i’m a misandrist. that means i hate men. i’m not a cute misandrist. i don’t have a fridge magnet that says, “boys are stupid, throw rocks at them.” my loathing cannot be contained by a fridge magnet.

i am not an equality feminist. i don’t believe that an asymmetrical world will be cured by polite obsequence to male-dominated systems. i am not a liberal humanist. i don’t believe that i need to stand up for men when they’ve been standing on top of everyone else.

misandry is not a political program; it’s a stance. i don’t care whether hating men is a good or bad feminist strategy (and i care even less what men think about misandry). i don’t think i have a responsibility to change the world. i think i have a responsibility to survive.

imagine being born into a world where your experiences are not represented, where your work is undervalued, where your body is always open for comment, where your friends are routinely harassed and abused, and where this situation will literally be your reality for your entire life. if you’re a woman, you don’t have to imagine that world because you already live in it.

if you’re a man, you never have and never will live in that world. but try to imagine what it feels like. i’ll tell you: when i think about the kind of world we live in, i feel simultaneously hopeless and infuriated and i oscillate so quickly between those two emotional extremes that i literally start to get dizzy.

being a woman in this world feels like getting buried alive. think about that. think about feeling that every day.

why do i have to answer the question “why do i hate men?” when men don’t even stop to ask why they have always hated women. i have to answer the question because men can’t tolerate for one second the sort of contempt they’ve had for women for thousands of years.

why do i hate men? because life is short. my life is getting shorter by the day and i want to fill it with women. in this sinking ship of a world, i just want to enjoy a tiny little space, a room, if you will, of my own. i want that room to be full of women and free from ego, hierarchy, sexual advances, and violence. i hate men because i can’t even have that fucking room without them knocking on the walls. you have the entire fucking house. go play in it. find something else to do.

i hate men because it’s not my job to fix masculinity; it’s my job to heal from it and to be together with my sisters as we try to make it through a hostile world. and yet i am expected to patiently educate men on how not to be an asshole. here’s my only tip: stop spending so much time around men. they’re assholes.

i hate men because men hate me and the burden to take the high road should not fall on my shoulders.

i am friends with some men, yes. usually these are men who have some experience of marginalization (whether via their race, class, gender identity, sexual identity, what have you) or who have gone through the self-interrogation and relational deprogramming necessary to build meaningful community with women. you don’t just get to read a book and you’re golden. you have to get fucking baptized in menstrual blood as far as i’m concerned.

i hate men doesn’t mean i hate you. it means i hate your position in this world. it means i’m not obligated to like you. it means i don’t have to talk to you if i don’t want to. it means i get to have my space and i don’t have to dance for you, smile at you, or soothe you. and you can put up with me being wary of you, can’t you, because the world has a fucking red carpet waiting for you wherever you go.