Decentering Men

Unbeknownst to me, given my demographic In 2025, the phrase “decentering men” has gone from niche feminist theory to mainstream mantra, slipping into everyday conversations, TikTok stitches, and even celebrity interviews. I was not even familiar with the word or the concept it tries to clarify. Ran into this while reading something unrelated a couple of days ago.

It was coined by writer Sherese (Charlie) Taylor in 2019, the concept describes a deliberate refusal to let men or the cultural expectation of male approval, remain at the center of a woman’s thoughts, decisions, self-worth, or life plan. From what I was able to glean, this is not a catchy slogan dreamed up for viral soundbites (as it seems to be at first blush); instead it is a political response to the quiet rage many women feel after years of shrinking themselves to fit the shape patriarchy carved out for them. Taylor calls it the exhaustion of living at eighty-five percent, always waiting for permission to take up full space.

The exhaustion has reached a breaking point. The reversal of reproductive rights, the mainstreaming of incel rhetoric, the resurgence of tradwife aesthetics dressed up as empowerment have had a snowball effect of sorts. In this context, women are watching their safety, autonomy, and labor be treated as negotiable. At the same time, many now have the economic and social freedom previous generations could only dream of. Singlehood is no longer an automatic financial death sentence, and that shift has forced a reckoning: if we can finally survive and even thrive without male partnership, why are we still taught that our power comes from proximity to men? If financial independence is the north star for a woman then a man does not need to have any role in it at all. This has been true for a long time for many women though it can be argued that more women are now able to have such independence than was possible before.

Decentering men, then, is the practice of unlearning that lie that men are the center of the universe and critically required in a woman's life. It means interrogating every inherited belief that a boyfriend, husband, or ring is the ultimate prize, the final destination, the proof that you are worthy. It means noticing how often women orient their schedules, style, ambitions, and emotions around being chosen, and choosing instead to orient around themselves. The phrase resonates because it names something millions of women have felt but never had language for: the relief of waking up and realizing the day does not have to revolve around what some man might think.

A common misunderstanding is that decentering men requires swearing off dating, sex, or love with men entirely. It does not. You can still desire partnership, still fall in love, still post a blurry hand on a steering wheel if that’s your vibe. The difference is that the relationship no longer gets to colonize the rest of your life. You stop accepting mediocre treatment because “at least he picked me,” stop staying in draining dynamics to avoid the stigma of being single, stop treating exes as evidence that good love doesn’t exist. The bar simply rises: a man is welcome in your world only if he adds to a life that is already full, never if he requires you to make yourself smaller.

This is why the trend feels so threatening to some and so liberating to others. When women stop treating male attention as the sun around which their planets must orbit, entire systems built on female self-sacrifice begin to wobble. Dating becomes less about auditioning for validation and more about mutual enrichment. Friendships, creativity, rest, and ambition reclaim the center stage they were always meant to have.

I hope the trend is not inclusive of fathers, brothers and male friends and mentors a woman has in her life. That would be a bit of bathwaterism in many cases.