Dear Young Lady,

As the purpose of this write-up is to educate and exhort you concerning the need to treat a man with kindness as you expect him to treat you, I will contextually stay in the lane of cross-gender association.

A lot has been said about the cruelty of men to women, and that’s a very necessary discussion in an increasingly imbalanced society, I feel there’s a greater need now to begin to address the matter of women’s cruelty to men. This is because more men are becoming victims of the ‘unknown cause’ of death.

There are millions of men out there who are silently suffering due to the torrents of abuse they get from women – usually physically and mentally. As this isn’t talked about enough by men for fear of being labelled ‘weak’ by the society, things seem rather okay. The ironic quiet before the storm.

Society says that a man ought to be strong and should never cry. They say that weakness is when a man openly expresses grief or pain. This stereotype has caused many men to shut up and risk having mental breakdowns when it’s safer to speak out, especially against violence or abuse from women.

I say to you, ladies, you are how you treat others – whether male or female. The way you generally treat other people is characteristically a reflection of who you are more than it is how they behave.

It is expedient that you don’t take a gentleman (a real man who treats women with kindness) for granted. There’s a verse of the Bible (Matthew 7:12) which plausibly quips along these lines, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”  It is time that you stop hiding behind the mask of being the “weaker gender” to intentionally inflict emotional, mental and physical damage to the gentleman.

Men should not hit women. Nothing could be truer than this. Personally, I believe it’s a beastly thing for a man to stoop low enough to use his physical strength advantage as a channel to oppress and suppress a woman. Having said that, a man has the right – culturally and constitutionally – to defend himself from violence, even if it’s coming from a woman.

That man (or men) you keep hitting and injuring, and you expect them to not hit back because you’re a woman, they are saying they would love to be treated nicely too. That gentleman that you’ve sent to the doctor a few times because you consistently tear down on him violently, he’s now suffering also from mental health issues and he’s hiding it so well. How about the one you slapped publicly and abused, he didn’t hit you back – not because you’re a woman, but because it’s simply his nature to be gentle. Lest I forget the one you treat disrespectfully like a badge of honour, hurling barrages of hurtful words on, oh how he’s now wounded in his soul.

I hope you understand what it means to treat a gentleman like a king. It is, oftentimes, the thin line between a good woman and a virtuous woman.

Realness is reciprocative. If a real man should not hit a woman, a real woman should never hit a man.

Grace to you.