The safe space that men need is not one protected from feminists and women. Men need safe spaces protected from other men, from the deep lifelong indoctrination we receive that it’s dangerous and never OK to have or express feelings other than anger. It’s not your or my fault that we turn every emotion to anger because it’s the only one that feels permissible, but it is our responsibility to work to recognize when we perpetuate the environment that makes it impossible for others to express anything else.

Want facts? Being ostracized is the most painful thing a human being can experience. Feeling ‘not welcome’ can feel worse than a broken leg, as measured by your body’s physiological responses.

When you have been made unwelcome, anger is the response least likely to get you your welcome back. But it is the one you’re guaranteed to make. Why? It’s the only one you’re allowed to have. Not by women, but by your own internal emotion police, who have been put there by every man you’ve interacted with in your life, but most likely especially your father and your childhood friends.

All those men you cite leaving the workforce, committing suicide, checking out, etc. this is not women’s fault. This is the fault of toxic masculinity - what we are taught that connecting with other men emotionally is gay and weak and never allowed, that having any emotion but anger is gay and weak and never allowed.

And this is exactly why women need safe spaces from men - because men lean on women exclusively for their emotional needs, because we conflate sexual gratification with emotional gratification, and because when anything is wrong we can only express it with anger.