It’s taking all my willpower not to become a misandrist.

I tried to learn about men’s rights and advocate for them.

I really tried. Even now, I call out harmful rhetoric in my friend groups. I try to present neutral, balanced takes when it comes to relationships, gender, dating, sex, employment, child care, domestic work, what not.

I thought I should explore men-centric subs (I won’t name them) to gain more insight into how they think and feel. I wanted to understand.

And I did understand. A lot of international subs were fine. But the ones from my country?

Many comments implied wanting… ukw? I won’t repeat their exact words. But they called women slurs. Claimed horrifying things about women. Not like “all women are false accusers” or whatever. Even that I could understand. But comments like “they deserve (insert harm)”, “serves them right”, “this is why we shouldn’t have given them rights”, etc. One man wished rpe and mrdr upon me for siding with another man (and not him) in an argument.

Every shred of anger they felt was expressed through rpe threats. The moment a woman does something bad, they want to rpe her. Like they’re stalking us like predators would, waiting for that slip up that allows them to hurt us.

As I read more and more, my empathy has become depleted. I no longer fight for men’s rights. They can do their own thing. I’m now firmly fighting for women’s dignity.

And I know someone is gonna bring up my dad and brother. To them, I say, they’ve demonstrated that they see me as a human and they don’t sexualise me. They don’t spend hours fighting me and belittling me for wanting dignity. And since that’s unfortunately not the default, I won’t offer that level of care and trust to strangers until I’m convinced they’re safe people.