A woman who is pregnant, cannot determine the biological sex of her child (that’s only something the father’s DNA decides) or that a pregnant mother is somehow thinking, ‘I need to give birth to a boy, so he can handle all the physical labor of the world, so I don’t have to.’
To be clear, mothers do more physical and emotional labor than anyone else combined.
Why men feel so out of sorts and even victimized is actually your own doing. Men have been the primary drivers of technology, which now will take away most of the need for physical labor - essentially making remaining jobs intellectual and emotional, for which women are on equal footing.
However, I can see why many men, because of your cultural upbringing, identified with being the one who does the physical work, who protects and provides, and those tasks will not be required as much of you in the present or the future, that you would have a crisis of identity.
Women already went through this crisis of identity (at least in the U.S.), from the early 1900s - the 1960s, when so many questioned their ‘traditional’ role as housewives and supporters of their husbands, instead of having the opportunity to pursue their own interests and careers. This is when our foremothers fought for the right to vote, the right to work, the right to manage our own finances, the right to be safe in the world.
Women had longer to acclimate and embrace a new way of showing up in the world. Men are just now experiencing something similar, you’re being invited to also stop identifying with ‘traditional’ roles, more free to pursue individually who you really are, without the layers of social conditioning.
It’s not easy to make this transition, and you are correct that men need support and encouragement during this time.
Perhaps the reason women are hesitant to give this support is because we always are expected to be the strong ones emotionally and quite frankly we received and still do, a lot of pushback from men who don’t want our genders to be equal. As evidenced by all the attempts right now to take away women’s bodily autonomy and rights. As evidenced that most men who physically or sexually abuse women receive no consequences. As evidenced that most women still deliberately are paid less money than their male colleagues. As evidenced by the fact that in many countries around the world, women are literally the property of their fathers or husbands, including up to being killed for something that man doesn’t like, without penalty.
Perhaps women can consider giving better support than we got - but we need men to meet us halfway…
