You're not the only one who had a sense of déjà vu when you saw the election results: for the third time in a row, a majority of white women voted to send Donald Trump to the White House.

But Trump also garnered significant votes among men. Young white men without college degrees did, but nearly half of Latino men also voted for Trump. Support among black men also doubled (although black men overall supported Kamala Harris).

We have known for some time that gender would be a defining issue in this election, but it would be a grave mistake to think that now that the votes have been counted, the story is over. Rather, our work has just begun. Ignoring half of the electorate is a losing battle. Ignoring half of the electorate is a losing strategy. If we are serious about protecting women's opportunities in this country, we must do the one thing in the world we should not be doing: we must do the one thing in the world we should not be doing.

American men feel left behind, and that frustration has been well documented this election cycle. While women have experienced significant economic growth over the past few decades, the parallel story for men, and men of color for that matter, is very different. Fewer young men are pursuing higher education, and fewer jobs are available without a college degree. At the same time, these men are experiencing the twin plagues of loneliness and mental illness, exacerbated by harmful masculine standards such as stoicism and intense pressure to “be a man. A recent survey by Equimundo, a gender equality organization, found that two-thirds of men between the ages of 18 and 30 believe that no one knows them well. In addition, nearly three out of four “deaths of despair” (suicide, drug overdose, alcoholism, etc.) are male.

So it is not surprising that men are increasingly attracted to someone like Trump, with his bloodthirsty, fist-pumping promises to make America and manhood great again. The Republican Party knows this. That's why the Trump campaign is wooing burly icons like Hulk Hogan at the RNC and interviewing influential figures in the “manosphere” like Joe Rogan, and attracting a cult following among young men. And it is precisely because they crave connection and visibility that they are drawn to the nostalgia associated with “traditional” masculinity. Whether streamers or politicians, these parasitic social relationships serve as powerful bait for young men seeking purpose in a world that seems to be against them.

The results are startling: a Pew Research poll found that 40% of young male Trump supporters believe that women's interests come at the expense of men. In short, these men assume that power is a gendered zero-sum game and that a leader like Trump might lend them a stronger hand.

But if anyone understands that such thinking is BS, it is women. If women have a fair chance to reach their full potential, we are all better off for it: economists estimate that if women's labor force participation were fully equal to men's, it would boost U.S. GDP by nearly 20%.

I should know: throughout my entire career, I have fought for opportunities for women and girls, and when I was launching Girls Who Code, parents would ask me, “But Saujani, what about the boys? It really pissed me off. Are they missing the whole point?

But I began to see where they were coming from. We have focused on expanding women's advancement, whether it is about the widest wage gap in 20 years or the devastating loss of basic reproductive rights, we are barely clinging to the gains we have already achieved.

But the reality is that without men we cannot build the democracy necessary to achieve either. And now we are shutting men out and keeping them away.

I fear that simply telling men (as former President Barack Obama did) to “be patient” and “get over their discomfort with powerful women” will miss the point. We must make an effort to truly understand the issues men face. Certainly, for those of us who have fought for gender equality, this may be difficult or even seem counter-intuitive. But denying that men are struggling will only make matters worse.

We must ensure that we are not only the Opportunity Party for women, but the Opportunity Party for all. It begins with changing the way we speak to and about men, and especially to the boys who will grow up to be men. No one wants to be part of a movement that ignores or denigrates men. We need to find a new path and expose the deception that men have fallen into: that if we gain, they lose.

However, this does not mean diluting our message. Take Michelle Obama's recent speech at the Harris Rally in Michigan, for example, where she made a powerful and visceral appeal to men to support access to abortion. She said, “Your daughter may be too scared to call a doctor when she bleeds from an unexpected pregnancy. A man's life, too, can be “radically upended by an unwanted pregnancy.”

Nor does this mean that women alone must do this. Men should be partners in this work because it is not a problem that we alone can solve. Men need to reinforce the idea that masculinity and misogyny are not the same thing. When one man says something grotesque and sexist, we need to tell other men to “stop.”

We often talk about what kind of future we want to build for our girls, but today I am thinking about what kind of culture I want my sons to grow up in. I want them to be strong and kind. I want them to build positive male friendships based on openness and empathy, not machismo and misogyny. And I want them to challenge the structural inequities that girls face without thinking that boys are at a disadvantage.

Our boys will grow up to be men, and those men will vote. We must care who they vote for.