Thank you I really appreciate this thought out and post, especially the 7 steps to start. I am nowhere near where I hope to be with my own growth and work towards being a part of collective liberation, but I have started. I fear that many of the white women— including women I can think of in my own family, neighborhood, community etc— aren’t the ones who would even be open to reading this. But I guess that’s not the point of this post. It’s for white women who have started to recognize this paradox, and to use our voices to speak up to our partners and family and push them gracefully outside the comfort zone of cozy white privilege, and start recognizing the harm that continues unless we all work to collectively liberate.
Thank you so much for receiving it with openness and care. 🙏🏾
You're absolutely right—this message isn’t necessarily for the white women still clinging to comfort. It’s for those, like you, who’ve started. Who’ve felt that gut pull, cracked the illusion, and are asking: What now?
And I’ll offer this: even if some of those women in your neighborhood or family wouldn’t read a post like this, they will hear you. In your boundaries. In your discomfort. In the moments you choose not to laugh, not to look away, not to stay silent. That’s how the needle starts to shift.
You don’t have to be “there” yet—none of us are. But what matters is that you’re willing. Willing to sit in the tension. Willing to speak even when your voice shakes. Willing to push those closest to you beyond the curated safety of whiteness.
Thank you for this post. I am a 70-year old white woman feminist who was so disheartened over most of my adult life by the toxic effects of the patriarchy on every aspect of humanity. And yet I grew up with the most loving, kind, gentle, strong and, yes, feminist father one could hope for.
Your explanation of extending grace to white women and men rings true to me. Lots to think about as the current flood of toxicity threatens to drown and wash away every bit of progress we have made.
I was truly ready to give up hope. You have given me a blueprint going forward. Thank you. Bless You.
What a wonderful read that I needed to see. I tried. My partner of 5 years chose to leave rather than learn. He spoke all the right words but his actions were different. I thought I could love him through it but no, he did not care to be anything else but an angry, old white man that blamed others for everything…mostly me. In hindsight I allowed it to go on way too long and he believed he had me convinced to never be or have a “problem” but to just be happy, all the damn time because anything less infuriated him. I know the work now. Thank you for the insight.
I want to honor the deep self-trust it took to choose yourself over comfort, over illusions, over false peace.
Walking away is the work.
It is a refusal to be complicit in your own diminishment.
It’s grieving the loss of the future you hoped for, while refusing to betray the future you deserve.
Love cannot dismantle what someone is committed to protecting.
Only their own willingness can do that—and not everyone is ready or willing to do the work. That’s not your fault.
What you named here is powerful: you now know the work.
And that knowing is a portal. Trust it. Tend to it. Let it carry you toward spaces, relationships, and futures that make room for the fullness of who you are becoming.
There's no more disappointing a group in society as white women except of course white men! It's exasperating to work with either of them, especially the ones raised in fundamentalist conservative culture who believe themselves to be right in everything and have no ability for self reflection or growth which are seen as weaknesses. They also tend to live in small, rural, vastly white towns with no real exposure to the broader world to change their views. And leading by example doesn't work either because they're not going to take any lessons from someone they don't respect - i.e. the women in their lives. These are the same people who equate control with love. There is no winning there.
Honestly, I think we should leave most of these immature man babies out in the cold until they toughen up and learn they need an actual goddamn personality to get a woman but then they just turn into mass shooters. I don't know if there is a solution to this problem but I really appreciate you bringing it up because whew... it's been an issue for me since I hit voting age and I'm goddamn white! Must be even more frustrating for everyone else.
Whew. I feel the exhaustion in this—and it’s real.
There is a particular heartbreak in watching people cling to control, smallness, and violence as their only source of identity.
Especially when you’ve tried everything—modeling, loving, educating—and still get met with mockery, dismissal, or cruelty.
And you’re right:
There are places where it is wise, necessary, and liberatory to walk away.
Because you cannot pour liberation into people who are committed to their cages.
At the same time—this is where I want to gently invite a deeper reflection:
The exhaustion you're feeling toward white men? This is the exhaustion that Black women have carried toward white women. For generations.
The labor of loving, teaching, confronting, explaining.
The betrayal of watching people who could choose differently, who could know better, continue to align with harm because it was easier, more familiar, more comfortable.
When I say "Patriarchy in Pink"—when I say "You are your men"—I’m naming that pattern.
The pattern where harm is tolerated when it comes wrapped in proximity to power.
The pattern where women become enforcers of the very systems that oppress them—just like white women became the frontline defenders of whiteness.
And I name it not to shame you—but because understanding this connection is critical if we want to actually divest from the whole thing.
We don't win by abandoning the broken.
We don't win by mimicking the structures that isolated us in the first place.
We win by dismantling the machines that made them—and refusing to be recruited into their service.
That doesn’t mean staying in abusive relationships.
That doesn’t mean sacrificing your boundaries, your safety, your spirit.
It means refusing to internalize their failure as your template for liberation.
It means knowing when to walk away from people—
without walking away from the work.
Your rage is not wrong.
Your grief is not weakness.
And the discomfort you feel? That’s proof you are moving.
You are not alone in this labor.
You are standing in a lineage of women who carried this work on their backs for generations.
The difference now is: you have a choice about how you carry it.
Sorry, I must have been tired when I wrote this. It was supposed to be how exhausted I am with white women. I'm fully aware black women must have burned out from the endeavor of reaching out to them at least a century ago and I can't blame them!
