Study of machismo
While women’s promiscuity relegates them to the bad girl position, that of men’s enhances their machismo. The epithet given to the former is “slut,” while to the latter, it is as innocuous as “womanizer.” The patriarchy judges the behavioral difference between men and women. They are disproportionately harsh on women because if women start acting like men, men lose the upper hand in the world. Men need to be the chooser so that their penis is always taken care of. And sometimes, the idea of losing the power to choose scares them to the extent that makes them violent.
The boy of my failed date passionately expressed his hatred toward the girl who rejected his friend because he was frightened of the world in which women wouldn’t sleep with him if he didn’t hold a powerful position. Eddy resented women who frowned on his attending gokon as he took it as their attempt to emasculate him when he became “cool” by sleeping with multiple women, and sometimes even by groping a female friend.
In a brilliant novel, Breast and Eggs (2020) by Mieko Kawakami, a novelist Rika tells the protagonist Natsuko; “Just think about it. They’re on a pedestal from the second they’re born, only they don’t realize it. Whenever they need something, their moms come running. They’re taught to believe that their penises make them superior, and that women are just there for them to use as they see fit. Then they go out into the world, where everything centers around them and their dicks. And it’s women who have to make it work. At the end of the day, where is this pain that men feel coming from: In their opinion: us. It’s all our fault-whether they’re unpopular, broke, jobless. Whatever it is, they blame women for all of their failures, all their problems. Now think about women. No matter how you see it, who’s actually responsible for the majority of the pain women feel? If you think about it that way, how could a man and a woman ever see eye to eye? It’s structurally impossible.”