Personally, I think that it's okay for them to exist but in a manosphere. I don't know what all these women are doing there. Not every creator's knowledge is perfect, and that's okay.
I have encountered many accounts of men advocating for women, especially for household equity, and I've never seen men watching that. There are several men in the comments, of course, blaming women for their own defects, or arguing that this is not true.
Why women must take up all the space that's designed for men? Or it's in fact not designed for men... Because men don't usually scroll instagram within the household labor topics.
I'd respect these creators more if they targeted their ads to audiences of conservative men. Let's see how far your coaching goes.
They are indeed not targeted at men because their coaching content revolves around the premise that a) women haven’t communicated their needs effectively; and b) men are unaware that they are exploiting and coercing women. You can’t educate these men about something they already know and expect it the issue to dissolve, because at its core it’s not about communication or education—but about entitlement.
Back when that guy wrote that ‘I left my glass on the counter’ essay, I saw that he had parlayed that experience into coaching, a book deal etc and it made me rage internally. Millions of women have been making similar arguments for years and all of a sudden he and his counterparts were monetizing it. Sigh.
He also remarked on how *of course* when *he* said it, everyone (men) listened. And how perverse it was for him to make a fortune off saying exactly the same thing women have been saying all along. And that it wasn't going to stop him.
My first thought in this “I used to be such a monster, and it ruined my relationships, but now I view women as human! I’m going to teach you how to value them as humans, too!” was Brock Turner. Except his plan, as I recall, was to warn others about the dangers of alcohol and promiscuity or drunk sluts as one commentator put it. The idea of reformed giving advice is appalling.
It made me think of someone on tik tok whose name starts with j and frequently wears a wig to role-play as a couple, who "improved himself" after cheating on his wife.
The vast majority of privileged do not go looking for ways to undo their privilege. The underprivileged know something is wrong, and go looking for answers, for validation of their experiences, and for the framing and words to explain their experiences to others. Ta-daaaa...proof that women are underprivileged and abused...we're out here looking for answers and validation, even from or especially from the privileged. As much as we would like our brains to ditch our upbringing and be able to 180 into pure feminism, we unconsciously default often to thinking male figures are the authority...that their words hold greater weight than those of women. I have found during the process of patriarchal deconstruction in my own head that I gravitate toward spaces like this and feminist women experts more and more.
Having any shred of validation come from those seen as in power or privileged is addicting because of the emotional relief at finally being seen by "the other side" as it were. Could this be a lingering codependency issue, perhaps?
That being said, the work of women helping women is effective and ongoing. I recall clinging for dear life to the validation I found in Dr. Ramani Durvasula's work on narcissism when I was working my way toward divorce. I would play her videos in the background some days nonstop because that helped me feel I had at least one person in my corner who understood the energy drain it took to grayrock, work around weaponized incompetence, look and speak to everyone like everything was going along just fine, while planning my escape and documenting evidence to protect myself. The two others I followed at the time were Dr. Lisa A. Romano and the legal spitfire who eventually exhausted my tolerance for monetizing her work, Rebecca Zung. Are these women feminists? I have no idea, but their work definitely pushed my thinking forward out of internalized patriarchy...and for that, I thank them.
Omgosh yes. Thank you for distilling into words the feelings of u ease I’ve had about every male ‘feminist’ content creator. At their core they want attention. And women are the perfect audience as we are starved of men who understand accountability. It’s like the modern social media version of leaping from one abuser to another because they seem ‘just sooo different’ from what we are used to.
I love this article and my brain is going round and round with the following paradox: Yes, women shouldn’t be forced to do more emotional labour to educate men in sexism AND men *do* need to learn how to listen to women and they can’t do that if they only ever listen to men.
My ex was into Mankind Project which is all about healthy masculinity, doing a kind of “New Warrior Training”, initiation, finding balance between fierceness and gentleness, improving emotional intelligence etc. All run by men for men. His therapist was also an older white dude.
My initial thought was “Phew! I don’t have to explain this stuff to him! He’s taking initiative and taking steps independently to become a better human! Yay!”
But as time wore on, and his abuse worsened *despite* him doing all this “inner work”…I got real suspicious of these men’s groups. He came to my family home and remarked that he was more willing to listen to my dad than me — he didn’t think me worth listening to because I was a woman.
