Essay: What the Fuck is Wrong With Men?
Adrien Brody and Kieran Culkin at The Oscars. Photo: Frank Micelotta/Disney via Getty (2)
First published on March 11, 2025
What the fuck is wrong with men?
I know that’s a bizarre question coming from Ms. Fuck the Patriarchy, but twice in two days I’ve had run-ins with misogynist fucks, and when I’ve told female friends about them, they’ve shared their own “What the fuck is wrong with men?” encounters. I know this is anecdotal, but I also know the answer to my own question.
Donald Trump.
When the most powerful man in the country is a sexual predator who mainlines misogyny and whose hiring criteria for his cabinet requires the assault of women as the primary if not the only skill of the men he surrounds himself with, then he gives a blaring, glaring greenlight to men everywhere that they can treat us like shit and face no accountability. Worse–that they can treat us like shit and be rewarded for it.
Misogyny wins!
When Vice President Childless Cat Ladies posits women’s happiness firmly within the confines of a heterosexual marriage that she cannot leave (J.D. Vance wants to end no-fault divorce), where she is financially dependent on her husband (Vance believes working outside the home brings women misery) for whom she pops out one baby after another (the destruction of Roe v Wade and a possible abortion ban will usher in forced births as a national norm), he gives a blaring, glaring greenlight to men everywhere that women are the walking incubator property of men.
Misogyny wins!
When during the apex of the U.S. cultural elite known as the Oscars not one but three Oscar winners treated women like walking incubators for their progeny (Kieran Culkin channeled Vance by reminding his wife that she promised him babies as rewards for an Emmy and an Oscar), a trash can for their used gum (Adrien Brody literally took the gum out of his mouth and tossed it to his partner to catch before he accepted his speech and bloviated forever while saying nothing), and hapless and incapable ditzes and not the Oscar winning animators they are (Hossein Molayemi literally grabbed his wife and co-director Shirin Sohani’s smartphone out of her hand to read word for word what she had just said already) then it gives a blaring, glaring greenlight to men everywhere that women ain’t shit.
Misogyny wins!
And while misogyny got a repeat performance at the Oscars, not a single person at that apex of the U.S. cultural elite said a peep about the fungus that is fascism seeping into every crevice of U.S. life.
When the big men all repeat the same message–Misogyny wins!--it is no wonder that ordinary little men not only listen but flex their misogyny muscles on women they encounter in their day-to-day lives in a desperate attempt at power and relevance.
When sexual predators and sex traffickers aka the Tate Brothers are released from Romanian jail at the behest of President Grab Them By the Pussy (game recognises game, hey?), and are welcomed “home” to the U.S., it gives a blaring, glaring greenlight to men everywhere that this country is the United States of Rapists.
Misogyny wins!
It’s like Nick Fucking Fuentes’s “Your body, my choice,” has cloned itself into these walking specimen of women haters–the “manosphere” on legs and in 3D, not just trolls online.
Both my run-ins with misogynist fucks were with white men in New York City.
And while Black and men of colour who vote for Trump allow their gender to trump their race, in an attempt to align with and benefit from proximity to white men’s misogyny, it is white men who can most confidently strut their hatred of women in the country unscathed
The majority of men voted for Trump in 2016 (52 percent) and 2024 (55 percent). While a minority of Black men voted for Trump in 2024, more voted for him in 2024 than in 2016. Trump’s appeal to Black men has only increased. In 2024, over half of Latino men voters chose Trump, a significantly greater number than in 2016.
And while Black and men of colour who vote for Trump allow their gender to trump their race, in an attempt to align with and benefit from proximity to white men’s misogyny, it is white men who can most confidently strut their hatred of women in the country unscathed–nay, not just unscathed, but also to be heaped with rewards.
Clearly, Trump the rapist and racist, President “protector of women, whether they like it or not.” appeals to more than just white people, and that is alarming, even if the men of those marginalised groups comprise a minority of voters in the U.S.
