Are men OK?
Same 2 weeks - 2 different (stranger) dudes have acted really aggressively towards me. One physical, one verbal (Verbals was scarier). Unfortunate coincidence - or are men getting worse?
I don’t have much time for the concept of “male micro aggression”. Sorry. It’s just that I am a 90s feminist, half resilience, half vengeance-wreaking and -seeking, heavy dose of “pick yer battles” - and I really do think it’s “not all men”. It’s not even most of them. And if someone does something to me, or near me, which I think might be a minor, mindless expression of a broader tendency to undermine women, or dismiss women, or reinforce our lesser status in the eyes of society… Ah, I’m inclined to say: “Oh sweetie, look at YOU with your funny little ideas!” and move on. Patronising silly boys is my weapon of choice. And anyway, taking offence is such a wearying position. I feel genuine offence incredibly rarely (fast burning fury or begoggled amusement are much more my style). The mighty Polly Neate said to me recently, she thought that was a recurring trait in those of us :”born to be Marmite”. I do love that.
I tend to think my existence to this point stands as a bit of a lesson to anyone - male or female - inclined to underestimate women, in the fact that I run it exactly as I choose, and that’s really paying off for me - like staggeringly well.
Can’t recommend doing what you know is right for you, with zero regard for what society thinks you should be doing, enough.
But yesterday, as I made my way through Waterloo mainline station, some bloke ploughed fully and deliberately into me with one big big shoulder. It was hard enough, and intentional enough, to spin me round, project my phone from my hand, onto the concourse - and hurt. I shouted out in shock, then - when I spotted him, stomping away like nothing untoward had happened, which is the point I realised it truly was deliberate, there’s no way you hit anyone with that force, by accident, then don’t apologise profusely - I screamed: “WHY THEY F**K WOULD YOU DO THAT TO ME?” in his wake.
(A moment here, for the entitlement and status I apparently always display, when violated by strangers. There is something very grand in me, only exposed in such circs. When a stranger tried to rape me on a canal path, when I was 18, the first thing I thought to say to him was: “DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHO I AM?” I don’t know who this woman is, exactly. But I’m so glad she resides within me.)
The whole thing was explosive and dramatic enough for the five or six people closest to us, to notice. One of them hurried to my aid, a man who, even in my discombobulated sweary fury - I was capable of noticing was fit.
“You OK?” he asked, scrambling to retrieve my phone which, miraculously, had not been smashed. I attempted to do the segue from sweary mad woman into charming coquette - and failed. It’s too great a u turn.
I recovered myself in M&S, then decided to go looking for The Man. I had a question for him. My question was:
“You wouldn’t have done that to another man, would you?”
Because he wouldn’t, would he? My sense is, he was one of those generally angry characters who fill the world, increasingly. He’d had a bad day, and all his frustration, all his sense of injustice, and “poor me” and “the world is going to sh*t” would have boiled over and come out on me, because… Who knows, exactly? I was just there? Wearing my antelope (not leopard, we don’t call it leopard!) print Rixo coat, leggings and boots and a tshirt that says “Later” over a picture of an alligator and listening to Sabrina Carpenter’s Espresso on that phone which ended up projectiled out of my sweaty paw, and generally quite obviously enjoying myself, which can, in itself, be a provocation to some. Particularly those who feel fundamentally bad themselves, unsure about their place - their right to exist - in this world.
Not that that, is an excuse.
Anyway. I could’t find him, so I went to my regular one-on-one reformer pilates session, which is why I was there at all - and which, I reckon would confirm all his worst ideas about me.
I probably wouldn’t have given it much thought, if this incident hadn't fallen hard on the heels of another. 10 days earlier, I’d been on my way home from the dentist at 11 in the morning, when a man started screaming at me. I’d walked passed him - a little too close, it would seem, though really within the normal spectrum of what happens on pavements, I was nowhere near touching him - and he shouted:
“Don’t think I don’t see you, f**king walking up behind me!”
