On care, masculinity, and the tenderness we all need

A few years ago, I was standing out the front of a school where I worked as a counsellor when the principal walked up to me, looked me up and down, and said—almost casually:

“What are you doing doing women’s work?”

It landed with a thud.

On the surface, it could’ve passed as banter. But my body didn’t take it as a joke. I felt heat in my chest, a kind of shrinking, and a flash of anger all at once. And I did what a lot of us do in moments like that: I smiled, made a light comment, and kept moving.

That sentence has stayed with me. It shows up when I’m working with clients, when I’m parenting, when I’m watching the way men move through the world—and the way we’re taught to relate to care.

Because underneath that one line is a bigger story:

• Care is seen as women’s territory
• Care is treated as less valuable
• And men are often rewarded for distance, dominance, or “having it together,” rather than tenderness

This post is about what happens when we start questioning that story.

Why “women’s work” is a problem (for everyone)

When people say “women’s work,” they usually mean the work of tending:

• listening
• noticing
• soothing
• feeding
• cleaning
• teaching
• supporting
• staying present when things are messy

It’s the work that keeps families, workplaces, schools, and communities running.

And yet it’s often treated like it’s either:

• invisible (no one notices until it stops), or
• natural (as if women are just “built for it”), or
• lesser (not real work, not real skill)

The cost isn’t only paid by women.

When care is devalued, everyone loses. Relationships get thinner. Kids get less support. Men get lonelier. Communities get harsher.

And we start confusing power with worth.

How boys learn to abandon softness

This shows up early.

A colleague once told me a story from travelling overseas. She saw a little boy fall and graze his knee. He cried. His father spun around in rage and struck him hard across the head.

What stayed with her was the fear on the mother’s face.

What stayed with me was the boy.

A child gets hurt. He reaches for comfort. And his tenderness is met with violence.

The lesson is simple and brutal:

• Don’t cry
• Don’t need
• Don’t feel
• If you do, you’ll be punished

Most boys won’t be hit like that. But many are shamed, mocked, dismissed, or “joked” out of their feelings.

And over time, a lot of men learn to trade softness for safety.

Entitlement isn’t just “bad men”—it’s a culture we train

Not long ago, I stepped into a confrontation on my own street. A man was telling his girlfriend to get out of her own car, even though she needed to get to work. The tone was familiar: ownership, control, entitlement.

I spoke up. I told her the police station was close by, that she had options.

She ignored me.

At first, I felt dismissed. Then I realised: ignoring me may have been the safest move available. She wasn’t going home with me. She was going home with him. She needed to be able to say, later, “I don’t care what that guy said.”

This is the messy reality of safety and power: sometimes the “right” thing isn’t clean.

And still—silence has consequences too.

When entitlement goes unchecked, it becomes normal. And when it becomes normal, people (often women and kids) learn to shrink themselves to survive it.

What this has to do with me (and maybe you)

I’m a psychologist, a dad, a partner, a business owner. On paper, I benefit from the way our culture tends to centre men.

And I also know this: the work that feels most true to me isn’t about being the biggest voice in the room. It’s about being with people in their confusion, grief, shame, fear, and hope.

That’s care work.

And care work asks something of men that many of us were never trained for:

• to stay present
• to listen without fixing
• to hold emotion without shutting down
• to repair when we’ve caused harm
• to let tenderness be part of strength

This isn’t about men becoming “nice.” It’s about men becoming available.

A different question

So when I hear that line now—

“What are you doing doing women’s work?”

—I want to reframe it:

What if care isn’t women’s work at all?
What if it’s human work?

And what if more men learned to do it—not as a performance, not as a badge of being “one of the good ones,” but as a real practice?

Because the world doesn’t just need more powerful men.

It needs more men who can:

• apologise without collapsing
• feel without exploding
• protect without controlling
• lead without dominating
• stay close when things get hard

That’s not soft.

That’s brave.

If you’re reading this and it hits something

If you’re a man, maybe the invitation is simple:

• Notice where you were trained out of tenderness
• Notice where you’ve been rewarded for distance
• Choose one small moment this week to practise care on purpose

If you’re not a man, maybe you’re tired. Maybe you’ve carried too much. Maybe you’re done making it easy for everyone else.

Either way, I hope this lands as a reminder:

• Care is not lesser than power
• Tenderness is not weakness
• And we can build a culture where no one has to abandon their humanity to feel safe

That’s the work of care. The work of connection. The work of refusing to leave each other alone.