But what about the men?

I don't know if it's always been like this, or if just more people I know personally are showing signs and so it feels like it is changing, but it seems like everyone who isn't a straight white male is getting pissed the hell off. I am mostly seeing this with the women in my social circle, but with other folks too on social media and whatever.

One of my friends had a run in with some guy who was anti-feminism for no particularly well defined reason a while ago, it made her pretty fuckin mad, and with good reason as near as I can tell. I am going to talk specifically about feminism and women here, but this stuff can be extended to pretty much any "minority" group in the USA it seems.

Maybe it has something to do with us "entitled millenials" getting older and more assertive, but people are increasingly unwilling to be the ones who talk calmly and try to educate, to my view their reasons are pretty darn good, they don't see why they should have to teach people that women aren't second class citizens, it's 2016 for goodness sake, why is it even a debate? In every single aspect of life, women still get it worse than men, down to something as basic as what they gave to wear to work. Just today on my Facebook feed I saw two articles about it, one where a woman showed off her bloody feet after night after night of waitressing at a bar in heels, and another where a woman giving the weather report was told, on air, that she needed to put a sweater on because her spaghetti strap dress was inappropriate and drawing complaints.

I did spend a minute trying to find the links, but my google-fu is not strong tonight and my Facebook wall is, well, a Facebook wall, lord only knows where they ended up, I'll probably be reminded of them in one year or some shit.

But back to the point, these women are just as skilled as a man, in the weather ladies case, she had multiple degrees, one of them in medicine, she is a professional and good at her job, and yet she is still not allowed to dress herself.
Oh I didn't make it clear either, the waitress was wearing heels because they were mandatory and part of the dress code, needless to say men's footwear consisted of black shoes, basically like they do everywhere.

The pay gap is still a thing, we still don't believe rape victims often enough, and in general women's opinions and desires are still ignored in favor of men.

Something I saw on a friends wall today that I thought was relevant, if subtle, I mentioned yesterday that one of my coworkers at my old job was looking, and interviewing for others, and that was great, she's posted about it a few times now and on every one, there is a guy who says she should apply at ____, generally a place he already works. These places are clearly not where she wants to work, either they aren't management positions, or they aren't in the industry she is looking in, or they are out of town, or all of the above, and yet these people keep pushing them on her, ignoring when she says she doesn't want to do her time and work her way up the ranks, or when she says she wants to stay in foodservice and isn't terribly in love with the idea of learning how to make airplane parts.

It's never explicitly stated of course, but I have to wonder if they would be saying the same thing in the same way if it was a man who was posting it, I know that when I have talked about looking for new jobs I certainly haven't been treated that way, although my friend group and hers do not overlap very much.

It may be nothing, perhaps she doesn't notice or care, perhaps there is nothing to notice and I am just being over aware of this, but for many(most?) women, every day, it is a very real issue, their opinions and desires are, if not ignored, regarded as less important than a man's opinion in the same discussion, and their options for response are limited at best. In person, many women have to seriously consider if they are going to be in danger if they start arguing with a guy, on the internet they are open to trolls and abuse, and in professional settings they risk termination and essentially being blackballed from their profession if they are too outspoken with the wrong person. Men simply don't have to worry about this that much.

I know I am making it sound terrible, but from the stories, and statistics I have found, I am not exaggerating in the least, does it sound terrible? Having to monitor your every interaction with men because there might be consequences that could literally ruin your life? Being generally treated like a second class citizen in basically every regard? Well, it is terrible, and from where I sit that seems a pretty damn good reason to be pissed off about it.

Now, I probably won't see any backlash to this, or any negative response really, the people who read this blog generally hold similar opinions to me and those who don't, if there are any, tend to not comment, but I guarantee you that if a woman were to copy and past this to her wall or to a Tumblr or something there would be at least one guy(and it will be a guy) saying this: Being angry only scares people away from your cause, you should control your reactions and educate instead.

Something similar anyway. And while that person wouldn't be wrong about education being important, he would be an asshole when posting it in the first place. For one thing, someone posting like that isn't actually looking for a discussion, they are a man dropping in to explain to the woman how to do things properly, that is all they want to do with that. Second, they are telling the woman that her feelings don't matter, and she should ignore them in favor of what makes men comfortable, which most women do constantly every day.

And, possibly more important, is that it isn't the women's responsibility to educate you about feminism and equal rights, the fact that you need to be told that women should be treated the same as men under the law and by the customs of society, is something that you as a functional human being should accept and be teaching to other people. It's my responsibility to tell other men that they are failing at human decency and should improve themselves. It's not like most men are going to listen to a woman attempt to educate them anyway unless they already agree with them, so why should they bother? They may as well get some satisfaction screaming about it instead, at least then someone gets a bit of catharsis.

But seriously, guys, always in conversations about women's issues some guy shows up to make it about them, but this is a situation where it kinda is about you, you have the ability to change minds that women don't, because you are a man and your opinion is, for now at least, respected more than hers, you also have the freedom to argue with someone without the same fear of rape, stalking, or on the job consequences, use it.