Stop Worrying About Women’s Apologies —Address Men’s Defenses

It is said, ad infinitum, that women apologize too much. I’ve spent a non-trivial amount of time wondering what “too much” means, when I regularly wish the men in my life would apologize more. While women are said to apologize more than necessary, men’s defenses are often impenetrable. Neither of these are good, but there is no national campaign to lower male defenses, as there is for women’s apologies.

The reason we feel in the right to scrutinize women’s behavior over men’s is likely the same reason that behavior exists in the first place — it’s business as usual for women to shoulder the blame. As women, we’re constantly scanning our realities for things we might be doing wrong, so suggestions of change are welcome; it’s what entire industries — diet, beauty, wellness — are built on.

The most effective way to help women apologize less is to encourage men to take more accountability.

The issue of women’s over-apologizing is born from the lived reality that blame is regularly placed on us. It’s a by-product of male defensiveness, a refusal by the people around us to acknowledge fault in situations of discomfort. To focus on women apologizing less without addressing this defensiveness in the slightest, is an exercise in futility — it’s a waste of our time.

If we want women to apologize less, we should encourage men to take more accountability. Women are constantly greasing the wheels of social interactions. At any given moment, my brain is firing on whether or not a text came off the wrong way, if I took too long to respond, if I wasn’t supportive enough on the phone. Do I have to do this? Certainly not. Should I do it less? Definitely. Do I wish men did it more? Absolutely. I see this thoughtfulness in nearly all of my female friends, and — I cannot stress this enough — I appreciate it.

Studies show that it’s not that men know they should apologize but refuse to, it’s that they fundamentally believe they have less to apologize for. They are their own arbiters of when an apology is owed, a mindset that falls counter to the impact over intent model (commonly used in organizing and activist work). In this model, if someone feels hurt, even if it was not…