Scared men

That feminist movements are changing society is an indisputable fact, although there are those who think that we continue to live in an extremely heteropatriarchal world. There are also those who believe that you can live the same way and get to the same places as a man or a woman. And then there are those who argue that now women play with an advantage. Lately I hear a lot of comments like “the worst thing there is right now is being a straight white man” or “to win the Nobel you have to be black or a woman.” I heard this phrase a week ago from the lips of a very indignant man. In 2021, twelve men and one woman were awarded the Nobel Prize. And Abdulrazak Gurnah is the first black African to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature since 1986. So what kind of distorted reality do these people live in?

They are men who feel discriminated against. Who are convinced that women are taking their place and act accordingly. Angrily, aggressively, with tantrums as a small child whose toy has been taken away. It never ceases to amaze me that they see it that way. If before 95% of positions of power were male and now 70% are, of course there are fewer men in those spaces, but that is not discrimination, my friend, it is social justice. Why do you accumulate so much anger, so much fear, so much bad temper? You still have it much easier.

It reminds me of class hatred, when the one who considered himself superior did not tolerate that others could occupy the positions that belonged only to his kind. Ah, what’s still going on? Tell those who decide even the words with which we name the world. The other day, a politician corrected the journalist who was interviewing her: there is not a left front, she told her, but a progressive space. Speaking of left and right today is stale, although there are still parties that defend social justice and others that ensure the supremacy of the economic elites. Those same, by the way, who want to regulate our bodies and our lives (not to abortion, not to the change of sex, not to the laws that try to prevent us from being killed).

But, and going back to the men who have to live this moment, which for me is one of change even if it is slow, I also see many misplaced, and I understand it. It is not easy to grow up in a world where you have been governed by rules since you can remember and suddenly they no longer work, but no one tells you where to buy the manual. You never gave importance to saying compliments to the girls, you thought he was nice and now it turns out that you are harassing them. You always made jokes about whores, that was also funny, you even used the services of some, they sucked you in exchange for a ticket and you thought that everything was fine because you paid and you were polite. You don’t even know whether to let a woman in first after opening the door or to go in and wait. Nor do you know if it is okay to invite the drink, are you ‘machirulo’ if you do it or stingy if not? You come home from work, you ask your partner if you help her with dinner, and what she notices is that you say “help” as if it were not a shared task. But if it never was, right? It’s a mess, really.

And that’s not to mention the sex. No, let’s not talk about sex because there you don’t give one; Before, you knew how to handle yourself and now you are more lost than the rice boat that never arrived. Like them, who never come, and that you do the same as always, what you saw in the porn movies of your whole life.

And then you show up for a job and it turns out that they give it to a woman and you get angry, because you (like everyone else, don’t fool yourself) are convinced that you are the best and if she has taken it, it is because the bosses Now they are scared, you have to give a good image and that implies skirts at the management table. What a fucking injustice. What the hell of time have you lived.

So you go to Twitter and rant, and have dinner with friends and you keep complaining, those ugly, bitter witches are screwing our lives, right now the worst thing is to be men like us. And then you go home, it’s three in the morning, a woman walks ahead of you, picks up your pace, changes the sidewalk, and you don’t even realize it. You don’t realize that he is doing it because he is afraid of you. Because they have taught her that coming home at night is dangerous, that any man can be a life-destroying rapist. And to top it all, there are people who do not want me to have an abortion or because of that. To bear with the trauma and with the child, better if it is quiet and without taking it for granted. You have no fucking idea that her friends are waiting at home to receive the message that she has arrived to go to bed quietly. And you still believe that the one who is screwed in this unfair world is you.