Ready for reader questions on parenting? In this column, I’m answering a number of your parenting questions. And if this one is successful, I’ll do another one at the end of the month. So if you have a parenting question you’d love to ask, post it in the comments. As always, you can anonymously submit questions for Feminist Advice by using the form.

Here are some of the topics I’m covering:

• Talking to boys about sex, and specifically about masturbation and pleasure

• Helping kids manage adults who have poor social or coping skills

• Evaluating a therapist

• How to raise your children in a more matriarchal style

• And much more

This is part of a limited-run daily series, Feminist Parenting. In this series for paid subscribers, I tackle a different feminist parenting topic every day. Paid subscribers this month are therefore getting more than 30 essays, for less than the price of a fancy coffee. And that’s on top of the usual benefits of paid membership, so if you’re interested in these topics, I hope you’ll consider signing up.

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Today I’m releasing a new feature: Liberating Motherhood reruns. I have an archive of more than 1,000 posts I’ve published over the years. New subscribers only see these posts if they go digging through the archives. And because I’ve been doing this for so long, even older subscribers may forget about helpful pieces.

Going forward, every Saturday I will re-release a random older piece, often with new updates and links. These pieces will be a mix of paid and free posts. The goal here is to offer more value with your subscription, without disrupting my regular editorial calendar. I hope you enjoy and find value from this feature!

Understanding men’s bad moods is key to understanding patriarchy. No, really.

My inbox is filled with letters from women whose male partners are a constant passive-aggressive presence in the home. They’re angry, but they pretend not to be. They’re mean, but they insist that women are just misinterpreting normal behavior. This chronic grumpiness allows men to control and punish their partners while still maintaining a veneer of socially acceptable behavior. And because the grumpiness is indirect, there’s always plausible deniability.

If this sounds familiar, know that you are not alone.

Somehow, most men manage to act normal at work, around friends, around people whose opinion they care about. But over and over again, readers tell me about men whose moodiness erodes the well-being of an entire family, destroys every vacation, and makes it impossible for anyone to ever relax.

This is part of a series of bonus content for paid subscribers in which I address some of the weapons men use to deflect blame and avoid accountability. Previous pieces in this series have included:

• The weapons sexist men use: “I’m just joking!”

• The weapons sexist men use in fights: “We just have different standards!”

• The weapons sexist men use in fights: Blaming women for their reactions to bad behavior

• The weapons men use in fights: “You’re never satisfied with anything!”

• The arguments sexist men use in fights—and what they really mean

• The most important tool men use to maintain household labor inequality

• The weapons men use in fights: “You’re so controlling! Stop policing me!”

You can find the whole series here.

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This is the fourth installment in my new, limited-run, daily series, Feminist Parenting. This series will feature reflections on parenting in a more liberatory way, as well as practical guidance on topics such as raising boys, resisting sexualization, and more. This is a bonus for paid subscribers, and I’ll still be keeping up with my usual editorial calendar on top of it. For the first week, I’ll be talking broadly about parenting philosophy and understanding your own mind as a parent. Next week, we’ll shift to a more explicitly gendered lens, focusing more on specific parenting practices.

Patriarchy serves up a never-ending menu of conflicting parenting messages. Take time for yourself, but never in a way that inconveniences others. Advocate for your children, but never offend another adult. Get your kids lots of exercise and expose them to the world, but never allow them to annoy anyone in public. Breastfeed but not like that. Feed them healthy food but not like that. Don’t complain. Don’t brag. Don’t be happy, sad, mad, guilty, or even dead in the wrong way.

Over the years, I’ve developed some self-talk that helps me counter the negative parenting messages patriarchy gives me. These mantras have made me a better and more compassionate mother, community member, and human being. I hope some of them will help you, too.

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A reader asks…

Hi, Zawn. I am currently married to a man who has emotionally and sexually abused me for almost 20 years. Two years ago he wanted to add a third to the bedroom, and when I found someone I liked who is not a woman, he accused me of cheating and raped me.

I have not cut off text communications with the man I was flirting with, including texting, and have tried to find somewhere to go for the past two years. Every time I try to leave, my husband guilts me into staying, and often uses the kids as ammunition for his arguments.

He continues to berate me for what I did and am doing, yet he won't let me end the marriage.

For background, he cheated early in our relationship, including around the time of our wedding, and the time of our first daughter's birth, and this was before his years of emotional neglect and sexual abuse.

I stayed because I didn't want to go to a shelter with my kids. He refuses to see the double standards and is adamant I am the bad person because I continue to talk to someone who is not him.

I am moving out soon without my kids because he refuses to leave the home and kids and pets I have put the effort in to care for.

My therapist says I am not bad, and that he's attempting to manipulate me to get what he wants, but it doesn't stop the feelings of guilt for abandoning my family. He is begging me to give him time and not speak to anyone else, but I just want him to leave me alone. I guess I just need reassurance that I'm not a horrible person, even if I am still talking to someone I would consider having sex with.

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My Facebook algorithm recently showed me an article about a company attempting to develop AI robot women who could have sex with men. The concept is nothing new, though it feels closer to reality. The reaction, too, is nothing new: The post was flooded with comments from men asserting that an unthinking robot woman would obviously be superior to a human woman.

It’s easy to dismiss these comments as coming from a few outliers, but if you listen closely to men, you’ll hear how very much they hate the humanity of their wives. Indeed, the entire manosphere has been built around the idea that women exist to serve men, never to be people in their own right.

To misogynistic men—and that’s most of them—the women they marry, form partnerships with, and have children with would be much more appealing as appliances than as people.

We need to be honest that what most men want is not a relationship, and certainly not a relationship with a human. Rather, they want a sex and labor service unit that doesn’t demand anything in return.

To the male apologists of the world, this might sound like extremist feminist nonsense. To any woman who has lived with a sexist man—and often, to any woman who has lived with a man who falsely claims to be a feminist—this is an obvious reality.

