' or a ‘nice boy' in order to become a good man. As Ben Hurst from Beyond Equality emphasises, this stuff does not happen in a vacuum, so it might even spur some men on to join women in actively challenging the patriarchal systems, cultures and norms that cause these problems in the first place. This is positive, feminist masculinity. And it's sexy as hell!

Shout-out to the guys out there who are already doing this work and showing up as courageous, complex, loving men. For some this is pretty natural and for some it’s a real slog. Either way, you are the changing the world. Around you, my nervous system softens and sings. And you remind me of what I already know deep down: that none of this stuff has to be that complicated, really. It is just a case of unlearning and relearning about gender from a place of love. Let’s hold it with some lightness and make it fun!

Looking forward to love

Deep in my soul, I believe in men and in love. I also believe in myself and in self-love. And for me, they have to come hand in hand. Otherwise, it’s not the kind of love I want. I do not just want a white dress, or a couple’s holiday to Greece or the stamp of societal approval that I am loveable because I am partnered. I want to know real love - the cycle breaking, gorgeous, liberating, bell hooks kind of love.

I have known glimmers of this kind of love already, and I see several beautiful examples of it among my friends. It is never perfect and it is not always easy or smooth, but I know it is possible! I have learned to love myself well enough to wait for this. I know in my bones that I deserve and am capable of it. I am an imperfect, glorious woman who wants to do love with an imperfect, glorious man (no more meninists or projects, please God). Despite the risks and heartbreaks and dodgy dates, I choose to continue opening myself to men and to love. Because I hope. I believe. I trust. I love and I love and I love!

Today, as all of this moves inside me, my heart is tender, curious and full. Today, I write and I dance and I feel it all. Today, the world is a scary, exciting place pregnant with possibility. How bloody beautiful is that?!