I’ve been observing some disturbing things happening lately in the name of Feminism.

It seems that the clean truth of the Me Too Movement has been hijacked by a dirty agenda.

For some, it’s no longer about removing the oppressor’s boot from the female neck.

Instead, there's a growing desire to put on that boot and crush every male they can with it.

A demonization of men is beginning to spread like a hot new trend.

More and more women are grabbing the microphone and speaking from a place of powerlessness and victimization, triggering a charge of unhealthy rescuers, who rush in to protect, to blame, and to punish.

There's a false sense of sisterhood—a bonding through wounds.

This may feel like real power, but it isn’t.

It’s the Karpman Drama Triangle writ large.

And it’s one we need to shift out of if we want to create something healthy.

Please understand that this doesn't mean accepting abuse.

Every human being has a right to be treated with fairness and dignity.

When someone crosses a boundary, there need to be consequences.

But as Barbara Coloraso teaches, there's a difference between discipline and punishment.

Discipline instructs, guides and creates. It helps people learn self-awareness and responsibility.

Punishment inflicts blames and pain without looking for reasons, or developing solutions.

With Punishment, there's an intent to dominate—versus an intent to know, connect, and understand.

If I sound like I’m preaching, forgive me.

The truth is, I'm writing this letter as a solemn reminder to myself.

I was raised in a religious community that required blind obedience and a repression of will.

Stories of God's love were laced with poisonous teachings of hierarchal power.

• Men were above women.

• Women were above children.

• Children were above animals.

The punitive mind-set was deeply ingrained in our culture and it seeped down through the ranks.

I watched women, who had been hurt by men, take out their unhealed pain on their children—on boys—often from the time of infancy.

I saw these boys lose their sense of wholeness and grapple with deep emotional pain for most of their lives.

The women who raised them were never held accountable for their cruelty. And those boys grew up with unresolved issues that made relationships with women difficult.

So it seems that we're caught in an ancient riddle of the chicken and the egg.

Who hurt whom first? Who's responsible for this war? Who's the actual Villian?

Oh my darlings.

These are the wrong questions. And the answers we're looking for won't be found on the battlefield.

So let’s just acknowledge something right here, right now.

Women have been brutalized by men. Belittled. Overpowered. Humiliated. Devastated in ways that are unimaginable.

And men—boys—have been shamed and belittled and hurt and frightened and overpowered by angry, unhealed women.

In this age of truth-telling, let's leave no one behind.

As we recognize the young women who have been pressured to have sex to keep (or get) a job, let's also recognize the young men who have been pressured into marriage by women who intentionally got pregnant.

As we support women who have been victimized by sexual predators, let's also support men who have been used, betrayed, trapped, manipulated, and accused of crimes they didn't commit.

Can we just agree that we’ve all been caught in a really bad system? That we’ve all been hurt? That we’ve all been acting out a collective trauma, again and again and again?​

And can we come together and put our amazing powers of critical thought and creative abilities to good use and come up with a better way?

Because there is a better way.

And it will open to us when we stop equating and associating bad behaviour with gender.

When we say "men are bad," or "women are bad" we hurt humanity.

Because the translation of that is, "you're permanently flawed and there's nothing you can do about it."

A better approach is to understand that there are healthy humans and unhealthy humans of varying degrees.

I don't know about you, but I want to team up with healthy humans so I can keep growing and learning and evolving into the best possible version of myself.

And as I do, I want to teach any unhealthy, hurting ones who are willing to learn, how to become healthier too.

And if they don't want that?

Then they don't get to be anywhere near me.

I'll use the noble emotion of anger as it was intended—to restore my boundary and sense of wholeness.

But I won't allow my heart to close up into a hardened fist.

Healing can't come from that.

Please. Let's stop the pendulum.

Let's not swing from a Patriarchy to a Matriarchy.

Sending you so much love,