I wish more men understood that standing up for women should not be something they only do when it is convenient, when a woman they love is being mistreated, or when they can receive praise for being a good man, because if you genuinely believe women deserve equal rights, respect, dignity, and the freedom to exist without being objectified or degraded, then those values should also be reflected in how you behave when you are around other men who clearly do not share them.
I think one of the biggest reasons misogyny continues to be so deeply embedded in our society is that too many men are willing to tolerate it when it comes from their friends, colleagues, acquaintances, or other men they admire, and while they might privately disagree with certain attitudes, they would rather remain silent than risk making another man uncomfortable, damaging a friendship, or becoming the target of ridicule themselves. They might roll their eyes when another man makes a disgusting comment about a woman's body, laugh awkwardly at a sexist joke, or pretend not to hear a conversation in which women are discussed as if they were objects that exist for men's entertainment, but their silence sends a message that the behaviour is acceptable enough to go unchallenged.
We need to talk more about this because misogyny does not survive exclusively because of men who openly hate women, but also because of the men who witness their behaviour and decide that getting involved is not their responsibility.
Your Silence Is Not as Neutral as You Think
I understand that confronting someone is not always easy, particularly when that person is a friend or someone you have known for years, but I find it difficult to understand why so many men are willing to risk their dignity to protect another man's feelings while expecting women to tolerate disrespect, humiliation, and uncomfortable situations without making a fuss.
Women are constantly expected to manage other people's emotions, to be polite when someone makes us uncomfortable, to avoid appearing difficult, to consider how our reactions might affect a man's confidence, and to think carefully about how we communicate our boundaries so that we do not offend anyone, yet the same consideration does not always seem to be expected of men when they witness their peers treating women badly.
I would love to see more men recognise that they have a responsibility to challenge the behaviour of other men, especially when they are in a position where their words might carry more weight than those of the woman being targeted, because there is a particular kind of frustration in having to explain to someone why a comment about your body is degrading, why a sexist joke is not funny, or why treating women as sexual objects is harmful, only to be dismissed as oversensitive, humourless, or incapable of taking a joke.
When another man steps in and says that the behaviour is unacceptable, the conversation can change completely, not because women need male approval to validate their experiences, but because it becomes much harder for misogynistic men to pretend that their attitudes are normal when the men around them refuse to participate in their little performance.
Imagine how different certain social situations could be if men stopped laughing at degrading jokes, refused to entertain conversations that reduce women to their appearance, and made it clear that they do not find cruelty towards women entertaining or impressive. Imagine if being the kind of man who respects women were considered a basic expectation rather than an exceptional quality that deserves a standing ovation.
Men Need to Stop Protecting Other Men's Comfort
Something that frustrates me about conversations surrounding misogyny is how often the focus shifts away from the person behaving badly and towards the discomfort of the person who calls it out, as though the real problem is not the sexist remark itself but the fact that somebody had the courage to point out that it was sexist.
A man makes a degrading comment about a woman, another man challenges him, and suddenly the discussion becomes about whether the second man is being too serious, whether he is ruining the atmosphere, or whether he should learn to take a joke, while the woman who was the subject of the original comment is expected to move on and not make the situation awkward for everyone else.
I find this revealing because it shows how easily social expectations can be manipulated to protect men from accountability, with the person challenging misogyny being treated as the problem while the person responsible for creating the uncomfortable situation gets to continue behaving exactly as he did before.
Why is it so important to preserve the comfort of a man who is openly disrespecting women, yet so easy to disregard the discomfort of the women who have to listen to him?
Why are men so afraid of being judged by other men for defending women's dignity, when they should be much more concerned about being the kind of person who witnesses cruelty and decides that staying popular is more important than doing what is right?
I would rather see a man risk an awkward conversation with his friends than watch him silently participate in a culture where women are routinely disrespected, because friendship should not require you to abandon your principles, and being accepted by other men should never be more important than recognising another human being's dignity.
You do not have to turn every disagreement into a dramatic confrontation, deliver a lecture, or publicly humiliate someone to make a difference, but you can calmly say that a comment is inappropriate, refuse to laugh at a sexist joke, question an attitude that reduces women to objects, or make it clear that you do not want to be part of a conversation that treats women as though they are worth less than men.
These small moments of resistance matter because they establish what you are willing to tolerate, and they remind other men that their behaviour is not automatically acceptable simply because they are surrounded by people who look like them.
Women Should Not Have to Fight Misogyny Alone
What I would like more men to understand is that women are exhausted by the expectation that we must constantly defend our own humanity, particularly in situations where the people around us could easily make it clear that we deserve respect.
We already spend so much time navigating a world in which our appearance is scrutinised, our boundaries are questioned, our experiences are dismissed, and our reactions are judged, so it is incredibly discouraging when men who claim to care about equality remain passive in the presence of behaviour that contributes to these problems.
It is not enough to say that you respect women when you are speaking directly to a woman, particularly when you are willing to tolerate disrespect towards women as soon as you find yourself in a group of men whose approval you want to maintain.
I pay much more attention to how people behave when they are around their peers than to the opinions they express when they know they are being evaluated, because it is easy to present yourself as a decent person when there is nothing at stake, while your willingness to challenge behaviour that benefits you socially reveals much more about the values you actually hold.
