We Wouldn’t Laugh If It Were a Girl

We’ve all learnt to say the right things. That grooming is abuse. That power dynamics matter. That age doesn’t equal consent. That boys deserve the same protection girls do. And that if a girl told us her teacher seduced her, we’d believe her.

We say these things because we think we mean them. Until someone like Emmanuel Macron walks into the room.

Suddenly, the same people who protest patriarchal abuse fall suspiciously silent. Or worse, they laugh. They make jokes. They call it romance. They say it’s all terribly French. No one seems especially bothered that he was fifteen when it started, and she was thirty-nine. That she was married. That she was his teacher. That he was still a child.

Had the genders been reversed, we wouldn’t be calling this a love story. We’d be calling it what it is. A safeguarding failure. An abuse of trust. Grooming.

And yet, here we are.

For years, Macron’s relationship with his wife, Brigitte, has been treated with a strange mix of amusement and reverence. She’s been praised for her poise, her fashion, her loyalty. He’s been praised for staying with her. As though staying is the noble part. As though he had a choice. As though that kind of bond, formed when your brain is still developing and you’re still under someone’s authority, could ever be untangled cleanly.

Recently, though, the tone has shifted. A video surfaced showing Brigitte Macron slapping her husband’s face in public during what appeared to be a heated moment. The video circulated fast. Too fast. Not because people were horrified, but because they found it hilarious. Memes appeared within hours. Sound effects were added. Captions like “when mummy says no more screen time” and “Macron getting disciplined” racked up millions of views.

No one batted an eyelid.

No concern. No call for accountability. No questioning whether a man in public office, struck by his spouse on camera, might deserve the same basic respect we’d demand if it were the other way around.

Because if a male president had slapped his wife across the face, even gently, even in jest, there would be outcry. There would be investigations, televised commentary about intimate partner violence, and the message it sends to young boys. And rightly so.

But when Brigitte Macron does it, we’re told to lighten up. We’re told it’s not serious. We’re told it’s funny.

That’s the message. If a man’s being mistreated by a woman, even one with a history of grooming him, it doesn’t matter. It’s not real. It’s not abuse. It’s content.

But it is real. It’s deeply real. And it’s devastating.

When you watch that video, what stands out isn’t the slap. It’s the way he barely reacts. The way he looks away, closes in. There’s no shock. No indignation. It’s the look of someone who’s learnt not to push back. Not to make it worse. The look of someone who’s learnt, probably a long time ago, that compliance keeps the peace.

And we laughed.

People shared it like it was a sitcom clip. They mocked him. They infantilised him. They turned his pain into entertainment. And they called it progressive.

But it’s not progressive. It’s not funny. It’s vile.

And it’s not just happening to Macron.

We’ve seen this story before. Rewritten. Sanitised. Played out in plain sight. One of the most disturbing examples is the case of Sam and Aaron Taylor-Johnson. He was sixteen when they met. She was in her forties. He was cast in a film she directed. She had children. He was barely out of childhood. Within a few years, they were married.

And again, the public story is one of admiration. Of love. Of creative synergy. People gush over their red-carpet appearances, their Instagram photos, the fact that they “beat the odds.”

No one wants to talk about the fact that she met him as a teenager. That she had power over his career. That he’s never really addressed the glaring age gap, or how it began. That there’s something chilling about the way he’s praised for maturity and stability, as if grooming turns out fine if you stay married.

It doesn’t.

What it does is normalise silence. It teaches boys that being chosen by an older woman is a compliment, not a warning sign. That their trauma is invalid if it looks pretty. That success erases abuse. That if you grow up and become famous and wealthy and stay quiet, it must not have been that bad.

And Aaron Taylor-Johnson has stayed very, very quiet.

He gives the occasional quote. Says vague things about being an old soul. That he always knew what he wanted. That no one understands their relationship from the outside. And maybe that’s true. Maybe he believes it. Maybe, like Macron, he doesn’t see what happened to him as grooming. That’s the tragedy. Most victims don’t.

Because grooming isn’t always violent. It’s not always obvious. It’s about attachment. Influence. Feeling special. And when the world reinforces the lie, tells you that you were lucky, that it was love, that you should be grateful, it becomes almost impossible to say otherwise.

But it still matters. Silence is not consent. Polished appearances are not proof of wellbeing. Public devotion is not a get-out-of-jail-free card.

We don’t need Macron or Taylor-Johnson to collapse on camera or publish a memoir to believe they were harmed. We need to stop waiting for men to bleed out before we call it pain.

Because that’s the root of this. Not just misandry, but misogyny too. Misandry tells men they can’t be victims. Misogyny tells us women can’t be perpetrators. Together, they build a narrative where abuse is only ever something men do to women. And anyone who doesn’t fit that script gets laughed at. Or ignored. Or called lucky.

And then there’s the media.

The same media that rightfully campaigns for women’s safety, that covers grooming scandals when the victim is female, has barely touched these stories. There’s no Guardian op-ed about Macron’s slap. No think pieces about power imbalance in the Taylor-Johnson marriage. No long-form interviews with male survivors who lived through something similar.

It’s not because those voices don’t exist. It’s because they don’t fit.

Because if you admit that men can be groomed, that high-profile, powerful, accomplished men can be victims of female predators, you shatter something. You shatter the idea that harm follows a simple script. That patriarchy always flows one way. That certain things only happen to girls. And that makes people uncomfortable.

But discomfort isn’t an excuse. It’s an invitation.

To tell the truth. To let go of narratives that protect no one. To call abuse what it is, even when it comes dressed in high heels and Chanel. To stop mocking people who were never allowed to say no. And to create a world where boys, all boys, grow up knowing their boundaries are sacred too.

President Macron should not be pitied. He should be supported. And maybe, quietly, bravely, slowly, encouraged to leave.

He should be told that what happened to him wasn’t noble or romantic. That it wasn’t proof of maturity or genius. That it didn’t make him special. That it harmed him. And that it’s okay to admit it.

Aaron Taylor-Johnson should be told the same.

They are not weak. They are not broken. They are not unmanly. They are men who were failed. And they deserve better than to have their pain turned into punchlines.

And I worry. Not just for them, but for the boys coming after them.

I have six nephews. They are clever, curious, kind-hearted boys. Some are sporty. Some are bookish. One is tall and serious. Another still wears odd socks and forgets where he put his glasses. They are different in every way, except that all of them are growing up in a world that often doesn’t know what to do with boys.

A world where their pain will be questioned, or mocked. Where their emotional safety will be seen as secondary, or worse, a joke. Where a girl who cries gets a teacher’s attention, and a boy who withdraws gets detention.

A world that claims to champion equality, but still shames boys for showing weakness. Still tells them to be strong in the most limited, outdated sense of the word.

A world that will not protect them from grooming if the predator is a woman. That will not listen if they say something felt wrong. That will tell them they were lucky. That they should have enjoyed it. That will mock them if they flinch when hit, or hesitate when loved.

I don’t want that for them. I don’t want that for any boy.

I want my nephews to be safe. Not just physically, but emotionally. I want them to grow into men who can say, “This doesn’t feel right,” and be taken seriously. I want them to have friendships rooted in trust, not performance. I want them to love and be loved with dignity. I want them to know that their worth isn’t tied to their usefulness or strength, but to their humanity.

And I want them to live in a world that sees abuse as abuse — no matter who did it.

Because what happened to Emmanuel Macron should never happen to another boy. What happened to Aaron Taylor-Johnson should never be normalised. And what happens every day to boys and young men across the world — unseen, unheard, unspoken — should no longer be ignored.

We can do better. We must.

Not just for them. For all of us.