It’s fascinating how you managed to write 5000 words without ever once considering that men could — and should — be responsible for their own sense of worth, purpose, and emotional regulation. Reducing women to external validation dispensers, while dressing it up as romantic wisdom, isn’t insightful — it’s just a long-winded way to offload the hard work of emotional growth onto the nearest available woman.
Framing women as both the gatekeepers of male self-worth and the scapegoats for male failure isn’t clever, it’s manipulative. Men are not fragile by design, and women are not emotional sherpas tasked with carrying their partners up the mountain of basic self-awareness.
If your goal was to articulate why so many women are exhausted by relationships where they’re expected to provide constant guidance, praise, and emotional labor just to keep their partner afloat — congratulations. You nailed it.
Polite suggestion: Consider the possibility that the greatest gift a man can give the woman in his life isn’t his usefulness — it’s his accountability.
No, she is bashing men. Feminists do that all the time. Feminists in Congress made sure that 3 times more taxpayer funds are spent on breast cancer than prostate cancer.
The Congressional Women's Caucus deceived their colleagues when they created the Women's Health Act in 1994. They claimed that women's health "only" reecived 15% of the NIH budget. They left out the fact that that 15% was already twice the amount spent on men's health. Feminists are liars, grifters and con artists
You only mention NIH funding. Are you aware the private pharmaceutical industries fund male centric disease research for their products? The NIH, a government agency, usually helps fill in the research “holes” that private agencies don’t find profitable.
The industry data is used to recommend protocols for both male and female. This even though women may respond differently. It would be inefficient and wasteful to have taxpayers fund research that which private industry is already studying.
No they didn’t. One office for women’s health, created back in 1994, became ten such offices. Men’s health was ignored back in 1994, and it still is today.
Men die at younger ages and in greater numbers from every major cause of death in the USA, yet there is no funding program for men’s health.
Frank, one office with 10 branches is probably inadequate to cover women’s health issues.
Do you understand that the many government Health agencies do not distinguish between M/F because they encompass both. As said before, these non-gender specific health agencies use research from data collected from men.
Congress is obliged to give women equal access to relevant health information. If the US studies are relevant to men, we must also produce studies relevant to women.
Discrimination against men, which takes many forms. Spending far more on breast cancer than prostate cancer is one form. Creating 10 offices for women's health, and zero offices for men's health is another. The feminists in HR that openly discriminate against men are another. Then there is the fact that the Democrats state right on their website that they serve women, but not men.
Based on my initial googling, it looks like breast cancer kills 18 percent more people in the US each year than prostate cancer The average age of death from breast cancer is 10.5 years earlier on average than age of death from prostate cancer (69 v 79.5 years). Given male and female lifespans of of 74.8 years and 80.2 years respectively, (and ignoring for the moment male cases of breast cancer) you have a breast cancer killing women an average of 11 years before their expected life span, and prostate cancer killing men an average of 5 years after their expected lifespans. So the funding gap may be a rational product of the difference in the average amount of time lost to the diseases, not a product of sexism.
She is correct but ungenerous. A relationship is about 2 people giving each other. And they should aim to give each other what they want and need.
Complaining that your husband is not working on the right projects to please you, while also claiming you don't need to give an occasional ego massage to please him, is hypocritical, not to mention self-defeating.
I do understand what Wendy is saying. But what she is saying is downstream of the thrust of my essay here. Her comment has deep relevance to my piece as a follow-on link in the chain, which relates more to attachment styles and an individual’s sense of self and centre. But I see this as a really helpful build on my thinking, rather than a negation or detraction. I stand by what I’ve said so far and will cover Wendy’s space in a future post. Many thanks for the book tip!
Wendy is almost certainly a horrible person to be around and I suspect the people around her find her absolutely exhausting. The people who complain about “emotional labor” are exactly the type of people who have no insight into how much emotional labor they create for others. Because they have zero empathy.
I can smell a man-hating feminist from a mile away. If you want to do some reading, take a look at The Myth of Male Power. Then you can be a part of real change.
While your comment carries truth, I think it misses the point and therefore makes the mistake a lot of women make when engaging with men who are being honest and vulnerable enough to tell you the truth about who they are, how they think, and why. I personally think that this refusal accept and hear the truth from the horses mouth is where the 'love gap' as Piers calls it-comes from.
I think a lot of women have an idea of men that resembles that of a Disney prince and when this idea is questioned we find ourselves in defense mode at best or in complete despair at worst. Peirs isn't framing women as the gatekeepers of male self worth. It seems like he's explaining the ways in which men place their self worth in the hands of women, because they also have an idealized version of us that defies reality. This isn't romantic wisdom, this insight into the psychology of the average human male, which based on my individual analysis, IS NOT WRONG! It is not a completely terrible thing that men desire to be useful because society does need useful men. We do need men who are willing to be of service to their community, because men who don't become dangerous. Read any anthropology article regarding manhood and masculinity. Study any society that has an abundance of men who are not useful and you will find a similar disruptive result.
So while accountability to the women they seek to serve is important, while developing a derived sense of self is important, it's not the reality.
Incredible perspective, honestly. The author of the article didn’t do a very good job of framing their particular perspective on the matter - for better or worse. Its message reads about as well as the person reading it.
I was also outraged that the author appeared to be framing my worth through my desire to be useful to women. I thought that was actually intensely offensive as I don’t strive to (in the same way I don’t expect others to strive to) be useful to any gender in particular but to society in general. But having read your comment I can understand the articles perspective differently. Still, I think the article is shit, but at least I can see the prettier side of the shit lol.
Fair points, but your individualistic presuppositions might be a little excessive. Does the author really reduce women to external validation dispensers, or might they be suggesting that men and women are at their best when they rely on one another?
Nicely said Iain! Thank you. However, I feel that Wendy makes a valid point towards the risk of men and women losing their own centre in trying to manipulate the feelings of their partner. Nice guy/girl syndrome is a curse. But I think this has more to do with codependency and attachment styles, which I’ll be addressing in a future post.
I’m glad you said this and it echos what one of my other comments said. I reread this piece and it’s interesting, I kind of got a different feel for it. Just because as a woman I don’t “agree” or have the same feelings as a man, doesn’t mean this perspective isn’t many men’s truth and valid in its own right. So I’m sorry for originally being quick to get defensive - guess I’m human haha. Would love to read the follow up post on attachment style and codependency because it seems what is being described is a man with anxious attachment partnered with a woman with avoidant attachment. If one were to only use what’s online to fuel their opinions of men, they would think they all men are anxiously attached but they’re just the more vocal ones.
Hi again Victoria, you absolutely diagnosed my attachment style correctly, I’m sheepish to admit! I really hope this hasn’t unduly coloured my essay. Perhaps it has, or perhaps it has helped me see a male vulnerability that other men may be more blind to. As you probably know, most insecurely attached men index towards avoidance, so I’m in a minority on that front. Another commenter also wondered if I’m sexually submissive, surmising that it may be an influence on my thinking. I don’t know the answer to that question… but an interesting thought too. My feeling is that all men have a degree of anima-shaped submissiveness within them, but few get to let that surface safely.
I think I need to write about scum bag men next. I think it follows on more naturally from my last. Then I’ll do the piece on attachment.
Most of all though, props to you for circling back here and re-sounding your senses on all of this. A real marker of emotional sophistication and open intellect, deserving great respect. You’re an example to us all. All the best.
I mean does it matter if it has? Write what you know, or so I’ve been told :) I’m interested how you define scum bag man because I truly don’t think any human is all bad— but maybe thats referring to the stereotypical, avoidant man/ seemingly aloof player who seems to just be selfish and neglect his anxious partners needs (while still suffering from the same insecurity and feelings of fear of abandonment that his partner ironically has lol).
I’d like the return the compliment, it’s not often that I get to have a discussion online that is genuinely coming from a place of curiosity and not anger. Do you ever write on Medium?
That warms my heart. Agreed! In answer to your question, I want to try plotting a spectrum of masculinity, from well adjusted, integrated manhood, to less so, to chauvinism, to sexism to outright misogyny, to insane, Taliban-level hatred of women- I think I can take all of this and overlay it into my core idea that men are the secondary sex when it comes to reproductive choice. If there’s any truth in that thought, then it puts men at a certain disadvantage at a deeply primal level. For those men in whom this is healthily accommodated , it manifests as appropriate reverence. But for other men, it could be a shadow aspect that generates defensiveness, fear and even unnamed terror. It’s the only sensible explanation I can think of for the Taliban and their ilk.
I haven’t written on Medium. Is it worth doing?
I’d like to do so much more writing but my family life is chaotically busy and I just can’t find enough time. I also work as an advertising copywriter, so I have a classic aversion to being chained to a keyboard all the time! Thanks as always and take care
“Cuck yourself”? That’s more shameful immo— being angry and defensive in comments does nothing to get your point across. Case in point I was able to reread this piece and catch a different nuance because the author was open minded and open to conversation. If he had been abrasive and rude I probably wouldn’t have reread the piece. Catch more flies with honey than… other stuff lol
Out of curiosity, what do you gain from that comment? No one forced you to read my comments, yet you still did. Not to mention the author of the piece did seem to get something out of my comments and that’s who I was responding to. Anyways I hope you have a great evening or day wherever you’re at.
indeed, a lot of that is her own frame and conditioning. A lot of defense there, and I can imagine how upset she must've been when reading it from that fixed lens.
Also, you hit the nail on the head there talking about how it suggests that women and men do best when they allow themselves to rely on one another.
Victoria, our exchanges have been really nourishing for me and I’m grateful to you. Anyone who speaks so dismissively to your thoughtful and open engagement should only be dismissed from your mind. Don’t let this stuff tarnish your day.
What are you talking about ? Seriously ? How narcissistic and ungrateful are you that you would turn an article addressing the male drive to PLEASE WOMEN into an example of misogyny. Fucking unbelievable. Oh, and by the way, a few “thank you”s every now and again from women for the men WHO MAINTAIN SOCIETY isn’t “manipulation”… ITS BASIC DECENCY.
Jesus Christ lance get it together man. I took a look at your profile and it seems like you have some incredibly deep issues with gendered topics. You should discuss that with someone qualified to help you with it - it’s looking a bit radical.
Right. It all works best when one’s cup flows over in generosity than as a withdrawal. My essay here was all about presuming the best in a partner we generally trust and drawing that out in good faith.
yes, and not only that, where are these men you are talking about? women's power is replaced by fast food only fans pages. and soon robots. men are not working tirelessly to impress women they are working tirelessly for their ego and ambition in which women have very little to do with at this time. I was considering recently on reading all these articles similar to this. men only were chivalrous when sex was withheld for ages. when it became disposable no body cares about anything anymore. the solution I have for my self and I suggest is spirituality, sacred sex and the sacredness in each other. See each other as sacred and not disposable. Sex as awakening. we do not need anymore men children...we need presence.
Hi Sylvia, thanks for these reflections. I wish I had all the answers! I think that what you put your finger on so nicely are aspects of social corrosion that are growing and multiplying as we lose touch with the best versions of ourselves, and the things that matter most. Connection with the self and with others is being eroded as technology interferes with the ways we spend our time. A man losing himself in porn. A woman spending all her time shopping for beauty products on TikTok. A sex worker making the porn. A child slave making the beauty products. A feedback loop of global detriment. All these empty calories of empty existence are a massive time suck. And people are forgetting how to bother with deeper endeavours. Like putting time in with their partners and being honest and generous with their truth. As we lose connection, we lose faith. The more asleep we are, the further we are from consciousness and personal integration. The behaviours you describe are the acting out of our various shadows. I think you’re absolutely right in saying that spirituality and turning towards the sacred, sexual or otherwise, are a powerful answer to these things. But we aren’t all asleep. We aren’t all doing nothing. We haven’t all lost our way so badly. And those of us who still love need to keep faith, not lose heart and do the work. If we lose heart then everything will be lost. So hang in there and please don’t write ‘men’ off as a whole. Many men are still in the arena, still doing their best, stumbling blindly forward as best we can. We aren’t all louts and losers.
We must fight against this “Brave New World”! We live an age of rampant misanthropy and nihilism, one thing is certain: we need each other now more than ever.
Sex bots are going to be far, far more popular with women than men; to a comparable degree that romance literacy is more popular among women. The current romance chat bots (AI significant others, whatever you wanna call it) are mostly used by women.
“Accountability”. WHAT ARE YOU EVEN TALKING ABOUT? You’re just a feminist platitude machine. I would recommend thinking for yourself for a change, and also, remove that massive chip on your shoulder while you’re at it.
As woman, I enjoyed this and after reading the comments it made me feel like I was wrong to. I believe that as much as the author wrote this piece shedding light on this topic from mostly a personal perspective, I feel that I got some insights that felt like therapy and I'll explain. Maybe he generalised his perpectives but as a chronic people pleaser especially in relationships, always supressing my needs to maintain harmony, this post reassured me that all that really could be doing more harm than good. I know it's not my job to teach you to love yourself and find worth outside of my validation but it is my job to at least communcate my needs and/or expectations. Right? Yes, we shouldn't agree to the weaponised incompetence of "I'm a piece of shit, because you won't love me or mommy me through this process." but for me this really encouraged me and validated me that expressing my needs to an emotionally mature-done the hard work- man should not destroy the relationship...and I needed to hear that.
100% agree with this! I really feel you pinned down the tension point with your insightful comment here. We all have to hold our centre, know our needs and develop the skills to communicate them with love. NOT EASY!! But we can all do the work. Even if one partner grows enough to do that, the other may often evolve that way in turn, or so I understand. My wife and I are on this journey ourselves, doing EFCT and I often can’t believe how much I hadn’t understood about myself before. Thanks so much for your insight here.
If you want a certain behavior in a partner, seek out someone who exhibits it, then incentivize that behavior. Too many times we are trying to “do over” relationships that failed us. That can lead to being attracted to those likely to fail us again. This drive, for lack of a better word can be hard hurdle to overcome and it can cause us to miss out on someone who can actually give us what we want.
Wendy, I agree whole heartedly with your statements as to where we need to progress in our humanity and human development. All humans would benefit from self awareness and personal regulation.
I also agree with Piers that there are biological imperatives at play. Piers explains, from his learned viewpoint, culturally we are favoring biological imperatives and neglecting evolutionary growth of our human (not only Male/Female) capacities. We are learning (we “were” learning pre-47) from science so much about human sexuality and gender biology that could bring greater understanding of our past and current cultural expressions.
What I gain from this essay is a somewhat static picture of what has been the “norm” of our past and much of our present. It helps to know where you are to figure out where you want to go.
Knowledge and understanding of the past/present as well as our own human mammal/biological form on planet earth is a necessary step into a more meaningful, self directed, personally guided future.
Thanks for this Jay So. I agree. I think we tend to neglect a holistic picture of ourselves as minds and bodies with unbroken lineage and connection to all that came before. We all behave as though we have transcended nature, when that couldn’t be further from the truth. Therefore, it makes sense to me to aim to better understand ourselves as animals, mammals and thinking human beings. This way, we can work with the grain of our own makeup, trying to embrace what’s good and integrate the undeniable darker urges we all have into something healthier. Thanks again for your balanced perspective here
ouch....but for men who are not self-sufficent emotionally in the manner you feel admirable...i would say the greatest gift a man can offer his aspirational partner is honest and sincere love and making his actions match his feelings. and his putative partner has to decide whether she can sincerely partner up with this man (as opposed to other interested men or her personal lack of interest in "mating up") and clearly express this to the guy who wants a real relationship. i respect and agree with most of the perspective described in this posting. and there is that predatory male minority.
it's hard to build a healthy relationship, but the rewards are so enormous for a man's satisfaction with his life's journey.
This is a valid critique. A man’s usefulness needs to have a purpose decided by him, not dictated by her. The actual usefulness of a man is reflected in how carefree he can make her life and how young she feels around him. Expecting her to dictate the terms of the relationship and not feel like she’s your mom is not possible. The premise of this article seems to stem from the failed parenting techniques critique of sex relations taught by the red pill. Overbearing mothers teach their children that it’s important to make mom happy and then later when in a relationship men play that out with their wives. Feminism teaches the wives to go with it and you end up in a marriage devoid of agency for the man. The woman can’t respect him because he can’t respect himself. He subjugates himself further because he believes he isn’t subservient enough. Like it or not it’s not a vibe women like. They may say they do but people have a way of doing things that seem right that make them profoundly unhappy. Research the emasculation paradox for more.
