The question straight women are afraid to ask their partners

‘Some women deliberately refrain from asking the men that they’re attracted to…what he really thinks about things like misogyny, women’s safety, women’s autonomy, [and] feminism.

Because ultimately, they don’t want to know the answer.’
Speaking candidly to her 148,000 TikTok followers, these were the words spoken by Ashanti Bentil-Dhue, the woman behind the popular account Unpunishable Woman.

Ashanti, a British single woman living in New York, continues: ‘When you realise that the man that you’re attracted to and you want to be chosen by does not respect women, it doesn’t feel good.

‘And you have to have cognitive dissonance at that point, because ultimately, even if he’s being nice to you, how long is that going to last?

‘Maybe he’s nice to his sisters and his mother, but he still doesn’t really get the lived experience of women and maybe he doesn’t care.’
This sentiment doesn’t just apply to first dates or relatively early-stage relationships.

She goes on to suggest there are married women who haven’t been able to have this conversation with their partners, or who turn a blind eye to their husband’s views, even if they might seem fairly implicit.

‘The problem is, once you scratch the surface or pull the thread with men in general, there’s a certain level of misogyny that lives in their system.

And it requires them to unlearn it and unravel it, and you can’t force or persuade them to do that.

That has to be an internally-led choice,’ she adds.

And it’s a point that resonates for a generation of women who are completely surrounded by misogyny.

We cannot hide from it anymore.

Sex.

Love.

Modern Mess.

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The manosphere and women’s safety

Posturing as go-getters and hustling business owners, they’re selling a dream to young men – and, as we saw in Louis Theroux’s Inside the Manosphere documentary, using words like ‘dishwasher’ to describe the women they surround themselves with.

On the face of it, they’re encouraging young, impressionable men to work hard, but they’re slowly feeding them the profound untruth that they won’t reap the rewards, purely because of their gender.

In their world, men are oppressed, rejected by women, and supposedly second-best.

Last year, nearly three in five of the 5,800 polled by the NASUWT teaching union said they believe social media use has contributed to a deterioration in pupils’ behaviour in schools.

Many named self-proclaimed misogynist Andrew Tate as having a negative influence on male pupils.

This isn’t just a problem among teenagers.

Earlier this year, research by Ipsos and the Global Institute for Women’s Leadership at King’s College London found Gen Z men hold more anti-women views than Baby Boomers, with 33% of younger men believing a husband should have the final word on important decisions.

It also concluded 24% of men born from 1997 to 2012 think women shouldn’t be too independent or self-sufficient.

Against this backdrop, Reform believes we should tax childless women, our abortion rights are under attack, and the government refuses to make misogyny a hate crime.

‘Patriarchy isn’t good for anyone’

There’s an age-old saying that what you don’t know can’t hurt you, but in this case, it arguably can.

‘It’s important that you ask men’s views about misogyny and feminism very early on in dating, [but] not necessarily on a first date if you don’t want to.

You need to get clear about where this person stands,’ Gigi tells Metro.

‘I think people are afraid to ask this because they don’t want to know the answer, but we need to reframe this in a way that [shows] you’re getting really valuable information.

They’re letting you know how they feel about your rights, about you as a person, and how they’re going to behave in a relationship with you based on that answer.

‘A person who is worth dating and worth investing in is not going to have a problem talking about this.

‘When you have someone who is really entrenched in these ideas, it’s going to be very bad for the relationship because they’re going to not view you as an equal partner.

It ends up creating a very problematic dynamic.’
Gigi adds that patriarchy hasn’t just failed women, AFAB and queer people.

It’s also failed men, mainly because it prescribes incredibly rigid gender expectations of what it means to be a man.

And this doesn’t spell out a positive, thriving future for any relationship.

She adds: ‘This doesn’t allow for emotional nuance, depth or vulnerability.

And that’s going to be very difficult for resolving conflict, for having the sex that you want to have, and for figuring out dilemmas together.

‘It’s not going to be good for anyone.’
Get in touch by emailing MetroLifestyleTeam@Metro.co.uk.