Men are the worst.

Sure, the title Men are the worst does sound a little hyperbolic, but it isn’t that far off. We really are terrible humans.

Let me give you a random example I happened upon today. On June 24, 2019, of the sixteen stories featured on the CBC Edmonton home page, three are about men, sex, and abuse of power.

A youth soccer coach, a junior high music teacher, and a doctor — all positions of power — going to trial, sentenced, or admitting guilt.

In one day.
In one Canadian city.
From one “news” outlet.
A women’s whole life, surrounded by predators — highlighted in one news cycle.

Throw in a story about another man found guilty of murder, a male transit peace officer who assaulted a drunk jaywalker, and more autonomous vehicles chasing humans to round out a typical Edmonton day. I’ll leave my editorial comments about the CBC’s news coverage for another time. I think my point is clear.

Doesn’t it make you sick 3/16 stories are about men abusing their power to sexually prey on the vulnerable from youth, through junior high, and into adulthood?

That is rhetorical.

This screen-shot is anecdotal. It is a single day out of 365 in a year. I haven’t done a study to gather stats over a long period of time, across an array of news outlets, and this might be an observation more about the CBC than our patriarchal society, but that isn’t really the point. It should be enough, that on a single day, nearly 20% of a news outlets stories on their home page are about men, sex, and abuse of power.

It’s fair to say that these stories have been normalized. If not, there would be outrage in the streets, but folks have just become used to men being disgusting men.