Something’s Broken
Walk into any room of single people in their twenties and thirties and you’ll feel it—the exhaustion, the suspicion, the quiet giving up. Men and women aren’t just struggling to connect anymore. Many have stopped trying altogether.
The numbers tell the story. In the UK, marriage rates have dropped to historic lows. More than 14 men kill themselves every single day—three times the rate of women. Meanwhile, dating apps have turned romance into a brutal marketplace where most people feel like they’re losing.
This isn’t a think piece about modern dating. This is about how men and women have become enemies, and how both sides are getting exactly what they claim they don’t want.
The Male Rage Machine
Let’s start with the uncomfortable truth: the “manosphere” exists because men are genuinely hurting.
Suicide is the biggest killer of British men under 50. At age 11, only 56% of boys meet expected standards compared to 63% of girls. By 19, only 40% of young men are in higher education versus 54% of women. Boys are twice as likely to be kicked out of school permanently.
These men grow up watching their fathers work themselves to death or get destroyed in divorces. They see women succeeding in education while they fall behind. They try dating apps and get ignored by 95% of women. They’re told masculinity is toxic, their problems don’t matter, and they should just be better.
So they find spaces online where someone finally says, “Your pain is real.” And those spaces are filled with rage.
The rage isn’t completely baseless. But here’s where it goes wrong: instead of dealing with the actual pain, these men build an entire worldview around hating women. Every woman becomes a “gold digger” looking for a “beta provider” after “riding the carousel” with “alpha males.” They obsess over body counts, hypergamy, and divorce statistics. They reduce women to evolutionary strategies and sexual market value.
It’s pain that’s curdled into poison. And it’s spreading.
The Female Response: “We Don’t Need You”
Women see this male rage and think, “This is exactly why we don’t need men.”
And to be fair, they have their own mountains of evidence. Women still do the majority of childcare and housework even when working full time. They navigate constant low-level threat assessment just existing in public spaces. They watch mediocre men get promoted while they do the actual work. They’re told they can “have it all” and then punished for trying.
So they create their own spaces online where someone finally says, “You’re not crazy. Men are the problem.”
And in those spaces, a different poison grows. “Men are trash” becomes an acceptable opinion. Male struggles get dismissed as “fragile masculinity” or “male tears.” Any man who brings up his problems gets told to check his privilege. The idea spreads that women are simply superior—more emotionally intelligent, more mature, more capable of survival without the opposite sex.
It’s defensive contempt masquerading as empowerment.
The Addiction Nobody Admits
Here’s the part that will make everyone angry: both sides have become addicted to the fight.
The red pill podcasters need women to be villains so they can sell courses on how to “beat female nature.” The feminist accounts need men to be oppressors so they can maintain moral high ground. The content creators need the outrage to keep the algorithms happy.
And normal people—decent men and women who just want connection—get caught in the crossfire. They absorb these messages, bring them into their relationships, and wonder why everything feels like a battlefield.
Every dating interaction becomes a test. Every disagreement becomes evidence. Every hurt feeling becomes proof that the other gender is fundamentally broken.
The truth? Most men don’t hate women. Most women don’t hate men. But we’re all marinating in discourse that tells us we should.
What’s Actually Happening
From a psychological perspective, this is what’s called “shadow projection.” We take the parts of ourselves we don’t like or don’t understand, and we project them onto the other gender.
Men who rage against women are often terrified of their own vulnerability. They’ve been taught that needing someone makes them weak, so they hate women for making them feel need.
Women who dismiss men are often disconnected from their own power. They’ve been taught to be accommodating and pleasant, so they resent men for the assertiveness they’ve denied in themselves.
Both sides are fighting themselves and blaming the other person.
The Statistics Nobody Wants to Hear
Let’s be brutally honest about what the data actually shows:
Men are struggling. The suicide rate, the educational collapse, the economic displacement—this is real and it’s getting worse. Telling men to “man up” while their world crumbles is cruel and stupid.
