Practical Wisdom: Facing Anger at Men

I’ve been sitting with things I don’t entirely know how to hold.

• The Epstein files.
• Policy drafts and late-night commentary.
• Men on social media explaining to women who we are supposed to be. What we are for. How we should behave.

And I can feel it in my body. A tightening behind the ribs. Heat in my jaw. That old pulse that says: Danger!

I wish I could simply respond as a spiritual leader, or a mother, or a grandmother. 

The truth is less tidy. 

There’s a six-year-old inside me who remembers what it feels like when male power turns predatory. There’s a teenager who experienced forced intimacy, and a young woman who felt the terror of physical abuse. There’s a twenty-eight-year-old who finally spoke all of that out loud only to be asked “aren’t you over that?” 

And there’s a woman in her sixties who thought, after all the therapy, and ritual, and shadow work, that she was past most of it. Apparently, memory has more layers for me to explore.

When stories of exploitation resurface and powerful men appear insulated from consequence, something cellular wakes up. It isn’t theoretical or partisan It’s nervous system. And here’s the part I don’t love admitting; sometimes I feel a flash of anger so wide it startles me. 

Not at one man. At all men.

That’s the shadow speaking before the theologian can clear her throat.

I know better. I’ve raised good men. I sleep beside a good man. I’ve worked with men who are accountable and thoughtful and willing to look at themselves. And still, the body feels fear, the media spotlights predators, and the algorithms keep amplifying the harshest voices telling women to shrink, submit, age quietly, stop complaining.

It’s exhausting.

I’ve talked to many women and I’m not the only one feeling this way. There’s a tremor we feel under the skin. In shows itself in private messages that begin with, “Is it just me, or…?”  Women glance at each other when certain headlines surface and share a kind of recognition that needs no words. 

It’s more than outrage. It’s hyper-vigilance.

Statistically, nearly 1 in 2 (44%–50%) adult women in the U.S. have experienced some form of abuse of bodily autonomy. Globally, 840 million women (nearly 1 in 3) have experienced intimate partner or non-partner sexual violence.

At a time like this, it may be hard for men to understand that women are walking around with old wounds that are being torn open. Some from childhood. Some from marriages. Some from workplaces where we were subtly managed, corrected, and handled. When public discourse circles control of women’s bodies, or powerful men seem untouchable, or comment sections fill with instructions about how women should exist, the body remembers. We don’t have to coordinate it. We simply feel it. Sometimes we have no words for what we’re feeling.

So, here’s the part that may land a little sideways.

It would behoove men to give women a measure of sovereign space right now.

Not distance. Not exile. Space.

There’s a difference.

When collective wounds are stirred, pressing harder rarely produces improvement. It produces defensiveness. Or sharpness. Or shutdown. If I’m honest, when I feel pushed in moments like this, I don’t respond well. My tone tightens. My empathy thins. I become more flint than flesh.I don’t like that about myself. But it’s real. 

Women didn’t ask for this, or earn this, or even expect this to surface in the way it has. It’s just what’s happening right now.

Men, please understand that when a nervous system is activated, persuasion doesn’t land. Volume doesn’t land. Being told to calm down absolutely does not land. Regulation lands. Safety lands. Space lands. If men want partnership, intimacy, influence, now is not the moment to force any of that. Now is the moment to steady the proverbial ship and be extra kind.

Listen more.
Correct less.
Hold rather than manage.

And women, we have our work too. We can’t weaponize our wounds. We can’t let collective anger calcify into contempt. I refuse to let the harm done to me turn me into someone who harms indiscriminately. I’ve done too much therapy, offered too many prayers, and stepped to deep into honest reckoning for that.

We all need a bit of compassion now. At home.  At work. In life. Pushing women while we’re collectively reprocessing power, safety, and autonomy is unwise. There’s more moving here than politics. There are cultural shifts in authority, generational shifts in tolerance, ancestral shifts in equality. It’s tectonic. And tectonic plates create damage when they rub too hard against one another.

So, dear men – please give us room to breathe. Give us the dignity of our interior processes. Trust that we’re not fragile. We’re recalibrating.

I am recalibrating.

A Simple Tool for Centering

When headlines spike my pulse, I step outside and feel the cool breeze on my face. I name five things I can see. The cottonwood tree across the street. A crow circling. The clouds folding over the mountains. The wind chime striking uneven notes. I lengthen my exhale until my shoulders drop.

I don’t want to become hardened, nor will I allow myself to become numb. There’s a narrow path between those two, and I’m walking it imperfectly.

The little girl in me deserved protection. The young woman in me deserved justice. The elder in me deserves peace. And I am the one who tends all three. 

I place my hand over my sternum like I’m steadying a skittish horse and breathe, reminding myself that, in this moment, I am safe. 

From that place, I can speak from my sovereignty.

And sovereignty, embodied by a woman who has walked through fire, is a powerful presence.