History of Feminism

that if anything is going to fix this lack that she is talking about, it is going to have to be a change in the way men speak to each other, not a change in the way women mother boys or women talk to men.

Men, our fathers, could not have raised us to throw out the damaging, limiting expectations that our culture had for women, no matter how much they loved us or how much they may have wanted to. Those expectations were culture-wide, yes, but they could not have been eliminated till women stopped requiring them of each other. Till women changed the messages they gave each other. Till women took responsibility for their own lives and said, "this cultural message that my mother gave me is simply not working any more. These other women over here have a more positive, more fulfilling, more liberating message for me, and I am going to live by that one."

I had a very supportive father. But it was women who showed me how to move past the limitations of the traditional expectations for women. My father could cheer me on the path, but he couldn't show me the path.

We can say this needs to happen for men, but nothing WILL happen until men decide it's time to change the damaging messages they give to each other, such as the alpha male syndrome.

Women are not the ones responsible for this change, men are. Mothers cannot make this happen. Only fathers, brothers, and male friends can.