In the first two parts of this series, we looked at how victim thinking begins inside the individual and then expands into group identity. But what happens when entire institutions begin to organize themselves around victimhood?

That’s where grievance becomes power.

1. The Moral Economy of Victimhood

In the modern West, compassion has quietly become a form of currency.

Institutions, universities, NGOs, the media, and even governments, now operate within what might be called a moral economy of victimhood.
In this new economy, empathy and funding flow toward those who can most convincingly demonstrate oppression.

The logic is simple: the more you suffer, the more moral authority you hold. The more powerless you can portray your group to be, the more influence you gain in return.

You can see this dynamic play out in grant proposals, corporate campaigns, and media coverage. Funding often depends not on measurable solutions but on the ability to frame problems in moral language, highlighting disparity rather than achievement, grievance rather than growth.

The result? Victimhood becomes not just a feeling, but a strategy.
Suffering increasingly serves as a source of both moral status and political influence.

2. Academia and the Reward System of Grievance

Nowhere is this more visible than in academia, the place where our culture’s moral vocabulary is often created.

For decades, research funding and prestige have favored studies that interpret outcomes through a single lens: oppression.
Complex human realities - biological, psychological, or cultural, are reduced to a simple moral story of oppressor and oppressed.

Entire academic fields, such as gender studies and critical race theory, were built upon this. Once that framework takes hold, questioning it becomes taboo.

Imagine a young researcher who dares to suggest that both sexes face unique disadvantages, or that cultural differences, not just power structures, shape human experience. She might find her proposal quietly rejected, her reputation marked by whispers of insensitivity.

In such an environment, victimhood isn’t healed; it’s institutionalized.
Students absorb the message that identity determines virtue, and that moral worth depends not on integrity or truth, but on the ability to claim injury.

A university should be a place of inquiry. But recently it has lost that focus and has instead become a place of orthodoxy—where compassion is regulated by ideology and empathy is distributed according to approved categories.

3. The Media’s Addiction to Outrage

If academia produces the ideas, the media amplifies them, because outrage sells.

The attention economy rewards stories that trigger moral emotion: anger, fear, and compassion. Nuance doesn’t do it; indignation does.

Algorithms are designed to feed us what keeps us engaged, and nothing engages quite like outrage.
Stories of cooperation or quiet heroism ​can’t compete with the tales of harm and injustice​ that flood our feeds.

Open your phone and you’ll see it: every scroll brings a new crisis, every headline a new wound. The world begins to look like a place where kindness is rare and cruelty is everywhere.

The result is a distorted picture of reality, one where suffering feels everywhere, danger feels constant, and grievance becomes the default tone.

What we call “news” has become a daily reminder of victimhood, both ours and everyone else’s.

The tragedy is that people begin to mistake being informed for being outraged. And outrage, unlike understanding, never satisfies, it only hungers for more.

4. Politics and the Management of Grievance

Politicians have learned the same lesson the media did: grievance wins.

If you can persuade people they’ve been wronged, you can promise to make it right.
Grievance creates loyalty; resentment keeps voters engaged.

A politician tells a group, “You’ve been ignored, disrespected, treated unfairly, and I’m the only one who truly sees you.” It’s a powerful seduction because it flatters pain and transforms anger into belonging.

The problem is that actual solutions end grievances, and grievances win elections.
So the incentives are backward. Leaders talk endlessly about oppression but rarely about empowerment.

Programs that teach responsibility, resilience, or reconciliation don’t attract headlines because they reduce the drama that keeps power flowing. It’s much easier to promise protection than to foster strength.

Grievance politics is emotional theater. Everyone plays their part: the savior, the villain, and the wounded crowd that must never fully recover.

5. The Bureaucracy of Suffering

Billions of dollars circulate each year through organizations devoted to “awareness,” “equity,” and “inclusion.”
Much of this work began with compassion. But bureaucracies, once born, have only one instinct: survival.

And survival depends on the continued existence of victims.

Consider a government department or NGO whose mission is to “end inequality.” If inequality were ever truly solved, its funding would disappear. So the structure itself quietly depends on the persistence of the problem it claims to fight.

