I shield those I love from the monsters around us… those monsters who just can’t stand seeing other people be happy. Wholesome things spread everywhere on this virtual plane called the Internet. Thousands of people who enjoy, millions who jeer and belittle. Your method of having fun, the thing you do to be happy, has to be approved by the majority. This majority likes fun things only when they’re bound by the rules. “What rules?” you whisper to the nearest bystander. “It’s the rules, man… things would go awry without rules. If there weren’t rules, you and I could steal, kill, bully, and rape with no remorse!”
I’ve grown tired of going through this drill with most people I know, trying to explain to them that it isn’t really the rules that’ll stop anyone from doing these terrible things. “You mean there’s no heaven, no hell? Well, what am I going to do good things for if I wasn’t going to be rewarded after I die?” People do good things out of fear of punishment, not out of a genuine desire to do good.
“Wear this, don’t wear that.” “Say this, don’t say that.” These are the things women are told since they were little, to somehow protect them. “Protect them from what?” you say to their parents. “Because if women and girls do certain things and say certain things, some bad guys out there might do bad things to them.” They discipline their girls to not dress their best or speak their minds because of sexually frustrated, animalistic men. I thought it was the other way around; we purge society from these monsters so that women feel safe! “Oh, and you want my daughter to wear her best clothes? What do you think my daughter, some kind of slut?!”
It’s one or the other. Perfect, or an abomination. Pure good, or pure evil. A paradise, or a satanic cesspool. There is no in-between. There is no desire to do the right thing. Very few like us find it easy to meet a woman dressed elegantly and look her in the eye when we talk to her. It’s easy for us because we’ve been raised to not be total pieces of shit. But some, unfortunately, weren’t taught these essential things. They want to have it easy – easier than that! – and when they do these terrible things, they blurt out the stupidest excuses: “she made me do it! Look what she’s wearing! How can I restrain myself?!” Tsk, tsk, tsk. Look at you, a fully grown man blaming someone else for the terrible things you do. Have you no shame? People who have no access to proper education out there have more control over themselves than you!
I am tired of trying to reason with these people. “Feminist terrorism,” they say. We’ve been led to believe that the feminists we see on the internet, the feminists who stand for things like not assuming one’s gender, scream to assert dominance, and romanticize obesity… we were led to believe that that was the face of feminism. It is not, but that image was seared deep into a lot of people’s heads that now both women and men believe feminism is a form of ideological terror. It has always stood for the equal rights of both women and men. Sadly, when that argument is presented in most places, it is met with “can women do this?” “Oh, you want to do my job as a man? Well go ahead!” “How come you want equality and you could get anything with just your tits?” Let me ask you something, and I’m genuinely asking, this is not rhetorical: how come women are both oppressed and coddled at the same time? How is this your analogy? Or is it that you believe in one of these extremes but pretend you also believe in the other so that your lady friends don’t hate you?
I’ll tell you what I think: it varies from a place to another. In the Middle East, women don’t have as much rights as those in the western world. “But the constitution—” nope, the constitution wasn’t properly used when an actress was arrested for dressing her best in a film festival. Imagine being arrested for making a fashion choice that doesn’t comply with Egyptian family values. You wouldn’t feel like it’s your mistake, it’ll obviously feel like you’re being blamed for some kid’s parents being too afraid that their kid will see some dress and go “awesome, I wanna go to a strip club right now!” That doesn’t happen! If you discipline your kids to restrain themselves when they see a beautiful woman wearing revealing clothes instead of teach them that revealing clothes equal debauchery and a threat to society, you should not be afraid of them doing… whatever you think they’ll do!
Teach your children from a very young age that looking at women in the right way isn’t that hard a thing to do. Teach your children that if they hear “no” coming out of a woman, they should immediately comply. Teach your children that immediate action upon seeing a woman get raped or abused is the right thing to do and it is not meddling with someone’s private business. Teach your children that only a place’s dress code is what decides what a woman should wear in any situation; if she’s wearing a bikini next to a swimming pool, doesn’t matter how revealing it is, it’s a fucking swimming pool. Teach your children to be the kind of men that respect women no matter how a lot of people weren’t raised well enough to not make fun of the phrase “respect women”. Teach your children that men aren’t entitled to anything just because they were being nice to a woman. Teach your children all of this so that there’s hope some day that the world will be a safer place for women.