Have you ever noticed how often women are told that being more accommodating will make the world better?
Be more understanding. Be more inclusive. Learn to compromise. Make room for somebody else, and eventually everybody will benefit.
Women have been sold the idea that cooperation itself is progress. That if we become more accommodating, more inclusive, more understanding, and more willing to compromise, everyone will eventually benefit.
But we live on planet Earth. We live in a world where men still hold disproportionate power, and where women and girls continue to bear enormous costs for male violence. Everybody is subject to dehumanization to satisfy the wants, needs, and desires of certain males. If you think that I am not saying true things, ask history.
So before we celebrate another demand for women’s cooperation, I have a question.
Who is benefiting, and who is being asked to absorb the risk?
Look at What’s Happening in Australia
Australia provides an interesting example of why we need to ask harder questions.
Australian health organizations have published guidance on induced lactation for trans-identified males. The goal is to help someone who has not experienced pregnancy produce milk through hormonal treatment, medication, and breast stimulation.
Now, induced lactation itself is not new. Women who adopt babies have sometimes used it to breastfeed. But extending these practices to males raises additional medical questions, particularly about milk composition, medication exposure, and nutritional adequacy.
And those questions deserve answers before anybody starts celebrating how inclusive the arrangement is.
Because there is a baby involved. A baby who cannot advocate for themselves. A baby whose nutritional needs cannot become secondary to an adult’s desire for a particular parenting experience.
To be clear, the existence of clinical guidance does not establish that Australian authorities have abandoned infant nutrition standards. But supporting a practice and establishing its safety and nutritional adequacy are two different things.
That distinction should concern anyone who cares about children.
Meanwhile, Women Are Still Negotiating for Privacy and Safety
Australia also has an ongoing legal conflict concerning sex-based spaces and gender identity.
Women have challenged arrangements that permit trans-identified males to enter facilities or services established for females. Australian law retains some protections and exemptions for female-only services, but the boundaries are disputed.
And here is where I want us to pay attention.
Women seeking privacy, dignity, and safety are not necessarily accusing every male of being dangerous. They are asking institutions to recognize that biological sex matters, especially in intimate environments and services for women who have experienced male violence.
A woman should not have to tell the most painful story of her life to establish why she wants a female-only changing room, refuge, or intimate-care setting.
Men who respect women understand that respect includes accepting boundaries they may not personally agree with. A man who respects women’s boundaries does not need women to surrender those boundaries to prove that they respect him.
Yet these requests can become debates about whether women are being sufficiently accommodating rather than focusing on male violence. Notice how quickly the conversation can move away from what women need and toward how other people feel about women’s boundaries.
The Oldest Trick Is Making Cooperation Sound Like an Obligation
Those of us who have worked with Survivors of sexual violence recognize something troubling about the misuse of kindness.
Some rapists and sexual predators use appeals to trust, affection, fairness, and cooperation to push past another person’s boundaries.
They may present a woman’s refusal as an insult. They may suggest she is selfish, unreasonable, or hurting someone by refusing.
The warning is about what happens when someone uses the language of kindness to make another person’s refusal seem morally wrong.
And women encounter versions of that pressure well beyond intimate relationships.
Think about business negotiations. Men understand the importance of contracts, conditions, ownership, and protecting their interests. Nobody seriously expects a business to surrender its most valuable assets simply to prove that it is kind.
Cooperation is supposed to involve negotiation.
Why, then, are women so often encouraged to approach questions involving their bodies, privacy, and safety as though protecting their interests is evidence of a character flaw?
Collaboration Is Not Progress Unless Women Progress Too
I believe women and men can accomplish important things together. History gives us plenty of examples.
But we should not confuse collaboration with women making concessions while everyone else collects the benefits.
If an institution wants to accommodate a trans-identified male who wishes to breastfeed, it should be prepared to answer rigorous questions about infant nutrition, medication exposure, and safety. The Australian Breastfeeding Association’s guidance acknowledges the importance of milk supply and feeding arrangements, but it does not settle every medical question about male induced lactation. Australian Breastfeeding Association
If an institution wants to change the rules governing female-only services, it should also explain how it will protect the women who depend on those services.
And the legal stakes are real. In June 2026, the Full Federal Court upheld a discrimination finding against the operators of the female-only Giggle for Girls app after they excluded a trans-identified male. The case concerned a social networking service, not a physical refuge, and Australian law still permits certain female-only services. But the ruling demonstrates that sex-based eligibility can face significant legal challenges.
These questions deserve more than assurances that “everybody will eventually benefit.”
They deserve evidence, clear safeguards, and honest consideration of whose interests may be compromised.
Women Are Already Kind. That Was Never the Missing Ingredient.
Women have spent generations caring for children, supporting families, nursing the sick, helping neighbors, organizing communities, and advocating for people whose needs others overlooked.
We do not need another lecture about the virtues of kindness.
We need a more serious conversation about reciprocity.
IFa proposal is genuinely good for women, its supporters should be able to explain how women benefit. They should be able to identify the protections women retain and the responsibilities other people will assume.
And if women raise reasonable objections, those objections deserve consideration rather than dismissal.
A woman’s willingness to cooperate should never be mistaken for her obligation to surrender.
The same is true for children. Adults can discuss identity, belonging, and personal fulfillment all day long. But when an infant’s health is involved, nutritional adequacy must be established through evidence and appropriate medical care.
No adult’s feelings should substitute for that responsibility.
What We Refuse to Face Remains Uneven
There is nothing wrong with kindness. There is nothing wrong with cooperation.
But kindness cannot repair a power imbalance that nobody is willing to acknowledge.
Women should not have to keep proving their humanity by becoming more accommodating. And we should be especially suspicious of any definition of progress that requires women to make concessions without establishing what they receive in return.
We can respect other people’s dignity while insisting that women’s privacy, safety, and sex-based needs deserve serious protection.
We can support responsible medical care while insisting that babies come first.
And we can work alongside men without pretending that the historical and institutional inequalities between women and men have somehow disappeared.
When everybody is invited to the table, pay attention to who is expected to bring the meal, give up her chair, and still say thank you.
Because progress is not measured by how much women are willing to give away.
It is measured, in part, by whether women’s lives actually become safer, freer, and more equal.
Red Flag #1: If They Won’t Let You Have Privacy, They Don’t See You as Human – WE Survive Abuse
When Media Protects Abuse, It Makes the World Unsafe for Everyday Women – WE Survive Abuse