The logic is tragic but predictable: progress is never acknowledged because acknowledging it would dissolve the moral and financial justification for the institution’s existence.

It’s why so many awareness campaigns never seem to conclude, because closure would mean unemployment for the cause.
And so, the machinery of compassion becomes the machinery of dependency.​ Groups are continually forced to find new ways of being oppressed. Think feminism.

6. Cultural Fragility and the Loss of Dialogue

When victimhood becomes institutionalized, even ordinary disagreement is reinterpreted as violence.

In universities, students are taught that words can wound like weapons.
Media outlets describe emotional discomfort as “harm.”
Corporations issue apologies not for actions, but for feelings, often their own employees’ feelings about what someone else said.

I recently spoke with a professor who described how his classroom discussions had changed. “Ten years ago,” he said, “a controversial topic was an invitation to think. Now it’s an invitation to panic.”

That’s the new mindset: being offended is seen as caring.

The result is a culture of moral hypersensitivity. Dialogue disappears because truth is no longer the goal; moral innocence is.
People now seem more concerned with avoiding offense than helping those who suffer.

And when a society becomes more afraid of words than of lies, conversation itself begins to die.

7. Reclaiming Resilience

There’s another way, and it begins with remembering what resilience actually is.

Resilience isn’t hardness; it’s flexibility. It’s the ability to bend without breaking, to learn from challenge rather than be defined by it.
When people are taught that they are capable rather than fragile, they rise.

In therapy, I’ve seen men and women rediscover strength by reframing their pain: not as evidence of unfairness, but as proof of their own strength and endurance. Societies can do the same.

The goal is not to give up on empathy. It is to remember that compassion works best when it is balanced with accountability, and justice works best when it leaves room for forgiveness.​

It’s time to reward growth again. To celebrate not who has suffered most, but who has healed best.
To honor the people and institutions that lift others into agency rather than locking them into helplessness.

Closing Reflection

Victimhood once served as a cry for justice. It awakened conscience, stirred compassion, and helped societies correct real wrongs.

But today it has evolved into a system of rewards, emotional, social, and financial. The wounded are now measured, not mended.
And as any therapist will tell you, you can’t heal by staying inside the story of your wound.

The danger is not the wound itself. The danger is becoming so identified with it that we can no longer imagine life beyond it. A culture that keeps replaying its injuries can’t discover what health feels like.

The way forward is not to silence victims, but to remind them, and all of us, that we are more than what hurt us.
Agency is the antidote. Gratitude is the medicine.
And truth, even when uncomfortable, is the only lasting cure.

Because in the end, a healthy society is not one without pain, but one that knows how to grow through it.

Men Are Good.

 

For many years, people have asked me essentially the same question:

“Where can I find a simple explanation of how men heal?”

The answer has never been easy.

Over the last three decades I have written books, articles, blog posts, newsletters, and given countless interviews and workshops. The ideas are scattered across many places.

Recently I decided it was time to gather them into one place.

Today I’m pleased to introduce a new website:

TheWayMenHeal.com

The site is not a blog and it is not a therapy website.

Instead, it is an attempt to clearly explain many of the core ideas that have emerged from my work with men, women, boys, girls, grief, trauma, and healing over the past 35 years.

You’ll find sections on:

• Why men’s emotions are often difficult to see

• Action-oriented emotional processing

• Shame and dignity

• Solitude

• Grief

• The masculine side of healing

• Research related to men’s emotional lives

• A glossary of important concepts

• Frequently asked questions

One of the things I have learned over the years is that many people genuinely care about men but often misunderstand how men experience emotional pain.

Men’s healing frequently occurs in ways that are easy to overlook. We tend to notice tears, talking, and emotional disclosure. We are less likely to notice action, responsibility, service, problem solving, solitude, ritual, and purpose.

Yet these pathways are often central to men’s emotional lives.

My hope is that this site will serve as a practical and accessible resource for anyone who wants to better understand men, whether that person is a therapist, parent, spouse, partner, teacher, researcher, or simply someone trying to make sense of their own experience.

The site is still growing and will continue to expand over time.

I invite you to explore it and let me know what you think.

TheWayMenHeal.com

I hope it proves useful.