A man who tells his girlfriend that he supports women's rights but laughs along when his friends make degrading comments about other women is not demonstrating the kind of respect he claims to have, because respect should not depend on whether a woman belongs to your family, shares your bed, or has some personal significance in your life.
Women deserve respect because we are human beings, not because we are someone's mother, sister, daughter, girlfriend, or wife, and I wish more men would understand that defending women should not require an emotional connection to the particular woman being mistreated.
You should be able to recognise that a woman you have never met deserves dignity just as much as the women you love, and you should be willing to speak up when someone treats her as though she does not.
This Is How Misogyny Becomes Normalised
One of the most damaging things about misogyny is that it does not always present itself as obvious hatred towards women, because it can also exist in the casual assumptions people make, the jokes they repeat, the conversations they encourage, and the attitudes they accept without questioning them.
When a man repeatedly hears his friends talking about women as sexual objects without anyone challenging them, he may begin to see that way of thinking as a normal part of male social life, particularly when the men around him appear comfortable with it and nobody seems willing to question the underlying disrespect.
When sexist remarks are met with laughter rather than criticism, the person making them receives social encouragement to continue, and the people listening learn that these attitudes are an acceptable way to participate in the group.
This is one reason I believe men have an important role to play in challenging misogyny among other men, because they can help change the social environment in which these attitudes are expressed and reinforced.
If men want to understand why certain misogynistic behaviours continue to be so common, they should consider how often those behaviours are tolerated by people who claim not to agree with them, because disapproval that never translates into action does very little to challenge the social expectations that allow sexism to flourish.
Of course, one man speaking up will not suddenly eliminate misogyny, and I do not expect individual men to solve every problem created by a deeply unequal society, but I do believe that a culture becomes harder to maintain when the people who benefit from its social privileges refuse to defend its harmful attitudes.
Men who challenge their peers can help establish a different standard of behaviour, one in which treating women respectfully is not considered embarrassing, defending equality is not seen as weakness, and a man does not have to sacrifice his principles to prove that he belongs among other men.
I would much rather live in a society where men feel comfortable telling their friends that they are being disrespectful than one where women are expected to accept degrading behaviour because challenging it might make a few men uncomfortable.
Being a Good Man Means More Than Not Being a Bad One
I think we should also reconsider how easily men receive praise for simply not behaving in ways that actively harm women, because being respectful, treating women as equals, and refusing to participate in misogynistic behaviour should be basic expectations of adulthood rather than extraordinary achievements.
A man does not deserve special recognition simply because he does not insult women, pressure them, or openly objectify them, and while these are obviously better behaviours than the alternatives, being a decent human being also involves recognising when other people are being mistreated and deciding not to look away.
You can personally avoid making sexist jokes and still contribute to an environment where misogyny thrives if you consistently allow the people around you to behave that way without any resistance, particularly when your silence is motivated by a desire to remain comfortable, popular, or accepted.
I am not suggesting that men should spend their lives policing every conversation or that every disagreement needs to become an argument about gender, but I do believe that people who genuinely care about equality should be willing to act when they encounter behaviour that clearly undermines it.
Being a good man should not be about receiving approval from women for doing the bare minimum, nor should it be about presenting yourself as one of the rare men who supposedly understands women better than everyone else, but about having the integrity to stand by your values even when doing so does not earn you anything.
I find that kind of integrity much more meaningful than declarations about how much someone respects women, because values are not simply the things we say we believe in, but the principles we are prepared to uphold when doing so becomes inconvenient.
I Want Women to Have More Men in Their Corner
I would love to see more men understand that they do not have to be the target of misogyny to recognise that it is harmful, just as you do not have to experience every form of discrimination personally to understand why it should not be tolerated.
Women should not have to convince men that we deserve respect by explaining every uncomfortable experience we have ever had, and we should not have to prove that a comment was genuinely offensive before someone is willing to acknowledge that the behaviour was inappropriate.
I want men to become more comfortable challenging one another, not because women are incapable of speaking for ourselves, but because equality should be a shared responsibility rather than another burden placed on the people who are already affected by discrimination.
I want the man who hears his friend making degrading comments about a woman to be willing to say something, the colleague who witnesses sexist behaviour at work to refuse to brush it aside, and the person who notices a group of men treating women as objects to understand that remaining silent is not the only available response.
I want men to realise that they have the power to influence the social expectations within their own circles, and that using that influence to encourage respect is far more valuable than privately congratulating themselves for being different from the men whose behaviour they quietly tolerate.
Most importantly, I want us to stop treating men who stand up for women as unusual exceptions, because a society in which women are respected should not depend on finding a handful of men who are willing to speak up while everyone else looks away.
If you genuinely believe that women deserve equality, then show it when you are around other men, especially when a woman is not present to hear what you say or when challenging someone might make you less popular, because the true measure of your character is not how respectfully you treat people when it is easy, but whether you are willing to defend what is right when silence would be more comfortable.
Women have spent generations challenging the attitudes, institutions, and social expectations that keep us from being treated as equals, and while we will continue to speak up for ourselves, we should not have to carry this responsibility alone when men have the ability to challenge the behaviour of their own peers.
Men, do not just tell women that you respect us. Show other men that disrespecting us is not something you are willing to accept. Your willingness to speak up might seem like a small thing in the moment, but it can help change what the people around you consider normal, acceptable, and worthy of respect.
Thankful for your presence, Neja
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