Your Silence Is a Side

To the men watching and saying nothing,

Let me say it plainly.

If you hear misogyny and say nothing, you are not neutral. You are useful. Silence is not passive rather participation with plausible deniability.

We love pretending we’re innocent because “we don’t do that”

We don’t hit.

We don’t harass.

We don’t rape.

We don’t murder.

We don’t discriminate.

I am tired of the version of manhood that survives on quiet complicity. The laughter. The silence. Protecting our comfort instead of confronting harm.

“Letting it pass.”

That passing? That’s permission you twat.

“But does silence mean actively enabling?”

Yes. Yes it does.

If a man degrades a woman and you look down at your phone, you’re choosing a side.

If your group chat circulates degradation and humiliation disguised as humour and instead of calling it out, you laugh, you’re choosing a side.

If you only speak when women are present so that you can be seen as “different,” you’re choosing optics. Not integrity. You’re choosing a side.

I am insecure about a lot of things. About my body. My voice. Whether I measure up to whatever invisible metric men compete under.

But my moral stand? Never.

Women are not arenas for male bonding. They are not collateral damage in our performance of masculinity. Women deserve safety without qualification.

And if that makes me “soft,” then my softness is strength that refuses to rot.

We have inherited a script that harms. And pretending we didn’t write it does not absolve us of performing it.

And I refuse that script. I refuse this version of manhood that demands moral compromise as some sort of membership fee.

Ask yourself. And I beg you to,

Are you actually a good man? Or are you just a man who hasn’t been forced to choose publicly yet?

Because that’s where character shows.

Not in private beliefs. Not in how you treat women you’re attracted to. MOST ESPECIALLY NOT IN HOW YOU TREAT WOMEN YOU ARE ATTRACTED TO!

And I hope that’s loud enough.

But in how you respond when another man crosses a line and looks to you for silent approval.

You don’t get to condemn violence in theory and enable it in practice. You just can’t disappear when it costs you social standing. You seriously just can’t.

If your masculinity depends on silence, it is fragile. Sorry to say.

Hmm actually, NOT SORRY.

Your comfort depending on complicity is outright cowardice. And if this makes you uncomfortable, GOOD. It is you I’m talking to.

The discomfort is friction between who you think you are and who you might actually be. The next time the room tests you, (it will), I hope you remember that your silence will be counted.

Sit with that discomfort.

Then decide which side of silence you’re actually on.