"The reality is that you can often go back after leaving, especially if this is someone who really loves you. The decision that is actually irreversible is staying." !!!. Loved so many parts of this article, thank you. Zawn, maybe you can write a children's book that tells some of these lessons through story?
Sexual assault is never your fault. Never ever. Ever. Ever. Don't let anyone, including your own mother, tell you otherwise. You weren't asking for it, you didn't mislead him, you didn't tease him, you don't owe him anything, there's nothing you could have done differently. It's his fault and his alone. Stop asking women what they might have done differently and start demanding that men treat women like human beings.
- always remember that when a relationship ends, even if they break up with you, it is NOT because there is something inherently wrong with you - the two of you are just not a good match … You . Are. Lovable ✨
- nobody is perfect, and marriage can sometimes bring out the worst in us. Even Good partners sometimes yell or don’t show you the appreciation and respect you deserve ALL THE TIME, but if you’re partner continually engages in behaviors that make you feel unloved/disrespected/unsafe, etc (unsafe NOT being abuse) it is critical that they have the maturity and integrity to:
1. APOLOGIZE and sincerely acknowledge that they hurt you
2. DO BETTER, i.e. do what’s necessary to learn and grow and change the behavior
- lastly, while sometimes it takes a while to find them ha there are definitely some good men out there to marry if that’s your thing BUT make it a priority to also find and foster strong platonic connections… girlfriends/friendships are the absolute effing BEST 🤸🏻♀️✨🌷
“A marriage should be a tool of mutual liberation and intense joy. It should be a partnership that continuously spurs growth and meaning—or else it should be nothing at all.“ HOT DAMN. I hope to hear these words in wedding speeches in the future. May all officiants choose to say this in lieu of that tired 1st Corinthians crap.
Giggling at "that tired 1st Corinthians crap" 😂🙌 How many women have stayed in miserable and abusive marriages because "love keeps no record of wrongs"? 🙄😭
“Unmarried childless women are the happiest demographic”. When I was an unmarried, childless woman I would have vehemently disagreed with this. But now that I am partnered with a child, I can see how what I had, my old life , was really not so bad. And if I was unhappy, there were deeper reasons. No doubt expectations that society (patriarchy) filled my head with contributed to that also. I guess what I’m trying to say is, I don’t think anyone could have convinced me of this until I experienced the situation for myself. And I find that very unfortunate for me, and probably other women.
I am an unmarried, childless woman in my 40s. Especially in my 30s I used to frequently feel painfully inadequate because of not having a partner. I used to suffer because of my attachment to the ideal of "true", selfless romantic love. I started feeling much better after freeing myself from the belief that my life would be incomplete without a romantic relationship. Interestingly, this change has also had a very positive impact on my relationships and friendships with men!
Love this. Thank you for sharing. This reminds me of the concept of the “Magical Mythical Romantic Partner” as described in “Single at Heart: the Power, Freedom, & Heart-Filling Joy of Single Life.” Single and/or childless women living their best lives is a help to those of us who have found ourselves drowning in unfulfilling relationships. My single and divorced friends are my strongest allies right now.
Thank you so much for your comment! I now always look at how a man is treating me. Just one example: a man wanted me to move in with him. He is a smoker, so I asked if he would be ready to smoke outside. He immediately said no. This proved that he is too selfish and stubborn to be a good partner. A woman in my family developed COPD because of her husband's smoking and died before him. There are probably many such cases.
SAME. I hate thinking about how much time and energy I spend back then trying to fill some mythical man-sized hole in my life. There was no hole, I was just brainwashed. It makes me so angry. Think about everything women could accomplish if all that misplaced energy was focused on shit that actually matters
have a 6 year old boy who’s an only child and I think it might be really interesting if you did an article with discourse around how we as boy moms have a responsibility to RAISE GOOD MEN and how to do that/what that looks like - in theory it seems like a no-brainer, but there’s so many complicated facets of raising a child and would love your thoughts on it if you are ever up for it 🫶
all I know is that I don’t want my son to EVER be the boy/man who makes a girl feel unsafe. thoughts?
