“hating men is still centering them.”

So women aren’t allowed to feel angry anymore?

Not that long ago, I had an argument with a man on twitter—something I promise never to do again—about this topic. You can read about it here but I will try my best to break it down. He was making an argument that if feminism can prevail on the platform, why can’t misogyny? I was quick to call him uneducated because only an idiot would confuse feminism as the opposite of misogyny. He responded by sending screenshots of women who have expressed on the app that they hate men, asking me how could people like that call themselves feminists? You can’t call yourself that if you certainly despise men, can you?

A few days past, and as if by some miracle, I came across a post on Substack to which its writer was expressing the idea that women who make their entire personality about hating men and talk about their despise for them would let that rage eat them up and that would result in them being unhappy. The comments under the post ranged from people who agreed with her, and communicated their own tiredness with women who constantly talk about hating men. They just want peace. This is not what feminism is about. Women who even say they hate men are coming from a stance of borrowed hatred (like it’s wrong to feel empathy now).

To these women, I will say, I understand. I too fell into this thought process and even wrote an essay about it, outlining my dilemma with feminist movement or, at least, the one I saw online. “Why aren’t they doing something to empower women?” I’d written in my journal. “Like stopping female genital mutilation or child marriages or advocating for women who have been subject to violence in the hands of men? Why was it, I hate men so much and full stop?”

However, I have come to disagree. There are women out there who are doing all these things, who are striving for change and breaking this system that has told men and society it is okay for such things to be done. Secondly, I had delegitimized women’s anger, saw it as useless, forgetting the fact it is such feelings that spark movements . It’s is through that anger and dissatisfaction that the feminist movement even came to be.

I also have a bone to pick with the women who criticize other women for speaking out about their hatred for men, who are voicing out their frustration and anger towards a system, not the individual man they see on the street, a system. A society and the sort individuals it has birthed. Such phrase is a response to either their experiences with men, or the things they have done to women around them and around the world. Why then are you telling them to be silent about their grievances where 1 in 8 girls are subject to rape and sexual violence globally, to which the statistic even worsens in terms of crisis? Where 1 in 4 Nigerian girls experience sexual abuse under the age of 18? Why are you telling them not to be angry, to focus on other things, when the actions of men constantly affect them and the women around them?

This is not to say that there aren’t any bad women—terrible human beings exist and that is a fact. There is just this misconception that the term “I hate men” is a generalization that each individual man is hated or spited. And that is false. It is a linguistic expression that is a response to the acts some men have carried out, to the misogyny they spew and their harmful views on women. It does not mean throwing a stone at every man that comes by, or even worse, not being attracted to them. It is a recognition of the evil the majority of men do, so why should women go pick a life and not recognize these things?

I think such a stance and outlook comes from this purity culture that tells women that they are meant to be meek and forgiving. Anger and hatred isn’t synonymous to the patriarchal standard of femininity. Soraya Chemaly in Rage Becomes Her summarizes this perfectly. She says “…anger in women is delegitimized as a sign of instability, ugliness and a failure of femininity.” Women are expressing their dissatisfaction with men and your reaction is to tell them to “focus more on themselves” or saying “doing so would make you unhappy” in still playing into such stereotype, and awarding this notion that women who hate men are just being bitter.

I would even argue that women aren’t angry enough. We live in a sort of heavily misogynistic society we’re individuals like GehGeh profit off telling men how to treat women badly, dehumanizing women and legitimizing men calling women sexist slurs. We have a society where men can come on the internet, cosplay as women in a way that reinforces misogynistic stereotypes and tag it as skits and you see people laughing it off in the comments. Nobody is telling these men to shut up. No one is saying that they are tired of hearing them talk about women all the time, no one is telling them to talk about something else and get a life.

It is here that you’ll recognize that a double standard exists, which still plays into the idea that women’s anger is seen as some sort of devaluation of her femininity, where we are told to be forgiving towards the things that men can get away with.

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This kind of argument is also coming from a place that deems preoccupation with the hate for men still means centering them. If you’re constantly talking about how much you hate men that means you’re thinking about them and as thus—centering them.

So, in that term you expect a woman who has come to realize that she’s been groomed by a society that tells her being with a man is the bane of her existence to suddenly decide; “You know what? I’ve de-centered them now. I won’t think about them anymore.” And like some magic spell has been cast she isn’t supposed to be preoccupied with the thought of them?

But who does she think of whenever she’s walking down a street at night, or walking down a quiet path, or hopes not to have a bad encounter with when she’s out with friends or in a public bus or Uber?

They do preoccupy our minds—not because we want them to, but because they are apart of our surroundings. We are constantly navigating in an environment to which we know we might be apart of that statistic and thus the term“I hate men” comes in. It is not an obsession with men, it as awareness of things that they may or may not do. A linguistic expression, a detest for the harm that men pose.

Another thing that I’ve come to understand is the meaning of this word hate especially in reference to this topic. Hate in a sense is a very very strong word . Hate makes people do inhuman things and people feel their actions are justified as a result of such feelings, even though in some cases it is not.

Men have been conditioned to hate women because from time, they have seen everything synonymous to femininity as opposite to masculinity. “ Patriarchal masculinity insists that men are inherently different from women, that to be real men they must prove themselves by opposing qualities and values associated with women”, bell hooks writes in The Will To Change: Men, Masculinity and Love. Things that are regarded as feminine are things they are taught to reject, which fuels this hate.

This is why when men—and women—see a man embodying any characteristic deemed as effeminate, they are quick to attack them. Because, anything centering femininity, as a man, is inherently disgusting .

In contrast, the “I hate men” narrative isn’t coming from a place that wants to undermine and oppress and delegitimize everything men stand for. It does not mean wanting to rape them or harm them to make them a marginalized group, again, like I said before it is a reflection, a response that harms no one. Not even the men they say they hate.

Women are angry because anger is all we have left. We’ve cried. We’ve begged. We’ve fought. And still, some men out there profit from our pain and call it entertainment. So stop telling them to not feel that way, don’t jump to conclusions about their personality because they see you as a safe space to discuss about their grievances, stop making them feel like their anger and pain isn’t valid, because in the end, whom does that benefit?