Men Are Trash.

Reading all of these terrible things that happen to women on a daily really breaks my heart. 

It's crazy how something as small as walking down the street can be so uncomfortable and frightening for women. I've always thought myself to be as scary as a squished snowball, you know. Barely alarming to anyone besides small babies and birds but even I can be seen as a threat and that's not because I necessarily am, but because of such lived experiences. 

When I walk anywhere, I tend to do so at quite a quick pace because I want to get to where I'm going as quickly as possible. I hate having to be out and about, I'm not one who enjoys the journey all that much. On occasion, it has happened that whilst walking around someone, I've been the lone guy on the street approaching a woman on her own or a group of women and I could always sense a bit of apprehension the closer I got. For a long time I thought it was because they were worried I'd try chat them up and to be honest, I've never stopped and tried to speak to a girl on the street because I know how annoying that can be for them and I wouldn't want to ruin their day or my own - the embarrassment alone would destroy me. I've never understood people that do this. 

After a while I figured maybe they thought I was some type of hoodrat that wanted to rob them or something. In this country, there's always that thought in the back of your mind and to be honest, I get a bit apprehensive myself when I come across a group of guys or anything because I've been mugged before and it's not an experience I'd wish on anyone. These days it's become even more dangerous because there is less regard for human life and these wastes won't even hesitate to cause you harm. I didn't quite understand it, I would never do that. There's about as much chance of me mugging someone as there is of a dog suddenly one day getting up on its hind legs and running for President. It would never happen. 

The thing is though. After reading all these stories on Twitter about just how vile we men can be to women, I'm really not surprised at all. Not once did I ever stop to think that their reaction to me, a living version of Milhouse, could be because of many things. The fact that I am a man makes me a threat regardless of my intentions or lack thereof. It's painful to think that they have to live a life where theirs could be taken at any moment for something as trivial as refusing to acknowledge a man's advances or any other infantile reason. It's disgusting. And the fact that there still are people out there who fail to realise this hurts even more. There are people who fail to see why things like "Men Are Trash" have gained such traction. The "Not All Men" crowd don't understand that by saying this, they're invalidating the lived experiences of these women who have suffered. They are diluting a very important message with their naivety and failure to understand. 

We need to stop and reevaluate the way we look at things in this country. The statistics don't lie. We as men need to stop treating our women like accessories that come after we've got the house, car, clothes and money. We treat them as possessions, things we can do with as we please and that's not on. These are people, equal to us in every way and in most cases, a lot better on top. There needs to be a change. We as men need to stop being Garbage Children, Dirty Dishwater humans.