I'm not on speaking terms with most of my family because the women in it always side with power, even if it means throwing their own daughters under the bus. I lost ALL respect for them knowing they'd rather blame their daughters for their own r*pe rather than "ruin a young man's reputation." For years I brushed aside this attitude believing they couldn't possibly really believe the BS they were spewing - like hating on women who got abortions even though a lot of them had them too!
The straw that broke the camel's back involved them letting a criminally convicted pedeophile around their kids because "he's family" and "he wouldnt do that." AHHHHHHH. YES, I'm exhausted and done!
So as a white woman I do apologize so many of us are perpetual children refusing to grow tf up. I'll still fight the patriarchy until my last dying breath but I'm not expecting any of them to follow.
I want to hold space for what you’ve shared here, not just as words, but as the lived weight they carry. The betrayal you’ve named, especially at the hands of those who are supposed to protect you, is a deep violence. And the kind of harm that doesn’t just wound once—it echoes. It makes you question your sanity. Your worth. Your memory. Your very place in the world.
And you’re right. Many Black women have burned out trying to bring white women into this work. We’ve been warning, guiding, and extending grace for generations. So it’s not lost on me that you're naming this exhaustion with clarity instead of retreating into performative guilt or centering your pain. You’re doing what so few are willing to do: tell the truth about your people without distancing yourself from the responsibility to do better.
What you’ve described… the protecting of predators, the silencing of survivors, the internalized misogyny dressed up as propriety—this is how patriarchy in white womanhood operates. And when I say “you are your men,” this is what I mean: not metaphor, not exaggeration. Pattern. Conditioning. Survival strategy wrapped in harm.
And you naming it this clearly? It’s a rupture and a refusal. That’s powerful.
You’re not alone in this work. You’re not the only one who’s cut ties. And you’re not wrong to say you’ll keep fighting, whether or not they come with you.
But let me also offer this: even if they never join you, others will. There are white women divesting. There are white femmes building with integrity. And there are communities of us (across race, gender, and generation) who will walk with you, not around you.
Thank you for not only seeing, but saying it out loud. And thank you for doing the damn work. I see you.
And thank you for reminding me that although not everyone can be saved from themselves leading a life by example (especially when done loudly and proudly) does in fact have a funny way of encouraging and inspiring others.
Unfortunately we tried that, and behold, the incel movement was born. I am still working on my grace, as you can see, but they have to change. I'm still wrestling with some of the points here, but the value is there if I can rise to it.
You’re right—the incel movement, and so many other reactionary movements, are the direct result of what happens when patriarchal entitlement gets denied access to domination.
It lashes out. It organizes itself around grievance.
It builds myths about "being owed" connection, sex, power, and influence.
And it’s infuriating. It’s heartbreaking. It’s exhausting to see it—and even harder to live alongside it.
So I want to affirm:
Your anger is valid. Your grief is valid. Your fatigue is valid.
But here’s the hard truth:
They have to change, yes—but our liberation can’t be held hostage by their refusal.
We don’t extend grace because they deserve it.
We extend it because we deserve to stay human in the face of their dehumanization.
We do it because otherwise, their rage becomes our template too—and that is another form of captivity.
Grace doesn't mean excuse.
Grace doesn’t mean acceptance of harm.
Grace means holding a standard higher than the system that shaped them.
It's okay if you're still wrestling. That wrestling is the work.
I'm grateful you’re willing to stay with the discomfort and keep moving through it.
You are not alone in that tension, and every time you rise toward grace, even imperfectly, you are building a different world.
What you describe is a spiritual process and calling. I have been so angry in the trenches for 8 years I have forgotten about the need for spiritual self-care. Thank you.
I remember you saying we were as violent as our men. It really sat and reflected on that one. With two sons, I really have to think about patriarchy and how it affects them also. I began a slow process since then of being more vulnerable and asking more questions. I also hold stronger boundaries but with way more love and grace. Like, Dude, where did you pick that tactic along the way? Your father, his father? Bc I can see how you would think it's ok after seeing it so much, but I'm here to say you are not allowed to treat me that way but I'd like to talk about other ways you could express that to me. I started really going through dialogues and questions with my counselor. And I now we have a *much* better relationship then when I was in constant battle with him and holding internalized violence thinking it was protection.
Thank you for sharing this with so much depth and honesty.
It’s no small thing to sit with that reflection—that we carry and replicate the violences we were taught, often without even realizing it—and to choose to break that cycle with intention.
What you’re doing with your sons is sacred work.
You are showing them, in real time, that love can be honest. That boundaries are care. That vulnerability is strength.
You are modeling what it looks like to unlearn domination without losing connection, and that is something most of us were never shown.
Interrupting internalized violence isn't just personal healing—it’s transformative justice at the root.
It’s the labor of tending to a future where love is not conditioned on power, and respect is not earned through fear.
You’re not just raising sons.
You’re building new men.
And that matters more than we can fully know.
I'm deeply grateful you are walking this road, and grateful you trusted me to be even a small part of that process.
I, too, have two sons. I live in the Southern U.S., where white males are coddled. Responsibility for parenting them transfers from moms to partners. I’ve chosen to not parent my boys this way. One is now married to an amazing woman who is independent and appreciates that I taught him to be open-minded. The other is still at home, receiving the same liberal upbringing. It’s my job as their mother to hold their fathers accountable, to shut down the white patriarchal BS that I have fought my entire 54 years, so they are shown how to treat their partners and the humans they live among.
A year ago, I nearly divorced over the treatment I had allowed in the name of keeping the household peace (while screaming inside). I awoke as if from a deep slumber when my youngest demonstrated the very behavior I had stopped fighting, so I once again took up arms (words and actions). My youngest still has at least 5 years before leaving home. My H got the message, yet he’s on permanent probation. So many emotions swirling.
