Haha. In a sense this is true, just not in the way that she meant.

By and large, men don't seem to be content to be "a drop in the bucket", to be scaffolding, to lay the bricks in a road (journey) one at a time. In their performance of masculinity, they seek to get attention, sexual favor, and recognition for grandiosity and ostentatiousness. Constant competition to flout themselves like a peacock, rather than actually build something or provide stability.

Masculinity ideals are a farce. A clownish farce.

I'm not saying this to be mean. I'm saying this because it's not always been true, but it is in our modern (starting with post WWII propaganda) interpretations of masculinity. They're a joke.

And if climate change is to be solved, we're going to have to get off the road of where we're going as a society, ad a species, and as a world, and start laying out a new road to a new destination. Brick by brick. It's that simple. There's no other way.

And that means we need fewer clowns and more brick layers.

Here's where you come in with #NotAllMen.

Let me just stop you right there.

No, not all men. But along the way, all men yearn for that attention, that status, that hero's mantle. You cover it, because you inherently know that's how best to be valued as a man.

And in order to take your place as a bricklayer, you have to betray that gender ideal and be content to be small and unnoticed. You have to submit yourself to a type of ego death and like a Phoenix, rise anew from the ashes.

Again, I'm not saying this to be mean or disparage men. I'm saying it from a place of empathy and understanding.

Because it's not like we women don't have our own version or interpretation of this. We've been dealing with it longer. We know what it does to you. We know how pernicious it is.

And we all see how many women, despite ALL the work of others to deconstruct this nonsense, will double down on it, throwing any and all other women under the bus to do so. Just for that recognition, validation, and glory.

So, nothing but empathy. It's not easy.