why it’ll never be #MenToo for me





Now, back to bullshit.
















#TBT: Anti-domestic abuse campaigns aren’t working. It’s probably because they’re crap.












Don’t sweat dying alone


We sat opposite each other on his floor mattress. He was older, he’d been loved, he’d accomplished things I could only dream of, and he’s listening to me but he’s not hearing. I was telling him that if I died alone, like Jane Austen, then it wouldn’t be a terrible thing and he kept saying how ridiculous it was that someone my age (21) would think it likely they’ll die alone. Needless to say he did not fall in love with me. But I did stop talking about it from that moment, because there’s no easy way to tell someone, ‘I’m all I need, and if I do die alone, I won’t be wishing I wasn’t, I’ll be grateful I spent every moment making my life something else”.

Aside from being an inherently sexist paradigm similar to the ‘clock-is-ticking’ bullshit, designed to guilt women into settling or selling out for a relationship because it’s your primary value-base as a female, dying alone is nothing more than shaming the self. When I see people now, who look teary-eyed into their selfies or slouch across from me at coffee saying they know they’re dying alone, I feel like saying “yeah, so what’re you going to do about it?!”. Trouble is, I know they’ll loathe me for that because there is no way to stop yourself from dying alone unless you meet someone who loves you until-and while- you die, and you can’t control that, you can’t force that.

  • Darling heart, you have no clue when you’re going to die, so there’s never going to be any way of telling if you’ll die outside of a relationship. You could break up with someone who has been emotionally belittling you and physically abusing you for over a year, and when you leave in floods of happy tears that you’re free be hit by a car. Did you die alone?
  • Darling heart, you know as well as I do that no matter how well you think you know someone or how much love you give them, there is no guarantee they’ll be with you until you’re old, until you’re old and for fuck’s sake they still won’t leave you the hell alone and thank goodness for that!
  • Darling heart, even if you could force someone to be with you forever, you know it like a ball of wool sitting under your stomach scratching at your diaphragm that you’re only together because you’re full of fear, not full of love. You stick by each other because you prefer the devil you know than the devil you don’t. But that’s not love, that’s punishment. It’s not trust, it’s dependence. You both deserve better.
  • Darling heart, you know what to me is worse than dying alone? Dying beside someone you don’t love, and who doesn’t love you. You can spend your whole life pretending that’s not true, but I genuinely believe that at the last moment of our lives is when we reach the most clarified and pure truth of our lives. I would rather anything than my last moment feeling that though I wasn’t alone, I wasn’t happy.

That all being said, I think there are ways around this nightmare we continually empower, this obstacle we keep building a skyscraper of then applauding ourselves that we can’t overcome, an unsinkable ship. Here’s three ways you can stop the seemingly inevitable:

  1. Work out what “dying alone” actually means. Does “dying alone” mean never being in a meaningful relationship, does it mean not having any children, or any friends who call you more regularly than once a month? Does it actually mean you never having a fulfilling career, or travel to India, or own a home, or lose that last seven kilos? What do you want to look back on? Once you actually work out what it is, the steps to overcoming it instead of crucifying yourself with an unknown therefore insurmountable regret become easier to break into steps to walk on.
  2. Take a look at the map of your life. How far do you ever travel from home, or from work. We humans are truly creatures of habit, but we’re also creatures of comfort, now more than ever. We frequent the same places, we see the same people, we sit on the same train carriages and stare into our screens, we shop at the same stores. Make an effort to go to one entirely new place a month and not hide in your phone or earbuds the whole way. Take a friend if you feel the need, but just try and observe the undiscovered world around you- if it’s in a small way like a new bar, or a gallery opening, or a big way like a mystery road trip or surprise visit home to your family. You might catch someone’s eye, you might find the best coffee in ever, you might like yourself a little more for growing a vagina and getting the heck out there.
  3. Being sad, or feeling lonely, is never something to be ashamed of. In fact, it’s something to be encouraged by, it’s your soul telling you there’s something you want, something you’d like to change. In the same way our bodies tell us we’re hungry, but we ignore it because we’re busy, or that we’re tired but your ex will be there so we’ll still go and look drop-dead gorgeous, or that we’re in pain but the shoes just look so good. We know intuitively what we need, but are so capable of starving ourselves of for some alternate, usually regrettable purpose. Stop doing that. Eat the food, get the sleep, try the talking, do the changing.

There is no living creature to whom nature has been more generous, but in turn has been most ungrateful to and destructive of. We use our gifts of critical thought, mass production-and reproduction- and ingenuity to squander and destroy our planet’s resources, each other, and ourselves. All the while we hate, we fear the end of our suffering and we admonish those who love, anticipate it. Sometimes I go to bed feeling wasted, like there’s some unfulfilled purpose, some soul-level goal I’ve not even begun walking consciously toward. That means something. That means there’s more to be gained. Sometimes I go to bed feeling like I’ve fallen too far behind, because I’ve never been serious or long-term with anybody, but that has never stopped me, and never will. Whatever it took for me to learn I can only count on myself, I’m grateful for. I think it will make me a better partner someday. But today, I don’t matter any more or less, but I do.

