Most of us men need to do better by the women in our lives.

I want to be clear. I wrote this for me. I haven’t done as well by women as I thought I have. And I can do better. But I also thought if I was struggling with this that I couldn't be alone. And this is a moment to change that.

I’ve fallen for the nice guy rhetoric more than once. I’ve thought I cared, but I was being transactional. I had some growth and thought because I was better than others I was good, I was just being superior and narcissistic. No! I have so much work to do.

Most (read that not all) of us men (including myself) need to do better by the women in our lives. If that statement compels you as a man, don’t worry I’m talking about myself too. If you don’t think this is something you need to work on, cool, you don’t need to read this one. But I needed to write it. 

A lot of this will be preaching to the choir for women. I know this will be preaching to the choir for some men. If that is you, carry on. If this pisses you off. Carry on. But if you can. Just try to read it. 

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So men (that are still here) let's start with a simple question. 

Do we like women? 

Do we actually like them? I'm asking that as men.  As people or just as objects of desire? Do we have any relationship with women that isn’t familial or spousal? When we look at women, what do we see? How do we see them?

I don't know how how most of us can answer that.

I would argue that when it comes to most of the men in my life, and even myself (if I'm being totally honest) that we aren’t taking care of women. We aren’t doing what we can to support women. 

Are we listening to them? Do we have the type of relationships where we have women to listen to? Do we give their opinions the same value as we give the opinions of other men? Do we have to listen a man's opinion or advice or can we just listen to the women in our lives?

I've been grappling with that. I have a lot friends that are women, role models, supervisors, co-workers, and even a wife. I feel like I listen and support them. But some of it has been lip service. 

I can do better. 

The patriarchy is real. I used to think myself so enlightened that I didn't see it. 

Patriarchy and misogyny still exist in our society. That matters. It impacts so much. And it effects us all more than we realize. And we can see the societal and interpersonal effects. 

We hear about how women have caught up with earning potential. How women are performing better academically. But is that everything? Are we truly listening? Are we looking?

Do we view them as equals?

I remember a time when I didn't want to own a CD by a female artist. I couldn't tell you why. But it felt weird to sing along to a female artist. It felt strange to support artists other than men. 

That was on me. 

It's been normal for me until the last couple years to be totally okay with entirely male clergy. Not understanding how unbalanced equal but different roles could be. How dangerous complementarianism is. The power imbalance of it all. 

I never saw it. 

And I feel like not seeing the struggle wasn't seeing the women in my lives. 

I can't be alone. 

And I'm scared for what that means for society at large. To be surrounded in my personal circles and feel like I'm failing at what it means to support women.

Let me reiterate this real quick. Men are struggling in some aspects of life. Worse off than they have been in some aspects of history, and worse by varying metrics. Education being prominent here. But when it comes to power in society we hold the most. And we need to wield that privilege, influence, and power better than we are right now. 

Why am I saying that? We are facing an election with the largest gender gap in our nation's history. And we need to examine those gender gaps where women overwhelming support an issue or policy and men don't. We need to be scared for this growing political gender gap. Us men are driving women away and then looking for affirmation. And it’s happening in unsustainable ways. We have to look at this realistically and recognize who is most affected by varying policies. Then we need to recognize what we can do better. 

There are three things we need to keep in mind. One, women have to bear children in pregnancy. Women are the more common victims of violence. And women aren’t ahead they’re playing catchup when it comes to equality and equity. And because of that this election matters.

When it comes to bearing children, women carry the largest physical burden. They have to be pregnant. Part of being capable of pregnancy is menstruation, and all of the effects that go with that. That's why it's so hard to make this something where men take the lead on the conversation. It leads to a sticky word.  Abortion. We have to talk about how that relates to healthcare and the wellbeing of women. For the first time we had a right reversed by court of law. After years of being told that precedent had rendered Roe V Wade the law of the land the tables turned. And after being called alarmists the worst nightmares for some women happened. When Roe was overturned in the Dobbs decision it created a cascade of effects. First draconian bills written by various state GOP legislators went into effect. Then calls for increasing restrictions on access to medication and birth control have followed. Maternal mortality is increasing in states where these bans went into effect. Care has been delayed or denied in confusion. Even IVF was stopped entirely in a state briefly. None of this is sustainable. There's a reason even people who personally oppose abortion are often voting for pro choice measures. 

Well let's look at the second disproportionate issue. Women are by far the largest adult victims of intimate violence. And even when men are victims it’s overwhelmingly perpetrated by men. They are the most common victims of sexual assault and harassment. 25-30% of all women are victims. It's not even close. Any policy that doesn't protect women needs to be addressed. Gun violence, the attacks on no fault divorce, lacks of a social safety net. They all matter to this issue.

The first two issues are compounded by this one. Equality. We often forget how recently women got certain rights. It took 19 amendments for them to get the vote. It wasn't until the 70s that women could have their own credit cards. Business ownership and it's barriers weren't addressed until 1988. It hasn't been that long at all. I was born in 1989. Yes strides have been made. But it hasn't been that long and those strides were intertwined with Roe and birth control. We can't separate equality from politics and feminism. 

This election puts a lot of pressure on going backwards. 

One political party running is a serial predator as a candidate. They celebrate draconian laws harming women over abortion. And they have voices calling for the reversal of women’s suffrage by repealing the 19th amendment or calling for household voting. Reversing or eliminating no fault divorce. And the damage that is causing or where it comes from is showing. Where this election goes says way more about who we are as a people than many may recognize. 

Now that's not every candidate or supporter of the GOP, but there is a portion, a percentage. This is no longer the party that used it's majority to pass the 19th amendment. That was progressive. It's the opposite. 

That scares me. It scares me to think about. 

We live in a society where we often are most focused on the protection and redemption of perpetrators (men) than we are about the support and healing of victims (women). 

And now the choice is stark. And we're seeing a gender gap like never before. 

Now I didn't write this as a political screed. No I wrote this because the fact that we still have these problems and could solve them, but aren't. That we are seeing growing divides between men and women in so many facets of life. And it boils down to this. 

Are we supporting the women in our lives with their needs, or are we wanting to eliminate the supports and progress they have? 

That's how stark this election is for me. And I'm concerned on where this takes us. 

Women in my life. I'm sorry I didn't see the depths of this sooner. The real difficulties of it all. But I'm paying attention now. I just hope other men are too.