Hi Francisco, thanks for these thoughts. None of what I’m suggesting is zero sum. Rather an attempt to put words to what I see as the initial cause that drives so much of male behaviour. It’s more a case of nature’s nudges than of anything more overt and absolute. From this initial nudge to develop worth in the world, a man may design a cathedral, spend his time sending dick picks to women, or at the most nihilistic, perpetrate rape and murder. All of this depends on how well socialised and integrated he is as a result of his experiences of the world. In this increasingly confusing world, these ancient nudges still operate within us and can be forces for good or ill. My invitation to men in this essay is to recognise the power that women hold over men, embrace it and respect it. Not to give over their personal agency and sense of self. It’s an invitation to humility and gentlemanliness. To women, I’m trying to illustrate the same and encourage confidence to poke behind the masks that men wear and recognise their potential for decency and greatness. Given the appalling way that so many men have behaved towards women, throughout recorded time, it’s a massive ask and highly counterintuitive. But if we want to improve male behaviour and female safety and joy, I think that recognising and embracing this fundamental asymmetry between the sexes might offer a better world for everyone.
Hi. I needed to hear this. You’re right to say what you say and I am definitely generalising in the face of millennia of male atrocity. Men have caused so much pain that it has become the expectation of my sex. But that is why I’m writing this; to speak for the overlooked vast majority of men who are not the way you describe. That much is true. Please take some heart from that and don’t give up on all of us. That said ,the pain that men cause is so grievous, it cannot be ignored and I need to address it or stop writing now. So thank you for speaking out. And for not totally unleashing on me too, which must have been tempting. Your points land fair and square. I hear you and take what you say seriously. All the best to you and thank you for this important challenge. Piers
I'm divorcing my husband who begged me for this type of validation while completely ignoring my very clear pleas and instructions for him to do things that were ACTUALLY useful to me. While I was pregnant and very ill and disabled, he decided to start a side business to make extra money that we didn't need while leaving me to fend for myself for FOOD and WATER. Instead of doing the bare minimum of literally just bringing the snacks and water I asked for into the bedroom so I wouldn't have to risk falling and experience immense pain every time I needed to feed and hydrate my dying body while it was depleting itself to create a new life, he was tunnel focused on what HE defined as being a good boy, all the while ignoring my actual needs that I clearly and kindly communicated to him. He neglected me and our child as well. He still looks to me for his good boy pats on the head when he takes our child to the museum once a month while claiming that he's a 50/50 dad.
I would challenge your claims that most men are "good". He's one of your "good" boys who wanted so desperately to "serve" me that he looked past me entirely to fulfill a mission (earning $$) that society tells him is useful and head-pat worthy instead of listening to his wife and treating her with basic human decency. Separating from him, I'm finally able to heal my body and mind. It's been a little over a year, and I am doing so much better without him, even living below poverty level.
A key to this ideology that you have spelled out is actually treating the woman as a human, not just as a Goddess. He was focused on placing jewels and gold at my temple while letting it deteriorate and decay, despite my clear communication. For this, he is not a good boy, and there are far more of his type of "good" boy than there are of the idealized good boys you claim make up the majority of men. He was doing "good boy" acts for his own ego, not for actually serving me. The majority of men are like this.
Hi NR, many thanks for your comment. Sorry for the late reply. I was in hospital for a spell. I have to say, it sounds like your husband has been astonishingly deaf to your needs and clearly has a long way to go in learning how to receive a clear message and take right action. You use the phrase 'tunnel vision' and that sounds like a perfect description. How sad and what a waste. Clearly his idea of useful service is absolutely useless and totally disconnected from what you needed. It's just so frustrating to read your account of your experiences. How much easier it would have been to simply tune into you properly and really listen, rather than super-imposing a whole bunch of his programming onto your situation.
I can't imagine how frustrating this must have been for you and I'm so sorry for the necessary pain ahead in rebuilding your life. I'm very glad to hear that life is looking up and wish you all the best for the future. Chin up. You've already shown great strength in facing difficult truths in faith of better times. I'm sure your courage will repay you, so hang in there.
"male atrocity"? Feminists in Congress made sure that 3 times more taxpayer funds are spent on breast cancer than prostate cancer. They created 10 offices for women's health, and ZERO offices for men's health. If you are falsely accused of rape or paternity, or destroyed in divorce court, you will learn about female atrocity.
Hi Frank, I hear you. But these political matters fall far beyond the scope of my essay. They are outcomes of a pendulum swing that needs to correct itself.
But I’m writing about the deepest, most ancient parts of human nature, how they might be formed and the possible ways they show up in the present.
That said, my message is a provocation to contemporary thinking, for both men and women. For men, I’m inviting the possibility that women hold a great power over us at the deepest level, and that the only natural response is healthy reverence. Not for a man to abandon his purpose and vision for his partner.
For many women, what I’m saying is very confronting because it flies in the face of their own experiences of personal danger in the company of men, often their own partners. There is barely a woman alive who hasn’t experienced some form of harassment or harm from a man.
Historically, weak men have used their physical or political power to burn, rape or murder countless women. So it’s no wonder that some women who have responded here are disputing what I’m saying. I completely understand where they’re coming from and I’m asking them not to throw the towel in with all men. The sexes cannot be at war with each other and expect to build a better world.
Hi Piers, in case you didn’t know it, women batter men as often as the converse. The research establishing that fact goes back to the mid-1970s, starting with the work of Drs. Suzanne Steinmetz, Murray Straus, and Richard Gelles. The work has been replicated over the following years and decades. Here is a partial bibloiography of those findings:
Men’s groups tried to prevent this evidence of equal perpetartion of domestic violence during the Violence Against Women Act hearings, but they were told to sit down and shut up. As a result, a law was passed that violates the Equal Protection rights of men.
You are right that women hold immense power over men, and VAWA is one example among many. Which is why men avoid feminists and only connect with non-feminist women that respect and value men.
Hi Nick, I think you mistake me. I’m writing to support men and reveal the awe in which most of us hold the feminine. In healthily integrated men, this shows up as reverence and courteous gentlemanly respect, with the man remaining centred and true to his life purpose, inspiring and leading his partner with his steadfast strength and spirit. In less healthy men, it can mean an abandoning of the self and some form of codependency. In even less healthy men, this awe takes a darker aspect, ranging from avoidance to coercion to harassment and bullying to rape and other forms of brutality. Unfortunately, these last examples are at the forefront of many women’s minds, and with good reason. There is barely a woman alive who hasn’t faced some form of sexual assault. So the point I’m making about men’s awe of the feminine runs counter to how many women see us. I believe that mutual understanding must begin with accepting how this minority of messed up guys have messed things up for all of us, men and women alike. The answer isn’t red pill bullshit. That’s just a lame cope. I believe we need to show up and be accountable, self reflective and strong. I think we all need to drop our armour and offer compassion and love- even in the face of so much pain and resentment.
You don't support men by telling them to subordinate their interests to women, and talk about "male atrocity". The men that support men teach them how to survive in a system that doesn't give a damn about them, and feminist women that use them.
I appreciate the effort you made to be understood. Thank you. My rather brusque comment was not in relation to your paper but to the manner of your response to a rather rude critic, you used terms including millennia of male atrocity …that cause so much pain…that it is the expectation of males. You thank her for not unleashing on you? It feels off to me Piers. Everything around you, built by men and not just for access to breeding.
I disagree with the way you dismiss the notion of “Red Pill”. Presumably you are using a dismissive catch all term to disavow a body of work that I would characterize as males writing for a male audience, about the nature of women, quite the opposite to what I think you are doing here. In my opinion men, particularly younger men need the perspective to balance the onslaught of misandry and the idealization of the feminine common in our Society that your writing evinces.
Anyway, my comment was about your rubbery response to a female critic, not to the larger piece.
You’ve got the patience, sanity and balanced perspective of a saint the way you’re wrangling this comment section, Piers. It’s as interesting a read as the article itself and so rare to find on the internet. Kudos to you! 👏
How kind of you Dr! Many thanks indeed. I have learned so much through this process. Some of it bruising, but most of it affirming and heartening - including your kind remarks here! The big lesson has been that respecting people for their viewpoints and looking past their sometimes aggrieved tone has yielded some really helpful insights and even a few new friends
My boyfriend early on in our relationship surprised me with coffee after I worked a night shift and I was really exhausted and worn out. It made me feel so touched (and I was so sleep deprived lol) that I started tearing up and profusely thanked him for how much his support meant to me. Ever since then he LOVES to get me coffee or tea. I always make sure to thank him a bunch and for his support in general and he beams. “You’re the best I love how well you support me.” I love how he looks when he feels all proud of himself for making my day better so I always try and thank him whenever possible for all the little things he does. I think it’s a big part of why we work so well together. I can just tell he thrives on being appreciated.
Hey that’s beautiful! Thanks so much for sharing. I’m so pleased at this resonance. Hope he appreciates you the same way too and all the best for your future together
This piece rubbed me the wrong way. While I agree that acknowledgement goes a long way, I’m sensing some themes here that don’t sit well with me. Instead of “Women choose, men lose,” a more accurate way to look at relationships is:
✅ Both men and women struggle to find meaningful relationships.
✅ Both men and women can end up in bad relationships that leave them unfulfilled. Women end up more frequently killed by intimate partners.
✅ Women do NOT always have an abundance of great options—many settle, stay stuck, or struggle in dating especially when searching for something serious.
✅ Men are not doomed to “lose” unless they embrace a victim mentality. Healthy relationships are built on mutual effort, respect, and growth.
Hi Victoria, I was being specific here about the mathematical facts of human mating across time, not describing the quality of relationships themselves. Only 40% of men in history have been chosen by women as suitable for reproduction. The rest missed out. But regarding the points you make, you’re damned right! Let’s make a better world for our children. Thanks for reading and engaging with the piece
The statistic about only 40% of men historically passing on their genes isn't because women had all the choice and just picked a select few. For most of history, women had barely any say (if any at all) in choosing their partners. Arranged marriages, forced unions, polygyny, concubinage, and coercion were common, meaning powerful men typically chose women, not the other way around. Elite men often had multiple wives or concubines, hugely tipping reproductive success in their favor. Many women were effectively chosen for these relationships, often without consent.
So, historically, the imbalance in reproductive success was driven way more by male power dynamics and societal hierarchies than by women actively choosing. If we're going to talk honestly about relationships, historically or now, we've got to acknowledge that.
You’re not going far back enough Victoria. Agriculture (and resource gathering) has only been around for about 12,000 years. We have to stack this against 300,000 years of hunter gatherers- and then about six million years of ancestry before that. 12,000 years is the blink of an eye. Our programming stems from deep time, with everything else mere cultural overlays to the hard wiring driving us along. Prior to agriculture, men and women cooperated far more evenly and didn’t function in the way you describe. What’s really interesting to me is how possible it might be to unpack our natural cooperative urges to help us unpick the unnatural patriarchal patterns you describe.
Ok but your article isn’t going far back enough then either because a large premise appears to be that “women choose men lose”. So which one is it, the “let’s look a billion years ago and guess what is nature and what’s nurture (it’s both)” or “women get to pick who they want?” What seems clear is that society plays a massive role in how men and women view themselves, their relationships, and their roles in society. But while I appreciate your article for attempting to shed light on some aspects that may help improve relationships, it paints men and women as different in the need for recognition when really, I think we’re more similar than people think. I for one would take on the world for partners, if I got acknowledgment once in a while. Most stay at home moms I know, for example, are not angry even if they seem to be - they just feel under appreciated. Everyone could use a genuine thanks once in a while - men and women alike.
Hi Victoria, yes indeed. Men and women are far more alike than not. And everyone needs and deserves recognition and mutual support. And, to generalise, working mums today don’t get anything like enough of either.
To your other question, I am basically asserting that there’s an asymmetry between men and women that flies in the face of so many of modern presumptions. And because it’s ignored and overlooked, it leads to a massive cluster of terrible outcomes.
I’m saying that, way down deep in our hardwiring, women hold a fundamental balance of power, because they select who to make babies with. Of course men have often taken women by force, but this has not been standard behaviour over time. Most pairings throughout human existence have been at the choosing of the woman. Our entire biology and cultural patterns have evolved out of this fact.
I consider this factor to be the very first ripple in the pool, from which a countless host of other behaviours and societal outcomes have cascaded. Since the dawn of farming, and the amassing of resources, the natural balance of power was thrown off, with men seizing control. Cultural checks and balances evolved from this, which both protected and suppressed women. Things like marriage and codes of male chivalry. In the agrarian era, people lived in closer communities , where women supported each other and held much more power in the hearth and home. And then the enlightenment turned everything upside down, dragging people into cities and separating women from each other. And now the digital age is screwing us all up even more.
But our evolved hardwiring persists. We still crave salt, sugar and fat too much. And men still crave female erotic energy.
I think that at the most primal level of the erotic, women hold the cards and men are subject to their power. I think that men who can’t healthily integrate the pre-eminence of women act out in hateful ways. The greater the denial, the greater the male fear, the more grotesque the male behaviour. Take the Taliban, for instance. And what is rape? It is an act of hatred that has a lot to do with power. Where is that hatred coming from? Why is it expressed as a profaning of female sacredness? And why is it expressed as a violent assertion of power? I think it comes from a man’s terror at his own relative weakness.
I think that masculine masks sit along a varying continuum of denial of the superiority of women at the most fundamental level. There are many other layers beyond this, around which all of our cooperative codes have evolved. But we have forgotten the fundamental truth and it has led to a terrible sickness in society. I think that the cure, the way to achieve the healthiest expression of masculinity, is for men to recognise and accept their humble state and bring what they have to offer in conscious service of the elevation of women. I know this is romantic and might sound naive. But I personally think it’s quite beautiful and is the wellspring of the highest forms of human love and happiness. Does that make sense?
I see what you’re saying about deep-seated biological impulses, and I agree that men and women have fundamental differences that shape attraction and social dynamics. But I think you’re still overestimating the extent of female choice in human history. Even in societies where women had some agency in mate selection, there were still social, economic, and coercive forces that limited their autonomy. Again, the idea that ‘most pairings throughout history have been at the choosing of the woman’ just doesn’t hold up when we look at the prevalence of arranged marriages, polygyny, and male-dominated social structures—even in hunter-gatherer groups.
If women were the ultimate selectors ‘way down deep in our hardwiring,’ how did so many patriarchal structures develop across different cultures? That suggests male control over reproduction wasn’t an anomaly, but a repeated pattern—one that emerged independently in vastly different societies. If female choice was truly the dominant force, wouldn’t we expect to see more historical societies where women retained control over their reproductive futures, rather than the overwhelming presence of male-dominated systems?
I also think framing women as the natural ‘superior’ sex who men must serve is just flipping traditional gender hierarchy on its head rather than dismantling it. Real progress doesn’t come from men serving women or women serving men—it comes from mutual respect and shared partnership. Rather than men needing to ‘accept their humble state,’ wouldn’t the healthiest version of masculinity be one where men and women see each other as equals and co-creators in life, rather than one sex existing to elevate the other?
Hi Piers, the genetic bottleneck which informs the statistic "40% of male humans have historically had reproductive success" was less that 10k years ago and corresponds with the expansion of the agricultural patriarchal society which Victoria describes. Most of Europeans can trace their lineage back to 3 men.
Thanks for this Paddy. Looking it up, it seems there were several bottlenecks, of which that most recent example was the most extreme. And it seems to mark male control of resources coming to the fore as well. But female mate selection is my central point, which applies across nearly all mammal species, including our own, and goes all the way back into deep time. My whole argument is that our most primal systems go far further back than the dawn of agriculture, with a powerful residual influence on our behaviours to this day. What are your thoughts?
I think that it is very difficult to draw sociological analysis from prehistory in general and that attempting to draw sociological analysis about contemporary behaviour patterns based on deep prehistory is tantamount to myth making. But I think that I agree with the mythic narrative that mammalian life necessitated the power relation that you talk about here. I wonder about how useful it is with respect to modelling ones life or modelling societies other than identifying the power dynamic in the present, in absence of the historical narrative,i.e. do the historical understanding of a contemporary relation actually bring clarity to the situation?
