Far too often I hear “all men are bad” – but when I think how I was raised… the true, real men aren’t out there hurting women, they aren’t out there lying and manipulating women
I fear too many young boys are hearing this language and are becoming discouraged. Often leading to some darker places on the Internet that often fester hate for women because they feel like they are hated as men.
I’ve started changing how I talk about it to my wife’s sisters though. Anytime they say something like “eww men” – I’m like no honey, that’s a boy. A real man won’t do that to you. Doesn’t matter how old he is, if he’s acting like a child, I feel like we should call it like it is. That’s a boy. And it seems to make sense to them. I wonder if it would work on a larger scale
Idk the internet is crazy, what are your thoughts?
Edit: I’m not saying that boys are bad. Just that a boy is someone who has not yet matured into a man. I feel when you can show the world you know how to treat people with respect and compassion, then you can be considered mature
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Far too often I hear “all men are bad” – but when I think how I was raised… the true, real men aren’t out there hurting women, they aren’t out there lying and manipulating women
I fear too many young boys are hearing this language and are becoming discouraged. Often leading to some darker places on the Internet that often fester hate for women because they feel like they are hated as men.
I’ve started changing how I talk about it to my wife’s sisters though. Anytime they say something like “eww men” – I’m like no honey, that’s a boy. A real man won’t do that to you. Doesn’t matter how old he is, if he’s acting like a child, I feel like we should call it like it is. That’s a boy. And it seems to make sense to them. I wonder if it would work on a larger scale
Idk the internet is crazy, what are your thoughts?
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I got to be honest. I spend a solid amount of time with pretty hard-line feminists and I have never heard someone say “all men are bad”.
I’ve seen it online, but I’d bet a lot of that is just rage-baiting. I can only speak to my own experience of course.
“The true, real men”. This is a perfect example of a no-true-scotsman fallacy. If you’re going to evaluate men, you include all men, the scumbags and the heroes. We don’t get to cherry pick who we’re associated with.
I agree with a lot of what you’re implying, that WE, as in men, should call out shitty behavior that masquerades as “masculine” behavior, but it has to be honest and logical. You can’t build on sand.
You see a dude acting like a prick, tell him (or others) for sure. Don’t call them boys, or children, because my boy, my child would never act like that. Call them assholes. That’s what they’re being.
Still listen to them today, Boyz II Men will be timeless
I’d be more offended if I could actually take it seriously. I have a really hard time taking the “men bad” language as anything beyond a joke because in my experience, a lot of women preach on and on and on and on and on about red flags and how players and fuckboys and narcissists and bums and manipulators and toxic men are the devil incarnate… Yet they keep dating and making excuses for exactly those same types of men.
The “men bad” talk usually just gets an eye roll or a snicker out of me.
There are people who say all men are predators, all black people are criminals, all women are bad drivers, all Jews are wealthy, etc. they’re just stereotypes. Ignore them.
Yea, I think this is very bad. And self perpetuating.
It’s like the man vs bear debate.
Treating all men as inherently bad doesn’t help anyone.
No wonder so many young men are turning to the lines of Andrew Tate and his ilk.
It’s not any different than saying all women are crazy or all women are bitches.
We need to show more men the way of the Peaceful Warrior. How to protect, and respect not just women, but each other as well.
The cure for that is mild benevolent sexism where you’re very decent to women but don’t take them that seriously at their literal word unless they give you another reason to. Assume they’re doing emotional signaling and are being careless with the specific words they choose.
Men feel the need to be beholden to the meanings of what they say. Women pick words that convey the emotion most accurately. It’s a miscommunication thing.
Edit: It is VERY harmful to young boys to hear though, they need protection from that a lot of the time.
Blaming boys for reacting to hate while excusing men from accountability is just repackaging the same problem with a nicer label.
You hit the nail on the head. It’s socially acceptable to say “Ewww men”, “Men are shit” or make fun of men’s bodies, be it bald men, short men, etc.
Men doing the exact same as the above about women are misogynistic Andrew Tate losers.
The fact your sisters in law were comfortable to go “Eww men” in front of you just hammers home that point.
So…the boys should feel even shittier that they’re the problem?
I think it’s all made-up outrage to keep us regular people fighting each other rather than wondering why a few rich families get to hoard all the wealth created by people who work for a living.