Here’s an excerpt from the boys and play sectionn
— Tom

Boys, Play, and Development

Research on play, movement, and rough-and-tumble interaction helps explain why boys often need active, physical, socially negotiated forms of learning and emotional regulation.

Many boys learn through their bodies before they learn through words. They move, chase, wrestle, compete, test limits, take small risks, laugh, fall, get back up, and negotiate rules in the middle of action.

To adults who are uncomfortable with active boyhood, this can look like disorder. But research on play suggests that physical play is not merely noise, chaos, or pre-aggression. It can be a crucial part of development.

Rough-and-tumble play, recess, movement, and active peer interaction help children practice self-control, read social signals, manage intensity, test boundaries, and learn how to stay connected while excited.

When normal boyhood energy is treated as a problem, boys may lose one of the natural pathways through which they learn regulation, relationship, and resilience.

Rough-and-Tumble Play Is Not the Same as Aggression

Researchers have long distinguished rough-and-tumble play from real aggression. Rough-and-tumble play may include chasing, wrestling, mock fighting, tumbling, laughing, fleeing, returning, and exaggerated physical movement. Aggression, by contrast, is marked by intent to harm, distress, coercion, or domination.

This distinction is essential.

When adults cannot tell the difference between play fighting and real fighting, boys’ normal play can be misread as dangerous or disruptive. That misreading may lead to unnecessary discipline, restricted movement, and the loss of important developmental experience.

Good supervision matters. Children need boundaries. But eliminating rough play entirely may remove opportunities for boys to learn how to manage strength, excitement, consent, restraint, and repair.

What Boys Learn Through Active Play

Active play teaches lessons that are hard to deliver through lectures.

Through physical play, boys often learn:

• how hard is too hard,

• when another child is no longer having fun,

• how to stop,

• how to re-enter play after conflict,

• how to manage winning and losing,

• how to read faces and body language,

• how to negotiate rules,

• how to take turns leading and following,

• and how to keep excitement from becoming harm.

These are not trivial skills. They are social and emotional regulation skills.

In other words, active play may be one of the ways boys learn empathy, self-control, boundaries, and connection.

Movement as Regulation

Many boys regulate emotion and attention through movement. Sitting still for long periods may be especially difficult for boys who need active engagement in order to organize themselves.

Recess, outdoor play, physical education, and unstructured movement are not luxuries. They can be part of how children reset attention, discharge tension, build social competence, and return to learning.

This connects strongly to the broader theme of action-oriented emotional processing. For many males, from boyhood into adulthood, movement helps emotion and stress become manageable.

Play and the Social Brain

Jaak Panksepp emphasized the importance of play systems in mammalian development. His work suggested that rough-and-tumble play is rooted in ancient brain systems and helps young mammals develop social subtlety, self-regulation, and sensitivity to others.

This perspective is important because it frames play not as an optional extra, but as a biological and social need.

Boys who are drawn to rough physical play may not simply be acting out. They may be seeking developmental experiences their brains and bodies need.

When Schools Misread Boys

Schools often reward quiet, verbal, compliant, sedentary behavior. Those are useful capacities. But when they become the only accepted model of maturity, many boys are placed at a disadvantage.

Boys who need movement may be viewed as disruptive. Boys who learn through action may be viewed as inattentive. Boys who enjoy rough play may be viewed as aggressive. Boys who compete may be viewed as insensitive.

Some boys do need help learning restraint, empathy, and self-control. But those capacities may develop better through guided play than through constant suppression.

When normal active development is treated primarily as pathology, boys may begin to experience themselves as problems.

The Link to Male Emotional Development

Boys’ play is not separate from men’s emotional lives. It is one of the roots.

If boys learn to regulate emotion through movement, competition, risk, humor, physicality, and shared action, then we should not be surprised when adult men continue to process emotion through action, work, exercise, solitude, problem-solving, and side-by-side activity.

The adult masculine side of healing may have developmental roots in boyhood patterns of learning through the body.

This does not mean boys should be left unmanaged or that all rough behavior is healthy. It means boys need adults who can distinguish development from disruption and energy from aggression.

A Humane Interpretation

Boys need language. They need empathy. They need self-control. They need emotional awareness. But they may not always acquire these capacities through stillness and verbal instruction alone.