Thank you so much for trusting me—and this space—with this part of your story.
I want to say very clearly: what you did took incredible strength.
Not just waking up—but choosing to stay awake, even when it costs you the comfort, the easy peace, the familiarity you had built your life around.
When you said you had allowed certain behaviors “in the name of household peace,” I felt that deeply.
That is survival. That is what patriarchy demands of women again and again: swallow it. Hide it. Protect the illusion, even if it costs you your spirit.
You recognizing that your son was absorbing those patterns—and deciding to break that cycle out loud—is nothing short of generational healing work.
And I want you to know:
Putting your husband on "permanent probation" is not cruel. It is sacred boundary work.
It is refusing to protect a system that would harm you and those you love under the guise of stability.
It is not cold. It is not mean.
It is choosing life. Your life. Your sons’ futures. Their partners' futures.
It is the kind of hard, invisible work that changes bloodlines.
I hear the swirl of emotions—grief, rage, hope, exhaustion—and I want to affirm: all of it is real. All of it is holy.
You are doing what so many were too scared to do before you.
You are being the interruption that your sons will never forget.
And I am holding deep respect for you in this moment.
Wow! Thank you! I truly needed the validation! My guilt complex is so strong after a life of being the caregiver.
I continue to try to use the lessons I’ve learned through negative parenting and relationship experiences as the motivation for turning to alternative approaches, and I’ve tried desperately to parent instinctively to give my boys the nurturing, understanding, and shield that I needed.
Our kids teach us who they need us to be when we listen and watch. Some lessons are much harder than others. Phew!
I return to this nugget of praise often to remind myself I’m not failing at this motherhood thing. My youngest son and I just finished today’s algebra lesson. It’s heartbreaking to see how he feels about himself when we work on school, which is so hard for him due to dyslexia, dysgraphia, language-processing, ADHD, and anxiety. He’s so frickin’ brilliant, but school isn’t made for him; he was created to transcend the box of industrialized education. I adapt what I can. I wish instead I could set him fully free. Homeschooling is as close as we can get for a few more years.
If I may ask you a question, the person in my life that fits this is my mother (My father is an poc immigrant from another country) I have a tenuous relationship with her already but most recently am seeing her dark underbelly. I have confronted her but she’s not mentally capable of seeing the errors in her position. This inability is a long standing issue. At what point do you stop extending the grace and recognize that someone cannot be “worked with” and it’s best if you just detach from them?
Oof. That’s a deep and honest question—and one I hold with so much care.
First, let’s name something clearly: grace is not the same as proximity.
You can extend grace and still choose distance. You can honor someone’s humanity and still recognize that they are harming yours.
When I say “offer white men the grace Black women have offered white women,” I’m not saying stay in harm’s way. I’m saying: recognize the gap between how we’ve been trained to forgive white womanhood and how little that same patience is extended in return.
Grace in this context means refusing to dehumanize, even when we’re naming harm—but it does not mean tolerating ongoing violence, erasure, or manipulation.
In your case, when that harm is coming from a parent—a mother, no less—it cuts even deeper, because the grief is layered: the person who was supposed to protect you is the one perpetuating harm. And that’s not a failure of yours—that’s an inherited pattern she may never be willing (or able) to interrupt.
So here’s the truth:
You are allowed to step away.
You are allowed to draw a boundary not out of punishment—but out of protection.
You are allowed to say, “I love you, but I will not let your wounds become mine.”
Sometimes, the most radical act of grace is to walk away before resentment curdles into something that eats you alive. Detachment doesn’t mean you’ve given up. It means you’ve chosen your healing over a performance of familial loyalty.
You are not responsible for changing her.
You are responsible for protecting the parts of you that still need tending, still need room to grow.
And here's something I want to add: whiteness has trained people to believe that all belonging must happen inside the nuclear family. That love and validation have to come from your parents, or it doesn’t count. But that’s a lie supremacy culture feeds to keep people isolated, individualistic, and dependent on small, often harmful, units.
Just because your mother may not shift doesn’t mean others won’t. This work—the offering of grace, of truth-telling, of showing up for liberation—is so much bigger than our families of origin. You may have to detach from her to find the people who are ready to meet you differently.
Here’s your question back:
Can you extend grace without sacrificing peace?
If not—it’s not grace anymore. It’s martyrdom.
I’m holding you in this. It’s not easy. But it is sacred.
Thank you for such a thoughtful and tender response. I will need to read this many times over and process. You’ve given me some new context to incorporate. Many many thanks for that and for being a force for good.
Awesome post. I am not sure how it got in my feed. But, I am here for it. I love the way you used language instructively and invitationally. I know a lot of White woman and many of them are extensions of their husbands--like an appendage. Mostly in the evangelical and Republican world because of really bad theology. I was a pastor for over a decade. I was raised conservative and evangelical and was pushed into progressive Christianity by the forces that demand unquestioning loyalty to lunacy. I learned the hard way that many Black churches are White supremacist Christianity in Black face, but they don't know it because they are so invested in heaven that they miss out on earth. But then when I ended up in the "Progressive Christian" movement, I learned wholeheartedly why Jesus taught that you can't put new wine in an old wine skin. So, I had to leave if I was ever going to live fully into my ideals--which are Integrity Dedication Equity Appreciation Love and Service. If I am in a place where I can't show up fully in these areas, I walk away. I feel like you are calling White women into this with your piece. Thanks. I think it is all of our calling to live as fully as we can into the people we pretend to be and that we should surround ourselves with people with high standards who will hold us accountable. Anyway, your piece is that. I have said enough.
