Hey, man, are you distrusted by women?
These are my words for men who feel like they’re distrusted by women when women alone: it doesn’t happen in every scenario, so pay attention. It happens by night, it happens in a room that has only one exit, it happens when she’s drunk, when she’s has nobody else, but not always.
Also, it happens with the plumber, it happens with the lawyer, it happens with the student, it’s not just you, so pay attention.
And, of course, you think about why women think that by default you’re the aggressor.
There’s an uncomfortable truth: some studies state that 32% of men admit they’ve raped when the question is asked in a neutral way. There are other studies saying that 3.9% of men have been victims of sexual violence in France, for instance.
That means that my friends might have done it or might have been victims of it, and your friends might have done it or might have been victims of it.
But then you remember this thing about women treating you by default as an aggressor.
And you feel anger, which is normal, because anger is the feeling you experience when you face injustice.
And I know that feeling, and I know how that unfair judgment hits you to the core, making your self-worth wobble. You’re not like that!
And you should feel angry, of course, because it is totally unfair.
But be careful about where you direct that anger: women are the majority of victims of these attacks (and rarely the perpetrators), meaning they’re not to be blamed here.
Who are the ones causing that unfairness? Other men!
So you can direct that rage towards those men who are worse than you by keeping them in check. You can tell them, when they make a sexist comment or perhaps joke about harassment: “man, that’s fucked up”. You can do that.
This is what feminism is about.
That is feminism for you.
You can do that.
https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2016-01371-010
