70 Comments
User's avatar
Heather Wynne-Phillips's avatar

May the good men like you rise to the top like cream

Walter Rhein's avatar

The good men help the women ascend (not that they need the help)

Lauralee's avatar

Yeah we do. For precisely the reasons you stated. Thank you for your support.

Paulette's avatar

Thank you for your thoughtful and intelligent review. We need more men like you, Walter! Men to stand up for women.

If men were assaulted and killed by partners as women have been for ages, they would undoubtedly be filled with rage. We have never taken away mens rights, but they monitor and remove ours whenever they are allowed. The most abused gender in the world are women and girls. They treat our bodies as if they own them, are gynecologists and medical experts who understand and possess the knowledge to make our decisions. We do not make decisions about their healthcare.

This administration has aggressively removed our rights with impunity. Including making changes to the definition of what constitutes sexual assault and domestic abuse. Making it harder to prosecute people while letting pedophiles go unpunished. We are an embarrassment on the world stage!

Lauralee's avatar

So we need to rise up. There is no other option. #matriarchynow

Paulette's avatar

100 percent. I’m 71 and fought for many rights that are now being taken away. It breaks my heart!

Letters from a Feminist's avatar

I love this article! Absolutely love it :)

Walter Rhein's avatar

Thank you! I wrote it not too long after we talked! Maybe do a video talking about how great it is 🤣🤣🤣

Letters from a Feminist's avatar

I would totally watch it Walter 😂

Caroline Udall's avatar

Yes, though Afghan men are pretty bad too. I sometimes feel that is what American men aspire to.

Jen Champion's avatar

Thank you Walter, exactly!

Joyce Strong's avatar

Reading this made me think about sitting beside my ex-husband with our granddaughter nearby while he suddenly started loudly calling Nancy Pelosi a pig in the middle of an ordinary conversation.

What hit me later wasn’t even the politics. It was the entitlement to force aggression, contempt and ugliness into the room and expect everyone else to absorb it quietly.

Years after leaving because of alcoholism and domestic violence, I realized I had spent decades normalizing behavior that always revolved around intimidation, dominance and emotional control.

That’s what your piece brought back to me — how easy it becomes for families, communities and even whole countries to quietly reorganize themselves around abusive behavior instead of confronting it.

So it’s not just the men who have to change and heal. We all do. It starts with naming it plainly, and that’s where your genius shines, Walter.

Walter Rhein's avatar

Thank you Joyce! Your comments are always so profound!

Joyce Strong's avatar

Thank you for the writing prompts, Walter. 🫶

Salted Hex's avatar

As I'm hearing my grandmother's "nice man" neighbor berate his wife. Yelling so loud I can hear him through his well-insulated house that I can hear the nastiness of his tone.

Paris Paloma's 'Labor' must hit nerves in you. It did in me and I'm not even straight and have never been beholden in marriage or trapped with children. The societal structure needs to be smashed.

Joyce Strong's avatar

https://youtu.be/jvU4xWsN7-A?si=9X0c3TKVvzu6TnrR

Labour

Why are you hanging on

So tight

To the rope that I’m hanging from

Off this island

This was an escape plan

Carefully timed it

So let me go

And dive into the waves below

Who tends the orchards?

Who fixes up the gables

Emotional torture

From the head of your high table

Who fetches the water

From the rocky mountain spring

And walk back down again

To feel your words and their sharp sting

And I’m getting fucking tired

The capillaries in my eyes are bursting

If our love died, would that be the worst thing?

For somebody I thought was my saviour

You sure make me do a whole lot of labour

The calloused skin on my hands is cracking

If our love ends, would that be a bad thing?

And the silence haunts our bed chamber

You make me do too much labour

Apologies from my tongue

Never yours

Busy lapping from flowing cup

And stabbing with your fork

I know you’re a smart man

And weaponise

The false incompetence

It’s dominance under guise

If we had a daughter

I’d watch and could not save her

The emotional torture

From the head of your high table

She’d do what you taught her

She’d meet the same cruel fate

So now I’ve gotta run

So I can undo this mistake

At least I’ve gotta try

The capillaries in my eyes are bursting

If our love died, would that be the worst thing?

For somebody I thought was my saviour

You sure make me do a whole lot of labour

The calloused skin on my hands is cracking

If our love ends, would that be a bad thing?

