A (very observant) reader wrote in after visiting the site for the first time in a couple of years and pointed out the tone on this website is palpably different since 2011-2019. She asked whether the difference was founded on any fundamental changes in philosophy.

When I was in my 20s, I believed that men wanted to be liberated from the patriarchy. It was not my focus, and I made it a point to say I didn’t care to highlight that patriarchy hurt men too. I believed it did, and I believed that they wanted to be free of it. Why wouldn’t they? Why would anyone live in a world that only lets you practice a fraction of your humanity? That only defines you in violent paradigms and through opposition rather than independent identity? That teaches you you are not inherently worthy of love?

If you are a young woman in your 20s, let me tell you this before you learn it the hard way: Men do not want to be liberated from the patriarchy. Those in power do not want to give up power. Even if it’s liberating. Even if it’s happier, fuller, and more restful. Showing how much the system hurts men does not work. Men love being tormented as long as it means they have power. The feminists of waves before us took pains to show men that patriarchy hurts them too, because for all those women did for us (and it was considerable), the notion previous feminists held that they needed openness from their oppressors, that they should strive for collaboration, was ludicrous.

Watching you become liberated from the shackles only fosters resentment in men. Men are extremely jealous of women, and this only intensifies it. You’re thinking to yourself: I love living on my own, making my own money, exploring my capabilities, and taking care of myself. Wouldn’t men also want to expand their self-knowledge in all the domains that a patriarchy, through shame and ridicule, would keep from them? Don’t they want to self-actualize and achieve higher states of awareness and enlightenment? Shouldn’t I give 100% to a man because of course a man would also give a 100% in return? The answer is no. Men are not interested in this.

I was correct in one thing: any conversation about how the patriarchy hurts men has always been foolish.

So what’s the solution? you ask. Live your life without generosity toward men. Your generosity is for women and children, who will actually value and treasure it. Men only care about you when you stress them out. The effect of vasopressin on the male brain in pair bonding is scientifically observed and exploited by patriarchal emphasis on hierarchy. There’s no point losing the good, the compassion, the morality instilled in you that is integral to your identity in order to engage with men at the level that would actually chemically move them. Are men inherently inferior? Of course not. I don’t believe in biological essentialism. But they have no reason to give up power and challenge their conditioning. You may feel compassion toward men. You’re human after all. But direct your efforts to ameliorate burdens and build community toward yourself and toward other women. Toward a demographic as unappreciative as men, all your love is wasted energy that could do immeasurable good turned inward instead.

It is commonly said that a man will only love you as much as you love yourself. (That’s not even the minimum; it’s just the limit.) If this is true (and it statistically appears to be, based on the percentage of time a man will leave his wife when she’s severely ill), then it’s horrendous. Imagine all of the times you’ll struggle in your life while married: you’ll get sick, pregnant, your weight will fluctuate, your mother will die, you may miscarry a child, you may be overlooked for a promotion, there will be days you cannot muster the strength to comb your hair. Men don’t stay through these challenges when you find yourself difficult to love, yet I don’t know a single woman who isn’t capable of standing for me when I don’t have the strength to do it myself. Simultaneously when you’re not interested in them, men threaten you with dying alone (even though they would leave you if you were dying anyway). Save your love for yourself and your (female) friends.