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I don’t know why it took my seeing men I hated seemingly unbothered by my obvious distaste towards them for me to rationalise that disliking men only drives me crazy not them. They just don’t care—that’s the wake-up call that I needed. I nearly lost my mind when I was fifteen and extremely vocal about my distaste and even blatant hatred for the entire male species. I know I’m not the only one who went down the path of hardcore misandry. Luckily my mum didn’t allow me on twitter at that age because I shudder to think what tweets I would have made because geez…I was really passionate about my negative attitude towards men.

Of course, the statements “men are s**t” or “men ain ’t s**t” are just but a few examples of statements that became my national anthem. I mean come on it’s easy to dislike men when they tend to objectify women and or sexually harass women. Then there’s that evil breed of men that watch as you bear the brunt of sexual objectification and do absolutely NOTHING about it. They just watch the abuse unfold and sometimes throw in a laugh or a snicker at your unfortunate situation.

It’s easy to dislike men when you are just a little kid wearing jeans and they stare blatantly at your backside. It is easy to hate men when you watch the news and see how many male world leaders are starting wars and literally funding violent deaths. It is easy to hate men when you have a conversation with them and they belittle you by prattling on and on about how emotional and unintelligent you are—despite passionately stating facts the same way they are.

It’s easy to hate men when they have set the tone and precedent for beauty standards that have done nothing but destroy and wreck your self-esteem. Men in academia, men in corporate spaces, men in families and men in social spaces and just about any space you can think of whether it is a niche or not are mostly similar—-they destroy.  It’s easy to hate men when they don’t understand consent or the simple two letter word no. The list of why it’s easy to hate men is infinite. I could write volumes and volumes about it in my lifetime and still feel irrevocably dissatisfied about not finishing the list.

Regardless of these facts, hating men or rather hating anyone is just altogether bad for your mental health. From my experiences, hating anyone doesn’t satisfy you in the slightest because whilst you’re propped on your bed reeling about how much you hate a man, it could be your dad, your male friend, your classmate or colleague–I can guarantee that they probably aren’t thinking about you the same way you’re thinking about them. They aren’t even phased because your feelings towards them have no impact in their lives. They will wake up and go get their bread without being struck by lightning or being stepped on by a giant casually taking a walk through the streets—it’s unfortunate that these occurrences of justice don’t happen in real life. That was a joke. I was kidding. Kinda.

At the end of the day the one who bears all the hatred suffers. That hatred festers and spreads through your body like a deadly cancer. That hatred proceeds to envelope you in negative emotions that breed nothing but pain and violence. Hatred is worse than that monster under the bed or the monster in the closet that you were terrified of as a child. Hatred consumes your being and saps all the happiness in your life. The hatred makes you centre men and that becomes the only thing you know and understand. As Nicki Minaj says, “I’m out here livin’ though” and that’s what men are doing. Your hatred dear reader is pointless because it does not affect the object of your hatred which is men. I know, it’s a real doozy.

Hating men means that your life is only fixated on men and what said men are doing in their lives. It means you live your life centering men. You, as a man hater make men the primary objective or think piece of your life. In other words, your hatred for men becomes somewhat of a school project. Albeit an impossible school project that you will fail. Hatred leads to an unhealthy obsession. Have you noticed that when you sit with your female friends all you can talk about is how much you all hate men? When you remove the equation, which is how much you hate men, do you still think you can have insightful and helpful conversations?

Your conscience ends up belonging to the object of your hatred. Because you hate men, all your thoughts and that beautiful mind of yours ends up belonging to them. Which kind of sucks because part of your hatred is fixated on emancipating yourself from them right? Right? So wouldn’t it be extremely regressive to enslave your mind to them? By that, I mean they own your conscience which could be considered your very being. All your mind can think about and formulate is just consistent hatred, distaste and disdain for men. Wouldn’t we rather think about other things? Wouldn’t we rather talk about other things?

I know patriarchy and sexism isn’t an easy topic to go back and forth about. Everything about patriarchy and sexism is super nuanced when it links to the hatred of men. But get this, we’re out here preaching that men are trash but we also seek equality. I don’t know about you but I don’t fancy the idea of preaching that men are trash, that men must die when I want women to be treated equally. It just seems regressive.

Don’t get me wrong, I know the hatred of men is not about all men. It’s about the bad men, the rapists, the sexists, the aggressors, the abusers, the war-mongers, the belittlers, the online misogynists, again…the list is inexplicably long. What if instead of hating men, we ignored them? What if we desensitise ourselves from the awful things that they do? When you see men, especially the ones who are chronically online and you browse through their sexist tweets that are so out of touch with reality why reply? Why react, especially if the comments are absolutely disgusting and degrading? Imagine if a mentally ill person insults you, would you take it personally? Probably not. You’d just ignore it and move on so why not do the same with regards to men? Sometimes it’s always best to realise that these men are trying to get a rise out of you so why would you give them what they want? Do not give men the satisfaction of thinking they have got you wrapped around their finger. Try indifference and apathy.

Indifference or rather apathy goes a very long way when dealing with men. Apathy and indifference to me, are the art of not caring. The art of not acknowledging men…the evil ones and the bad ones, even the good ones if you don’t want. Another thing to think about is why hate a gender you’re attracted to unless you’re an incel which I hope you aren’t. You’re not an incel right? RIGHT? Hating a group of men you are attracted to is a major disservice to yourself. Remember that you could have a brother, a dad, a grandfather, a nephew, a cousin or an uncle. Your hatred for men could destroy the relationship between you and the men in your life. So don’t do that to yourself.

Letting go of your hatred for men is more for you that it is for them. In fact, it has nothing to do with them.

I cannot tell women especially those who have had heinous experiences with men, how to feel about them. I just wanted to share my piece about how hatred nearly swallowed me whole. I have a disdain for men who have violated me and treated me like I’m subhuman but I have decided to let that hatred go. It doesn’t serve me a purpose nor will it ever serve me a purpose to carry so much hatred? It only hurts me in the end. I would rather occupy my time and energy on different things. I’ve made a pact with myself, instead of focusing on the evil men that have done me and others horribly wrong, I’ll just focus on the few good ones that I know.      

“Hate, whether turned inward or out, creates a destructive state of mind that wreaks havoc with your physical health and emotional well-being. And like a hot coal, the sooner you rid yourself of this toxic emotion, the less damage it can do and the healthier and happier you’ll be. Feed hatred and it will grow. Confront it, understand it and disassemble it and you will grow.”

Dr. John H. Sklare.

• The “Weird” Brown Girl