But if genders would be reversed

but-if-genders-would-be-reversed

those men comment about men’s abuse under posts about women’s abuse. Like if they really care about they could just use their own platform to bring awareness.

A great way of shutting them down and derailing their attempts to derail the conversation is to play into exactly this:

Women have problems X and Y

So what? Men have problem X even worse, or what about problem Z that’s even worse?

What they want here is for you to do either of:

  1. Argue that actually women have problem X worse, or

  2. Argue that problem Y is worse than problem Z

… because either of those turns the conversation from “women are the victims in a situation” into an excuse to argue over who’s got it worse, which muddies the waters and gives them the excuse they’re looking for to feel like men are the victims and rail against a “hypocritical, uncaring” woman who’s “denying their own struggles” and “playing the victim”.

Instead, try apparently just taking them at their word and respond with something like:

Holy shit, I never realised men have problem X even worse than women, and/or problem Z that women don’t have. That’s sounds awful! Please tell me what you guys are doing to address it, so I can be a helpful ally?

Nine times out of ten they’ll go silent or bluster as it’s abundantly clear to everyone that they aren’t doing shit about it, and as such their supposed outrage and desire to discuss the issue is only as a convenient distraction from thinking about women’s problems.