#patriachy

To them, they are the only innocent group. A "no true scotsman" argument. Nothing can get in. They are perpetual victims. They can make no choices and hold no positions of authority. This is a lie, obviously, but it is a lie constructed for one thing - to never take responsibility for their actions. To never be held accountable.

I cited my sources and (within a rounding error) I am correct. This will be explained later on. What's crucial here is that I was not talking to this terf. But she insisted she take over the space. Not to challenge my number, which are right, but to lie.

Notice how she doesn't cite a source but also doesn't give percentages? AND requires you eliminate the demographic that VOTED THE MOST. She knows its a lie. Beciase she is a liar. An offended, pear clutching liar.

Make no mistake, this isnt about truth or justice, this is because SHE'S OFFENDED.

So there's the math. Feel free to question it. But.... notice how she just goes straight into lying. This is about nothing but HER AND HER ALONE. Theyre so self centered they dont realise how fucking obvious theyre being about it. This is how they kill you. Blind, startling self centeredness.

And, as we see is so common with these types, they go straight to emotional outbursts and personal attacks. They cannot handle reality. So they change it to suit their needs.

Really think about what she's doing here. Is there any other interpretation of her speech other than to say older women aren't women?

Every accusation is a confession. Lying with math. What was she doing by removing a majority of the women from the statistics? Lying with math. Its so obvious. But theyre so delusional they can't see it.

And it took? 4 posts for her to reveal what she's REALLY MAD ABOUT. Lolol. Which is funny, because THIS REALITY DROP IS WHY I DO THIS.

I didnt know she was a terf when this started, I suspected because only a terf would get this butt hurt. Like when you talk about how shitty cops are and every trump fsggot shows up. They self report. ALWAYS.

I dont know what an MRA movement is. Im not so brain rotted that ive fallen into coded language and call signs. But i can pick itnup from context. When confronted with reality, undisputed reality, what did this white women do? Lie. Denigrate black women and scream about the trans movement.

Self report. Alllllllll accusations are confessions. Because they dont have values. They just have screeching.

No facts. No sources cited. Nothing. Just pure rage and emotion. Facts free screeching from the brain dead. Lololol.

White women will get you killed. There is no hope for a vessel like that. They just do what theyre told.

Because to her, nothing exists outside her. How do you expect someone like this to deal with structural racism? Over policing? Medical discrimination? She couldn't. She CAN'T.

Not only would she blame a black woman for it so as to shift blame away from white women's involvement with those things, she would change reality to call you wrong.

This is how white women ruin the country. Not with the violence of white men. But with the lies. And lies are far more insidious. Straight up misinformation that dies nothing but reinforce white power at the expense of all else because she can't sit down and self analyse reality.

EDIT: BONUS PANELS

Never take responsibility. Whataboutism and deflection. Thats how they support their partners in white supremacy.

The government own this women’s embryos now and can do whatever they what with them. She thinks of them as (kinda) her kids but they are not hers anymore.

What could they do with her eggs?

It’s like a bad sci fi film.

I have increasingly found myself wondering whether part of the hostility directed at Sombr online stems from something deeper than musical taste. Not from his melodies, nor from the quality of his songwriting, but from what his songwriting represents.

What strikes me most about his work is not simply that he writes about love, longing, insecurity, emotional dependence, yearning, or heartbreak. Artists have done that for centuries. What strikes me is that he does so as a young man who, based on the information publicly available and the narratives present in his songs, appears to be cisgender and heterosexual. He speaks openly about vulnerability without disguising it behind irony, cynicism, or bravado.

Historically, societies have been remarkably uncomfortable with vulnerable men.

For generations, boys have been taught that strength means silence. That sadness should be swallowed. That fear should be hidden. That tenderness is weakness. The architecture of traditional masculinity has often resembled a fortress: impressive from the outside, yet isolating for those trapped within its walls. Men have been told to build emotional armor long before they were taught how to understand their own emotions.

Psychologists have spent decades documenting the consequences of this conditioning. Men are often socialized to suppress emotional expression, which can contribute to loneliness, difficulty identifying feelings, emotional dysregulation, and higher rates of certain mental health struggles. When people say they want healthier men, what they are often asking for is something remarkably simple: men who can recognize their emotions, articulate them, and share them without shame.

