Why Do ‘Good Men’ Get Mocked by Other Men?

Something shifted when I left what I now call “Toxic Tok.”

If you have spent any time on the algorithm-driven side of TikTok that serves up a steady diet of manosphere content, misogyny that looks like self-improvement, and some men competing to say the most degrading things about women, you know exactly the space I mean. I wrote about my own experience being pulled into that world, and what it took to find my way out, in TikTok Almost Made Me Hate Men.

When I found my way to a different corner of the internet, what might generously be called the emotionally intelligent side, something genuinely encouraging appeared. Men defending women. Men calling out other men’s behavior. Men speaking openly about feminism, accountability, and the need for change. Not performatively nor for clout. Just men who had clearly done some thinking and arrived somewhere decent.

And then I made the mistake of opening the comments section.

What Happens When a Man Chooses to Be Different

The moment a man publicly supports women’s rights, defends feminist principles, or calls out harmful male behavior, a specific and predictable response emerges from other men. It looks like this:

“Simp.”
“You’re not getting laid, bro.”
“Pussy seeker.”
“She’s not going to give you the attention you’re after.”
“Loser.”

The insults follow a pattern. They are almost always sexual, designed to suggest that the only reason a man would support women is to gain access to them. They reduce his entire position to a transaction, dismissing the possibility that a man might simply believe in equality because he has thought about it and arrived there honestly.

What strikes me most about this is the cruelty of it. Not only are women bullied for speaking about the injustices they face, the men who stand with them are bullied too. The message being sent from all directions is the same: stay quiet, stay in line, do not deviate.

The Science of Why This Happens

This is not random. There is a documented psychological and sociological framework that explains exactly why men police other men this way and it is more calculated than it looks.

1. Toxic masculinity operates as a social enforcement system

The term “toxic masculinity” is not an attack on men, it is a description of a specific set of rigid norms that define masculinity as dominance, emotional suppression, and control. Men who internalize these norms feel threatened not just by women challenging the system, but by other men opting out of it. A man who openly supports women is, in the logic of this system, a defector. And defectors get punished.

2. The manosphere runs on solidarity through exclusion

Online male communities, particularly those operating in the manosphere, maintain cohesion through shared enemies. Women are the primary target, but male allies are a close second. Calling a supportive man a “simp” or “pussy seeker” is not really about him, it is about signaling to the rest of the group that this behavior is unacceptable and will be socially costly. It is enforcement in pretence of mockery.

3. Threatened masculinity produces aggression

Studies in social psychology have found that men whose sense of masculinity feels threatened respond with increased aggression and dominance-seeking behavior. A man who supports women’s equality is, implicitly, a challenge to the men around him — his existence suggests that a different way of being male is possible. For men who have built their identity on the traditional script, that possibility is destabilizing. The mockery is a defense mechanism.

4. Bullying into silence works

The most chilling part of this dynamic is its effectiveness. Men who are not perpetrators, men who privately hold decent values, often stay quiet because the cost of speaking up is too high. The pile-on is immediate, the insults are personal, and the social risk is real. Some men have spoken publicly about losing entire friend groups after choosing to think differently. The silence of decent men is not indifference. Often it is self-preservation.

The Age Factor

There is a pattern: from my observation, when an older man speaks about gender equality and women’s rights, the response from male commenters tends not always, but noticeably toward some level of decorum. Disagreement, perhaps. But less of the raw contempt.

When a younger man makes the same argument, all bets are off.

This is not coincidental. Older men occupy a position of status within male hierarchies that makes attacking them more socially costly. A younger man who supports women’s rights is seen as someone who has not yet earned the right to deviate from the script and he is treated accordingly. The punishment is more severe precisely because he is more vulnerable within the hierarchy.

The Question That Needs an Honest Answer

When a man who has chosen to do better is met with mockery from other men, two possibilities present themselves.

The first: the mocking man is genuinely struggling with his own behavior and cannot tolerate watching someone else succeed at what he is failing to manage. Seeing a man live differently is a mirror he does not want to look into.

The second: the mocking man is actively opposed to women’s rights and is fighting anyone, male or female, who challenges a system that benefits him. The mockery is not random cruelty but strategy.

Why This Matters Beyond the Comments Section

The bullying of male allies is not a side issue. It is a central mechanism through which gender inequality sustains itself.

Every time a decent man is mocked into silence, the public space shifts slightly toward the men who are loudest and most hostile. The conversation that gets heard is the one that was not bullied out of the room. And the women watching know, consciously or not, that the men willing to pay the social cost of standing with them are rarer than they should be.

The men who have unlearned harmful conditioning, who have reexamined what they were taught and decided to do differently, these men deserve recognition, not ridicule. It’s not because they are heroes for meeting a basic standard of decency but because the social cost of doing so, in certain spaces, is genuinely high. And they are paying it anyway.

That is worth something.

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This post was previously published on medium.com.