I’m gonna steel-man this. I don’t think that being “hard” means being an asshole. It can mean having strength of character. Courage in the face of fear, that kind of thing. You can be that kind of hard and also be compassionate.
Having said that, it is pretty shitty to assign that to a gender. Anybody of any gender can have a strong character. Also, I haven’t read the article this is referring to, so it could be full of toxic masculinity for all I know.
I think it’s kind of hard to describe if you can’t do it. I don’t literally see the cup; I’m imagining that I can see the cup. Can you imagine other senses? For example, can you imagine how chocolate tastes, or what it sounds like when somebody’s knocking on a door?