Hey there, really sorry for the delay. I was on holiday last week without my laptop.

There's an awful lot to reply to here, but let me start by clearing up the above quote. I'm not blaming women for driving men to the manosphere. Not at all. In contrast to the #yesallmen/#allmenaretrash rhetoric, I'm extremely careful to point out that I'm only ever talking about a minority of women when I point out toxicity. I'm very confident you won't find a single example of anything I've every written where I generalise out to all women.

I'm blaming a broad cultural disdain for men, that has existed for a long time, that has reached something of a peak in the past few decades. Men have always been expected to work the dangerous dirty jobs. They've always been expected to fight and die in wars they had no personal stake in. They've always been expected to wait to die as "women and children" went first.

They've been expected to give up their seat and pay for dates and carry the heavy bags regardless of how tired they might feel or how much they're struggling. In almost all cases, nobody even thinks to ask.

In return, women were expected to cook and clean and raise the children. They were expected to be submissive and obedient. They were expected to deal with the violence and harassment some men put them through.

Now let me be clear, this is a terrible deal for women. And this is why feminism is so important. However much further you think there is to go, it's undeniable that feminism has changed how society sees and treats women. But if there's been any change in how society sees and treats men, it's for the worse. And it's extremely difficult to point this out without being pilloried. Cassie Jaye, a lifelong feminist who made a film taking about men's rights springs to mind. She faced abuse like you wouldn't believe simply for making a film about men's struggles.

But to go back to women's struggles, the passage from "The Macho Paradox" just doesn't hold water for me. Again, it's the same empty "do the work" rhetoric I see all the time from so-called "antiracists."

I'm aware of all kinds of atrocities in the world. We could talk about female genital mutilation, we could talk about the situation in Afghanistan with the Taliban or in Syria or Saudi Arabia, we could talk about sex trafficking and sex tourism and child brides. On and on.

You're aware of them. I'm aware of them. Jackson Katz is aware of them. We're not in denial about them. And I'm willing to bet that none of us can honestly claim we're doing anything about them. This isn't an endorsement. It's not complicity. It's a reflection of the fact that there is no lever for an individual to pull that will fix these problems. There isn't a lever to pull that will abolish the patriarchy either. Whatever that would even mean.

But if you gave most men a button that would free them from the expectations I listed above, I bet most of them would gladly push it. Same for a button that would free women from gender based violence and sexism. Because, and this is a really important point that I think is all too often missed in identity politics, most men don't benefit from the patriarchy in any meaningful way. Most men aren't in positions of power or sexually harassing women. Most men are invisible. Most men are lonely (here's a really good post about this). Most men would kill for some empathy and societal concern.

If you think the patriarchy is what's driving these lacks, I won't argue. But then believe me when I say that most men aren't desperately fighting to maintain this status quo.

So again, I'm not blaming women for incels and the various other brands of toxic men. I'm not trying to absolve them of responsibility for their shitty beliefs and actions. I'm saying there's only so long you can say "all men" and then backpedal to "of course I don't mean all men."

There's only so long you (I say "you," but I mainly mean society here) can hand wave away the very real problems that men and boys face (and which, to borrow Jackson Katz's framing, most women are totally unaware of).

There's only so long you can say that men need to sort out their own problems while also saying they need to step up and sort out the problems the patriarchy causes women, before some number of them give in to resentment.

Maybe you're pointing to the same problem for women. Maybe you're saying there's only so long you can hold back women's in their careers or demand domestic servitude or rape them before they give in to resentment. I agree completely.

I guess I'm just saying I wish there was more willingness to truly see both sides of this equation. From both sides.