Life & Wisdom Quote by Barbara de Angelis

Barbara De Angelis aims straight at a cultural blind spot: the way masculinity gets defined as emotional immunity. The line is simple enough to fit on a self-help page, but it’s doing something sharper than reassurance. It reframes “sensitive” from a gendered stereotype into a human constant, then adds the provocation - “in some ways more sensitive” - as a wedge. That escalation matters. It’s designed to interrupt the reflexive eye-roll that often meets discussions of men and feelings, and to make readers reconsider who is actually paying the higher cost for emotional rules.

The subtext is less “men are secretly delicate” than “men are trained to hide the evidence.” De Angelis is implicitly pointing to how sensitivity can show up sideways when direct expression is punished: anger standing in for hurt, withdrawal masking shame, control substituting for vulnerability. In that sense, “more sensitive” doesn’t mean more tearful; it suggests higher stakes. If you’re socialized to believe that certain emotions threaten your status, every slight, rejection, or failure can land as an identity threat, not just a bad day.

Context matters: as a relationship writer, De Angelis isn’t making an abstract gender studies claim; she’s trying to change how partners interpret behavior. The line functions as a corrective to the “women feel, men deal” script that keeps couples misreading each other. It invites empathy, but it also quietly assigns responsibility: if men are sensitive, emotional illiteracy isn’t toughness - it’s unfinished work.