I had a whole bunch of male friends at this point who had all done MKP and most who were into therapy. I noticed the same pattern: they could wax lyrical about all this “inner work” they were doing but their heterosexual relationships were falling apart. It occurred to me that men can’t learn how to listen to, take influence from, and be held accountable by, women if they only ever listen to men.
So my thought was “Yes men need men-only spaces to explore this stuff and learn from other men AND they need mixed gender spaces to SEE excellent equitable relationships in action WHERE WOMEN ARE HEARD AND WITH MEN’S BEHAVIOUR CHANGING, *and* they need to be comfortable with being one-one-one with just women (friends, colleagues, partners, siblings, etc) holding them accountable.
And they won’t learn that by *only* having dudes as therapists / advice-givers / mentors.
In a similar vein we women also need to listen to and learn from other women (and stop putting “feminist” dudes on a pedestal) — which is why I love Zawn’s work. Others I recommend are Nora Samaran, Carmen Knudson-Martin, Lena Gunarrson, Val Plumwood, Kate Manne, Celia Ridgeway.
Thank you for the recs. And wow, does your story sound similar to my ex who was also tangentially involved with the MKP for a time. I think that's the thing -- men really need to learn to take direction from women since they so rarely do now. When I've been involved with racial justice groups that are primarily white people, they had accountability partner groups that were POC-led and a lot of their initiatives were in response to what the accountability groups specifically asked for support on. I think that's a better model -- where there's space for the people not directly harmed by the system to learn and be educated w/o burdening the people who are harmed by that system, but having something in place that allows them to be guided by and responsive to those harmed by that system. It may not work perfectly, but far better than just gathering a group of those in the privileged group to navel gaze with one another and never actually do shit for those they are advantaged against.
I've been a fan of your work for some time, and referred people in my personal life to it. And even though I'm feeling pretty deflated about my attempts to be better through my writing, and help other men to be better, I've got to say that I'm still a fan. Men often have too high of an opinion of themselves and other men, and could do with a good deflation every now and then. ❤️🍄
It is depressing how desperate many women are to believe the best of men. It is the opposite of true accountability and it props up the patriarchy. Unfortunately a human beingneeds to feel real discomfort before they can make a change. They need to see the devastation that their selfish and entitled behaviour has caused to their partner and children. They cannot be coddled into being a better person. Women are so programmed into saving men (while being abused by them).it feels like an actual competition ‘I can take more abuse than you to save this male project.’
I appreciate this call to centre female and non male voices around the challenge to patriarchal norms, I want to be really discerning who I give my attention to. I have followed some male content creators because they are entertaining - they observe the truth of patriarchy and voice it. The fact that many women are so starved of external and social validation around their experience of oppressive inequity makes these entertaining individuals attractive to follow and I don't think I'd want to argue that their voices are irrelevant - do we really want to squish any attempts by men to take feminist stances and fight patriarchy?
However I definitely agree when it comes to coaching and lifestyle or therapeutic support though. I am well known in my profession for challenging whether anyone should have a niche where they do not have lived experience of the issues being specifically addressed whether that be neurodivergence, sex, sexuality, gender, certain experiences of trauma - racial, narcisisstic etc. I wouldn't say someone without lived experience can't help but why wouldn't we refer or defer to voices, services and expertise from professionals who can personally intuit clients' perspectives?
I have no issues with someone choosing whoever they like but when a therapist, coach, personal trainer or even medical professional selects a cohort outside their own lived experience, they immediately reduce their ability to intuit the needs and experiences of their clients and risk framing any insights they bring from the very oppressive and prejudiced systems they experience privilege within but their clients do not. And it's fair that their motivations for seeing those clients 'in need of *their* help', and benefiting from those needs, should be questioned.
Thank you for helping me understand finally why you have problem with Matthew Fray's book "This is how your marriage ends". It's ironic because it's his work that led me to yours. It was my couples therapist who told recommended his book to us. And of course it was me who read it first, and my husband who pooh-poohed it. I haven't sent him Zawn's work. He's too defensive and he jumps into conclusions too quickly, and I genuinely don't feel safe sharing Zawn's work with him at all, no offense to Zawn.
Personally, I think that it's okay for them to exist but in a manosphere. I don't know what all these women are doing there. Not every creator's knowledge is perfect, and that's okay.