Your circle sucks…. I’ve never heard anyone say this bs (certainty not anyone that matters)
Don’t respond to them laugh at them they are losers
I do think there’s a problem with the way men and boys get generalized. I’d agree with your pushback, but I don’t think replacing “man” with “boy” is helpful here. There’s nothing wrong with being either.
And I’m not against the concept of toxic masculinity. I think it’s a real phenomenon that I’ve very much experienced. The problem is that we only seem to point out the bad, and there’s so little conversation or examples to point to about what “wholesome masculinity” is.
“All men are bad” is a blanket statement that only a few people actually believe, most just mean “a lot of dudes suck” which yeah thats warranted tbf
What people say actually reveals a lot about themselves.
So when a girl says all men do this…
She’s really saying the men she is around/chooses are doing that.
The way to fix it wouldn’t be to change the language used it would be either
A. Tell the girl that’s speaking that her choices in men are wrong and force her to confront herself which she won’t
Or
B. Teach your sons that the women who say that are telling on themselves. Of course I assume you’re already teaching them to be a man but, instead of trying to change the world around your kid show them why the world got like that and how those women have bitterness inside due to the men they chose
I don’t care, I just live my life. The internet is like the collective unconscious. You can’t take it literally. That’s not what it’s for.
I sympathize with your position, but I don’t think what you are proposing will be effective. All you’ve done is shifted from disparaging men to disparaging boys. A man acting like a child is still a man, even if his behavior is immature. I don’t think we do children any service by shielding them from the reality that, yes, some men are bad. They’re still real men, they’re just not good people.
I don’t blame Women for having that mentality. I haven’t met a Woman that hasn’t been SA in someway. The issue is (ironically) that dudes are taking things too personally. She might say “All Men are bad” it does not necessarily mean you. Show her that you’re different and call out other Men and their shit. Most Women just want Men to listen and not make it about them.
I guess with maturity I’m learning that the bar is pretty low out there…Men…Young Men (boys) all you got to do is live your life, be honest, and humble.
You’d be surprised how far you can go with Women setting Pride to the side. It’s really that simple…
Avoid the people and places where you hear or see this. Teach your children that a very few angry people can seem like the majority because happy people aren’t posting crazy all day year round.
The correct response to anyone who says “eww men” is to point out the hypocrisy. You first shoot back by “eww women” then continue to double down reinforcing hours damaging their worldview really is.
Also you should move past your presumptions about what a “real man” is because it can be just as harmful and at times bigoted. Instead before you judge anyone take a moment to try to get as much of a picture as you can. ut yes, we as society need to change the language to stop the negatives towards men.
I’d say stop, as adults, talking about how “bad” boys or girls are to them. All that does is further the fear of the older generation. Is that what you want for your future children? No.
Your response is just as bad and reeks of white knighting.
People who say that stuff aren’t worth engaging with.
Boys aren’t bad either. I’ve never heard anyone argue seriously that all men are bad but whether you say boy or man the meaning is the same and it is still discriminatory and wrong. How about you talk about specific actions that are good and bad and how you should treat people regardless of their sex identity etc…
By saying “no that’s a boy, not a man”, then you’re still perpetuating a hierarchy of goodness and competency. It also excuses shitty behavior by attributing it to a boy rather than a man.
I honestly think all this language changing is dumb, just like how the whole woke pronoun thing is dumb. The majority of people don’t care about it, and when liberals made it political, it alienated the majority of the country who really don’t care about he/she/they. It’s my firm belief that all the social justice crap contributed to the US electing the most corrupt, idiotic, and perverted president ever.
Sure, change the language for yourself and how you speak, but don’t preach. I think a more effective solution is to approach your sister-in-law with curiosity. Ask her why she says that. Ask her if she really means that she’s disgusted by men. Give her room to reflect on her beliefs. If she doubles down, then she’s not ready to change the way she thinks.
My thought is that if “all men are bad” hurts your feelings, you’re probably one of those men. The only people I’ve heard say that (and it has always been in a sarcastic/ironic/edgy way) have had some extremely bad experiences with men.
I just don’t understand why/how people take this phrase seriously? I’ve always heard it as a joke and I have never once taken it as an attack on me or my character. I swear this phrase has a gorilla grip on Reddit boys who are not emotionally intelligent enough to understand the underlying meaning on the phrase.
