I'm no stranger to being told I'm less than solely on the basis of my gender, despite having grown up in the eighties and nineties. When I was twelve, my parents said that they wished I were a girl because "twelve-year-old girls help out a lot and twelve-year-old boys are just trouble." I was told multiple times by relatives and teachers that boys are generally stupider. For example, I was told that I was limited because of my gender, but the potential my sisters had was boundless. I was told that sons were worthless (or at least I was until something heavy needed lifting). I also was expected to put myself in danger to protect my sisters; when my family had men renovating the house, my parents told me to always be there as the construction workers could have been rapists (I had no idea what I could have done against several grown men, but apparently, that was irrelevant).

It wasn't until a friend of mine posted something on Facebook singing praises about a new book talking about how women were better than men at just about everything and, shortly after, I came across an article entitled The End of Men that I reached a point of no return. I read through snippets of that book my friend talked about and quickly found that all of it was based on highly skewed metrics and cherry-picked examples (e.g. even though most men can beat women at a 5k race, women winning ultramarathons is much less unheard of, but it's really the ultramarathons that count as it shows endurance and planning, just like life; hence, women are also better athletes). There was also the impossibility of proving one gender better at everything in less than 150 pages. It would be one thing if this was also based on truth, facts, and sound logic, but so many people just ate it up and laughed at the men who didn't like this book. And then there was the hypocrisy; how would people react to an equally flawed book about how men were better at everything?

From that point on, I couldn't unsee the anti-male sentiment in the news or on social media or even in entertainment or how it's just dismissed. But I quickly learned that nobody cares if I protest against this. Actually, when I did say something, I had an attitude problem, I was a whiny crybaby, or I was supposed to suck it up since other people had it harder. I then realized I had to go about it another way.

This is what I've been doing to keep things like this from getting to me, and I'm hoping some of you might find this useful. Also, I should mention that I'm more of a dick than most people, so if you use any of this as inspiration, I should warn you that your mileage may vary in light of your personality type and your current life situation.

I pay as little attention to the news and social media as I possibly can. Most news, particularly those from Slate, Guardian, Huffington Post, and the like is worthless. They don't inform and a lot of their articles are based on emotional arguments, flawed logic, cherry-picked data, and inappropriate applications of math and statistics. Some articles aren't even useful; like how does it affect me if Sharon Stone has sworn off men? Of course, there is no shortage of articles about how women are superior in just about every way to men or how men cause all the problems in this world. For example, the Washington Post put out an article in 2018 implying that women were tougher given the percentage of them that finished the Boston Marathon that year was higher (95% of men that started the race finished whereas that figure for women was 96.2%; but the writer of this article framed it that "the increase in the number of men who did not finish compared to 2017 was several fold greater than the corresponding increase for women"). Then there are those hundreds of articles talking about how female-led countries handled the pandemic better, all based on the three same fatally flawed analyses.

Meanwhile, social media is simply a platform for stupid people to spout off their stupid ideas to other stupid people. And some of the stupidest things I had ever heard were found in the Facebook comments, like this one dumbass insisting that women would be able to not only compete with men in sports but outperform them if given the same opportunities and encouragement. Having a discussion on social media is so futile and infuriating that you're probably better off just going straight for personal attacks right from the start; no one changes their mind based on a Facebook or Twitter argument and people say things on social media that they would never ever say if they weren't hiding behind their computer screen.

This is not to say that I completely swear off news and social media. I read enough news to get a broad understanding of what's going on in the world, but primarily avoid digging too deep into news sites. I use social media for photos and videos of cute animals, offensive memes, and seeing how fat my high school classmates have become.

I focus on myself and trying to become the best version of me I can be. Putting energy into work or hobbies or relationships is generally good advice no matter what; I like being useful, getting better at something, tackling a difficult problem, or spending time with good people. Time spent forming or strengthening friendships or writing my novel almost always makes me forget about the contempt and loathing for men that certain people seem to have.

This is partially driven by some residual desire from childhood to prove that I am a man who is actually capable. Also, I also want to become the man that man-haters don't want to believe exists: the hard worker, the most valuable player on a project, the competent leader, the high achiever who's good at a variety of things. I do this hoping that it will directly weaken their narrative that all men are lazy and good for nothing, take credit for other people's work, and only get anywhere by relying on their male privilege. And if these man-hating assholes get pissed because they think my promotion or award took it away from a woman or because I abused my male privilege or whatever, that's actually an added bonus for me.

I make sure to pay attention to my local surroundings every once in a while. I can't do anything about Obama babbling on and on about how women are indisputably better and that they should take control. I can't do anything about all the dumbasses that swallow this bullshit. But I can surround myself with good people and the things I like. I can tell some little boy that his boy-hating teacher is stupid, that he shouldn't listen to her, and that he does matter no matter what she says. I can have a discussion with friends and family members face-to-face, which, I find, is much more effective at influencing people's beliefs and decisions than online.

This is not to say that things happening at a national or global level aren't important. I'm not saying that hashtags and activism aren't important. It's just that I suggest you also not neglect your immediate surroundings, as they are much more within your control, and you will probably be able to affect change more effectively by incrementally applying effort locally.

I learned to stop caring about whether I piss off certain man-hating assholes. Like why waste time and energy trying to cater to people who hate you just for existing and will never like you no matter what you do? I don't go out of my way to be a prick to everyone, but I stopped concerning myself about whether I'm mansplaining or whether what I'm saying is offensive. I've openly called certain radical feminists unreasonable. I don't hide my contempt for people with gender studies degrees or my opinion that such people are worthless. I've told people flat-out that I refuse to go to any Women's Marches because the people who go to these things are self-centered, worthless, toxic, and don't actually care about helping women. When people call me misogynistic for arguing against the claim that female leaders handled the COVID pandemic better (that entire question is flawed on so many levels, but that's another post for another day) or not believing that AOC or Greta Thunberg are the saviors of this world, my typical response that I don't give a fuck.

And guess how this has affected my social life? It hasn't in the least. Sure, I do piss off a handful of people, but I still get invites to events and my weekends are still often full of social activities.

What about all of you? How do you keep anti-male sentiments from getting under your skin?