I hesitated to put this one out there, but I feel like it needs to be said. Whether you think it makes me a bad feminist or you agree, let’s talk about it (comment below!).
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Transcript: Let The Men Stay On Mars
My toxic trait is that every idea I have, I think should be a book—and I’m convinced it would be a New York Times bestseller. I always come up with a pithy name that I self-congratulate myself on. So I name a lot of books.
Reality check: I have published exactly zero books. But I'm working up my courage, so I hope you'll stick with me.
Okay, the latest book title is: “We'll Find The Men On Mars.” Or maybe it’s “Let's Go Find The Men On Mars,” or “Let The Men Stay On Mars.” You get the idea. It’s a little play on the “Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus” concept. Get it?
Basically, what I’m thinking about when I talk about this is that I see a fundamental problem with the way we are expecting our men to show up. Women are, in my opinion, emasculating men because they can’t get their basic need met.
I’ll talk about what that basic need is in a second. And yes, I'm talking specifically here about heterosexual marriages, though I believe this concept of masculine and feminine energy applies to all types of relationships. I want to be inclusive here. But what I often see, particularly in more traditional heterosexual marriages, is this dynamic playing out.
Okay, so what’s the basic need?
The basic need is to feel nurtured. I’ll often say to friends of mine, “I just want to be cared for the way I care for others.” I want to be, frankly, mothered the way I mother others.
And this doesn’t necessarily have to do with having or raising children. I think there’s an energy of mothering that’s basically this: “Let me hold you and take care of you and anticipate your needs and comfort you and be the lap to rest your head on.”
That’s what I mean by nurture. “Let me be the one who strokes your hair and says, ‘Oh, honey, I’m sorry. That’s so hard. It’s going to be okay. I’m here for you.’”
That mothering energy that a lot of women give all the time, particularly mothers, we’re giving that energy constantly. We’re caring for others in that way all the time. And part of us wants to also be taken care of in that way. Because we are human beings who feel the need not only to nurture others, but to be nurtured.
This is different, I think, than feeling supported. I think it’s fair to expect our husbands, our partners, our spouses, to support us, to be behind us, to be in our corner, and, frankly, to hold us and to comfort us and to stroke our hair and do those things.
But, you know, there’s a way that women do this that men, I think, can’t.
And maybe this is controversial, and you completely disagree—and I’m super open to that. Again, I want to be inclusive here. Everything is on a continuum. Anything I notice doesn’t apply to everyone. I want to caveat the heck out of this.
But I do see all the time where women are looking to their men to mother them, to nurture them, to care for them in the way that they care for others, and they’re becoming disappointed.
And there’s such a simple, easy solution to this. Which is: we know who already knows how to do this. We probably have them around us.
I know who I go to if I need to be mothered—I go to the mothers in my life. And the mothers in my life are my girlfriends, my deep female friends.
And by the way, they’re not all biological mothers. So if you’re not a biological mother, that doesn’t mean this doesn’t apply to you.
I go to my women to nurture me, to hold me the way I hold others. And it’s wonderful.
It’s not like, “Oh, the guys can’t do it, we only need our women, the guys aren’t important.” No. This is actually great, because we can get that need met by our women, so that our men can stay men.
Now again—let me caveat another layer. I’m not saying men can be misogynistic, or that they can be—certainly not—abusive, or that they can sit in their toxic masculinity, or be uncaring and inattentive. I’m not talking about that.
I’m talking about my husband, for example, who is—I will describe as—a king among men. He’s so kind, and so caring, and in so much integrity.
But I find myself sometimes being frustrated that he cannot give me this thing that I want. And I realize: I’m asking him to be from Venus. And it’s not fair.
Let me honor him for being a man. For being the protector.
I often say, “If we were in a village, he would be the warrior, and I would be the medicine woman.”
And again, I feel the need to caveat this over and over. This is not necessarily every relationship. But in our relationship, he is the warrior. The protector. The fighter.
He’s the one who is out in the world with his armor on, so that I can be sensitive and soft and fully, fully, fully in my unguarded, intuitive self.
Because he’s guarding. He’s guarding the gates for me.
And so I really think that if we are expecting them to both guard the gates and be the nurturers and the mothers—we’re just setting ourselves, and them, up for failure.
We want them to be able to intuit what we need in the way that we know we can. We know our girlfriends can.
You know those girlfriends who just feel into you? They can just feel into what you need.
And the truth is—I know I can do that. I can just sense what people need. I do that all day long with my five kids. All day long I’m feeling into what they need on an emotional level.
And my husband—he gives me a lot of credit. He wonders at it. He says, “You’re just amazing at that. How do you know them so deeply? How do you know what they need? How do you know exactly how to show up?”
Now, I mean—I don’t always know exactly how to show up. It’s not like I don’t make mistakes or sometimes miss the mark. But that skill is so honed in me. I do it for my kids, I do it for my husband, and I do it for my friends.
And my husband—I need to tell him what I need. And trust me, when I tell him what I need, he shows up like a freaking champ.
And then once in a while, he surprises me in beautiful ways. And it’s wonderful, too. But like—why am I expecting him to be the guardian and protector of our family, and also expecting him to be acting like my girlfriends?
No. No.
So okay—back to the title of the book that will not be written.
You know, sometimes a book should really be an article. I’ve seen a couple of examples of that out in the world lately—a book where you read the first couple pages and you’re like, “Wow, this is really interesting.” And then you read the rest and you’re like, “Oh… this probably should’ve been an article.”
So this book is a voice note.
I’ll write lots of book voice notes—or speak lots of book voice notes.
This one is: “Let’s Let the Men Be on Mars While We Take Care of What We Need to Take Care of on Venus.”
Thanks so much for being with me.
All my love.
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