I have encountered many accounts of men advocating for women, especially for household equity, and I've never seen men watching that. There are several men in the comments, of course, blaming women for their own defects, or arguing that this is not true.
Why women must take up all the space that's designed for men? Or it's in fact not designed for men... Because men don't usually scroll instagram within the household labor topics.
I'd respect these creators more if they targeted their ads to audiences of conservative men. Let's see how far your coaching goes.
They are indeed not targeted at men because their coaching content revolves around the premise that a) women haven’t communicated their needs effectively; and b) men are unaware that they are exploiting and coercing women. You can’t educate these men about something they already know and expect it the issue to dissolve, because at its core it’s not about communication or education—but about entitlement.
Back when that guy wrote that ‘I left my glass on the counter’ essay, I saw that he had parlayed that experience into coaching, a book deal etc and it made me rage internally. Millions of women have been making similar arguments for years and all of a sudden he and his counterparts were monetizing it. Sigh.
He also remarked on how *of course* when *he* said it, everyone (men) listened. And how perverse it was for him to make a fortune off saying exactly the same thing women have been saying all along. And that it wasn't going to stop him.
My first thought in this “I used to be such a monster, and it ruined my relationships, but now I view women as human! I’m going to teach you how to value them as humans, too!” was Brock Turner. Except his plan, as I recall, was to warn others about the dangers of alcohol and promiscuity or drunk sluts as one commentator put it. The idea of reformed giving advice is appalling.
It made me think of someone on tik tok whose name starts with j and frequently wears a wig to role-play as a couple, who "improved himself" after cheating on his wife.
Louder!
The vast majority of privileged do not go looking for ways to undo their privilege. The underprivileged know something is wrong, and go looking for answers, for validation of their experiences, and for the framing and words to explain their experiences to others. Ta-daaaa...proof that women are underprivileged and abused...we're out here looking for answers and validation, even from or especially from the privileged. As much as we would like our brains to ditch our upbringing and be able to 180 into pure feminism, we unconsciously default often to thinking male figures are the authority...that their words hold greater weight than those of women. I have found during the process of patriarchal deconstruction in my own head that I gravitate toward spaces like this and feminist women experts more and more.
Having any shred of validation come from those seen as in power or privileged is addicting because of the emotional relief at finally being seen by "the other side" as it were. Could this be a lingering codependency issue, perhaps?
That being said, the work of women helping women is effective and ongoing. I recall clinging for dear life to the validation I found in Dr. Ramani Durvasula's work on narcissism when I was working my way toward divorce. I would play her videos in the background some days nonstop because that helped me feel I had at least one person in my corner who understood the energy drain it took to grayrock, work around weaponized incompetence, look and speak to everyone like everything was going along just fine, while planning my escape and documenting evidence to protect myself. The two others I followed at the time were Dr. Lisa A. Romano and the legal spitfire who eventually exhausted my tolerance for monetizing her work, Rebecca Zung. Are these women feminists? I have no idea, but their work definitely pushed my thinking forward out of internalized patriarchy...and for that, I thank them.
Omgosh yes. Thank you for distilling into words the feelings of u ease I’ve had about every male ‘feminist’ content creator. At their core they want attention. And women are the perfect audience as we are starved of men who understand accountability. It’s like the modern social media version of leaping from one abuser to another because they seem ‘just sooo different’ from what we are used to.
I shall share this as widely as possible.
The closest any man can be to feminist is pro-feminist.
I love this article and my brain is going round and round with the following paradox: Yes, women shouldn’t be forced to do more emotional labour to educate men in sexism AND men *do* need to learn how to listen to women and they can’t do that if they only ever listen to men.
My ex was into Mankind Project which is all about healthy masculinity, doing a kind of “New Warrior Training”, initiation, finding balance between fierceness and gentleness, improving emotional intelligence etc. All run by men for men. His therapist was also an older white dude.
My initial thought was “Phew! I don’t have to explain this stuff to him! He’s taking initiative and taking steps independently to become a better human! Yay!”
But as time wore on, and his abuse worsened *despite* him doing all this “inner work”…I got real suspicious of these men’s groups. He came to my family home and remarked that he was more willing to listen to my dad than me — he didn’t think me worth listening to because I was a woman.
