Stop the ‘me too’ thing. Please. It both misses and proves the point women are trying to make, which is quite an achievement, and it’s embarrassing.
Yes, men are assaulted, yes, men are raped but not in the numbers and not with the frequency with which women are so treated. And it isn’t even about the numbers anyway, horrific though they are.
We men are not raped by women because we are men; we men are not groped, fondled, humiliated or cat-called by women because we are men; we men do not die violent deaths at the hands of current crazed or ex partners at a rate of around two per week; because, lads, we are not structurally, systemically and institutionally disadvantaged by a matriarchal society *because* we are men.
When someone tries to raise awareness of cancer, no one indignantly, and with a wounded sense of entitlement, whinges ‘but what about HIV? People suffer from that too!’ (see also ‘Black Lives Matter, by the way). Because no one would be that stupid, insensitive and fucking self-obsessed.
We do indeed live in a patriarchal world but, fellas – whisper it – it isn’t always about us.
Harry Paterson