And the silence haunts our bed chamber

You make me do too much labour

All day, every day, therapist, mother, maid

Nymph then virgin, nurse then a servant

Just an appendage, live to attend him

So that he never lifts a finger

24/7 baby machine

So he can live out his picket fence dreams

It’s not an act of love if you make her

You make me do too much labour

Credits:

Director: Adam Othman

Producer: Giulia Lopes

Director of Photography: Theo Brinch

1st AC: Rafal Rakoczy

Gaffer: Will Jessel

BTS: Jamal Thomas

Art Director: Paris Paloma

Art Assistant: Morgan Bull

Actors

Paris Paloma

Henry Hayward

#parispaloma

Anton Kleinschmidt's avatar

Brilliant. Not just American men

Jenny2025's avatar

ICE. Men kidnapping and raping and torturing human beings. Men who didn’t protest ICE are just as bad.

Salted Hex's avatar

💯%. The conversations I've had with white men have only further enraged me. "If they want my help, they need to be nice to me." is one answer I keep getting. We've ALWAYS been nice to you even when you don't deserve it.

"Black women are so nice to me. If other women want my help, they should treat me the way black women treat me."

😡🤬🤬 With deference out of fear of your venegful bullshit? Are you F***ING KIDDING ME? You DON'T treat black women well no matter how nice they are to you! You want all women to treat you as a savior when you hurt them with your actions, your rhetoric, your holier-than-thou vision of yourself?

The war is here, at home, and you are the enemy of women.

End rant. For now.

Walter Rhein's avatar

These dudes are so touchy and emotional. They should smile more.

Lauralee's avatar

Ikr??? 🤣😂😝

“sweetheart you’re too pretty to be so sullen”

Dude, GFY.

Lauralee's avatar

Love it. Thank you.

Freya's avatar

Thank you Walter for your support! Great article!

Walter Rhein's avatar

Thanks Freya!

Amy J's avatar

If rationalizations were kW of power, we’d be fossil fuel free in weeks. If reading this makes men think ANYTHING other than “he’s right about this” they are part of the problem. The bar has been set so damn low for them

Walter Rhein's avatar

There is an indoctrinated knee jerk reaction among American men to dismiss this article... and that's the problem

Jo Burns's avatar

Good men and good women are good because they lift each other and are not condescending. Thanks, Walter!

Stacey Dexter's avatar

Thx for this punch in the face, and I mean that in a positive way. As a writer, I couldn't help but take your words, copy, and paste them into a document, and insert the words "white people" in place of "American men." It works about 99% of the time. I agree with you 100% about American men. My only tweak would be that it be *white* American men because they are the majority of the problem here in these United States.

Walter Rhein's avatar

I do a lot of articles on white supremacy too. It's interesting how using "white men" instead changes the response. People are giving me clues to their psyche in the comments 🤣. Thank you!

Stacey Dexter's avatar

Yes, I have read your material before and have always enjoyed reading your essays and the comments from those that follow you. My personal inclination is to say, cis white males, though I know that your piece specifically leaned on American men, (though white people also works —too well). I do agree that white men, specifically white American men, have an entitlement issue that our society has created since the dawn of mankind.

Religion, which has seemingly replaced the common sense of many, has been a flaming red flag that has been ignored as a core issue of our sickness. Many of societies' beliefs that men are somehow intrinsically bestowed with superiority, and therefore should be the only leaders is in-sane, from some belief, and religiously promoted as truth vs, oh I don't know, reality? Beliefs are what has gotten us here. Trad wives and toxic masculinity. Trump and Jeffrey Epstein. It's a future documentary in the making. Thanks for your thoughtful pieces and insights. I appreciate you. ✊🏼

Walter Rhein's avatar

Thank you Stacey, I appreciate you too!

Julie Dye's avatar

I'm sad for my daughters who must wade thru the large dating pool of the ego-driven, misogynistic degenerates you describe. Ugh! Walter you are the diamond in a pile of manure.

Walter Rhein's avatar

Thanks Julie. I'm scared for my daughters too.

Humanitarians Unite!'s avatar

I love this! And the note about “not all men.” Because while not all men do these deeds— ALL men are complicit because they don’t stand up to stop the deeds. I feel this and even have to look at my husband through a different lens.

Thank you for the bottom of my heart for your openness, honesty and authenticity. As a 71 year old woman I feel seen by your words. 💕

Walter Rhein's avatar

That's such a lovely comment!

Rosemary Orlandi's avatar

amen, brother