Yet there is a paradox hidden within contemporary culture.

Many people celebrate vulnerability in theory, but become uncomfortable when certain people embody it in practice.

When a woman writes about longing, insecurity, heartbreak, obsession, body image struggles, or emotional dependence, audiences often recognize those experiences as deeply human. When queer artists explore similar themes, many people rightly celebrate their honesty and emotional courage. And they should. Some of the most beloved artists of our generation have built entire careers on transforming vulnerability into art.

What makes me pause is seeing a young man explore many of those same emotions and watching some corners of the internet immediately reduce them to ridicule.

Take the lyrics people have recently mocked:

"I like you but my body isn't ready. I want you but the mirror won't let me. I try to be the person you're expecting but I'm not ready."

Many people reduced these words to crude jokes, treating them as evidence of poor songwriting or turning them into punchlines about sexual inadequacy. Yet the meaning seems rather straightforward. The lyrics describe an internal conflict between desire and insecurity: the longing to connect with someone emotionally and physically while feeling imprisoned by one's own self-perception. Anyone who has struggled with body image issues, dysmorphia, self-esteem, anxiety, or fear of intimacy can immediately recognize the emotional landscape being described.

The song is not speaking about the absence of desire. It is speaking about the tragedy of desire being obstructed by self-doubt.

To me, those words do not sound confusing at all. They describe something painfully familiar to anyone who has ever struggled with body image issues, self-esteem, dysmorphia, anxiety, or the fear of not being enough for someone they desire.

The conflict is not physical incapacity. It is psychological captivity.

The speaker wants intimacy, connection, and closeness, yet finds himself blocked by the harsh reflection of his own insecurities. The mirror becomes more than glass; it becomes a prison guard. Desire stands at the door, but self-doubt keeps turning the key.

Anyone who has lived with profound insecurities knows exactly what that feels like.

And perhaps that is why the ridicule feels so revealing.

Because I cannot help but wonder whether the reaction would have been quite the same had these exact words been written by a woman or by an openly queer artist. Vulnerability, longing, insecurity, emotional dependence, heartbreak, self-consciousness, and romantic yearning have long been celebrated as legitimate artistic subjects when expressed by many beloved female artists and LGBTQ+ performers. Entire generations have connected to the music of artists because they transformed their fragility into poetry.

When a woman sings about insecurity, audiences often describe it as raw, authentic, and courageous.

When a queer artist explores longing and emotional vulnerability, many celebrate it as profound self-expression.

Yet when a young man perceived as heterosexual and cisgender expresses similar emotions, there sometimes appears to be a peculiar eagerness in certain online spaces to frame the exact same vulnerability as pathetic, laughable, or embarrassing.

To be clear, I am not arguing that criticism of Sombr's music is inherently unfair. Art is subjective. People are free to dislike his songwriting, his voice, his style, or his themes.

What I am questioning is the noticeable double standard that occasionally emerges around emotional expression itself.

As sociologists and psychologists have pointed out for decades, one of the central pillars of traditional masculinity is the expectation that men suppress vulnerability. Boys are often taught, directly or indirectly, that sadness is weakness, sensitivity is embarrassing, and emotional openness invites ridicule. The result is not strength but emotional illiteracy—a condition that harms both men and the people around them.

Many progressive movements have rightly challenged these expectations. Feminist scholars, mental health professionals, and LGBTQ+ activists have repeatedly emphasized that healthier societies require men to be capable of naming their emotions rather than burying them.

But if we genuinely believe that, then we must be careful not to reproduce the very behaviors we claim to oppose.

Because when a young straight man openly sings about insecurity, body image struggles, fear of intimacy, emotional dependency, or romantic vulnerability, and the immediate response is public humiliation, one has to ask: how different is that from the old voices of toxic masculinity that mocked emotional men for "being weak" or "acting like girls"?

The language may be different.

The political identities of the people speaking may be different.

But the mechanism remains surprisingly familiar.

What troubles me most is not whether Sombr is a great artist or not. Time will answer that question far better than social media ever could.

