First off, this is not me downplaying that cis dudes also get sexually harrassed or saying that they have an easy time being believed, this is me being mad at the downplaying of sexual harrassment of women.
Do people think women can just point at someone and say “They sexually harrassed me!” No, hell no. Women have been working hard to get people to take them seriously about sexual harrassment forever. Look at how people reacted to Monica Lewinsky. She came forward and pretty much became a laughing stock and a meme. even today, look what happened with Biden and Tara Reade. People roll their eyes at #Metoo and use it as a punchline. “He got #MeToo’d” is a saying people use to insinute women using false sexual harrassment allegations to get men fired. Women who come forward about being harrassed or assaulted routinely get death threats. Victims so often aren’t believed or are harrassed more upon coming forward that often they just don’t bother. It’s been a huge struggle to even get to the point where #metoo could actually get some predators convicted.
I understand and hate that men have a hard time being believed too, but the idea that women somehow don’t also have this problem, or somehow have it easier, sickens me.
It’s just a slap in the face cis men haven’t had as often as women have suffered. I don’t think that men are believed less often, what with the physical power imbalance and men’s higher positions in work mean it’s happening to women more often.
But when men do get harassed they are surprised by the thing women already know: that power “disbelieves” the powerless when it is convenient to do so.
Any sexual harassment claim at work is telling the powerful that they must do something inconvenient, and so it behooves those in power to disbelieve accusers as a rule.