It's very important for feminism for us to tell our daughters

Host: The cinema was nearly empty, its seats still warm from the last audience that had drifted out into the rainy evening. The screen flickered faintly, replaying the final frames of Chloe Zhao’s Nomadland — Frances McDormand walking through an open desert, the sky vast and blue, the wind like an invisible companion.

A faint buzz came from the old projector, its light casting slow ghosts across the dust in the air.

Jack and Jeeny sat in the middle row, the only two figures left in the theater. The credits were rolling — white letters over a black void — but they weren’t watching. They were thinking.

Jack: “You know, Zhao said something that’s been echoing in my head since the interview — ‘It’s very important for feminism to tell our daughters they should be strong. But to tell our sons that they can be vulnerable — that’s equally important.’”

He leaned back, his voice low, his eyes shadowed in the flickering light. “It sounds good — poetic, even. But I wonder... are we trying to change something that’s just built into nature?”

Jeeny: “Nature?” Her brow furrowed, her hands still holding her half-empty coffee cup. “You mean the way boys are taught to hide their emotions, to measure worth in dominance? That’s not nature, Jack. That’s inheritance. That’s tradition dressed as truth.”

Host: The projector light flickered, illuminating Jack’s profile — the hard jaw, the tired eyes, the faint crease between his brows. He looked like a man trying to make logic out of a storm.

Jack: “You talk as if tradition is poison. But not all of it is. The old idea of masculinity — strength, stoicism, protection — it held society together for centuries. It gave men purpose.”

Jeeny: “It also silenced them. It taught them that the only way to be a man was to conquer, not connect. That’s not purpose; that’s pressure. Zhao’s right — feminism isn’t just about making women strong. It’s about freeing men too.”

Host: The sound of rain began to pat against the cinema roof, a steady rhythm that filled the spaces between their words. The world outside was dark, but inside, the light from the projector washed over them like an old film reel, spinning, fragile, beautiful.

Jack: “Freeing men? You think men are the ones trapped here? You forget who’s been fighting for equal pay, for safety, for respect.”

Jeeny: “And who’s been taught never to cry, never to ask for help, never to break. Tell me, Jack — do you think all that stoicism doesn’t have a cost? Look at the suicide rates, the addiction, the violence — all from men who were told to be invincible.”

Host: Jeeny’s voice was soft, but it cut through the silence like a whispered truth that had waited too long to be said. Her hands trembled slightly, not from anger, but from memory — the kind of trembling that comes when something too true finally escapes.

Jack: “So what then — we raise a generation of boys who cry over everything? Who can’t face struggle?”

Jeeny: “No. We raise boys who know that strength isn’t the absence of fear, but the ability to feel it and still go on. Who know that vulnerability isn’t weakness, it’s honesty. You can’t build equality if one half of the world is taught to suppress its humanity.”

Host: Jack shifted, restless, his hands clasped. He stared at the screen, now gone dark, its blackness deep and still.

Jack: “But doesn’t this constant rewriting — all these new definitions — just confuse people? We’ve already lost our sense of what it means to be masculine or feminine. Everything’s becoming... blurred.”

Jeeny: “Blurred doesn’t mean broken. It means becoming. Gender, identity, power — they were never meant to be walls. They’re supposed to be bridges. That’s what Zhao’s talking about — balance. If we teach girls to stand tall, but don’t teach boys how to bend, we’re still out of harmony.”

Host: The rain intensified, a slow crescendo. The theater lights glowed dimly now, soft amber pools cutting through the darkness. Jack’s face had softened, but his eyes still held a kind of tired defiance.

Jack: “You make it sound so easy — like you can just reprogram the world with empathy and poetry.”

Jeeny: “Not easy. But necessary. Because the alternative is the world we already have — men raised to hide their pain until it erupts, women taught to carry everyone else’s until they collapse. We’ve lived inside that lie long enough.”

Host: A silence settled between them. The kind that doesn’t come from disagreement, but from recognition — the moment two people realize they’re looking at the same truth from opposite ends.

Jack: “You really believe in that kind of balance, huh?”

Jeeny: “I don’t just believe in it, Jack. I’ve seen it. I’ve seen fathers who learned to listen to their sons instead of disciplining them. Husbands who cried when their wives left for work. Men who finally said, ‘I’m not okay,’ and watched their sons learn strength from that honesty. Those aren’t failures of manhood — they’re evolutions of it.”

Host: Jack’s eyes lowered, his jaw tightened — a small battle playing out behind his calm exterior. The kind of battle men often lose silently.

Jack: “You know... when I was young, my father used to tell me that a man doesn’t flinch, doesn’t fold, doesn’t cry. He said, ‘If you ever show weakness, the world will eat you alive.’”

Jeeny: “And did it make you stronger?”

Jack: “It made me lonely.”

Host: The words hung there, fragile as a thread of light. Jeeny didn’t speak — she just reached across the armrest and touched his hand. The gesture was small, but it shifted something — like a door opening quietly in a dark hallway.

Jeeny: “That’s what Zhao meant, Jack. Feminism isn’t about turning men into women or women into warriors. It’s about healing what we’ve both been taught to fear. It’s about permission — for everyone to be whole.”

Host: The rain outside had slowed to a soft drizzle. The theater was now dim, only the faint light from the exit sign glowing red against the walls.

Jack: “You know... I used to think feminism was just about women fighting for power. But maybe it’s more like... humanity fighting for balance.”

Jeeny: “Exactly.”

Jack: “Then maybe we should stop calling it a war.”

Jeeny: “And start calling it a conversation.”

Host: The projector light suddenly flickered to life again, casting their silhouettes against the screen — two human outlines, one still, one reaching, both framed in the same beam.

Outside, the sky was clearing. A faint moonlight spread across the wet pavement, reflecting off the puddles like scattered mirrors.

Jack and Jeeny stood, shoulders brushing, as they walked toward the exit, their footsteps echoing softly through the empty hall.

And in that quiet, the echo of Zhao’s words seemed to follow them —

that feminism is not the battle cry of one gender,
but the soft rebuilding of both.

A world where daughters learn to stand,
and sons learn it’s okay to fall.

And in the light of that shared vulnerability,
the human story might finally begin to feel — whole.