I had no grounds for argument on this - I had indeed been walking up behind him, though perhaps with less intention than he suspected - so I looked straight ahead, sped up a bit, and carried on walking.
“You’re a f**king WHORE!” he screamed, very clearly at me. I sped up a little bit more. “You’re a f**king prostitute, looking for a pimp! YOU’RE A C**T!” he screamed.
I have a mate, who works in addiction. She works closely with addicts, and she once told me that, the rule on being near any potentially volatile person is this: when the hairs go up on the back of your neck, get out.
The hairs on my neck were going up by this point. It was broad daylight, I was very firmly in my home neighbourhood, on home ground, there were people around… But this guy? This guy was not letting it go, and he was really intently focussed on me. This guy was youngish - thirties, I think - and big; a lot bigger than me. This guy was a problem.
I assessed the traffic, made a sharp left onto the big road which runs through the heart of my manor, crossed to the other side. I saw a woman, some feet behind me, make a similar judgement call re Man, and cross, too.
“WHORE! C**NT! WHORE!” he continued to scream, and still in a way that was clearly focussed on me.
“You OK?” asked the other woman.
“Um, I think so?” I said.
“C*NT! C*NT!” he screamed back, over his shoulder, across the road, at… yeah. Definitely still me. He seemed to be walking forward at least, carrying on, on his trajectory - away from me.
“Do you know him?” the other woman asked.
“Nope, total stranger,” I said. I think she might have been sniffing me out as a potential victim of domestic violence being pursued by an ex, which was good of her.
I carried on walking, and he carried on shouting, from the other side of the road, some feet ahead of me. When I got to a bus shelter, I hid; because it was really shaking me up, and it wasn’t stopping, and he, in theory, could cross the road to get to me, as I had crossed it to get away from him; and if we carried on, he’d see me turn up onto the street where I lived, which I didn't much fancy.
He just kept walking. And shouting obscenities directed at me. I waited until the “C**T”s and “WHORE”s faded with the increased distance between us; then I walked the rest of the way home.
That one proper shook me up. That one made me wonder if I should have left the house wearing a bright purple sweatshirt, because, at what point does it become sensible not to make yourself a target? When I left the house later that day, I put a darker denim jacket over it. Just in case. And I checked behind me, over and over again.
Because he was clearly a mental health case. A mental health case whose issues were expressed via the medium of abusive misogyny - and directed at me. It kind of felt like he knew me, like he’d mistaken me for someone else… But that’s what misogyny is, isn’t it? I use the word rarely, and never lightly, because I don’t encounter it very often at all, but when I do, I know it, because it feels like exactly that. As if the person dispensing it, has mistaken you for someone who did him some awful, terrible wrong, a wrong he needs to correct. With his fists. But he hasn't mistaken you. You’re a woman, that’s all it takes, because in that, and that alone, you represent a terrible wrong, committed against him. That’s what you amount to, in your womanhood. A terrible wrong.
My residual unease lasted about 24 hours; at which point, I kind of forgot, then, did not give my clothing choices any thought other than: This looks hot/ cool / good / will provide adequate protection from the weather.
Then Waterloo dude struck. And: neither of these incidents were micro aggressions. They were aggressive aggressions. Intended to upset me, reduce me, shake me up, pay me back for the crime of being female.
And that’s a lot of them, in a brief period, no? Even if you don’t allow for the fact that it’s less than 18 months since some other stranger fully grabbed me in the street, in the middle of the day, and I had to get rescued by a passing cabbie.
Yet STILL I hate the easy, lazy, performative disparaging of men into which, some strands of modern feminism lean. “Smash The Patriarchy” sloganeering - what does that even mean? Really?