We don’t have to speculate to draw this conclusion, either. We need only to look at what men themselves say about the women in their lives. Spend some time in the manosphere, and you’ll see the same claims over and over:

• Women lose value as they age, and their primary value comes from their looks.

• Men have the right to a long list of demands about household labor, parenting, and sex. If they have a job, that’s all that’s necessary to justify these demands.

• Women who place any specific demands on men are unfeminine, unreasonable, and entitled.

• A man’s only value is as a paycheck, except for in divorce, where he should not have to provide a paycheck and should also be given full custody of his kids by default.

• Women should not be able to leave their relationships without the man’s approval.

• A woman owes her partner sex.

It’s not just right-wing circles, either. Moderate and even leftist men, including those who pretend to be feminists, often harbor similar views. They endorse the myth of the wife who left for no reason because they can’t hear their wives’ many reasons for leaving—or because they think no reason is valid. Perhaps that’s why divorced men are so angry, and why so many men seem to enjoy nothing more than speaking negatively about the women they claim to love.

And what do these men complain about?

• Lack of sex

• Unclean houses

• Not enough home-cooked meals

• The fact that their partners require emotional support, love, or foreplay

These are complaints about an appliance malfunctioning, not a person.

Women often spend years trying to understand their male partners, speculating about the mysterious reasons behind obviously abusive behavior. They give men the benefit of the doubt at every turn. It’s not that he’s manipulating her into doing more labor so he doesn’t have to! It’s that he has ADHD (but only at home, where there are no consequences). It’s not that he’s an emotionally abusive shitbag. It’s that he has autism (even though his behavior toward his boss is fine). It’s not that he ignores all the labor the household requires. It’s that the human male does not have functional eyes. It’s not that he’s an abusive, low-effort parent. It’s that no one has ever loved him enough.

Notably, these excuses often stigmatize people with real struggles. Autism, for example, does not make people abusive, and women with ADHD often go to great lengths to keep everything together, no matter how hard it is for them. Women and children are not rehabilitation centers for abusive men, and no one is entitled to a relationship.

I propose that women stop making excuses for men, stop paying therapists and life coaches to convince them that a lifetime of oppression is ok, and that they look at the facts right in front of them.

Patriarchy is a system designed to benefit men at women’s expense. This is why patriarchy’s impact on different women varies so greatly. The extent to which a man must exploit or harm a woman to get what he wants varies. In the traditional sexist heterosexual marriage, though, a woman is a tool for men’s use. This is why patriarchy invests so much time and energy into convincing women to get married—and why sexist men are so outraged at the existence of single women.

From birth, women are taught that marriage is wonderful, and that it warrants all the sacrifices it demands. Society teaches us a wide range of skills, and instructs us to value men above all else. Men are taught nothing about relationships except that they deserve them. So they grow into adulthood thinking that showing up with a dick and a job should entitle them to whatever woman and whatever relationship services they desire.

The behavior of sexist men toward women makes much more sense when we acknowledge that they see us as appliances for their use, rather than actual human beings. Our value is directly proportional to our service. And if we are not serving them as they desire, then we are not entitled to even basic decency.

A dishwasher is supposed to wash dishes. Its job is not to ask for anything in return, nor to have feelings about how it washes the dishes. If it malfunctions and stops washing, you might try to fix it or hire someone else to fix it. The degree of investment in repairing it versus replacing it will depend on the expense and time involved in each. But ultimately, the goal will be to have a dishwasher that works according to specifications again. The dishwasher’s needs never figure into this.

This is why we see so many men become outraged when a woman changes the terms of the relationship, or dares to demand equality. It’s why men cannot fathom the possibility that they’re not entitled to sex—and why “she’s withholding sex” is an acceptable complaint in their minds. It’s why they think simply not abusing a woman means they’re good. After all, a dishwasher should be happy that you don’t kick it, right?

I married my husband because of, not in spite of, his humanity. I suspect most women feel similarly. The fact that he chose me, loves me, supports me of his own free will matters to me. I feel wildly lucky that this incredibly special person doesn’t have to be with me, but continues to choose to do so. He chooses to sacrifice for me and for our family. He chooses to forego other options.

The choice is what makes it love. The choice is what makes it matter.

Misogynist men seem to feel the opposite. Choice is the problem. Women shouldn’t be able to choose not to be with them, or not to be with men.

You can test this theory in your own life, as a way of countering false narratives about bumbling nice guys who mean well:

• When he yells at you or your kids, consider the possibility that he’s doing this because you’re not functioning as he thinks an appliance should.

• When he refuses to change his behavior, consider that this may be because he thinks he shouldn’t have to.

• When he won’t go to therapy, or when he only uses therapy as a way to drag out the inevitable, weigh the possibility that it’s because he thinks he doesn’t owe you anything; after all, you’re not a person in the same way he is.

Women across the globe are malfunctioning in record numbers, and men can’t fathom it. It’s why the narrative of the woman who left because he left a dish in the sink, or for no reason at all, has gained such traction. Men would rather label women crazy and flighty than ever consider the possibility of asking what they bring to the table.

To that man who’s been yelling at and exploiting you for years, you’re just an appliance—replaceable if necessary by a more compliant option.

So the question is: Will you treat yourself that way? Or will you accept your own full humanity and acknowledge the exploitation for what it is? Become another malfunctioning woman appliance and gain your freedom.

You might also like…

This is the third installment in my new, limited-run, daily series, Feminist Parenting. This series will feature reflections on parenting in a more liberatory way, as well as practical guidance on topics such as raising boys, resisting sexualization, and more. This is a bonus for paid subscribers, and I’ll still be keeping up with my usual editorial calendar on top of it. For the first week, I’ll be talking broadly about parenting philosophy and understanding your own mind as a parent. Next week, we’ll shift to a more explicitly gendered lens, focusing more on specific parenting practices.

“Isn’t it wild how they’re raised in the exact same family with the exact same circumstances but they’re so totally different?”

