By Sia Jyoti.

I have come to accept that someone with my level of faith in humanity is destined to feel  perpetually disappointed with reality. A recent example of this emotion being triggered was in my  Law, Gender and Society lecture when despite being in a lull from my lack of caffeination, I noticed  the fact that not one man took this module. Initially, my peers and I laughed at our mutual  realisation but it was only until the seminar that I was met with my underlying rage. In a discussion  about the ways in which the legal system would disappoint us, both as future practising lawyers  and as potential victims of the system, it struck me why no man was enrolled in this module. It  boiled down to the privilege of not having to educate yourself on the systematic inequalities that  we, as women, are bound to face.  

Now, whilst I can write a paper on this subject alone, I would like to move on to the current event  that reignited this notion of the oppressed educating themselves on their oppressor for me: Andrew  Tate and the rise in incels. The first time I came across the term incels (involuntary celibate) was in  a New Yorker article in 2018. The article discussed the circumstances in which groups from both  genders were unable to be intimate despite a desire to do so, yet differentiated in the way they dealt  with this. Women, thanks to greater attention towards female liberation in the forms of education  and empowerment, sought to raise their self-esteem through other forms of validation. This  inevitably meant that men no longer became the primary source for a woman to feel worthy in  society. This for me is modern-day liberation; the ability for a woman to define herself without the  perception of any man.  

Yet, since we continue to exist in patriarchy, our little wins are quickly met with massive losses: and  here we see the rise in incels. When women found their worth and were no longer available to men  that were below their standards, a group of men found themselves generating an ideology  embedded in pure misogyny which they deemed a suitable response to their inability to be decent  human beings. In the 2018 article, they recorded the existence of at least sixteen deaths in the US  alone that had occurred in the pursuit of incel ideology. This could be easily summarised by a quote  from one of the murderers in 2014 that declared that his actions were in the hopes of starting a  war, not against, but ‘on women’ for ‘depriving’ him of sex. The attention I have drawn on his  choice of ‘War on Women’ as opposed to a ‘War against women’ is to illustrate the power dynamic  he subconsciously shares he holds. A war against someone is in opposition to them, it assumes  fairness and a starting point of equality. On, in contrast, already assumes that one group will be  above another. A visual image of an attempt to crush the rise of something is what I imagined when  I saw this quote. Now, eight years since Elliot Rogers’s misogyny-fuelled murders took place, I feel  we have made limited progress as a society.  

At the point of his peak in social media presence, Andrew Tate had made apparent his views on  women. Whilst the utter absurdity of some of these views made them laughable to the general  public, I had hoped that the corresponding rumours of his alleged sex trafficking and rape  allegations reduced his normalisation. Unfortunately, as I mentioned at the start of this article or  what some might see as an organised rant, hopeful people are often disappointed. After a casual dig  at him in a funny manner so that I wasn’t called a crazy feminist (I’m so crazy for being scared of  my biggest natural predator aren’t I?), my messages were flooded with defensive responses from so  many university friends. What surprised me most was the number of objectively normal, sweet,  and educated boys in my DM’s who shared in their feeling that “not everything he says is bad, he  has a point a lot of the time”.  

For my own sanity and the limited word count on this, I refuse to unravel the many problems with  that statement. Additionally, I find myself mentally exhausted from having to justify  disappointment in the male desire to find rational points made by a man who openly tweets that  women are responsible for their sexual assault. If you are happy to do this, then how come my,  actually researched and now proven defence for Amber Heard is met with literal barbaric rage and  an unfounded accusation that I don’t care about male issues when I can positively list the boys I have offered therapy to for free? For now, I will cut down on my charity work. Meanwhile, naively, I  yet again hope that this year we won’t offer our platforms up to lunatics, who can convince more  lunatics to spend their money on something as laughable as Hustlers University.

By Lawrence Gartshore.

I should begin here with a confession. When I speak of abandonment, I do not refer to the notion of physical isolation. Deserted on a desert island like a pirate who mutinied against his captain. Nor do I speak of those days where you simply cannot bring yourself to leave your house, or even your room, and so abandonment is a by-product of your self-isolation. Anxiety, in these instances, is most understandable indeed.

No, the abandonment which I have found most keenly affecting is that which one concocts in one’s own mind. This is, in many ways, entirely unsurprising. If one is plagued with other mental health issues, depression for instance, then this notion of attached anxiety surrounding abandonment is not revolutionary. It is not unusual to feel as though you cannot engage in social situations because you simply don’t have the right words to speak – you should hate to make yourself seem like a fool!

Again, even this general situational abandonment is not that of which I truly speak. It is closer to the truth, yes, however the real feeling of abandonment, the one I would contend is far more palpable, far more common, is that of feelings of specific abandonment.

What do I mean by this? Well, I mean those days when you have had an otherwise fabulous time. You have been surrounded by friends; you have done the things you most love doing in the world. You have eaten good food; you have drunk good drink. It would seem as though nothing could ever get you down again. And yet, in a flash, a single interaction can bring you spiralling back down into misery. Five minutes in a day that ruin the other one-thousand, four-hundred, and thirty-five.

I speak here of those moments where you question all that you are doing, simply because you have convinced yourself that someone, for whatever reason, has a problem with you. It could be a stranger; it could be a peripheral friend. Most damaging, however, are those moments when you find yourself questioning whether someone you love, someone you consider your rock, truly loves you too.

An unread message, and you question all that you have ever said to them. Perceived flippancy in a pub, and you question every action you have performed in front of them. You question everything about yourself, desperately trying to think what it could possibly be that has caused this perceived angst. The braver amongst us may try to confront the issue head on, asking directly what it is that has caused this supposed animosity. Yet, given that the problem is likely to only exist in one’s own mind, it is deeply unsurprising to be met with the response of ‘nothing at all’.

This should put the issue to bed. Were one thinking with a sane mind then that would be all the confirmation needed to move on, dispel this strange idea of some permeating feud, and return to conversation as the dearest of friends. Yet, of course, for this issue to arise in the first place one cannot be in the possession of a completely sane mind.

As such, you allow it to cloud all your future encounters. They begin as friendly, but tense. Then merely civil. Then, when all possible avenues have been considered in your mind, the only solution one can imagine is that they simply long for space from you. That you have offended them so deeply that you cannot ever truly aim to rebuild the friendship.

I can only tell you how destructive this is. I cannot profess to take my own advice here – I speak from a personal position of weakness, unable to reason my own way back, ignorant of my own guidance. Indeed, such encounters are the only consistent factor now that cause me to slip back into bouts of depression. However, I do truly believe that, as with all other aspects of mental health, this is a battle one must fight – and one that is infinitely winnable.

Now, in some instances, loved ones have every reason to feel slighted by you. As I detailed in my previous article, one cannot apologise for having mental health issues, but one can and should apologise for, and acutely recognise, the hurt that you cause others as a result. That being said, I implore you to not allow this plague to permanently burn the bridges of loving friendship. I have read recently that coming to terms with the fact that certain friendships simply won’t survive is an important part of maturing; if you truly love someone, let them go. I do not, I cannot, accept this. Allowing mental health issues to keep fostering these damaging relationships is, in my opinion, incredibly damaging

Do not allow feelings of abandonment, feelings of anxiety, to cloud those most precious relationships. It is through those that we find the most joy; that act as the rock upon which the foundation of our happiness is built. For as long as you do, you shall never truly break free from the shackles of the black-dog of depression. And always, on a personal note, question whenever you are feeling down due to interactions such as this – have you actually had a terrible day, or have you allowed a bad five minutes to ruin the other one-thousand, four-hundred, and thirty-five?