Many boys need movement, play, risk, contact, competition, laughter, boundaries, correction, and freedom.

A culture that misunderstands boys’ play may later misunderstand men’s emotional lives. The same boy who once needed to run, wrestle, build, and test limits may become the man who needs to walk, work, repair, exercise, drive, or create in order to process emotion.

When we understand boys more accurately, we begin building a more humane understanding of men.

References

• Pellegrini, A. D. (1989). Elementary school children’s rough-and-tumble play. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 4(2), 245–260.

• Scott, E., & Panksepp, J. (2003). Rough-and-tumble play in human children. Aggressive Behavior, 29(6), 539–551.

• Flanders, J. L., Simard, M., Paquette, D., Parent, S., Vitaro, F., Pihl, R. O., & Séguin, J. R. (2009). Rough-and-tumble play and the regulation of aggression: An observational study of father-child play dyads. Aggressive Behavior, 35(4), 285–295.

• Panksepp, J. (2008). Play, ADHD, and the construction of the social brain: Should the first class each day be recess? American Journal of Play, 1(1), 55–79.

• Smith, P. K. (2023). Play fighting (rough-and-tumble play) in children. International Journal of Play, 12(1), 1–20.

Physical aggression has rightly been recognized as harmful and unacceptable. We understand that threats, intimidation, and violence can be used to control others, and society has developed powerful norms to discourage such behavior. Relational aggression, by contrast, often remains largely invisible. Instead of fists, it uses shame, exclusion, reputation damage, moral condemnation, and social pressure to influence behavior. While less obvious than physical aggression, it can be equally effective as a tool of manipulation and intimidation. Before examining how some feminists employ these tactics, it is worth understanding the nature of relational aggression itself.

 

How Feminists have used Relational Aggression

One of the most useful ways to understand feminism is not simply as a political ideology, but as a cultural system that often uses relational aggression to gain compliance.

Relational aggression does not usually rely on physical force. It works through shame, exclusion, reputation damage, social pressure, emotional manipulation, and control of the story. It attacks a person’s standing, belonging, credibility, and right to speak.

At the personal level, we see this in relationships when one partner uses guilt, withdrawal, public shaming, triangulation, or accusations to silence the other. But the same mechanisms can operate at the cultural level. When they do, the target is no longer just one person. The target can become an entire group.

That is what has happened with men.

Radical feminist leaders often begin with a claim of female injury. Some of those injuries are real. Both men and women have suffered in many ways, and no honest person needs to deny that. But the problem begins when female injury becomes the only injury that matters. Once that happens, male suffering is minimized, mocked, or reframed as deserved.

This is where gynocentrism becomes useful. Our culture already has a deep tendency to see women as more vulnerable, more innocent, and more deserving of protection. Feminism did not create that tendency. It learned to use it.

At first, gynocentrism provided moral energy for reform. “Look at women’s suffering,” the movement said. “Look at the ways women have been ignored.” That argument had power because people are naturally moved by female distress.

But over time, that same protective instinct became a weapon. Female suffering became a shield against scrutiny. Male disagreement became evidence of male defect. Questioning the ideology became “misogyny.” Asking about male victims became “derailing.” Defending boys became “protecting patriarchy.”

This is relational aggression scaled up into culture.

The most obvious form is shaming. Men are routinely described with terms such as toxic, fragile, entitled, privileged, dangerous, emotionally stunted, oppressive, and predatory. These are not neutral descriptions. They are moral labels. Their purpose is not merely to describe men, but to lower men’s social standing.

Another form is reputation attack. Men who question feminist narratives are not usually answered directly. They are often labeled. They are called sexist, misogynist, incel, abuser, patriarchal, fragile, or hateful. The accusation becomes the argument. Once the label lands, the man is placed outside the circle of acceptable speech.

Then comes social exclusion. Men are told, directly or indirectly, that they do not get a voice in conversations about family, violence, education, sexuality, fatherhood, divorce, or even masculinity. If they speak, they are accused of centering themselves. If they remain silent, their silence is taken as consent. Either way, their position is controlled.

