Many males don’t know how to respond to the movement — here’s a suggestion. By Peter Brown

We, as males, can see the MeToo movement, powerful and growing. The question is: What does it mean for men? #MeToo is an uprising against centuries of second-class citizenship, against the current attacks on women’s dignity and for the right to control their own bodies and destinies.

While women are, by far, the most mistreated and brutalized by their inequality, men suffer greatly and are crippled by mistreatment of women — but they may not realize it.

If we can’t (or won’t) cook, clean or do any of the household tasks basic to maintaining our own selves and our families because someone said they are “women’s work,” we live as Man-boys in the world. Doing the “icky” and annoying things in life is a sign of adulthood, and thinking that women like doing them more than we do is an illusion.

Our society is at a turning point and everyone feels it. We are told there is no better world than this world of war, environmental destruction, hunger, housing insecurity and brutality.

News, games and social media are saturated with “hyper-masculine” warrior images, in which males are fearless enforcers and immune to weaknesses like mercy, tenderness and genuine emotions.

Hidden from us is the truth that it is all for petty corporate profits and celebrity billionaires.

Allowing women to be treated in demeaning and violent ways is one of the ways they turn men into emotionally crippled human beings taught to be brutal and to permit brutality.

Denying us access to our own emotional well-being can actually kill us. I watched it kill my beloved brother-in-law; unable to admit he was sick (a sign of weakness), he ignored his cancer until it was too late. We can’t let this happen to us.

Women are proving to be some of the strongest leaders in the fight for a better life. We must stand with women when they lead and when they speak out, and we must stand with them when they are attacked for speaking out.

Doing so is our path to the only worthwhile relationship we can have with women — walking alongside them toward a life where ALL are valued and advanced.