Hot take: men are jealous of women. Thoughts?

I don’t know what it’s like to be socialized into masculinity. I don’t know the pressure of being told your worth depends on your strength, your success, your control.

What I can speak to is what I’ve witnessed: that sometimes, beneath anger or dismissal or control, there’s something that looks a lot like envy. Not of women themselves, necessarily — but of what women are often allowed to express more freely. Emotional intimacy. Care. Tenderness. Vulnerability. Beauty. Embodiment. Community.

Things that many men were taught to view as dangerous or off-limits.

So I don’t know if the word is “jealous.” But I do think there’s a quiet ache there. A grief, maybe. And sometimes grief gets misplaced. It becomes resentment. It becomes judgment. It becomes a power struggle when maybe it’s really just longing.

Not all men feel this way. Certainly, not all women feel free. Gender is a much messier, more fluid terrain than we often allow. But I do think something profound happens when we stop trying to protect our categories and start listening underneath them.

So… is the hot take true?

I don’t know. But I do think we all, regardless of gender, have something to gain from reclaiming the parts of ourselves we were told to hide.