Thank you , thank you, thank you ! I really appreciate the clarity you write with. I have started with this work but there is still so much to learn. When I first realised all the ways I had engaged in white power moves and had to start to try and let go of clinging to be ‘but I’m a good one stance’ and using my Irish birth and family history experiences of colonisation as a way to bypass thinking about the way I benefited from white privilege it was pretty destabilising
I have been learning what it means to talk to white men about privilege in the context of my marriage and how defended against discomfort a man who appears to care about social justice is if it comes to examining choices in one own life around privilege and power e.g relationship to inherited money gained through racial oppression and violence He may rather loose his marriage than engage in the work though this is sad it’s also ok
We who are white women have to start holding ourselves and white men to account around the choices we are making , the way we live our ethics and what liberation means
A resounding YES! To all you have said and I wanted to just affirm that the reality is: most white men don’t have to do this work unless white women demand it from them. And what you said so clearly… that he may rather lose the marriage than face his relationship to power, that’s what I mean when I say white women are their men. Because if you don’t hold that mirror up, they get to keep hiding in the cracks of your silence.
You’re not alone in this reckoning. You’re choosing alignment over comfort. And you’re showing others what it looks like to make liberation more than a theory, but a practice.
thankyou for this post, another subject that i had not considered so deeply and at first i did not understand what grace had been given but by the end i understood the message. thankyou for showing me this knowledge 😸💖
Moonah, thank you for receiving this with such care and curiosity.
The fact that you stayed with the message, even when it didn’t click at first, and kept reading until the understanding landed? That is the work. That’s how we move from defensiveness to transformation.
Grace is often invisible to those who’ve always had access to it. But once you see the patterns (the silence, the shielding, the centering), you begin to realize just how much has been absorbed, deflected, and carried by others in the name of “keeping peace.”
I'm grateful you're here, listening deeply. Keep leaning in.
I really appreciate this post. You model grace beautifully in your writing and you have given me tangible tools and tips to use in my own life. Thank you.
I’m deeply grateful that the tools and framing resonated with you. Grace, to me, isn’t about softening the truth—it’s about holding the truth firmly but with care. It’s about building a structure strong enough to carry both accountability and possibility.
Thank you for this article, it is something I needed to hear tonight. I have been trying to extend this grace, and have been naturally following many of your steps for years, and lately I feel very discouraged by it all.
Hit send to soon, to finish my thought- I want to be angry. I want to rage against the people around me who meet my grace with ignorance and harm. I want to distance myself from them as much as possible. Your words help me understand why I CAN’T and why I shouldn’t. It is important for white women to take on the mantle of educating the men around us.
I want to affirm this first: your anger is holy. Your rage is not wrong—it’s the natural response to harm, to betrayal, to witnessing people you love refuse to rise. It’s not something to suppress; it’s something to channel.
Extending grace does not mean abandoning your anger or forcing yourself to stay close to people actively harming you. Grace doesn't mean unlimited access. It means telling the truth without dehumanizing yourself or them. It means setting boundaries and staying committed to collective liberation—not because they deserve it, but because the future demands it.
You are right: white women have a crucial role to play in educating, confronting, and transforming the spaces they are closest to. But you are allowed to protect your spirit while you do it. You are allowed to rest, recalibrate, and choose your battles with wisdom, not exhaustion.
I'm grateful you’re still here—still choosing the hard, necessary work. Keep your fire. Keep your tenderness. You’ll need both.
This is a provocative read, and I’ll definitely need to sit with it too steep for a.
But I will say this, I believe most of these white women don’t actually realize that they’re aligning with men who are patriarchal and or abusive. I can look back on the group of women that I knew when I was part of their accepted inner circle, and 95% of their husbands were also abusive, they didn’t realize it. Little by little I’m getting texts and messages privately from women as they are waking up.
Wow. Always incredibility insightful. My favorite quote, "Grace is saying: I believe in your ability to change, and I won't pretend otherwise to make you comfortable." 💓🌬🍃
Another example of grace being extended, through this article. Thank you for the deep learning and offerings.
It is truly my pleasure!
Thank you I really appreciate this thought out and post, especially the 7 steps to start. I am nowhere near where I hope to be with my own growth and work towards being a part of collective liberation, but I have started. I fear that many of the white women— including women I can think of in my own family, neighborhood, community etc— aren’t the ones who would even be open to reading this. But I guess that’s not the point of this post. It’s for white women who have started to recognize this paradox, and to use our voices to speak up to our partners and family and push them gracefully outside the comfort zone of cozy white privilege, and start recognizing the harm that continues unless we all work to collectively liberate.
Thank you so much for receiving it with openness and care. 🙏🏾
You're absolutely right—this message isn’t necessarily for the white women still clinging to comfort. It’s for those, like you, who’ve started. Who’ve felt that gut pull, cracked the illusion, and are asking: What now?
And I’ll offer this: even if some of those women in your neighborhood or family wouldn’t read a post like this, they will hear you. In your boundaries. In your discomfort. In the moments you choose not to laugh, not to look away, not to stay silent. That’s how the needle starts to shift.
You don’t have to be “there” yet—none of us are. But what matters is that you’re willing. Willing to sit in the tension. Willing to speak even when your voice shakes. Willing to push those closest to you beyond the curated safety of whiteness.
That’s the work. And you’re in it.
Keep going. You’re not alone.
Thank you for this post. I am a 70-year old white woman feminist who was so disheartened over most of my adult life by the toxic effects of the patriarchy on every aspect of humanity. And yet I grew up with the most loving, kind, gentle, strong and, yes, feminist father one could hope for.