Hmmm I agree that biology plays a role in human behavior. But I think you’re overstating how much of human mating was ‘baked in’ before civilization. If mate selection was only driven by women filtering out unreliable men, we wouldn’t have seen widespread polygyny, forced marriages, and social structures where men controlled reproductive access etc etc
Also, evolution doesn’t just stop. Culture, technology, and social structures play a big role in shaping how we interact. If our relationship dynamics were set in stone before agriculture, why do we see such major differences in gender roles, mating customs, and family structures across different societies? I think that human behavior is more adaptable than you’re giving it credit for.
Also, farming definitely changed human relationships, but it’s not as simple as ‘it screwed everything up.’ Agriculture led to population growth, stability, and advancements that made civilization possible. Yes, it led to new inequalities, but it also enabled progress.
All I all I think that if the goal is to create healthier relationships today, it makes more sense to focus on what works now, rather than trying to return to an idealized past that may not have been as utopian as some might think…
Victoria, I hear where you’re coming from. Really I do. You’re voicing the general consensus. And to be clear, I’m saying that farming and the changes that it brought about screwed things up for women specifically. Of course it gave us many other wonderful things, but it also turned women into possessions. Prior to farming, polygyny wasn’t a thing. Parents probably had a lot of say in who their daughters and sons paired off with, but nothing more sinister than that. And love and attraction were there right from the start, with a clear emphasis on the sacredness of female mating choices. You’re absolutely right to condemn the way that women have suffered in power structures for thousands of years and the complicated legacy it leaves us with today. No argument there. And I’m not harking back to an imagined utopia. But I am insisting that we are all often too guilty of ignoring the 90% of our brain activity that happens completely unconsciously, all of which was coded into us before farming began and hasn’t changed much since then at all. We remain much more animal than human. We all think we’re so clever and sophisticated, but our civilised behaviour is only a carapace to a far more powerful interior complexity that has given rise to all of the twisted counter-reactions you rightly object to.
Feminism’s ’top down’ approach has huge merit and necessity in the many great things it has achieved. But feminism needs a ‘bottom up’ component that can honestly come to terms with biology, hormones, female cycles, motherhood, evolutionary psychology, spirituality and most of all, an embracing of the erotic. It’s too dry, too intellectual, not embodied, and too disrespectful and disconnected from Mother Nature. Nature is still in charge. We all still die. We all suffer a life of limited control over our choices.
I fear that the whole movement risks becoming a busted flush if it doesn’t wake up to this, which would be a shame. I believe that the tantrics and the many female movements associated with the Wild Feminine are doing a lot of good work in this area, although it’s not something I know a lot about.
As I say in my essay, it’s not just feminism that can’t embrace and channel our cthonic side, it’s the same with most religions and all state powers too.
But I believe there is gold to be mined in surfacing these deeper layers that are really at the steering wheel. I believe we cannot simply use intellect and outrage to suppress our instinctual motivations. Our pitiful intellects are no match for the power of the subconscious.
I believe that by understanding, embracing and positively channelling these energies, we can bring a better side of humanity into the light.
In one of Jared Diamond's books, he described an event where a plane in the 1930s landed in the New Guinea highlands for the first time. This was one of the last 'first contact' scenarios on Earth. These strange white men landed in a society that knew no diversity at all. The reaction of the natives was to send some of their young women over to have sex with the men, being relieved that they were just humans like them and not spacemen or deities.
I'd love to find out what those women were thinking. I suspect they hadn't made a choice to be sent to have sex with strange men they'd never met.
Now this was an agricultural society rather than a hunter-gatherer one, but the point still stands.
I’m basically saying that women are more choosy in their mating choices than men, across cultures and time, with an overwhelming effect on our evolutionary story and behaviours today. Is that a controversial point of view?
the 60% of the men that didn't reproduce contributed mightily to the building of society because they had a stake. What is happening now is those men don't have a stake and society will suffer including the women that are supposedly selecting or not selecting. I personally would not recommend for any young men to go into a relationship or a marriage today. But I guess that's already happening.
It’s an interesting question for young men today, certainly. But going your own way just feels too nihilistic to me. At the individual level, each man and woman can negotiate a relationship that works equally for them. What I would recommend is couples counselling for all people who get engaged. People need to know what they’re getting into
I don't disagree with the nihilistic part. However, girls are raised and socialized to do the right thing for themselves and boys are raised to do the right thing for a society that shows disdain for them at every turn. Whether you are in the U.S. or in Europe, there is a disdain for young men and a celebration for strong girls/women. Marriage rates and birth rates are not down because the majority of women don't want marriage and kids at some point. Both are down because there is no respect or appreciation for the men that sign up for those things. It's a cost/benefit analysis.
I get what you’re saying—historically, not all men reproduced, but they still contributed to society in major ways. And I do think there’s a real conversation to be had about how shifting gender dynamics and dating norms impact men today.
But I don’t think the answer is encouraging men to disengage from relationships entirely. Throughout history, men have found meaning in things beyond just reproduction—whether through careers, communities, or personal growth. If today’s challenge is that fewer men feel like they have a stake in society, wouldn’t the solution be to help men build meaningful roles and relationships, rather than assume disengagement is the only option?
Hi Victoria. The answer may not be to disengage from relationships entirely but it seems to be the only thing that society pays attention to now. No one cares what these young men go through but solely on the impact it has on women and society. And to your point, men have historically found meaning in things beyond just reproduction and historically men have received rewards/incentives through careers, communities or personal growth.
The solution you provide to disengagement is very rational. However, we didn't get here by being rational and no one is looking to help men build anything (men and women are willing to help women). No one looks at successful young men and says let's go help them except for their fathers or mothers. I don't even think most young men expect help from anyone. They are primarily a source of extracting resources. This is not a dim view, it's just how societies have thrived (my own workhorse theory).
Lastly, young men that are not loved by the village grow into men willing to burn the village to feel its warmth. I believe we are now at this stage in the U.S. and in Europe. It didn't shock me when I saw a survey of only 11% of young people willing to defend and fight for the UK. That's overwhelmingly young men not wanting to sacrifice for anything. There is nothing to protect.
I definitely get where you’re coming from, and I agree that society could do a better job recognizing men’s struggles. But if men feel left behind, why not fix it? Women didn’t sit around waiting for help; they fought for rights, protections, and resources. If men feel like they don’t have enough support now, why not organize and push for it instead of checking out?
And let’s be real—women have these resources because, for a long time, they were at a serious disadvantage. They had fewer rights, fewer opportunities, and way less protection. The support systems in place today weren’t just handed out; they were fought for— and still there are a lot of gaps in equality. If men feel they don’t have something similar, the answer isn’t resentment—it’s figuring out what’s missing and actually doing something about it in my opinion.
At the end of the day, no one is going to ‘give’ men a stake in society—they have to take it. But that doesn’t mean burning things down or disengaging. It means deciding what actually matters and building something better. That’s the real challenge, and it’s worth stepping up for. I think men have the power to redefine what it means for them to be valuable - outside of just being a “source of extracting resources”.
Side note: the happiest, most well adjusted men I know are guys who hangout with other healthy guys, and have that camaraderie and a shared goal. I think a lot of change could happen if men took the time to mentor other men. The leveling of the playing field between men and women doesn’t have to mean that men are victims and the only thing to do is hide and sulk. Both men and women alike need to stop with the victimhood and start working together to come up with solutions that benefit us all!
"Women didn’t sit around waiting for help; they fought for rights, protections, and resources. "
Most of the fighting was largely done by men. If you don't think this is the case go to countries where men refuse to fight/sacrifice for the rights of women.
"the answer isn’t resentment—it’s figuring out what’s missing and actually doing something about it in my opinion."
Pointing to reality doesn't mean there is resentment. The resentment is in a small percentage of men that no one pays attention to anyway but highly doubt this is the case for the majority of men.
-That’s the real challenge, and it’s worth stepping up for.
I don't think there is any incentive for stepping up. This is the one thing young men are communicating loud and clear but most of us don't want to listen to.
-I think men have the power to redefine what it means for them to be valuable
This is already happening. You go to work you come back home, you travel and you don't contribute anything additional to society.
-The happiest, most well adjusted men I know are guys who hangout with other healthy guys, and have that camaraderie and a shared goal. "
Most men that I know are well adjusted, take care of their kids, some are divorced, hang out once a month.
- "I think a lot of change could happen if men took the time to mentor other men."
This is where I believe society will suffer. Men used to mentor other men and to some extent still do but I believe mentorship and the extent has changed. What is the incentive for men to contribute to other men or to contribute to society? As I mentioned earlier, we socialize girls and women to do the right thing for themselves and for boys to do the right thing for society. The role is reversing.
I have a daughter and a son and I just don't think most women understand what it means to be a boy. Everything is against you and the boys that are raised mostly by just the mother are raised to the right thing for themselves. What happens when a workhorse is beaten down, is not trained properly like workhorse, and finally decides it just wants to be a horse? Either you find another workhorse or you carry the load yourself.
Women “settle” for a man who isn’t as good as they think they deserve and wonder why he can’t achieve more. It’s because that woman is holding him back. Women aren’t entitled to everything in the world a man could provide them just for existing.
Neither men nor women are entitled to any person. I still think this is a human problem not a gender differentiated one. The people engaging online with this type of content tend to be more anxiously attached / preoccupied, and usually partnered with avoidant partners. So of course from their vantage point it seems like whatever gender they are tries harder and is more engaged and the other gender is detached and doesn’t give a sh*t. But in reality there are many happy thriving couples out there, or at least securely attached people who don’t take everything their partner does (which probably mirrors what one of their parents did) as a personal attack or proof that men or women are more/less selfish, picky, etc. Just my two cents anyways.
Hmm… I don’t disagree completely with this post, I think it points out a lot of true things. However, I’m not sure I agree it encapsulates everything men want. My take is that men want respect most of all, the highest form of acknowledgment of fulfilling your manhood (being a “good boy”) is to be respected by a woman.
I think a woman’s unwillingness to do that, if a man has committed his life to you, is a form of emotional abuse. It reminds me of distant fathers who never give approval to their sons, it creates an unhealthy, lifelong complex in children.
Society at large, doesn’t respect men. Which is ultimately killing the drive for them to be what is necessary for societal prosperity. Also the economic factors, and the facts you alluded to that women are “talked out of” what they really feel.
Hi Blayne, I think you’re right. Thanks so much for these thoughts as you’re really helping me to see better into this. I think we’re talking about two sides of the same coin. I called it acknowledgment, but respect works too. I guess I’m talking about what men are trying to actively offer - usefulness, in order to earn respect. It seems to me that men get painted with an attitude of presuming automatic respect, often undeservedly. Not that there aren’t plenty of oafish men like this around. But I feel that our contributions, or at least our good intentions often go unseen, unrecognised, disrespected. I think that the popular picture of patriarchal entitlement is a distortion of true male purpose and it’s something I’m seeking to question and deconstruct to some degree. Hope that makes sense. Thanks again.
Hi Katerina, I’m so grateful and heartened by your considered comments here. Sure makes a difference to hear back from the Substack void! In fact you made my day. Thank you so much.
And yes, it’s a delicate area for me to try and unpack, and difficult to explore with all the many sensitivities and transgenerational damage across the culture. Despite all the rancour and ill will, I’m hoping to kindle a little hope and generosity. Just like your substack, it’s a labour of love, an attempt to skim a small stone of love into the pool and, perhaps create a few more positive ripples.
As you say, finding complementary ways to connect with each other must be the answer, so we’re both doing important work! I also appreciate your posts and they give me inspiration and pause to reflect and learn. Keep going and who knows, maybe we’ll make a difference!
Thank you for your kind answer. I'm glad it made a difference in your day! I understand how challenging it can be to write from a vulnerable place, especially in the current context where seemingly meaningless articles are receiving a lot of attention and popularity.
I also encourage you to continue writing and putting yourself out there. I look forward to reading your perspective.
I'm delighted that my work inspires you; it also comforts me to know that people value it as a labor of love as they are also writing from this place.
I didn't know about Kasia Urbaniak, but I have googled her, and I like what I see.
I'll go into her work and see what is there for me.
Thank you for the suggestion! Have a lovely contemplative week! :) All the best!
Hey Matthew, thank you so much for these excellent thoughts. I think I’ll edit my post to add in a consideration of the male contribution to baby-making. But, briefly, the thinking goes that, with the gap of time between fertilisation and birth, it’s not immediately obvious that sex makes babies. It was actually quite a big leap of insight for early humans to realise this. And while our ancestors did suss this pretty much from the start, our basic biological drives were already in place millions of years before Homo Sapiens emerged, or even primates emerged. So at a primal level, a part of us is still in thrall to The Great Mother. But this is all a very layered thing, with many later tweaks and qualifiers adding to the mix as time has gone on. There’s also a practical consideration of supply and demand with sperm, making eggs and wombs infinitely more valuable than the male contribution. The nurturant value that women bring all stem from these structural and functional qualities that have shaped us in our co-evolution. It’s pretty mind blowing to me. Ultimately, I feel we should all try and live with a lot more awareness and respect for the effects of deep time and the fact that so much of what we do is animalistic and simply dressed up and rationalised as human. To me, recognising the incredibly cooperative cocktail recipe that we have evolved into only makes life more beautiful and awesome. Our greatest challenge now, as I see it, is squaring all of what we are with what the industrial and digital revolutions ask of us. Thanks again. It really helps to receive input like this.
Greatly appreciate your point of view and see the wisdom in much of what you say. I agree, men like to rescue women, help them, and be useful. They love being valued by us just as we love being valued by them.
You respond to comments so maturely, with a mind eager to learn. I admire that too, though I’m not sure all the comments deserve as much courtesy as you so generously give them. Still, if you’re going to err, better to err on the side of being too kind and open than in being close-minded and unkind. It’s hard to hit that elusive perfect response, especially to criticism. Great job there too.
My biggest question,(please forgive me if you’ve already addressed this as I haven’t read every comment) is this: your assertion that men want women to be clear about what they want. Well…..maybe.
I’m older so maybe this is a generational thing, but I find if I tell a man what I really want, he’s very likely to resent any instruction. It’s true that women need to become more clear about what we want. Unfortunately, it’s been my experience that the men that I know don’t like it when I’m clear. Even when the request is made politely, lovingly, or gently, it’s often received as a woman telling a man what to do. Most men I know definitely don’t like the feeling of a woman telling them what to do! I haven’t had very good luck at being open with men about my needs. I’d be really interested in your thoughts about this.
Generally though, I appreciate your post and the way you are exploring the interactions between men and women. It takes courage and insight. I look forward to reading more of your work!
Hi Karin, What a lovely note. Thank you so much for the kind words of encouragement. I’m honoured you ask for my thoughts like this and I will do my stumbling and ignorant best. Of course, while my essay talks in grand generalisations, the natural question that emerges is “great, but how does it apply in my relationships?”
What makes this tricky is our own ever-shifting state, both internally and with our partner. And a big theme that’s emerging from all these interesting and helpful comments and conversations connects across to attachment styles. We all have a secure/insecure personal baseline and so do our partners. For the ideal couple, they’re both comfortable and confident in their own individual skin and tend to meet each other bang in the middle. But for at least half the world, a couple will be insecurely attached, with one leaning anxious and the other avoidant, one leaning in and one always running away and shutting down, both being unconsciously governed by childhood patterns of behaviour to try and feel safe in themselves. Personally, I’m anxiously attached, while my wife is dismissive avoidant. This is unusual, as normally, it’s the other way around. 75% of dismissive avoidantly attached people are men, and 75% of anxiously attached people are women. So the stereotype you can probably relate to is of a man who’s emotionally unavailable and a woman reaching out and getting nothing back. In a case like this, that meeting point between two people doesn’t fall naturally in the middle and the entire relationship labours under a constant asymmetry. If you don’t know about attachment styles, then welcome to the hugest of rabbit holes and prepare to have your mind blown and your life forever changed! My next post will cover this. The good news is that we can all do ‘the work’ to slowly shift ourselves into a state of secure attachment.
