Dear MensRights..

I am a woman who has been lurking on your reddit for a while. I just wanted to let you know that you have the backing of women; maybe not a lot of us, but I know that there are at least three: myself and two friends.

It started when I was a little girl. I saw my mother verbally abuse my father. She would pick fights with him for no reason other than to back him into a corner. She called him horrible names and even hit him a few times. She didn't work; my father supported us alone as a contractor. This happened for years and years.

Eventually, when I was fifteen, I asked my father why he didn't just hit back or leave. He told me that the world was a complicated place, far more complicated than a fifteen year old could understand. He said that if he hit her back, he would put in a jail for a very long time. My mother would divorce him. He would have to pay child support. I expressed my concern of the unfairness; why couldn't he just say my mother was hitting him? He explained that a woman's tears are the gears for this world.
I watched as my brother was harassed in school by girls for being overweight. I watched them hit him in school and the teachers not do anything about it because he was a guy. I heard him cry in the bedroom one night and my mother burst him and tell him to "man up" and stop crying. My brother was never the same since that day; we share the same feeling towards women.

I know this is a sanctuary for men, and I hope you don't mind a woman being in here. I really just wanted to express how happy I am that men are taking a stand against the oppression of women. My father always told me that life worked like a pendulum. It swings too far one way (the extremist nature of men and their abuse and misuse of women) and that the pendulum swings too far the other way (where we are now, with women treating men the same way they were treated). He said it's our responsibility to grab that pendulum and stop it from swinging.

I'm 22 years old and married. I love and respect my husband. I don't place stereotypes on him; I don't expect him to be stupid, drunk, violent, lazy, or consume his life with naked girls and sports. Shockingly (/sarcasm), he isn't like that! We, as an entire society, need to stop putting these vicious stereotypes on people. I hate the way the media portrays men as drunken fratboys; I hate the way they show them as violent, testosterone nutcases; I hate that in sitcoms, the guy is always stupid and lazy and the woman is the only one in the family that anyone can count on.
I hate even more the social hypocrises that occur with men in our justice system. I watched first hand as my cousin gained full custody of her son--she was a convicted heroin and cocaine user, the father was clean. She was given child support from the father, as well as welfare. She doesn't work; she sits at home and gets drunk while the state and the baby's father do everything. Every time I express how I feel, my family slams me down. My father and brother are the only rational people in the whole picture.

I don't know why I posted this. I guess I was just tired of all the bullshit in this world. Men have it so hard in this world and I will take my part, when I have children, to try to change this world. I'm sorry for all the bullshit you guys have to go through.

Written by: Just a woman who's on your side. Fight the good fight.