And I suppose it is my father’s fault.

The way his hands trembled slightly every time he tried to hug me, but didn’t know how.

Or maybe it’s my brothers’ fault...
The way they called it “discipline” when what they meant was “fear.”

Or my husband’s fault...
The way he pretends to be made of stone,
While I can hear the exhaustion humming beneath his skin.

Or maybe it’s my fault.

Because no matter how far I’ve walked into feminism, I’ve never stopped loving men.

Not the idea of them.
The reality of them.

Someone once said to me, “Men refuse to learn about women.”

But what if what we call refusal is sometimes illiteracy...
Not of intent,
But of exposure?

Because who taught them to listen?

Cognitive psychology calls it empathy asymmetry (Gilligan, In a Different Voice, 1982):

Men are trained to externalise - taught to study outcomes.

Women are trained to internalise - taught to study people

So, when they try to love, they build.
When they try to apologise, they work.
When they try to rest, they panic.

They think being needed is the same as being loved.

Maybe that’s why the statistics don’t shock me anymore.
Because behind every number, I see a face I know.

Three out of four suicides are men (WHO, 2023).
One in seven has no close friends (Harvard, 2022).
Nearly half live paycheck to paycheck (OECD, 2021).

They are dying quietly,
Lonely
Loudly,
Performing strength like a sermon nobody believes in anymore.

But ignorance isn’t male.

It’s human.

We mock men for not understanding women’s pain...

But how many women understand the physiology of a man?

How many know that testosterone also rises and falls like the moon,

That chronic constipation affects 40% of men over 40 (NHS, 2023),

That grief shortens their lifespan by years,

That they feel heartbreak in their chests - literally - because male cardiac arrest rates spike after divorce?

Men’s ignorance is visible.

Ours hides behind empathy.

Maybe the next revolution isn’t about women rising louder.
Maybe it’s about men being allowed to exhale.

Maybe we should stop demanding apologies
for the language they were never taught
and start teaching it gently...
without mockery,
without shame.

Because the opposite of patriarchy isn’t matriarchy.
It’s maturity.

And that maturity begins when we stop weaponising pain
And start recognising that both genders bleed...
Just differently.

So yes.
I love men.

Not the myths,
But the men.

The ones who come home tired but still try.
The ones who are still learning tenderness.
The ones who apologise in actions, not words.

The ones who still believe that love means holding the line,
even when it breaks their spine.

I love men...
because beneath all the armour,
they are soft too.

And if the world ever paused long enough to listen,
We’d hear that most of them aren’t angry.

They’re just afraid...

Of being replaced,
Of being forgotten,
Of being unnecessary in a world that keeps changing the rules.