It’s the conversation that seems always to lead to some variety of nonsense or others: proclamations about how girls and boys are “just different,” or beliefs about how a child arrives on this planet with a fully formed personality that is unaffected by experience.

This is biological determinism. It allows us to avoid critical thinking, escape accountability, and pretend that our children are not the subject of thousands of constant, contradictory, ongoing cultural influences at any single moment.

Here’s my alternative, and why I think it’s not only better, but critical to the feminist project.

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Lots of podcasts take breaks over the summer, but I didn’t want to do that, especially since I have SO MANY amazing guests lined up for the summer. So instead, I’ll be mixing in some rerun podcasts this summer, to give myself a little more editing time and breathing room. You can expect a new podcast episode at least every other week, with reruns sprinkled in between. This chat with Kate Manne was one of my favorites, and I hope you love it too.

Misogyny isn’t really about hating women. After all, if pure hate explained everything, wouldn’t that mean that only mean men abuse women, and that misogynists never seek relationships with women? Men are able to mistreat women they claim to love because of the internal logic of misogyny. They’re not irrational or unhinged; they’re following a set of rules rooted in entitlement.

Kate Manne is a philosopher who focuses on understanding what’s behind the misogynistic behavior patriarchy creates and enables. She envisions misogyny as a sort of disciplinary tool for reinforcing gendered norms, and preserving men’s access to resources—especially the highly valuable resource of women’s labor.

We cover a lot of ground in this podcast, including:

• The reflexive denial in the media of misogyny.

• Misogyny as a system for enforcing men’s entitlement to women’s labor.

• Why misogyny is not random and not mental illness, but instead a set of corrupt moral values that reflect the values of the wider culture.

• Misogyny as more than mere hatred of women, and why certain women may be more impacted by misogyny than others.

• How not to hate your husband after children…or maybe you should just hate him.

• The normalization of all forms of violence.

• The parallels between misogyny and fascism.

• Fatphobia as an inevitable byproduct of misogyny.

About Kate Manne

Kate Manne is an associate professor at the Sage School of philosophy at Cornell University. She specializes in moral, social, and feminist philosophy, and has written three books: DOWN GIRL: The Logic of Misogyny (Oxford University Press, 2018), ENTITLED: How Male Privilege Hurts Women (Crown, 2020) and UNSHRINKING: How to Face Fatphobia (Crown, 2024), a National Book Award finalist in non-fiction. In addition to academic work, she regularly writes opinion pieces and essays for a wider audience, including in outlets such as The New York Times, The Cut, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, The Nation, and Time. She writes a substack newsletter, More to Hate, exploring misogyny, fatphobia, and their intersection.

If you like this podcast or find my work valuable, I hope you’ll consider supporting it! Your paid support ensures I never have to take advertiser dollars, and am beholden only to my readership. You’ll also get access to one more podcast episode each month, eight additional pieces of written work, and membership in the Liberating Motherhood Community.

You can also support this podcast for free! Heart-reacting makes a huge difference, as does commenting and sharing on social media. If you listen to this podcast on a podcast platform, please leave a positive review; it makes a huge difference. Oh, and tell the people you love about this podcast too!

Subscribe now

You might also like…

This is the second installment in my new, limited-run, daily series, Feminist Parenting. This series will feature reflections on parenting in a more liberatory way, as well as practical guidance on topics such as raising boys, resisting sexualization, and more. This is a bonus for paid subscribers, and I’ll still be keeping up with my usual editorial calendar on top of it.

Years ago, a friend confided in me her frustration with her son. She saw him as depressed, defiant, uninterested in doing anything of value, and lazy. I found her assessment really confusing. I had spent a lot of time with him, and found him to be an easy, vibrant, happy kid who worked hard to learn and explore.

Over time, and through lots of exchanges with my friend, I realized what the problem was: She was an extroverted nature lover who envisioned lots of family hikes, travel, and adventure. She wanted to give her son a “fun” childhood, but her idea of fun was torture for this introverted intellectual, who just wanted to read in peace.

To outsiders, the problem was obvious. But my friend had so internalized her own notions of fun and meaning that she was unable to see her son for who he really was. She was moralizing about outdoor time and convinced there was something wrong with her son.

Instead, all we had was a cultural mismatch. This child was a poor fit for the family’s culture. And because the family didn’t notice its own culture, it had failed to adapt to the child’s needs.

Maybe you’re reading this and judging my friend. Or maybe you’re like my friend and can relate. No matter how you respond to this story, the odds are good that you have a strong family culture to which you are mostly oblivious. Even more importantly, you were raised in a family culture that will also influence your parenting.

Here’s how to recognize that culture, and why doing so is so integral to good parenting. In this piece, I’ll also talk about some of the most common family cultures, and the struggles they can cause.

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Abuse is the weaponization of existing systems of power to harm an individual or group of individuals. This is why it’s so much easier for men to harm women, for white people to harm Black people, and for parents to harm children. The systems that support the harm—or that pass it off as something else entirely—are already in place.

Our social relationships serve as one such system. The communities we build can support us to leave abusive relationships. Tragically, they more typically rally around the abuser, gaslight the victim, and make leaving much more difficult.

This is true of all abusive systems. We see it when everyone is loyal to the abusive boss who has done nothing for any of them. We see it when women align with men against other women. When abusive men turn women’s families and friends against them. When white people weaponize respectability politics to convince others not to listen to the Black people they victimize.

Just as patriarchy cannot survive without the complicity of lots of women, individually abusive dynamics cannot survive without the support of bystanders. These bystanders include family members and friends, but also lawyers, judges, CPS workers, domestic violence advocates, and many others. Survivors of every variety cannot thrive when the systems and people who should help them support their abusers instead.

So how do abusers garner such support in the first place? Understanding the dynamics of how abusers groom allies can help you recognize when you are being groomed, and may even help you intervene early when your abuser seeks to recruit allies.