What troubles me is the message sent to countless listeners who may see themselves in those lyrics.

Because for every person laughing at those words, there is likely someone quietly living them.

Someone staring into a mirror and struggling to recognize their own worth.

Someone afraid of intimacy because they cannot separate how they feel from how they see themselves.

Someone carrying insecurities they have never dared to speak aloud.

And when vulnerability becomes the punchline, those people hear the joke too.

In the end, art has always served as a bridge between private suffering and collective understanding. Some of the most beloved songs ever written are simply artists finding the courage to articulate feelings that others were unable to put into words.

Whether Sombr's music resonates with everyone is irrelevant.

The more important question is why expressions of vulnerability are celebrated in some voices but ridiculed in others.

And perhaps the answer reveals less about the artist being mocked than about the cultural assumptions we have not yet fully confronted within ourselves.

But let me ask a sincere question.

Beyond advocating for the rights, safety, and dignity of women and LGBTQ+ people, are feminism and queer liberation movements not also striving for something larger—a society that is more compassionate, more emotionally literate, and more humane than the one that came before it? A society in which future generations are raised with greater empathy, greater self-awareness, and a deeper capacity for solidarity? If that is indeed the goal, then surely that future must include straight boys as well.

After all, boys do not emerge from the womb carrying misogyny, homophobia, or emotional repression. They are taught these things. They inherit them from a culture that, for centuries, has rewarded emotional silence and punished vulnerability. One of the most enduring lessons patriarchal systems teach young boys is painfully simple: do not cry, do not be vulnerable, do not reveal your fears, do not speak your pain. Emotions become something to suppress rather than understand. Vulnerability becomes something to fear rather than embrace.

The consequences of this are not abstract. Psychologists have spent decades documenting how emotional repression contributes to isolation, depression, self-destructive coping mechanisms, relationship difficulties, and, in some cases, harmful expressions of anger and aggression. When people are taught to bury their emotions instead of naming them, those emotions rarely disappear. They simply find darker exits.

This is precisely why so many progressive movements have spent years encouraging men to become more emotionally honest, more self-reflective, and more comfortable expressing vulnerability. We rightly criticize the idea that masculinity should be measured by emotional numbness. We rightly challenge the notion that sensitivity is weakness. We rightly argue that men deserve the freedom to be fully human.

Which is why I find the reaction to artists like Sombr so fascinating—and, if I am being honest, deeply disappointing.

When a young straight male artist writes openly about longing, insecurity, romantic obsession, emotional dependency, self-doubt, or struggles with body image, what exactly is he doing wrong? Is he not doing what society has spent years asking men to do? Is he not putting language to emotions that countless young people—boys and girls alike—struggle to articulate?

When people mock lyrics that express insecurity about one's body, fear of intimacy, or the desperate desire to be loved while feeling unworthy of that love, I cannot help but notice the irony. These are themes that have existed throughout literature, poetry, and music for centuries. From the Romantic poets to modern singer-songwriters, vulnerability has always been one of art's most universal languages. The ache of yearning, the fear of rejection, the war against one's own reflection—these are not signs of weakness. They are among the oldest human experiences ever put into words.

And so I cannot help but wonder: if those exact same lyrics had been written by a woman, would they be mocked in the same way? If they had been sung by a queer artist, would people be dismissing them as embarrassing, pathetic, or laughable? Or would they be praised as brave, raw, emotionally intelligent, and deeply relatable?

Because when I look at artists such as Taylor Swift, Lana Del Rey, Billie Eilish, Olivia Rodrigo, Conan Gray, Lady Gaga, or Florence Welch, I see artists who have built extraordinary careers precisely because they transformed vulnerability into art. Their fears, insecurities, heartbreaks, desires, and contradictions became bridges connecting millions of listeners to their own emotional lives. And rightly so.

Yet when a young straight man engages in a similar act of emotional exposure, some of the very people who celebrate vulnerability elsewhere suddenly become dismissive. Not because vulnerability itself is the problem, but because vulnerability expressed through a certain kind of masculinity seems to make them uncomfortable.

