Men do not have to like women.

Men do not have to respect women.

Men do not have to see women as fully human.

And yet, they thrive.

To lead. To take up space. To move through the world unchallenged—

A man only needs other men.

Writer Celeste Davis put it plainly:

“The sad truth is that men don’t NEED to like or respect women to successfully or safely walk through the world. Not at all. In men’s daily lives—in their jobs, in their church, in their friend groups—social capital is gained solely through other men.”

I have known this for years.

But nothing made it clearer than a Facebook group called Studio 5191—

a space I had been in since 2022,

a space run by three cisgender heterosexual Black men I consider friends,

a space where I thought my voice mattered.

I was wrong.

The Lie of Free Speech Is the Comfort of Men

They spoke freely and often.

One used the word c**t to break a woman apart.

Not in jest.

Not in irony.

Not as a whisper, but as a hammer.

Not just once, but four times.

And I called it out.

Not because I expected an apology, but because I was tired.

Tired of watching men talk about women with contempt and call it a conversation.

Tired of the laughter.

Tired of the silence.

But silence was not the only response I got.

Ben, an admin, told me,

“As we have said before, we do not delete ANYONE’s posts. We debate views and opinions, we do not edit them. We won’t change people’s minds by censoring their opinions.”

I was supposed to accept this.

As though misogyny is just an opinion.

As though dehumanization is something to be debated.

But free speech isn’t a shield against accountability. Even Iowa State University acknowledges this:

“Just because there is a First Amendment right to say something, doesn’t mean it should be said. The First Amendment protects a right to say hateful things… However, as a campus, we can all work together to promote and ensure an environment where all students, faculty, and staff are welcomed, respected, and supported.”

Studio 5191 is far from an institution of higher learning. Still, it wasn’t working to build an environment that thrives on mutual respect. They were upholding the kind of free speech that only serves one side—theirs.

Because the truth is, when they invoke “free speech,” they don’t mean open dialogue.

They mean unchecked power.

And that power wasn’t just in their words. It was in who was allowed to speak freely and who wasn’t.

Who was heard. Who was dismissed.

Because free speech in Studio 5191 meant that some could say anything—

They could degrade women.

They could be transphobic.

They could attack people under the guise of “just a joke.”

But when I challenged those ideas? I was told to just leave my comment and move on. I was told not to look at other people’s responses. Not to engage. Not to challenge.

Free speech was never free for me. It came with limits. Rules. Warnings.

Not for all. Only for me. The one who was challenging bigotry.

And again, Ben laughed, and dismissed me outright:

“You’re the only one trying to check someone else for how they talk. You love DMX, but he said ‘fggot’ this and ‘btch’ that. At the end of the day… this is SELECTIVE OUTRAGE! Go in peace, love!”

They say “Free speech!” They mean “Shut up!”

And still, I tried.

I messaged the man who used the word c**t.

I asked if we could talk. I gave him the choice to say no. I told him I would respect his boundaries.

And when he responded, he made it clear:

He had no interest in reflection.

“Wont really change much tbh. Playin’ victim mentality on topics about women is closed-minded.”

“Post something about dudes being trashy to women, and I’ll clap on the dudes too.”

“You don’t understand who I am, and that’s not my problem. Like I said its always the same story with you. Always jumping on everyone’s ass about anything involving women even if the chick in the post deserved it. Been like that since I joined and I dont post much cus of you.”

I apologized to him.

For calling him out.

For putting him on the spot.

For making it personal.

I told him I valued him. I told him I wasn’t asking for his punishment, only for him to consider why his words mattered.

And still, he took zero responsibility.

He never once mentioned his own words.

Never once engaged in self-examination.

Never once considered that he was wrong.

To him, the issue was never his misogyny.

The issue was me, for daring to challenge it.

And that’s when I knew.

I was the problem.

Not the man who spat the word c**t like it was his right.

Not the men who let it slide.

Not the ones who laughed.

Me. For saying something.

Because the truth was never that they “debated views.”

The truth was:

Men protect men.

Men excuse men.

Men make women the problem for resisting.

They called it a debate forum.

A space to stir the pot, to spark critical conversations.

