The weapons sexist men use in fights: Blaming women for their reactions to bad behavior

Subscriber bonus: How men stigmatize women's anger and sadness, and ignore what causes these emotions

This is part of a new paid subscriber-only feature identifying and deconstructing the arguments sexist men use in fights with women—mostly in fights with partners, but sometimes in arguments online, with bosses, colleagues, and other women who question them. The experiences women have with men in private are as much collective experiences as they are individual ones. Men inevitably bring male privilege to their relationships. And men who do not actively work on their own sexism will weaponize it in fights. Politics are personal, and they influence our closest relationships.

Identifying sexist patterns in relationships is incredibly important for pushing back.

“You sure sound angry!”

“You’re always criticizing me.”

“I can’t do anything right.”

“You’re never satisfied with anything!”

“Stop nagging me!”

“You’re being hysterical.”

“God, why are you so emotional?”

Do any of these complaints sound familiar? They’re a favorite tactic of men who want to escape accountability: ignoring a woman’s complaints, then getting angry at her for her reaction to his bad behavior. This approach weaponizes sexist tropes about emotional, hysterical women, and labels any emotional reaction at all as unacceptable.

Men do this because they are raised from birth to believe that women should never hold them accountable for their actions. Because in a patriarchal society, giving flows in one direction, and women are not entitled to decent treatment from men. So women’s reactions to negative treatment are stigmatized as if those reactions, not the negative treatment, are the problem.

This is the notion behind hatred of feminists, the core belief driving the nonsense the right spews against “woke” culture, and a key driver of many heterosexual couples’ fights.