To be clear, I am not arguing that Sombr experiences discrimination for being heterosexual. That would be neither accurate nor helpful. What I am pointing to is something far more subtle: the persistence of cultural expectations about who is "allowed" to be vulnerable without ridicule.

Sometimes the most revealing forms of prejudice are not the ones we consciously defend. They are the ones we unknowingly reproduce while believing ourselves immune to them.

And that is why this conversation matters.

Because if we genuinely want a future where boys grow into emotionally healthy men—men capable of empathy, introspection, tenderness, accountability, and meaningful connection—then we cannot spend years encouraging emotional openness only to mock it the moment it appears in a form we did not expect.

Otherwise, we risk becoming mirrors of the very system we claim to oppose.

The old patriarchal voice tells boys: "Don't cry. Don't be vulnerable. Don't speak about your insecurities. People will laugh at you."

If a young straight man finally does speak—and our response is laughter—then what lesson have we truly taught him?

And perhaps more importantly, what lesson have we taught the millions of young boys listening?

This is why some of the mockery surrounding those lyrics feels strangely revealing. It often resembles the same logic that progressive movements have spent decades trying to dismantle.

After all, what is the underlying message behind ridiculing a man for expressing vulnerability?

Is it really so different from the old cultural scripts that mocked emotional boys by telling them to "man up," to stop crying, to stop acting "like a girl," to stop being sensitive?

The language may have evolved, but sometimes the reflex remains remarkably similar.

I am not suggesting that everyone who dislikes Sombr's music is motivated by this dynamic. Musical preferences are subjective, and every artist will have critics. Nor am I claiming that he experiences any form of oppression comparable to the discrimination faced by women or LGBTQ+ people. Those are entirely different social realities.

What I am suggesting is that there may be an unconscious double standard at work.

A society that genuinely wishes to create healthier future generations must allow boys and young men the same emotional vocabulary it encourages in everyone else. We cannot spend decades arguing that men should be more emotionally aware, more communicative, more introspective, and then ridicule them the moment they become exactly that.

Because vulnerability is not a privilege reserved for certain identities.

It is one of the most universal aspects of being human.

The truth is that every person, regardless of gender, carries invisible battles. Every person has moments when desire collides with insecurity, when affection collides with fear, when the longing to be seen collides with the terror of being judged.

Art has always existed to give language to those battles.

And perhaps that is why songs like these resonate with so many people. Not because they are perfect. Not because they are revolutionary. But because beneath all the noise, they remind us of something simple and timeless:

The courage to reveal one's wounds has always been rarer than the courage to hide them.

What I am ultimately highlighting is not that everyone must enjoy Sombr's music, nor that every criticism directed toward him is inherently unfair. Art has always invited disagreement. Taste is subjective. Some people will connect with a piece of music, while others will not. That is neither unusual nor problematic.

What I find revealing, however, is the disproportionate hostility that often accompanies those criticisms. The eagerness not merely to dislike the music, but to belittle it. Not merely to disagree with the message, but to ridicule the person expressing it.

And that is where a question begins to emerge.

If vulnerability is something we celebrate as a virtue, why does that celebration sometimes appear conditional?

Modern progressive discourse often emphasizes the importance of emotional intelligence, self-awareness, communication, and psychological openness. We encourage people to discuss their insecurities rather than bury them. We encourage them to seek help rather than suffer in silence. We encourage them to identify their emotions rather than suppress them.

These are admirable goals.

But if we genuinely believe in those principles, then we must apply them consistently.

Because what are we ultimately asking of men if not precisely this?

To become more emotionally literate.

To recognize their fears instead of converting them into anger.

To articulate their loneliness instead of masking it behind aggression.

To speak about insecurity before it mutates into resentment.

To embrace vulnerability rather than viewing it as a source of shame.

Yet when a young man creates art that openly explores longing, emotional dependence, insecurity, romantic idealism, body image struggles, and the fear of not being enough, some of the very people who claim to support those values suddenly treat those emotions as objects of ridicule.

That contradiction is worth examining.

Not because it proves malice, but because it may reveal something far more common: unconscious bias.

