I’ve been thinking a lot about the way boys and girls are raised, and how those early patterns follow us into adulthood. We talk endlessly about the emotional load women carry, the invisible labour, the mental load, the safety load, the social load. But there is another layer that sits underneath all of that, shaping everything before we even get a chance to understand it.
It is the way boys are cushioned and excused, while girls are trained and expected. It is quiet, it is cultural, and it is everywhere once you start noticing it.
Girls Are Raised into Responsibility
From the moment we can walk, girls are taught to be aware. Aware of feelings, aware of consequences, aware of other people’s needs. We are encouraged to talk, reflect, apologise, mediate, tidy, organise and smooth things over. We are praised for being mature and helpful. We are punished for being careless.
We learn early that our value is tied to how well we manage the emotional climate around us. We learn to anticipate problems before they happen. We learn to carry the weight of other people’s moods. We learn to be the adults long before we are adults.
None of this is natural. It is training.
Boys Are Raised into Exception
At the same time, boys are often given a very different set of rules. They are protected from discomfort, excused for behaviour and rewarded for energy that girls would be scolded for. They get the flashier toys, the bigger gadgets, the louder encouragement. They are told to be tough but also shielded from responsibility. They are given space to be chaotic, while girls are told to be patient.
Schools pour resources into boys because their struggles are loud. Girls’ struggles are quiet, so they are overlooked. Boys get behavioural plans and allowances. Girls get told they are coping fine.
Again, none of this is natural. It is training.
The Result Is Predictable
Women grow up over trained in responsibility. Men grow up under trained in self-management.
Then we all enter adulthood and act surprised when:
- women carry the emotional load
- men avoid help
- women notice health issues
- men push through until crisis
- women organise everything
- men feel overwhelmed by basic tasks
Women become the default adults in the room. Men are not incapable. They are simply not taught the same skills, not rewarded for using them and not supported when they try.
Women Are Tired
This is the part no one says out loud. Women are tired of being the ones who notice, manage, compensate and clean up. Tired of being the emotional safety net. Tired of being the responsible one. Tired of carrying the consequences of a culture that refuses to teach boys how to look after themselves.
It is not that women want men to struggle. It is that women want men to grow. To be raised with the same expectations of emotional literacy, responsibility and self-care that girls are given from the start.
It is not about being harsh. It is about being honest. It is about naming the patterns that exhaust us. It is about refusing to carry loads that were never meant to be ours alone. It is about expecting men to meet us as equals, not dependents. It is about recognising that inequality does not always look like pay gaps or politics. Sometimes it looks like who books the doctor’s appointment, who notices the tension in the room, who remembers the birthdays, who picks up the emotional slack.
Sometimes inequality looks like who was trained to be an adult, and who was trained to be excused.
And I am done pretending that is normal.
