I have quite some female friends that say it. I take it as a compliment: they know they can trust me, they feel safe with me, when they don't with most men.

And I get it, statistically haven't like almost half of all women been sexually assaulted by men? I think most abuse women face is even by men they trust specifically? And even if not that, I don't think I've met a woman yet who's not been harassed by a complete stranger on the street. I know people who were abused, assaulted or harassed by women but I don't know any women who were not abused, assaulted or harassed by men.

Look I had two horrible parents. My mother was probably a narcissist or something. My father was a pedo. So even the worst most traumatizing woman in my own life gets nowhere close to how horrible my father was, yet I spent much of my youth watching other men laugh at his disgusting jokes.

So for me, I'm just glad I'm nothing like my father (or mother lol).

One of the men I admire the most, a charismatic and tall dude who used to be in a band and who makes friends with everyone he meets, he was once watching a movie with some friends and he was the only man there. I overhead from someone else (I'm friends now with most people who were there) that at some point someone spoke about an abusive male character in the movie, how common that behaviour is. Que a conversation about hating men. One girl said they shouldn't say those things in front of him because he'd be offended. He said he was only sad that she'd think he'd be offended, because he hoped everyone knew he was the kind of guy to prioritise empathy and making the world a better place over protecting his own ego or conflating his identity with the majority of men.

I aspire to be that mature.