I had a whole bunch of male friends at this point who had all done MKP and most who were into therapy. I noticed the same pattern: they could wax lyrical about all this “inner work” they were doing but their heterosexual relationships were falling apart. It occurred to me that men can’t learn how to listen to, take influence from, and be held accountable by, women if they only ever listen to men.
So my thought was “Yes men need men-only spaces to explore this stuff and learn from other men AND they need mixed gender spaces to SEE excellent equitable relationships in action WHERE WOMEN ARE HEARD AND WITH MEN’S BEHAVIOUR CHANGING, *and* they need to be comfortable with being one-one-one with just women (friends, colleagues, partners, siblings, etc) holding them accountable.
And they won’t learn that by *only* having dudes as therapists / advice-givers / mentors.
In a similar vein we women also need to listen to and learn from other women (and stop putting “feminist” dudes on a pedestal) — which is why I love Zawn’s work. Others I recommend are Nora Samaran, Carmen Knudson-Martin, Lena Gunarrson, Val Plumwood, Kate Manne, Celia Ridgeway.
Thank you for the recs. And wow, does your story sound similar to my ex who was also tangentially involved with the MKP for a time. I think that's the thing -- men really need to learn to take direction from women since they so rarely do now. When I've been involved with racial justice groups that are primarily white people, they had accountability partner groups that were POC-led and a lot of their initiatives were in response to what the accountability groups specifically asked for support on. I think that's a better model -- where there's space for the people not directly harmed by the system to learn and be educated w/o burdening the people who are harmed by that system, but having something in place that allows them to be guided by and responsive to those harmed by that system. It may not work perfectly, but far better than just gathering a group of those in the privileged group to navel gaze with one another and never actually do shit for those they are advantaged against.
I probably fit into this category.
I've been a fan of your work for some time, and referred people in my personal life to it. And even though I'm feeling pretty deflated about my attempts to be better through my writing, and help other men to be better, I've got to say that I'm still a fan. Men often have too high of an opinion of themselves and other men, and could do with a good deflation every now and then. ❤️🍄
It is depressing how desperate many women are to believe the best of men. It is the opposite of true accountability and it props up the patriarchy. Unfortunately a human beingneeds to feel real discomfort before they can make a change. They need to see the devastation that their selfish and entitled behaviour has caused to their partner and children. They cannot be coddled into being a better person. Women are so programmed into saving men (while being abused by them).it feels like an actual competition ‘I can take more abuse than you to save this male project.’
Caylee Cresta on Tik Tok is an amazing feminist content creator too. I needed to give her a shoutout cause I've followed her for years.
I appreciate this call to centre female and non male voices around the challenge to patriarchal norms, I want to be really discerning who I give my attention to. I have followed some male content creators because they are entertaining - they observe the truth of patriarchy and voice it. The fact that many women are so starved of external and social validation around their experience of oppressive inequity makes these entertaining individuals attractive to follow and I don't think I'd want to argue that their voices are irrelevant - do we really want to squish any attempts by men to take feminist stances and fight patriarchy?
However I definitely agree when it comes to coaching and lifestyle or therapeutic support though. I am well known in my profession for challenging whether anyone should have a niche where they do not have lived experience of the issues being specifically addressed whether that be neurodivergence, sex, sexuality, gender, certain experiences of trauma - racial, narcisisstic etc. I wouldn't say someone without lived experience can't help but why wouldn't we refer or defer to voices, services and expertise from professionals who can personally intuit clients' perspectives?
I have no issues with someone choosing whoever they like but when a therapist, coach, personal trainer or even medical professional selects a cohort outside their own lived experience, they immediately reduce their ability to intuit the needs and experiences of their clients and risk framing any insights they bring from the very oppressive and prejudiced systems they experience privilege within but their clients do not. And it's fair that their motivations for seeing those clients 'in need of *their* help', and benefiting from those needs, should be questioned.
Thank you for helping me understand finally why you have problem with Matthew Fray's book "This is how your marriage ends". It's ironic because it's his work that led me to yours. It was my couples therapist who told recommended his book to us. And of course it was me who read it first, and my husband who pooh-poohed it. I haven't sent him Zawn's work. He's too defensive and he jumps into conclusions too quickly, and I genuinely don't feel safe sharing Zawn's work with him at all, no offense to Zawn.
Shani Silver is a writer and author who talks a lot about the experience of being single as a woman in her 40s. Highly recommend her content too!
I love Ashley Southard's content on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drashleysouthard/