In love and independence,


Also read Augusten Burroughs and Brene Brown. Like now. Not Elizabeth Gilbert, she’s onto it but seriously these people first.

The Seven Deadly Sins of Male Feminism


There are few punchlines quite like the male feminist punchline. Besides the shining examples of Matt McGorry and Justin Trudeau most men who stick up for feminism, and possibly many who stick up for women period are labelled as sissies, pussies, gay, traitors, and ulterior-motived letharios. For those men with the balls to say they’re all about that gender parity and those rights for women, it’s worth noting that feminism isn’t something you just talk out your dick about or casually mention when someone questions your Alanis Morrissette-heavy playlist on Spotify. If you want to really earn your stripes, bear in mind these sins committed by all-too-many blowhard blokes.


#1 Interruption
I noticed recently a female friend whose sentences have a way of trailing off after a while. They rarely really punctuate, just taper down. However, when we’re in company she’s the wittiest, punchy conversationalist. I realised that the reason I hear the fade out is because I’m unlikely to interrupt her mid-sentence. I imagine many women have mastered the art of getting their point or punchline out straight up before some guy cuts her off to deliver his own opinion, interpretation, agreement, disapproval, or joke of his own. There’s nothing wrong with just listening. Being a feminist doesn’t make it your fight, it makes you backup. Wait for the general to give you her instruction.


#2 Ignorance
Who’s Gertrude Steinem? What’s the suffragette movement? What did bras do to deserve burning? Why is there a Minister for Women? Here’s a tip, don’t call yourself a feminist unless you know your shit, and the shit you don’t know? Ask. I know it might seem like a vulnerable position to be in when you confess ignorance about issues, people, events, policies key to the feminist movement, but if you’re not willing to show the simple respect of asking women to inform you about feminism, you’re on so many wrong tracks you’re basically Ludacris.


#3 Martyrdom
We should all by now be in agreement that Masculinism and #notallmen are the devil. When male feminists use their feminism to whine and sulk that they feel tarred with the same brush and it’s not fair – welcome to what “sluts” might feel like, welcome to what it means when “women’s issues” is used to diminish your struggles in society. Far be it from me to school you, but being a feminist when you’re a man is not something you own, it’s something you earn. And until you’re willing to take a hard look at the brotherhood and gamble your place in it to stand up for women being disparaged, dismissed or degraded, no-one will respect your stance. This goes for all men masking their misogyny by asking for forgiveness because “I can empathise with the other side”. There is no other side for rape, abuse, murder or slander.


#4 Tokenism
I’ve asked men why they became feminists and stood there being told how into Beyoncé they are, how inspiring she is. Now I’m all about the Queen, and her pop-feminism is doing beautiful things for forward motion in the masses, but I’ll be damned if your first response isn’t “because women deserve all rights available to any human being around the world, and deserve to fight for those rights and be regarded”. Feminism isn’t a trend, or a movement from the sixties, it’s a centuries-long battle that we are the latest recruits to take up shield, sword, pen, tongue in. So get to work, and don’t tire out when it suddenly becomes less popular to be the f-word.


#5 Inaction
Hopefully by this point in the list you’re starting to realise that getting the door doesn’t make you a feminist, neither does following Clementine Ford on twitter, and sharing the domestic duties with your wife isn’t cutting it. When was the last time you asked your work if your pay was comparable with women’s pay in equivalent positions? When was the last time you checked your kid’s school uniform or bullying policy for gender equality? When have you checked for gender equality on the board or executive of your university, your super fund, your political party and allowed that to impact your choice? Don’t get confused between contributing to change and common courtesy. Actually actively do something.


#6 Grandstanding
In the spirit of practicing what I preach, I searched for women who wrote about what male feminism is and how it’s important to the movement. However there were too many articles written by men. IS THIS THING ON?


So here instead is a list of women who wrote about what to watch out for where male feminists are concerned. Get to clicking.
Jamie Utt and Jenika McCrayer
Lane Moore
Alicen Grey

#7 Evasion
You know how you’ve subconsciously assumed that doctors, actors, surgeons, lawyers are men sometimes? And you know how you never call a man a bitch unless he’s femme-gay? And when just between you and me, menstruation makes you uncomfortable? And when you surreptitiously don’t see a movie because it’s a chick-flick? It happens, it’s OK. We acknowledge it so we can fix it, and we should be mad about it. Because that’s misogyny impacting your life in the tiniest ways that allow a little more room for the bigger ways to somehow seem somewhat permissible. Being a feminist means being diligent, it doesn’t make you better than anyone else. On the contrary, being a feminist should be status quo. Be honest with yourself, challenge your interpretations and allow yourself to be part of a mass of people standing up against bigotry of all kinds. As a male feminist, just because it’s not about you, doesn’t mean it’s not valuable to you at all.