A place where no opinion was off-limits.

The lies they tell. The lies I believed.

Studio 5191 is not a debate forum. It is a shitposting group, a place to throw around absurdities, jokes, memes, and insults like loose change. And like many online spaces run only by men, the humor came at the expense of women.

I pushed back. Again and again.

Against misogyny. Against transphobia. Against the ways they disguised cruelty as conversation.

One man jokingly proposed violence against a woman in a post. An admin, we’ll call him Jeffery, loved the comment and suggested the man be rewarded.

And what happened?

I was policed.

Ben, the admin who laughed off my frustration, once told me not to look at the comments before or after mine.

Just leave my thoughts and walk away.

Just drop my words into the void and let the men have the last say.

Just be quiet unless I was speaking to no one.

I was told not to challenge the words of others.

I was told my presence kept others from commenting and participating.

So if they stopped talking, it’s my fault?

But the men sharing this content?

They were free.

They were free to say whatever they wanted.

Free to post transphobic content, make fatphobic comments without consequence.

Free to degrade women in “jokes.”

Free to be as loud as they wanted—as long as I was quiet.

And when I named their transphobia, when I called it what it was, Jeffery responded the next day. Not with diplomacy. Not with accountability.

Instead, he created a post about how we should not attack people’s ideas.

He did not tell the men to stop dehumanizing trans people.

He did not tell them to think before they spoke.

He indirectly told me to stop challenging them.

Because in that space, disagreement was only dangerous when it challenged hate.

Now, looking back, I see it clearly:

They have been policing me for years.

They do not like a woman who challenges their bigotry.

They do not like a woman who does not step softly within the spaces they control.

They do not like a woman who dares to hold a mirror up to their comfort.

They do not like a woman who refuses to shrink.

The Women Who Stay Silent

But it wasn’t just the men.

It is never just the men.

It was the women who participated,

who read the same words,

who saw the same violence,

and said nothing.

I was not just fighting men.

I was fighting alone.

So I spoke. And finally, a woman spoke back.

Not in defense of me.

Not in defense of herself.

Not in defense of the women who would come after us.

She spoke to tell me she did not like being lumped in the generalization.

She had not seen the comments, she said.

She had not known.

She did not like feeling accused.

My words—sharp, but not cruel.

Firm, but not unjust.

Still, they hurt her.

And because she was hurt, she could not hear me.

I apologized. Not because I was wrong. But because she is my friend.

Because that is what women do.

We soften.

We smooth.

We take the jagged edge of a truth and dull it against our own skin so it does not cut too deep.

I reminded her that this was not the first time.

That I had spoken before.

That she had dismissed it because she felt safe.

That she had always been heard.

That she had deemed the misogyny as meaningless trolling or differences in personality.

Nothing to take seriously.

I reminded her that when a man disrespected me in front of her, she defended him.

“He didn’t mean it that way.”

And I let it go.

Because I didn’t want to be the woman who made things difficult.

The woman who could not take a joke.

The woman who made everything a fight.

And now? Now that I was speaking up yet again?

She was the one who was hurt.

That is what gets me.

She had no voice for the men.

But she found it for me.

She had nothing to say about their misogyny.

But the moment I named her silence, she spoke.

There are other women in the group who said nothing.

At least she spoke.

But when she spoke, what did she say?
Who did she speak to?
What did she speak to?

And suddenly, this was no longer about them.

No longer about the man in that group using c**t like a weapon and daring us to flinch.

Now, it was about her feelings.

And just like that, I was apologizing.

Again.

The Burden of Being a Black Woman in This Fight

Silence is never just about gender. It is about power—who holds it, who fears losing it, who stays quiet to keep it. Reilly’s privilege isn’t just in the color of her skin; it’s in her refusal to see, to speak, to stand. And maybe she thinks that silence will keep her safe. Maybe she believes she can watch without consequence. But privilege is fragile. It lasts only as long as you play by its rules. The moment she challenges the bigotry, the moment she keeps naming it for what it is, she will learn what Black women have always known:

Speaking costs.

It costs comfort. It costs belonging. It costs the benefit of the doubt.