I know SO MANY good men. Irritating, frustrating, funny, decent. I have been supported by men, championed by men, liked and loved and admired and just straight up amused by men. (One of my more newly acquired, but dearly held, male friends, just stopped me on the dog walk to tell me I need to watch K Pop Demon Hunters immediately, because it’s genius. These are the types of men I have in my life. K Pop Demon Hunter fans). And yeah of course I watched the Manosphere doc, but one of the things I took from it? Louis Theroux is a good man, and he’s a man who is powerful, in his, because of his, or maybe even in spite of, his goodness. His compassion, his curiosity, his gentleness - that’s what make him so f**king good at what he does. (I know there’s been criticism of his approach to the stars of that particular doc, but that, I think, comes mainly from people who don’t quite see what he’s doing, there. How delicately and cleverly he approached them, how violently, in his bumbling Beta puzzlement and soft generosity, he triggers them, how he gives them the space to show themselves. Classic Louis Theroux: it looks like he’s doing nothing, yet, he’s doing everything. He is an exceptional interviewer, I’ve been watching him, and learning from him, for decades.)
When I talk to the younger ones, the teen boys, the early 20 something men, I see nothing but jolliness, silliness, decency. A 22 year old man told me (when I asked how his weekend had gone) he’d made a bone broth with the left over carcass of the chicken he’d roasted, and played badminton; the 16 and 17 years olds I’ve recruited to tell me what new words they’re using, told me I could drop “6,7” in again, because it was having a revival.
My life is filled with decent boys and men, and no: I really don’t like them being dismissed as toxic, or potentially toxic, as privileged to a point of irrelevancy, as… that whole “I wish I had the confidence of a mediocre middle class white man” narrative? Half the middle class white men I know, have very little confidence, could definitely do with more; and I know plenty of mediocre middle class white women with WAY too much of it.
But the fact remains that I have been… What? “Attacked” feels OTT. “Abused” is… vague. “Aggressed” is worse. I have been pulled short, freaked out, enervated, left feeling not as safe, as I have every right to feel on the streets of my own home, and bashed into, by men I did not know, on what is beginning to feel like a regular basis.
And I do not care for it.
Vibe shift.
There’s been much discussion about the earning of affiliates - small percentages of sales made through recommendations by people on SubStack - recently, mainly because of a New York Magazine article written by someone (who, sensibly, chose to remain anonymous) and who is coining it in through affiliates; earning $275k a year through subscriptions and recommendations. Jess Graves explains it all beautifully here. A lot of people got cross, mostly, I suspect, because that’s A LOT of money. I have no issue with it, whatsoever.
I also really enjoyed Claire Coleman ‘s interrogation of why she (sometimes) links for affiliates, and what it means, ethically.
I do it too. I’m transparent about it, and I’m really clear on what will earn me affiliates, and what won’t (but it’s great, you should get it regardless). I suppose recommendations are a bit like writing, in that, we’ve come to expect them for free; but, why shouldn't writers earn from them? Traditional media does, it’s another revenue stream, and there are precious few for us, increasingly. I think there is perhaps a sense that women (generally) should offer this stuff up, out of the goodness of our hearts; if we’re not, we are “gatekeeping”, trying to preserve the good sh*t for ourselves so that we have an advantage in the Great Patriarchy Pleasing Games. But I think: bollocks! I am relatively new to the game* (*affiliates, not patriarchy pleasing), I am certainly not on track for a $275k year, but, I was offering recommendations before I knew what affiliates were and how I might benefit from them, ergo it’s part of my authentic VIBE; I only ever suggest things I truly rate… And I really love seeing what people buy. The thing that does really well, is jewellery. The idea that people are bejewelling themselves on my say-so, treating themselves in that very specific, very personal, very self-honouring way, makes me so happy.
On which - I’m about to give you some reccs for fifty quid and under, some with affiliates, some without - but first, a reposting for this locket, which I bought myself for Dead Mother’s Day, and haven’t taken off since. It is exactly what my spring 2026, I want new things but not quite sure what, yet energy was demanding.
£160, Monica Vinader, yes I get affiliates on this, it’s how I know lots of you have also bought it (my HEART)
Next: fifty squids and under! I flew into town, intent on getting the amazing (imminent sell-out)
