Everyday men have power over me and they abuse me pretty regularly. I've never been groped by Jeffrey Epstein. I have been groped by random men on the street or in a bar. I was sexually assaulted as a child by a regular guy. I'm abused on the internet just about every day by regular guys.

I very much appreciate hearing that you tried to help your friend but I'm not asking you to storm the police station and make them act better. I am asking you to keep confronting where power and dominance intersect with the norms of masculinity in our culture. Because only men can do that. Overwhelmingly, men will not listen to women around this, and we need you guys who do care to stop turning a blind eye to abuse and harassment (not aimed at you personally, but many guys do do this) and to keep advocating for a less dominance-oriented culture. I'm very clear that this is how things change for the better for us all, but what I've learned in 5 years of writing research-based stories about just this is that most men are unwilling to confront patriarchy because A) they know even if it's only subconsciously that they do benefit from it B) they are so steeped in zero-sum thinking that they believe they have something to lose and C) they are afraid that if they say the system is harmful it will read as a failure to cut it in the system and they don't want to lose face or be vulnerable in that way.

And what I also know are these two quotes from famous men:

"Freedom is never willingly given by the oppressor, it must be demanded by the oppressed." ~MLK

"We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim." ~ Elie Wiesel

Of course, in both of these cases to some extent we are all the oppressed and we are all the oppressor because patriarchy hurts everyone and women uphold patriarchy to some extent as well. Don't even get me started on the hypocrites who are advocating for laws against women when they know full well they will get the "care" they need.

Still, overwhelmingly the bad things that happen to women happen to them at the hands of men - quite often men who supposedly care about them, or who are otherwise a regular part of their world. About 25% of college guys admit to coercing women into doing sexual things they didn't want to do. Imagine the actual number, since a certain percentage would never admit that to a researcher. Pretending that there is no power differential, or that there is no entitlement baked into the system is part of turning a blind eye. While I 100% agree that a patriarchal dominance hierarchy is designed to primarily benefit a small elite number of men, the trade off is that those who are "lower" on the pyramid have the right to control and abuse those with less power than they have - and they are supposed to take it stoically because ... that's the system. It's why poor Black women are the most disrespected and abused demographic.

Masculinity as it is imagined in our culture today is fully on board with those dominance hierarchy aspects. That has to be deconstructed and we need men to lead the way.

I'm rarely succinct either, so no problem on that, and I'm more than happy to have a real, honest, respectful conversation with someone, even if we don't agree on everything (or on anything even).