Eh, sounds like a version of no true Scotsman to me.
Some men are doing really bad shit, and I agree it’s not most of them, but boy do they sure get around. And discussed quite a bit. Particularly with the current Administration I can’t completely blame a lot of women for having a negative opinion of men, but I’m honestly also frustrated with how it’s become very acceptable to just savage the whole gender casually.
For example, I’m a fan of Slate’s Amicus podcast, but not an episode goes by without a “are the mens okay?” or “bear or man in the woods?” comment. I’m not sure that I would assume that the hosts are outright biased against men, but they’re sure doing a great job of making it sound that way. I guess I would put it this way; I enjoy listening to the show but if I had the opportunity to meet them and have a drink to discuss the Supreme Court I would pass because I can’t really imagine feeling comfortable in that company.
We should also be pretty frank that we have … some problems in modern masculinity as well. And I’m not talking about enjoying fishing, or drinking beer, or working on cars, or sex, or whatever fairly pedestrian and normal activities and behavior you equate with masculinity. I’m talking about the “manosphere” folks and the sort of tripe they’re peddling. They’re spreading some really awful shit at a breakneck pace, replacing any ideas about healthy masculinity with shitty ideas about hierarchies, genetics, and notions that there’s some tiny subset of men who are going to get all the women and all the money and unless you’re one of those people or trying to be one of those people and emulating their behavior then you’re worthless.
The thing that really sucks is that, like any other ideology, it’s built upon some kernels of truth and that makes it really hard to combat it and to address the actually real and fundamental issues that are being leveraged to get young men to buy into that bullshit and movement.
But women … I’m sorry, but they’re not really helping either. I almost find it comical how frequently I find that women who criticize these toxic masculinity types turn out to actually be attracted to them. You can find a woman who picks the bear in that hypothetical scenario, who believes steadfastly in equality and considers herself a feminist who would also almost immediately admit that she wouldn’t date a guy shorter than 6′ or who made less than she did. It’s not just men that are perpetuating these roles and stereotypes, women have a hand in it as well.
I don’t know man, the world is really fucked up. I wouldn’t get caught up in terminology for guys who do shitty things. We share the same gender with them whether we like it or not, but we don’t have to share the same ideas and we don’t have to be okay with people who generalize an entire gender based on the actions of a shitty, but very visible minority.
The phrase “A hit dog will holler” comes to mind. You know what I think when I hear some woman say all men are trash? Nothing. It doesn’t apply to me and I don’t care to defend other fictional men.
These are sentiments born out of pain and while I hate they’ve gone through these things either through poor choices or happenstance, again not my place to try and persuade them otherwise. It’s a waste of everyone’s time.
As for your sisters, if it’s a constant thing the easiest way to stop the conversation is to point out that if everyone the meet is an asshole, maybe the problem isn’t other people.
“If everything you pick up smells like shit then maybe you need to wash your hands.”
I get what you’re trying to do, and your heart’s in the right place. But honestly, the mindset you’re describing where “men” as a whole are constantly bashed is harmful. It hurts men and boys, especially when they’re young and still figuring out who they are. That kind of talk pushes them into corners where they feel unwanted and misunderstood, and unfortunately, that’s how some end up in toxic spaces online.
It’s also worth pointing out that men face serious issues too like being victims of sexual assault and domestic violence often at rates people don’t realize, and usually without the same support or recognition. But when we keep painting men as the problem, those stories get buried. They don’t get told. And that silence adds to the pain.
Also, calling grown men “boys” as a way to say they aren’t real men? That’s not really helping either. We don’t usually call women who do bad things “girls,” and applying double standards doesn’t move the conversation forward.
As a Black man, I’ve seen firsthand how stereotyping can be dangerous; it can literally get me killed. That’s why I tell other men not to sit back quietly while people talk about us like we’re all broken or dangerous. We’ve got to push for real conversations ones where everyone’s struggles and voices are heard without the blame game.
I think the actual ‘all men are bad’ instances are pretty low. There was a few years where it seemed like we couldn’t go 5 minutes without there being 50 think pieces about toxic masculinity and how ‘boys will be boys’ is a terrible (and it is) excuse for behavior and yadda yadda yadda. If not outright insulting, there was some pretty solid henpecking going on.