Attachment styles matter so much because they determine how a couple can negotiate these moments of connection and help us all to miss each other and meet each other’s needs. Which is basically what you’re asking: “how can I get my needs met?”
First of all, we have to consciously know exactly what we need. Harder than it sounds. I blurt stuff out too often without really checking in with myself about what I really want and why. All too often, this leads to me making a whole load of presumptions of things being understood when they actually aren’t. So it’s a case of recognising an internal discomfort or yearning and asking myself what the atomic truth is for me, nested inside a bunch of other stuff. Then we have to make a clear request, clearly stating how it would benefit you if the other person helped you out.
In this regard, I highly recommend you look up Alison Armstrong’s work. Dip your toes by looking her up on one of the podcasts she’s been on. And then, I’d suggest you read any or all of her books.
For something a little more hardcore, I would point you to Kasia Urbaniak, who combines her training as a Tibetan nun and her work as a New York dominatrix to help women read energy and take right action in the moment. She has a Ted Talk, is all over YouTube and has a great book called “Unbound”, if I remember rightly.
You can only do your part. If you’re dealing with someone who’s completely unconscious and closed to the idea of meeting you with love, then there are no guarantees. But we can all clean up our side of the street, with clear intentions, sparkling, playful requests and invitations and give our partners opportunities to join us.
But if you look at Kadence’s fantastic comment below here, you’ll see her hilariously landing on the essence of why this is all such a tricky thing to get right. You can read her going through the second-guessing thing in real time. Reading her note really took me to the experience of getting caught up in our own mind nonsense.
I think that’s all quite enough from me here! All I’d finish by saying is where I began, that behind a man’s mask is usually someone yearning to help and show his love. Invite that tenderness and vulnerability out in the right way and it should emerge and delight you both. Thanks again for writing and take care. Piers
Thank you, Piers! I’ll check out Alison Armstrong and Kasia Urbaniac. (Tibetan nun training combined with work as a New York dominatrix- fascinating combination!)
I also look forward to reading your piece on attachment styles! You are a rare treasure. Thanks again!
Yess I second (or third) all of this too. Very interested to hear your thoughts. I really enjoyed the points you made.. a lot resonated with my husband and father. Nearly everything did NOT attack when trying to align with my ex-husband. Though I would have no problem chucking him in that 5% to be fair. Actually it was entirely unfair… but that’s MY substack writing points not yours lol.
Back to the point… I wanted to chime in and say it may not be “generational” as Karin wisely suggested. Sincerely I wish it was. I’m 42 and my husband absolutely can’t take suggestion in any form. I’m a die hard people-pleaser (trying to work in that) but my point being I knowww how to deliver lines the way people want to hear them whether I want to or not. In fact I’m so good at it I’ve ruined quite a bit of my life doing it. Yet I still…. Wait… that’s it… that’s the shift. That’s the rift holy shit I’m getting it as we I type… it’s bc I’m trying to un-people please. I actually HAVE lost my touch. My patience and my shine. I’ve lost the ability to bullshit to the level I need to with him at times. And he can’t handle it. Because it flags failure.. right? Ok I’m all fairness I’m highly medicated for a migraine so this may at be crazy talk. Ok I’ll stop here… thank you for opening my mind and heart. I loved the piece. I saved it in my notes to share and revisit. 🤟🏽
Kadence, that’s a brilliant note! Thanks so much for taking me to the exact same place in such an embodied way. This shit gets completely derailed by people pleasing and so many of us live our lives abandoning ourselves in the moment, skittering around in bullshit and never quite getting what we need. Sounds like you’re getting wise to your own tricks. I’m trying to do the same too and it’s a slippery thing to get on top of. The other part is in being clear to the other person about why the thing you need would benefit you and brighten up your world. In this, I would recommend the wisdom of Alison Armstrong and Kasia Urbaniak, as I suggested to Karin in my note above. Hope the migraine has passed now and thanks again for sharing here. Piers
Hey that’s beautiful. Thanks for seeing things in the round like this. Many things are all true at once, but love still abides and we all need to try and stay as open as we can, despite all the horror making us want to shut down. Peace in your valley and thanks again
“This shit gets completely derailed by people pleasing and so many of us live our lives abandoning ourselves in the moment, skittering around in bullshit and never quite getting what we need.” Thissss. This this this. All in an effort to make life easier for everyone and yet we have done the exact opposite. Because in truth, people-people ISN’T truth. It’s lies. Deep lies. And betrayal.. like you said. I may run with this in my own writing.. thank you.
Also I would like to chime in and say how amazing you are with criticism in comments. It’s unbelievably inspiring. I understand fully the points these women are making.. and even agree… HOWEVER… I still believe that what you have offered here is gold panned from a muddy river. Absolutely treasure. I do believe that because this whole arena and emotions surrounding it are so complex that it can really keep us too zoomed in .. this helps me to zoom out and see the basic nature of what is behind so much pain. I agree with you. Our society and our way of life has really damaged the core of what men have been built to offer and not all of them are up for the introspective task that growth demands. Which fucking sucks. And is unfair to us women. But it does explain what the hell is going on. So thank you for that. Truly.
Oh yes I actually agree with this entirely. Very good point. Men want to feel like they know how to take care of the women in their life without being told to.
Yeah… I think it’s all about the way we do it. An invitation. A clearly communicated benefit to you. A little bit of love and shared emotion, without self-abandonment. All in contrast to criticism, blaming, nagging etc. As I have suggested elsewhere here, Alison Armstrong goes into how to do all of this far better than I could
Karin, I have the same feeling you do about trying to tell men what to do, or even asking for something directly- it doesn't go well! Maybe it is an older generation thing, I am not sure. I have learned it works much better to make requests to "the universe in general"- but make them in earshot of my husband. ("I would love to have some lavender plants in the backyard! Wouldn't that be nice?") Somehow that works much better than asking "would you plant some lavender in the backyard?"
I suggest that your example misses the emotional benefit to you that he can give you: “You know what I’d love? To see a little more colour and life in our backyard. If you could plant some lavender for me, it would fill my heart with joy every time I caught their scent. And every time I smelled that lavender, I’d be reminded of how much you care about me and how much you do to enrich my life in so many ways.”
(Sorry- I edited after realizing this line went in a direction I would rather not go) I do appreciate the wording you use, but I would probably save this kind of gushiness for AFTER the lavender appeared. Then, yes!
Well maybe that’s a good example of the ways we hold back when we could invite love in? Is that an example of the squick we all need to get past? Perhaps this is a case of ‘stepping into your feminine’? Genuine question. Genuine respect 🤔
Hah! Well… you can’t be his radiant queen if you can’t feel clean and comfortable in the bathroom. And it would mean so much to you to know he’d be prepared to suffer for your beauty regime. Something like that?!
Arinrye, I’m glad you’ve found a successful way to communicate with your husband. Good for you! Maybe Piers suggestions would work too. I’d be interested to hear.
I also want to thank you very much for subscribing to my Substack. I’m just getting started and every bit of encouragement means a great deal to me. ❤️
Here’s another example of communication with a man that occurred to me. When I signed a lease with my landlord for my office space, the lease stipulated that he would fix the very shaky stair railings by July 1st. July 1st came and went, and he didn’t fix the railings.
I asked him politely about it, and he said there was no such stipulation in the lease, so I sent him a copy. He laughed about how clearly the lease spelled out that responsibility. Then he put yellow caution tape all over the stairway which made my office look very uninviting and like a crime scene. I took down the tape.
I politely asked him several times if he would please fix the stair rails. He simply could not bring himself to do it. I got angry because I had older clients and this could be dangerous. My anger only made him more defiant.
Luckily, the building inspector came to inspect my building. He looked mostly on the inside and found out that I had followed all the code safety requirements. Before he left, I asked if he would, please include a note saying that the landlord needed to fix the stair rails within a month. I gave a copy of the inspector’s report to my landlord. The rails were fixed within two weeks. As long as a man was telling him what to do, he had no trouble complying.
From then on, I decided that fighting with my landlord was going to create a negative relationship that would cost me much more emotionally than the money was worth. So I found a great handyman who did work for a reasonable price and I rarely asked my landlord to do anything again. We got along famously and actually became friends. It was a beautiful building and the added expense was worth it to me.
I guess what I’m saying is that sometimes we simply need to accept each other’s limitations and focus more on creating a good relationship than on getting all our needs met. You might say that my greatest need was to have a good relationship with my landlord.
Hey Karin, your landlord was clearly in breach of his duty to you, his tenant. And it sounds like he presumed that, as a woman, he could probably ignore your request and get away with it. I wouldn’t want you to think that my essay subject applies here. This guy was an asshat and an oaf. But good for you for not putting up with it! It’s way more important that you get your rights as a tenant than you protect your relationship with your landlord. And anyway, putting up with being ignored is no kind of relationship after all.
I appreciate the intention here, but I think this reinforces a familiar narrative of “man as hero” or “man as provider”, that’s deeply rooted in capitalist and colonial thinking. It’s not a new insight; it’s essentially the “man the hunter” archetype reframed for a modern audience.
What’s described here isn’t necessarily about masculinity, but about how all human beings are wired to seek connection and belonging. The reward system in our brains responds to what our culture tells us is valuable. So when men are taught that being useful, especially to women, is the route to reward, it reflects cultural conditioning, not innate male nature.
Also, referencing “decades of anthropology research” is tricky. Much of that research is deeply flawed or steeped in outdated, Western-biased frameworks. There’s a plenty of work that challenges these assumptions, especially from feminist and post-colonial anthropologists.
So while the post may resonate with some, I question the broader cultural scripts it’s reinforcing.
Hi Emily, I greatly appreciate these well put-together thoughts, especially as you reflect a deeply intelligent set of nuances, all of them hugely relevant to what my essay tries to lay out.
So much so that it’s not easy to offer a concise and useful response! But let me try.
First, I have to stress that my piece in no way aims to offer some kind of unifying theory of masculinity or human love. That said, I have tried to identify what I see as probably the primary causal link in a chain of behaviours that cascade out into countless others. Namely, that the inherent asymmetries between male and female biology create a corresponding set of factors that ultimately make women more careful in their reproductive choices than men.
Following a somewhat Jungian process, I see the evolutionary output of this as a deep sense of awe in men towards the power that women hold over them. In healthy integration, this looks something like gentlemanly respect. In male disintegration, it manifests in fear, even terror, as in the case of the Taliban today.
Between these two extremes, the male psyche plots out along a spectrum. My thinking is that if men could generally better accept this primal power differential and come to embrace it with appropriate reverence, then the world would be a happier place. On the side of men, it would require a degree of yielding, and on the side of women, a degree of reclamation of female erotic power .
I recognise that feminism tends to lean more into a tabula rasa approach, where humanity can just decide to change our behaviours by decree and legislation than my argument allows for. It’s the old nature/nurture argument. And I don’t have the answers to this. But I will say that nature came first. Without any nature, there would be nothing to nurture. Of course, it’s immensely more complex than that, with endless feedback loops between genetics, epigenetics, and countless different contexts affecting how it all plays out. But ultimately, we are all far more animal than we are human, far more subject to nature’s shrugs than we allow for, and far too arrogant in our presumptions over the invisible nudges of our individual subconscious drives and the collective unconscious myths programmed into us. Cultural scripts and societal behaviours are merely echoes of something far deeper within us. My take is that it’s impossible to rewrite such overwhelming human imperatives with mere cognitive decision making. Far better to work with the grain, surface what’s pushing us along and channel it all into something positive.
This is only a point of view and I make it most humbly and truly welcome all checks and balances to my thinking, so please do keep it coming! My purpose is is to aim for understanding and accord and definitely not to stoke grievance. I think men and women can be a beautiful team together and I want to reveal ways we can be at our best.
Regarding your other excellent points, they are all valid extrapolations, but they go beyond the scope of this piece.
Finally, I should also mention that I am writing in a social context of generalised antipathy towards male behaviour and poorly understood reasoning, not least in men themselves, who often can’t bear to admit how very weak we are compared to women, so it’s easy to understand why you might find my approach naive or sentimental. I am romantic. I do have faith in love and I am so sad at what we are all becoming.
Adding a few more thoughts, because I think this narrative, while well-intentioned, has some deeper issues worth unpacking:
First, it centers men’s feelings of being undervalued without acknowledging the structural power that still benefits men in most societies. The idea that men are “useful but unappreciated” can easily slide into grievance politics if we don’t also talk about how systems already reward men disproportionately, especially in traditional relationship dynamics.
Second, the post lacks intersectionality. This concept of “being useful” seems to idealize a certain kind of man, without acknowledging how masculinity is experienced and constrained very differently across race, class, and culture.
Third, it frames value in quite a narrow way, men give, women receive. It misses out on the richness of emotional labor, mutual care, and relational depth that all people are capable of and responsible for. Why not broaden the idea of what being “needed” looks like?
There’s also a bit of a reliance on pop-psych and evolutionary logic that conflates “wiring” with culturally reinforced behaviors. Human brains are plastic, and our reward systems respond to what our culture tells us is desirable, so saying men are wired to be useful doesn’t explain why they think being useful is the goal in the first place.
Lastly, this narrative subtly romanticizes self-sacrifice. Saying that men find purpose in being useful sounds noble, but it also keeps them locked in a cycle where their worth depends on external validation, rather than fostering a healthier, reciprocal model of connection.
To pull it all together: I think the desire to be useful, to belong, to matter, these are human traits, not uniquely male ones. The issue is how society frames what usefulness looks like, especially for men, and what narratives we uphold as “natural.”
This piece tries to offer compassion for men, but it does so by reasserting a narrow archetype that’s deeply shaped by history, power, and culture. If we want to genuinely support men, we should question the systems that teach them their value lies only in output or utility, just as we should challenge the systems that limit and devalue others.
A more liberating conversation would move beyond usefulness and ask: what would it mean for all of us to be valued just for being human?
I actually loved this a lot thank u so much it rlly heightened my perspective on men and I can't wait to see how I can implement it and your right asking for smth has always been a female problem so u encouraging us to ask has made me so happy thank u so much
You are giving men way too much credit. I'd say the majority of us are selfish, irresponsible, and lazy. Some women end up with them and have uphill battles until they can't take it anymore.
Do household tasks without being asked. Take regular showers and fully wash your ass. Get to know her preferences - if something bothers her and she keeps telling you, listen. Divorces happen when she finally decides you're not going to get any better.
There are also a lot of difficult women with unrealistic expectations, who can never be satisfied. I'm not going to guess a percentage, but I have seen plenty of men make effots to be good husbands, and still wind up with an unhappy, complaining wife. Some people are just miserable.
Your advice has some truth, but it's only good for a certain amount of couples - and it's hard to know what relationship you actually have - even if you're in it.
It’s fascinating how you managed to write 5000 words without ever once considering that men could — and should — be responsible for their own sense of worth, purpose, and emotional regulation. Reducing women to external validation dispensers, while dressing it up as romantic wisdom, isn’t insightful — it’s just a long-winded way to offload the hard work of emotional growth onto the nearest available woman.
Framing women as both the gatekeepers of male self-worth and the scapegoats for male failure isn’t clever, it’s manipulative. Men are not fragile by design, and women are not emotional sherpas tasked with carrying their partners up the mountain of basic self-awareness.
If your goal was to articulate why so many women are exhausted by relationships where they’re expected to provide constant guidance, praise, and emotional labor just to keep their partner afloat — congratulations. You nailed it.
Polite suggestion: Consider the possibility that the greatest gift a man can give the woman in his life isn’t his usefulness — it’s his accountability.
Thanks Wendy. I need to read what I wrote again through this lens and make sense of what you say.
No. What Wendy said is absolute nonsense. Don’t be so quick to bend over backwards for every kind of criticism.
He's just looking for good boy points.
You mean she’s a feminist?
No, she's approaching your article all wrong and missing the point of it completely.
No, she is bashing men. Feminists do that all the time. Feminists in Congress made sure that 3 times more taxpayer funds are spent on breast cancer than prostate cancer.
