I'm glad that you and your partner are still going strong and finding happiness together, but the rest is just delusional. I mean c'mon... Read the newspaper, FFS.
It's a shame that I have to do this work for you, but clearly that's a part of the work that is missing - hardly any men are willing to actually educate themselves on the facts or to even begin to truly understand the social dynamics that they benefit from every day at women's expense - even if they don't ask for that or intend it.
"Before the pandemic 243 million women and girls were victims of sexual and physical violence. Since the pandemic, this number has risen to 736 million women and girls."
This goes on, not due to "a few bad apples" (736 million bad apples?) but because of a culture of traditional masculinity that not only allows this but tacitly condones it as a central aspect of masculinity based in domination of others and control of women. The fact that you have no interest in behaving this way doesn't negate that it IS central to the societal pressures and training that most men face. It goes on because good men like you spend too much of their time blaming women and not enough time challenging the culture that harms them — and you and other men as well.
Stop blaming women for all of the things that patriarchal society does to them and to you. It's highly misogynistic and frankly, beneath you. You were a “nice” guy who didn’t have any self-confidence. You got some coaching on how to work with that. Stop making that women’s fault that you didn’t know how to market yourself before then. You don’t know anything about the women who rejected you and who they ended up with, and to be honest, they don’t owe you spit. Stop making up stories at women’s expense. It’s beneath you, and it’s hateful and mean.
"More than 220 women who are current or former national security personnel have signed a letter saying have been victims of sexual assault and harassment or know someone who has. They say the impact of the harassment is pervasive that national security has been harmed.
As the letter's signatories saw the recent wave of horrific stories about women in politics, media and entertainment being harassed and assaulted by powerful men, they felt that they needed to speak up as well.
"We see that this is an issue that doesn't just affect Hollywood, it doesn't just affect Silicon Valley, it affects women everywhere," says Ben-Yehuda. "Let's leave the armor for the battlefield because women would really like to get back to work.
Multiple women told CBS News that they filed claims of sexual harassment or assault as State Department employees that did not result in any repercussions for the perpetrator."
Half of young men in the UK believe that feminism has "gone too far" despite the fact that demonstrably, it hasn't gone far enough in the UK (or anywhere else).
"This explains the high levels of misogyny, abuse, casualized violence, and objectification women experience every day," Smethers told Global Citizen via email. "We need a step change in men's attitudes if we are going to reverse it."
Despite the perceptions of young men surveyed, critics would argue that feminism has not gone far enough in the UK. The UK now ranks 21st on the World Economic Forum’s Gender Equality Index. Women in the country remain underrepresented in politics, and the gender pay gap is not narrowing."
In 2019 Kate Manne was named one of the world’s top ten thinkers by Prospect magazine. In this book (Entitled), she looks at everything from himpathy — a term that she coined to describe inordinate sympathy for male perpetrators of misogyny or sexual misconduct — to structural policies and institutional dynamics that disadvantage women in favor of men’s comfort, access to opportunity, and prioritization as the “real” people of the world.
With wincing clarity, Manne explains how a society that organizes itself around the wants and whims of men will radiate that bias into every area of life. . . . Her observations offer that rare brand of insight: the kind so ingenious that it quickly begins to seem obvious.~The Atlantic
I could go ON AND ON AND ON, but will probably save it for a story that I can least make some money off of for my effort.
You are very clearly not doing the work, if you wrote this essay, and neither are the other men who left supportive comments. Get your heads out of your collective asses because as Jackson Katz points out, changing the world for women actually benefits you all as well, in all sorts of ways - both direct and indirect.
If you don't know what those are, again, go do your own work around that. If you don’t know what you can do to contribute to changing the culture, again, you aren’t doing the work. If you don’t know the ways that greater gender equality affects men’s life expectancy, happiness, and health — go do your own work around that.
Nearly all of you are slacking magnificently — so much so that you don’t even realize how much. It’s a kind of Dunning-Kruger of massive masculine delusion.
And the culture isn’t going to change for the better until you and a whole lot of other men stop whining about how unfair it is that your unearned privilege is being challenged and start actually doing the actual fucking work. Women have to do their part too, but men need to lead the way — starting with not being so GD pathetic and clueless.
Transformative social change will come about only if a critical mass of men realize that it is in their self-interest to reduce the level of men’s violence against women.
There is a further benefit to making the issue of gender violence personal. When men can feel the issue in their hearts as opposed to intellectualizing it in their heads, they are much more likely to gain the self-confidence necessary to confront their fellow men. It often takes special courage and strength for men to risk confrontations with friends and colleagues about the mistreatment of women, to rise above possible ridicule and disbelief, and to withstand whispering campaigns about their manhood if they refuse to conform to sexist and abusive norms.
Katz, Jackson. The Macho Paradox (p. 50). Sourcebooks. Kindle Edition.
