The Reality That Women Face That Men Have No Clue About

I’ve thought a lot about this. So when I went to talk to my friends about it, they all tried to convince me otherwise.

All the men, that is.

When a woman tries to talk about her struggles, she’s often met with demeaning comments. Men make us believe that we don’t have it as bad as we say we do.

When those male friends make comments about women they both do and don’t know, they always forget to factor in all the problems she faces on a daily basis.

They think that we have it easy. Like being beautiful is a blessing that changes everything for the better.

Men don’t see our tears, the things we have to do every single day to ensure our own safety.

Men don’t understand us; they never have and they never will. It’s like unless another man says that we’re struggling, we’re completely fine.

Men don’t listen to women, but rather to other men. They will never look at us and see our truth.

There’s a reality that women face that men have no clue about. They don’t understand us or the things we go through.

They go completely deaf and blind at the prospect of a woman being in more trouble than they are.

A man is always the main character. Women just play to their needs.

We’re their side character. The romantic love interest who has no other issues besides finding favor with him.

We aren’t capable of showing emotions without being ridiculed for them. Men think that we’re hysterical, overly sensitive, or on our period.

There’s nothing we say that speaks the truth unless it’s confirmed by a man. Don’t you think that it’s miserable to live your life like that, day in and day out?

We have to make sure that we walk with our head held high, but not too high. We should be confident, but never assertive.

Somehow, we don’t play into their dreams of what women should be like.

Someone asked women on social media what we would do if men went extinct for 24 hours.

The answers were heartbreaking.

Mothers said that they’d let their little girls go to the park unsupervised. Women said that they’d go for a run in the park, with their earbuds in, and blast their music as loud as they could.

On that post, so many women were saying how they would go out on a hike through the woods or take a simple walk around the block at night.

Men never have to endure the same fear we do. They don’t have to ask the cashier to escort them to their car because a creepy guy was following them around the store.

They don’t have to check under their car before they get in because someone could be hiding underneath it.

Yes, we’re very aware that men sometimes go through similar experiences to women. Yes, we know that not every man is bad.

But we still keep our location on when we go on dates with men we met online, so our friends can track us.

We tell them that if we don’t respond to their texts in a certain amount of time, they need to contact the authorities.

Going out with men has become a wicked game of Russian roulette.

We never know which one is the abuser who disguises himself as a nice guy. We never know who’ll touch us without our permission or who’ll convince us that we want it.

You yourself have probably had this conversation with a man more times than you can count. Their only response is to bring up male victims, like it makes the female ones seem insignificant in comparison.

But men never have understood our reality.

We are always too much. We wear too much make-up and dress too provocatively, we’re too sensual, too open, too closed off, too discreet.

Whatever a woman does is deemed to be a hysterical cry for attention because in the eyes of men, that’s what we’re good for.

When you make the hard decision to focus on your own career instead of having a family, you’re not feminine enough. You’re deemed selfish and heartless.

Like the thought of being a woman who doesn’t have a hoard of children is disgusting.

But then again, when you focus on your family instead of going after a career, you’re not ambitious enough.

When you have kids, you’ve apparently given up on yourself. In the eyes of men, you’re deemed as weak because you chose that path.

How many more times will we have to explain this to misogynistic men?

How many more times will we have to back down when they explain how we’re taken care of just because we’re women?

They don’t even see the micro-abuse women face. They’re blind to the fat-shaming, the snarky remarks, and the pretty privilege.

They don’t see when we walk through town and we have this need to bark at every man who throws a crude comment our way.

We either want to run or we want to fight. Neither of those options are deemed to be safe for us, so we just stay silent.

Men don’t understand the amount of fear we go through life with. The reality that women face will never be something they understand.

There’s nothing we can do right in the eyes of male society.

When we go out with our friends, we have to lie to men who approach us. We tell them that we have a boyfriend, simply because we know that they respect this non-existent man more than they respect us.

That man we made up is the only thing that’s standing between us and danger at that point. Anyone who believes otherwise is absolutely blind to everything that’s happening around them.

So if you’re an uneducated man, give yourself some time to research these things. You need to ask the women around you to explain their situation and listen.

Don’t let your male ego flare up in their face, but rather take the time you need to prove them wrong and instead spend it on making a difference.

A change isn’t around the corner, but if we keep on working together, it just might be a little bit closer.

So don’t stop. Women and men alike.

Because the reality that women face is brutal and heartbreaking.