Frank, the reason congress women make sure there is funding for women’s health care is that practically all medical research use males as the standard. This Feminist Congress-Baba Yaga you are so unjustifiably angry with was elected to bring medical research into gender balance. https://theconversation.com/why-are-males-still-the-default-subjects-in-medical-research-167545
The Congressional Women's Caucus deceived their colleagues when they created the Women's Health Act in 1994. They claimed that women's health "only" reecived 15% of the NIH budget. They left out the fact that that 15% was already twice the amount spent on men's health. Feminists are liars, grifters and con artists
You only mention NIH funding. Are you aware the private pharmaceutical industries fund male centric disease research for their products? The NIH, a government agency, usually helps fill in the research “holes” that private agencies don’t find profitable.
The industry data is used to recommend protocols for both male and female. This even though women may respond differently. It would be inefficient and wasteful to have taxpayers fund research that which private industry is already studying.
No they didn’t. One office for women’s health, created back in 1994, became ten such offices. Men’s health was ignored back in 1994, and it still is today.
Men die at younger ages and in greater numbers from every major cause of death in the USA, yet there is no funding program for men’s health.
Frank, one office with 10 branches is probably inadequate to cover women’s health issues.
Do you understand that the many government Health agencies do not distinguish between M/F because they encompass both. As said before, these non-gender specific health agencies use research from data collected from men.
Congress is obliged to give women equal access to relevant health information. If the US studies are relevant to men, we must also produce studies relevant to women.
Illness discrimination?
Discrimination against men, which takes many forms. Spending far more on breast cancer than prostate cancer is one form. Creating 10 offices for women's health, and zero offices for men's health is another. The feminists in HR that openly discriminate against men are another. Then there is the fact that the Democrats state right on their website that they serve women, but not men.
Based on my initial googling, it looks like breast cancer kills 18 percent more people in the US each year than prostate cancer The average age of death from breast cancer is 10.5 years earlier on average than age of death from prostate cancer (69 v 79.5 years). Given male and female lifespans of of 74.8 years and 80.2 years respectively, (and ignoring for the moment male cases of breast cancer) you have a breast cancer killing women an average of 11 years before their expected life span, and prostate cancer killing men an average of 5 years after their expected lifespans. So the funding gap may be a rational product of the difference in the average amount of time lost to the diseases, not a product of sexism.
She is correct but ungenerous. A relationship is about 2 people giving each other. And they should aim to give each other what they want and need.
Complaining that your husband is not working on the right projects to please you, while also claiming you don't need to give an occasional ego massage to please him, is hypocritical, not to mention self-defeating.
If you really want to understand what Wendy is saying, read The Gender Knot. Take it in and then reread what you wrote. Be a part of real change.
I do understand what Wendy is saying. But what she is saying is downstream of the thrust of my essay here. Her comment has deep relevance to my piece as a follow-on link in the chain, which relates more to attachment styles and an individual’s sense of self and centre. But I see this as a really helpful build on my thinking, rather than a negation or detraction. I stand by what I’ve said so far and will cover Wendy’s space in a future post. Many thanks for the book tip!
Wendy is almost certainly a horrible person to be around and I suspect the people around her find her absolutely exhausting. The people who complain about “emotional labor” are exactly the type of people who have no insight into how much emotional labor they create for others. Because they have zero empathy.
I can smell a man-hating feminist from a mile away. If you want to do some reading, take a look at The Myth of Male Power. Then you can be a part of real change.
While your comment carries truth, I think it misses the point and therefore makes the mistake a lot of women make when engaging with men who are being honest and vulnerable enough to tell you the truth about who they are, how they think, and why. I personally think that this refusal accept and hear the truth from the horses mouth is where the 'love gap' as Piers calls it-comes from.
I think a lot of women have an idea of men that resembles that of a Disney prince and when this idea is questioned we find ourselves in defense mode at best or in complete despair at worst. Peirs isn't framing women as the gatekeepers of male self worth. It seems like he's explaining the ways in which men place their self worth in the hands of women, because they also have an idealized version of us that defies reality. This isn't romantic wisdom, this insight into the psychology of the average human male, which based on my individual analysis, IS NOT WRONG! It is not a completely terrible thing that men desire to be useful because society does need useful men. We do need men who are willing to be of service to their community, because men who don't become dangerous. Read any anthropology article regarding manhood and masculinity. Study any society that has an abundance of men who are not useful and you will find a similar disruptive result.
So while accountability to the women they seek to serve is important, while developing a derived sense of self is important, it's not the reality.
Incredible perspective, honestly. The author of the article didn’t do a very good job of framing their particular perspective on the matter - for better or worse. Its message reads about as well as the person reading it.
I was also outraged that the author appeared to be framing my worth through my desire to be useful to women. I thought that was actually intensely offensive as I don’t strive to (in the same way I don’t expect others to strive to) be useful to any gender in particular but to society in general. But having read your comment I can understand the articles perspective differently. Still, I think the article is shit, but at least I can see the prettier side of the shit lol.
Absolutely right
hear, hear.
Fair points, but your individualistic presuppositions might be a little excessive. Does the author really reduce women to external validation dispensers, or might they be suggesting that men and women are at their best when they rely on one another?
Nicely said Iain! Thank you. However, I feel that Wendy makes a valid point towards the risk of men and women losing their own centre in trying to manipulate the feelings of their partner. Nice guy/girl syndrome is a curse. But I think this has more to do with codependency and attachment styles, which I’ll be addressing in a future post.
I’m glad you said this and it echos what one of my other comments said. I reread this piece and it’s interesting, I kind of got a different feel for it. Just because as a woman I don’t “agree” or have the same feelings as a man, doesn’t mean this perspective isn’t many men’s truth and valid in its own right. So I’m sorry for originally being quick to get defensive - guess I’m human haha. Would love to read the follow up post on attachment style and codependency because it seems what is being described is a man with anxious attachment partnered with a woman with avoidant attachment. If one were to only use what’s online to fuel their opinions of men, they would think they all men are anxiously attached but they’re just the more vocal ones.
Hi again Victoria, you absolutely diagnosed my attachment style correctly, I’m sheepish to admit! I really hope this hasn’t unduly coloured my essay. Perhaps it has, or perhaps it has helped me see a male vulnerability that other men may be more blind to. As you probably know, most insecurely attached men index towards avoidance, so I’m in a minority on that front. Another commenter also wondered if I’m sexually submissive, surmising that it may be an influence on my thinking. I don’t know the answer to that question… but an interesting thought too. My feeling is that all men have a degree of anima-shaped submissiveness within them, but few get to let that surface safely.
I think I need to write about scum bag men next. I think it follows on more naturally from my last. Then I’ll do the piece on attachment.
Most of all though, props to you for circling back here and re-sounding your senses on all of this. A real marker of emotional sophistication and open intellect, deserving great respect. You’re an example to us all. All the best.
I mean does it matter if it has? Write what you know, or so I’ve been told :) I’m interested how you define scum bag man because I truly don’t think any human is all bad— but maybe thats referring to the stereotypical, avoidant man/ seemingly aloof player who seems to just be selfish and neglect his anxious partners needs (while still suffering from the same insecurity and feelings of fear of abandonment that his partner ironically has lol).
I’d like the return the compliment, it’s not often that I get to have a discussion online that is genuinely coming from a place of curiosity and not anger. Do you ever write on Medium?
That warms my heart. Agreed! In answer to your question, I want to try plotting a spectrum of masculinity, from well adjusted, integrated manhood, to less so, to chauvinism, to sexism to outright misogyny, to insane, Taliban-level hatred of women- I think I can take all of this and overlay it into my core idea that men are the secondary sex when it comes to reproductive choice. If there’s any truth in that thought, then it puts men at a certain disadvantage at a deeply primal level. For those men in whom this is healthily accommodated , it manifests as appropriate reverence. But for other men, it could be a shadow aspect that generates defensiveness, fear and even unnamed terror. It’s the only sensible explanation I can think of for the Taliban and their ilk.
I haven’t written on Medium. Is it worth doing?
I’d like to do so much more writing but my family life is chaotically busy and I just can’t find enough time. I also work as an advertising copywriter, so I have a classic aversion to being chained to a keyboard all the time! Thanks as always and take care
“Cuck yourself”? That’s more shameful immo— being angry and defensive in comments does nothing to get your point across. Case in point I was able to reread this piece and catch a different nuance because the author was open minded and open to conversation. If he had been abrasive and rude I probably wouldn’t have reread the piece. Catch more flies with honey than… other stuff lol
Out of curiosity, what do you gain from that comment? No one forced you to read my comments, yet you still did. Not to mention the author of the piece did seem to get something out of my comments and that’s who I was responding to. Anyways I hope you have a great evening or day wherever you’re at.
indeed, a lot of that is her own frame and conditioning. A lot of defense there, and I can imagine how upset she must've been when reading it from that fixed lens.
Also, you hit the nail on the head there talking about how it suggests that women and men do best when they allow themselves to rely on one another.
Victoria, our exchanges have been really nourishing for me and I’m grateful to you. Anyone who speaks so dismissively to your thoughtful and open engagement should only be dismissed from your mind. Don’t let this stuff tarnish your day.
What are you talking about ? Seriously ? How narcissistic and ungrateful are you that you would turn an article addressing the male drive to PLEASE WOMEN into an example of misogyny. Fucking unbelievable. Oh, and by the way, a few “thank you”s every now and again from women for the men WHO MAINTAIN SOCIETY isn’t “manipulation”… ITS BASIC DECENCY.
Your misogyny is shouting from the roof tops lance. We don’t owe you a damn thing as we also create and sustain this world.
My “misogyny” is shouting from the roof tops? How so? It’s “misogyny” to suggest that good men deserve a little fuckin’ appreciation for once?
Jesus Christ lance get it together man. I took a look at your profile and it seems like you have some incredibly deep issues with gendered topics. You should discuss that with someone qualified to help you with it - it’s looking a bit radical.
yo, chill. she’s wrong, but for a completely different reason
Right. It all works best when one’s cup flows over in generosity than as a withdrawal. My essay here was all about presuming the best in a partner we generally trust and drawing that out in good faith.
Care to elaborate further?
yes, and not only that, where are these men you are talking about? women's power is replaced by fast food only fans pages. and soon robots. men are not working tirelessly to impress women they are working tirelessly for their ego and ambition in which women have very little to do with at this time. I was considering recently on reading all these articles similar to this. men only were chivalrous when sex was withheld for ages. when it became disposable no body cares about anything anymore. the solution I have for my self and I suggest is spirituality, sacred sex and the sacredness in each other. See each other as sacred and not disposable. Sex as awakening. we do not need anymore men children...we need presence.
Hi Sylvia, thanks for these reflections. I wish I had all the answers! I think that what you put your finger on so nicely are aspects of social corrosion that are growing and multiplying as we lose touch with the best versions of ourselves, and the things that matter most. Connection with the self and with others is being eroded as technology interferes with the ways we spend our time. A man losing himself in porn. A woman spending all her time shopping for beauty products on TikTok. A sex worker making the porn. A child slave making the beauty products. A feedback loop of global detriment. All these empty calories of empty existence are a massive time suck. And people are forgetting how to bother with deeper endeavours. Like putting time in with their partners and being honest and generous with their truth. As we lose connection, we lose faith. The more asleep we are, the further we are from consciousness and personal integration. The behaviours you describe are the acting out of our various shadows. I think you’re absolutely right in saying that spirituality and turning towards the sacred, sexual or otherwise, are a powerful answer to these things. But we aren’t all asleep. We aren’t all doing nothing. We haven’t all lost our way so badly. And those of us who still love need to keep faith, not lose heart and do the work. If we lose heart then everything will be lost. So hang in there and please don’t write ‘men’ off as a whole. Many men are still in the arena, still doing their best, stumbling blindly forward as best we can. We aren’t all louts and losers.
yes it is overall loss with what is meaningful.
We must fight against this “Brave New World”! We live an age of rampant misanthropy and nihilism, one thing is certain: we need each other now more than ever.
Blah blah blah. Men are shit, aren’t we?
Sex bots are going to be far, far more popular with women than men; to a comparable degree that romance literacy is more popular among women. The current romance chat bots (AI significant others, whatever you wanna call it) are mostly used by women.
Wow, I’m mortified by the comments attacking you here Wendy. Your comment resonates with me.
I love that these are the very men who are pining for "some" appreciation. Shocking that they don't get any.
“Accountability”. WHAT ARE YOU EVEN TALKING ABOUT? You’re just a feminist platitude machine. I would recommend thinking for yourself for a change, and also, remove that massive chip on your shoulder while you’re at it.
As woman, I enjoyed this and after reading the comments it made me feel like I was wrong to. I believe that as much as the author wrote this piece shedding light on this topic from mostly a personal perspective, I feel that I got some insights that felt like therapy and I'll explain. Maybe he generalised his perpectives but as a chronic people pleaser especially in relationships, always supressing my needs to maintain harmony, this post reassured me that all that really could be doing more harm than good. I know it's not my job to teach you to love yourself and find worth outside of my validation but it is my job to at least communcate my needs and/or expectations. Right? Yes, we shouldn't agree to the weaponised incompetence of "I'm a piece of shit, because you won't love me or mommy me through this process." but for me this really encouraged me and validated me that expressing my needs to an emotionally mature-done the hard work- man should not destroy the relationship...and I needed to hear that.
100% agree with this! I really feel you pinned down the tension point with your insightful comment here. We all have to hold our centre, know our needs and develop the skills to communicate them with love. NOT EASY!! But we can all do the work. Even if one partner grows enough to do that, the other may often evolve that way in turn, or so I understand. My wife and I are on this journey ourselves, doing EFCT and I often can’t believe how much I hadn’t understood about myself before. Thanks so much for your insight here.
If you want a certain behavior in a partner, seek out someone who exhibits it, then incentivize that behavior. Too many times we are trying to “do over” relationships that failed us. That can lead to being attracted to those likely to fail us again. This drive, for lack of a better word can be hard hurdle to overcome and it can cause us to miss out on someone who can actually give us what we want.
Well fucking said. The replies are...telling.
Wendy, I agree whole heartedly with your statements as to where we need to progress in our humanity and human development. All humans would benefit from self awareness and personal regulation.
I also agree with Piers that there are biological imperatives at play. Piers explains, from his learned viewpoint, culturally we are favoring biological imperatives and neglecting evolutionary growth of our human (not only Male/Female) capacities. We are learning (we “were” learning pre-47) from science so much about human sexuality and gender biology that could bring greater understanding of our past and current cultural expressions.
What I gain from this essay is a somewhat static picture of what has been the “norm” of our past and much of our present. It helps to know where you are to figure out where you want to go.
Knowledge and understanding of the past/present as well as our own human mammal/biological form on planet earth is a necessary step into a more meaningful, self directed, personally guided future.
Thanks for this Jay So. I agree. I think we tend to neglect a holistic picture of ourselves as minds and bodies with unbroken lineage and connection to all that came before. We all behave as though we have transcended nature, when that couldn’t be further from the truth. Therefore, it makes sense to me to aim to better understand ourselves as animals, mammals and thinking human beings. This way, we can work with the grain of our own makeup, trying to embrace what’s good and integrate the undeniable darker urges we all have into something healthier. Thanks again for your balanced perspective here
ouch....but for men who are not self-sufficent emotionally in the manner you feel admirable...i would say the greatest gift a man can offer his aspirational partner is honest and sincere love and making his actions match his feelings. and his putative partner has to decide whether she can sincerely partner up with this man (as opposed to other interested men or her personal lack of interest in "mating up") and clearly express this to the guy who wants a real relationship. i respect and agree with most of the perspective described in this posting. and there is that predatory male minority.
it's hard to build a healthy relationship, but the rewards are so enormous for a man's satisfaction with his life's journey.
I’m not
"emotional labor"
Which is known as being human, but congrats on trying to commodify basic human interactions, capitalists would be jealous.
Also, single mom. Unsurprising.
This is a valid critique. A man’s usefulness needs to have a purpose decided by him, not dictated by her. The actual usefulness of a man is reflected in how carefree he can make her life and how young she feels around him. Expecting her to dictate the terms of the relationship and not feel like she’s your mom is not possible. The premise of this article seems to stem from the failed parenting techniques critique of sex relations taught by the red pill. Overbearing mothers teach their children that it’s important to make mom happy and then later when in a relationship men play that out with their wives. Feminism teaches the wives to go with it and you end up in a marriage devoid of agency for the man. The woman can’t respect him because he can’t respect himself. He subjugates himself further because he believes he isn’t subservient enough. Like it or not it’s not a vibe women like. They may say they do but people have a way of doing things that seem right that make them profoundly unhappy. Research the emasculation paradox for more.