I am in the exact same position (newly single mom to a 7 year old boy). Sometimes, I find myself questioning if it’s even possible, as I’m up against a beast of a system. It doesn’t feel only political when it’s now my personal duty raising a son to buck against the political. Anyone have thoughts on when our political duty becomes personal (ie raising another human being, esp to be a man)? I love all your work Zawn and would be curious on thoughts as well, if you feel like sharing.
I know there’s no slam dunk, one quick answer to solve this. I look to clementine ford and others for ideas. However, I would love to hear from other moms who have split custody of their sons with fathers who are everything we warn girls against? What do we do for our boys? I don’t know how to exist in this society and my situation, without my son succumbing to the pressures. I feel like it will be on a hope and a prayer if he doesn’t turn out hurting. Even in listening to you and Jeff - feels like it’s part of who he is to question the system, and maybe not necessarily anything his parents (or other parents) could emulate easily if their sons aren’t naturally skeptical and justice oriented? Idk - just rambling now in search of solidarity I guess?
Zawn, this is beautiful! You always get me writing and I truly dislike writing. I STG I’m never missing another meet up. We just have to vibe! These are such excellent points you’ve touched on! I would also like to add a few things, lol. I think the farce of equality contributes to a-lot of erroneous thinking in women. Here is one small, but enormous caveat. Every single day around the world even in this nation a woman is raped or murdered by a man. Until someone can show me the opposite where women do this to men then there isn’t any equality. I think women have to start being open and truly honest with everything even when it hurts. Internal suppression and silence are quite literally forms of self negation and internal violence. Often, I write about things that hit women to their core. The topic of male oppression ALL men perform whether direct, or not is offensive but women get truly hostile and defensive because accepting a-lot of what they already know and feel deep down, hurts. There is plenty of unlearning that has to be done. Its constant and endless work. As usual women always doing, the work. In itself an enormous task to complete. It’s like you have to have an entire brain shift in a world that is always trying to pull you in, down and under. It’s like constantly fighting against a raging rip-current, riptide and undertow, simultaneously, but regardless patriarchy is the salt within the ocean. Some factual points that may cause contention. First. We have to understand men don’t just magically appear as men. As with girls the reverse is actually cultivated with boys, and that’s putting it lightly. I use, cultivated here because I know you don’t believe in, innate sex characteristics (so I’ll table that for now and make my point without it) but there is something to be said there. Yesterday a very intelligent black woman on Facebook stated, ‘Men live in a completely different reality than women.’ If you listen to any blabbering male philosopher from the past, they could analyze every system another man created within the human condition accurately but failed and always missed the mark when it concerned girls, women and our human condition, but these are the humans we were/are told to trust. Their female analysis wasn’t intensive, extensive enough, just absolute hogwash or missed the mark completely. This oppression is cyclical and hundreds if not thousands of years old. Fathers, brothers and sons+ also perpetuated, propagate and continue androcentric control, i.e., even a father giving his daughter away to another man where that man will now become her greatest threat is seen as romantic. Furthermore, it physically pains many women when these dreams are shattered. Although true liberation begins in authentic honesty, knowledge and agency. You know I’m a Dworkinite. She put the patent on so much of the real shit women see and experience to this very day although hitting within that 2nd wave of feminism which is my birth era- the greatest time for women. She said the first fact of culture is, it’s male supremacist. Males create what is real and reality. Reality is whatever premises social and cultural institutions are built on. In her chapter labeled, Root Cause she quotes —Aristotle, Metaphysics, Book 1, ‘And the things best to know are first principles and causes. For through them and from them all other things may be known.’
— It’s no wonder girls and women are fully indoctrinated and confused. The root, principles and causes that their world is constructed and resurrected on is everything male supremacist. That contributes whole heartedly to female negation and female masochism.
