Before I Say Anything Else… Let Me Say This About Our Men

I spend a lot of time talking to my friends about life as women, our bodies, our healing, our stories, but I’d be lying if I said I haven’t watched our men suffer too. Especially Black men. And before I go any further, I want to hold space for that.

Because I’ve seen it with my own eyes: how boys are raised to swallow their emotions, how young men are taught to perform strength instead of feel it, and how full-grown men are expected to constantly hustle, provide, and “man up,” no matter what they’re going through.

Somewhere along the way, manhood became a performance instead of a lived experience. And it breaks my heart.

I’ve seen good men trying to do better, trying to redefine what it means to be whole and human—and getting dismissed or ridiculed because their growth doesn’t look “manly” enough. That’s a deep kind of grief. And a quiet kind of violence.

Before I dig into this conversation any deeper, I just want to say:

I see you. I hear you. And I know it’s hard.

Especially when society only seems to value you for what you can produce, provide, or procreate. That’s not love. That’s labor.

This isn’t just about calling out injustice. It’s about calling us in—into a new way of seeing one another. Into a world where softness, healing, and self-definition aren’t gendered.

I believe we can get there. But first, we have to name the truth.