Hi Francisco, thanks for these thoughts. None of what I’m suggesting is zero sum. Rather an attempt to put words to what I see as the initial cause that drives so much of male behaviour. It’s more a case of nature’s nudges than of anything more overt and absolute. From this initial nudge to develop worth in the world, a man may design a cathedral, spend his time sending dick picks to women, or at the most nihilistic, perpetrate rape and murder. All of this depends on how well socialised and integrated he is as a result of his experiences of the world. In this increasingly confusing world, these ancient nudges still operate within us and can be forces for good or ill. My invitation to men in this essay is to recognise the power that women hold over men, embrace it and respect it. Not to give over their personal agency and sense of self. It’s an invitation to humility and gentlemanliness. To women, I’m trying to illustrate the same and encourage confidence to poke behind the masks that men wear and recognise their potential for decency and greatness. Given the appalling way that so many men have behaved towards women, throughout recorded time, it’s a massive ask and highly counterintuitive. But if we want to improve male behaviour and female safety and joy, I think that recognising and embracing this fundamental asymmetry between the sexes might offer a better world for everyone.
Sorry had to come back to this to tell you I hope a cinderblock falls from a windowsill and annihilates your head
Hi. I needed to hear this. You’re right to say what you say and I am definitely generalising in the face of millennia of male atrocity. Men have caused so much pain that it has become the expectation of my sex. But that is why I’m writing this; to speak for the overlooked vast majority of men who are not the way you describe. That much is true. Please take some heart from that and don’t give up on all of us. That said ,the pain that men cause is so grievous, it cannot be ignored and I need to address it or stop writing now. So thank you for speaking out. And for not totally unleashing on me too, which must have been tempting. Your points land fair and square. I hear you and take what you say seriously. All the best to you and thank you for this important challenge. Piers
I'm divorcing my husband who begged me for this type of validation while completely ignoring my very clear pleas and instructions for him to do things that were ACTUALLY useful to me. While I was pregnant and very ill and disabled, he decided to start a side business to make extra money that we didn't need while leaving me to fend for myself for FOOD and WATER. Instead of doing the bare minimum of literally just bringing the snacks and water I asked for into the bedroom so I wouldn't have to risk falling and experience immense pain every time I needed to feed and hydrate my dying body while it was depleting itself to create a new life, he was tunnel focused on what HE defined as being a good boy, all the while ignoring my actual needs that I clearly and kindly communicated to him. He neglected me and our child as well. He still looks to me for his good boy pats on the head when he takes our child to the museum once a month while claiming that he's a 50/50 dad.
I would challenge your claims that most men are "good". He's one of your "good" boys who wanted so desperately to "serve" me that he looked past me entirely to fulfill a mission (earning $$) that society tells him is useful and head-pat worthy instead of listening to his wife and treating her with basic human decency. Separating from him, I'm finally able to heal my body and mind. It's been a little over a year, and I am doing so much better without him, even living below poverty level.
A key to this ideology that you have spelled out is actually treating the woman as a human, not just as a Goddess. He was focused on placing jewels and gold at my temple while letting it deteriorate and decay, despite my clear communication. For this, he is not a good boy, and there are far more of his type of "good" boy than there are of the idealized good boys you claim make up the majority of men. He was doing "good boy" acts for his own ego, not for actually serving me. The majority of men are like this.
Hi NR, many thanks for your comment. Sorry for the late reply. I was in hospital for a spell. I have to say, it sounds like your husband has been astonishingly deaf to your needs and clearly has a long way to go in learning how to receive a clear message and take right action. You use the phrase 'tunnel vision' and that sounds like a perfect description. How sad and what a waste. Clearly his idea of useful service is absolutely useless and totally disconnected from what you needed. It's just so frustrating to read your account of your experiences. How much easier it would have been to simply tune into you properly and really listen, rather than super-imposing a whole bunch of his programming onto your situation.
I can't imagine how frustrating this must have been for you and I'm so sorry for the necessary pain ahead in rebuilding your life. I'm very glad to hear that life is looking up and wish you all the best for the future. Chin up. You've already shown great strength in facing difficult truths in faith of better times. I'm sure your courage will repay you, so hang in there.
this here is an absolute god-tier response my man. such finesse, grace, love, humility, and kindness.
"male atrocity"? Feminists in Congress made sure that 3 times more taxpayer funds are spent on breast cancer than prostate cancer. They created 10 offices for women's health, and ZERO offices for men's health. If you are falsely accused of rape or paternity, or destroyed in divorce court, you will learn about female atrocity.
Hi Frank, I hear you. But these political matters fall far beyond the scope of my essay. They are outcomes of a pendulum swing that needs to correct itself.
But I’m writing about the deepest, most ancient parts of human nature, how they might be formed and the possible ways they show up in the present.
That said, my message is a provocation to contemporary thinking, for both men and women. For men, I’m inviting the possibility that women hold a great power over us at the deepest level, and that the only natural response is healthy reverence. Not for a man to abandon his purpose and vision for his partner.
For many women, what I’m saying is very confronting because it flies in the face of their own experiences of personal danger in the company of men, often their own partners. There is barely a woman alive who hasn’t experienced some form of harassment or harm from a man.
Historically, weak men have used their physical or political power to burn, rape or murder countless women. So it’s no wonder that some women who have responded here are disputing what I’m saying. I completely understand where they’re coming from and I’m asking them not to throw the towel in with all men. The sexes cannot be at war with each other and expect to build a better world.
Hi Piers, in case you didn’t know it, women batter men as often as the converse. The research establishing that fact goes back to the mid-1970s, starting with the work of Drs. Suzanne Steinmetz, Murray Straus, and Richard Gelles. The work has been replicated over the following years and decades. Here is a partial bibloiography of those findings:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/261543769_References_Examining_Assaults_by_Women_on_Their_Spouses_or_Male_Partners_An_Updated_Annotated_Bibliography
Men’s groups tried to prevent this evidence of equal perpetartion of domestic violence during the Violence Against Women Act hearings, but they were told to sit down and shut up. As a result, a law was passed that violates the Equal Protection rights of men.
You are right that women hold immense power over men, and VAWA is one example among many. Which is why men avoid feminists and only connect with non-feminist women that respect and value men.
Man up Piers, you are embarrassing
Hi Nick, I think you mistake me. I’m writing to support men and reveal the awe in which most of us hold the feminine. In healthily integrated men, this shows up as reverence and courteous gentlemanly respect, with the man remaining centred and true to his life purpose, inspiring and leading his partner with his steadfast strength and spirit. In less healthy men, it can mean an abandoning of the self and some form of codependency. In even less healthy men, this awe takes a darker aspect, ranging from avoidance to coercion to harassment and bullying to rape and other forms of brutality. Unfortunately, these last examples are at the forefront of many women’s minds, and with good reason. There is barely a woman alive who hasn’t faced some form of sexual assault. So the point I’m making about men’s awe of the feminine runs counter to how many women see us. I believe that mutual understanding must begin with accepting how this minority of messed up guys have messed things up for all of us, men and women alike. The answer isn’t red pill bullshit. That’s just a lame cope. I believe we need to show up and be accountable, self reflective and strong. I think we all need to drop our armour and offer compassion and love- even in the face of so much pain and resentment.
You don't support men by telling them to subordinate their interests to women, and talk about "male atrocity". The men that support men teach them how to survive in a system that doesn't give a damn about them, and feminist women that use them.
I appreciate the effort you made to be understood. Thank you. My rather brusque comment was not in relation to your paper but to the manner of your response to a rather rude critic, you used terms including millennia of male atrocity …that cause so much pain…that it is the expectation of males. You thank her for not unleashing on you? It feels off to me Piers. Everything around you, built by men and not just for access to breeding.
I disagree with the way you dismiss the notion of “Red Pill”. Presumably you are using a dismissive catch all term to disavow a body of work that I would characterize as males writing for a male audience, about the nature of women, quite the opposite to what I think you are doing here. In my opinion men, particularly younger men need the perspective to balance the onslaught of misandry and the idealization of the feminine common in our Society that your writing evinces.
Anyway, my comment was about your rubbery response to a female critic, not to the larger piece.
Well to be fair men did all that shit for access to women so 🤷🏻
women don't give a damn about men. One day you will learn that the hard way.
No we didn't, we did it for survival and the proportion of our households
You’ve got the patience, sanity and balanced perspective of a saint the way you’re wrangling this comment section, Piers. It’s as interesting a read as the article itself and so rare to find on the internet. Kudos to you! 👏
How kind of you Dr! Many thanks indeed. I have learned so much through this process. Some of it bruising, but most of it affirming and heartening - including your kind remarks here! The big lesson has been that respecting people for their viewpoints and looking past their sometimes aggrieved tone has yielded some really helpful insights and even a few new friends
My boyfriend early on in our relationship surprised me with coffee after I worked a night shift and I was really exhausted and worn out. It made me feel so touched (and I was so sleep deprived lol) that I started tearing up and profusely thanked him for how much his support meant to me. Ever since then he LOVES to get me coffee or tea. I always make sure to thank him a bunch and for his support in general and he beams. “You’re the best I love how well you support me.” I love how he looks when he feels all proud of himself for making my day better so I always try and thank him whenever possible for all the little things he does. I think it’s a big part of why we work so well together. I can just tell he thrives on being appreciated.
Hey that’s beautiful! Thanks so much for sharing. I’m so pleased at this resonance. Hope he appreciates you the same way too and all the best for your future together
This piece rubbed me the wrong way. While I agree that acknowledgement goes a long way, I’m sensing some themes here that don’t sit well with me. Instead of “Women choose, men lose,” a more accurate way to look at relationships is:
✅ Both men and women struggle to find meaningful relationships.
✅ Both men and women can end up in bad relationships that leave them unfulfilled. Women end up more frequently killed by intimate partners.
✅ Women do NOT always have an abundance of great options—many settle, stay stuck, or struggle in dating especially when searching for something serious.
✅ Men are not doomed to “lose” unless they embrace a victim mentality. Healthy relationships are built on mutual effort, respect, and growth.
Hi Victoria, I was being specific here about the mathematical facts of human mating across time, not describing the quality of relationships themselves. Only 40% of men in history have been chosen by women as suitable for reproduction. The rest missed out. But regarding the points you make, you’re damned right! Let’s make a better world for our children. Thanks for reading and engaging with the piece
The statistic about only 40% of men historically passing on their genes isn't because women had all the choice and just picked a select few. For most of history, women had barely any say (if any at all) in choosing their partners. Arranged marriages, forced unions, polygyny, concubinage, and coercion were common, meaning powerful men typically chose women, not the other way around. Elite men often had multiple wives or concubines, hugely tipping reproductive success in their favor. Many women were effectively chosen for these relationships, often without consent.
So, historically, the imbalance in reproductive success was driven way more by male power dynamics and societal hierarchies than by women actively choosing. If we're going to talk honestly about relationships, historically or now, we've got to acknowledge that.
You’re not going far back enough Victoria. Agriculture (and resource gathering) has only been around for about 12,000 years. We have to stack this against 300,000 years of hunter gatherers- and then about six million years of ancestry before that. 12,000 years is the blink of an eye. Our programming stems from deep time, with everything else mere cultural overlays to the hard wiring driving us along. Prior to agriculture, men and women cooperated far more evenly and didn’t function in the way you describe. What’s really interesting to me is how possible it might be to unpack our natural cooperative urges to help us unpick the unnatural patriarchal patterns you describe.
Ok but your article isn’t going far back enough then either because a large premise appears to be that “women choose men lose”. So which one is it, the “let’s look a billion years ago and guess what is nature and what’s nurture (it’s both)” or “women get to pick who they want?” What seems clear is that society plays a massive role in how men and women view themselves, their relationships, and their roles in society. But while I appreciate your article for attempting to shed light on some aspects that may help improve relationships, it paints men and women as different in the need for recognition when really, I think we’re more similar than people think. I for one would take on the world for partners, if I got acknowledgment once in a while. Most stay at home moms I know, for example, are not angry even if they seem to be - they just feel under appreciated. Everyone could use a genuine thanks once in a while - men and women alike.
Hi Victoria, yes indeed. Men and women are far more alike than not. And everyone needs and deserves recognition and mutual support. And, to generalise, working mums today don’t get anything like enough of either.
To your other question, I am basically asserting that there’s an asymmetry between men and women that flies in the face of so many of modern presumptions. And because it’s ignored and overlooked, it leads to a massive cluster of terrible outcomes.
I’m saying that, way down deep in our hardwiring, women hold a fundamental balance of power, because they select who to make babies with. Of course men have often taken women by force, but this has not been standard behaviour over time. Most pairings throughout human existence have been at the choosing of the woman. Our entire biology and cultural patterns have evolved out of this fact.
I consider this factor to be the very first ripple in the pool, from which a countless host of other behaviours and societal outcomes have cascaded. Since the dawn of farming, and the amassing of resources, the natural balance of power was thrown off, with men seizing control. Cultural checks and balances evolved from this, which both protected and suppressed women. Things like marriage and codes of male chivalry. In the agrarian era, people lived in closer communities , where women supported each other and held much more power in the hearth and home. And then the enlightenment turned everything upside down, dragging people into cities and separating women from each other. And now the digital age is screwing us all up even more.
But our evolved hardwiring persists. We still crave salt, sugar and fat too much. And men still crave female erotic energy.
I think that at the most primal level of the erotic, women hold the cards and men are subject to their power. I think that men who can’t healthily integrate the pre-eminence of women act out in hateful ways. The greater the denial, the greater the male fear, the more grotesque the male behaviour. Take the Taliban, for instance. And what is rape? It is an act of hatred that has a lot to do with power. Where is that hatred coming from? Why is it expressed as a profaning of female sacredness? And why is it expressed as a violent assertion of power? I think it comes from a man’s terror at his own relative weakness.
I think that masculine masks sit along a varying continuum of denial of the superiority of women at the most fundamental level. There are many other layers beyond this, around which all of our cooperative codes have evolved. But we have forgotten the fundamental truth and it has led to a terrible sickness in society. I think that the cure, the way to achieve the healthiest expression of masculinity, is for men to recognise and accept their humble state and bring what they have to offer in conscious service of the elevation of women. I know this is romantic and might sound naive. But I personally think it’s quite beautiful and is the wellspring of the highest forms of human love and happiness. Does that make sense?
I see what you’re saying about deep-seated biological impulses, and I agree that men and women have fundamental differences that shape attraction and social dynamics. But I think you’re still overestimating the extent of female choice in human history. Even in societies where women had some agency in mate selection, there were still social, economic, and coercive forces that limited their autonomy. Again, the idea that ‘most pairings throughout history have been at the choosing of the woman’ just doesn’t hold up when we look at the prevalence of arranged marriages, polygyny, and male-dominated social structures—even in hunter-gatherer groups.
If women were the ultimate selectors ‘way down deep in our hardwiring,’ how did so many patriarchal structures develop across different cultures? That suggests male control over reproduction wasn’t an anomaly, but a repeated pattern—one that emerged independently in vastly different societies. If female choice was truly the dominant force, wouldn’t we expect to see more historical societies where women retained control over their reproductive futures, rather than the overwhelming presence of male-dominated systems?
I also think framing women as the natural ‘superior’ sex who men must serve is just flipping traditional gender hierarchy on its head rather than dismantling it. Real progress doesn’t come from men serving women or women serving men—it comes from mutual respect and shared partnership. Rather than men needing to ‘accept their humble state,’ wouldn’t the healthiest version of masculinity be one where men and women see each other as equals and co-creators in life, rather than one sex existing to elevate the other?
Hi Piers, the genetic bottleneck which informs the statistic "40% of male humans have historically had reproductive success" was less that 10k years ago and corresponds with the expansion of the agricultural patriarchal society which Victoria describes. Most of Europeans can trace their lineage back to 3 men.