Women are struggling. The career penalties for motherhood, the invisible labour, the residue of actual historical oppression—this is also real and doesn’t disappear because some men are angry on the internet.
Both things are true simultaneously. This isn’t a competition. But we’ve turned it into one because competing is easier than connecting.
In the UK, we’re seeing the results: over 102,000 divorces in 2023. Plummeting birth rates. Rising loneliness for both genders. An entire generation choosing isolation over the risk of being hurt by someone of the opposite sex.
The Lie We Keep Telling Ourselves
The biggest lie in modern gender discourse is that one side needs to win.
Men think if they can just “put women in their place” or “understand female nature,” they’ll finally get what they want. Women think if they can just “level the playing field” or “not need men,” they’ll finally be safe and respected.
Both are chasing fantasies.
The uncomfortable truth is this: men and women need each other. Not in some 1950s “women belong in the kitchen” way. Not in some gender-critical “biology is destiny” way. But in the basic human sense that we’re wired for connection, partnership, and intimacy with people who are different from us.
Every man contains feminine aspects—vulnerability, receptivity, emotional depth. Every woman contains masculine aspects—agency, assertion, directional power. The war between the genders is really a war against the parts of ourselves we’ve been taught to reject.
When men rage against “emotional women,” they’re raging against their own denied emotions. When women mock “fragile men,” they’re mocking the vulnerability they’re afraid to show themselves.
The Question That Matters
Can we stop?
Can men acknowledge their pain without turning women into the enemy? Can women assert their needs without dismissing male struggles as irrelevant?
Can both sides do the harder work of integration—of owning all the parts of themselves instead of projecting them onto the other gender and then attacking those projections?
The honest answer is: most people won’t. Because healing requires humility, and the internet rewards certainty. Healing requires seeing the other person as fully human, and ideology requires seeing them as a problem to be solved.
The podcasts will keep raging about body counts. The social media will keep declaring men trash. Both sides will keep building their cases for why they’re right and the other side is wrong.
And in the middle of all this noise, two people might meet, try to connect, and find themselves infected by all the poison they’ve absorbed. They’ll bring the discourse into their bedroom, the resentment into their arguments, the talking points into their breakup.
The Way Out (For Those Who Want It)
If you’re tired of the war, here’s what the actual work looks like:
For men: Your pain about being disposable, invisible, or falling behind is completely valid. The system is failing you. AND—the answer isn’t hating women or trying to dominate them. The answer is learning to access your own emotional depth, vulnerability, and relational capacity without seeing it as weakness. Stop outsourcing your worth to female approval or submission.
For women: Your exhaustion with male violence, entitlement, and obliviousness is completely valid. The residue of oppression is real. AND—the answer isn’t dismissing all male pain or pretending you don’t need partnership. The answer is owning your power, aggression, and autonomy without needing men to be smaller for you to feel safe. Stop outsourcing your strength to male guilt.
For everyone: Stop consuming content that makes you hate the other gender. Stop participating in conversations where men or women are reduced to their worst examples. Stop treating your pain as more valid than someone else’s pain.
Choose connection over correctness. Choose curiosity over certainty. Choose the individual person in front of you over the ideology about their gender.
Or don’t. Keep fighting. Keep being right. Keep being alone.
The Final Truth
The hatred you feel toward men or women is always, always a mirror of something you hate in yourself.
Men who despise female emotionality are running from their own feelings. Women who mock male vulnerability are terrified of their own needs.
Until we own our shadows—until we integrate the parts of ourselves we’ve projected onto the other gender—we’ll keep having the same fights, the same breakups, the same bitter discourse about who’s worse.
The wound won’t heal until we stop picking at it.
The question isn’t whether men or women are the problem.
The question is: do you want to be right, or do you want to be connected?
Most people will choose being right.
But for those few who choose connection—who do the shadow work, who risk being hurt, who see the other gender as fully human instead of enemy combatants—there’s still a chance at something real.
The choice has always been yours.
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