The Saddest Bitch in all of Spectrum

TW: mention of rape + abuse

Let me tell you a little bit about me. I get scared of men. I feel a lot more comfortable in the company of women and non-binarys. I will cross the street to avoid walking past a man. I am more like to engage in a conversation with someone who is not a man. I am more likely to interact with people on social media who are not men. If a man tries to talk to me on the street, I will probably try to leave the situation. I am more likely to want to be friends with you if you are not a man.

The reason I act in this way is because I was raped and abused by a man. I still suffer from PTSD. I have spent a lot of time in the psychiatric health care system and I have heard a lot of stories from other survivors of rape and abuse. 

Men scare me so much.

Some times I might say: “I am scared of men” or sometimes I might say: “I hate men”. People (men, mostly) love to say: “You can’t say that!! You can’t say you hate men just because of the actions of some men! Not all men are like that!!” 

To which I will always respond: “Fuck you.” You do not have the right to tell me how and how not I can respond to the hurt I have felt. You do not have the right to tell people how to react to the crimes that have been committed against them.

Recently, the term “misandry” has seen a surge in popularity. It is the claim that the way I act and feel towards men is an act of oppression. 

Fuck that noise. Fuck it so much.

The word “misandry” has been created to shame people like me. To make me and people like me feel bad for feeling the way we do. If you ever use the word “misandry” unironically in a sentence, that is an act of undermining and disregarding the experiences and emotions of people like me. 

I joke about misandry because it is a ridiculous concept. 

I have men in my life who I love. There are men who I love to talk to, and every single one of them understands gender dynamics. I know that they would never ever abuse the power they hold over my fear. I know that if I told them that “I hate men” they would say that that’s okay. None of them would ever try to tell me things I obviously already know like “not all men are like that”. 

That’s all, I just really have to type these things out sometimes.

[I understand that I’ve only mentioned gender here, and there are more dynamics to any situation as experienced by different people who have experienced different forms of oppression. I think the same kind of idea could be applied to other ridiculous notions like “reverse racism” etc…]