If you clicked on this article because you saw the title and immediately thought, “Are you fucking serious? Empathy for TOXIC MEN?” or “Hell yeah! A REAL feminist that understands men!” then I am happy you are here.
The intention behind this article is not to persuade you to either extreme side of the man hating or feminist hating extremist scale. It’s to provide you with a perspective where maybe you could imagine a world where both the feminine and the masculine can live in power together, and feel less of a divide between us (a girl can dream, right?).
As a self-proclaimed feminist myself who has dated a few unhealed men with toxic patterns, and has even been harassed and abused by them too, I actually don’t hate men. I find myself now in a place where I genuinely feel empathy for them. I actually love men.
Now hear me out, this does not mean that I want to be their “mommy” and heal them while I abandon myself in the process of trying to “fix” an unhealed man (sound familiar?). That isn’t the kind of empathy I am talking about.
I feel empathy for men because there is true power and safety that lives from within a man when they step into their divine masculine energy. Yet, all I hear about and see the majority push (and have experienced) is the crumble of feminine energy from the unhealed, toxic masculine, in which ironically forces the feminine to be more in her masculine because of the unsafety she feels around this kind of man.
But think about it. Think about true, divine masculine energy: The warm embrace of a thoughtful hug while you are cradled in their arms, the safety you feel when you can truly be in your feminine energy while being protected by the masculine, the provider energy they emulate while you can sit back and relax in security and receive. The safety you feel when in their presence and when receiving their tender affection. The trust you have with them because of how secure you are with them as a result of how he has shown up for you, how committed he is to you. It is truly powerful and can be healing. The feminine energy being in balance with the masculine energy is the whole symbology of the Yin and Yang symbol. It’s the symbol of living in harmony with each other.
In fact, I believe this Yin and Yang imbalance to be a common reason on why women stay in relationships with toxic men, because they sense the potential of the true masculine in them that our divine feminine craves, and yet we ironically take on the masculine role as we are trying to bring out that potential within them while having to provide completely for ourselves in the process.
Note: As a member of the LGBTQ community myself, I would like to clarify that the masculine and feminine energy can live beyond the stereotypical heterosexual, cis male/female dynamic. However, I do also recognize the privilege that cis Men in general have on this planet, and the damage that has been ensued from the disconnect of their true being onto women. So, for the sake of this article, I will be speaking about the biological male/female dynamic.
I think it’s important to share my quick background with the men that have been in my life so far, and how I interpret the masculine so you can grasp a better understanding of where my perception stems from.
I grew up with an abusive brother, an absent father, and a Hispanic family full of womanizing, abusive, cheating, and narcissistic men.
My mother coddled and enabled my brother’s abusive behavior as the only son. He was considered the “Golden Child.” He could do no wrong.
My dad was absent a lot of times growing up, but when he would actually show up to pick us up for a weekend with him, I felt like I was saved from the abuse I was experiencing at home.
He would reassure me, hold me while I cried, felt gentle towards me. My brother had no power around him. I felt completely, and utterly safe within his presence, actually the only time I felt truly loved and genuine warmth within my heart for an extended period of time. I felt free to be me. I felt safe.
Then he would leave again, and I felt completely abandoned every time he had to go.
The only time I could feel truly safe was when I was with my dad. This lead me to glorify him, and grow up seeking this sort of safety and validation from toxic men. I was seeking that kind of tender, protective masculine energy that I felt I had received from my dad while escaping the abuse. I had no standards or boundaries, just a feeling that I was chasing, to feel that kind of safety that I once felt from the masculine.
But in reality, as much as my dad showed me that kind of love growing up, he was not a healthy man at that time. He absolutely loved his children, but was absent due to his own personal “demons” and addictions he was fighting. His own father had abandoned him when he was younger and saw him abuse his mother. He was still an unhealed, little kid himself.
