Your Mum Should’ve Swallowed the Patriarchy Too

A short essay on avoidance, ego, and the fragile male who thinks ghosting is terrorism.

They say women hate men like it’s symmetrical. Like it’s some fairytale feud with equal casualties and mutual crimes. As if when women hate men, we form gangs and hunt them down in alleyways with red lipstick and pepper spray. As if we’re creating revenge porn rings, filming locker room assaults, spitting on their graveyard of exes and calling it character building. As if we’re stalking 17-year-old boys on Instagram, screenshotting their topless gym photos, and sharing them in group chats for “research.”

When women hate men, we don’t violate them. We avoid them. We shrink our routes home. We carry our keys like weapons. We date other women. We leave. But the moment a woman says she’s wary of men (not all men, just enough to be exhausted) a siren goes off in the group chat of fragile masculinity. Suddenly, she’s a misandrist. Suddenly, she’s the threat. Suddenly, he’s tweeting about reverse sexism while still following three OnlyFans creators and a fitness influencer named Chloe.

What men don’t realise is that female hatred doesn’t look like theirs. It doesn’t leave bruises. It doesn’t trend on court dockets. It doesn’t fill graveyards. Female hatred is fear dressed up as boundaries. It is not violent. It is protective. And you’d know that if you’d ever had to build an exit strategy before dinner.

Men are not used to being excluded. They mistake absence for attack. A woman choosing peace over their presence is interpreted as hostility. A woman setting boundaries is seen as bitter. A woman saying “no thanks” becomes a threat to male identity. Because men aren’t socialised to take rejection quietly. They’re socialised to see it as a challenge, a glitch in the matrix, a bug in the code of female compliance. A man gets ghosted once and writes a song, a tweet, a manifesto. A woman gets assaulted and writes nothing because her therapist still calls it “unprocessed grief.”

I am tired of the false symmetry. The way people equate bitterness with brutality. The way the words “you’re just as bad” get thrown at women who are just trying to breathe differently. Hate, when it comes from women, isn’t systemic. It’s emotional survival. It’s walking home quickly. It’s texting a friend just in case. It’s keeping a smile on your face in case he gets angry. We don’t hate men like they hate us. We hate them like a burnt hand hates fire. With memory. With caution. With the knowledge that it only has to happen once to change everything.

Let’s be clear about the difference:

• Men create revenge porn. Women delete your nudes when it ends.

• Men catcall in packs. Women warn others about men in bathrooms.

• Men stalk. Women block.

• Men sexualise underage girls. Women clock it and call their friends.

• Men cheat and blame biology. Women cry and still lie to protect their ego.

• Men say “boys will be boys.” Women say “text me when you get home.”

• Men ask for nudes unprovoked. Women ask if you got home safe.

• Men rape their partners. Women fake orgasms to avoid getting hit.

• Men shame body counts. Women keep yours a secret to protect your reputation.

• Men kill their exes. Women write about them anonymously and still feel guilty.

• Men film women without consent. Women delete evidence that could ruin you.

• Men laugh when a woman says no. Women laugh to soften the no.

• Men fear embarrassment. Women fear death.

Women are not innocent. But we are not doing that. We are not changing history with semen and screenshots. We are not calling your heartbreak a reason to make another woman suffer. We are not weaponising the internet to humiliate you. We are not calling your virginity disgusting. We are not threatening to leak your photos. When women hate men, it’s quiet. Internal. Cautious. A slow fade-out with soft lighting and a fake smile. It is not war. It is withdrawal. You didn’t feel it because you’ve never had to notice it. You were too loud with your power to hear us packing.

So no, we don’t hate men like men hate women. When we hate you, we unlearn you. We unhook you from our joy. We avoid your gaze, your street, your opinions, your hands. We edit you out of our bodies. We rethread ourselves around the space you used to take up. We rebuild what you tried to collapse. We don’t hit back. We just stop looking at you like you’re god. And I promise you — that’s what really scares you.