As a Mum of two young boys, how do I prevent them growing up to become one of these men (like their father who I recently left)? Shouldn't we be talking to young boys and not placing all the responsibility for change on girls and women?
If anyone hits the wall, it's m*n!!! Have you seen some of them in their 40s and up? Yes, there are the George Clooneys of the world, but in general, so many women look amazing in their 40s and up - better than in their 20s and 30s. E.g. when Carrie Fisher (RIP) was in Star Wars, the Rise of Skywalker, she got so much hate for looking and being old (from guess who). I thought she looked amazing and so much better than in the original Star Wars. It was her wisdom and life experience that made her look beautiful. Yes she looked great in her 20s but BETTER in her 50s.
This is it! Men are absolutely projecting when they carry on about hitting a wall and dying alone. It’s to distract us (women are trained to question themselves) from what happens to men and what they are afraid of. Just sit in any shopping centre and watch the people go by - the majority shows that women are nicely turned out and looking after themselves while men are, shall we say, letting themselves go!
I’m also thinking back to the podcast post last week about family court and how the guest speaker talks about some root reasons men do indeed change after children are born, being due to them being angry they can’t get what they needed from their mothers when they see their wives mothering their new child.
I would add, Always trust your gut, all the time, every time. If your conscious brain is constantly having to make excuses or "flip" a man's behavior in order to make it fit the image of a "good husband/boyfriend/partner" in your mind, he is not a good husband/boyfriend/partner! If you find yourself constantly having to lie for him or make excuses for his behavior to others (he's tired, he has a headache)... He is not a person you want to be with.
I recently had the realization that every time I've been fucked over by a man, it's because I ignored my gut and gave them the benefit of the doubt.
That is not to say that I haven't gotten false alarms, and things have turned out okay with someone I initially didn't get a good feeling from. But certainly, every time I've gotten fucked over, it wasn't without warning.
I definitely agree that women should be taught to trust their instincts unapologetically. But of course we aren't, because ignoring our instincts benefits men.
Why did it take me til my 50's to learn this? I was in my 40's looking for a husband, thinking if I had a partner, it would make my life 'better.' Married a man with a gambling addiction and although he's been in recovery for almost ten years, the selfish and inconsiderate behavior continued. Going to the gam anon meetings for families didn't help, because I just didn't understand how 'putting myself first' was supposed to make a difference. Then, after years of these meetings, these women admitted to me that most of them didn't leave for financial reasons. I had been knocking my head against a brick wall thinking, Why can't I just be more understanding? Why can't I just be more patient? And in reality, it was that these women had really just resigned themselves to compromising their lives, and health in so many cases, so they wouldn't have to start over and be single in their 60's. 70's and beyond.
This is probably one of my favorites that I've read. I'm saving this for my daughter when she's old enough to date. I genuinely wish someone had sat me down and told me all this when I was in my teens... because I learned all these lessons the hard way.
Another reason we enter unhealthy relationships: our fathers treated us in similar ways. Later in life we’re like those frogs in hot water who don’t recognise their predicament. I feel assessing these formative experiences is an important step in understanding how to make healthy choices for ourselves. I’d love to hear your thoughts on this 🙏
In my case it was my mother who abused me. 25yrs with my husband and I began to realise that I "married my mother", and I am just so ANGRY about having wasted so much time on the two of them.
I'm 52 and I've wasted my entire life trying to appease one or both of them, to the point where I now have difficulty working out what *I* actually feel about different things in my life.
"The reality is that you can often go back after leaving, especially if this is someone who really loves you. The decision that is actually irreversible is staying." !!!. Loved so many parts of this article, thank you. Zawn, maybe you can write a children's book that tells some of these lessons through story?
Sexual assault is never your fault. Never ever. Ever. Ever. Don't let anyone, including your own mother, tell you otherwise. You weren't asking for it, you didn't mislead him, you didn't tease him, you don't owe him anything, there's nothing you could have done differently. It's his fault and his alone. Stop asking women what they might have done differently and start demanding that men treat women like human beings.