Your explanation of extending grace to white women and men rings true to me. Lots to think about as the current flood of toxicity threatens to drown and wash away every bit of progress we have made.
I was truly ready to give up hope. You have given me a blueprint going forward. Thank you. Bless You.
What a wonderful read that I needed to see. I tried. My partner of 5 years chose to leave rather than learn. He spoke all the right words but his actions were different. I thought I could love him through it but no, he did not care to be anything else but an angry, old white man that blamed others for everything…mostly me. In hindsight I allowed it to go on way too long and he believed he had me convinced to never be or have a “problem” but to just be happy, all the damn time because anything less infuriated him. I know the work now. Thank you for the insight.
I want to honor the deep self-trust it took to choose yourself over comfort, over illusions, over false peace.
Walking away is the work.
It is a refusal to be complicit in your own diminishment.
It’s grieving the loss of the future you hoped for, while refusing to betray the future you deserve.
Love cannot dismantle what someone is committed to protecting.
Only their own willingness can do that—and not everyone is ready or willing to do the work. That’s not your fault.
What you named here is powerful: you now know the work.
And that knowing is a portal. Trust it. Tend to it. Let it carry you toward spaces, relationships, and futures that make room for the fullness of who you are becoming.
There's no more disappointing a group in society as white women except of course white men! It's exasperating to work with either of them, especially the ones raised in fundamentalist conservative culture who believe themselves to be right in everything and have no ability for self reflection or growth which are seen as weaknesses. They also tend to live in small, rural, vastly white towns with no real exposure to the broader world to change their views. And leading by example doesn't work either because they're not going to take any lessons from someone they don't respect - i.e. the women in their lives. These are the same people who equate control with love. There is no winning there.
Honestly, I think we should leave most of these immature man babies out in the cold until they toughen up and learn they need an actual goddamn personality to get a woman but then they just turn into mass shooters. I don't know if there is a solution to this problem but I really appreciate you bringing it up because whew... it's been an issue for me since I hit voting age and I'm goddamn white! Must be even more frustrating for everyone else.
Whew. I feel the exhaustion in this—and it’s real.
There is a particular heartbreak in watching people cling to control, smallness, and violence as their only source of identity.
Especially when you’ve tried everything—modeling, loving, educating—and still get met with mockery, dismissal, or cruelty.
And you’re right:
There are places where it is wise, necessary, and liberatory to walk away.
Because you cannot pour liberation into people who are committed to their cages.
At the same time—this is where I want to gently invite a deeper reflection:
The exhaustion you're feeling toward white men? This is the exhaustion that Black women have carried toward white women. For generations.
The labor of loving, teaching, confronting, explaining.
The betrayal of watching people who could choose differently, who could know better, continue to align with harm because it was easier, more familiar, more comfortable.
When I say "Patriarchy in Pink"—when I say "You are your men"—I’m naming that pattern.
The pattern where harm is tolerated when it comes wrapped in proximity to power.
The pattern where women become enforcers of the very systems that oppress them—just like white women became the frontline defenders of whiteness.
And I name it not to shame you—but because understanding this connection is critical if we want to actually divest from the whole thing.
We don't win by abandoning the broken.
We don't win by mimicking the structures that isolated us in the first place.
We win by dismantling the machines that made them—and refusing to be recruited into their service.
That doesn’t mean staying in abusive relationships.
That doesn’t mean sacrificing your boundaries, your safety, your spirit.
It means refusing to internalize their failure as your template for liberation.
It means knowing when to walk away from people—
without walking away from the work.
Your rage is not wrong.
Your grief is not weakness.
And the discomfort you feel? That’s proof you are moving.
You are not alone in this labor.
You are standing in a lineage of women who carried this work on their backs for generations.
The difference now is: you have a choice about how you carry it.
And that choice? That’s what liberation demands.
Sorry, I must have been tired when I wrote this. It was supposed to be how exhausted I am with white women. I'm fully aware black women must have burned out from the endeavor of reaching out to them at least a century ago and I can't blame them!
I'm not on speaking terms with most of my family because the women in it always side with power, even if it means throwing their own daughters under the bus. I lost ALL respect for them knowing they'd rather blame their daughters for their own r*pe rather than "ruin a young man's reputation." For years I brushed aside this attitude believing they couldn't possibly really believe the BS they were spewing - like hating on women who got abortions even though a lot of them had them too!
The straw that broke the camel's back involved them letting a criminally convicted pedeophile around their kids because "he's family" and "he wouldnt do that." AHHHHHHH. YES, I'm exhausted and done!
So as a white woman I do apologize so many of us are perpetual children refusing to grow tf up. I'll still fight the patriarchy until my last dying breath but I'm not expecting any of them to follow.
Theophanes… thank you for your honesty.
I want to hold space for what you’ve shared here, not just as words, but as the lived weight they carry. The betrayal you’ve named, especially at the hands of those who are supposed to protect you, is a deep violence. And the kind of harm that doesn’t just wound once—it echoes. It makes you question your sanity. Your worth. Your memory. Your very place in the world.
And you’re right. Many Black women have burned out trying to bring white women into this work. We’ve been warning, guiding, and extending grace for generations. So it’s not lost on me that you're naming this exhaustion with clarity instead of retreating into performative guilt or centering your pain. You’re doing what so few are willing to do: tell the truth about your people without distancing yourself from the responsibility to do better.
What you’ve described… the protecting of predators, the silencing of survivors, the internalized misogyny dressed up as propriety—this is how patriarchy in white womanhood operates. And when I say “you are your men,” this is what I mean: not metaphor, not exaggeration. Pattern. Conditioning. Survival strategy wrapped in harm.
