I Was Accused of ‘Man-Bashing’

But there’s more to the story.

I wrote two very personal articles about my experience with sexual harassment as a younger woman as well as my difficult journey navigating my way out of an abusive marriage.

In these articles, I describe men as the culprits in these two separate situations — which is absolutely true. Nothing will make this untrue. They were both men. One situation was extremely uncomfortable and the other situation was frighteningly violent.

I was shocked to see a comment on one of my pieces from a man expressing how he was sick and tired of ‘man bashing’ and my gender-specific attack on the male species.

Quite honestly, I was genuinely taken aback by the comment which went on to imply that I should not be writing about these experiences or calling out the men I was depicting because it made all men look bad. Additionally, the comment expressed that I needed to see men as human beings — not just as predatory jerks.

I am pleased to report that I absolutely see men as human beings. I love men. I have many great men in my life. I’m also raising one.

Perhaps ‘man-bashing’ is not the best term to illustrate the picture I was trying to draw through my words. By summarizing my personal accounts of sexual harassment and domestic violence, I meant no harm to men in general.

However, the human beings I happened to be writing about in my personal accounts were — in fact — men.

There’s no getting around that.

I’m not about to stop bleeding my personal experiences into my laptop anytime soon, especially not with so many lessons to be gained through writing about my experiences. The content I write is not just for me but it is for other people who are reading it and who may be going through the same kinds of experiences.

I’m proud of the way I’ve been able to communicate the devastating things that have happened in my life — and how I eventually managed to heal from those things.

By describing my own experiences I only meant to cathartically express the power of healing based on my own past as well as to hopefully help others to heal — hence my choice to write about these things.

I can’t express enough how much the men in my life now mean to me and how much I admire multitudes of other men who exist on this planet.

If writing about the men from my past who taught me the most brutal life lessons I’ve learned so far offends other men or it feels like a man-bashing narrative — it IS unfortunate but certainly not intentional.

I appreciate the man who commented on this as it brought me a new perspective on how others may be receiving my work as well as gifting me the inspiration to write this.

Thank you for reading.

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