Feminism also uses narrative control. It defines the moral story in advance: women are harmed; men are harmful. Women are victims; men are agents. Women need protection; men need correction. Once this frame is accepted, every fact is filtered through it. Female aggression becomes trauma. Male distress becomes entitlement. Female fear becomes wisdom. Male fear becomes threat.

This is why male suffering is so often invisible. It does not fit the approved story.

There is also manipulative victimhood. This does not mean that women are not sometimes victims. Of course they are. It means that victimhood can become a source of social power when it is used to end discussion, demand obedience, or shield one group from criticism. In feminist hands, the claim “women are harmed” often becomes “therefore women must not be questioned.”

That is a dangerous move.

In a healthy culture, compassion does not eliminate accountability. But in an ideologically captured culture, compassion for one group can become permission to attack another.

Coalition building is another major tool. Feminist ideas have moved through universities, nonprofits, media, government agencies, HR departments, family courts, professional licensing boards, and therapeutic institutions. Once these institutions adopt the same basic narrative, dissent becomes risky. People learn what can and cannot be said.

The genius of relational aggression is that it rarely requires direct control. It operates through fear. Judges fear being portrayed as sexist. Politicians fear losing votes, donations, or public support. University administrators fear activist campaigns. Journalists fear professional ostracism. Therapists fear licensing complaints. The fear need not be constant; it merely needs to be credible. Once enough people understand the social penalties attached to dissent, most will censor themselves without being asked. Institutions then become amplifiers of the narrative, teaching the public what is acceptable to think and say. The population is not usually controlled through force but through reputational risk. People learn which opinions bring approval and which invite punishment. That is how a relatively small but highly motivated ideological movement can exert influence far beyond its actual numbers.

This is where relational aggression becomes institutionalized. It is no longer simply one activist shaming one man. It is an entire network of institutions, incentives, and reputational pressures signaling that certain questions are unsafe.

Can we talk about female violence?
Can we talk about male victims?
Can we talk about false accusations?
Can we talk about boys falling behind?
Can we talk about father loss?
Can we talk about women’s relational aggression?

Often the answer is no — not because the questions are invalid, but because the questions threaten the protected narrative.

Another powerful tool is emotional blackmail. The message is simple: if you care about women, you must accept the feminist frame. If you question the frame, you must not care about women. This traps good people. Many men and women remain silent not because they agree, but because they do not want to be seen as cruel.

That silence is one of feminism’s greatest victories.

Gaslighting also plays a central role. Men are told that the double standards they see are not real. They are told family courts are fair. They are told male victims have equal support. They are told boys are not being shamed. They are told “toxic masculinity” does not really mean men are toxic. They are told their objections are overreactions.

But many men know what they are seeing. They simply learn not to say it out loud.

The #MeToo movement provides a revealing example of how relational aggression can operate on a societal scale. Some women came forward with genuine experiences of harassment and abuse, and those stories deserved to be heard. But alongside those legitimate concerns emerged a cultural dynamic in which accusation itself often carried extraordinary power. In many cases, the mere allegation of misconduct could trigger immediate reputational damage, job loss, social ostracism, and public condemnation long before any formal investigation occurred. The fear was not simply legal punishment. It was social punishment.

The slogan “Believe Women” (often remembered by critics as “Believe All Women”) illustrates how relational aggression can operate through moral pressure. On the surface, the message appeared compassionate: take women’s reports seriously rather than dismissing them out of hand. But in practice, the slogan often carried a second message: questioning an accusation could itself become evidence of moral failure. Those who expressed skepticism, asked for evidence, or advocated due process risked being portrayed as insensitive, sexist, or complicit in abuse. The social pressure did not merely encourage belief; it raised the reputational cost of doubt. In that sense, the slogan functioned as a powerful relational tool. It shifted attention away from evaluating claims and toward evaluating the character of anyone who hesitated to accept them. The question was no longer simply, “Is this accusation true?” It increasingly became, “What kind of person are you if you do not believe it?” That is one of the hallmarks of relational aggression: using the threat of social condemnation to discourage disagreement and enforce conformity.

