I could have easily picked apart every paragraph of this article. It’s problematic and often cringe worthy. Also, very typical of male writers on this topic.
You know what ran through my head when you wrote about just wanting to be accepted and understood in conjunction with being made to feel like you’re an enemy?
“Now you’re starting to understand what it’s been like to be a woman".
Sucks, doesn’t it?
For millenia now you men have defined yourselves by making an enemy of women and femininity. You literally chose “male” qualities and pushed them by defining all opposite qualities as “female” and making them bad. The more “male" qualities you have and the better you perform them, the more of a man you are. Women were described as deformed males, inferior, and weak. Even today, with all our advancements and the freedoms we have gained, we women carry the sting of male hatred and scorn with us every day.
We have to deal with it every day. Find ways to thrive despite of it every day.
Where’s our safety net?
So, you want women to provide you with a safety net because you’re feelings are hurt and you feel misunderstood. Meanwhile, the harassment, the hate rhetoric, the rapes, and the murders continue. Every damn day.
When women asked men to notice, to understand, and to help build/reinforce some kind of safety net against a rising tide of violence, men said #NotAllMen.
When women asked men to please not support putting another predator on The bench, men said “there’s no proof, so she’s lying" and “she’s too emotional so she’s not credible”.
When women started writing about all the assaults and harassments they have endured in an outpouring of grief and hope in chorus after chorus of “Me too, MeToo, MeToo we found each other again. From men came two things. The tired old chestnuts of misogyny: hate, vitriol, blame, shame, and scorn. Or, the chorus of crickets. The silence of all those crickets when it was right before your eyes was profoundly deafening.
Something happened when that went down. Something snapped. As we women found hope and solace in each other, many of us lost hope and faith in you men. You’re always going to hate us. Given half a chance you will hurt us and never spare a thought to doing so. You only ever think of yourselves and what you can get from us. We can’t even talk about it without you men losing your damn shit all over the place.
Message received gentlemen.
The reason why women are seeing you as an enemy and treating you all thusly is that you men won’t stop acting like one.
Build your own damn safety net. Or not. Just don’t look to us women to make you feel better.