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This is the first installment in my new, limited-run, daily series, Feminist Parenting. This series will feature reflections on parenting in a more liberatory way, as well as practical guidance on topics such as raising boys, resisting sexualization, and more. This is a bonus for paid subscribers, and I’ll still be keeping up with my usual editorial calendar on top of it.

Admit it: sometimes you parent in the hopes of being or feeling superior to other parents, and other times you parent in a desperate attempt to not feel inferior.

I experienced the latter last week, when I forgot to send in brownies to an end-of-the-year celebration. I believe in keeping my commitments, but I also thought the entire thing was silly, and that not bringing in the brownies would not cause any serious harm to anyone. But because I was that mom—the one who forgot something—I panicked, felt guilty, and spent the rest of the day flagellating, even after my husband rescued us and got the brownies.

My desperation was about not feeling worse (or, more likely, looking worse) than the other parents. We’ve all been there.

The moments when we deliberately seek to make other parents feel inferior, or when we parent in a way that makes us feel superior, can be harder to admit, or even notice. I see it in childbirth groups, where women with bad birth outcomes are told that different behavior would have gotten them a better outcome, or in parenting groups where parents somehow are shamed for having both too little structure and too much structure.

As we all know, the core truth of parenthood is that no matter what you do as a mother, it’s wrong.

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My toddler thinks every first of the month should be treated as a holiday, complete with presents. So in our house, today is June Day. Happy June Day!

I’m excited to announce that this June Day, I’m celebrating the release of a new limited-run series focused on feminist parenting. This will be similar to the two other limited-run series I’ve published: Deconstructing Masculinity, which spoke to men about their misogyny; and Deconstructing Patriarchal Thinking, which endeavored to help women identify and address their internalized misogyny.

What to expect from this series

Like previous series, this one will be for paid subscribers. The reason for this is simple: this work is work, and while I offer more than half of my work for free, this is my full-time job. I try to offer lots of extra incentives for paid subscribers, since they are the sole reason I am able to continue doing this work.

For the entire month of June, every day subscribers will get an additional newsletter in their inbox that features a reflection, exercise, or tip for feminist parenting. This will not interrupt my normal editorial calendar. You’ll still also get the usual four-times-weekly posts (two free and two paid), plus the podcast.

I’ll be covering topics such as:

• decentering men

• raising boys in a patriarchy

• how to avoid socializing girls into heteronormativity

• what parenting for liberation really means and looks like

• controlling our own authoritarian impulses

• the parenting experts and authors I find most helpful

• the parenting trends I dislike

My hope is to help you think more deeply about parenting, feel less alone, and nurture meaningful conversation.

If you do NOT want to get these newsletters daily, you can unsubscribe only from the Feminist Parenting section in your Substack account. Another protip: If you still want access to Liberating Motherhood but prefer not to get emails, you can unsubscribe from emails, and as long as you don’t deactivate your paid subscription, you’ll still be able to access everything. You deserve control over your inbox, and if you have any trouble with any of this, I’m always happy to help. Email zawn@zawn.net.

My parenting credentials

I should be very clear that I am not a therapist, a researcher, or a parenting expert. My main “credential” is that you’re here, and trust me enough to listen to me. There are many parenting topics I am not well equipped to handle. I don’t know how to get your child to sleep through the night, or how best to treat ADHD. You need to consult an expert for these topics.

What I do know about is feminist parenting. When I became a mother, there were almost no resources on raising feminist children, so I had to build my own. Things are slightly better now, but only slightly, with a small handful of books available. So I became the feminist parenting expert I needed. I don’t know everything, and I don’t believe in individualistic solutions to misogyny. But I’m excited to share my perspective, and what I’ve learned over the years.

Like all parents, I’ve faced challenges over the years, and had to learn to be a good advocate for children whose needs don’t always fit the expected mold. I don’t talk directly about them to protect their privacy.

I do have some more academic knowledge of parenting. I was a science and mental health journalist for many years, and often wrote about developmental psychology, new parenting research, and children’s mental health. I have interviewed many, many experts over the years (some for the podcast!). This means that, while I’m not doing my own research (except for this survey), I am an expert at reading and distilling research for a lay reader. I draw heavily on published data in both my own parenting, and my writing. At the same time, I know that published data often lags behind popular opinion, and that we can learn a lot from simply listening to parents and children. I do that every day in my work.

In my twenties, I volunteered as a court-appointed special advocate (CASA) for abused and neglected children. I learned a lot through that work, as well as, unfortunately, through my work at a rape crisis center and as a domestic violence advocate. Abuse is a devastatingly common reality for children, especially in a patriarchy that prioritizes men’s property rights to their children above the children’s well-being.

And perhaps, most poignantly, I was raised by a feminist mother who showed me that feminist parenting works.

Freedom never comes overnight. We pass the baton, generation after generation, do what we can, and try to uphold our part of the intergenerational fight for liberation. Motherhood is activism. It matters, and deserves more support.

The core insight of my work is that mothers matter, and I hope the many parents who read me will find hope, help, and community in this series.

I haven’t written everything I plan to yet for this series. So if there’s something you want to see, please share it in the comments! I’ll be back tomorrow with the first full edition of this series.

If you want to get the series, subscribe now!

A reader asks…

What do we owe women who aren’t feminists? How should we treat them? I’m not talking about powerful women who are actively oppressing others. I’m referring to daily microaggressions from anti-feminist women: teachers, colleagues, etc.

I really enjoyed your post from the reader who was angry about women who don’t care about their own oppression. I’ve always avoided, and honestly sometimes hated, these women. But now I’m thinking about whether I can build solidarity with them. Is that even possible?

My answer

I love this question, because it’s something I’ve grappled with my entire life. I’ve written before that, in my early years as an activist, I was kind of an asshole. You were either with me or against me—a mentality that transforms feminism from a project for collective liberation into little more than an ego-driven hierarchy of deserving and undeserving people.

