Fierce Compassion: Why Men’s Compassion is Unappreciated
Are men just as compassionate as women if we expand the definition of compassion?
I used to think that the biggest problem in our world was men’s lack of compassion, until it dawned on me how that thought lacked compassion. The more I researched and observed, I realized that not only were men compassionate, but they were often unappreciated for their acts of compassion.
Part of the problem stems from a preconceived notion of what compassion looks like. Emma Seppala, Associate Director for the Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education at Stanford University, claims that “One reason we might think that women are more compassionate than men is that we think of compassion in only one way: nurturance, kindness, softness, gentleness, and emotional warmth. We think of compassion in mostly feminized terms.”
In my life, I can recall many acts of compassion by men that weren’t soft and gentle. Once when I got bashed in the head by my surfboard, a friend of mine threw me on his shoulders and carried me over 2 miles back to medical facilities.
Perhaps if we used the term “fierce compassion,” more acts of compassion by men would come to light. Fierce compassion often…
