Loving Women Means Liking Them Too

Written by: Liz Cerven

Dear Men,

I write to you today with both tenderness and urgency.

Not to scold, and not to shame—but to invite you into a deeper kind of love. Into a deeper kind of listening. Into a way of showing up for the women in your life that is not performative, not reactive, not temporary—but rooted, devoted, alive.

To walk a feminist path is not simply to “respect women.” It is to actively unlearn the ways you have been taught to devalue them. It is to confront how culture, family, media, and history have shaped your gaze—how you have been taught to need women, even to worship women, but not always to like them. Not always to see them.

Too often, men say they love women—while interrupting them, dismissing them, patronizing them.
Too often, men say they love women, but do not enjoy being around them unless there’s something to gain: care, sex, emotional labor.
Too often, men say they love women, while secretly believing that men are more interesting, more logical, more capable.

Loving women—as a feminist—means something different.

It means loving them without shrinking them.
It means loving their anger, their power, their boundaries, their weirdness, their leadership, their depth.
It means enjoying their company when they are not smiling. When they are not pleasing. When they are not performing warmth for you.

It means liking women.
Being genuinely interested in their thoughts.
Finding delight in their stories.
Trusting their judgment.
Wanting to be shaped by their ideas.
Giving space for their complexity, even when it challenges you.

And this might be one of the quietest tragedies of how men are taught to relate to women:
You’re taught to want women, to chase them, to need them—but not necessarily to admire them.
You’re not always taught to take joy in their presence, to feel humbled by their wisdom, to be changed by their depth.

That is the unlearning. That is the invitation.

Do you admire the women in your life, truly?
Do you listen to their music, read their books, cite their ideas?
Do you lift their names in rooms where power is distributed?
Do you defend them when no women are watching?

Showing up for women means honoring their full humanity—not only when it’s beautiful or easy or useful to you—but when it’s inconvenient, when it’s messy, when it threatens your comfort or your worldview.

It means honoring their boundaries not as rejections, but as acts of self-respect.
It means not asking for softness when you haven’t earned safety.
It means letting go of the need to be “a good guy,” and instead being someone who is deeply accountable.

Feminism, when practiced sincerely, is not a set of beliefs—it’s a way of being in relationship. It is a love ethic.
It asks you to give up power where you’ve had too much, and to take responsibility where you’ve had too little.
It asks you to be present. To listen. To learn. To change. Again and again.

Sara Ahmed says, “Feminism is homework. It is work we do at home, with our family, our friends, our lovers.”
That means this is not just theory—it’s how you touch, how you parent, how you apologize.
It’s how you speak to women when they say something hard.
It’s how you speak about women when they’re not in the room.

And here’s the quiet truth: this isn’t just about women. This is about your own liberation, too.
Patriarchy limits you. It steals your tenderness. It isolates you from intimacy, from emotional fluency, from the full spectrum of who you could be.
Showing up for women opens the door back to your own soul.

Let your masculinity become a shelter, not a storm.
Let your presence be a balm, not a burden.
Let your love be liberation.

Let your feminism be felt. Let it be embodied. Let it be alive in your daily choices.
Let it be more than a belief—let it be love in motion.

You are capable of being part of something beautiful. Something restorative. Something honest.

Start with listening.
Stay for the becoming.

Toward love that liberates