You go to any conversation where issues faced by women are being discussed and you’ll see a few men starting another conversation on how men have it worse. Or how nobody speaks up when the same things happen with men. It’s not that men’s health – both emotional and physical doesn’t matter or is less significant, but why talk about these issues when a woman is talking about her problems.
Here’s a few such instances we found on the internet.
1. This woman’s boyfriend feels that her being upset affects his life in an unfair manner.
When I tell my boyfriend about something that is upsetting me, his response is usually something along the lines of “There’s no reason for you to feel that way. You need to find a way to stop being upset about it because you being upset is affecting my life and that’s not fair to me.”
2. This person shared how a sexism webinar headed by two women turned into a discussion on men not getting paternity leaves.
In a sexism webinar yesterday headed by two brilliant women and it quickly devolved from learning the sheer amount of microaggressions women face daily and systematic exclusion to “why don’t men get paternity leave”. I think my palm went through my face and out the back of my head.
3. A man pretended to be gay and black in order to shut down a woman.
I had a guy DM me to tell me I shouldn’t complain about sexism or racism I’ve faced as a minority woman because he was a “black man in a gay relationship”. Turned out he was pretending to be gay and black in order to shut me down.
4. This man posted on Reddit that relationships are far more work and emotionally draining for men than women.
If a man doesn’t have his shit together(finances, career) he’s much less likely to get into a relationship than a woman who doesn’t have her shit together.
5. This woman was told by her male batchmates that she might have misunderstood her father for not allowing her sister to wear jeans.
My dad wouldn’t allow my sisters to wear jeans.
When I’ve told similar anecdotes at university to people, I’ve been told “Oh, it wasn’t that bad surely! Maybe you misunderstood him”.
6. This woman shared how the topic of a wellbeing talk at her office was turned to hormones from menopause.
We had a wellbeing talk at work today. I work in railways, so very male dominated field. Apparently the topic was supposed to be menopause but they had to change it to hormones so that men didn’t switch off.
Men, you will be better heard if you speak of these issues outside of conversations about women and not steal the limelight.
Do you also know of any such instances where men made the conversations about them? Let us know in the comments section below.