So you’re probably not surprised that I don’t think we can throw unfeminist, or even anti-feminist, women away. Desiree Stephens and I talked about this a bit on our most recent podcast episode, and Loretta Ross and I discussed it more in-depth. Loretta has an entire framework for calling in women (and all people) who fall short of our ideals.

Your real question is this: What do we, as imperfect humans, owe other imperfect humans?

As I’ve written before, the thing that distinguishes abusive people from people who do not abuse others is that abusers think abuse is sometimes justified.

So we all have a moral obligation to put a floor on how we will treat people. What is baseline human decency for us? What do we think everyone deserves, or is owed?

This doesn’t mean being friends with, agreeing with, liking, or spending time with people who harm us—or even people we just don’t like. You’re under no moral obligation to bring potentially harmful people into your life or community, or to let them get away with harmful behavior. But if you set out to destroy another person, you’ve lost the plot.

The thing I always try to remember is that even bad women are oppressed. There is no individual exit ramp from patriarchy. And if we’re in feminism for the feminism, rather than for the ego, we have to care about what happens to them, too. In many, if not most, cases, a woman’s bad behavior is a direct result of years of oppression. Patriarchal women align themselves with patriarchy in a desperate attempt to protect themselves. We should do all we can to show them that the only antidote is real sisterhood.

So what does this look like in real life? It’s going to vary for everyone, but some principles I try to follow with the problematic women I encounter include:

• Seizing opportunities to help them see how patriarchy affects them. Sooner or later, they all have a story about their husband.

• Showing and talking about the ways feminism can help us build a better life.

• Advocating for their safety and well-being even when I don’t like them.

I don’t set out to destroy them, or harm them. I don’t weaponize patriarchy against them. When they pose a danger, I limit or eliminate contact.

What about the folks you have to have relationships with, like difficult teachers or colleagues? The same general principles apply.

We must always align with the oppressed, and must always stand for those who lack power in any given situation. This will often mean standing up even for women we dislike—believing them then they are sexually harassed or abused, caring about them when they suffer, standing up for them against abusive men even when we like or are charmed by the man in question.

It also means never allowing harmful power to go unanswered and unnoticed. It’s one thing to attempt to build solidarity with a problematic teacher or colleague. It’s quite another to let them get away with hurting someone else. Your empathy and support must end where harm begins.

The solidarity you build with harmful women may actually help you stop their harm from time to time. They’re much more likely to listen to someone they trust, so try to use your relationships and your access wisely.

Ultimately, though, when you align with the powerless in any given dynamic—while bearing in mind that who exactly is powerless will shift moment to moment—you really can’t go wrong.

None of us get this exactly right. Keep thinking critically about these relationships, though, and you’ll get it right more often than not.

You might also like…

Today’s your last chance to take advantage of my semi-annual sale. If you’re not familiar with the myriad benefits I’m offering as part of the sale, click here to learn more. A reminder that this discount is for new subscribers only, but you can buy unlimited gift subscriptions. Subscribe for yourself here. Give a gift here. If you would like to sponsor a scholarship, please email zawn@zawn.net and I’ll connect you with someone in need. As always, the instructions for applying for a scholarship are at the top of every email, and also are available here.

This is my full-time job, made possible solely because of readers. We need a world in which women can be paid to think full-time just like men do, and Susbtack ensures that I am beholden only to readers—not sponsors or advertisers, not editors selling a product, not anyone who can censor me. I’m grateful to everyone who is here in community with me, showing up in whatever way they can.

If you’re on the fence about signing up as a paid subscriber, I’ll be releasing a new limited-run series about feminist parenting tomorrow. I’ll provide more details then, but it will be similar to my Deconstructing Masculinity and Deconstructing Patriarchal Thinking series.

It’s been a while since I’ve done a reader Ask Me Anything here on Substack, where only paid subscribers can comment and where comments are more anonymous if you want them to be. So I thought I’d open this post up as an AMA. Feel free to ask me anything—advice, my opinion, about my pets, whatever—and I’ll share my thoughts in the comments.

But first, I have a question for you, my dear readers.

One of the challenges of doing this work so long and so prolifically is that I have a huge backlog of useful articles that new readers are unlikely to see unless they go searching through the archives. I’ve been wrestling with the best way to get these articles out to new readers. Historically, I’ve republished a couple of posts each month as part of my normal editorial calendar. So for example, instead of your usual new paid Tuesday post, you might see a rerun once a month.

I’m considering making reruns a regular feature on top of my usual editorial calendar. So I would publish them separately, probably once a week. This would mean you would always get four new pieces, plus one old one, rather than the usual pieces sometimes being replaced with reruns. But I wanted to see how readers felt about this first!

Please take they survey. Your options: 1) Make it a new feature means I will publish a weekly rerun from the archive, on a different day from my usual posts, while still maintaining my usual posting schedule. This means you’ll get one extra post a week. 2) Keep the usual pace, no changes; keep doing things as I have. 3) Don’t republish any old columns; if you hate all reruns and don’t think I should ever run them, select this. 4) Something else. If you have another way you’d like to see this done, or additional thoughts, post them in the comments.

I hope you’ll participate in the AMA in the comments. Don’t be shy!

This is an updated and expanded version of an older column. I hope you enjoy it!

A reader asks…

Two weeks ago I asked for a divorce after years of feeling like a single mum while married. Husband lashed out at first, verbally, saying I was emotionally barren and it's like hugging a corpse. Next day he did a 180 and has spent two weeks trying to reconcile by trying to be extra nice to me and the kids.

In the past 2 weeks he has stepped up as a parent and started doing all the things I was angry about him not doing.

I'm now really angry because if he can do it now why couldn't he do it before.

I've lost my interest in him as a partner. I don't find him attractive any more, but now he's being "nice" I feel like a colossal bitch.

Now I'm questioning myself about the divorce even though I want nothing more than to walk out the door. 

