I have never felt more emotional support in my entire life than when I stepped into women's spaces, seen as a woman.

As a women that, granted, had some serious questions about gender in my younger years this has always blown my mind because it’s so multi-faceted.

Women are more emotionally supportive, but it can quickly spiral into an almost gross-feeling and superficial reinforcement. Everything seems to be “valid” or demands an emotion-ridden hullabaloo, whereas the men in my life have always been more direct and straightforward, unafraid to call out my general jack-assery or quip “yeah, that sucks” when there’s not much else to be said about my general state of affairs.

The flip side of this is that women tend to be more sympathetic/vocal to general life events and encouraging to mild up or down days, whereas men tend to cock an eyebrow and ask what you’re so excited/upset about when you show up to work “having feelings” on a random Tuesday because your spouse threw a fit about leftover spaghetti that morning.

The dichotomy is fascinating to me, to watch unfold every day with every interaction. I find myself (not correctly or incorrectly) leaning towards men in times of crisis (muted response), and towards women in times of -life in general- (exacerbated response) because it gives me the mean/median output of (normal human response).

However, this doesn’t mean men only have “regular” mode or “crisis” mode, or that women only live in an amplified wave of “normal” and “slightly less normal”, and I think that’s where we find our faults. Our definition of the masculine and the feminine revolve around a dead sun that no longer serves us well. Men ARE emotionally supportive, and women ARE reserved/stoic, it’s just not always what you expect at the time so it gets glossed over and deleted, to the detriment of everyone.

Women didn't have to demand other women for suffrage, they had to demand it from men. It is the same here for emotional liberation.

Spitting straight-up facts.