TRIGGER WARNING IN EFFECT
Well damn.
This was a hell of a read.
It was a lot. Like A LOT, A LOT!
Not in size as such. It’s your average-sized paperback.
I’m talking content.
As you may have guessed from the title, Men Who Hate Women covers the very icky topic of misogyny and the myriad of forms it takes.
From Incels who commit mass shootings, pickup artists who brag about sexually assaulting their “conquests” to Men Rights Activists quoting fabricated statistics about domestic violence, child abuse, and custody cases.
The list is worryingly long and disturbingly detailed.
I consider myself quite well informed about the more extreme acts committed in the name of misogyny, but I was overwhelmed by the number of cases in the book and those were just the ones that Bates gave detail about. From mass shootings to vans being driven into crowds, the scope of the violence is immense.
I will not lie to you.
This is not a happy read. It’s dark and intense and scarily, all fact.
But it is important.
After Sarah Everard, I wanted to say something I really did. I had all of these thoughts and emotions and feelings and stories running around my head but I did not feel qualified to talk in any depth about the horrific story we all came to know.
Yeah, I have my own experiences but somehow, they didn’t seem valid or important enough in comparison to what I was hearing. I know now that no experience in this area is invalid.
So, because I felt out of my depth, I tried to educate myself. This book was the first step.
It’s horrible and sickening to read the words that men (and women) have said, to read about the acts committed.
But I learned. My God did I learn.
An issue cannot be fixed until it is addressed and acknowledged.
To quote an old friend of this blog (Comedian Daniel Sloss) talk to your fucking boys.
It’s all well and good fronting about how you will protect a woman if you see her in danger or beat up a rapist.
Try preventing one.
Call out your mates when they say shit you know isn’t right. They may be called microaggressions, but the word AGGRESSION is still in there. And they build up.
My man Sloss puts it best: if 1 out of 10 men is shit and the other 9 don’t do anything they might as well not fucking be there. Just because you’re not part of the problem, doesn’t mean you’re part of the solution and we NEED men to be part of the solution.
You wanna say not all men? Prove it.
I would not recommend this book to people who are extremely affected by trigger warnings of rape, assault, violence, stalking, and murder.
But if you can do it, read it.
Learn.
And talk to your boys.
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