Thanks for this Paddy. Looking it up, it seems there were several bottlenecks, of which that most recent example was the most extreme. And it seems to mark male control of resources coming to the fore as well. But female mate selection is my central point, which applies across nearly all mammal species, including our own, and goes all the way back into deep time. My whole argument is that our most primal systems go far further back than the dawn of agriculture, with a powerful residual influence on our behaviours to this day. What are your thoughts?
I think that it is very difficult to draw sociological analysis from prehistory in general and that attempting to draw sociological analysis about contemporary behaviour patterns based on deep prehistory is tantamount to myth making. But I think that I agree with the mythic narrative that mammalian life necessitated the power relation that you talk about here. I wonder about how useful it is with respect to modelling ones life or modelling societies other than identifying the power dynamic in the present, in absence of the historical narrative,i.e. do the historical understanding of a contemporary relation actually bring clarity to the situation?
Hmmm I agree that biology plays a role in human behavior. But I think you’re overstating how much of human mating was ‘baked in’ before civilization. If mate selection was only driven by women filtering out unreliable men, we wouldn’t have seen widespread polygyny, forced marriages, and social structures where men controlled reproductive access etc etc
Also, evolution doesn’t just stop. Culture, technology, and social structures play a big role in shaping how we interact. If our relationship dynamics were set in stone before agriculture, why do we see such major differences in gender roles, mating customs, and family structures across different societies? I think that human behavior is more adaptable than you’re giving it credit for.
Also, farming definitely changed human relationships, but it’s not as simple as ‘it screwed everything up.’ Agriculture led to population growth, stability, and advancements that made civilization possible. Yes, it led to new inequalities, but it also enabled progress.
All I all I think that if the goal is to create healthier relationships today, it makes more sense to focus on what works now, rather than trying to return to an idealized past that may not have been as utopian as some might think…
Victoria, I hear where you’re coming from. Really I do. You’re voicing the general consensus. And to be clear, I’m saying that farming and the changes that it brought about screwed things up for women specifically. Of course it gave us many other wonderful things, but it also turned women into possessions. Prior to farming, polygyny wasn’t a thing. Parents probably had a lot of say in who their daughters and sons paired off with, but nothing more sinister than that. And love and attraction were there right from the start, with a clear emphasis on the sacredness of female mating choices. You’re absolutely right to condemn the way that women have suffered in power structures for thousands of years and the complicated legacy it leaves us with today. No argument there. And I’m not harking back to an imagined utopia. But I am insisting that we are all often too guilty of ignoring the 90% of our brain activity that happens completely unconsciously, all of which was coded into us before farming began and hasn’t changed much since then at all. We remain much more animal than human. We all think we’re so clever and sophisticated, but our civilised behaviour is only a carapace to a far more powerful interior complexity that has given rise to all of the twisted counter-reactions you rightly object to.
Feminism’s ’top down’ approach has huge merit and necessity in the many great things it has achieved. But feminism needs a ‘bottom up’ component that can honestly come to terms with biology, hormones, female cycles, motherhood, evolutionary psychology, spirituality and most of all, an embracing of the erotic. It’s too dry, too intellectual, not embodied, and too disrespectful and disconnected from Mother Nature. Nature is still in charge. We all still die. We all suffer a life of limited control over our choices.
I fear that the whole movement risks becoming a busted flush if it doesn’t wake up to this, which would be a shame. I believe that the tantrics and the many female movements associated with the Wild Feminine are doing a lot of good work in this area, although it’s not something I know a lot about.
As I say in my essay, it’s not just feminism that can’t embrace and channel our cthonic side, it’s the same with most religions and all state powers too.
But I believe there is gold to be mined in surfacing these deeper layers that are really at the steering wheel. I believe we cannot simply use intellect and outrage to suppress our instinctual motivations. Our pitiful intellects are no match for the power of the subconscious.
I believe that by understanding, embracing and positively channelling these energies, we can bring a better side of humanity into the light.
In one of Jared Diamond's books, he described an event where a plane in the 1930s landed in the New Guinea highlands for the first time. This was one of the last 'first contact' scenarios on Earth. These strange white men landed in a society that knew no diversity at all. The reaction of the natives was to send some of their young women over to have sex with the men, being relieved that they were just humans like them and not spacemen or deities.
I'd love to find out what those women were thinking. I suspect they hadn't made a choice to be sent to have sex with strange men they'd never met.
Now this was an agricultural society rather than a hunter-gatherer one, but the point still stands.
That sounds like an amazing account. Thanks. But I don’t follow your point. Could you explain a bit more please?
I’m basically saying that women are more choosy in their mating choices than men, across cultures and time, with an overwhelming effect on our evolutionary story and behaviours today. Is that a controversial point of view?
the 60% of the men that didn't reproduce contributed mightily to the building of society because they had a stake. What is happening now is those men don't have a stake and society will suffer including the women that are supposedly selecting or not selecting. I personally would not recommend for any young men to go into a relationship or a marriage today. But I guess that's already happening.
It’s an interesting question for young men today, certainly. But going your own way just feels too nihilistic to me. At the individual level, each man and woman can negotiate a relationship that works equally for them. What I would recommend is couples counselling for all people who get engaged. People need to know what they’re getting into
I don't disagree with the nihilistic part. However, girls are raised and socialized to do the right thing for themselves and boys are raised to do the right thing for a society that shows disdain for them at every turn. Whether you are in the U.S. or in Europe, there is a disdain for young men and a celebration for strong girls/women. Marriage rates and birth rates are not down because the majority of women don't want marriage and kids at some point. Both are down because there is no respect or appreciation for the men that sign up for those things. It's a cost/benefit analysis.
I agree. 100%
I get what you’re saying—historically, not all men reproduced, but they still contributed to society in major ways. And I do think there’s a real conversation to be had about how shifting gender dynamics and dating norms impact men today.
But I don’t think the answer is encouraging men to disengage from relationships entirely. Throughout history, men have found meaning in things beyond just reproduction—whether through careers, communities, or personal growth. If today’s challenge is that fewer men feel like they have a stake in society, wouldn’t the solution be to help men build meaningful roles and relationships, rather than assume disengagement is the only option?
Hi Victoria. The answer may not be to disengage from relationships entirely but it seems to be the only thing that society pays attention to now. No one cares what these young men go through but solely on the impact it has on women and society. And to your point, men have historically found meaning in things beyond just reproduction and historically men have received rewards/incentives through careers, communities or personal growth.
The solution you provide to disengagement is very rational. However, we didn't get here by being rational and no one is looking to help men build anything (men and women are willing to help women). No one looks at successful young men and says let's go help them except for their fathers or mothers. I don't even think most young men expect help from anyone. They are primarily a source of extracting resources. This is not a dim view, it's just how societies have thrived (my own workhorse theory).
Lastly, young men that are not loved by the village grow into men willing to burn the village to feel its warmth. I believe we are now at this stage in the U.S. and in Europe. It didn't shock me when I saw a survey of only 11% of young people willing to defend and fight for the UK. That's overwhelmingly young men not wanting to sacrifice for anything. There is nothing to protect.
I definitely get where you’re coming from, and I agree that society could do a better job recognizing men’s struggles. But if men feel left behind, why not fix it? Women didn’t sit around waiting for help; they fought for rights, protections, and resources. If men feel like they don’t have enough support now, why not organize and push for it instead of checking out?
And let’s be real—women have these resources because, for a long time, they were at a serious disadvantage. They had fewer rights, fewer opportunities, and way less protection. The support systems in place today weren’t just handed out; they were fought for— and still there are a lot of gaps in equality. If men feel they don’t have something similar, the answer isn’t resentment—it’s figuring out what’s missing and actually doing something about it in my opinion.
At the end of the day, no one is going to ‘give’ men a stake in society—they have to take it. But that doesn’t mean burning things down or disengaging. It means deciding what actually matters and building something better. That’s the real challenge, and it’s worth stepping up for. I think men have the power to redefine what it means for them to be valuable - outside of just being a “source of extracting resources”.
Side note: the happiest, most well adjusted men I know are guys who hangout with other healthy guys, and have that camaraderie and a shared goal. I think a lot of change could happen if men took the time to mentor other men. The leveling of the playing field between men and women doesn’t have to mean that men are victims and the only thing to do is hide and sulk. Both men and women alike need to stop with the victimhood and start working together to come up with solutions that benefit us all!
"Women didn’t sit around waiting for help; they fought for rights, protections, and resources. "
Most of the fighting was largely done by men. If you don't think this is the case go to countries where men refuse to fight/sacrifice for the rights of women.
"the answer isn’t resentment—it’s figuring out what’s missing and actually doing something about it in my opinion."
Pointing to reality doesn't mean there is resentment. The resentment is in a small percentage of men that no one pays attention to anyway but highly doubt this is the case for the majority of men.
-That’s the real challenge, and it’s worth stepping up for.
I don't think there is any incentive for stepping up. This is the one thing young men are communicating loud and clear but most of us don't want to listen to.
-I think men have the power to redefine what it means for them to be valuable
This is already happening. You go to work you come back home, you travel and you don't contribute anything additional to society.
-The happiest, most well adjusted men I know are guys who hangout with other healthy guys, and have that camaraderie and a shared goal. "
Most men that I know are well adjusted, take care of their kids, some are divorced, hang out once a month.
- "I think a lot of change could happen if men took the time to mentor other men."
This is where I believe society will suffer. Men used to mentor other men and to some extent still do but I believe mentorship and the extent has changed. What is the incentive for men to contribute to other men or to contribute to society? As I mentioned earlier, we socialize girls and women to do the right thing for themselves and for boys to do the right thing for society. The role is reversing.
I have a daughter and a son and I just don't think most women understand what it means to be a boy. Everything is against you and the boys that are raised mostly by just the mother are raised to the right thing for themselves. What happens when a workhorse is beaten down, is not trained properly like workhorse, and finally decides it just wants to be a horse? Either you find another workhorse or you carry the load yourself.
Women “settle” for a man who isn’t as good as they think they deserve and wonder why he can’t achieve more. It’s because that woman is holding him back. Women aren’t entitled to everything in the world a man could provide them just for existing.
Neither men nor women are entitled to any person. I still think this is a human problem not a gender differentiated one. The people engaging online with this type of content tend to be more anxiously attached / preoccupied, and usually partnered with avoidant partners. So of course from their vantage point it seems like whatever gender they are tries harder and is more engaged and the other gender is detached and doesn’t give a sh*t. But in reality there are many happy thriving couples out there, or at least securely attached people who don’t take everything their partner does (which probably mirrors what one of their parents did) as a personal attack or proof that men or women are more/less selfish, picky, etc. Just my two cents anyways.
Hmm… I don’t disagree completely with this post, I think it points out a lot of true things. However, I’m not sure I agree it encapsulates everything men want. My take is that men want respect most of all, the highest form of acknowledgment of fulfilling your manhood (being a “good boy”) is to be respected by a woman.
I think a woman’s unwillingness to do that, if a man has committed his life to you, is a form of emotional abuse. It reminds me of distant fathers who never give approval to their sons, it creates an unhealthy, lifelong complex in children.
Society at large, doesn’t respect men. Which is ultimately killing the drive for them to be what is necessary for societal prosperity. Also the economic factors, and the facts you alluded to that women are “talked out of” what they really feel.
Hi Blayne, I think you’re right. Thanks so much for these thoughts as you’re really helping me to see better into this. I think we’re talking about two sides of the same coin. I called it acknowledgment, but respect works too. I guess I’m talking about what men are trying to actively offer - usefulness, in order to earn respect. It seems to me that men get painted with an attitude of presuming automatic respect, often undeservedly. Not that there aren’t plenty of oafish men like this around. But I feel that our contributions, or at least our good intentions often go unseen, unrecognised, disrespected. I think that the popular picture of patriarchal entitlement is a distortion of true male purpose and it’s something I’m seeking to question and deconstruct to some degree. Hope that makes sense. Thanks again.
Hi Katerina, I’m so grateful and heartened by your considered comments here. Sure makes a difference to hear back from the Substack void! In fact you made my day. Thank you so much.
And yes, it’s a delicate area for me to try and unpack, and difficult to explore with all the many sensitivities and transgenerational damage across the culture. Despite all the rancour and ill will, I’m hoping to kindle a little hope and generosity. Just like your substack, it’s a labour of love, an attempt to skim a small stone of love into the pool and, perhaps create a few more positive ripples.
As you say, finding complementary ways to connect with each other must be the answer, so we’re both doing important work! I also appreciate your posts and they give me inspiration and pause to reflect and learn. Keep going and who knows, maybe we’ll make a difference!
All the best and thanks again.
Piers
Regarding the fear of being direct with men, are you aware of the work of Kasia Urbaniak? If not, check her out.
Thank you for your kind answer. I'm glad it made a difference in your day! I understand how challenging it can be to write from a vulnerable place, especially in the current context where seemingly meaningless articles are receiving a lot of attention and popularity.
I also encourage you to continue writing and putting yourself out there. I look forward to reading your perspective.
I'm delighted that my work inspires you; it also comforts me to know that people value it as a labor of love as they are also writing from this place.
I didn't know about Kasia Urbaniak, but I have googled her, and I like what I see.
I'll go into her work and see what is there for me.
Thank you for the suggestion! Have a lovely contemplative week! :) All the best!
Hey Matthew, thank you so much for these excellent thoughts. I think I’ll edit my post to add in a consideration of the male contribution to baby-making. But, briefly, the thinking goes that, with the gap of time between fertilisation and birth, it’s not immediately obvious that sex makes babies. It was actually quite a big leap of insight for early humans to realise this. And while our ancestors did suss this pretty much from the start, our basic biological drives were already in place millions of years before Homo Sapiens emerged, or even primates emerged. So at a primal level, a part of us is still in thrall to The Great Mother. But this is all a very layered thing, with many later tweaks and qualifiers adding to the mix as time has gone on. There’s also a practical consideration of supply and demand with sperm, making eggs and wombs infinitely more valuable than the male contribution. The nurturant value that women bring all stem from these structural and functional qualities that have shaped us in our co-evolution. It’s pretty mind blowing to me. Ultimately, I feel we should all try and live with a lot more awareness and respect for the effects of deep time and the fact that so much of what we do is animalistic and simply dressed up and rationalised as human. To me, recognising the incredibly cooperative cocktail recipe that we have evolved into only makes life more beautiful and awesome. Our greatest challenge now, as I see it, is squaring all of what we are with what the industrial and digital revolutions ask of us. Thanks again. It really helps to receive input like this.
Piers,
Greatly appreciate your point of view and see the wisdom in much of what you say. I agree, men like to rescue women, help them, and be useful. They love being valued by us just as we love being valued by them.
You respond to comments so maturely, with a mind eager to learn. I admire that too, though I’m not sure all the comments deserve as much courtesy as you so generously give them. Still, if you’re going to err, better to err on the side of being too kind and open than in being close-minded and unkind. It’s hard to hit that elusive perfect response, especially to criticism. Great job there too.
My biggest question,(please forgive me if you’ve already addressed this as I haven’t read every comment) is this: your assertion that men want women to be clear about what they want. Well…..maybe.
I’m older so maybe this is a generational thing, but I find if I tell a man what I really want, he’s very likely to resent any instruction. It’s true that women need to become more clear about what we want. Unfortunately, it’s been my experience that the men that I know don’t like it when I’m clear. Even when the request is made politely, lovingly, or gently, it’s often received as a woman telling a man what to do. Most men I know definitely don’t like the feeling of a woman telling them what to do! I haven’t had very good luck at being open with men about my needs. I’d be really interested in your thoughts about this.
Generally though, I appreciate your post and the way you are exploring the interactions between men and women. It takes courage and insight. I look forward to reading more of your work!
Hi Karin, What a lovely note. Thank you so much for the kind words of encouragement. I’m honoured you ask for my thoughts like this and I will do my stumbling and ignorant best. Of course, while my essay talks in grand generalisations, the natural question that emerges is “great, but how does it apply in my relationships?”