As a Black woman, silence for me is a betrayal, but speaking is a risk. A risk of being dismissed. A risk of being labeled angry, difficult, too much. A risk of being told that the real problem is not the violence, not the bigotry, but the fact that I dared to name it.

I have seen this before.

Too many times.

It is the same pattern written over centuries, inked in the pain of Black women.

Where white women’s comfort and discomfort will always weigh more than our suffering.

Where we are asked to be the ones who fight, the ones who scream, the ones who refuse to let injustice sit in the quiet.

And they?

They are the ones who stay pleasant.

The ones who do not disrupt.

The ones who benefit from the battle without ever having to raise a fist.

And when we turn to them, when we ask them to fight alongside us, suddenly we are the problem.

We are too much.

We are angry.

We are the ones who must apologize.

And it cuts.

She benefits both from her silence and my voice.

And it cuts deep.

Reilly is my friend.

I know she cares about me.

That is what makes this hard.

But caring is not the same as standing beside me.

Caring is not the same as speaking when it is inconvenient.

Caring is not the same as choosing justice over comfort.

I can love her and still be furious.

I can love her and still know that when it mattered, she used her voice against me instead of for us.

I can love her and still ask—

Will she sit with this truth, the way I have had to sit with hers?

The Radical Act of Liking Women

Even my fiancé struggled with this.

He once called Studio 5191 a safe space for him. And as a Black man, it was.

Men did not challenge him there.

Men did not question his presence.

Men did not make him prove his worth before he spoke.

And when I left, he stayed. Not because he agreed with what was happening, but because he needed to decide for himself.

He wrestled with it.

Was it possible to fix something from the inside?

Could he make them see what I saw?

Could he investigate without becoming complicit?

And for a while, he thought about trying.

He addressed the admins directly.

He challenged them to deal with the misogynistic language.

But when the admins doubled down and defended the man’s right to use the word c**t as though it was some noble act of free speech, that was the last straw.

Because even in a space where he was safe,

He could not pretend it was safe for me.

And if he had to choose between protecting his comfort and standing with me—

He chose me.

I love Jason because he actually likes women.

Not just me.

Not just the women he desires, the women who fit neatly into his life.

Not just the ones who serve him, flatter him, need him.

He likes women. Plural.

And that should not be radical.

But it is.

The Truth They Don’t Want to Face

They don’t have to like us.

They don’t have to respect us.

They don’t have to see us as fully human.

And still—they need us.

Not just to push them toward growth.

But also to feed their contempt.

Because what is a group like Studio 5191 without women to drag, mock, humiliate?

Who do they bond over if there is no woman to use as a virtual punching bag?

They don’t have to like women.

But without us? They are starving.

And Studio 5191 is proof.

Once, it had 250 members. Now? 86.

And of those? Maybe 7, maybe 10 people actually participate. Now, there are two less.

I was told that I was the reason people didn’t want to speak.

That I was making the space uncomfortable.

That I was too much.

But am I really that powerful?

Or is it that people refuse to engage in a space that’s rotten?

They can call it a debate forum.

They can call it free speech.

They can say that I was the problem.

OR, perhaps there’s a truth more simple:

People saw what I saw.

And they disengaged or walked away, too.

Now, all that’s left are fruit flies and the ones who refuse to smell the decay.

And the men are left to lead, unchallenged by those remaining.

I don’t believe that all men are misogynistic. But I wonder if most believe men should be in charge.

Society does not require men to like women or respect us to lead. They do not have to love us to own us.

A man moves through this world untouched by the weight of his disregard, because another man will always co-sign his indifference—while a woman consents in silence. But once you raise a mirror, flinching at her own reflection, she opts to fight the image, not the truth.

“It’s not my problem,” she shrugs.

“He ain’t talkin’ ‘bout me,” she claims, self-righteous.

“Can’t you take a joke?” she minimizes.

“Ay, Ian in it.” She waves it off. “That’s you!”

Her cowardice—casual, reckless, smug.

And those remaining in Studio 5191?

The men leading do not have to like women.

And they don’t.

The women participating or sitting idly by are rewarded with a sense of belonging for not liking women.

So they don’t.

That is all the reason I need to walk away.