This week, I want to ask the question: are all men evil? Ok, ok, I’m definitely over exaggerating to get your attention; I don’t think anyone would argue that all men are evil. Still, it’s pretty common to hear people saying things along the lines of “all men are bad.” I think it’s important to look at why people say this, and why women might sometimes feel like it’s hard to trust men even if they haven’t met them yet.
It’s very common for people to make assumptions about things they don’t know, but in this case, I feel like this assumption is different from a regular stereotype. I don’t think the phrase “all men are evil” is meant to be taken literally — it’s more of a summation of built-up frustrations. Honestly, it feels like everywhere you look, people are doing terrible things to each other, society, and the planet. Since the majority of people in power are men, it’s pretty easy to find examples of evil men if you look. Pair that with statistics around men committing crimes and domestic violence and every terrible interaction every woman has had with random men — it’s not hard to feel pessimistic about the entire gender. People get stuck in loops like these all the time with different things. The more negative information we see that confirms the belief, the more we get stuck in it. I don’t think that it’s worthwhile to argue that men aren’t evil because of all the good men that exist. People have made this argument before on this topic and every person logically knows most men are fine. I think it’s more important to think about where the desire to label all men as bad in spite of logic comes from.
I think we all know that our generation likes to be a little reactive when it comes to issues. We boiled down the entire baby boomer generation to “boomers” and have a load of assumptions stemming from real issues. It’s normal to face a minor inconvenience and say, “everything is terrible.” That’s because it’s nice when things are absolute. We logically know that issues are more complicated, but when things are black and white, you don’t have to think or worry as much. It takes up less mental space to say that all men shouldn’t be trusted when, in reality, anyone could do horrible things. People are terrible all the time, and, especially when it comes to politicians and people in power, it’s impossible to tell until it’s too late.
We all wish there was a way to know if a person will be good to you or not. It would be incredible to never get hurt, lied to, or to hear reports of people you looked up to being bad, but in truth, part of being a person in the world with relationships is always being open to getting burned by those you trust. I think that part of maturing is being able to step away from assigning blame when these things happen. People don’t act terribly because of their gender or any other surface-level factor. Sometimes, these things happen; you just have to brush yourself off and keep trusting.
