Maybe I Do Hate Men
Well, here's an awkward thought.
When I was young and first embracing feminism, boys and men would often wave my ideas away with one hand. “Feminists don’t want equal rights,” they’d say. “You just hate men.”
Even as I grew older and we began talking about equity over equality and various intersectional feminist issues, so many boys and men said the same damn thing. “Blah blah blah. That’s not true. You just hate men.” Or, “You just want to be the men. You want to control us!”
Hating men — it’s such a common and quick accusation to try and shut up a feminist. People accuse young feminists of being motivated by hatred long before we even know the full extent of misogyny in our society. Long before we know what things far too many men are capable of doing to women without hesitation or remorse.
Of course, I’m not talking about any single offense. I’m talking about all of it. All of the dizzying, dreary, and truly disgusting ways so many men overlook, bully, or abuse just because they can. All of the ways they benefit from toxic masculinity without giving a damn.
This heaviness and fatigue from dealing with a world that so often caters to these men isn’t something I used to think about so much. To be fair, I suspect I overlooked a lot of it just because I was still plugged into the whole…