Is this normal to feel so angry and unwilling to contemplate reconciliation?

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Heads up that we are in the final days of my semi-annual sale, and that prices will increase at the end of the sale! Learn more about the sale here.

Lists of red flags are missing the point, and may be convincing women to ignore their own instincts in favor of scoring men according to someone else’s standards.

For decades, those of us hoping to keep women safer in their relationships have talked about red and green flags. The idea is to help women recognize signs of abuse earlier, so they can get out before leaving becomes deadly or impossible.

The model is applicable to a wide variety of relationships. I see people now talking about red and green flags with friends, with colleagues, with bosses, with neighbors.

The more I see, though, the more I think this framework may be doing more harm than good. I say this as someone who has published many lists of red and green flags, so don’t take out your pitchforks just yet.

But first, we need to talk about how red and green flag lists came about in the first place.

Patriarchy: Teaching women to ignore their own voices and needs

Patriarchy, along with other systems of oppression, gets in early, aggressively socializing women and other minorities to normalize some level of oppression. It does this while teaching men that anything short of intense and sustained physical violence is just fine, and that a man is “nice” so long as he doesn’t bludgeon a woman to death.

As a result, women often don’t recognize the early signs of danger, and even when they do, their friends and family may encourage them to just give the man a chance. It’s mass gaslighting that encourages women to ignore their inner voice, distrust their instincts, and cater to men.

And then what happens when she finally seeks help and tries to leave? We tell her she should have chosen better. As if an entire culture didn’t do everything in its power to make choosing “better,” whatever that means, impossible.

Enter the green and red flag checklists

Red and green flag checklists are supposed to be a counterweight to the heft of patriarchal indoctrination. The goal is to slow things down and critically assess men according to some reasonable standards.

It’s a laudable idea, but often these checklists are completely arbitrary. Look at how he treats his car, as if women are cars and factors like time and money don’t influence people’s behavior around their cars. Seek out a man who loves his mother, as if abusive mothers don’t exist. Find someone with a great job, as if only men living in poverty can be abusive.

A truly reliable list of red flags would focus on behaviors that should immediately exclude men from the dating pool, like calling a woman names or having degrading ideas about women’s bodies. Even these lists come up short, though, because no list can possibly anticipate all the ways a man might behave abusively. And men can look at these lists, too, and adapt their behavior just enough to skate by on a technicality.

How this approach can cause harm

My concern with these checklists—and with any approach that encourages women to look for a highly specific list of behaviors—is that it turns women’s attention toward external validation of their relationships. They start asking whether a man meets the technical requirements instead of whether the relationship makes her life better.

These checklists began as an antidote to patriarchal conditioning that instructs women to ignore their own needs. But the underlying conditioning persists. So it’s easy enough for women to defer to the list, and to never listen to or hone their own inner voices.

These lists encourage women to ask self-undermining questions like:

• Is this bad enough to count on the list?

• If he has two green flags does that cancel out two red flags?

• How many red flags does he need to have for me to stop dating him? (The answer should be one)

• How many green flags does he need to be safe?

• Is there another explanation for this behavior that would make it not a red flag?

• If he has a bunch of green flags should I ignore my feelings of being unsafe? Is that just my trauma talking?

• Am I asking too much?

These lists treat relationships as scores, and pretend that there is an objective way to determine if a man is a good match, let alone a safe person. There is not. There is no certification that renders a man safe, and no list that can possibly anticipate every potential form of abuse.

Worryingly, I increasingly see women asserting that something must not be a red flag if it’s not on the list. And this perfectly exemplifies how these lists can sometimes endanger women.

Exploring alternatives

There is no alternative that can render dating fully safe, and in a world where most men will be bad or dangerous matches for one reason or another, there is certainly no alternative that will ensure you find Mr. Right.

But we have to focus on remedying the underlying problem: Women don’t trust themselves. They don’t believe they have a right to ask for everything they need. They don’t believe a man can love them if they make any specific demands.

The entire purpose of a relationship is to make both parties’ lives better than they would otherwise be. This can only happen when women see an absence of red flags as the baseline, not a sign that a man is “good,” and when women are able to listen to themselves about their own unique, valid, worthy needs.

I’d like to see women shifting away from red and green flags, and toward assessing whether they are in an emotionally healthy place to date. I write about that in more detail here, but generally this means that women need to be able to heed the warning signs and not need validation and love from men.

As you date, it’s important to always keep assessing. There is never any point at which the assessment process ends. Some questions to ask include:

• Do I feel good in this relationship?

• Does this person do things that make me feel insecure?

• Does this person disappear when I need them?

• Do I feel like I have to limit my needs to appeal to this person?

• Are there parts of myself I cannot be with this person?

• Can I talk openly about my needs with this person?

• Do I feel safe?

• Do others feel safe with this person?

This is not an exhaustive list. There will never be one. Because dating safety begins with putting yourself and your needs first.

You might also like…

• my frogs, and why you should definitely get frogs

• my war with AC repairpeople (and hot water heaters, and printers)

• what it means to decenter men

• managing post-separation abuse

• the feminist philosophies with which I align, and how I think we can bring these philosophies into the real world

• and much more!

The sound on these lives is always a little funky. And I prioritized getting this out early over heavy editing. So there are awkward silences, pauses while I wait for more questions, and such. I think this lends authenticity, but I’ll be the first to admit this is my least polished episode. I hope you enjoy it!

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“To say that straight men are heterosexual is only to say that they engage in sex (fucking exclusively with the other sex, i.e., women). All or almost all of that which pertains to love, most straight men reserve exclusively for other men. The people whom they admire, respect, adore, revere, honor, whom they imitate, idolize, and form profound attachments to, whom they are willing to teach and from whom they are willing to learn, and whose respect, admiration, recognition, honor, reverence and love they desire… those are, overwhelmingly, other men. In their relations with women, what passes for respect is kindness, generosity or paternalism; what passes for honor is removal to the pedestal. From women they want devotion, service and sex.

