QC

Serving women was the most purely good thing I could think of. So my self-worth got tied up in "succeeding" at it - I felt like I needed to do it in order to have any worth as a man at all - and when I "failed" it crushed me.

3) When I need to "succeed" at serving women to feel okay, I am giving women responsibility for my okayness, which they did not ask for and which does not serve either them or me.

In the last few years I've met some amazing men who've been real role models for me. They have a masculinity that I never saw growing up and had no idea was possible. And it is _not_ predicated on respecting women. Respecting women falls out of it naturally.

Their masculinity is predicated on a deep experiential understanding of being human, and being humans together, and the ways in which we are hurt by and hurt each other. It is badly needed today, and much of the relevant work can only be done by men, for men.