The more pernicious problem is we aren’t socializing our young boys, and when they do (without guidance) they inevitably end up becoming a Rogan bro or something, which is about as sexually appealing as a poopy butthole. They end up being even LESS successful with women which breeds contempt. There are far too many grifters along the way who will exploit these feelings and push these boys even further from reasonability.
I think it is simplistic to blame this on women saying ‘all man are bad’ or whatever; it seems like just another excuse where men can place their own failures at the fault of women. Something we are very good at.
For the boys I encounter who might be falling down this trap, I always start with ‘think of this from the girl’s perspective.’ Lets go through all the little things girls need to do and be so our puritanical society doesn’t come down on them like a ton of bricks. They need to be sexually available, but not a vamp. They need to be smart, but not too smart as to upset men. They can’t aknowlwedge any sexual pleasure that isn’t condoned by a very narrow standard. They can’t dress a certain way, or if they dress the ‘proper’ way they are a cold prude. There are male analogies to all of this, so we should have a little bit of understanding along the way. That chick might really want to blow you – but part of her calculus is that she wonders if you will tell your friends, then start rumors, then some adults find out about it, then it is judgement galore for a perfectly average act within the human species. It makes me think of that college football kicker (whose mother is a college professor) who lectured a class of graduating women about how they can really be wives and mothers. OK, broh, every woman is keenly aware of their reproductive abilities at or around age 10, or whenever old men start to leer at them. They don’t need it mansplained to them by kicker boy, as if women go to college and somehow forget what the uterus is for.
A boy is someone still growing and learning. Those men aren’t even that. A shitty man is still a man just not a good one
I always just replace the demographic word with one I am a part of to see if it feels the same…
So for you in this case, just replace the men with women and the boys woth girls and see what you think.
All women are bad… no, she manipulated me, cheated on me, and used me… she is just a girl.
I honestly dont like that either. How about all humans have the capacity to harm, and someone that fits whatever demegraphic harmed you so you dont like it. Just say that and be specific to the person. No need to be sexist.
Saying that bad man aren’t “real men” isn’t any better. Call them immature or selfish or whatever, but don’t call them a boy.
I work in a school and the language around emotion and support for young boys is amazing. When I was a kid you had to be stoic and not cry act like a man which is crazy when you’re eight.
I also see the problems around boys as young as six idolising creeps like Andrew Tate and being the alpha, grabbing and pushing themselves onto girls thinking they have the right to do this because they are boys.
In my lifetime I would say that I have definitely been problematic and have done some questionable things but I’m trying to push the message to my boys that this is not the way to get what you want.
I think positive masculinity isn’t something a lot of women are capable of identifying either because a lack of experience, lack of role models, or possibly a different understanding of what a “man” should be
“Men are bad” is a construct of social media. There are many others as well, for both men and women. It’s up to each individual parent to teach their kids what’s real and what’s not. I watched the road runner and coyote on Saturday mornings as a kid but that doesn’t mean I tried dropping anvils on people. The fact that the world is better at making fake stuff seem real does change the fact that educated people know the difference.
Blame the womanosphere, we need to stop pretending that the manosphere didn’t learn it from somewhere.
When you hear that and you feel like you must push back; try asking if they feel that way about their brothers and their father?
And when they say no; as the vast majority will… don’t say anything!
Just be quiet.
Meh.
We’ve seen this “no true Scotsman” thing before. All men used to be boys. No boys are men. Men don’t get demoted back to boyhood when they do something shitty.
How about “Eww. Misandrists”.
If you talked about women the way they talked about men….
“Far too often I hear ‘all men are bad’”
Cut off any person in your life who say shit like that. Imagine they are rabid dogs.
“…because they feel like they are hated as men.”
Nope, we don’t ‘feel’ it. We experience it and, therefore, know it.
Here’s a better thought. Why are we ok generalizing 2 explicit groups of people and nobody else? We know it’s a shitty thing to do so we call it out and push back against it for every group except men and white men.
Nobody has an issue with someone saying abusive men are horrible, so just say what you actually mean.
The best social media part is hiding behind the “I’m only talking about the bad ones” if you were then you’d call out the bad ones, not all of them, and you wouldn’t have a problem calling out all the bad ones outside of men/white men. You inherently know it’s shitty behavior but it’s socially acceptable so why not do it?