What made this dynamic especially powerful was that few institutions wanted to be seen as insufficiently supportive of women. Employers feared public backlash. Universities feared activist pressure. Politicians feared being portrayed as insensitive to victims. Journalists feared appearing unsympathetic. As a result, many organizations responded to accusations with rapid displays of compliance, often treating skepticism as moral failure. The social cost of questioning an allegation could become greater than the social cost of accepting it.

This does not mean all accusations were false. It means the movement demonstrated how powerful reputational threats can become when combined with moral urgency. The lesson is not that victims should be ignored. The lesson is that fear, shame, and public condemnation can become tools of social control when institutions conclude that appearing supportive is more important than careful examination. In that sense, #MeToo revealed how relational aggression can move beyond individual relationships and become a cultural force capable of influencing institutions, public discourse, and individual behavior.

Perhaps the most damaging form of relational aggression is the cultural accusation. A false personal accusation can destroy one man’s reputation, relationships, work, and sense of safety. But a cultural accusation works more broadly. It places a cloud of suspicion over men as a class.

Men are not accused one at a time. They are accused collectively.

Men are told they are privileged, dangerous, oppressive, emotionally defective, sexually suspect, and morally in need of correction. Boys grow up breathing this air. They may not have done anything wrong, but they inherit the accusation.

That has consequences.

A boy who is repeatedly told that masculinity is dangerous may begin to distrust himself. A man who hears constant contempt for men may withdraw. A father who is treated as optional may lose confidence. A husband who is afraid to speak honestly may disappear inside his own marriage.

This is the hidden power of relational aggression. It does not merely silence speech. It reshapes identity.

And yet, many of the people participating in this do not experience themselves as aggressive. They experience themselves as virtuous. They believe they are standing up for women, fighting oppression, protecting the vulnerable, or correcting injustice. That is what makes the pattern so difficult to confront.

Relational aggression often hides behind moral language.

The feminist leader may not say, “I want to silence men.” She says, “Men need to listen.”
She may not say, “I want to shame boys.” She says, “We need to challenge toxic masculinity.”
She may not say, “Male victims do not matter.” She says, “This is not the time to center men.”
She may not say, “Dissent must be punished.” She says, “We must hold people accountable.”

The phrase “toxic masculinity” also functions as a powerful tool of relational aggression. Supporters often argue that the term refers only to specific harmful behaviors, not to men themselves. Yet many men experience the phrase very differently. They hear a cultural message that links masculinity with danger, dysfunction, violence, emotional deficiency, and social harm. The power of the term lies not merely in its definition but in its social effect. Once masculinity is associated with toxicity, men are placed in a defensive position. They are expected to prove that they are not toxic. If they object to the label, their objection is often interpreted as further evidence of the problem. If they ask for clarification, they may be told they are fragile. If they defend traditionally masculine traits such as competitiveness, stoicism, risk-taking, or protectiveness, they risk being accused of supporting harmful norms. In this way, the phrase operates less as a description and more as a moral framing device. It lowers the social standing of the target group while making resistance appear suspect. Rather than encouraging understanding, it often pressures men to distance themselves from their own identity in order to gain social approval. That is a classic feature of relational aggression: using shame and reputational pressure to reshape behavior without the need for direct coercion.

The language sounds moral. The impact is often coercive.

This distinction matters. Many women who repeat these ideas are not consciously trying to hurt men. Many are following the emotional current of the group. In-group bias is powerful. If the women around you all nod at the same slogans, if institutions reward the same language, if dissent risks social punishment, it becomes much easier to go along.

That is not unique to feminism. It is human. Groups protect their stories. Movements defend their moral identities. People prefer belonging to isolation.

But this does not make the harm any less real.

The challenge is to name the pattern without demonizing every person caught inside it. Not all feminists use relational aggression. Not all women accept these ideas. Many women love men deeply and are confused by the cultural hostility they have been taught to absorb.

The real issue is the ideological leadership and the institutional incentives that reward one-sided narratives.

Feminism has been effective not simply because it made arguments, but because it learned to control the social cost of disagreement. It learned how to use shame, exclusion, moral labeling, victim status, and reputational threat to make dissent feel dangerous.

That is relational aggression.

And once we see it, we can begin to understand why so many men remain quiet.

They are not silent because they have nothing to say.
They are silent because they know what happens when they say it.

Men Are Good.