IF I WERE A MAN

[First piece for my End of Year series – The Economics of Softness]

If I were a man,
coldness would pass as sense.
As expected.

Distance would be mistaken for discipline.

As a woman, I learn – later than expected –
that softness is an unprotected resource.

No one warns you
how a certain brand of loving gathers shame
the kind that is generous,
the kind that gives to create art,
that keeps investing
with poor returns.

Power, I discover,
is rarely in expression.
It resides in restraint.
Ultimately, in leaving.

There is a particular cruelty
in being valued for openness
by those unwilling to safeguard it.

Like a child,
you are not a threat.
You can be taken from
without fear of retribution.

Detachment, in men,
is interpreted as clarity.
In women, it is read as loss –
of warmth.

I am afraid
I will lose the femininity I searched for,
the one I now float in,
revel in.

And so I remain careful
with what I offer.
Not hardened,
but precise.

Softness, I now understand,
requires boundaries
as much as it requires courage.

Meestique,

– The Empathic Social Observer.