Ever since my articles on single women and their struggles living in Dhaka independently, heaven has an account of the number of messages I have received from the male acquaintances with various stances. Most of them, definitely supportive and protective.
A few months ago, I have had the opportunity to interview one of my idols for an article I featured on her, Ms. Geeteara Safiya Choudhury. In her interview where she shared a great lot of experiences throughout her life as a professional, she grasped my attention at a very notable comment. “Not all men in our society are chauvinists. Few are, yes. But the rest aren’t, they are rather more protective.”
In all honesty, I very much agree with her.
In a constant fight to put women up the ladder, some of us are misunderstanding men, some of us are misunderstanding women who do appreciate men. While I was covering different topics in my articles on independently living women, I came across people who had their own point of view to what they read, which of course, they are entitled to have. A good number of my male acquaintances came forward to appreciate the lifestyle I have chosen for myself, regardless the struggles. A few of them were definitely concerned about the protection but nonetheless, supportive. And then, there are few, quite an insignificant number actually, who straight-up had the question, “Why do you hate men?”
Excuse me? But where in any of my articles or which of my articles even stated the term “hate”?
“Well, it doesn’t state directly, but all you feminists, writing so much about empowerment, and how people treat you, always direct it to how we as men are bad and how much you hate our existence”.
I still fail to recollect that one article, or any one of my social media posts that may have ever demeaned the existence of men as individuals. I may have talked about single individuals being harsh on a woman’s presence in certain stages of the society, I may have said how difficult it is to thrive as a woman, I may have said how much we need the support, but it is so little that we receive. I may have also mentioned how much I would appreciate more fathers, brothers, husbands, sons, boyfriends, male friends to be more considerate and supportive of the females around them. However, hating men was never the thought. And trust me, more than half the women you know in your life will agree with me to this.
I would have apologized for making those acquaintances feel so intimated by what I wrote, but I won’t and here are the reasons why :
I won’t apologize for speaking my heart out; I won’t apologize for being the voice of God- knows- how many unheard girls out there; I won’t apologize because I shared the issues we, as women, face; I won’t apologize for respectfully showing where a lot of you were wrong; I won’t apologize for asking the honor that we deserve. I won’t apologize because we never hated you, we still don’t.
I honestly, still don’t understand why is that a woman raising her voice for awareness, considered to be such a threat. Where in the pieces does it try to spread hatred? Why would it spread hatred? Why is that we cannot accept a constructive criticism on certain rules of society without feeling being personally attacked?
We don’t hate you.
Yes, some of us are loud. Some of us make it a point to be visible and heard. Some of us march against the injustice, while some of us are just struggling to live by ourselves and in our own terms without being questioned of our decency.
But again, we don’t hate you.
All we ask from you is to give us the respect that we deserve. Not to question our freedom or consider us to be inadequate. All we ask is, to know that together we make a better society, a better humanity. Demeaning the other has never, will never bring out any good. Our march is not against men. Our march is against the very thought that we are against men, that we are undeserving.
Dear men, we don’t hate you.
Neither do we expect you to feel threatened by us.

Sanjida Tanny is the Founder of Contentier (more known as The Raconteuse/Storyteller) and a passionate Art Curator