Why Crying in a Men’s Circle Doesn’t Make You a Feminist
A man slid into my DMs a few days ago. He said he resonated with everything I’m writing, but there was one problem. My take on male entitlement in my last post didn’t sit right with him. Because, he argued, men have problems too. Because they are facing the same problems, he said. Men face pressures, he claimed. Men have to live by standards set by women. Men are insecure about themselves. He went on and on about the struggles men face.
Now, I’ll give him credit—he’s not entirely wrong. Men do face problems. Men are caught between the burden of social expectations and the hard place of emotional suppression. They live in a world that teaches them their worth is tied to performance, competition, and emotional stoicism. But, and here comes the but: acknowledging that men have problems doesn’t absolve them from the ways they help uphold a system that benefits them at the expense of others. And if you think pointing to your own wounds means you’ve earned immunity from perpetrating harm, I have to disappoint you. Your complicity does not dissolve.
The whole "men have problems, too" argument is the perfect cover-up for the reluctance to face the fact that men are upholding patriarchy. It’s the kind of deflection that allows you to talk endlessly about your own wounds while sidestepping the inconvenient truth that men as a group—systematically enforced, historically grown—hold all the power. It’s the male equivalent of saying, "I can’t be racist, I have Black kids"—except now it’s "I can’t be part of the patriarchy, I’m emotional."
Men talking about their emotional struggles is great. It’s just that when the conversation stops there, it’s more of a therapy session than a political one. And therapy doesn’t dismantle power structures. Therapy is not going to tear down the walls of patriarchy. Real talk: crying in a men’s circle doesn’t make you a feminist, and it sure as the next full moon doesn’t exempt you from complicity.
This brings us to what’s often left unsaid.
Men face societal pressures, they’re expected to be stoic, competitive, emotionally stunted. But what’s missing from the conversation is the critical awareness that these expectations exist because patriarchy benefits from them. And rather than challenge that system, most men are just trying to figure out how to "work within it" without noticing they’re reinforcing it with every breath.
When men gather in groups and talk about their emotions—about how hard it is to meet the demands of society, or how oppressive the world is for them, when they meditate on their conscious masculinity—what do they actually accomplish? The short answer is, not much. Sure, they bond, they cry, they meditate, they talk about the trauma of being a man. But how often do they talk about how they, as men, are complicit in creating and perpetuating those structures? When was the last time a men’s group had a serious conversation about the patriarchal benefits they receive just by existing in the world as men? How often do they talk about the various forms of male violence? Street harassment, sexism, femicide, gender inequality, financial control, reproductive coercion? These conversations are rare in most men’s circles.
Most of the time, these men are focused on their own emotional recovery, which is nice, but it’s not going to address the very system that allows their suffering to exist in the first place.
This is the shadow of so many “conscious” men’s groups. They sit around, meditating, journaling, screaming, and swapping stories about how they’ve been hurt by toxic masculinity. But when it comes time to talk about confronting how they perpetuate male dominance in their daily lives – the room gets empty. They can talk endlessly about how “hard” it is to be a man under patriarchy, but rarely do they look at the ugly truth that they are the ones who keep it running, and they are the ones profiting from it.
Many fail to confront the uncomfortable reality that their “self-help” discussions are little more than a way to feel better about living within a capitalist patriarchy that continually elevates them. It’s the equivalent of trying to get rid of back pain while refusing to stop carrying the same overloaded backpack every day.
It’s important to note that acknowledging emotional pain or adapting to a certain kind of vocabulary doesn’t automatically make you fight against patriarchy. Men can engage in all sorts of “self-work” and still be complicit in systems of control. They can learn terms like "boundaries," "emotional labor," and "trauma," and still, in practice, engage in toxic behaviors or silence the voices of marginalized people. It’s easy to talk about patriarchy, but it’s another thing to act on dismantling it in your daily life.
Take, for example, the often-overlooked issue of male violence in communication. Many men are quick to adopt vocabulary in the form of "how to communicate better" or "how to not be a jerk in relationships." But no amount of pro-feminist flirting tips is going to address the deep-rooted power dynamics at play. The issue is not just how men communicate, but why they feel entitled to communicate in the first place. Why they feel entitled to space, to time, to attention. Internalized dominance isn’t going to be solved by learning a few new phrases or reading a book on how to cry more openly.
Right now, there’s a market for self-help masculinity. There are the alpha wolf men (often with a faible for fascism) who think the only way out of the disaster of our world is becoming a caveman. But I’m not talking about them. I’m talking about the so-called 'conscious' men—the ones who see themselves as progressive, maybe even self-proclaimed leftist feminists. The ones who might paint their nails, worship the divine feminine, quote Audre Lorde at tantra workshops, and proudly name-drop the five feminist books they’ve read (even some intersectional ones). They might burn sage, attend sound healing, and talk about dismantling the ego, but somehow never quite get around to dismantling patriarchy.
Men want to feel better about themselves, and they’ve figured out that by talking about patriarchy and feminist values, they can sound woke without actually doing any meaningful work. They might read bell hooks and adopt some buzzwords, but when it comes time to put those words into action, the conversation shifts to how they are hurting and how they can feel better about themselves.
This is why the so-called critical masculinity movement, meant to interrogate traditional masculinity through a feminist lens, so often becomes a project of “self-actualization” rather than dismantling patriarchy. The focus isn’t on collective liberation, but on personal improvement and personal fulfillment. Because at the end of yoga session, it’s easier to shift your own internal narrative than to shift the narrative of an entire system that benefits you.
The sad truth is that just as white people don’t want to give up power and therefore uphold white supremacy and racism (consciously or not), men don’t want to give up their power and therefore don’t provide meaningful work to dismantle patriarchy (consciously or not). That’s why the rhetoric of "critical masculinity" too often ends up being just another feel-good incense over the real work that needs to be done.
The inconvenient truth is that if men really wanted to change things, they would stop talking about how hard it is to be a man and start acknowledging how easy it is to be a man in a system that gives them power. They would stop focusing on how their problems are “the same” and start realizing that their complicity in patriarchy is what upholds it. Until men recognize that their struggles are entangled with the struggles they inflict on others—until they stop thinking that their emotional wounds somehow exempt them from the harm they cause—real change won’t happen.
If you want to challenge the patriarchy, you have to go beyond feeling conscious or claiming to be the “good guy” and start facing the fact that your position in the world—your gender privilege—is tied up in a system that harms others. And yes, that’s uncomfortable. But that’s where the real work begins.
So, talk about your emotions, meditate in your men’s circles, do your inner work—but don’t mix up your therapy sessions with systemic change and real progress. Understand that if you aren’t actively working to dismantle the structures of power that give you your privileges, you’re still part of the problem.
Otherwise, no matter how conscious you claim to be, you're just another guy in the DMs, shifting the blame while keeping your seat at the table.
If this resonated with you, moved you, or made you pause and reflect – consider this your cue. I’ve set up a virtual tip jar via Buy Me a Coffee. No monthly commitments, no strings, no memberships required.
Your sweet kindness helps keep the thoughts flowing, the energy exchange intact, and the glow of my inner goddess alive. It won’t fix capitalism, but it might buy me five minutes of joy (or at least a cortado).
Gracias. Thank you. Jërëjëf. Merci. Obrigada. Danke. Arigatō. Medaase. Grazie. Hvala. Tack. Asante. Shukran. Teşekkürler. Dziękuję.