And you naming it this clearly? It’s a rupture and a refusal. That’s powerful.
You’re not alone in this work. You’re not the only one who’s cut ties. And you’re not wrong to say you’ll keep fighting, whether or not they come with you.
But let me also offer this: even if they never join you, others will. There are white women divesting. There are white femmes building with integrity. And there are communities of us (across race, gender, and generation) who will walk with you, not around you.
Thank you for not only seeing, but saying it out loud. And thank you for doing the damn work. I see you.
And thank you for reminding me that although not everyone can be saved from themselves leading a life by example (especially when done loudly and proudly) does in fact have a funny way of encouraging and inspiring others.
Oh this made my cry! Thank you.
Unfortunately we tried that, and behold, the incel movement was born. I am still working on my grace, as you can see, but they have to change. I'm still wrestling with some of the points here, but the value is there if I can rise to it.
Thank you for sharing this so honestly.
You’re right—the incel movement, and so many other reactionary movements, are the direct result of what happens when patriarchal entitlement gets denied access to domination.
It lashes out. It organizes itself around grievance.
It builds myths about "being owed" connection, sex, power, and influence.
And it’s infuriating. It’s heartbreaking. It’s exhausting to see it—and even harder to live alongside it.
So I want to affirm:
Your anger is valid. Your grief is valid. Your fatigue is valid.
But here’s the hard truth:
They have to change, yes—but our liberation can’t be held hostage by their refusal.
We don’t extend grace because they deserve it.
We extend it because we deserve to stay human in the face of their dehumanization.
We do it because otherwise, their rage becomes our template too—and that is another form of captivity.
Grace doesn't mean excuse.
Grace doesn’t mean acceptance of harm.
Grace means holding a standard higher than the system that shaped them.
It's okay if you're still wrestling. That wrestling is the work.
I'm grateful you’re willing to stay with the discomfort and keep moving through it.
You are not alone in that tension, and every time you rise toward grace, even imperfectly, you are building a different world.
What you describe is a spiritual process and calling. I have been so angry in the trenches for 8 years I have forgotten about the need for spiritual self-care. Thank you.
I remember you saying we were as violent as our men. It really sat and reflected on that one. With two sons, I really have to think about patriarchy and how it affects them also. I began a slow process since then of being more vulnerable and asking more questions. I also hold stronger boundaries but with way more love and grace. Like, Dude, where did you pick that tactic along the way? Your father, his father? Bc I can see how you would think it's ok after seeing it so much, but I'm here to say you are not allowed to treat me that way but I'd like to talk about other ways you could express that to me. I started really going through dialogues and questions with my counselor. And I now we have a *much* better relationship then when I was in constant battle with him and holding internalized violence thinking it was protection.
Thank you for sharing this with so much depth and honesty.
It’s no small thing to sit with that reflection—that we carry and replicate the violences we were taught, often without even realizing it—and to choose to break that cycle with intention.
What you’re doing with your sons is sacred work.
You are showing them, in real time, that love can be honest. That boundaries are care. That vulnerability is strength.
You are modeling what it looks like to unlearn domination without losing connection, and that is something most of us were never shown.
Interrupting internalized violence isn't just personal healing—it’s transformative justice at the root.
It’s the labor of tending to a future where love is not conditioned on power, and respect is not earned through fear.
You’re not just raising sons.
You’re building new men.
And that matters more than we can fully know.
I'm deeply grateful you are walking this road, and grateful you trusted me to be even a small part of that process.
I, too, have two sons. I live in the Southern U.S., where white males are coddled. Responsibility for parenting them transfers from moms to partners. I’ve chosen to not parent my boys this way. One is now married to an amazing woman who is independent and appreciates that I taught him to be open-minded. The other is still at home, receiving the same liberal upbringing. It’s my job as their mother to hold their fathers accountable, to shut down the white patriarchal BS that I have fought my entire 54 years, so they are shown how to treat their partners and the humans they live among.
A year ago, I nearly divorced over the treatment I had allowed in the name of keeping the household peace (while screaming inside). I awoke as if from a deep slumber when my youngest demonstrated the very behavior I had stopped fighting, so I once again took up arms (words and actions). My youngest still has at least 5 years before leaving home. My H got the message, yet he’s on permanent probation. So many emotions swirling.
Thank you so much for trusting me—and this space—with this part of your story.
I want to say very clearly: what you did took incredible strength.
Not just waking up—but choosing to stay awake, even when it costs you the comfort, the easy peace, the familiarity you had built your life around.
When you said you had allowed certain behaviors “in the name of household peace,” I felt that deeply.
That is survival. That is what patriarchy demands of women again and again: swallow it. Hide it. Protect the illusion, even if it costs you your spirit.
You recognizing that your son was absorbing those patterns—and deciding to break that cycle out loud—is nothing short of generational healing work.
And I want you to know:
Putting your husband on "permanent probation" is not cruel. It is sacred boundary work.
It is refusing to protect a system that would harm you and those you love under the guise of stability.
It is not cold. It is not mean.
It is choosing life. Your life. Your sons’ futures. Their partners' futures.
It is the kind of hard, invisible work that changes bloodlines.
I hear the swirl of emotions—grief, rage, hope, exhaustion—and I want to affirm: all of it is real. All of it is holy.
You are doing what so many were too scared to do before you.
You are being the interruption that your sons will never forget.
And I am holding deep respect for you in this moment.
You are not alone in this work.
You are exactly where you are meant to be.
Wow! Thank you! I truly needed the validation! My guilt complex is so strong after a life of being the caregiver.