Heterosexual male culture is homoerotic; it is man-loving.” —Marilyn Frye, The Politics of Reality

What do you call someone who is disgusted by most aspects of women’s bodies?

Straight isn’t the first word I would choose. Yet over and over again, I hear of self-identified straight men who seem to find women revolting, while idealizing men. Here are some of the many ways readers have told me this manifests:

• Being disgusted by vaginas or vulvas to the point that he won’t give oral sex, makes crude comments above vaginas, thinks it is normal to be revolted by women’s genitals, or shames his partner for the way her vulva looks/feels/smells/tastes.

• Finding childbirth gross and dirty. Somehow, the most powerful thing a woman can do has been turned into a source of shame and disgust by many a misogynist man.

• Thinking the overwhelming majority of states a woman’s body can be in—pregnant, menstruating, over 30, menopausal—are disgusting and shameful.

• Refusing to have sex with a partner when she is getting her period.

• Viewing women’s periods as gross or dirty: telling a woman to hide her pads or tampons, refusing to buy her pads or tampons, or being grossed out by any mention of periods.

• Viewing pregnancy as “fatness” or disgusting.

• Pressuring a newly postpartum woman to immediately look the way she did before having children.

• Being disgusted by any woman who is not a pubescent teenager.

So what’s going on here? All evidence suggests that it is men, not women, who smell, neglect their bodies, and fester into disgustingness. Yet it’s women who spend their whole lives feeling disgusting and inferior. As usual, misogyny is at the rotten core of this mess.

The apparent disgust serves a political purpose, and reveals far more about a man’s commitment to the misogynist project than it does about any individual woman’s hygiene.

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This is the last week of my semi-annual membership drive, after which prices will go up. Learn more about the sale here. This newsletter depends on reader support, and cannot exist without it. If you can afford to do so, I hope you’ll consider taking advantage of all the benefits of paid membership.

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A reader asks…

I’ve been a paid subscriber of yours for the past few years and have learned so much from you, as well as other women on Substack talking about their journeys through divorce and heteronormativity. This is what I love about the substack community - the thoughtful, informative discourse. And even when women disagree, it’s mostly respectful posts back and forth.

Recently I posted an article on Substack about an idea on a way to move forward to get the change we need. I’m aware that this idea would never happen, and after this last response, I can see it wouldn’t be safe to do as I would fear for women’s safety everywhere. What surprised me this time was the amount of vile, homophobic, and misogynistic, misinformed comments from white men that targeted me after this post, which has never happened to me before on Substack (I’ve had two articles go viral before this one, and only one “off-putting” comment).

How do you handle the attacks and keep going? As a single mom, I wonder if I’m putting my identity and thereby my son’s safety at risk in any way, and if it’s safe to stay on these sites. I realize I’m new to all of this and would love your advice on how to keep going with safety in mind. Or is Substack now unsafe with Andrew Tate onboard?

My answer

I am so sorry this happened to you. This should absolutely never happen. There’s no way to prepare for, or cope, with the amount of vitriol women in the public eye receive. It’s not a failure of coping skills; we never evolved to field psychological warfare from hundreds or thousands of people across the globe. Our brains just can’t manage it.

So we have to find ways to protect ourselves. I think your question is basically two questions:

1. How do we protect ourselves from male online aggression?

2. Is Substack safe for women?

I want to address the question of Substack safety first:

In patriarchy, there is no such thing as a space that is safe for women. As long as there are men somewhere, there is a risk of abuse. And even in spaces that specifically ban men, patriarchal ideas can proliferate. Patriarchy affects and infects us all, not just men.

So I think it’s really important not to think in terms of safe spaces, but rather in terms of harm reduction. Because when we decide that a space is “safe,” it may cause us to ignore unsafe realities or take unnecessary risks. This is similar to how deeming a man a “good” man can actually render him more dangerous because it causes us to overlook his misogyny.

Substack has never been a safe place for women. Not because it’s necessarily any worse than any other platform, but because there are abusive people here—just like everywhere else, and because like all social media platforms, Substack has chosen not to prioritize women’s safety.

That does not mean we should leave. That’s what patriarchy wants. We should stay where we are not wanted. We should invade as many spaces as we can, colonizing them for anti-supremacy culture and making clear that we will not be cowed into silence.

Patriarchy wants us to scamper off to quiet little platforms where we can’t make any money and can’t reach a decent audience. It want us to self-silo into platforms that rob us of our power. Instead, we need to stay, grow, and continue to make patriarchal men uncomfortable. I write more about this topic here, where I explain why I am not leaving problematic social media platforms.

My voice deserves a big audience. So does yours. We all deserve to be heard. So let’s stay and make shitty men uncomfortable.

How do we do that without destroying our own lives?

It’s simple, actually: You silence them.

Patriarchy has drugged men up with a potent sense of entitlement that convinces them they should be heard anywhere and everywhere. But you are not the government, and you do not owe anyone free speech rights. You have a moral obligation not to allow your page to become an outlet for misogyny.

So it’s simple:

Ban comments from anyone who is not a paid subscriber. Men will not typically pay to insult you. In the rare instance that they do, block them.

You can do something else, too, if you feel like really pissing them off and reclaiming your power: Name and shame them.

I keep screenshots of men who troll me, and occasionally post their information on social media or here on Substack. This means they know that, if they harass me, I relentlessly mock them. But I’ll block them first, which means they get to be humiliated publicly, but they don’t get to respond. It’s a pretty strong deterrent.

You will never be able to write in a way that doesn’t offend someone. There’s no such thing as people pleasing, because you can’t please everyone. So you might as well choose whom to offend. Misogynist men are a pretty great starting point. They get angry because you have offended them. They deserve to be offended. There is great moral pride in offending bad people. So keep it up, and consider their rage a signal that you’re doing something right.