Sociologists have long observed that cultural change often occurs faster in our public values than in our private instincts. People may intellectually reject an old social norm while still carrying fragments of it beneath the surface. The house may have been renovated, yet some of the original foundations remain buried underneath.

And one of those foundations is the centuries-old expectation that men should be emotionally invulnerable.

When a woman writes about yearning, heartbreak, insecurity, or obsession, many people recognize it as profound emotional honesty. When queer artists explore those same experiences, their vulnerability is often praised as courageous and authentic.

Yet when a heterosexual young man appears to express similar emotions, there can sometimes be a temptation to dismiss him as weak, melodramatic, pathetic, or unserious.

Not always, of course.

But often enough to make one wonder whether the issue is truly the vulnerability itself, or simply who is being vulnerable.

Because vulnerability does not become less meaningful depending on the identity of the person expressing it.

Human pain is not a competition.

Human insecurity is not reserved for particular communities.

And emotional honesty does not lose its value because it comes from someone who belongs to a demographic often associated with privilege.

In fact, if our long-term goal is a healthier society, then boys and young men need examples of emotional transparency just as much as anyone else.

They need to see that fear can be spoken.

That insecurity can be admitted.

That longing can be expressed.

That body image struggles are not exclusively female experiences.

That romantic rejection can wound them too.

That emotional dependence, self-doubt, and vulnerability are not signs of failure but ordinary aspects of being human.

As a woman myself, I find many of those themes deeply relatable. Having struggled with restrictive eating disorders, body dysmorphia, complex trauma, and the difficulties these experiences can create in one's relationship with intimacy, trust, and one's own body, I do not hear those lyrics as weakness.

I hear recognition.

I hear the language of someone attempting to articulate the distance between how they see themselves and how they wish they could be seen.

And I suspect many men, regardless of their sexuality, may recognize themselves in those feelings as well.

Perhaps that is the real purpose of art.

Not to prove who suffers more.

Not to establish whose emotions are more legitimate.

But to remind us that beneath our labels, identities, and social categories, there exists a shared human landscape of hope, fear, longing, insecurity, and love.

Which is why I find the mockery so unfortunate.

Because beyond the criticism of one artist lies a broader message being sent to countless people listening.

Every time vulnerability is treated as something embarrassing, every time emotional openness is ridiculed, every time insecurity is turned into a punchline, someone watching quietly learns a lesson.

A young boy learns that honesty invites humiliation.

A young man learns that speaking about his feelings makes him a target.

Someone struggling with self-image learns that their pain is laughable.

Someone wrestling with loneliness learns that silence may be safer than authenticity.

And that lesson is precisely the one patriarchal culture has spent generations teaching.

If we truly wish to build a more compassionate future, then we should be careful not to reproduce the very messages we claim to oppose.

Because a society cannot simultaneously ask men to open their hearts and then punish them for doing so.

That is not progress.

It is simply the old cage wearing a new coat of paint.

The question, then, is not merely why some people dislike Sombr's music.

The more interesting question is why certain individuals who sincerely view themselves as progressive, compassionate, and socially conscious can sometimes find themselves reacting with remarkable hostility toward expressions of vulnerability when those expressions come from someone they perceive as belonging to a socially privileged group.

I do not believe the answer is simple hatred.

Human psychology is rarely that straightforward.

More often, it is the result of several social and psychological forces colliding at once.

One of them is what sociologists sometimes describe as the tendency to think in categories before thinking in individuals.

Throughout history, marginalized groups have had to fight to have their experiences recognized. Women had to struggle for centuries to have their suffering taken seriously. LGBTQ+ people fought to have their identities acknowledged as legitimate. Countless minorities had to insist upon a truth that should have been obvious from the beginning: their pain mattered too.

Those struggles were necessary.

They remain necessary.

But every social movement carries a risk when its language leaves the realm of structural analysis and enters the realm of interpersonal judgment.

The risk is that people begin to unconsciously treat individuals as symbols rather than human beings.

When that happens, a person ceases to be seen as a complex individual with their own fears, wounds, contradictions, and experiences. Instead, they become a representative of a category.

And categories are easier to dismiss than people.

