(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Women Know: Every Male Deflection is a Confession [1] ['Citizen Earth', 'Greg Dworkin'] Date: 2026-06-08 When men get defensive about feminist criticism, they often say they’re defending logic or fairness. But the speed and intensity of the defense is its own data. You don’t fight that fast and hard to protect something you don’t recognize in yourself. The fight is a confession. What Happened A few days ago I published a post challenging “progressive” male candidates to reckon honestly with their own patriarchal conditioning before asking women to trust them with power. Nearly a thousand comments followed across several blogging and social media platforms. A cadre of courageous, strong, smart women delivered a master class in feminist precision, solidarity, and refusal to be dismissed. The aggrieved male entitlement attack wave organized itself quickly. But the women in the thread were fast and saw it before anyone named it. “And cue the ‘But, but! Women do it toooooo!’ comments. It’s already happening. They Knew. They Always Know. The women who showed up in that thread were working hard. Naming the evasive entitlement moves in real time. Holding the line while the thread filled up around them. Standing strong against what felt like a 5 to 1 onslaught of men’s dismissive comments. Watching some of these exchanges unfold, I kept thinking of Thermopylae. This is what that looked like. “Men said ‘that she will laugh at me.’ Women said ‘that he will kill me.’ Very few women do not know the truth of this.” “Is it really too much to demand candidates that think of women as people not sex toys?” “Defeating the patriarchy matters for women who work in service jobs earning shit wages. It matters for women with medically problematic pregnancies worried about dying of sepsis.” “I can’t help but think how Dolores Huerta had to stay silent about her two rapes and two pregnancies by Cesar Chavez because otherwise she was hurting ‘the cause.’” “‘Not All Men’ is pretty much a useless argument. It’s not as though the good guys have a tattoo on their foreheads. How are women supposed to tell? And the bad guys? It only takes one to ruin your life.” “We need smarter and braver men or we leave them behind.” “Not surprised in the least by some of the responses. As usual, those commenters are examples of what you warn about.” Many women stayed engaged as the comments poured in all day. They kept naming the moves in real time, refusing the redirects, holding the line while the thread filled up around them. The male deflection playbook didn’t stop them. Whataboutism, false equivalence, and a full arsenal of other rhetorical deflections our high school English teachers taught us were signs of crappy reasoning. The outnumbered women just worked harder to hold the same ground. There was a clear arc of growing frustration as the unexamined male entitlement just kept coming, refrain after refrain of “what women say or want doesn’t matter to us.“ What It Cost The individual moves of male dismissal and deflection don’t have to win the argument. They only have to make the argument expensive enough that people stop participating in it. Exhaustion is the goal. Women’s exit is the victory. But none of these women wavered. “I joined here in 2017. Feminist content gets the same treatment you are getting, or it gets ignored.” “Those diaries get flooded with toxic comments from the very people who should be taking them to heart, and we grow tired of the abuse.” The Confession Men Made In the most recommended comment in the entire discussion on one forum, a reader named what was actually happening underneath all the defensive moves: “The problem is they can’t see his [the ‘progressive’ male candidate’s] actions as ‘wrong’ because they’ve probably done the same or similar ones. The problem is most take those criticisms of specific actions as if they were levied at them personally. And when that happens, we have to wonder why?” She already answered it. Men defend this way because somewhere in the criticism they recognize themselves. The behavior. The sexting. The DARVO deflection when caught. The pattern of harm denied rather than reckoned with. The defensiveness is a receipt. When men get defensive about feminist criticism, they often say they’re defending logic or fairness. But the speed, volume, and intensity of the defense is its own data. You don’t fight that fast and hard to protect something you don’t recognize in yourself. The fight is a confession. In gratitude and solidarity, Paul Remember: Stay human. Stay strategic. Shape tomorrow. P.S. I’ll be watching the comments on this one. My hunch is they’ll look familiar and hide behind anonymous handles. Men are always braver when they don’t have to show themselves. Let the defensive howling and confession begin… About Me I’m Paul T. Shattuck and I help people and organizations stay steady in the face of authoritarian assault and extractive systems so they can keep showing up without losing their effectiveness or humanity. I draw on decades of community organizing, deep expertise in research and collaborative community problem-solving, contemplative practice and mindfulness teaching, and what I’ve learned from tens of thousands of subscribers in 95 countries. Check out my main blog on Substack where I post all my content: Stay Human — Shape Tomorrow I was fired three weeks before Christmas, 2024 for refusing to delete a LinkedIn post about Trump’s campaign promises to target federal workers. I launched this blog soon thereafter. It’s my way of pitching in, standing in solidarity with you all, doing my part to help build a progressive future rooted in things worth fighting for: justice, equity, security, and care. I also do coaching and consulting with activist groups, nonprofits, and universities doing good work in hard circumstances. Contact me to learn more about my services. 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