Resent how women's responses are viewed as aggressive, hostile, & rude if they're not deferential to men, requiring women to kneecap their statements & coddle men. Particularly since I intentionally work to remove that from my language to counter that conditioning. 🧵 Especially resent how men who think themselves not like those red hat misogynists enforce this too. Words that from a man would simply be viewed as neutral or confident become uncivil when from women. And men will show no curiosity about their biases.

When people, particularly men, inform me a topic isn't serious, like pockets, there are bigger issues - I know. I am capable of caring about lots of things. I'm also aware of how discrimination is normalized & enforced. The small facilitates the large. 🧵 When I'm informed I shouldn't care about the microaggressions, the inconveniences, the casual misogyny, bc the sexual assaults, domestic violence, & femicide (which they also don't care about) should be my focus, I'm struck by the lack of curiosity about how the latter happens.

One of the more obnoxious parts of bear discourse is all the women & men taking time to hold men's hands & explain the point of the hypothetical to alleviate men's self-pity to justify their harassment. The endless coddling & centering men so they wouldn't be sad bois (& abusive) A hypothetical highlighting women feeling unsafe, the trauma & anxiety we're forced to carry, became about men's feelings. Which is how it always goes when women try to talk about oppression, abuse, or even asking a partner to be a partner. That manipulation is exhausting & evil.

Imagine if women were declaring they wouldn't care or do anything if they saw a child being assaulted. They'd even whip out a phone to film it & laugh. They even think kids deserve to be murdered for not being deferential enough. Because we don't owe kids, we'd only protect ours. There would be death threats.

But men do this regularly while still trying to sell their "protector" nonsense. Because women are expected to be nurturers, mothers, & failure to do so means the woman is an aberration, despite this role being placed upon women, not chosen.

Not All Men, Real Men, he's gay, he's a boy - all these deflections & derailments are meant to preserve the title of (het) Men as noble, heroic, & strong. It's how men signal they do not care about the issue & will not address it but polishing the shine on their title is priority Man isn't just a gender to them, it's a station of superiority, a title synonymous with dominance & admiration. Women being hurt by men is an individualized experience but calling out men who harm is a stain on their pristine title, which cannot stand.

When we talk about men using women/girls' bodies in their power larps to impress other men, the "I'll kill my daughter's boyfriend" is a glaring example. The "protection racket" of patriarchy extends to daughters. This is also rape culture. To be clear, the chance this man would ever hurt a boy/man for harming his daughter is practically nonexistent. More likely he'd blame her. This performance is for men. Hero larps are power fantasies to impress men. Girls are merely props to facilitate them.

Something sad about this, if it's understood to mean he was enduring sexual exploitation so early in his life, is how normalized his abnormal journey is & how victims are vulnerable to re-victimization. Predators benefit from previous abuse. It's also disturbing the response. There appears to be less anger over the grooming of a child by a powerful adult & more at the rejection of the predator not being attractive enough to "deserve" her victim. Such a twisted & misogynistic take.

I'm going to tell a story about Good Ones, why I don't vouch for men, & how all men benefit from the violence of other men. 1/12 Years ago I had a friend online who was trying to escape an abusive husband. She had no support system, by design, not even from her own family. She did have some online friends & we had a lot of mutuals. One was a man who was charming, well-liked, & seemed kind & supportive. 2/

Misogynistic men often push back on the description bc they claim they love women (bc they love sex). They can't be misogynist bc they love the labor their mother or wife provides them, the adoration of a daughter. They love what women provide them & call that love. They'll claim since they don't describe their bigotry as hate, it isn't. Hate can look like/acted on in different ways. The belief women are inferior, deserving of different treatment, existing to fulfill different roles - that they wouldn't accept it for themselves.

Nice is hugging someone who is sad. Kind is asking them if they'd like a hug bc some ppl are averse to touch.

Nice is telling someone you'll pray for them. Kind is recognizing your beliefs aren't the default, some ppl have trauma or find them offensive, & offering them support. Nice is what the majority have deemed socially acceptable. It's a performance of conformity, often with little consideration for others. Kind is thoughtful. Nice is often used by cruel ppl who are "nice" bc they have the appearance of goodness & don't go against social order.