That. ✊🏽
Amen
🫶🩷 as always !
I would add:
- always remember that when a relationship ends, even if they break up with you, it is NOT because there is something inherently wrong with you - the two of you are just not a good match … You . Are. Lovable ✨
- nobody is perfect, and marriage can sometimes bring out the worst in us. Even Good partners sometimes yell or don’t show you the appreciation and respect you deserve ALL THE TIME, but if you’re partner continually engages in behaviors that make you feel unloved/disrespected/unsafe, etc (unsafe NOT being abuse) it is critical that they have the maturity and integrity to:
1. APOLOGIZE and sincerely acknowledge that they hurt you
2. DO BETTER, i.e. do what’s necessary to learn and grow and change the behavior
- lastly, while sometimes it takes a while to find them ha there are definitely some good men out there to marry if that’s your thing BUT make it a priority to also find and foster strong platonic connections… girlfriends/friendships are the absolute effing BEST 🤸🏻♀️✨🌷
-
“A marriage should be a tool of mutual liberation and intense joy. It should be a partnership that continuously spurs growth and meaning—or else it should be nothing at all.“ HOT DAMN. I hope to hear these words in wedding speeches in the future. May all officiants choose to say this in lieu of that tired 1st Corinthians crap.
Giggling at "that tired 1st Corinthians crap" 😂🙌 How many women have stayed in miserable and abusive marriages because "love keeps no record of wrongs"? 🙄😭
The Catholic church has a lot to answer for!
Indeed
“Unmarried childless women are the happiest demographic”. When I was an unmarried, childless woman I would have vehemently disagreed with this. But now that I am partnered with a child, I can see how what I had, my old life , was really not so bad. And if I was unhappy, there were deeper reasons. No doubt expectations that society (patriarchy) filled my head with contributed to that also. I guess what I’m trying to say is, I don’t think anyone could have convinced me of this until I experienced the situation for myself. And I find that very unfortunate for me, and probably other women.
SAME in all aspects
Honest and very candid self reflection.
I am an unmarried, childless woman in my 40s. Especially in my 30s I used to frequently feel painfully inadequate because of not having a partner. I used to suffer because of my attachment to the ideal of "true", selfless romantic love. I started feeling much better after freeing myself from the belief that my life would be incomplete without a romantic relationship. Interestingly, this change has also had a very positive impact on my relationships and friendships with men!
Love this. Thank you for sharing. This reminds me of the concept of the “Magical Mythical Romantic Partner” as described in “Single at Heart: the Power, Freedom, & Heart-Filling Joy of Single Life.” Single and/or childless women living their best lives is a help to those of us who have found ourselves drowning in unfulfilling relationships. My single and divorced friends are my strongest allies right now.
Thank you so much for your comment! I now always look at how a man is treating me. Just one example: a man wanted me to move in with him. He is a smoker, so I asked if he would be ready to smoke outside. He immediately said no. This proved that he is too selfish and stubborn to be a good partner. A woman in my family developed COPD because of her husband's smoking and died before him. There are probably many such cases.
SAME. I hate thinking about how much time and energy I spend back then trying to fill some mythical man-sized hole in my life. There was no hole, I was just brainwashed. It makes me so angry. Think about everything women could accomplish if all that misplaced energy was focused on shit that actually matters
I love this so much. You are so right, brainwashed. And yes, the things I should have done instead of feeling sorry for myself are endless!
Amen to all that.
have a 6 year old boy who’s an only child and I think it might be really interesting if you did an article with discourse around how we as boy moms have a responsibility to RAISE GOOD MEN and how to do that/what that looks like - in theory it seems like a no-brainer, but there’s so many complicated facets of raising a child and would love your thoughts on it if you are ever up for it 🫶
all I know is that I don’t want my son to EVER be the boy/man who makes a girl feel unsafe. thoughts?
