What I'm about to share with you is an incident that happened a few weeks ago at Jami-Shireen Park. This is not an isolated event; this violence occurs every day; you will witness this one because there is a video. 1/

We knew we were bound to attract unwanted attention, so we did what most women do: we ignored it. However, one very keen observer decided to take pictures; at this point, I intervened and asked him to leave. He refused and within a few seconds the situation escalated badly. 2/

This is why the video starts from the middle, right after he pushed me and snatched my phone from my hand only because I told him to leave. No one was seriously hurt except for one man’s ego, which was destroyed to bits by the end. 3/

This kind of rage is not unfamiliar to any of us. The cold dark piercing eyes, blank and void. A scrunched up face foaming at the mouth—incoherent speech and an out-of-control tongue. I have experienced this anger, the sort that has no return. And it always comes from men. 4/

I say men deliberately, and I insist all men reading this, to take it personally; in fact, I invite all men to feel disgusted, feel shame and a collective sense of deep embarrassment. I urge all men to identify with this man abusing women; he is not the other. 5/

He is not someone who you all can't relate to; brush aside and take a sigh of relief that you are better. When we have experienced that in many moments, he is you. The you patriarchy created. 6/

If you don't believe me, ask the women in your lives. They will tell you how they recognise the cold eyes, the death stare and the abuse that flows afterwards. They will tell you to them, he and you are the same. 7/

You are the problem if you are silent if you don't want to resist and revolt. If you don't call each other out and take responsibility of all the crimes your gender committed in the name of anything and everything. 8/

When we say “Yes All Men” we mean every man because we know the anger that men have carried as their generational legacy, tradition and culture lives inside of them and can show its ugly face at any moment. And we have carried the effects of their anger as our generational trauma

Now all men repeat after me.

NOT ALL MEN.
ALL MEN.
MEN.
ME.