A woman dies by suicide. Before her body is even cold, men begin dissecting her character online like vultures circling carrion. Was she manipulative? Did she file false cases? Did she “destroy a good man”? Did she deserve sympathy at all?And then comes the familiar chorus from the Men’s Rights Activist (MRA) ecosystem: “What about men?”It is a question that deserves compassion when asked in good faith. Male suicide is real. Male loneliness is real. Men suffer under impossible expectations of masculinity, financial pressure, emotional repression, and social isolation. India’s suicide statistics clearly show that men form a large percentage of deaths. That should concern all of us.But here is what is deeply disturbing: many online MRAs do not stop at asking for empathy for men. They demand the erasure of women’s suffering in exchange for it.The moment violence against women is discussed, the conversation is hijacked. Not expanded. Hijacked. A woman speaks of abuse — “What about false cases?” A woman speaks of rape — “Men get raped too.” A woman dies by suicide — “She probably drove someone else to it.”This is not advocacy. It is retaliation. And retaliation is not justice.The National Crime Records Bureau data paints a horrifying picture of what Indian women endure. In 2022 alone, India recorded over 4.45 lakh crimes against women. The single largest category — nearly one-third — was cruelty by husbands or relatives.Read that again. Not strangers in dark alleys. Not cinematic monsters. Husbands. Families. Homes. The very institutions women are told will “protect” them.Thousands of women continue to die in dowry-related violence every year. NCRB-linked reporting shows over 6,000 dowry deaths annually — roughly 18 to 20 women every single day. And those are merely the women whose deaths entered the system.For every woman who files a case, there are countless others who are silenced by shame, fear, financial dependence, children, family pressure, or the simple exhaustion of surviving daily humiliation.This is the forest. This is the inferno women are talking about. But online, many MRAs point to a few cases involving abusive women or alleged misuse of laws and scream: “See? Women are the real oppressors.”A few trees are indeed diseased. Some women are cruel. Some manipulate systems. False accusations do exist and innocent men should absolutely be protected under law. Any humane society must care about that.But to use isolated incidents to dismiss systemic violence against women is intellectually dishonest. It is like standing before a city consumed by wildfire and angrily pointing at one burnt matchstick in a sink.Why does the mention of women’s suffering provoke such visceral hostility online?Because for many men, empathy has become transactional. They believe acknowledging women’s pain somehow diminishes male pain. That feminism stole attention that belonged to them. That women speaking openly about abuse is an accusation against all men. And so the response becomes punitive.Punish the woman who speaks, who leaves. Punish the woman who dies. Especially the woman who dies.That is what horrified me most while reading the comments under discussions around female suicide cases. The sheer inability to allow a dead woman even basic dignity. Men who claim society ignores male suffering were themselves mocking a woman who clearly reached a point of unbearable despair.No nuance. No grief. No humanity. Just contempt. Even more chilling was the hostility toward women trying to defend her. As though compassion itself were now a political act deserving punishment.This is what online misogyny has become: not merely disagreement with feminism, but active resentment toward female vulnerability. A woman cannot even die quietly anymore. She must submit her corpse for public cross-examination.And this culture has consequences. Women reading these comments internalise something terrifying: If I speak, I will be mocked. If I leave, I will be hated. If I die, they will still come for me.What kind of society does that create? Certainly not one where men heal.Because here is the truth: patriarchy harms men too. The same system that teaches women to tolerate abuse teaches men to suppress emotion. The same culture that burdens women with unpaid care burdens men with financial worth. The same rigid masculinity that silences female victims also silences male depression.But feminism did not create this system. It named it. And perhaps that is what truly enrages people. Not that women suffer. But that women are no longer suffering silently.We can hold two truths at once: men deserve mental health support, and women face widespread systemic violence. One reality does not erase the other.Compassion is not a limited resource. But if your empathy for men requires the humiliation of women — especially dead women — then what you are defending is not justice. It is power.— The writer is an acclaimed author