I continue to try to use the lessons I’ve learned through negative parenting and relationship experiences as the motivation for turning to alternative approaches, and I’ve tried desperately to parent instinctively to give my boys the nurturing, understanding, and shield that I needed.
Our kids teach us who they need us to be when we listen and watch. Some lessons are much harder than others. Phew!
Renee,
thank you for continuing to share with such vulnerability and honesty.
You are speaking to something so real, the way caregiver conditioning can make setting new boundaries feel like betrayal instead of protection.
That guilt you’re feeling? It’s not proof you’re doing harm.
It’s proof you’re doing something different.
Something the old patterns never prepared you for.
And you’re right:
Our children show us who we need to become.
Not by demanding perfection—but by inviting us into deeper presence, deeper accountability, deeper love than we were ever shown ourselves.
By choosing boundaries over appeasement, honesty over silence, protection over performance—you are dismantling pillars of supremacy culture like:
Fear of Open Conflict (you’re refusing to mistake silence for safety)
Right to Comfort (you’re tolerating discomfort in service of real healing)
Power Hoarding (you’re modeling shared, accountable power—not domination)
Paternalism (you’re trusting your sons to rise into wholeness, not controlling them)
The fact that you are listening to the hard lessons
the ones that hurt, the ones that ask you to grow in uncomfortable ways, are proof you are doing sacred work.
It’s not easy.
It’s not linear.
But it matters.
It matters more than you can even see right now.
You are not just trying to be a different kind of mother, you are being a different kind of ancestor.
You are raising sons who will know that love is not control.
That care is not ownership.
That respect is not conditional.
And that is revolutionary work.
You’re doing it.
Even when it’s messy.
Especially when it’s messy.
And you’re not doing it alone.
I'm so proud to be walking this path alongside you. I look forward to more of your revelations.
I return to this nugget of praise often to remind myself I’m not failing at this motherhood thing. My youngest son and I just finished today’s algebra lesson. It’s heartbreaking to see how he feels about himself when we work on school, which is so hard for him due to dyslexia, dysgraphia, language-processing, ADHD, and anxiety. He’s so frickin’ brilliant, but school isn’t made for him; he was created to transcend the box of industrialized education. I adapt what I can. I wish instead I could set him fully free. Homeschooling is as close as we can get for a few more years.
You know what’s crazy I tried making a post on threads about this months ago and white women were in my DMs losing their minds and super vindictive.
I’m not surprised. Whiteness is cannabilistic and defensive measures are always taken to protect it
Cannibalistic is a good word--they eat their own. They police their own.
Yep. One of them even went as far as to weaponize my own culture’s struggles with machismo to try and validate her point. Like damn really?!
People hate it when you criticize from within, they are so quick to shun you
You are absolutely right.
Critiquing from within is one of the most radical acts of love—and one of the most misunderstood.
Systems built on supremacy, conformity, and control teach people that criticism = betrayal.
But in truth, critique is a commitment to something better. It’s saying: I believe we are capable of more than what harm has normalized.
Shunning is a tool of control.
Truth-telling is a tool of liberation.
And sometimes, the first cost of speaking truth is being willing to stand alone, for a time, so others can find the courage to join you later.
Hold your ground. Your voice matters.
If I may ask you a question, the person in my life that fits this is my mother (My father is an poc immigrant from another country) I have a tenuous relationship with her already but most recently am seeing her dark underbelly. I have confronted her but she’s not mentally capable of seeing the errors in her position. This inability is a long standing issue. At what point do you stop extending the grace and recognize that someone cannot be “worked with” and it’s best if you just detach from them?
Oof. That’s a deep and honest question—and one I hold with so much care.
First, let’s name something clearly: grace is not the same as proximity.
You can extend grace and still choose distance. You can honor someone’s humanity and still recognize that they are harming yours.
When I say “offer white men the grace Black women have offered white women,” I’m not saying stay in harm’s way. I’m saying: recognize the gap between how we’ve been trained to forgive white womanhood and how little that same patience is extended in return.
Grace in this context means refusing to dehumanize, even when we’re naming harm—but it does not mean tolerating ongoing violence, erasure, or manipulation.
In your case, when that harm is coming from a parent—a mother, no less—it cuts even deeper, because the grief is layered: the person who was supposed to protect you is the one perpetuating harm. And that’s not a failure of yours—that’s an inherited pattern she may never be willing (or able) to interrupt.
So here’s the truth:
You are allowed to step away.
You are allowed to draw a boundary not out of punishment—but out of protection.
You are allowed to say, “I love you, but I will not let your wounds become mine.”
Sometimes, the most radical act of grace is to walk away before resentment curdles into something that eats you alive. Detachment doesn’t mean you’ve given up. It means you’ve chosen your healing over a performance of familial loyalty.
You are not responsible for changing her.
You are responsible for protecting the parts of you that still need tending, still need room to grow.
And here's something I want to add: whiteness has trained people to believe that all belonging must happen inside the nuclear family. That love and validation have to come from your parents, or it doesn’t count. But that’s a lie supremacy culture feeds to keep people isolated, individualistic, and dependent on small, often harmful, units.
Just because your mother may not shift doesn’t mean others won’t. This work—the offering of grace, of truth-telling, of showing up for liberation—is so much bigger than our families of origin. You may have to detach from her to find the people who are ready to meet you differently.
Here’s your question back:
Can you extend grace without sacrificing peace?
If not—it’s not grace anymore. It’s martyrdom.
I’m holding you in this. It’s not easy. But it is sacred.
Choosing yourself often is.
