This Is Why I Refuse to Go Easy on Men

The evidence is irrefutable: compared to women, we take the cake on being bad.

Photo by Slavcho Malezan on Unsplash

If you were to pick 100 single heterosexual men off the street and ask them what makes a woman a keeper, what do u think they would say if they were honest?

More than likely, they would say she has to be hot because, well, most men are intensely visual.

Besides that, the next thing on the list would probably be something along the lines of, “She has to respect me as a man.”

If you were to push further and ask what they mean by “respect,” the answer would likely be a variation of “I want a submissive/agreeable woman who lets me lead.”

Not all, but a good chunk of them definitely would respond this way.

Essentially, men want a hot, agreeable woman who allows them to do whatever they want.

Conversely, if you asked 100 women the same question, you would get responses like emotional maturity, stability, good chemistry, and consistency.

The answers women give would be vastly different from men’s, even though you might find some overlap here and there.

When you pull back and look at the situation in its entirety, men approach relationships primarily from a mindset of extraction, while women approach them primarily from a mindset of risk management.

So why am I bringing this up?

The reason is to lay the groundwork for why I’m harder on men when discussing dating and relationship issues.

It’s not that I hate men. I am a man, too, after all, so hating men would mean hating myself, which I don’t.

I do it because I want men to do better and, in doing so, eliminate many of the pain points women face.

Were that to happen, I believe it would create a much more positive environment for everyone, including men themselves.

The stats paint a grim picture

When it comes to domestic labor, we are slacking. Sociological research shows that even when both partners work full-time, women still perform a disproportionate share of unpaid domestic labor and childcare. Add to that the lost opportunity costs that women exclusively suffer when they have kids.

On the emotional labor front — the planning, scheduling, and anticipating needs at home — the same lopsided imbalance shows up.

How about safety, which encompasses things like:

1. Emotional, physical, and financial abuse.
2. Sexual assault.
3. Intimate partner homicide.
4. Coercion and control.
5. Stalking.
6. Family abandonment.

It’s not even a contest. We absolutely dominate in every one of the above. And I’m only including the behaviors I can think of in the moment.

Even something like cheating, a phenomenon notoriously difficult to measure, we still somehow manage to come out on top.

And if that wasn’t bad enough, we have statements like these from King’s College London, which proves my earlier prediction entirely:

31% of Gen Z men agree that a wife should always obey her husband, and one-third (33%) say a husband should have the final word on important decisions, according to a new global study of 23,000 people.

By contrast, far fewer Gen Z women agreed that a wife should always obey her husband (18%), and an even smaller share of Baby Boomer women (6%) held that view.

And don’t think for a second that millennial men fared any better. They were only 2 percentage points lower than Gen Z.

So if 1 out of 3 men believe this, then surely we should be able to hold them to a higher standard. After all, they are the ones who believe they should be the leaders in the relationship. And with leadership comes accountability.

Can you now see why I’m hard on men?

It’s not to say women are perfect, far from it. Shitty women exist, but it still doesn’t excuse the harm we are collectively doing.

Maybe, just maybe, by highlighting our shortfalls, some of us can learn from that and hopefully become better men for it.