Feminist relationships are better for men, too.

Feminism benefits everyone.

I keep noticing the same two themes in discussions of feminism.

One is a pointed assertion: Equality for women doesn’t require men to give anything up, so men should not feel threatened by feminism.

The other is a question, often posed to me in #AMA sessions: Are feminist men happier? Do they have better lives? The implication, of course, is that feminism is only worthwhile if it makes men happier.

Both miss the point. Because both center men in the discussion. Feminism, in these discussions, must answer to men. It must not demand anything of men, lest it be rendered irrelevant. In this understanding of feminism, feminists must address men’s concerns first.

This is not feminism. Because feminism is about justice, and specifically about gender justice. Not about pleasing men.

In spite of this, though, it is undeniably true that feminism offers the clearest, most accessible path for men to attain fulfilling relationships.

Feminism: required for meaningful relationships

Men should care about feminism because they care about their fellow human beings. Because they care about the future of humanity. Because it is impossible to build a healthy world if half of the population—the half that makes the next generation—is suffering, afraid, and prevented from realizing its full potential.

Heterosexual men should not need a list of reasons to embrace feminism. If you actually like women, if you actually want to spend your life with one, then you should want women to have good lives, too. Feminism matters because women are human beings. Men should care about feminism because they’re not monsters.

I’m tired of pretending that needing an incentive to care about half the world’s population is anything less than monstrous.

But we live in a complex world, with perverse incentives. At first glance, being anti-feminist does seem like the easier route, and maybe even the faster path to happiness. That’s certainly what misogyny influencers—whether they’re peddling overt abuse or the softer abuse of polarity and gender roles—want men to think.

Misogyny, though, makes men miserable. It disrupts their potential. It erodes meaning from their lives. And it virtually guarantees sexless relationships with women who hate them. Just think about how angry divorced men are—and how the angrier they are, the more likely they are to also be misogynists.

Of course feminism makes men happier because it enables them to have meaningful relationships with women—whether as partners, colleagues, friends, or family.

But it also requires work. This is the tension at the core of feminism.

Feminism requires sacrifice—and that’s ok

Men actually do have to make sacrifices in service of feminism. They might have to notice women in public, and stop running into them. They might have to consider how terrifying it is to women to be approached by a strange man, and then stop talking to women in public. They might have to reconsider self-identifying as nice guys, and instead try asking the women in their lives whether they have earned such a moniker. Perhaps most importantly, it requires men to give up the many extra unearned privileges they gain as husbands and fathers. That may mean less sleep, more chores, less free time, and more accountability.

It’s worth it because women’s lives are worth it. At its core, feminism is about asking men to make small sacrifices so women don’t have to make so many big ones.

Feminism requires far less of men than misogyny requires of women. Sacrificing an hour or two of sleep is well worth not driving your partner to the brink of suicide, just as doing more household labor and better parenting means your partner doesn’t have to give up her entire sense of self and every dream she holds for her future.

How feminism benefits men’s relationships

Taking time to go to the dentist is, in some ways, a sacrifice—of time, of money, of comfort. But it also offers significant benefits. Feminism is similar. It is simply not possible to have healthy, non-exploitative relationships with women without embracing feminist principles. And feminist relationships are just better.

Here’s why:

• Women in feminist relationships have more time. That means more opportunities to earn money, to get healthy, to effectively parent children, and to rest so that they can be effective partners.

• When women feel safe, do not experience coercion or exploitation, and do not view their relationships as prisons, they are much more likely to willingly have sex with their partners. And when their partners learn how to please them, they are much more likely to enjoy sex. A feminist relationship means more sex—and without sexual coercion, it also means giving up the indignity of whining, begging, and pleading for sex.

• If you treat your partner with decency, then she will like you for you—rather than stay with you because she’s trapped. That means less resentment and a happier life.

• In a feminist relationship, you have a better chance at having a partner who loves and admires you, who is happy to see you everyday, and who actually wants to make your life better.

• You don’t have to live with being chronically dissatisfied with your partner, because you see her as a human being rather than an object who must live up to society’s demands.

• A feminist relationship means equitable parenting. This means you’ll be a better parent, with a better and hopefully longer lasting relationship with your children.

• You don’t have to wear a mask, or feel ashamed of your private behavior.

• Your family won’t be glad when you’re dead, and at the end of your life, you won’t be filled with regret for the ways you exploited and abused your partner and your children.

My own husband comes home every day to a wife who is thrilled to see him, to kids who trust and love him, and to a home where anger, silence, and deprivation are never the dominant emotions. He doesn’t have to live with a partner’s resentment. And he knows I’m here because I love him, not because he has trapped me.

Who wouldn’t want that?

I’d love to hear from male readers about the other benefits of a feminist relationship.