"We think of men as antiheroes, as capable of occupying an intense and fascinating moral grey area; of being able to fall, and rise, and fall again, but still worthy of love on some fundamental level, because if it was the world and its failing that broke them, then we surely must owe them some sympathy. But women aren't allowed to be broken by the world; or if we are, it's the breaking that makes us villains. Wronged women turn into avenging furies, inhuman and monstrous: once we cross to the dark side, we become adversaries to be defeated, not lost souls in need of mending. Which is what happens, when you let benevolent sexism invest you in the idea that women are humanity's moral guardians and men its native renegades; because if female goodness is only ever an inherent quality - something we're born both with and to be - then once lost, it must necessarily be lost forever, a severed limb we can't regrow. Whereas male goodness, by virtue of being an acquired quality - something bestowed through the kindness of women, earned through right action or learned through struggle - can just as necessarily be gained and lost multiple times without being tarnished, like a jewel we might pawn in hardship, and later reclaim." - Fox Meadows
