Between Strength & Softness: Redefining Masculinity in a Patriarchal World
Inspired by a clinical case, this piece explores how we often punish men for the very vulnerability we say we want—and what it means to offer emotionally corrective experiences in our culture.
In session this week, a cis-heterosexual male client sat across from me, eyes heavy with something that felt like a quiet and deep shame. He had been dating someone for about 3 months, whom he grew to care about, and now that things were getting serious, he found himself hesitating. Not fleeing. Not betraying. Just… pausing.
“I don’t know if I’m being thoughtful,” he said quietly, “or if I’m being avoidant. Am I a f*ck boy for not knowing yet?”
He wasn’t being flippant. He was genuinely afraid that his uncertainty made him less of a man, less trustworthy, less deserving of love. He wanted to be clear, confident, decisive—the kind of man he thought partners deserved. But what he felt was something far more honest: a slow, complex unfolding.
In our work together, this theme kept surfacing—not just for him, but across so many men I see in the therapy room. Men navigating the gap between who they’re told they should be and who they’re learning they are—between the performance of masculinity and the practice of humanity.
And yet, these men are often not just shamed by traditional patriarchal voices. Increasingly, they’re shamed in progressive spaces too—mocked online for being “too soft,” “too slow,” or “too unsure.”
As I continued to witness this dynamic—both in the therapy room and on social media—I realized we need to have a different kind of conversation.
This piece is an attempt to name what’s happening, why it matters, and what it will take for us to truly create cultures of healing—not just for women and femmes, but for men, too.
Because when we say we want emotionally available men, we have to ask: do we know how to stay with them when their vulnerability isn’t packaged in confidence?
In a digital age where identity is both curated and critiqued, I’ve noticed a disturbing trend resurfacing on social media: men being shamed for not being “man enough.” Not for being violent, toxic, or emotionally unavailable—but for being expressive. Gentle. Uncertain. For pausing instead of proclaiming. For softening instead of staking a claim.
These commentaries often masquerade as feminist or progressive critique, but if you look more closely, they echo the same patriarchal expectations they claim to oppose.
“Patriarchy has no gender,” bell hooks reminds us in The Will to Change.
This line rings loudly when I see women ridiculing men who show emotional nuance or wrestle openly with indecision. When we mock men for being too “soft,” too sensitive, too slow to lead, we are not subverting patriarchy—we are enforcing it. We become its gatekeepers, punishing men for not performing the version of masculinity that upholds dominance and control.
It’s tempting to think that because women have been historically disempowered by patriarchy, our critique of men is always inherently liberatory. But that’s not how systems of power work. Internalized patriarchy doesn’t disappear with gender. Anyone—regardless of identity—can become an agent of it.
Anti-Patriarchy Is Not Anti-Men
To be anti-patriarchal is not to be anti-men. It is to be against the rigid system that defines manhood so narrowly that it harms everyone—including men themselves.
Patriarchy is the architecture. Masculinity is not the problem. The problem is when masculinity is only allowed to exist in one shape: dominant, detached, and decisive.
Being anti-patriarchal means recognizing that the goal isn’t to reverse who holds power—but to dismantle the systems that define power through domdomination.
It means challenging systems, not shaming individuals.
It’s not about labeling men as inherently broken—it’s about naming the cultural conditioning that asks them to deny their emotional lives in order to earn belonging.
It means expanding the definition of masculinity.
There is not one right way to be a man. We need to celebrate a spectrum of masculinities that include gentleness, hesitation, softness, and care—not ridicule them.
It means practicing accountability with compassion.
Growth is not born from public shaming or power reversals. It comes from relational repair, curiosity, and honest confrontation rooted in dignity and love.
We Create Culture Through Micro-Repair
If patriarchy is the original wound, then our relationships—especially those built on trust—can become sites of healing.
One of the most powerful insights I’ve gained, both as a therapist and a human in relationship, is this: we can offer each other emotionally corrective experiences, especially across gender lines.
When someone—especially a man—expects ridicule for softness but is instead met with curiosity, it rewires something. When someone expects to be dismissed and is instead invited deeper, it challenges the scripts that shame has written into our nervous systems.
These moments don’t require a full re-education. Sometimes, it’s as small as:
Saying “You don’t have to have the answer right now” instead of “Just make a decision.”
Saying “I see how hard you’re trying to be honest” instead of “Why are you being so indecisive?”
Or holding space in silence while someone searches for words they were never taught were safe to speak.
The lexicon we use in our friendships is also important.
In same-gender friendships—whether among men, women, or nonbinary folks—we often have different ways of making sense of power, softness, and worthiness. And sometimes, the conversations we don’t have across gender lines mean we carry those frameworks in isolation.
Women often build emotional fluency with one another through dialogue: we check in, reflect back, dissect, and name.
Men, often socialized to process through action or humor, may never be given the relational language to meet us in that terrain.
But when we offer a shared language—one that allows both pause and expression, both directness and ambiguity—we begin to bridge those worlds.
These are not grand gestures. They are everyday acts of cultural healing. And they start with what we say, how we listen, and how willing we are to let people be in process.
What if emotional courage—not certainty—is what we most need in our relationships?