Recently, I was listening to a podcast. The speaker was sharp, authentic, and raw—everything she said had me snapping my fingers like yes girl, purr! She was unpacking a whole lot about socialization and gender, and then she said something that made me pause:
“Black boys are truly the most vulnerable group.”
That sentence stopped me in my tracks, because eish. Eish.
My first instinct wasn’t agreement—it was resistance. I winced, both internally and externally. But I sat with it. I chose not to let my guard go up. I kept listening. I wanted to understand where she was coming from.
The episode was about Forever on Netflix, but it quickly turned into something bigger: how Black boys are raised to perform, to endure, to dominate—and how, in many ways, they are denied their childhoods. And then she said something else that hit me right in the chest:
“You have to talk to your son about rape before you even talk to him about dating.”
I had to sit with that, too. And I had to sit with myself. I found myself asking: Am I misandrist for real? Do I hate men, on a serious note?
To answer that, I had to go back. To childhood. To family. To the earliest father figures and every experience that shaped how I understand masculinity. And if I’m being honest, experiencing men—really living through them—has been mostly unpleasant. Because so often, men are not just bystanders to our pain. They are active contributors to it.
We talk about the “male loneliness epidemic” as if it just happened. But who set that system up? Who enforced the silence? Who punished vulnerability and scoffed at softness? It’s hard to extend empathy when your empathy is constantly weaponized against you. When everything you say is spun into bitterness. When naming your pain gets labeled as man-hating. Especially as a Black woman—say anything about what Black men have done to you, and you’re suddenly “turning your back” on the entire race.
And I’m tired of that tightrope. Tired of pretending that the pain didn’t happen just to keep the peace. Tired of being asked to intellectualize my hurt instead of just feeling it.
When I was younger, navigating dating, I remember being with my first Black boyfriend and quietly wondering, Does he even like Black girls? Why was that even a question I had to ask about someone who looked like me? And then I moved back to the motherland. You’d think that would heal something since the population is a spectrum of one color. But instead, I was met with more Black boys—and many of those interactions left a mark. It wasn’t “boys being boys.” It was entitlement growing louder than accountability. It was empathy eroding before my eyes. It was tenderness being traded in for performance and dominance.
What’s most frustrating is how much labor is expected from us. When a Black man hurts you, you’re not allowed to say he hurt me and leave it at that. No—you have to find the root causes, explain the trauma behind his actions, forgive him before he’s even sorry. If he’s even capable of being sorry.
And that’s… exhausting. Actually, no—it’s sucky. Truly.
June is Men’s Mental Health Awareness Month. And if I’m being honest? I can count on one hand how many men I know—online or offline—who even acknowledged it. Instead, I see stats being thrown around like shields: suicide rates, addiction, isolation. But where’s the work? Where’s the self-advocacy?
Loving Black men often feels humiliating. Not just because of what’s done, but because of what’s not returned. You give love, protection, softness—and too often, you get silence. Or worse. Violence. Dismissal. Indifference.
So yeah, when someone says Black boys are the most vulnerable group—I can acknowledge the truth in that. But that doesn’t make it easy to digest. Because vulnerability is not the same as harmlessness. Vulnerable people can still cause incredible harm and if we’re being honest, it’s hard to empathize with a demographic that makes up over 97% of intimate partner violence perpetrators (that’s men as a whole, by the way), or the overwhelming majority of sexual assault cases.
It gets even harder when I hear men say things like,
“I can understand why a man would kill his partner.”
Excuse me?
There are people who’ve hurt me deeply. And not once have I thought, Yeah, I get why someone would kill them. That’s not empathy. That’s sociopathy. And I know some of these men are so deadass when they say it.
Still, I’ve tried. I’ve tried to understand. To hold space. Especially when I was pregnant and didn’t know if I was having a boy or a girl. The thought of raising a Black son scared me—not because I wouldn’t love him, but because I knew what we’d have to prepare him for. How he’d be perceived. How he’d be policed. How a single accusation could change his entire life.
That’s terrifying. And if I ever do have a son, those are conversations his father and I will have to face head-on. Having men in my life does make me care. I care about their safety, their wellbeing, their humanity. But then there’s always that moment where I pause and think:
Oh. You’re still a man.
And in that moment, I remember the limits of my empathy. I remember the violence, the gaslighting, the silence, the humiliation.
So no, I don’t think I’m a misandrist in the true sense. But I am grieving. I’m grieving the gap between who men could be and who they’ve chosen to be. Grieving the safety we never got. The softness we’re never afforded. The apologies we’ll never hear. And I deserve to grieve that without coddling the very people who caused the pain.
Honestly, more than anything, I just feel sad.
Being a woman, trying to make sense of men—it’s a sad experience. Sometimes, it’s easier to just say “I hate men” and move on. Not because I actually mean it, but because the alternative—trying to understand, to empathize, to hold space—is emotionally bankrupting.
Also? They make me sick. Sorry.
And the truth is, I haven’t even said “I hate men” in a while. Not because things have changed. But because I no longer have the energy to care. Not beyond the big tragedies—the murders, the femicides, the horrifying stories. Those hurt. They linger.
But day to day? I just don’t think about men. Because they’re not worth that energy. I genuinely hope men start showing up for themselves. That they do the work. That they learn how to be human without demanding women hold their hands through it. If they’re serious about mental health, they need to lead that charge—for once.
This is the first time in a long time I’ve really sat with how I feel about men. I realize now how vital it is—as a woman—to re-center myself. To step out of the gravitational pull of masculinity. To stop watching, analyzing, reacting. Because focusing on men—on what they do or don’t do—steals time and peace. And honestly?
It’s just not worth it.
Comments
Post a Comment