What makes this tricky is our own ever-shifting state, both internally and with our partner. And a big theme that’s emerging from all these interesting and helpful comments and conversations connects across to attachment styles. We all have a secure/insecure personal baseline and so do our partners. For the ideal couple, they’re both comfortable and confident in their own individual skin and tend to meet each other bang in the middle. But for at least half the world, a couple will be insecurely attached, with one leaning anxious and the other avoidant, one leaning in and one always running away and shutting down, both being unconsciously governed by childhood patterns of behaviour to try and feel safe in themselves. Personally, I’m anxiously attached, while my wife is dismissive avoidant. This is unusual, as normally, it’s the other way around. 75% of dismissive avoidantly attached people are men, and 75% of anxiously attached people are women. So the stereotype you can probably relate to is of a man who’s emotionally unavailable and a woman reaching out and getting nothing back. In a case like this, that meeting point between two people doesn’t fall naturally in the middle and the entire relationship labours under a constant asymmetry. If you don’t know about attachment styles, then welcome to the hugest of rabbit holes and prepare to have your mind blown and your life forever changed! My next post will cover this. The good news is that we can all do ‘the work’ to slowly shift ourselves into a state of secure attachment.
Attachment styles matter so much because they determine how a couple can negotiate these moments of connection and help us all to miss each other and meet each other’s needs. Which is basically what you’re asking: “how can I get my needs met?”
First of all, we have to consciously know exactly what we need. Harder than it sounds. I blurt stuff out too often without really checking in with myself about what I really want and why. All too often, this leads to me making a whole load of presumptions of things being understood when they actually aren’t. So it’s a case of recognising an internal discomfort or yearning and asking myself what the atomic truth is for me, nested inside a bunch of other stuff. Then we have to make a clear request, clearly stating how it would benefit you if the other person helped you out.
In this regard, I highly recommend you look up Alison Armstrong’s work. Dip your toes by looking her up on one of the podcasts she’s been on. And then, I’d suggest you read any or all of her books.
For something a little more hardcore, I would point you to Kasia Urbaniak, who combines her training as a Tibetan nun and her work as a New York dominatrix to help women read energy and take right action in the moment. She has a Ted Talk, is all over YouTube and has a great book called “Unbound”, if I remember rightly.
You can only do your part. If you’re dealing with someone who’s completely unconscious and closed to the idea of meeting you with love, then there are no guarantees. But we can all clean up our side of the street, with clear intentions, sparkling, playful requests and invitations and give our partners opportunities to join us.
But if you look at Kadence’s fantastic comment below here, you’ll see her hilariously landing on the essence of why this is all such a tricky thing to get right. You can read her going through the second-guessing thing in real time. Reading her note really took me to the experience of getting caught up in our own mind nonsense.
I think that’s all quite enough from me here! All I’d finish by saying is where I began, that behind a man’s mask is usually someone yearning to help and show his love. Invite that tenderness and vulnerability out in the right way and it should emerge and delight you both. Thanks again for writing and take care. Piers
Thank you, Piers! I’ll check out Alison Armstrong and Kasia Urbaniac. (Tibetan nun training combined with work as a New York dominatrix- fascinating combination!)
I also look forward to reading your piece on attachment styles! You are a rare treasure. Thanks again!
Yess I second (or third) all of this too. Very interested to hear your thoughts. I really enjoyed the points you made.. a lot resonated with my husband and father. Nearly everything did NOT attack when trying to align with my ex-husband. Though I would have no problem chucking him in that 5% to be fair. Actually it was entirely unfair… but that’s MY substack writing points not yours lol.
Back to the point… I wanted to chime in and say it may not be “generational” as Karin wisely suggested. Sincerely I wish it was. I’m 42 and my husband absolutely can’t take suggestion in any form. I’m a die hard people-pleaser (trying to work in that) but my point being I knowww how to deliver lines the way people want to hear them whether I want to or not. In fact I’m so good at it I’ve ruined quite a bit of my life doing it. Yet I still…. Wait… that’s it… that’s the shift. That’s the rift holy shit I’m getting it as we I type… it’s bc I’m trying to un-people please. I actually HAVE lost my touch. My patience and my shine. I’ve lost the ability to bullshit to the level I need to with him at times. And he can’t handle it. Because it flags failure.. right? Ok I’m all fairness I’m highly medicated for a migraine so this may at be crazy talk. Ok I’ll stop here… thank you for opening my mind and heart. I loved the piece. I saved it in my notes to share and revisit. 🤟🏽
Kadence, that’s a brilliant note! Thanks so much for taking me to the exact same place in such an embodied way. This shit gets completely derailed by people pleasing and so many of us live our lives abandoning ourselves in the moment, skittering around in bullshit and never quite getting what we need. Sounds like you’re getting wise to your own tricks. I’m trying to do the same too and it’s a slippery thing to get on top of. The other part is in being clear to the other person about why the thing you need would benefit you and brighten up your world. In this, I would recommend the wisdom of Alison Armstrong and Kasia Urbaniak, as I suggested to Karin in my note above. Hope the migraine has passed now and thanks again for sharing here. Piers
Hey that’s beautiful. Thanks for seeing things in the round like this. Many things are all true at once, but love still abides and we all need to try and stay as open as we can, despite all the horror making us want to shut down. Peace in your valley and thanks again
“This shit gets completely derailed by people pleasing and so many of us live our lives abandoning ourselves in the moment, skittering around in bullshit and never quite getting what we need.” Thissss. This this this. All in an effort to make life easier for everyone and yet we have done the exact opposite. Because in truth, people-people ISN’T truth. It’s lies. Deep lies. And betrayal.. like you said. I may run with this in my own writing.. thank you.
Also I would like to chime in and say how amazing you are with criticism in comments. It’s unbelievably inspiring. I understand fully the points these women are making.. and even agree… HOWEVER… I still believe that what you have offered here is gold panned from a muddy river. Absolutely treasure. I do believe that because this whole arena and emotions surrounding it are so complex that it can really keep us too zoomed in .. this helps me to zoom out and see the basic nature of what is behind so much pain. I agree with you. Our society and our way of life has really damaged the core of what men have been built to offer and not all of them are up for the introspective task that growth demands. Which fucking sucks. And is unfair to us women. But it does explain what the hell is going on. So thank you for that. Truly.
Oh yes I actually agree with this entirely. Very good point. Men want to feel like they know how to take care of the women in their life without being told to.
Yeah… I think it’s all about the way we do it. An invitation. A clearly communicated benefit to you. A little bit of love and shared emotion, without self-abandonment. All in contrast to criticism, blaming, nagging etc. As I have suggested elsewhere here, Alison Armstrong goes into how to do all of this far better than I could
Karin, I have the same feeling you do about trying to tell men what to do, or even asking for something directly- it doesn't go well! Maybe it is an older generation thing, I am not sure. I have learned it works much better to make requests to "the universe in general"- but make them in earshot of my husband. ("I would love to have some lavender plants in the backyard! Wouldn't that be nice?") Somehow that works much better than asking "would you plant some lavender in the backyard?"
I suggest that your example misses the emotional benefit to you that he can give you: “You know what I’d love? To see a little more colour and life in our backyard. If you could plant some lavender for me, it would fill my heart with joy every time I caught their scent. And every time I smelled that lavender, I’d be reminded of how much you care about me and how much you do to enrich my life in so many ways.”
(Sorry- I edited after realizing this line went in a direction I would rather not go) I do appreciate the wording you use, but I would probably save this kind of gushiness for AFTER the lavender appeared. Then, yes!
Well maybe that’s a good example of the ways we hold back when we could invite love in? Is that an example of the squick we all need to get past? Perhaps this is a case of ‘stepping into your feminine’? Genuine question. Genuine respect 🤔
For better guidance in this space, I recommend the work of Alison Armstrong. Check her out
Hah! Well… you can’t be his radiant queen if you can’t feel clean and comfortable in the bathroom. And it would mean so much to you to know he’d be prepared to suffer for your beauty regime. Something like that?!
Arinrye, I’m glad you’ve found a successful way to communicate with your husband. Good for you! Maybe Piers suggestions would work too. I’d be interested to hear.
I also want to thank you very much for subscribing to my Substack. I’m just getting started and every bit of encouragement means a great deal to me. ❤️
Here’s another example of communication with a man that occurred to me. When I signed a lease with my landlord for my office space, the lease stipulated that he would fix the very shaky stair railings by July 1st. July 1st came and went, and he didn’t fix the railings.
I asked him politely about it, and he said there was no such stipulation in the lease, so I sent him a copy. He laughed about how clearly the lease spelled out that responsibility. Then he put yellow caution tape all over the stairway which made my office look very uninviting and like a crime scene. I took down the tape.
I politely asked him several times if he would please fix the stair rails. He simply could not bring himself to do it. I got angry because I had older clients and this could be dangerous. My anger only made him more defiant.
Luckily, the building inspector came to inspect my building. He looked mostly on the inside and found out that I had followed all the code safety requirements. Before he left, I asked if he would, please include a note saying that the landlord needed to fix the stair rails within a month. I gave a copy of the inspector’s report to my landlord. The rails were fixed within two weeks. As long as a man was telling him what to do, he had no trouble complying.
From then on, I decided that fighting with my landlord was going to create a negative relationship that would cost me much more emotionally than the money was worth. So I found a great handyman who did work for a reasonable price and I rarely asked my landlord to do anything again. We got along famously and actually became friends. It was a beautiful building and the added expense was worth it to me.
I guess what I’m saying is that sometimes we simply need to accept each other’s limitations and focus more on creating a good relationship than on getting all our needs met. You might say that my greatest need was to have a good relationship with my landlord.
Hey Karin, your landlord was clearly in breach of his duty to you, his tenant. And it sounds like he presumed that, as a woman, he could probably ignore your request and get away with it. I wouldn’t want you to think that my essay subject applies here. This guy was an asshat and an oaf. But good for you for not putting up with it! It’s way more important that you get your rights as a tenant than you protect your relationship with your landlord. And anyway, putting up with being ignored is no kind of relationship after all.
I appreciate the intention here, but I think this reinforces a familiar narrative of “man as hero” or “man as provider”, that’s deeply rooted in capitalist and colonial thinking. It’s not a new insight; it’s essentially the “man the hunter” archetype reframed for a modern audience.
What’s described here isn’t necessarily about masculinity, but about how all human beings are wired to seek connection and belonging. The reward system in our brains responds to what our culture tells us is valuable. So when men are taught that being useful, especially to women, is the route to reward, it reflects cultural conditioning, not innate male nature.
Also, referencing “decades of anthropology research” is tricky. Much of that research is deeply flawed or steeped in outdated, Western-biased frameworks. There’s a plenty of work that challenges these assumptions, especially from feminist and post-colonial anthropologists.
So while the post may resonate with some, I question the broader cultural scripts it’s reinforcing.
Hi Emily, I greatly appreciate these well put-together thoughts, especially as you reflect a deeply intelligent set of nuances, all of them hugely relevant to what my essay tries to lay out.
So much so that it’s not easy to offer a concise and useful response! But let me try.
First, I have to stress that my piece in no way aims to offer some kind of unifying theory of masculinity or human love. That said, I have tried to identify what I see as probably the primary causal link in a chain of behaviours that cascade out into countless others. Namely, that the inherent asymmetries between male and female biology create a corresponding set of factors that ultimately make women more careful in their reproductive choices than men.
Following a somewhat Jungian process, I see the evolutionary output of this as a deep sense of awe in men towards the power that women hold over them. In healthy integration, this looks something like gentlemanly respect. In male disintegration, it manifests in fear, even terror, as in the case of the Taliban today.
Between these two extremes, the male psyche plots out along a spectrum. My thinking is that if men could generally better accept this primal power differential and come to embrace it with appropriate reverence, then the world would be a happier place. On the side of men, it would require a degree of yielding, and on the side of women, a degree of reclamation of female erotic power .
I recognise that feminism tends to lean more into a tabula rasa approach, where humanity can just decide to change our behaviours by decree and legislation than my argument allows for. It’s the old nature/nurture argument. And I don’t have the answers to this. But I will say that nature came first. Without any nature, there would be nothing to nurture. Of course, it’s immensely more complex than that, with endless feedback loops between genetics, epigenetics, and countless different contexts affecting how it all plays out. But ultimately, we are all far more animal than we are human, far more subject to nature’s shrugs than we allow for, and far too arrogant in our presumptions over the invisible nudges of our individual subconscious drives and the collective unconscious myths programmed into us. Cultural scripts and societal behaviours are merely echoes of something far deeper within us. My take is that it’s impossible to rewrite such overwhelming human imperatives with mere cognitive decision making. Far better to work with the grain, surface what’s pushing us along and channel it all into something positive.
This is only a point of view and I make it most humbly and truly welcome all checks and balances to my thinking, so please do keep it coming! My purpose is is to aim for understanding and accord and definitely not to stoke grievance. I think men and women can be a beautiful team together and I want to reveal ways we can be at our best.
Regarding your other excellent points, they are all valid extrapolations, but they go beyond the scope of this piece.
Finally, I should also mention that I am writing in a social context of generalised antipathy towards male behaviour and poorly understood reasoning, not least in men themselves, who often can’t bear to admit how very weak we are compared to women, so it’s easy to understand why you might find my approach naive or sentimental. I am romantic. I do have faith in love and I am so sad at what we are all becoming.
Adding a few more thoughts, because I think this narrative, while well-intentioned, has some deeper issues worth unpacking:
First, it centers men’s feelings of being undervalued without acknowledging the structural power that still benefits men in most societies. The idea that men are “useful but unappreciated” can easily slide into grievance politics if we don’t also talk about how systems already reward men disproportionately, especially in traditional relationship dynamics.
Second, the post lacks intersectionality. This concept of “being useful” seems to idealize a certain kind of man, without acknowledging how masculinity is experienced and constrained very differently across race, class, and culture.
Third, it frames value in quite a narrow way, men give, women receive. It misses out on the richness of emotional labor, mutual care, and relational depth that all people are capable of and responsible for. Why not broaden the idea of what being “needed” looks like?
There’s also a bit of a reliance on pop-psych and evolutionary logic that conflates “wiring” with culturally reinforced behaviors. Human brains are plastic, and our reward systems respond to what our culture tells us is desirable, so saying men are wired to be useful doesn’t explain why they think being useful is the goal in the first place.
Lastly, this narrative subtly romanticizes self-sacrifice. Saying that men find purpose in being useful sounds noble, but it also keeps them locked in a cycle where their worth depends on external validation, rather than fostering a healthier, reciprocal model of connection.
To pull it all together: I think the desire to be useful, to belong, to matter, these are human traits, not uniquely male ones. The issue is how society frames what usefulness looks like, especially for men, and what narratives we uphold as “natural.”
This piece tries to offer compassion for men, but it does so by reasserting a narrow archetype that’s deeply shaped by history, power, and culture. If we want to genuinely support men, we should question the systems that teach them their value lies only in output or utility, just as we should challenge the systems that limit and devalue others.
A more liberating conversation would move beyond usefulness and ask: what would it mean for all of us to be valued just for being human?
Good article.
For those of us who are currently not being useful in some way, it absolutely eats us alive.
Thanks Stephen. Hang in there 😉
🫡
Thank you for this. It resonates deeply, helps me feel seen, and gives me a resource to explore with future partners.
I actually loved this a lot thank u so much it rlly heightened my perspective on men and I can't wait to see how I can implement it and your right asking for smth has always been a female problem so u encouraging us to ask has made me so happy thank u so much
This was extremely helpful and well explained. Thank you so much for writing this. Thank you so much for sharing it 😊
Thank you so much Shelby ☺️
Great post that will be a useful eye-opener to many women who are still in their damsel little girl mindset around men.
I appreciated reading this, it's an interesting perspective and I found it very thought-provoking. Thank you :)
You are giving men way too much credit. I'd say the majority of us are selfish, irresponsible, and lazy. Some women end up with them and have uphill battles until they can't take it anymore.
Do household tasks without being asked. Take regular showers and fully wash your ass. Get to know her preferences - if something bothers her and she keeps telling you, listen. Divorces happen when she finally decides you're not going to get any better.
There are also a lot of difficult women with unrealistic expectations, who can never be satisfied. I'm not going to guess a percentage, but I have seen plenty of men make effots to be good husbands, and still wind up with an unhappy, complaining wife. Some people are just miserable.
Your advice has some truth, but it's only good for a certain amount of couples - and it's hard to know what relationship you actually have - even if you're in it.
Thanks Jesse, wise words.