There’s a reason videos of women slapping, hitting, or shoving their boyfriends go viral with people laughing instead of calling it what it is—casual physical abuse. There’s a reason women can pressure or coerce men into sex, and people just shrug it off instead of calling it what it is—sexual assault/rape.

It all comes down to one thing: women don’t see themselves as capable of victimising men, and society has made sure they never have to.

Men are conditioned to believe that being hit by a woman isn’t a big deal, even when it happens repeatedly. They’re told they can’t be sexually assaulted, because “men always want sex” or “they’re lucky if a woman initiates.” And women? They’ve been told their actions don’t count as real abuse. They think if a guy gets hard, it means he consented. They think if he “didn’t say no loud enough,” it wasn’t coercion. They think if he goes along with something while uncomfortable, it’s his fault for not stopping it. Sound familiar? Those are the exact same excuses men have used against female victims for decades.

But the real issue is why this conditioning exists in the first place. Because if society actually acknowledged that women can be violent, predatory, and manipulative on a significant scale, then the entire narrative around gender-based violence falls apart. It means discussions about abuse wouldn’t be so one-sided. It means feminism would have to admit that men can be victims too—not just as an afterthought, but as a serious, systemic issue. And they can’t have that, because it weakens their stance and forces them to take accountability.

Of course, none of this is to say that women aren’t victims of abuse too. But the problem is that when men experience abuse, it’s either treated as a joke, downplayed as ‘not that serious,’ or outright denied. People will make excuses for the woman’s behaviour, blame the man for not stopping it, or act like he should be grateful for the attention if it’s sexual. None of those responses would ever fly if the roles were reversed.

And the worst part? Men themselves have been conditioned to never see themselves as victims—especially at the hands of a woman. From a young age, they’re told to ‘man up,’ to take hits without complaint, to never say no to sex, and to laugh off their own discomfort. This social programming doesn’t just serve women—it protects them. It gives them free rein to abuse, assault, and manipulate without consequence, because the very people they target have been taught to never recognise it as abuse in the first place. And that is not accidental.

I assume this is what feminists mean when they say ‘patriarchy hurts both men and women.’ It’s just that they never seem interested in addressing the ways it benefits them.

When are we actually going to have a real conversation about this? Or is it just too inconvenient to acknowledge? We really need to stop coddling 'them'.