Elle Beau ❇︎
3 min readApr 25, 2023

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Women are angry, they are frustrated, and they are in a significant amount of pain at the things that happen to them pervasively due to a dominance-oriented culture of masculinity. Almost no women actually hate men - they hate that. I'm not discounting that you at times feel hated, but it's in response to a lifetime of being harassed and marginalized - which as you said, is understandable. There's a significant societal power differential, both historically and in the present day.

The difference between men as a demographic who operate out of a dominance-oriented culture of masculinity and individual guys who are trying to challenge that is significant. The "seed of evil" is not within men as human beings, it's very demonstrably within the culture of masculinity in most of the West. And you know that, so why are you taking this so personally?

In the past decade, Black women have been a lot more vocal about how white feminism has marginalized and largely excluded them. I don't feel personally attacked by that, because I haven't consciously done anything to support that - but it doesn't mean that there isn't a lot of room for me to listen and learn and make sure that I'm sensitive to things I might not have been in the past so that I can be a better advocate. That's all that we are asking for from men - that you do that same thing.

And if I hear one more guy say, "I didn't do it" I think I'm going to lose my mind! If you are a member of the dominant demographic in a society, someone who has benefited from inequality (even if you never wished to do so) and if you fail to confront the structures that maintain that violence and inequality, then you are nearly as culpable as the men who did the actual things. The fact that you didn't do anything is a significant aspect of the problem. This shit isn't perpetrated by aliens or monsters - it's overwhelmingly perpetrated by our friends and neighbors, our partners, and clergy. These guys are your friends and neighbors, fathers and brothers too. Until you take that on, things will continue in a bad way.

If we are going to dramatically reduce men’s violence against women, we have to understand that individual acts of men’s violence are never isolated incidents but rather part of a larger social and political context that it is in our power to change.

Katz, Jackson. The Macho Paradox (p. 66). Sourcebooks. Kindle Edition.

And if you are one of the guys who is working to confront this stuff, and somebody still says "men" meaning the demographic and the culture of masculinity, they aren't talking about you. You are in the very distinct minority, and although we appreciate your efforts, it doesn't erase what continually and pervasively is still happening in our lives, so please stop making it about you.

Accepting our oppression a little longer so that you guys can wrap your heads around just how fucking horrendous it is and get your egos in check so that you will actually do the introspective work to start to confront this is not a reasonable ask. Remember the blistering tell it like it is rhetoric from MLK that I linked to you recently? That's what it took to eventually get the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Expecting women to be "nicer" about demanding that their humanity be recognized is for your comfort, and I'm sorry to say, that in this instance, we don't really care about your comfort.

All this stuff is not "women's issues" - they are all men's issues - men's issues with a problematic and destructive culture of masculinity, men's issues with turning a blind eye to things that are uncomfortable to confront, men's issue with accepting responsibility for the ways they have allowed this level of violence and marginalization to go on for so long. The solution to this problem is for more men to start actively doing this work. You want less angry yelling from women - that's the only way you're going to get it.

Edit: The TL:DR version is this — Feeling hated because the dominant culture keeps enacting and maintaining practices to keep you in second-class status, where you are just about guaranteed to be sexually assaulted, and underestimated is not on par with feeling hated because those on the receiving end of those oppressive practices don’t like it.

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Elle Beau ❇︎
Elle Beau ❇︎

Written by Elle Beau ❇︎

I'm a bitch, I'm a lover, I'm a child, I'm a mother, I'm a sinner, I'm a saint. I do not feel ashamed. I'm your hell, I'm your dream, I'm nothing in between.

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