Heh. I agree that it probably doesn't help it. Just looking at the slogan part of it, I don't think it harms as much as one might think on it's face. The men who inspire "male tears" commentary were never going to be allies anyway. They have already been bad mouthing feminism and blaming it for all sorts of woes, wage stagnation, male suicides, drops in college enrollment among men, Trump, Obama, their inability to get sex, their dog's runny nose, whatever. Every petty little thing going wrong in their world is the fault of women and feminism.

It's never going to be any different. They're never going to grow the fuck up. Like any other hotheaded toddler, they scream and rail at women in comment sections. They swarm in the content of women, especially if your content is about anything other than relationships and womens' issues.

We're lying to ourselves if we think this doesn't affect both the content creator and their potential engagement.

Hence the hockey-like check. One of the most affective uses of "male tears" like response is a carpenter/furniture maker I follow on TikTok. This woman cannot post a video clip about a project she's working on without men drowning the comment section in abuse and sharing vid snippets to make fun of her on their own pages. It's absolutely vile, some of the things I've seen.

She does really good work. She's taking time to post content aimed toward teaching women these skills too. And, she's an open lesbian. These men drive off her target audience because most women will unfollow her to escape the hate. They also discourage her from the space because, let's be honest again, being told constantly how reviled you are and being bullied daily is not good for one's mental health. Weaker people have killed themselves over being bullied.

And that's the point of these attacks. That is exactly the goal of trolls. Let's just call a spade a spade. Let's also point out again that these attacks are not strictly random, they're often coordinated. You see the same groups again and again and again.

Taking the high road is limiting, because it forces you to switch your content to address the issue. You still lose your targeted audience. And the trolls keep coming, only now there are more. Fatigue sets in, because you wanted to make content about wood working, not why women have a right to work with wood.

So anyway, this carpenter went the humor route. It's funny as hell. It's not uncommon to hear dialogue like , "I chose to stain my table with the sad little tears of men who say blah blah blah. Thank you for the free resources, gentlemen. You saved me 5 bucks at Home Depot. If anyone wants to volunteer any more I'll show my audience how to stretch out can of varnish to finish this project."

Women stopped leaving her page and unfollowing to avoid the abuse. Non-troll men are engaging in the comments with You Go Girl and Good For You. They are not offended and do not think less of feminism. Her audience has actually grown since she adopted this strategy, and she's still going strong. A lot of the content creators who take the high road burn out.

Hey, I'm a feminist and I love feminism. But, it is not the job or the responsibility of every woman to uphold the integrity and image of feminism. Most especially when those high minded ideals do not strategically deal with a problem real women face, put her in harm's way (talking about mental health again), or protect her space.

Yours is not the only criticism of "male tears" I have seen and I both get and understand your point. I also know that "male tears" is a response. And, I see how easy and automatic it is to criticize a woman left to defend herself for her response to aggressive, bullying behavior but never say boo to the bullies who provoked the response in the first place.

In the end, I cannot reconcile it as anything other than more victim blaming and shaming. And that's where I stand. If they have the right to be so hateful because free speech is tantamount to everything, she has the right to volley it right back at them without censure or rebuke, especially from her own. Hopefully, you can see and understand my point as well.