Reasons to hate men

Something disturbing has reached my ears in the last week: it has been said that feminists don’t like men because they are ugly. A mix of feelings calmed my soul when I learned of this, leading to a series of crises. First, fifth-grade fights came to mind. You see, I was a diligent student. Swear. But it’s inevitable when you’re 11 years old, being a black girl in a middle-class high school, to get into some fights. And it all started with curses like “You’re ugly” or “You’re a black woman”. Thanks to the stars, my mother always taught me very well how to deal with these situations. I replied to the aggressor that if I was black, he was pink. White. Frog! And if the thing started to be ugly or not, then it was an endless discussion until we got to the physical confrontation. The point is, you can’t let something like that go in, now yes, white. But the most disturbing thing was learning about this curse when we are old enough to at least complete high school. Well, there are the prodigies who, at my age, are already on their third doctorate. But we are not going to mark ourselves out for minorities. Oops!

The second factor that caused the identity crisis was the equation, almost like Nazaré Tedesco thinking about arithmetic: I am a feminist + I don’t like men. An untruth, since I like men and I know several feminist friends who do too. And if I like men and I’m a feminist, does the name-calling fit? Because, if liking a man makes a woman beautiful, I’m in the profit of beauty. But if being a feminist makes me ugly, am I a woman of average beauty? Things got tough. So what, I was thinking of a series of daily reasons why we hate men, even if we can’t practice this grudge for a long time.

Reasons for not liking men abound. For example, I hate this thing taught to them from an early age, by example, spitting in the street. I think it sucks. And it’s good reason number 1.

Reason number 2: when men think their balls are bigger than they really are and sit with one leg on the North Pole and the other on the South Pole. Seriously, what’s that for? To display something that no one is interested in seeing, like, on public transport? I always thought it had more to do with the male competitive world. Do you know when they want to have a better car than the neighbor? Or a better home theater than his brother-in-law? So, I think sitting with your legs so far apart might be an attempt to show the other guy how chubby the guy thinks he is (and wants to look). With all the tranquility, this competition could be taken as a take on those Animal Planet programs, with the voice of the announcer describing each animal movement, trying to convey some scientific seriousness at that moment. I always get tense on these shows. But, I think that has to do with another aspect, unfortunately, and another thing I hate, reason number 3 being: men are roomy. Not like us, because we were taught to be spacious with appliances and shoes. Men are spacious in the same territory. From the plump seat to how they lay on the bed, how they sit on the sofa at home, how they drop their underwear on the floor and their wet towels on the bed – today, even, I forgot my wet towel on top of my bed. Man is also spacious in how he moves around the environment. They speak louder, they gesture, they think they are the kings of the area. We are taught to be restrained – but I am not restrained. And when we are as expansive as we are called “appearing”, God rest her soul! Anyone who calls us ugly right now, when reading my scores about “being taught” to play certain roles, will quickly say that I am a gender ideologue. But the question is: who can stand a wet towel, spit on the street? Like it? God tell us!

Reason number 4, which I HAD-TO-HAVE, is men who keep rubbing their balls with their hands all the time. Some friends explained to me that the underwear “keep getting” the pubic hair. Does it cost to trim? Or change underwear? And for that reason, I was reminded of that German football coach, Joachim Low, who would turn the bag over and smell it to see if everything was ok. I don’t know if that was referring to days without a shower and an uncertainty about how much it could affect the surroundings. But, think about that scene: what for?

But there are other reasons that would be more than plausible to hate men – and that, in fact, scare us. I think Margaret Atwood’s quote is perfect for this: “Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them.” Wouldn’t it be plausible to hate men for femicide? A great reason number 5! Previously, news under the heading “husband kills ex-wife with 20 stab wounds” only found space in Datena’s afternoons. Today, they are the main theme of the “Jornal Nacional”. The numbers are alarming. According to the 2017 Brazilian Public Security Yearbook, 1 woman is killed every 2 hours in Brazil; and 1 woman is raped every 11 minutes. ELEVEN MINUTES. There goes reason number 6. While I was writing this chronicle – which took 1 and a half days, that is, 36 hours to complete – 196 women were raped in Brazil. And, it gets worse, being reason number 7, according to the same Yearbook, 70% of rapists are known to the victims: parents, uncles, cousins, nephews, father’s friends, family friends, friends. “Friends”.

Want more reasons? Violence plagues our lives since childhood. Reason number 8: 1 in 5 women has already suffered some form of violence for being a woman in Brazil. And I’m not the one saying this, but research, even if now some want to relativize data. But, to help them, you don’t even need to read a research report from a renowned institute. We know the stories in our homes, with us, with our sisters, with our cousins, with our sisters-in-law, with our neighbors. If we are not the victims, we certainly have a friend who is or was.

And I swear to you that, as a person who proposes to be a critic, a feminist and a researcher, these data for me are very plausible reasons to hate and/or be afraid of men. And, therefore, I understand who harbors hatred for men, even understanding myself more in the second group: those who are afraid. The level borders on me thinking that getting involved with men should be considered a high risk action.

I love that social media joke that if liking men was a choice, then no one would choose to like men. You see, I would like to list the reasons that, despite everything, still hold me back from liking men. But it’s all pretty much restricted to my sexual orientation. Because, I confess: I’ve tried hard to hate men. I’ve wondered if maybe I wouldn’t be trapped in compulsory heterosexuality. I’ve been away for a while. Because, in addition to spitting, being spacious, men have no affective responsibility and destroy our mental and emotional balance – violence too, by the way. Men are warlike, violent and uncompromising. Men are toxic. The lack of choice should guarantee us an additional fee for unhealthy conditions and investigations into why, given everything I’ve listed, people still like men. And I swear I tried to force it from the bottom of my being; or as that congressman who punched us in the face at CPI taught us: turning over my most primitive instincts. And I have primal reasons to hate men. Unfortunately, I’m also a statistician.

So, by the logic of those who call feminists ugly, the question returns: my incompetence – in the sense of innate competence, of not being able to choose my sexual orientation – in not being able to hate men makes me what? I would say sucker, given so many reasons. But by the logic of those who curse me: beautiful. Beautiful, free and fighting. From the fight for my life and for the lives of my peers. The struggle so that I am not raped and/or killed because I am a woman. From the fight so that I don’t get paid less, performing the same function, because I’m a woman and menstruating. And anyone who thinks I’m going to sit in the corner and cry is wrong. On the contrary. I’m going to put into practice what I’ve learned from one of the most extraordinary women in my life: my mother. When I was in fifth grade B, the teaching was to hold my head up and not, under any circumstances, allow anyone to limit my existence because I was a woman and black. And that, if necessary, I would retaliate by drawing strength from everything I know I can be. The result could even have some abrasions along the way. But I would leave my message: I don’t take shit home.

Juliana Borges is a writer. She studied Literature at the University of São Paulo and is the author of the book “What is mass incarceration?”, from the Plural Feminisms Collection.