While scrolling through instagram a while back, I came across a video of several hijabis being interviewed about their mahr. They were listing amounts in the twenty-, thirty-thousands. Sure enough, the comments were filled with resentful men who were in a sheer PANIC. I broke one of my own rules, which is to never engage in a comment section unless the content created is my own or one of my favorite creators’.

“None of them are asking you to marry them, so what’s the issue?” I posted.

A man responded, “They’re making it seem like this is normal. Most men can’t afford this.”

It was telling response. I’m not sure why it’s any woman’s problem what a man can or can’t afford. Obviously, once you are married, there’s an understanding she’ll live within the budget she’s agreed to marry into–but why get all fussy over women who aren’t proposing to you? It’s also curious that the solution to whatever economic issues men are facing on a grand scale is for women to settle and accommodate, rather than men addressing the root of those issues in the first place. It’s also bizarre that men have no self-awareness when they respond this way. Your panic is about women controlling the market and that you’ve been priced out. How do you not identify this and recognize it’s your own problem?