I would also love this as a mom of a 4.5 year old boy
I am in the exact same position (newly single mom to a 7 year old boy). Sometimes, I find myself questioning if it’s even possible, as I’m up against a beast of a system. It doesn’t feel only political when it’s now my personal duty raising a son to buck against the political. Anyone have thoughts on when our political duty becomes personal (ie raising another human being, esp to be a man)? I love all your work Zawn and would be curious on thoughts as well, if you feel like sharing.
I know there’s no slam dunk, one quick answer to solve this. I look to clementine ford and others for ideas. However, I would love to hear from other moms who have split custody of their sons with fathers who are everything we warn girls against? What do we do for our boys? I don’t know how to exist in this society and my situation, without my son succumbing to the pressures. I feel like it will be on a hope and a prayer if he doesn’t turn out hurting. Even in listening to you and Jeff - feels like it’s part of who he is to question the system, and maybe not necessarily anything his parents (or other parents) could emulate easily if their sons aren’t naturally skeptical and justice oriented? Idk - just rambling now in search of solidarity I guess?
Here I come outta left field, again :)
Zawn, this is beautiful! You always get me writing and I truly dislike writing. I STG I’m never missing another meet up. We just have to vibe! These are such excellent points you’ve touched on! I would also like to add a few things, lol. I think the farce of equality contributes to a-lot of erroneous thinking in women. Here is one small, but enormous caveat. Every single day around the world even in this nation a woman is raped or murdered by a man. Until someone can show me the opposite where women do this to men then there isn’t any equality. I think women have to start being open and truly honest with everything even when it hurts. Internal suppression and silence are quite literally forms of self negation and internal violence. Often, I write about things that hit women to their core. The topic of male oppression ALL men perform whether direct, or not is offensive but women get truly hostile and defensive because accepting a-lot of what they already know and feel deep down, hurts. There is plenty of unlearning that has to be done. Its constant and endless work. As usual women always doing, the work. In itself an enormous task to complete. It’s like you have to have an entire brain shift in a world that is always trying to pull you in, down and under. It’s like constantly fighting against a raging rip-current, riptide and undertow, simultaneously, but regardless patriarchy is the salt within the ocean. Some factual points that may cause contention. First. We have to understand men don’t just magically appear as men. As with girls the reverse is actually cultivated with boys, and that’s putting it lightly. I use, cultivated here because I know you don’t believe in, innate sex characteristics (so I’ll table that for now and make my point without it) but there is something to be said there. Yesterday a very intelligent black woman on Facebook stated, ‘Men live in a completely different reality than women.’ If you listen to any blabbering male philosopher from the past, they could analyze every system another man created within the human condition accurately but failed and always missed the mark when it concerned girls, women and our human condition, but these are the humans we were/are told to trust. Their female analysis wasn’t intensive, extensive enough, just absolute hogwash or missed the mark completely. This oppression is cyclical and hundreds if not thousands of years old. Fathers, brothers and sons+ also perpetuated, propagate and continue androcentric control, i.e., even a father giving his daughter away to another man where that man will now become her greatest threat is seen as romantic. Furthermore, it physically pains many women when these dreams are shattered. Although true liberation begins in authentic honesty, knowledge and agency. You know I’m a Dworkinite. She put the patent on so much of the real shit women see and experience to this very day although hitting within that 2nd wave of feminism which is my birth era- the greatest time for women. She said the first fact of culture is, it’s male supremacist. Males create what is real and reality. Reality is whatever premises social and cultural institutions are built on. In her chapter labeled, Root Cause she quotes —Aristotle, Metaphysics, Book 1, ‘And the things best to know are first principles and causes. For through them and from them all other things may be known.’
— It’s no wonder girls and women are fully indoctrinated and confused. The root, principles and causes that their world is constructed and resurrected on is everything male supremacist. That contributes whole heartedly to female negation and female masochism.
