We Built a World Where Men Are Scared of Women
Let me ask you something. When was the last time you saw a man confidently open a door for a woman? Not hesitantly, not half-apologizing for it, but doing it with his whole body, looking her in the eye, sure of himself? It has gotten rare. And I think it is a symptom of something we have done to men.
The bar full of men talking to men
Picture a busy bar during a big game. Lots of men, plenty of them single and alone. And who are they talking to? Other men. Not because they would not love to approach a woman, but because they are scared to.
"They were too scared to approach a woman, in case something horrible might happen." — Marian
Not Stephen King horrible. Scared of doubt, of being misread, of doing the normal human thing of saying hello and having it land him in trouble. So he does not do it at all. And here is the catch that makes the whole thing tragic: women, generally, do not approach either. It is not a thing most of them do. So if the men stop, nothing happens. Everyone goes home alone, scrolling.
The line got too narrow
Men are walking a wire now, and it is thin. Lean one way and you are weak, a pushover, not a real man. Lean the other and you are aggressive, toxic, a creep. There is almost no space left in the middle to just be a confident, masculine, decent guy.
"As soon as he puts a toe on one side or the other, he's either a weak man or an abusive man. The line is very narrow." — Marian
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That narrowness came out of a real, well-meaning correction, the pushback against genuinely bad behavior. But it overshot, and it caught a lot of ordinary men in the net. A whole generation absorbed the message that masculinity itself is the problem, and they got quiet, and unsure, and afraid.
The part nobody admits
Here is the contradiction that drives me a little crazy. Women say they want strong, masculine men. And then masculine behavior gets punished, side-eyed, made suspect.
"They say toxic masculinity, but in the end they want you to open the door, they want you to approach. Women don't do that." — Marian
You cannot have it both ways. You cannot tell men that confidence is menacing and also wish they would show some. The men who still approach easily, often the ones raised in cultures that never sent the masculinity-is-bad message, do just fine, because they never learned to be afraid. The ones who absorbed the fear are stuck, and the women waiting to be approached are stuck right along with them.
What I am actually arguing
To be clear, this is not nostalgia for the bad old days, when masculinity sometimes meant something genuinely awful. We do not need that back, and we are right to have left it. What I am saying is that we threw out confident, protective, leading masculinity along with the bad stuff, and we left men with nothing safe to be.
A man who can open a door, hold a woman's eye, and lead without apology is not a threat. He is what most women actually want and will not say out loud. The whole point of the happy submissive idea is to give that man permission to exist again, and to give women permission to welcome him. Men should not be scared of women. They should be trusted to lead, and met halfway.
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