Being an American boy is a setup. We train boys to believe that the way to become a man is to objectify and conquer women, value wealth and power abo… - Glennon Doyle

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Being an American boy is a setup. We train boys to believe that the way to become a man is to objectify and conquer women, value wealth and power above all, and suppress any emotions other than competitiveness and rage. Then we are stunned when our boys become exactly what we have trained them to be. Our boys cannot follow our directions, but they are cheating and dying and killing as they try to. Everything that makes a boy human is a "real man's" dirty secret.

Our men are caged, too. The parts of themselves they must hide to fit into those cages are the slices of their humanity that our culture has labeled 'feminine' — traits like mercy, tenderness, softness, quietness, kindness, humility, uncertainty, empathy, connection. We tell them, 'Don't be these things, because these are feminine things to be. Be anything but feminine.'

The problem is that the parts of themselves that our boys have been banished from are not feminine traits; they are human traits.
There is no such thing as a feminine quality, because there is no such thing as masculinity or femininity. 'Femininity' is just a set of human characteristics a culture pours into a bucket and slaps with the label 'feminine.'
Gender is not wild, it's prescribed.

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Additional quotes by Glennon Doyle

I know that when the pain and the waiting are here, the rising is on its way. I hope the pain will pass soon, but I'll wait it out because I've tested pain enough to trust it. And because who I will become tomorrow is so unforeseeable and specific that I'll need every bit of today's lessons to become her.

This is what I know. Parents love their children. I have met no exceptions. Love is a river, and there are times when impediments stop the flow of love. Mental illness, addiction, shame, narcissism, fear passed down by religious and cultural institutions — these are boulders that interrupt love's flow.

Every philanthropist, if she is paying attention, eventually becomes an activist. If we do not, we risk becoming codependent with power — saving the system's victims while the system collects the profits, then pats us on the head for her service. We've become injustice's foot soldiers.

In order to avoid being complicit with those upstream, we must become the people of And/Both. We must commit to pulling our brothers and sisters out of the river and also commit to going upstream to identify, confront, and hold accountable those who are pushing them in.

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