Men Request Concrete Examples of Men Being Terrible

Is “believe women” really so hard to do?

Photo by Rifki Kurniawan on Unsplash

I recently wrote an article about why relationships with men are giving so many of us the “ick”. I then went on to describe how inequitable relationships have become unattractive to many women, particularly when the current political climate is starkly anti-women with attacks on both our voting rights and reproductive freedoms. It wasn’t a diatribe against men but rather a call to action for men to step up their game and help us smash the patriarchy that is so harmful to all of us. I even referenced how the male loneliness epidemic will only get worse when men opt out of the responsibility of participating in the fight for gender equality.

I knew when I wrote it that not everyone would agree. After all, it’s my opinion. I wasn’t speaking for anyone else — although I did mention that I’m seeing more and more women speaking out on this particular issue. I thought it was worth writing about because there’s a feeling among women that’s being consistently misunderstood by men.

Despite an entire article focused on relational and social inequity, I’m told that I didn’t give any concrete examples of men being terrible. It’s not enough to say that there’s a growing dissatisfaction among women who have primarily been tasked with much of the…