Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them.

This quote is often used as a way to invalidate men's feelings when discussing ways in which women hurt them.

It's surprising that, society says men need to be more vulnerable and in touch with their emotions, yet when they do, they are hit with quotes like this!

So basically, this quote tells men that their feelings are not important and society does not care about their feelings because women are afraid they will kill them.

These same people will then say that it's not just physical violence that women fear from men, it's also the way society (the patriarchy) treats them as less then men. That misogyny is harmful and intolerable, that men saying hurtful things to women is not good and men need to be better and hold other men accountable for such behaviors.

So it's ironic in a way, men are supposed to be more vulnerable and in touch with their emotions unless those emotions are a direct result of how society (especially in circumstances where mostly women are involved) are the culprit for those emotions. Then, they need to bottle those emotions up or ignore them because women fear men for a more drastic reason.

It's almost as if society hasn't fully understood that asking men to be more vulnerable and in touch with their emotions only works if society is going to care. Because when society doesn't care and these boys/men have exhausted themselves to be heard and to receive compassion but are ridiculed and told they don't deserve to have those feelings ;that they end up turning those emotions into much more dangerous ones.

Let's face it, it's better to feel anger than it is to feel sorrow. It's easier to want to punish those around you so somebody will listen when nobody wanted to hear you speak anyways. It's surprisingly more valued to NOT be vulnerable if that vulnerability stemmed from actions others have caused and the group responsible are given free reign to behave that way.

I know it's easy to blame the patriarchy, between that and toxic masculinity it's their go to reason for men's behaviors. Yet maybe quotes telling men they are stupid for getting their feelings hurt by women is the toxic masculinity and patriarchy they are supposed to be fighting against!

How can we tell our men and boys that they should express how they are feeling if we continuously dismiss them because the cause of those feelings is women? I mean if you want to create a misogynist the quickest way to do that is to allow men and boys to be treated without care and ridicule them when they try to speak out against it!