The Mistake of Young Men Who Think they are Entitled to Women’s Attention

In a recent post on the New York Daily News website, contributor Patrick Blanchfield discussed the hostile misogynistic culture created by construed  ideal of masculinity that several young men are starting to believe in these days in the United States.  Blanchfield discussed several examples of this in his post titled “The Masculine Mistake: Why is America producing so many young men who are hostile to women?”

The first example he discussed was a video posted on Youtube by the anti-harassment group Hollaback! in which a women spent ten hours walking around on the streets of New York City.  During the time she was walking around she was approached by several men, some just simply wanting to greet her, but unfortunately there were a few men who consistently said things to her in an attempt to get her to talk to them.  There was even one particular individual who walked alongside her who continuously tried to get her to talk  her and get her number, then commenting that she was only not talking to him because he was “too ugly” and another individual who walked along side her for several minutes without speaking to her.

The next few example Blanchfield included was Columbia senior Emma Sulkowicz who walked around campus carrying her dorm room mattress as a statement that continued to do so until her alleged rapist was removed from the campus, feminist pop culture Anita Sarkesian who I discussed in an earlier post because she had to cancel a speaking event at Utah State University after the school refused to provide security measures after a shooting threat was made, and last the mas shooting carried out by Elliot Rodger at Isla Vista in which he killed six women and himself because as he wrote “I deserve the love of girls more than the other obnoxious boys of my age, and yet they get girls and I don’t. That is a crime that can never be forgotten, nor can it be forgiven.”

Blanchfield further discussed that perhaps this hostile culture of misogyny towards women is because young men in the United States are that they are inherently deserving of attention from women and girls simply because they are the superior sex and that girls and women who don’t give them this attention must be retaliated against.  Though this phenomenon isn’t something that I have personally witnessed on any large scale, I have unfortunately had some of my female friends be the target of too much attention from other guys.

The idea that men are inherently deserving of attention from girls just because they believe they are the superior sex is something that I strongly attest too.  I believe that anyone; male or female, is entitled to attention from anyone else simply because they are the opposite sex.  Women don’t ever deserve any unwanted attention from men, just as men don’t inherently deserve attention from women just because they may see themselves as the superior sex.   Furthermore, any male thinks masculinity is about getting lots of attention from girls and women is wrong; because as I believe, masculinity is defined by a man’s care and respect he can have for all people without expecting anything in return, not just girls and women.