I saw my mother cry and cry over men that would come into our life for a short period of time. I felt the projection of her own generational wounds onto me from the masculine damage that had been instilled from the men in her life, yet ironically enable and glorify men or my brother. I saw the brothers, uncles and grandfathers in her own family treat the women in their life like nothing more than a sex object that they used only when they needed them for their own pleasure. I saw the women in my family glorify the men, and justify their abuse while becoming toxic in their own patterns under the control of these men. I’ve seen the women lose themselves desperately seeking the validation in men to feel worthy, while the man shows how much he doesn’t give a shit about her.
How the fuck was I supposed to know what a true, healthy, masculine man was like? If it wasn’t from experiencing the average toxic male in real life, it was from unrealistic depictions of men from Disney movies and romance films from Hollywood that preyed on the vulnerability that women crave from men. Shit, I am still learning what a true healthy masculine is like.
But a more important question to ask is where the fuck did men learn to be like this? Why are there so many toxic men? Why doesn’t a man feel comfortable expressing his healthy masculine? How the fuck did so many of our men become so disconnected from their own divine presence?
And I have narrowed it down to one distinct theme.
The average male does not know what it means to love himself, or how to embody his divine masculine. He has confused his divine presence from within as an external sense of self worth outside of him.
Men have not been taught or programmed on how to love themselves. They have been taught to love through their accomplishments, how they can provide, through power over others, and through women.
If we really want to take it all the way back to when this first started, we can take it back to the days of when a King and Queen would hope for a boy to be born so he could one day take over and rule a Kingdom. So he could seek his worth from his power, how he can physically provide, and control.
Shit, we could even take it back to the days of Jesus, who was a spiritual, and enlightened being. Jesus saw his own Christ consciousness, and spread the message to others on how they could discover their own divine essence within themselves.
But through the ego-created narrative of the human mind, Jesus’s scripts and teachings have been misinterpreted as him being the divine essence that we need to praise, instead of praising the divine presence that is within ALL of us, in which was the real message Jesus was trying to convey.
The God essence that Jesus spoke about has now been interpreted as a literal man on the throne named God who we should fear, and who sent Jesus as a savior to forgive our sins.
We have been pre-dispositioned into a Male dominated reality since the beginning of time, and I believe this to be the root of separation of man from his own divine presence. Men have been glorified and inherently assumed as the superior gender since they are physically stronger (typically), further enabling and justifying this superiority complex narrative.
I know I was obviously not born a man nor do I claim to be one now, but I have been raised by one and in a relationship with one. I have been loved and also abused by one. I have been taken care of and also degraded by one. I have seen how the masculine can heal this world, but I have also seen how it can further pollute this world.
There is a pressure on our men to provide, to live only for the life of others. There has been a generational suppression and repression of their feelings, a societal conditioning to “suck it up” and “be a man.” It is more stigmatized for a man to go to therapy and heal his patterns than it is for the woman.
It’s societally normalized to see men as weak if they cry and for other men to call them “pussies”, and that crying and expressing emotions somehow means that they cannot be a provider or take care of their families.
In fact, the amount of men that I have seen cringe at another man showing any kind of emotion other than anger is unbearable. And it is emasculating to a man to feel and be defined as “weak” due to their provider role. They must “stay strong at all costs.”
They are not taught how to properly deal with their emotions, therefore they are not able to handle or be considerate to the emotions of women.
These repressed emotions are stored in the body, and typically released as anger.
They say women are the more emotional gender, but anger is still an emotion, and men are more known to express it.
Under that anger is just an influx of other emotions behind it that have not been properly released or expressed, and a lot of undealt hurt from deep inside.
Our men need healing. They have been taught to survive for everything or everyone else, instead of for themselves. It takes genuine courage for a man to learn how to embody the full range of emotions in a healthy manner.
Males die by suicide three to four times more often than females. This statistic is evidential of the harmful behaviors and patterns that men have been conditioned with generationally, the pressure they feel to be a provider, and the lack of self love they are never taught to have.
What the fuck is the difference between a toxic masculine and a healthy masculine?
