Dear good men

Yes, I am talking about you

Pavement of course, what else?

To the men who read my essays about the housing, the medication, the feminism, the single motherhood and think to themselves, she’s not talking about me.

I’m the good one. I’m the exception. I hold doors. I read and support women writers. I am a good dad. I take my responsibility seriously.

Let me save you some time. I am talking about you.

I am not saying you’re the villain here. I honestly believe you don’t sit in the dark watching Andrew Tate. You don’t vote Tory. You don’t shout at the female receptionists at your GP. You probably cook the dinner and change the nappies without expecting a parade. You call yourself a feminist and you actually mean it.

Your personal morality doesn’t exempt you from how the world works. That is just the frustrating, analytical truth of it. You can be the absolute nicest guy on the planet and still pocket the dividends of a system that was built entirely for your comfort.

I think people love to assume you have to be a certain type of man to fall into the category of a villain. But no, not really. It doesn’t have to be some guy who keeps women down to benefit from the system—or in my case, what happened to me when I actually got spat on. (Yes, I did get spat on. You can read about it on here). I know what you’re thinking now - Oh that is awful, I would never do that and I believe you. Wallahi I really do but you see what is happening here? The spitter is literally doing you a favour. The worse these type of men are - the more innocent and nice you get to be. You’re comparing yourself to the absolute worst man in the room.

Good men get to build their exception out of another man’s spit. You really don’t have to be malicious to get the benefits of a system that was built entirely to favour you. You can just be standing there. Everything is set up to calibrate your comfort.

You get to be angry and people assume you have a point, or that you’re just having a bad day. No one is constantly monitoring your tone so you never get branded as the angry man. More than that, no one is quietly sitting back deciding if you’re stable enough to handle your own life.

You just get to be a person. Your own whole, individual self. And you don’t even notice any of it. You don’t see the dividend because, to you, it just feels like normal life.

You want to hear some real life examples of what I mean about dividends? Sure.

A man walks into a doctor’s waiting room or a school meeting, and you don’t even have to try hard to see how the staff treats him like he just cured some disease. He’s praised for being “so involved.”

Let’s flip that. A mother walks in literally carrying everything on her shoulders—the history, the paperwork, the allergies. And God forbid she forgets a date or looks a bit, well, overwhelmed. The pity faces. The low-key judgmental tilt of the head.

Now let’s move on from the everyday and talk about when the relationship ends. A man gets a new place. Takes the kids for the weekends, and oh my goodness, how society applauds him for stepping up and making it work. He gets to be the fun, independent guy rebuilding his life.

The other side of this spectrum? The mother is just there. She is expected to just be there. His time with the kids is seen as an active, admirable choice. Her time, on the other hand, is just an expected reality.

Let me know what you need me to do - See and don’t get me wrong here. I know the intention is good. When a man ask a woman this he genuinely wants to help but I think what he doesn’t realise here is he just basically handed me another job.

He just made himself a trainee and forced me to be his eyes. There is a sink full of dishes, bin needs taking out. Kids lunch needs packing. Let me know what you need me to do is in a nutshell you asking me to stop what I was doing, look around the room, prioritise which tasks are more important, and assign you one. You get to feel helpful for taking out the bins, and I get to connect all the goddamn dots managing you just so you could do it.

Now you see I really don’t care about the bin, and this isn't about the bins, or the dishes, or what not because if it was just about the physical chores, well we could just make, I dunno, spreadsheet and shut up about it, but it isn't. I care about the structural; reality that I am the default backbone, the base. Society treats women like the pavement. You don't really say thank to the pavement do you, you just expect it to be there so you can walk on it. The whole fucking system is built to allow you to be the the one who gets to have a mid-life crisis, or change careers, or just be fucking tired because it relies entirely on me being the concrete underneath it all making sure the whole thing doesn't collapse

And if you want to know just how deep that whole fucking concrete goes, let’s look at the absolute baseline. Let's talk about safety. You get to walk home at any time you like and just think about your day or whatever’s on your mind. You get to be in a public space, or ride the bus, or just stand on a street corner, and your brain isn't doing this constant scanning for threat. You never have to worry about the exact distance between you and the footsteps behind you.

This actually reminded me I once wrote a note, here on Substack, thanking a man who crossed the street when I was walking alone with my boys at night in a quiet street and a guy commented “I dont do it for your comfort”

Just think about that for a second.

Even in a conversation about a woman’s literal physical safety. When I'm walking in the dark with my kids - he could not resist jumping in the comments to make sure I knew he wasn't inconveniencing himself for my sake. He had to reclaim his absolute right to not give a shit. He couldn't just let a moment be about a woman feeling just a tad bit less terrified. He had to remind me that my fear is entirely my problem and that ladies and gentlemen is the dividend right there in a single sentence.

It’s not just that you get to walk down the street feeling safe. It’s that you get to be completely absolved of any responsibility for my lack of safety. My fear is my problem. Your comfort is a given.

So what do you do with all this?

I don’t know. And for once, I am not going to figure it out for you. I am not going to write you a step-by-step guide on how to carry your own weight. Acknowledging that you are standing on the pavement doesn’t make you any lighter.

So sit with that. Figure it out yourself.

With so much love,

Salwa

I said I wouldn’t tell you what to do with all this. Fine — one thing. Upgrade to the Rafiki tier. It won’t make you the exception, but it keeps the pavement paid