My take: This is making rounds on feminist tumblrs, but it is simply not necessary to POLITICIZE Peter’s original statement. He got rejected and ego bruised, that’s all there is to it. If this were a real life conversation with a friend, I would have just said “Don’t worry about it, you’re a good guy, you’ll find someone.” You’re reading too many feminist books if you take every statement like this to mean, “Hey, you know what, every woman is obligated to give every man a detailed account of why she doesn’t like him, no man is obligated to offer a woman such an account and I will hurt or ridicule any woman who doesn’t comply with this double standard” which is essentially how our male feminist hero read it and then proceeded to call his friend out on his “sexism” and “internalized misogyny.”
I’m of the opinion that what we’re witnessing here is just an instance of mundane disappointment and not necessarily sexism or “internalized misogyny.” Environments like this in which men cannot express mundane disappointment or frustration without being immediately being accused of hating or oppressing women are extremely toxic to our emotional well-being and I for one want no part of them.
There are a lot of things that are toxic about the dating environment in general, but I would have to say, a dude calling out another dude for misogyny isn’t one of them. 1 in 3 women in the US have been raped, abused or beaten, and 4 times out of 5, they were raped by someone they knew. 2 in 3 women in the US have been raped, assaulted, or stalked by an intimate partner.* You want to talk about something that is actually extremely toxic to people’s emotional and physical well-being? You’ll have to excuse me if I can’t help but roll my eyes at this whine that the real victim is dudes who have been correctly diagnosed with exhibiting a misogynistic viewpoint.