Can compassion bridge the gender divide?

Have you noticed how quickly conversations about gender turn into arguments about who has it worse? How we lose the ability to hear each other when we’re busy defending our own pain? This isn’t just emotionally draining—it’s neurologically impossible to connect this way.

“When you get angry, cortisol is released, which clouds your judgment and thinking,” explained Dr. Chris Kukk —professor of political science and author of The Compassionate Achiever— on our most recent podcast. “But when you practice compassion, you release oxytocin, serotonin, and dopamine which helps us to stay calm, to get curious, and to move forward together.”

When most of us think about compassion, we imagine it’s about feeling someone else’s pain. But that’s not quite right.

“Compassion is about listening, understanding, connecting, and then acting to solve,” Chris explained. Which sounds simple enough, so why are so many of us struggling?

Why Reaching for Compassion Can Feel Risky

For many of us, society’s “good girl” expectations taught us that compassion is how we earn people’s love. Be endlessly understanding. Absorb other people’s feelings. Silence your own needs. So when someone suggests practicing compassion across the gender divide, it can feel like we’re being asked to repeat the same exhausting pattern — saving others at the expense of ourselves, without boundaries or accountability.

For others raised with society’s “strong boy” expectations, respect is earned through dominance and independence—not compassion. Dominate others. Deny your needs. Disconnect from emotions. So when someone suggests practicing compassion during gender conversations, it can feel like they’re being asked to reveal the very vulnerability they’ve spent years hiding—letting their guard down when everything taught them that caring leaves them vulnerable to attack.

Both wary that compassion may come at too high a cost.

Why Compassion Isn’t A Weakness

These gendered fears make sense if we believe our safety depends on “survival of the fittest.” But Chris pointed out that Darwin never actually said that.

“What Darwin’s research showed is that the species with the highest number of members who are sympathetic to each other—altruistic, generous, and compassionate—moves up the evolutionary ladder most efficiently,” Chris explained. Not through dominance. Not through performative self-sacrifice. Through collaboration, cooperation, and compassion for each other.

“We can think of this as survival of the kindest,” he suggested. “Compassion is what enables us all to thrive.”

How To Responsibly Practice Compassion

So how do we practice survival of the kindest without repeating our exhausting gendered patterns or performance or protection? Chris recommends these four steps:

• Listen to learn. Get curious and really listen rather than rushing to judgment—this helps your brain feel safe enough to stop defending and start connecting. Ask: What am I missing here? What matters most to you about this? What becomes possible when people understand this? When you sense there’s more beneath the surface, ask: “Can you tell me more about that?”

• Understand to know. Notice the patterns and pressures shaping their experience to see the person beyond society’s gender scripts—this opens your heart to someone doing their best with what they have, same as you. Ask yourself: What are they up against? What are they hoping for? What support might help? When you sense a pattern, share it and check your understanding, ask: “Am I hearing this right?”

• Connect to capabilities. Open your mind to what you’ve learned and the best ways to move forward—this helps your brain spot possibilities and resources you’d otherwise miss. Ask yourself: What ways forward can I see now? What support makes sense from me? Who else has what they need? As you sense solutions emerging, be mindful of your motivation, ask: “Is this serving them or soothing me?”

• Act to solve. Respond respectfully by following their lead—whether that’s taking action, connecting them to support, or simply being present rather than swooping in to save the day—this builds the trust our brains need to feel safe with each other. Ask: What help are they seeking? Is this mine to give? Does this build their capacity or just my comfort? As you take action, sense how things are unfolding, ask: “What impact is this having?”

These four compassion steps help us avoid the patterns that exhaust us. We’re not endlessly absorbing pain to earn love—we check if we’re serving them or soothing ourselves. We’re not deflecting vulnerability by swooping in to fix things—we ask what help they’re seeking and check whether our response builds their capacity or just soothes our discomfort.

Each step includes built-in checks that keep us from these traps. This keeps us from falling into perform-or-protect mode and helps our brains shift from cortisol to connection. It won’t make every gender conversation easy. But it gives us a way to stay in them without losing ourselves or each other. And that’s how we start building something different.

Listen & Learn More

You can hear our full conversation with Chris in the podcast above, where he shares more about how we can all reach for compassion.

For more of Chris’s wonderful work, grab a copy of his book The Compassionate Achiever.