The Gender We Ignore

When no one listens to the man quietly bearing the weight.

- Bilal Ahmad Khanday

A Kashmiri saying captures a telling tragedy: "The cow's cry is heard across the village, but no one hears the stick striking the ox.

It speaks to the silence of suffering—particularly, the unseen burdens men often carry in a world increasingly wired to amplify only one side of the story.

There's no question that feminism has, over the past few decades, brought long-overdue attention to the rights of women. That shift was necessary and remains important. In many parts of the world, women have been pushed aside, undervalued, and denied opportunities that should never have been up for debate.

But something unsettling is now unfolding alongside this progress.