Lucky for me I’m at a point in my life where this shit doesn’t affect me anymore, but I can’t imagine being a 13 year old male kid in this environment. That shit sounds emotionally draining as fuck. My kid will get there in about 10 years and I have no clue how to get him to understand that while everyone around him is telling him that who he identifies as is trash, he’s supposed to just ignore it all.
I agree that we need to change the language around this but not in the way that you think. The biggest thing we as men need to change is the passive acceptance of damaging language. Don’t let your friends or your family get away with saying damaging things. For example, don’t let your friends engage in the behaviors that allow that language to become normalized. Don’t let them say misogynistic or sexist things that will eventually lead to the behaviors that will show others that “all men are bad.” In short, what I learned from the military: if you get in trouble the news won’t say petty officer so and so, it will say the US military.
“all men are bad” mostly the only people I hear saying this are people complaining about it rather than people actually saying it about men
A generous interpretation is that this message is intended to protect women from the men who are threats by reminding men and women that men in general are threats. The more prevalent the message is though, and the more boys are seen as threats, the more they are treated as threats. When boys are told and treated like they are always the threat, it is difficult to feel like anything else, and they’ll eventually accept that identity as inevitable, stop trying not to be a threat, and start acting like the very threats the message was intending to prevent, creating a self fulfilling prophecy.
Tell any group they are bad, often enough and broadly enough, and they will eventually start believing they are and that’s all that they can be. This is essentially anti-male propaganda, disguised as women advocacy, and it will have the same known and documented consequences as any other propaganda. Repeating the worst experiences women have with men, on a loop, to the whole culture, is a recipe for destroying the entire concept that men can be anything but threats and putting women at greater risk.
I think the hyper fixation on women’s negative experiences with some men is encouraging our culture to make women more afraid of men and make men more likely to become someone to fear. The exact opposite of the intent.
> Anytime they say something like “eww men” – I’m like no honey, that’s a boy. A real man won’t do that to you. Doesn’t matter how old he is, if he’s acting like a child, I feel like we should call it like it is. That’s a boy. And it seems to make sense to them. I wonder if it would work on a larger scale
That’s the “no true scotsman” fallacy.
Claiming that bad men are not really men is absurd.
When men and women are pigeon holed into spheres, those spheres can sell targeted products to them with purpose. Highly lucrative whether by engagement, ads or products. Those products have been traced back to chinas manufacturing sectors.
Foreign influence report in 2024 by American intelligence cited division between genders to be the most focused on by foreign agents and a lot of money is being put into keeping genders divided.
You can see it in our politics too, women leaning left and men going more right.
Gender issues also exist for both men and women. We can talk about them without demonizing either gender. Bad apples will always exist, we are also stronger to address issues and promote change when both genders are united.
Sigh. How many of these threads do we need… every. single. day?
Can’t people just go off-line and live in the real world and understand that what they read from a tiny but loud minority on the internet who do it for outrage clicks and engagement, does not actually represent most people?
OP, I think your observation meshes well with something I’ve thought about: instead of calling it toxic masculinity we should call it immature masculinity. I think that makes it a lot more clear what the problem is.
You already contributed to the wrong side of this conversation in your first sentence. Making a distinction between “real men” and some other alternative based on that person’s actions contributes to the idea that men have to “earn” their manhood by behaving in a certain way. Men who do bad things are still men, and in fact most of the bad behavior that men do comes from a place of wanting to prove oneself as being a “real man”. The idea of being a “real man” is what needs to die
It’s all bullshit lol. I haven’t dated since 2013, I do my own thing and mind my business. How am I the fuckin problem?
The truth is not all men are bad. Another truth is that some men are bad. In fact some men are absolutely horrible.
The problem arises when women say ” men are bad” and someone tries to point out that not all men are bad. The immediate response is they will say that of course I didn’t mean that all men are bad, but the reality of the statement “men are bad “is a blanket covering all men. So they are saying that all men are bad. And then they act like that’s not what they said or what they meant, and you’re an idiot and probably one of the bad men for disagreeing with them.
If it were the reverse no one would accept the answer. If someone “said women are greedy selfish bitches” all hell would fall on them. And it wouldn’t matter whether they said that they meant that not all women are or not.
