Letters to the Editor: Help the boys? So many women are already trying to
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- A Los Angeles reader challenges claims that women support only women, citing persistent gender gaps in leadership, wages and reproductive rights.
- The letter argues women already champion men’s emotional health while toxic masculinity messages primarily come from other men themselves.
- Women therapists and advocates stand ready to help men struggling with changing social dynamics, the writer contends.
To the editor: This idea that too many of us are rooting only for women leaves me dumbfounded (“‘Have you considered helping boys?’ The other gender gap,” Sept. 24). Have a bunch of women landed in CEO positions lately that I’m not aware of? Have our wages reached equality with men doing the same jobs, but I didn’t notice because I’m retired? I haven’t checked my newsfeed in a while, so did I just miss the article on our new female president? Was the right to make decisions about our own bodies restored at the federal level?
If women are dominating the ranks of higher degrees and certain occupations, it’s because from a young age, we knew we had to work harder, jump higher and scream louder.
When it comes to the emotional and psychological health of men and boys, many women are already on their sides. For years, wives and mothers have been shouting from the sidelines that it’s not unmanly to cry, that vulnerability isn’t a weakness, that going to therapy is a positive thing. From what I’ve seen, messages of toxic masculinity mostly come from other men; it’s their responsibility to change the way their sons grow up.
So, here’s my contribution to guest contributor Lisa Britton’s call: If you’re a man and you need help managing a world in which a fraction of white male entitlement is eroding, or for any number of issues you might be struggling with, reach out to a therapist — who, yes, may be a woman. I promise, we already want to help.
Babs Greyhosky, Los Angeles
