A Tale of Two Men—And What It Means for You

So what can we do?

What do we do about all this? Well, we can try to change things one interaction at a time. In a moment, I want to ask guys to chime in, but first, let me speak directly to women.

We as women can show the men we live and work with that we appreciate them stepping up to their callings, and don’t see it as denigrating us at all. If you’re married, show your husband this piece and ask if he ever feels this way. Maybe we need to wrestle with whether we have subtly encouraged our man to not step up at home because he feels like he never knows what reception he is going to receive when he offers. We may need to purposefully and simply say “thank you” instead.

Or outside the home, when we calmly and confidently thank our male colleague for his offer to help install the awkward exhibit hanging, we take back a tiny bit of ground from the insidious messaging that makes him feel that offer would be disrespectful.

This is particularly important because our sons are watching. Do we want our sons to step up and help those around them, or do we want them always holding themselves back?

Bottom line, we should be the type of person who is verbally grateful instead of always sending defensive signals that we could have done it ourselves. Sure, we could have. And sometimes, we will still do it ourselves! Just because an offer is made, we don’t have to accept it. But men need to know that it is a good thing—not a bad one!—that they made the offer.

A man should never, ever have to watch someone struggling to lift her suitcase into the overhead bin, with his hands rigid and tight on his armrests, forcing himself to stay silent and not help. That is a man denying something deep and good that I believe God put directly into his heart.