I recently read something that said, "Men have an inherent responsibility to lead, provide, and protect."
I call bullsh*t!
This is some dated, egoic, and your masculine is out of harmony with your feminine energy nonsense.
And I'll explain. Let's start by defining inherent because words do matter. Inherent means existing in someone as a permanent, essential, or characteristic attribute. Responsibility means the state or fact of having a duty to deal with something.
To say that men have this inherent responsibility to lead implies that leading is somehow a built-in feature of our DNA, having a Y chromosome. Women lack this Y chromosome, so does this mean they do not have the ability or are somehow free of this responsibility to lead?
That's wacky in itself, but let's look further. Look at the state of the world; it's been led almost exclusively by men for thousands of years, and our track record on leading f*cking blows.
Through men's leadership and the politics we created, we've started all wars, are killing the earth, and are responsible for most deaths, starvation, murders, rapes, crimes, and financial inequality.
Men have done great things, of course, but so have women, yet they haven't created the massive destruction, death, and trauma men's leadership has caused. Based on our history of leading, maybe men should inherently have the responsibility to partner with women in leading or leave it to women until we improve at it.
Second, to say that men have this inherent responsibility to provide implies that there is a lack of something others need that they cannot get for themselves or provide for themselves. Others, again, are women, possibly children. Again let's look to history.
Throughout history, men have owned the provider role, and the longer men have held this position, fewer and fewer of us have what we need. A tiny minority owns almost everything, and a vast majority owns nearly nothing.
Single women have often also had the sole responsibility to be the sole providers for their children, as men's "inherent" duty often doesn't exist. Based on the facts of history, men have sucked at this two. It seems we are inherently responsible to ensure that a few people have the most and that most people have nothing.
Last, to say that men have this inherent responsibility to protect implies that others are in inherent danger from which they need protection. Again this means women and or children need protecting. And again, I'll look to history, which shows us that the greatest threat to women and children is actually men. So men need to protect women because we have created a danger to them. Hmmm... So it seems men have an inherent responsibility to cause the problems they will feel they need to solve.
This isn't an anti-men post. I am a man, I love myself and my brothers. And we can do better. And ideas like the one I read aren't helping. They set us off course. They have us believe in dated patriarchal standards that don't serve us, women, or our world. Can we lead, can we protect, can we provide?
Of course, we can, but it's not our inherent responsibility.
Men, the only inherent responsibility we all have is to love. If we all (men & women) did that one thing really well, 99% of the world's problems would vanish. Through being love, showing up as love, acting as love, and being driven and motivated by love all the leading, providing, and protecting would be handled.
And remember you can also check out my other blog posts: