I have been on and off dating apps for many years now; not because of the irresistible men on the app, but because occasionally, I'd like to be taken out for a nice dinner date. And every single time that I come back to these apps, I realise how much I dislike people. The apps are not to blame, I know now. The apps are just doing God's job. The apps are reflecting the realities of the world. And the saddest reality of the dating world is that just when you think you're getting along with someone, that someone might be kind of cute, kind of fun, and with just a hint of Henry Cavill in his face, he turns out to be an actual dickhead.
And things have actually got worse since the publication of The Frustrated Women's Club. I will never say I regret publishing a book with such a controversial title. The book has only become more "me" with a title like that. But it makes my matches feel like they have been given the go-ahead to mock feminism. If anything, it should have done the opposite (in an ideal world).
In an ideal world, the man would ask me why I've written a book with a title like so, and I would explain to him that women are constant victims of patriarchy of all forms- from casual sexism to institutionalised anti-feminist movements (like the lack of abortion rights in the Western state that claims to be the leader of the free world).
'Gee, Amandeep, I had no idea being a woman was so exhausting. Thanks for educating me. May I take you out for a fine dining experience and treat you to the best wine?' he would say.
In reality, men usually take the title of the book to be a direct personal attack on them. Are they going through every horrible thing they have ever done to women, or are they just socially conditioned by the patriarchy to react this way?
A lot of men laugh at the title. I get it, it was designed to be funny. Laugh it up. But don't belittle the frustrations. Don't laugh at the title and then say something idiotic like, 'what's frustrating you now? Haven't you been given enough rights?' If you can't see how mad it is that we still have to be given rights, then we can't take this conversation forward.
Making yourself the victim- that's my favourite one. It's also the most problematic one. Men struggling with mental health issues that come about because of toxic masculinity is a reality of modern life. But men being the biggest victims of it is a bit of a stretch. Trying to take the female narrative out of it is wrong. I don't know why men and women can't just team up to say that patriarchy is toxic and that we should live in a world where we can just be people.
I am lucky to be in Dubai, where women actually do have the most comfortable experience. We have female-only parking bays, female-only gyms, and female-only waiting areas. It's glorious. When I go to a government office, I get treated well by every single man and not because the man secretly wants to get into my pants (they might do, I'll never know), but because that's just how they've been taught to do things.
But there are still people out there, men who tell me things like 'feminism has gone too far'. It makes me laugh when these are men from dating apps, whose end goal is to get some but have now inadvertently reduced their chances of getting any at all to zero.
Another man who heard the title of my book saw it fit to ask me why I think that women are the only ones who are frustrated. Well, that's because I have the self-awareness to know that I cannot possibly write about the male experience seeing as I am not a man. If only you had the self-awareness to know that not everything is about you or men. Or if the men in the US Congress had the self-awareness to realise that making decisions about women's bodies is not up to them.
It's 2023. This rubbish has to end and it has to end now.