Somehow, MRAs got this idea that feminism is about killing men and taking their place or something. That just goes to show why feminism has to exist, because somehow men’s rights activists took a movement about women and made it about them.

But here’s the thing. The terrible shit that happens to men? We pretty much do all of it to ourselves.

First of all, there’s the idea of toxic masculinity. We raise boys to believe that they have to be tough. “boys don’t cry,” we try and tell them. And because of this, they feel pressured to be tough and to feel nothing, so they’re emotionally stunted and filled with anger.

Second of all, we throw out dangerous ideas that grant them more freedom to be shitty to each other. “boys will be boys,” we say as we write off bad and violent behavior.

Let’s look at that mixture. We’re telling young boys that they aren’t free to express their emotions in the natural way, so they end up bottling up everything. Then, we grant them the freedom to be physically and verbally aggressive to other people.

That’s a dangerous mixture.

Even beyond that, MRAs are so quick to shout “things are bad for men too” at so many things, then when presented with those ideas, they write them off as invalid.

Whenever we talk about the statistics of women who are raped and how it’s a problem and a crime of aggression, men are so quick to say things like “Men get raped too!”

But if you look on Facebook, as soon as someone posts an article about some 35 year old teacher who raped a 17 year old boy, it’ll literally only be the men who say things like “heh, that boy is so lucky” or “wish I had a teacher like that!”

do you know what it means to claim that men are also raped, and then immediately joke about how lucky it is for a man to be raped by a woman?

It means that you don’t give a fuck about other men. It means that you don’t give a fuck about other human beings. It means that literally the only reason that you said it, without caring about the men who are hurt in those crimes, is because you want to take attention away from the VASTLY higher number of women who are raped and make it about you.

“The most terrible thing to men? IS MEN” by @mattjosephdiaz

(via feministingforchange?)