I was recently told that I was probably one of the “bad” men simply for refusing to answer an inane question from a woman. So to those that are essentially anti men any excuse will be used to put someone into the “bad” category. And unlike the court of law, in the court of public opinion it is not up to the accuser to provide proof or backing of this statement it is up to the accused to try to defend themselves. Which is the trick. The more you try to defend yourself the more they will say that it’s a sign that you’re guilty.
Essentially the moment a woman says that men are bad or all men are bad the argument is over. Any attempt to argue with either the statements will be used against you. So as men we have to bear it. And for those of us that have spent the majority of their lives doing everything we can to respect women, protect women from people that we know to be bad and stand up for women and women’s rights, it can be extremely frustration.
It would be easy to just ignore it when it is a rare occurrence. But it is extremely common place. And for me, the worst of it is there are some women who have a history of dating the wrong guys. Statistically it would be virtually impossible for them to repeatedly date abusive men every time unless they were attracted to the kind of men that are abusive. And yet they still continue to do and along the way they will accuse every other man of being abusive while still continuing to go after those that actually are the abusers.
Edit: and of course even pointing out these facts will cause you to be downvoted as you can see
How about we stop with the “real men” and “real women” thing and teach people to not be cunts?
Personally I hate it but also feel like bringing it up tends to be unpopular . I don’t think its healthy for anyone to be painting people with such a broad brush. I also fully understand WHY some people (mainly women) have such a negative view of men… Hearing stories from women its insane to me how some men seem to act, and its way more common than I ever realized.
My daughter and I were discussing this one day and she brought up a decent point… If a white person were walking down the street alone at night and saw a black person and crossed the street to avoid passing them, that might be considered a bit racist (or at least without context it seems that race might have been the motivation )
But if a woman is walking down the street and sees a -man- , crossing the street is seen by many as just being smart/safe instead of sexist.
So do you stay on the same side of the street and risk it for the purpose of not appearing to be anti-men, or do you cross the street ?
I’m out of the loop, where is everyone hearing “all men are bad”? I’ve seen it online, someone posts some nutjobs twitter post, but is anyone experiencing it in real life? I guess I’m asking is this as big an issue as it’s portrayed or is this an online thing?
I appreciate that you are trying to spread a positive outlook, but you are replacing a negative outlook with another negative outlook.
Not a man but from a womans perspective, i absolutely dont spout “i hate men” or “all men this/that” because i can see how alienating people will make them very likely to alienate you, and be sexist. Especially because when you say that you atent targeting the men who perpetrate sexism, that would be one thing, but youre hitting infants, and little boys who have been let down by the same system as us when assaulted, and the fantastic men who stand up for us.
On the flip side though i think its an awful idea to start calling bad men boys, it infantalizes them, takes away responsibility, reinforces the boys will be boys attitude in bad men/boys, and makes it seem to women that your intent is all of the above. Or even in your additional edit have the same affect of making boys feel bad, because they wont know where youre coming from if they hear that.
I think topics like this are hard to bring up casually because of the place most people who bring it up are coming from, which is misogyny. A lot of men who discourage all men talk do it not because they dont think men are a monolith, but because they dont think women suffer for being women, they dont think misogyny still existed, or they believe these things exist but women deserve then and thats how the world should be.
In depth discussions with people youre close with, who you know you can have these discussions with are your best bet for making change on this topic, like your wife who can pass it to her sisters. And instead of putting the blame on boys, put it on bad people or people lacking empathy.
Just wanted to chime in here and say that what you stated in your second paragraph is exactly what is happening currently with young boys.
There needs to be a shift from shaming and discouraging these young boys to approaching them with compassion and understanding where their feelings are coming from if we as a society want to foster better inter gender relationships over the next generations to come.
Young men who are considering dating women should really avoid the women who talk this way. It doesn’t bode well to date or take things further than dating with a woman who has a problem with men. Misandry as a personality trait should be shunned. I wouldn’t even engage with it. No “not all men”, no “well I agree some men do bad things”, no nothing. Those types are not satisfied until you fully agree with every hateful thing they say. Let them be hateful. You just need to avoid being hateful. Many great women out there who don’t hate, so no need to have a problem with women either (this is directed to the young men tempted to go that way). Be proud of what you are, respect and love others, do good, be kind. Shun hate.
