Chill Chill Madam Championeer of Feminism
There is something disturbing happening online.
A man does something terrible to a woman, and within minutes, the conversation becomes bigger than the man.
It becomes about men.
A man cheats?
“Men are trash.”
A man lies?
“Never trust a man.”
A man abuses his partner?
“That’s why I don’t need men.”
A man disappoints a woman?
“Men will always be men.”
And then someone posts the inevitable:
“I hate men.”
Thousands of people laugh.
Thousands agree.
Someone adds a story about what their ex did.
Someone talks about what their father did.
Someone remembers what happened to their mother.
Someone brings up a friend’s experience.
And suddenly, one man’s behaviour has become evidence against half of humanity.
I have been thinking about this a lot lately.
Especially after the controversy surrounding Nigerian Christian TikTok creator Audrey Cyril and her fiancé, Mr Presh.
Several women have publicly accused Mr Presh of being romantically involved with them while he was allegedly in a relationship with Audrey. Those claims have spread rapidly online, with different accounts and reactions piling onto the story. At the time of reporting, the allegations had not been independently verified, and neither Audrey nor Mr Presh had publicly given a detailed response.
Whatever eventually turns out to be true or false, the internet reaction has exposed something much bigger.
People aren’t only discussing one man anymore.
They’re discussing men.
And that is where I become uncomfortable.
Because there is a difference between saying:
“What this man allegedly did is horrible.”
And saying:
“This is why men are horrible.”
Those are not the same statement.
The first holds an individual accountable.
The second turns an individual into a representative of an entire gender.
And I don’t think we talk enough about that distinction.
I also don’t think most of the anger comes from nowhere.
This is the part people sometimes don’t want to hear.
Some women have genuinely been hurt by men.
Some have been cheated on.
Some have experienced controlling relationships.
Some grew up watching their fathers treat their mothers badly.
Some watched their mothers sacrifice everything for men who didn’t appreciate them.
Some have been told since childhood that being a good woman means enduring things that should never have been endured.
Some have spent years learning not to trust men because trusting one came with consequences.
So when a woman says, “I hate men,” sometimes there is a whole history behind those three words.
It might not actually mean she has carefully examined every man on earth and reached the conclusion that they are all terrible.
Sometimes it means:
“I am tired of being hurt by men.”
And those are two very different things.
One is hatred.
The other is pain speaking loudly.
But pain can explain a reaction without making every reaction right.
That’s where I think the conversation needs more maturity.
Because trauma may explain why someone struggles to trust men.
It doesn’t make every man guilty.
Your father’s behaviour isn’t automatically your boyfriend’s behaviour.
Your ex’s behaviour isn’t automatically the behaviour of the next man.
The man who hurt your mother isn’t automatically the man standing in front of you.
And I think the reverse should also be said to men.
A woman who hurt you isn’t proof that women are manipulative.
A woman who cheated on you isn’t proof that women can’t be trusted.
A woman who used you isn’t proof that every woman will use you.
We understand this when the genders are reversed.
So why do we sometimes abandon that logic when discussing men?
There is another thing I find fascinating about the internet.
We have become incredibly comfortable with collective punishment.
One person does something.
An entire group gets dragged.
One Nigerian commits a crime abroad.
Suddenly Nigerians are scammers.
One woman behaves badly.
Suddenly women are gold diggers.
One man cheats.
Suddenly men are dogs.
One Christian behaves hypocritically.
Suddenly Christianity is fake.
One Muslim commits an atrocity.
Suddenly an entire religion is questioned.
We know, intellectually, that this is irrational.
But social media has made irrationality incredibly easy.
All you need is a hashtag.
And an audience.
And suddenly someone’s personal experience becomes a universal theory.
And maybe this is where feminism itself becomes an interesting conversation.
The original idea of fighting for women’s dignity, safety and equality is not the same thing as hating men.
Criticising sexism is not hating men.
Holding abusive men accountable is not hating men.
Talking about women’s experiences is not hating men.
Demanding better behaviour from men is not hating men.
But when “men” becomes an insult in itself, something has changed.
Because equality cannot mean replacing one generalisation with another.
If the argument is that women should not be judged collectively because of the actions of some women, then the same principle has to apply to men.
Otherwise, we aren’t fighting stereotypes.
We’re just choosing which stereotypes are socially acceptable.
And I don’t think that helps anybody.
What worries me most is what happens when young people grow up watching this.
A boy sees thousands of people saying that men are inherently terrible.
A girl sees thousands of people saying that men cannot be trusted.
And eventually, both start entering relationships carrying conclusions about each other that neither person earned.
The boy thinks:
“She already thinks I’m a bad person.”
The girl thinks:
“He will eventually hurt me anyway.”
And now two people who have never met each other before are paying for the sins of people they’ve never met.
That is how resentment becomes generational.
Maybe the healthier conversation is not:
“Are men bad?”
Obviously some men are.
Just as some women are.
The healthier question is:
“What happened to you that made you believe everyone is?”
Because behind some of the loudest hatred online is probably a story nobody has heard.
A bad relationship.
A broken home.
A betrayal.
A childhood memory.
A mother who suffered.
A father who disappeared.
An ex who destroyed their trust.
And I don’t think those stories should be mocked.
They should be heard.
But healing shouldn’t require turning everyone who resembles the person who hurt you into an enemy.
Because eventually, you stop fighting the person who hurt you.
You start fighting people who remind you of them.
And those people may have done absolutely nothing to you.
That’s the tragedy.
A bad man can hurt a woman so badly that she begins to hate men who never touched her life.
And a bad woman can do the same thing to a man.
Maybe the goal shouldn’t be to convince anyone that men are perfect.
They aren’t.
Women aren’t either.
The goal should be to become better at distinguishing an individual from a category.
Call the cheating man a cheater.
Call the abusive man abusive.
Call the liar a liar.
Hold him accountable.
Let him carry what he actually did.
But don’t make every innocent man carry his suitcase.
Because if we spend our lives punishing strangers for the crimes of people who came before them, eventually we aren’t seeking justice anymore.
We’re just passing pain around.
And pain has a way of changing hands without ever disappearing.
Not, this story had been written before in my drafts for about a week or more now.
