Men are bad people?

Think again.

Photo by George Pagan III on Unsplash

How many times have I heard the statement, “Men will surely cheat.” Or, “He's a man, he can't control himself.”

Statements like these make my blood boil. Because what do you mean men will surely cheat? Huh? Are men humans capable of choice and self-control, or are they animals governed solely by instinct?

I think it's rather insulting to reduce a human being to an animal. Because guess what, men are very much capable of making choices.

Or are they? After all, they have been ruling the earth for a while now, and look where we are. (Just kidding.)

But seriously, if a man can be trusted to make decisions for the house and for a country, then how come he can't control his sexual urges?

Don’t even get me started on the men that claim to be “the head of the house” yet can’t even get groceries without detailed instructions from their partners.

They claim that they are the ones making all the decisions in the house, yet common house chores they can’t do.

Men are not babies or animals. MEN ARE NOT BABIES OR ANIMALS (that was for the people in the back).

They can cook if they learned how to. They can learn to not cheat, and they can control themselves.

By the time we make excuses for men, saying “All men cheat” or “Men can’t cook or control themselves,” we have dehumanized and infantilized them. In other words, we have said that you are no longer a man but now an animal and/or a baby.

And that's not fair. Not fair to the man and definitely not fair to the women who have to put up with bad behavior because men have been told that it’s just how they are.

One of the reasons many women stay with cheating men, men who have refused to apply themselves, is because they think it’s normal.

They believe that their men are trying their best, and they believe that men can’t go against their “nature.” Coupled with the fact that women have been taught to endure and tolerate men’s bad behavior because apparently, it’s “just what men do.”

If a woman can learn to cook, be clean, take care of herself and the home, go to the market, still make time for her partner, and control her urges… come on nau.

Then a man can learn too. Men, like women, have the capacity and ability to reason, and they know their left from their right.

All this bad behavior that a lot of men have, they learned it from their father or from an uncle or from society. It didn’t just fall from the sky.

Men are socialized to believe that they can cheat because it’s “how they are,” and that their women will tolerate it because, again, they can’t control themselves.

But the narrative can and must change.

Men will be held accountable for their actions and no, boys won't be boys.

All in all, excusing mens bad behavior as “biology” or “nature” is not just insulting, it's dangerous.

Women, stop accepting the bare minimum and hold your partners accountable. You deserve better.

You. Fine boy. You are responsible for your actions and you are not an animal that is controlled by its instincts. You are capable of making decisions and you are not just a passerby or a bystander in your own life.