The moment someone is perceived primarily as "a straight cisgender man," there can be a temptation among certain corners of progressive culture to assume that vulnerability expressed by that person is somehow less significant, less authentic, or less deserving of empathy than vulnerability expressed by someone from a marginalized identity.

Yet suffering does not organize itself according to demographic spreadsheets.

Loneliness does not ask for a sexuality before entering a room.

Body dysmorphia does not check someone's gender identity before taking hold.

Insecurity does not request proof of oppression before making itself known.

Human emotions are far less interested in our social categories than we are.

This is where a subtle contradiction sometimes emerges.

Many progressive spaces rightly criticize traditional masculinity for teaching boys to suppress emotion. They criticize cultures that shame men for crying. They criticize social expectations that encourage emotional repression.

Again, those criticisms are valid.

But if the goal is to dismantle those harmful expectations, then emotional vulnerability must be welcomed consistently.

Otherwise, what often happens is not the rejection of patriarchal standards but merely their redistribution.

The old patriarchal message was:

"Your feelings do not matter because you are a man."

The modernized version can sometimes become:

"Your feelings matter but only if you aren't privileged."

Neither message ultimately teaches empathy.

Neither creates emotional safety.

Neither encourages genuine human connection.

Psychologically speaking, people are often more comfortable extending compassion to those they perceive as victims than to those they perceive as beneficiaries of a system.

The problem is that human beings are never exclusively one thing.

Someone can benefit from certain social privileges while simultaneously struggling with profound insecurities.

Someone can occupy a socially advantaged position while still experiencing loneliness, rejection, trauma, mental illness, body image struggles, or emotional suffering.

These realities are not mutually exclusive.

History repeatedly demonstrates that reducing people to a single characteristic inevitably produces blind spots.

The irony is that many of the individuals who mock vulnerable men would likely be horrified if they heard a traditionally masculine man ridicule another man by saying:

"Stop whining."

"Stop being emotional."

"Stop crying."

"Be a man."

And rightly so.

Yet when vulnerability is mocked because the person expressing it is perceived as straight, cisgender, or male, the underlying mechanism is not always as different as people imagine.

The language changes.

The target changes.

The social justification changes.

But the emotional reflex can remain remarkably similar.

The reflex is still discomfort with male vulnerability.

It is simply expressed through a different ideological vocabulary.

This does not mean that feminism is the problem.

Nor does it mean LGBTQ+ advocacy is the problem.

Both movements have made society immeasurably more compassionate and more humane.

The issue arises when some individuals adopt the aesthetics of progressivism without fully embracing its deepest ethical principle.

Because at its core, progressivism is not about deciding who deserves empathy.

It is about expanding empathy.

It is about widening the circle rather than redrawing its borders.

It is about recognizing complexity where others demand simplicity.

It is about resisting the temptation to sort human beings into categories of worthy and unworthy suffering.

The ultimate goal was never to create a world where one group is allowed vulnerability while another is mocked for it.

The goal was to create a world where vulnerability itself is no longer treated as a weakness.

And that is why I find discussions surrounding artists like Sombr so revealing.

Not because they tell us something profound about him.

But because they reveal something about us.

They force us to confront a difficult question:

Do we truly believe that emotional honesty is a virtue?

Or do we only celebrate vulnerability when it comes from people we already consider deserving of our compassion?

The answer to that question says far more about the maturity of a society than any song ever could.

Perhaps what compels me to write all of this is that I am not observing these dynamics from the outside.

I say this as someone who has identified as a feminist for many years. As someone firmly situated on the political left. As someone who has spent a significant part of her life supporting LGBTQ+ rights, listening to marginalized voices, challenging prejudice when I encounter it, and continuing to educate myself every day.

Like everyone else, I am still learning.

I do not claim to possess some ultimate truth. I have been wrong before, and I will undoubtedly be wrong again. Growth is not a destination one arrives at; it is a road one continues to walk for an entire lifetime.

Yet perhaps that is precisely why these contradictions trouble me so deeply.

Because I recognize myself in the values these communities are built upon.

I believe in compassion.

I believe in equality.

I believe in dignity.

I believe that people deserve to live freely without discrimination because of their gender, sexuality, ethnicity, religion, disability, or any other aspect of their identity.