Don't think forced-birthers, & men in general, realize the shift forced birth has created in their responsibility in sex. Until now women accepted the burden solely upon them for men being thoughtless, irresponsible, even predatory in their ejaculations bc they could correct it. Once a joke to illustrate a point about men not experiencing any gov interference in their sex lives or over their bodies is now a sincere issue. Consent to sex is no more consent to preg than transportation is consent to crashes. Accidents happen but ppl are still held liable.

So much of men's insults for women are blatant confessions of their own fears. They're terrified of dying alone, of one day learning their transactional relationships resulted in no one truly loving them, so they project this on women. 1/ They're horrified of aging, of becoming irrelevant, powerless, of not obtaining all they believe they're owed & were promised. A friend posted this comment on why he thinks suicide rates are highest among middle age white men. 2/

The claim that men don't protect women because feminism is frankly laughable. Men have never protected women. Never. The protection racket is all promise (and threat), no protection, to extort submission from women. Feminism didn't make men cowards, it acknowledged it. 1/ Men claiming they won't protect women "now" because women said this, feminism said that, is victim blaming. If you're claiming you wouldn't help a woman because feminism hurt your feelings, your hollow claims of heroism are entirely self-serving. 2/

When men call women "gold diggers" (to reverse power dynamics), they're indicating they're capable of understanding a transactional relationship. Yet when you point out misogyny, there's usually the claim they can't be misogynists because they have a wife/gf. 1/ Suddenly they don't understand using someone to extract a good. Het men who hate women pursue & marry women because they enjoy the services they extract without compensation. They understand the role they expect of women & desire that, not the human being. They don't love her. 2/

Often think about what I would tell my younger self if I could go back to my teens onward & teach myself of signs to look for to avoid certain men. What would my "Red Flags & Deal Breakers, Run, Girl" book contain, complete w/ explanations so my stubborn self could understand? 1/ Men who are unkind or demanding about changes you make to your appearance. If they can't handle you changing, if they won't support your bodily autonomy, it will escalate. And he sees you as an object for his design. 2/

Cannot adequately express how unsympathetic I am to tweets/articles handwringing about the "loneliness" of boys/men because they're not having sex. Girls are preyed upon by men, w/ men advocating for the impregnation of teens, & sexually abused w/ lasting trauma by boys/men. 1/ Perhaps boys/men are "lonely" precisely because we continue to relate their social success in terms of heterosexual sexual achievement. And perhaps that's also why so many girls/women experience sexually traumatizing events. 2/

Very few het misogynists accept that they hate women because they believe a desire to have sex with women, to have them serve as caretakers & provide children, negates hatred. And that's a unique aspect of a bigotry that objectifies, desires, & relies on its target of hatred. 1/ And because they view women as inferior, unreliable/untrustworthy, and deserving of dominance, they do not respect women to assess their own oppression or the threat of bigots. So they dismiss women's identification of their misogyny. 2/

Charlie Kirk trots out that tired fear-mongering that childfree women are miserable & on antidepressants, which reminded me of this observation. Women/girls' (alleged) mental health issues are a justification for shaming, paternalism, & oppression. Like other marginalized groups Women are allegedly unhappy because they're educated, career-oriented, not married, and/or childfree. And the solution is dependency on a man and oppression. But what do we hear about men/boys every other week? Their mental health is in crisis.

One thing I don't think men appreciate is how often women are informed a successful man is a rapist. I'm sure it's surprising for men to hear too - whoa I had no idea that guy had a string of accusations - but for women it's a weekly reminder that accusations don't harm careers. I'm not even getting into the debate about whether or not accusations justify employers taking precautions to protect their artists and products - they do - rather just the fact that someone well-known can have accusations and it matters so little it's not common knowledge.

Whenever I see men complaining about their wives not being interested in or losing interest in sex, I have an informed guess why. This reddit breaks down the usual explanations I've heard/read from women. And a happy ending (for her). Women enjoy sex too, if men make it enjoyable Credit to Clementine Ford for these screenshots. If you're on FB, I recommend following her.

I'm not interested in putting this guy on blast, I'd already blocked him before I discovered these messages, but I wanted to use this exchange to highlight how patriarchy frames women as deserving suspicion & scorn, men deserving of sympathy & protection. 1/ I encountered a guy on a thread about false accusations. He replied stating that stats were wrong because he knows women are liars and false accusations are common. I challenged his assertions and DM guy showed up to be his wingman. 2/