I don’t believe you hear “all men are bad.” Who says that?
This is an attempt at over simplifying a very complex subject.
And it’s an important topic. Sexual assault and rape of women in the dating scene is sadly common, and the same patterns repeats itself. He says it was sex, she says otherwise.
And, from my own experience, very often the girl ends up losing her entire friend circle. They all believe him.
Because he is cool, social, and likable. And somehow it’s easier to believe she is lying, then to believe they know a rapist.
Studies have shown that false reports of rape happen AT MOST 7% of the time. And its likely lower as the majority of rapes go unreported.
So that means in any given situation where its he said/she said there’s a 93 percent chance she’s telling the truth.
And this is where actual misogyny begins to come into play.
If you’ve ever been in this sad situation, you’ll quickly find the people around them, the friends, begin asking things like:
“But, did you say No clearly?”
“Maybe he didn’t understand you?”
“Maybe you were both too drunk?”
And of course the classic:
“You invited him in right, what were you wearing?”
The assumption is, the intelligent man must be believed, while the woman must be questioned at every step.
Nobody is asking the guy if he maybe raped her on accident. That would be absurd. The questions and doubts are always levied at her.
So this is where toxic masculinity ACTUALLY matters. The guy, typically a sociopath, will use masculine tropes to “convince” the guys.
“You know what women are like!” “She went crazy bro!” “I’m telling you, she’s just pissed at me for not calling!” “Just wait, she’ll change her mind!”
This is not immature behavior, this isn’t a “boy” talking. This is the fundamental problem with masculine culture today.
And the men that say, “I protect women!”
When a situation actually arises and a woman is harassed on the streets, they’re the ones that tends to go “I didn’t get what was going on. Weren’t they just talking?”
So what’s the actual fix?
First. Education.
We need to have a conversation about rape and sexual assault, and what it actually looks like. That in 3 out of 4 times it’s committed by someone the victim knows well and trusted.
That coming forward with an allegation is incredibly hard, and not something anyone does lightly. In most cases, the woman just goes, “I don’t want to make a whole thing of it, I’ll just leave if John shows up.”
And lastly, we gotta talk about male role models.
We live in a media environment, and our role models are fictional characters. When the cool guy in the movie makes a move on the girl, he gets her. There’s no need for the cool guy to show cool ways to handle rejection. He doesn’t get rejected.
Because he’s a “real man”.
And if a woman rejects you, she’s telling you you’re not a “real man!”.
That’s still a bad way to do it, it’s not ‘childish’ to abuse a woman it’s just a terrible thing to do. Children don’t do it either compared to adults
All that’s implying whenever a child reads that is that they’re expected to be evil until proven otherwise anyway.
There’s nothing about that relevant to being a boy or a man, it’s just a terrible thing.
Yes I agree I get into arguments all the time about how society just screeches that men are evil and have unearned privilege or some bullshit and they’re not allowed to complain about anything, and it is horrible to boys and men both growing up and grown
Why engage with women who say stuff like that?
I dont care what any woman thinks about all men because if everywhere smells like shit its probably you.
Nor do I care what other men think about masculinity or manhood because we all define it our own ways.
I intervened in 2 domestic violence incidents years ago (about 3 year gap) both times the women changed stories when the reality of the guy being gone hit. The third time o saw it I just kept walking, its not my business not my problem. Some redditors will say something about my masculinity but I dont care. I doubt they would’ve gotten involved the first two.
Also this just creates a constantly moving goal post. I dont know anyone personally who would say rape isn’t bad. I dont know anyone personally who sees nothing wrong with beating their wife. But basing your condemnation of a man on something as arbitrary as what a specific woman doesn’t like at that moment is nonsense. Does it make me not a man for fucking a woman but opting to not pursue a relationship? Does it make me not a man for not paying a woman im talking to bills? If you listened to them at the time it sure did.
I’d call it out by saying in a neutral-friendly way “Don’t generalize, I’m a man and not x/y/z.”
The’ll probably say something like “Yeah, but you’re different.”
You follow with, “Exactly, all humans are different, some are good some are not:)”
You have made your point and given them food for thought.
Btw, as a woman, I completely agree and echo your sentiments. It is harmful language and I actively avoid it or challenge it. Stereotypes and sexism is wrong, to whomever it is applied. No less so men.