Yesterday, I was watching F1 and painting pebbles (#PocketHope) when I wandered through the lounge to fetch something. My brother, Odin, was sitting in the middle of the floor, head in hands.
I stopped to ask him what’s going on. He muttered something about his PC, stood up and picked up something from his desk. I was calming, speaking to him in a soothing voice, trying to show him that the thing that he was struggling with isn’t a big problem and we can fix it quick-quick.
His bottom lip trembled. His voice rose in pitch.
He collapsed onto the couch and he was crying.
Not a single tear rolling down his cheek, or a slight sniffle. Crying to the point where I had difficulty understanding what he was saying.
Odin is 56, a retired special forces war veteran. Genius-level IQ, MIT doctorate, qualified sommelier (at the time he qualified, he was one of only 4 in the country). He has Asperger’s, and PTSD, along with the rest of the autistic alphabet: OCD, ADHD, PDA, ODD, alexithymia.
He wasn’t crying about PTSD or trauma. He wasn’t crying about having failed at something.
He was crying because he felt like a burden. Like everyone was irritated with him when he asks for help “because it’s you asking”.
He spent 30 years of his life in war zones fighting to keep people safe – the same entitled, casually-cruel people that's now living their comfortable lives and treating him like he’s nothing.
I am furious.
I care about this man, deeply. I know who he is, his humanity, the softness and childlike sweetness in him. His loyalty, generosity, his thoughtfulness and eagerness to share his excitement about things. And I got to sit there next to him while his shoulders shook and his voice quivered.
I refuse to stay silent.
Social media has made hating men normal — and people act like it’s harmless
Somewhere over the past few years, misandry became content. Actual social media content. Monetised. Branded. It’s got hashtags. There’s a whole ecosystem online where it’s trendy, even celebrated, to talk about men like they’re disposable.
And it’s not small clusters of radicalised feminists - big publications have jumped in too: Vogue, The Guardian, Vice, El País, The Times…each of them pushing out pieces on “mankeeping,” framing men as adult toddlers that women are forced to parent. And women share these articles with this proud, smug little “yes queen!” vibe like it’s some kind of vindication.
And in the real world, offline, outside, where people are living?
Real men are breaking. Drowning in loneliness, pressure, and pain.
Real men are being treated like they don’t get to be tired, or hurt, or human.
It’s disgusting.
Online misandry isn’t just jokes — it becomes the way people think
Say whatever you want; jokes shape culture. Memes shape culture. Trends shape culture. When you constantly see:
- “men are trash”
- “male tears”
- “I love being mean to men”
- “men deserve nothing”
- “dump him the second he has feelings”
…it stops being ironic. It becomes belief. And it was never funny to begin with.
Social media fuels hatred towards men. That’s not a theory, that’s fact – log onto any platform and within a few minutes of scrolling, it’ll be there and people are proud of it. People wear misandry like a badge.
And I’m standing over here with a grown man, a decorated soldier no less, and I should be okay with it?
I’m seeing Rusty’s vicious struggle with Major Depressive Disorder and how his family treats him like garbage, I’m seeing the way Irish’s critically low self-confidence and self-esteem affects his life – I see how West is turned in on himself so no-one can get close to him, and even worse, Jack – an utter stoic, sitting quietly and speaking up about anxiety and trauma for the first time.
I’m not okay with it – and you’re not supposed to be either.
That X moment exposed everything
Recently a woman made a post saying, “Men should vent to women because women actually care.” And immediately, thousands of women jumped into the comments proudly admitting they don’t care.
How, how, how…is that something to be proud of? Help me understand how saying you enjoy hurting another human being is anything other than actual diagnosable mental problems?
They said men’s emotions are gross, unattractive, burdensome, annoying.
And the men?
They showed how every time they share their feelings, it gets weaponised, thrown back at them over time, compiled like evidence to be used in a criminal hearing. They were mocked, bullied, criticised.
Or, even more disturbing – the women apparently lost respect or attraction to them when they showed their vulnerability.
And I’m choosing “Show” here instead of “became” because they were always vulnerable, they always had feelings, they just didn’t show it!
Everyone pretends that this is a men’s issue.
How? Men being human is a “men’s issue”? Really?
It’s a relationship issue, it’s a cultural issue, and more importantly – it’s the perpetrators’ (women) problem.
It’s a women need to heal their own emotional deficits issue.
The research backs it up — but people don’t want to hear it
There’s a pattern psychologists have been documenting for years, and I saw it recently again. When a woman starts “mothering” a man - taking control, fixing everything, managing him - her romantic attraction drops.
Research on “sexual polarity,” “caregiving shifts,” and “maternalisation in partnerships” has repeatedly found the same outcome:
if a woman starts treating a man like a child, she stops seeing him as a sexual equal.
If a man starts treating a woman like a therapist or saviour, she shifts into caretaker mode rather than partner mode.
The healthy alternative, the one that keeps attraction alive, is when women can be supportive without slipping into fixing, rescuing, or mothering. And men can be vulnerable without collapsing or depending entirely on her emotional labour.
