The patriarchy not only distorts how women are perceived by men — it also deprives men of the capacity to experience real, transformative love. From early on, many men are taught to measure a woman by her functionality: Is she nurturing? Can she manage a home? Will she raise good children? Is she attractive, competent, successful? Rarely are they taught to look deeper: What moves her? What has she suffered? What does she dream of when no one is watching?
Of course, there are women who also seek partners for status, wealth, or security. But research consistently shows that women, more than men, prioritize emotional intimacy, mutual understanding, and deep connection in romantic relationships.
• A large-scale study published in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin (2011) found that women report greater emotional investment in relationships, and are more likely to see emotional connection as central to their happiness and self-worth.
• In a 2013 paper in Sex Roles, researchers found that men tended to prioritize independence and self-sufficiency, while women valued closeness, communication, and emotional availability in their partners.
• A 2020 meta-analysis in Psychological Bulletin concluded that men are less likely to engage in emotional disclosure in relationships, often due to gender role expectations rooted in traditional masculinity norms — a direct outcome of patriarchy.
This conditioning turns love into a checklist. Women are often pursued not as people, but as roles: mother, wife, caretaker, helper. In this dynamic, men may never truly come to know a woman’s inner world — her needs, her mind, her soul — because they were never taught that such knowing is essential to love. Vulnerability is bypassed for function; emotional presence is replaced by expectation. As a result, many men pursue not love, but a patriarchal idea of a “good woman” who will take care of things and not ask too much in return.
But patriarchy doesn’t only harm men. It shapes women, too — though in a different way. Women have long been conditioned to be emotional caregivers, nurturers, the keepers of connection. From childhood, many are trained to attune to others, to prioritize others’ feelings, to offer empathy, to soften tension. In heterosexual relationships, this often translates into women doing the emotional labor of love alone. They learn to see their partner’s wounds, fears, and needs — often before their own are even acknowledged.
This is not because women are more virtuous — it’s because they are more conditioned to be emotionally attuned. Patriarchy teaches women to love deeply, to give, to care — and teaches men to look for someone who will care for them. In this imbalance, love becomes asymmetrical. Women often arrive ready to love a person, while men arrive ready to receive support from a role.
And yet — this can change.
Healing begins when men choose to step off the path they were handed and begin to walk toward presence. That means asking questions they were never taught to ask: Who is she, really? What does she long for? What hurts her, what heals her? What lives in her silence? And even more importantly: What have I never allowed myself to feel? What do I fear in intimacy?
It begins when men slow down enough to listen — not to respond, fix, or impress, but to witness. To get curious. To step into emotional labor not as a task, but as a bridge.
Women, too, are part of the healing. It is not their job to fix men — but they can invite depth, model emotional courage, set boundaries that protect reciprocity, and speak the truth even when it shakes the room. Women can also unlearn the belief that they must earn love through sacrifice. True love begins when both people show up as people — not as saviors, not as servants.
Together, we heal by breaking the silence around how love has been distorted. We begin again, in the small moments — in eye contact, in asking better questions, in creating safety for truth. We heal when men stop striving to have a good woman, and start striving to know her.
Only then does love become what it was always meant to be: alive, mutual, liberating — not a transaction, but a transformation.
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