protego-et-servio:

While delving into the underbelly of anti-feminist blogs, I stumbled upon this image.

Now, personally, I always found the “drinking Male Tears meme” kinda gross. Like…why would you want to drink something so salty? That makes my stomach churn thinking about it. (Not to mention tears are meant to get some excess hormones out of your body, I think, plus eye gunk. Just, ew. Gross.)

While I’m sure they’re just taking the Male Tears meme and using it for their own anti-feminist rhetoric, I can’t help but look at the image from the eyes of a young boy. (Or try, considering I’m a grown woman.)

How would a young boy - who is taught that tears are equated to weakness - look at the image of feminists drinking from cups labeled “male tears?”

They are completely unaware of the issues.

They don’t understand the gender wage gap, that men are hold more CEO positions than women (and make more than female CEOs,) and that many careers are still rampant with sexism.

They don’t understand the history of sexism. That women are threatened/maimed/killed simply for showing disinterest/rejection. They don’t realize that, just by existing as a female online, we face daily threats and harassment. (Especially if we speak out about things that matter to us.)

They don’t understand the personal experiences that women have had to live with, the misogyny that women face daily. They don’t realize that those “atypical” experiences or precautions they hear about might actually be an everyday occurrence for all women. Or that those men with authority (such as police officers) often abuse their power to assail women. (How many men fear being sexually assaulted when getting pulled over?)

From childhood, girls and women are ogled at by boys and grown men (and vilified for it) or we’re here to be incubators for fetuses (regardless to our own health or how we feel about it.) ((OH, and our bodies have been sexualized so much, we can’t even use our bodies for the processes it’s designed for by nature, aka feeding our own infants, without people decrying that we’re being “inappropriate.”)) We even have a hard time getting a word into conversations, between being harassed, threatened, sexualized, or just outright ignored.

Boys, who are unaware of the intricacies, amount, and magnitude of women’s struggles, probably take offense at the Male Tears meme.

Also, boys who are unaware of these intricacies, are also unaware that the “boys don’t cry” meme is an example of toxic masculinity. Which is a product of - you guessed it! - misogyny. Basically, tears equate to weakness and weakness equates to female, therefore, if you’re weak you equate to a female. See how that works?