When the big men from the president and his deputy, to Oscar winning actors and directors, to influencers with massive followings all repeat the same message–Misogyny wins!--it is no wonder that ordinary little men not only listen but flex their misogyny muscles on women they encounter in their day-to-day lives in a desperate attempt at power and relevance.
This is a time for and about conservative cisgender, heterosexual, able-bodied white men. The world those men want is a world that benefits only them. Anyone else–even the cisgender Black and men of colour who voted for Trump–will inevitably fail to be whitewashed or fail upwards.
Trump and the circus around him whipped up a fervour of misogyny, not just against Kamala Harris but against women generally, cisgender and trans, that was breathtaking in its boldness and shamelessness. Add to that a fevered Christian fundamentalism that targeted LGBTQ communities and anyone who didn’t belong in the patriarchal hellscape of President Grab Them by the Pussy and his Vice President Childless Cat Ladies.
But as all the examples above show, this is a time for and about conservative cisgender, heterosexual, able-bodied white men. The world those men want is a world that benefits only them.
Anyone else–even the cisgender Black and men of colour who voted for Trump–will inevitably fail to be whitewashed or fail upwards.
When the State effectively tells you that you are a walking incubator, the men you live with at Home, treat you as one.
It is why I always say pay attention to the Trifecta of Patriarchy–State, Street, and Home. I coined the phrase while writing about the revolutions across the Middle East/South West Asia and North Africa. I found that whenever I mentioned the importance of women’s liberation, men often told me “This isn’t the time.” As if our liberation is a distraction or a sideshow to the main attraction aka men.”And besides, the State oppresses us all,” those men would tell me. To which I would always reply that while the State oppresses everyone, men and women, the State, the Street, and the Home together oppress women, creating a Trifecta of Patriarchy.
When the highest institutions in the land such as the Supreme Court and Congress are controlling women—cis, trans, and effectively everyone who is not a wealthy, able-bodied, conservative Christian, cisgender, heterosexual white man—reining them in, and putting them in their place through laws that curb and control our bodily autonomy, it gives a blaring, glaring greenlight to men that they too can curb and control us.
When the State effectively tells you that you are a walking incubator, the men you live with at Home, treat you as one. When the president and the men who surround him are sexual predators who faced little to no consequence for their violence against women, the men who walk our Streets expect a similar impunity for their violence towards us. When right-wing politicians–from the president to the Texas legislature–target and punish transgender people, especially trans women, that hatred is echoed, often violently, in the Street and the Home.
Men try to control women every day. That is not new. Men treat women like shit every day, That is not new. But when the blaring, glaring greenlight comes from the highest echelons in society, understand that it turbocharges the day-to-day misogyny with a brazenness that is new.
Women’s bodies are vectors; the canvas upon which patriarchy encourages men to engrave their stories. When the most powerful men in the country and their institutions show you how little regard they have for our autonomy, even the weakest of men will reap those rewards.
Men try to control women every day. That is not new. Men treat women like shit every day, That is not new. But when the blaring, glaring greenlight comes from the highest echelons in society, understand that it turbocharges the day-to-day misogyny with a brazenness that is new. Trickle-down misogyny.
And be ready to fight.
Fight any way you can. Yell. Punch. Shove. Lift heavy weights and get strong enough to pick up a misogynist and fling him across a sidewalk.
Put those misogynist fucks on notice.
Fuck the patriarchy.
Read also: Trump, Rape, and Racist Fuckery
And: Why Trump Won
And: Who Will Fix Men
And: The 4Y Movement
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Mona Eltahawy is a feminist author, commentator and disruptor of patriarchy. Her latest book is an anthology on menopause she edited called Bloody Hell!: Adventures in Menopause from Around the World. Her first book Headscarves and Hymens: Why the Middle East Needs a Sexual Revolution (2015) targeted patriarchy in the Middle East and North Africa and her second The Seven Necessary Sins For Women and Girls (2019) took her disruption worldwide. It is now available in Ireland and the UK. Her commentary has appeared in media around the world and she makes video essays and writes a newsletter as FEMINIST GIANT.
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