"The reason for a compassionate feminist approach to men is not to spare their feelings. Quite the opposite. Compassion is necessary precisely because to live full lives as we move towards a society that treats women as fully human, men will be required to see themselves and their experience in a new and painful light.
The sort of compassion that is useful to men and boys seeking to escape a world of violence, misogyny and emotional constipation is not the compassion of a priest who forgives sins, but of a doctor who looks at a suffering idiot who waited too long to get an oozing wound checked out and says, firmly and accurately: I’m afraid this is going to hurt.
Of course it’s going to hurt. But then, it hurts already. The deep pain that the twisted mess of modern masculinity causes a great number of men is not often spoken about, because if it were permitted expression it would not be felt as rage or hate, but as fear and loathing, as confusion and self-doubt, or simply not being sure what the fuck we’re supposed to be these days. And that’s just not manly.
What we are asking men to do is hard. Let’s be perfectly clear: we have created a society in which it is structurally difficult and existentially stressful for any male person not to behave like a complete and utter asshole. The fact that not a few of them manage to be decent humans anyway is to their credit.”
-Laurie Penny
It helped me understand that to become a male feminist is unbearably difficult and uncomfortable, and, though females have the privilege to squeeze as much schadenfreude as they want from watching me squirm, it is possible for them to show compassion and be empathetic to a degree without having to revert to gender norms for my benefit. I needed someone to put it as bluntly as that. Until I read Penny's writings, I thought becoming a feminist would be a piece of cake. I found the opposite to be true, and if it weren't for this passage, I likely would have propagated the problem by asking my female friends to feel sorry for me or for them to be my mother/sister and comfort, reassure, or coddle me as I came to terms with my role in all of this.