So when men come at me with messages like “you’re a bitch because you believe in misandry” or “you scare me with your misandry posts” I want you to know that I want you to be scared. Not because I want to wield some womanly power over you, but because I’m hoping that somewhere, deep down, it is starting to register with you that our dominating systems of power really hurt people.

I want you to realize that walking alone in public as a woman is terrifying.

I want you to realize that women are told to accept violence against them, by partners, by strangers, by the state.

I want you to realize that women are expected to participate in violence against themselves, through skin-bleaching, and dieting, and refusing to ask for help, and by being expected to love and respect people who oppress them. 

Because trust me. The few seconds of pleasure I get out of making a misandry joke is quickly stripped away when I think about the time my boyfriend told me that when I told him “no” it meant “try harder” or when he said he got to decide if it was rape, not his partners, because we were in a relationship and sex was something he was entitled to as a member of that relationship.

It’s stripped away when I think about the time my mother’s husband forced me to drink vodka until I was sick on myself, laughed at me, and told me to clean myself up all because I had the nerve to voice the fact that I didn’t trust him.

It’s stripped away when I think about how, on their wedding night, he stole her car and all her money, bought drugs and hired prostitutes, and had the nerve to deny that my beautiful baby brother was his son when my mother got pregnant.

It’s stripped away when I think about all of the times I’ve been followed home by strange men.

It’s stripped away when I think about the men who have said that I should be grateful if they rape me, because no one could love a fat girl anyway.

It’s stripped away when my dad tells me the story of when he was a teenager and one of his best friends was offered a ride home, but instead, she was brutally raped and murdered. 

And fuck you if you say “not all men are like that.” Because the only thing that phrase does is inadvertently defend the men who are like that. It’s a way of shielding men who harm women, in the smallest and biggest of ways, and I’m sick of it. There is no excuse for harming women because they are women. Never. Ever. Never.