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Today was supposed to be the last day of my semi-annual member drive, but it’s had such a good response (and, frankly, I’m so reluctant to raise prices) that I’m extending it through this week.

I will also be doing another live AMA session with Jeff on Tuesday, May 26, at 8:30 PM Eastern time. All questions are welcome: advice, thoughts on feminist philosophy, questions about our daily lives, anything you’re curious about. You can pre-submit a question using this form. You can also submit a question during the AMA session. All subscribers will get a notification that the session is live, and I will release the recording to paid subscribers the next day.

If you’re not sure why I charge for some of my work, I urge you to start by reading this piece. I also talk about why it’s important to pay for feminist analysis here.

A reminder: Monthly membership is $8. This is a wildly good deal that gets you:

• at least four posts a week (the equivalent of roughly 8-12 books per year).

• four podcasts per month, plus an additional bonus podcast.

• random extra posts.

• access to the Liberating Motherhood support group.

• free stickers and merch.

• occasional bonus features, such as the daily Deconstructing Masculinity and Deconstructing Patriarchal Thinking series.

• access to all of my surveys.

This is an all-in-one education in feminism and feminist philosophy, plus tons of support, for the cost of one large coffee at your local fancy coffee place. Women tell me daily that this work has changed, or saved, their lives. I am here to help. I want to make the world a better place, and I’m going to continue doing that for as long as I can.

After this sale, prices are going to go up. Not a lot. It will be $10 monthly going forward, which is still basically the price of a cup of coffee. I haven’t raised prices in years, in spite of giving exponentially more content each year, and in spite of inflation crushing all of us. But it’s time. So this sale is your chance to lock in today’s price. I think it’s worth it, and I think you will, too.

A quick note: If you want to save even more on your subscription, I urge you to buy in the web interface, not on the app. Because of Apple’s rent-seeking behavior, Substack charges a massive premium if you purchase in the app—like double, or maybe even triple, the usual price. The App also delays my payment for 2-3 months, so it’s a lose-lose for everyone. I also generally recommend not using the app at all, because you’ll have a better and more functional experience.

Subscribers get access to all of my series. And even if you’re already a subscriber, you might have missed some of the best newsletters if you haven’t trawled the archives. So here are some of the most beloved Liberating Motherhood collections:

• Weapons Men Use: This series covers, and debunks the weapons men use to escape household labor and accountability.

• Patriarchal Myth of the Month: This series debunks common patriarchal beliefs.

• Gaslighting Inequality: This series outlines the stories patriarchy tells to justify itself, and how the wider culture gaslights women into accepting bad treatment.

• Feminist Parenting: Learn more about effective feminist parenting.

• Deconstructing Patriarchal Thinking: This limited-run series offered daily prompts to help women deconstruct internalized patriarchal narratives.

• Deconstructing Masculinity: This series, which targets men, encourages men to think more deeply about the role of patriarchy in their lives and relationships.

• Escaping Abuse: This series identifies common characteristics of abusive relationships, helps you plan your exit, and discusses why it can be so hard to leave.

• Understanding Patriarchy’s Rules: This series outlines the hidden rules that patriarchy uses to control us all.

• Surveys: This is where I release the results of the many survey’s I’ve conducted on feminism, relationships, and how supremacy culture affects us all.

• Fighting the Red Pill: In this series, I talk about red pill philosophy, how it affects us all, and the lies it spreads.

• Sex in a Patriarchy: This series tackles the complex ways patriarchy affects our sexuality.

• Complaint Box: This surprisingly popular monthly series is devoted to reader complaints.

• Understanding Misogynist Men: This series digs into how misogynist men think, and the ways in which patriarchy disrupts critical thinking.

• On writing: I’ve been a full-time writer for 15 years. This series distills what I’ve learned, and offers tips for how to succeed on Substack.

• Abusive Parents: This is a series for adult children of abusive parents. It focuses on the harm abusive parents continue to do, as well as how abusive parenting can lure you into an abusive marriage and keep you there.

• Dating Advice: Dating men in a patriarchy is not safe, but if you insist on doing so, here’s my best dating advice.

• Birth and Postpartum: Childbirth and the postpartum period are moments of unique vulnerability. Learn about patriarchy’s influence on these rites of passage.

• Anti-Mother Misogyny: Misogyny affects mothers in unique ways. Learn about anti-mother misogyny in this series.

• Bad Advice: In this monthly column, I tackle the bad advice other advice columnists have given, and explain why patriarchy disrupts our ability to think intelligently about relationships.

• Couples Counseling: In a patriarchy, couples counseling tends to reinforce inequality. Learn why.

After you subscribe, you’ll get an email with details on how to get the merch, join the support group, and take full advantage of your membership.

If you are already a paid subscriber, do not unsubscribe! You will not be offered the current deal. But you can get a gift for anyone you want at this link.

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“How very dare you call me a misogynist, you fucking bitch? I’ll kill you to prove how nice I am!”

It’s the rallying cry of the misogynist men I deal with online every day. They claim to be outraged that I write about men’s misogyny. They’re incensed that I think abuse of women is common. And they attempt to prove me wrong by being as misogynistic and abusive as possible.

Abusive men can’t help but tell on themselves.

To demonstrate this reality, I decided to do a small roundup of the comments I receive from men that are most representative of the general trend. Each of these comments reveals much about how misogynist men think, and I hope reading them will help you better understand the abusive interactions you have with men.

Women often ask me how to respond to abusive men, or what we can learn from men’s online trolling. I think seeing my responses laid out can be educational, and of course, being publicly shamed is a deterrent for some men. For this reason, I’m going to begin making this a monthly feature. In each future column, I’ll share some examples of male trolling, then discuss in detail the thought patterns and patriarchal beliefs the trolling indicates.

Here are the lies abusive men tell me—and the truths they reveal.

This is a bonus piece, as part of my semi-annual sale. There are only two days left of the sale, before prices increase. Click here to learn more about the sale.

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