Let’s unpack that. You don’t mean to mother him. He comes to you with a problem – whatever issue it may be – and because our society vastly lacks any kind of education on how to support someone who’s hurting, your instincts (shaped by your background, past experiences, own personal issues) kick in and you take control, you try to fix the problem, you start to manage his emotions as well.
That activates a caretaking instinct instead of a relational one, and he becomes a dependent, not a partner.
It’s not really about men being weak or women being cruel, it’s a psychological shift, and it happens fast.
But here’s the part social media never talks about, because you can’t blameshift if you do this. You can’t monetize being self-aware. You can’t run a trend on accountability.
But! Shocking and surprising news!
Women can support a man without slipping into mothering – you can be beside him and let him do the work, while you offer encouragement without grabbing it out of his hands.
Women can handle male vulnerability if they have the emotional maturity to do so. If you’re secure in yourself, his lowered mood won’t influence you negatively because your validation isn’t coming from him but from your own identity.
Women can stay attracted if they don’t treat his emotions like a power trip (coming from own insecurity) or like a mother (coming from a need to control).
If you can’t do that – if you as a woman can’t sit with a man’s pain, without trying to fix it or without judging him for it, you don’t get to blame the man. You get to do some introspection.
If a woman loses attraction when a man is vulnerable, that is HER work to do
I’ll say it plainly because I’m tired of the sugar-coating:
If you can’t handle a man’s feelings without losing attraction, you are not emotionally mature enough for a relationship, and you need to deal with your own issues first.
If you mock men because it makes you feel powerful, you’re not empowered, you’re insecure. Your problem to resolve.
If you trivialize male suffering but demand empathy for yours, you’re not a feminist, you’re a hypocrite and a bully.
And I don’t care if you don’t want to hear it. A lot of women want the shortcut version where they’re the eternal victim (while at the same time somehow being a goddess) and men are the eternal villains. But that’s not real life. And men are paying the price for the fantasies women are feeding each other online.
And then there’s him — the man who broke in front of me
This is where all the abstract discussion hits reality.
He sat there, this strong, hardened man, someone who has carried his own pain for decades, and he just couldn’t anymore. Head in hands, broad shoulders shaking, tears running down his weathered, beloved face. It wasn’t pretty or controlled. It was raw, exhausted, hopeless.
I can still see his face – the shame, the terror, the utter despair.
And underneath all of it, the same pain men all over the world are carrying daily:
“No-one gives a shit about me.”
I could feel the rage building inside me. Because I do care. Deeply. Fiercely. And I hate that so many men like him never get to feel that from anyone.
He deserves better from the world.
He deserves compassion.
He deserves to be treated like a human being.
Not like a burden.
Not like a joke.
Not like a punching bag for social media trends.
This isn’t just my frustration — it’s a crisis
Social media is teaching women that contempt for men is empowerment. It’s teaching boys that they are inherently wrong, and it’s teaching men that vulnerability is a trap.
It’s teaching everyone that male suffering is funny or deserved.
And then we “pretend” not to understand why relationships fail, men are not emotionally available, the male suicide rate is sky-high, marriage rates are declining and girls “don’t want to get married”, loneliness is men is called an “epidemic”.
We have literally built a culture that punishes men for being human, and it’s tearing families, relationships, and individuals apart.
I’m not writing this to start a gender war — I’m writing it because I’m done watching men bleed quietly
I will not apologise for defending men. I will never be ashamed of caring about them deeply. And if you’ve never had a genuine, innocent, honest friendship with a man, that’s something significantly lacking in your own life, that you need to work on.
I refuse to ignore this culture of misandry.
I’m running this men’s mental health campaign because I see what’s happening. I see the damage, the emotional casualties, the impact on lives. And I am not going to sit here and let society glamourise the destruction of an entire gender’s wellbeing because it gets engagement online. That is pathetic.
The man who cried in front of me yesterday?
I will not let the world treat him like he’s invisible.
I will not let any good man be treated like that without saying something.
Men deserve empathy.
Men deserve safety.
Men deserve to be held when they’re hurting.
Men deserve to feel human.
And if social media won’t say it, I will.
MY MESSAGE TO WOMEN (AND TO SOCIETY)
If you can’t handle a man’s full humanity - don’t ask for it.
If you power-trip on “mothering” him - work on your self-esteem, don’t break him down.
If you exploit his vulnerability - understand you are the reason he won’t open up again.
If you shame him for crying - don’t preach about wanting an emotionally open partner.
If you use his trauma as ammunition - you are part of the problem.
If you lose attraction when he shows emotion - that’s YOUR internal wound, not his failure.
If you treat men like villains - you’re proving how shallow your empathy really is.
This crusade of contempt isn’t empowerment.
It’s immaturity.
It’s insecurity.
It’s cruelty painted pink.
AND MY MESSAGE TO MEN
You deserve gentleness.
You deserve respect.
You deserve patience.
You deserve to be heard.
You deserve to be met with care instead of mockery.
You deserve a world that recognizes your pain.
You deserve places where you can break, safely.
You deserve love without humiliation.
You deserve support without punishment.
You deserve rest.
And if nobody has ever told you this:
You matter.
Not because of what you do.
Not because of what you endure.
Not because of how strong you are.
But because you’re human.
-Nova
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