As a Mum of two young boys, how do I prevent them growing up to become one of these men (like their father who I recently left)? Shouldn't we be talking to young boys and not placing all the responsibility for change on girls and women?
Zawn has some great articles about raising feminist kids!
If anyone hits the wall, it's m*n!!! Have you seen some of them in their 40s and up? Yes, there are the George Clooneys of the world, but in general, so many women look amazing in their 40s and up - better than in their 20s and 30s. E.g. when Carrie Fisher (RIP) was in Star Wars, the Rise of Skywalker, she got so much hate for looking and being old (from guess who). I thought she looked amazing and so much better than in the original Star Wars. It was her wisdom and life experience that made her look beautiful. Yes she looked great in her 20s but BETTER in her 50s.
This is it! Men are absolutely projecting when they carry on about hitting a wall and dying alone. It’s to distract us (women are trained to question themselves) from what happens to men and what they are afraid of. Just sit in any shopping centre and watch the people go by - the majority shows that women are nicely turned out and looking after themselves while men are, shall we say, letting themselves go!
1000% projection.
I love this perspective !!!
Really good points in this article, and many echo some sentiments I’ve read in this article as well, particularly how women should not be treated as rehab centers for men: https://zora.medium.com/black-women-and-the-romanticization-of-struggle-love-108c47f06471.
I’m also thinking back to the podcast post last week about family court and how the guest speaker talks about some root reasons men do indeed change after children are born, being due to them being angry they can’t get what they needed from their mothers when they see their wives mothering their new child.
I would add, Always trust your gut, all the time, every time. If your conscious brain is constantly having to make excuses or "flip" a man's behavior in order to make it fit the image of a "good husband/boyfriend/partner" in your mind, he is not a good husband/boyfriend/partner! If you find yourself constantly having to lie for him or make excuses for his behavior to others (he's tired, he has a headache)... He is not a person you want to be with.
I recently had the realization that every time I've been fucked over by a man, it's because I ignored my gut and gave them the benefit of the doubt.
That is not to say that I haven't gotten false alarms, and things have turned out okay with someone I initially didn't get a good feeling from. But certainly, every time I've gotten fucked over, it wasn't without warning.
I definitely agree that women should be taught to trust their instincts unapologetically. But of course we aren't, because ignoring our instincts benefits men.
Why did it take me til my 50's to learn this? I was in my 40's looking for a husband, thinking if I had a partner, it would make my life 'better.' Married a man with a gambling addiction and although he's been in recovery for almost ten years, the selfish and inconsiderate behavior continued. Going to the gam anon meetings for families didn't help, because I just didn't understand how 'putting myself first' was supposed to make a difference. Then, after years of these meetings, these women admitted to me that most of them didn't leave for financial reasons. I had been knocking my head against a brick wall thinking, Why can't I just be more understanding? Why can't I just be more patient? And in reality, it was that these women had really just resigned themselves to compromising their lives, and health in so many cases, so they wouldn't have to start over and be single in their 60's. 70's and beyond.
This is probably one of my favorites that I've read. I'm saving this for my daughter when she's old enough to date. I genuinely wish someone had sat me down and told me all this when I was in my teens... because I learned all these lessons the hard way.
Another reason we enter unhealthy relationships: our fathers treated us in similar ways. Later in life we’re like those frogs in hot water who don’t recognise their predicament. I feel assessing these formative experiences is an important step in understanding how to make healthy choices for ourselves. I’d love to hear your thoughts on this 🙏
This.
In my case it was my mother who abused me. 25yrs with my husband and I began to realise that I "married my mother", and I am just so ANGRY about having wasted so much time on the two of them.
I'm 52 and I've wasted my entire life trying to appease one or both of them, to the point where I now have difficulty working out what *I* actually feel about different things in my life.
I hear you. The anger is an issue of its own. What do we do with it?! ❤️
I wish I had met you when I was a teen. I learned all of this the hard way
Same. In my late 40s. But I am still learning so much from Zawn !!