The original comment said

Women: treat young men like they’re an asshole by default

This is different than demonizing young men.

An asshole would maybe do things like sexually harassing a woman, or give her unwanted attention, or be dangerous to her.

The issue is that women sometimes have to expect that a man could do these things for their own safety.

Like a man offering to give a woman a ride when she’s walking down the street. Or a man offering a woman a drink at the bar that she didn’t see poured.

Those could be nice gestures if the man isn’t an asshole. But if the man is an asshole, the woman could get herself killed or worse. So women have to anticipate that ANY man could be an asshole because their lives literally depend on it.

And if that translates to anticipating that ALL men are assholes, and treating all situations as such, until proven otherwise… that’s going to be upsetting to some men.

Men need to recognize that this problem is not caused by women, but instead caused by assholes. If you’re not an asshole, and someone anticipates that you are, the answer is to react with understanding and to figure out how to adjust your behaviour so that it doesn’t look like something that the evil assholes would do. (E.g. if you want to buy her a drink, let her see the server pour it)

I know that it’s hard for men to figure it out, because we don’t really have many positive role models or even instructional videos. Someone needs to bring back those instructional videos for social norms they had in the 50’s, but adjust them for modern times…make some TikToks or something, lol

And it shouldn’t need to be said, but I’m not saying that women should be throwing refused drinks in the faces of strange men. But I don’t think that’s what the original commenter meant is happening.

I think that, when women are mad at the things men do, men need to be mad at asshole men for doing those things, not at women for being victims of the assholes.