The wounded Masculine can look like:
- Attachment to success & how many woman they can fuck
- Fear of failure and rejection
- The need to be right, defend and attack
- Aggressive
- Avoidant
- Critical/Judgmental
- Out of touch with their emotions
The Healthy Masculine looks like:
- Present and an active listener
- Non-judgmental
- Disciplined, focused, and humble
- Honest, logical, accountable, has integrity
- Grounded, supportive, and encouraging
- Committed and confident
You may ask, so how the fuck do you plan on fixing it?
Well, that’s a great question, because I really don’t fucking know. I could suggest that men need more therapy, or need more emotional reasoning established in the family setting, less enabling and glorification from mothers, or more emotionally stable fathers or a better representation of other men supporting each other.
But these are suggestions, and although they sound like reasonable suggestions, they just scratch the surface on lifetimes of toxic patterns that have been generationally instilled into our society of men.
What I do know is that there isn’t a singular solution, and that it cannot be done ALONE. Men need to help each other and support them in each other’s healing. They need to call each other out. It’s a collective framework that is in progress where the calling theme is teamwork. And we can no longer enable, teach or promote these toxic behaviors any longer.
These behaviors are prominent in our mainstream of music today, on social media, in movies, it’s all around us. Behaviors like cheating, normalizing physical abuse, and treating women like sex toys.
As a collective, we heal together. This doesn’t mean we should unhealthily attach to each other for the sole purpose of using them to heal instead of doing the work ourselves, but by supporting each other when needed.
As a male, becoming aware of the patterns that have been passed down generationally is a first step. How are you showing up for yourself in this world right now? Are you shitting on yourself for not being where you want to be in life right now and putting pressure that isn’t yours onto yourself? How do you see women? Do you watch porn? How much? Why do you watch porn?
How did your own father treat your mother? If your father was absent, how did this affect you? Are you suppressing your emotions for the sake of being “strong?” Have you taken the time to sit with your shadow, and do the work to understand your shadow (your “dark side”) in a loving manner? How are you treating the people you love? Are you taking care of yourself mentally, physically, and spiritually? How are you taking care of yourself? What are you doing to help connect deeper with your inner world, your divine masculine?
This is just a start, not a solution.
So, how do women play a role in this shit?
You stand in your own power as the divine feminine and you take no bullshit. If you enable a man’s bad behavior or accept poor treatment, it is only feeding into their toxic masculinity, and further justifying his unhealed patterns. You are not “healing” him by trying to be his therapist.
And stay the fuck away from narcissists. If you are unsure what traits a narcissistic man has, just look up any article on Google or a YouTube video on it.
The divine feminine embodies the nurturing and receptive nature of the Universe. A divine feminine who speaks up for herself, sets boundaries, and stands in her divine feminine power is actually what I believe to bring out and receive the pure divine masculine energy. This is how I feel like we can also aid in healing and harmony together, by being in our own energetic power.
The most common theme amongst a trauma bonded, unhealed masculine/feminine energy dynamic is the feminine trying to “fix” the unhealed parts in the masculine, and mistaking this as her nurturing nature. This is coming from a wounded ego, and the masculine is only going to stray further away from his own light as the feminine unconsciously enables him, further straying herself away from her own light as well. There is no amount of love or kindness that you can give him that will heal him. But the more love, respect, kindness, and focus that the feminine puts into her own light, energy and growth, the more that the male will either step into the light with her, or they will separate like oil and water.
In the famous words of Ram Dass, “I can do nothing for you but work on myself. You can do nothing for me but work on yourself.”
Despite all of the presented toxic masculinity that has ensued, there is still an influx of divine masculine shining through, and I have seen more and more men who are healing their trauma, embodying their full range of emotions efficiently, bringing out the divine feminine in their partners, and showing/teaching the collective how to do so as well.
So yeah, I have empathy for the toxic masculinity that has polluted our planet today, because of the hurt and destruction that it has caused us for generations, and how we don’t even realize just how powerful the transmutation of this energy could be in this world. I feel empathy for toxic masculinity because it comes from wounded, hurt men who do not know how to love themselves, or are even aware of their true divine essence that comes from within.
I don’t have solutions, but I do have hope, experiences, and knowledge of how healing and needed the divine masculine really is.