Those convictions have not changed.

What concerns me is witnessing how often communities founded upon empathy can, at times, unconsciously reproduce the very mechanisms they originally sought to challenge.

History teaches us that this tendency is not unique to any particular movement.

Every generation inherits noble causes.

Every generation creates language to challenge injustice.

And every generation must remain vigilant against the temptation to transform those principles into dogma.

Because oppression is not merely a collection of individuals behaving badly.

Oppression is often a pattern.

A structure.

A system.

A way of seeing people that strips away complexity and replaces it with assumptions.

And that danger exists regardless of political affiliation.

The moment we stop seeing human beings and start seeing only categories, we begin walking toward the same intellectual traps we once criticized in others.

This is why I find discussions surrounding vulnerable male artists particularly fascinating.

Not because they are the most oppressed people in society.

They are not.

Not because their experiences are identical to those of women or LGBTQ+ individuals.

They are not.

But because they reveal a tension at the heart of many contemporary conversations about gender.

For decades, feminists, psychologists, educators, and activists have correctly identified that one of the most harmful consequences of patriarchal culture is the emotional imprisonment it imposes upon boys.

From childhood, many boys receive explicit or implicit messages that vulnerability is weakness.

That tears are embarrassing.

That sensitivity is shameful.

That emotional dependence is pathetic.

That asking for help is failure.

The consequences of this conditioning are visible everywhere.

In statistics regarding loneliness.

In rates of emotional isolation.

In difficulties expressing feelings.

In unhealthy coping mechanisms.

In cycles of violence directed both outward and inward.

The solution proposed by countless scholars and activists has been remarkably consistent:

Teach boys emotional literacy.

Allow them vulnerability.

Give them permission to be human.

And I agree with that completely.

But then a question naturally follows.

If we genuinely want boys and men to become more emotionally transparent, what happens when they actually do?

What happens when a young straight man writes openly about insecurity?

About longing.

About self-doubt.

About romantic obsession.

About body image struggles.

About emotional dependence.

About fear.

Do we reward the courage it takes to reveal those experiences?

Or do we mock him for embodying the very emotional openness we claim to encourage?

Because if the response is ridicule, then what lesson is ultimately being taught?

The lesson is not emotional intelligence.

The lesson is silence.

The lesson is that vulnerability remains acceptable only under certain conditions.

The lesson is that some emotions are celebrated in theory but punished in practice.

And that is a lesson I cannot support.

The irony is that the men most trapped by patriarchal expectations are often not the ones loudly defending them.

Many are simply trying to navigate emotions they were never taught how to understand.

Trying to articulate fears they were taught to suppress.

Trying to build healthier identities than the ones previous generations handed to them.

That is why I cannot view vulnerability as something that should be selectively encouraged.

Either we believe emotional honesty is valuable, or we do not.

Either we believe people should be allowed to express insecurity, or we do not.

Either we believe men should be permitted to step outside traditional masculine expectations, or we do not.

The principle cannot change depending on whether we personally like the individual expressing those feelings.

And perhaps that is what troubles me most.

Not the criticism itself.

Not even the mockery.

But the realization that some of the people participating in it are often motivated by values I share.

Because I recognize the destination they wish to reach.

A more compassionate world.

A more equitable society.

A culture with less prejudice and less cruelty.

I want those things too.

The difference is that I do not believe we arrive there by teaching young men that their vulnerability is embarrassing.

I do not believe we arrive there by responding to emotional honesty with cynicism.

And I certainly do not believe we arrive there by confusing the fight against patriarchy with hostility toward men as individuals.

The enemy was never men.

The enemy was never women.

The enemy was never any particular identity.

The enemy has always been the structures, beliefs, and cultural habits that diminish our collective humanity.

And those structures will never disappear if we punish people for escaping them.

A healthier future requires more emotionally literate men, not fewer.

More self-awareness, not less.

More vulnerability, not less.

More honesty, not less.

If a young man chooses to express those things through art, then perhaps the most progressive response is not to laugh at him for doing so.

Perhaps it is to recognize that every wall dismantled by honesty is one less wall future generations will have to climb.