In solidarity and liberation,
Desireé B. Stephens
Founder, Make Shi(f)t Happen
That's a beautiful response to her question. So enlightening!
Thank you for such a thoughtful and tender response. I will need to read this many times over and process. You’ve given me some new context to incorporate. Many many thanks for that and for being a force for good.
Awesome post. I am not sure how it got in my feed. But, I am here for it. I love the way you used language instructively and invitationally. I know a lot of White woman and many of them are extensions of their husbands--like an appendage. Mostly in the evangelical and Republican world because of really bad theology. I was a pastor for over a decade. I was raised conservative and evangelical and was pushed into progressive Christianity by the forces that demand unquestioning loyalty to lunacy. I learned the hard way that many Black churches are White supremacist Christianity in Black face, but they don't know it because they are so invested in heaven that they miss out on earth. But then when I ended up in the "Progressive Christian" movement, I learned wholeheartedly why Jesus taught that you can't put new wine in an old wine skin. So, I had to leave if I was ever going to live fully into my ideals--which are Integrity Dedication Equity Appreciation Love and Service. If I am in a place where I can't show up fully in these areas, I walk away. I feel like you are calling White women into this with your piece. Thanks. I think it is all of our calling to live as fully as we can into the people we pretend to be and that we should surround ourselves with people with high standards who will hold us accountable. Anyway, your piece is that. I have said enough.
Thank you , thank you, thank you ! I really appreciate the clarity you write with. I have started with this work but there is still so much to learn. When I first realised all the ways I had engaged in white power moves and had to start to try and let go of clinging to be ‘but I’m a good one stance’ and using my Irish birth and family history experiences of colonisation as a way to bypass thinking about the way I benefited from white privilege it was pretty destabilising
I have been learning what it means to talk to white men about privilege in the context of my marriage and how defended against discomfort a man who appears to care about social justice is if it comes to examining choices in one own life around privilege and power e.g relationship to inherited money gained through racial oppression and violence He may rather loose his marriage than engage in the work though this is sad it’s also ok
We who are white women have to start holding ourselves and white men to account around the choices we are making , the way we live our ethics and what liberation means
Hello again Mary,
A resounding YES! To all you have said and I wanted to just affirm that the reality is: most white men don’t have to do this work unless white women demand it from them. And what you said so clearly… that he may rather lose the marriage than face his relationship to power, that’s what I mean when I say white women are their men. Because if you don’t hold that mirror up, they get to keep hiding in the cracks of your silence.
You’re not alone in this reckoning. You’re choosing alignment over comfort. And you’re showing others what it looks like to make liberation more than a theory, but a practice.
Thank you for modeling that so powerfully.
thankyou for this post, another subject that i had not considered so deeply and at first i did not understand what grace had been given but by the end i understood the message. thankyou for showing me this knowledge 😸💖
Moonah, thank you for receiving this with such care and curiosity.
The fact that you stayed with the message, even when it didn’t click at first, and kept reading until the understanding landed? That is the work. That’s how we move from defensiveness to transformation.
Grace is often invisible to those who’ve always had access to it. But once you see the patterns (the silence, the shielding, the centering), you begin to realize just how much has been absorbed, deflected, and carried by others in the name of “keeping peace.”
I'm grateful you're here, listening deeply. Keep leaning in.
We grow in layers. Keep growing!
I really appreciate this post. You model grace beautifully in your writing and you have given me tangible tools and tips to use in my own life. Thank you.
Thank you so much for this reflection.
I’m deeply grateful that the tools and framing resonated with you. Grace, to me, isn’t about softening the truth—it’s about holding the truth firmly but with care. It’s about building a structure strong enough to carry both accountability and possibility.
Thank you for this article, it is something I needed to hear tonight. I have been trying to extend this grace, and have been naturally following many of your steps for years, and lately I feel very discouraged by it all.
Hit send to soon, to finish my thought- I want to be angry. I want to rage against the people around me who meet my grace with ignorance and harm. I want to distance myself from them as much as possible. Your words help me understand why I CAN’T and why I shouldn’t. It is important for white women to take on the mantle of educating the men around us.
Thank you for sharing this with so much honesty.
I want to affirm this first: your anger is holy. Your rage is not wrong—it’s the natural response to harm, to betrayal, to witnessing people you love refuse to rise. It’s not something to suppress; it’s something to channel.
Extending grace does not mean abandoning your anger or forcing yourself to stay close to people actively harming you. Grace doesn't mean unlimited access. It means telling the truth without dehumanizing yourself or them. It means setting boundaries and staying committed to collective liberation—not because they deserve it, but because the future demands it.
You are right: white women have a crucial role to play in educating, confronting, and transforming the spaces they are closest to. But you are allowed to protect your spirit while you do it. You are allowed to rest, recalibrate, and choose your battles with wisdom, not exhaustion.
I'm grateful you’re still here—still choosing the hard, necessary work. Keep your fire. Keep your tenderness. You’ll need both.
This is a provocative read, and I’ll definitely need to sit with it too steep for a.
But I will say this, I believe most of these white women don’t actually realize that they’re aligning with men who are patriarchal and or abusive. I can look back on the group of women that I knew when I was part of their accepted inner circle, and 95% of their husbands were also abusive, they didn’t realize it. Little by little I’m getting texts and messages privately from women as they are waking up.
Wow. Always incredibility insightful. My favorite quote, "Grace is saying: I believe in your ability to change, and I won't pretend otherwise to make you comfortable." 💓🌬🍃
Well done, Beautiful Soul 🙏🏽👁️✨
mmm that felt good to read. Thank you! and good morning