By MJ 
What is the role of men in this world? What should their role be?
Protector.
Men were given enhanced physical strength not to dominate, exploit, or terrorize — but to protect women, children, and the vulnerable. This does not preclude leadership; it reframes it. The core competency that should be cultivated in males from birth is not entitlement or control, but a deeply ingrained compulsion to protect those who cannot protect themselves.
This principle is fundamental to any truly egalitarian society — and vital to dismantling the structures that continue to fail women and children.
Statistics have long shown that women and children are far more likely to be harmed by someone they know than by a stranger. This violence thrives in cycles: protected by silence, excused by culture, and hidden by systems designed to shield the perpetrator rather than the victim.
I do not raise these truths without offering solutions.
Justice & Accountability
Real protection requires consequences.
- Harsher sentencing for sexual and domestic violence crimes
- Lifetime incarceration and monitoring for repeat or severe offenders
- Chemical castration, already used in countries such as Italy, Nigeria, and the Czech Republic for child sexual assault
- Gender-informed oversight of sexual violence cases — women must play a central role in adjudication and review
Male-dominated justice systems have repeatedly demonstrated bias, emotional self‑protection, and systemic failure in addressing crimes against women. This is not an accusation; it is a documented pattern.
Some countries have taken decisive steps. India has increased sentencing severity for sexual assault. Others, including Bangladesh and China, impose the harshest penalties imaginable. Whether one agrees with those extremes or not, the message is clear: sexual violence is treated as the grave moral crime that it is.
Cultural Intervention
Justice alone is insufficient if culture remains unchanged.
- Public accountability: People must speak out in the moment when aggression occurs
- Ending victim-blaming in institutional language and public policy
- Male peer accountability: If you see it, act. If you hear it, act.
Even official resources are not immune to deflection. The Government of Canada’s guidance on combating gender‑based violence includes advice on “knowing the risks.” While risk awareness has value, it subtly transfers responsibility onto victims — a necessity only because systemic prevention continues to fail.
Protection cannot be conditional. It must be absolute.
When Anonymity Protects Monsters
The recent CNN investigation into online sexual exploitation exposed a chilling reality: anonymity has become armor for abusers. Platforms, institutions, and traditions continue to prioritize silence over safety.
This is not new. It is patriarchy in its oldest form.
Abusers are protected by the internet, by social prestige, by institutional loyalty, and by deeply entrenched beliefs about women being emotional, unreliable, or weak. This pattern is most visible in places of authority — among elites, religious institutions, and power structures where access to victims is easy and accountability is rare.
Women are not shocked by this violence. We have always known it existed. What is shocking — even to us — is the scale and depravity now surfacing in public view.
The men most “surprised” by these revelations are often the same men who never challenged the early warning signs — the locker‑room jokes, the degrading language, the quiet normalization of abuse. Silence is not neutrality. It is permission.
Cycle:
Anonymity + Male Entitlement + Institutional Silence = Impunity
This Is Not Abstraction
What follows is lived experience.
Violence in my country was criminalized only two years after my birth. When my father repeatedly assaulted my pregnant mother, it was not considered a crime. When he abused me as a toddler — or brought my brother and me to a priest who preyed on children — it was not met with justice. When I was abused at a women’s shelter at age eleven, the system again failed.
Authority figures stared at my body instead of my face. Drunk relatives “accidentally” groped me. Excuses replaced consequences.
These are not ancient histories.
- Canada: Spousal violence recognized as a crime in 1983
- United States: Marital rape fully criminalized by 1993
- United Kingdom: Recognized in 1994
- France: Criminalized in 2006
These failures are within living memory. The systems that enabled them are still largely intact.
The Truth We Must Confront
Those who most need to be restrained, corrected, and punished often control the very systems meant to deliver justice. That is not coincidence. It is structure.
This fight belongs to all of us.
Protection is not a slogan.
It is action, accountability, and sacrifice —
and anything less is complicity.
Nicolas Maltais