I feel that I owe the founders and members of such forums as this one an apology. I am 44, married. The first time I realized that there are some men protesting men's condition, was through a bus window. I must have been in my early twenties and saw a graffiti, "rights for men in family courts", bad handwriting, not even a proper sign - black spray. It was somewhat alarming to watch, I imagined a poor family and an illiterate man frustrated of everything, not knowing how to deal with reality and bureaucracy and spilling it hopelessly on the walls of a central bus station. The handwriting had the urgency that creates a sense of tragedy, but of the kind occurring to hopeless lives, that we all imagine boiling around us in prisons and mental hospitals and make us sorry but absolutely sure it's none of our business - it's "the system's". I would see these graffiti every few months or years and it was just added to the overall sadness that industrial zones and train stations lay on you. Then at some point, in my thirties, now married, through a conversation with my wife about something related to women, she mentioned there were men who object feminist actions, and this was the first time I realized there's a "category" for this, that it's not just random graffiti. I asked her, "what do they want?" and she said, "You don't want to know. They are murderers who killed women". I was horrified. I didn't know how to understand this, I imagined convicts who try to organize behind bars to justify their crimes instead of admitting their brutality and serve their time, I was scared by the concept and this shaped my attitude for the coming years.

I have no idea where my wife got to know about such men's groups activities, she is extremely empathic to women and to women's issues but by no means an ideological feminist, she doesn't even call herself a feminist (or anything in particular regarding women). Years past, and about seven years ago I started from time to time to see in newspapers men discussing "men's issues". This was baffling. Most of all, I was repulsed. This has insulted first and foremost my male confidence and male dignity - if you are a man, then just deal with your problems instead of complaining. The very notion of men writing this way was humiliating to read. As if so powerless that their only way to reach what they need is begging society to acknowledge their "problems". What "problems"? My problems as a man were not getting laid for half a year or being turned down by a girl I fell in love with - not prostate cancer, custody and sperm deceptions - how is that considered men's issues? I'm a man, if you want to talk about my issues as a man then great - let's talk about girls throwing you to the rain after having an orgasm alone on you, this is what I had in life, what these columnists were writing about was definitely not the issues I'm having! I felt that it's hypocritical - that men don't really have any issues as men, only as humans, and that this is an attempt to compete with women in a weakness and vulnerability contest. Very unmanly. And I had no idea this could be somehow related to those graffiti by ex-convicts and murderers.

I did watch the Red Pill, but I was preoccupied with responding to what men were saying there. I had no argument with how feminists were depicted - since I was 20 I had this feeling that some feminists are not being honest about what drives them and are in fact motivated by violent urges, and the film confirmed what I already knew, but as for the men, except for some very disturbing descriptions of family court decisions, suicides, and a rape case by a woman of a disabled guy that shocked me, again I felt it is not me they are talking about. But then came me too.

In me too I was lynched personally, for simply criticizing me too as going too far. Following the lynch I was harassed at work by feminists. I had to leave that place. I was estranged by women who I thought were my friends, and turned out to be ideological feminists. I was banned. Work that I worked 20 years to reach was discontinued. I read violent hate speech in newspapers and when I expected a response - as done whenever hate speech and violence appear - it never came. As if some things occurring around me, can never be criticized no matter how deeply they violate the principles of society. Murder included. Me too made something become clear - men can be attacked, discriminated against, hurt, even murdered by women, but no one will report it or talk about it. Which made me ask - so it's not that abuse and discrimination of men doesn't exist, it's just never reported and monitored so nobody knows about it? I never questioned the data about women being hurt by men - but women are discussed and hurting them is objected. Could it be that just like there are women hurt and abused by men, there is also such a male group hurt by women, only this group in not allowed to receive the same treatment - reporting it, educating, and this is why I don't know about them?

I started digging. I was amazed at what I found. Every statistic I knew about women turned out to be exaggerated compared to the studies, sometimes 20-fold (like "one in 5, 4 , 3", in fact 1.7% were raped according to studies), and the equivalent data on men downplayed or literally suppressed. The data showed clearly that in each sex there's a group hurt violently by the other sex, but that these groups are about the same size in each sex, and that the prevalence of perpetrators is the same in both sexes, and it started to look like feminism and a society driven by it, have been taking two steps - describing the minority of women hurt by men as all women, and hiding the more or less equally-sized minority in men hurt similarly by women, so a picture of "one abusive sex", "one abused sex" was formed (and used to perpetuate the downplaying and overplaying, causing society to be trapped in a loop of self-reinforcing ignorance - confirmation bias at its worst feeding itself endlessly to the level of replacing reality with a falsehood). It suddenly struck me that what I'm seeing in me too - battering men, but then no response appears - is not at all new, it seems that me too only amplified it and made it more explicit, and only then I started asking myself, what actually happened to that guy who sprayed a graffiti at a central bus station, was he the illiterate, ex-convict, women-killer spilling madness on a wall, or, me? A person who was wronged but found out there will be no place on earth that will allow him to say what happened to him? Because there is some force, apparently powerful, that prevents anything related to one half of humanity being sometimes hurt by members of the other half, being said, known, responded on, corrected. Until with nothing else to do and no one to say it to he sprays it on a wall. Perhaps those articles in newspapers on "men's issues", weren't saying anything I could relate to, because, they weren't allowed to? Because in order to say at least something, they had to approach it with care, not to upset a censor?

Then finally I had to ask myself: if this had been going on for years, men being hurt or discriminated just like women, why couldn't I see it. Why couldn't I try to listen. Why, am I, so blind. And this was my answer: because it was difficult for me to identify with other men. I couldn't listen because they were all men. and I understood I'm not special - no one listens to them. Until one is hurt directly by what they are trying to point to - then, he understands. And comes here. As I came. I think that in such forums, you will find almost only those who were hurt personally. And here is my apology: for years, maybe decades, you have been trying to explain to society what had been done to you and about powers in motion that create in our society injury and injustice. We including myself ignored you. Despised you. Blamed you. Until what you were trying to point to reached such proportions that it exploded as a hate movement affecting millions more - now that we are hurt ourselves we come to you for advice and sympathy. Now we understand. I am so sorry for how we treated you and abandoned you. They say men don't cry enough? Well, I'm crying now.