Women's fear of men is holding them back: Patriarchal myth of the month
Sexist men love to make fun of women for "living in fear"--the very fear these men create.
Patriarchy thrives on mythology. That’s why beliefs about the innate and extreme biological differences between the sexes are so integral to patriarchy. It’s why misogynists tend to aggressively enforce gender roles. And it’s why we believe objectively false things, like that men—the gender doing the majority of emotionally influenced violence—are more rational and less emotional than women.
These myths are the water we swim in and the air we breathe, and may remain invisible to us for our entire lives. But once you see them, you can’t unsee them. This is the first installment of a new series about the patriarchal myths we believe, how they influence our behavior, and how to avoid falling victim to the noise and the nonsense. You can read the rest of the series here.
This month I’m talking about the idea that women’s fear of men—not men’s violence against women—is an important social issue, and that convincing women not to fear men should be a priority. Men who make this argument mock and stigmatize women for being fearful, pretend we are overreacting, and imply that we are less intelligent or less reasonable for voicing our terror.
I see it every time I write about women’s fear of men. Some troll dude crawls up from under his bridge to proclaim his heartbreak not that men have made women afraid of them, but that women are vocalizing their fear. This now-deleted comment on this piece is a perfect example of the rhetorical structure of these arguments:
