Why you don’t get to be angry when women say “men are trash”

Ah, the time honored saying passed down from generation to generation of women, imparting valuable advice and comfort all at once. A platitude that has truly stood the test of time and will continue to endure for years to come.

“Men are trash.”

Already I can hear the “but not all men!” chorus of self identifying male feminists as they distance themselves from their sexist, women hating compatriots. These are the same men that tweet about women’s body count and think the Friendzone is a legitimate trap for some truly nice dudes.

Here’s the thing though: it kind of is all men?

Let’s look at the numbers. 

Each day, 3 or more women are murdered by their boyfriends or husbands. 55% of homicdes over the past 10 years have been the result of domestic violence between a man and a woman. 1 out of 6 women has been the victim of an attempted or completed rape. This jumps to 25% of women that are sexually assaulted when you look at the college undergraduate population.

There are no statistics for the number of tweets or Facebook posts calling women sluts or whores or bitches or any other number of slander. There are no numbers for the amount of dates turned predatory or the number of men that feel their friendship with a woman warrants her owing him sex. There’s no studies on the amount of times women have been emotionally mistreated by men they trusted.

I could go on for hours.

We say men are trash because the odds are stacked in the favor of that conclusion. Our so called bitterness or cynicism or “cold hearted bitchiness” is the only way we can protect ourselves from emotionl and physical damage. And maybe you really aren’t part of the problem (though there are hundreds if not thousands of years of gendered socialization and enforced behavioral norms that say otherwise), but by insisting that you are special, you are different, you’re missing the damn point.

It doesn’t matter to us if a guy here or there is good through and through. It’s systemic. It’s like arguing that racism isn’t an issue because you, yourself aren’t racist (again, that’s probably not true either). 

When we say men are trash we are saying that the behavioral patterns men are conditioned to follow and encourage are destroying women.

It’s not you, it’s your socialization! Your fragile male ego will live to see another day.