As we learned from yesterday’s New York Times op-ed by Ekow N. Yankah, at least one African-American (and probably more) is teaching his kids not to befriend white people, for whites could instantiate the racism of Donald Trump, and, well, you just never know. Today we learn the same thing, but for men.
What is happening is that Regressive Leftism, as people have pointed out before, is becoming like Christianity in one way: it views certain people as afflicted with an Original Sin acquired not through their actions, but by the unavoidable circumstances of their birth. For Christians it’s just being a mammal of the species Homo sapiens, while for Regressives it’s being white and male: a double pox. And if you think that, in light of the multifarious accusations of sexual harassment, you, a male, are off the hook because you’ve never engaged in sexual harassment, rape, groping, or masturbation in front of unwilling women, think again. While those actions, and probably most of those accused, are guilty and reprehensible, even if you think you’re clean you’re still guilty. Guilty of being white, as Yankah claimed, and now guilty of being male, as this article from Everyday Feminism claims (click on screenshot to see it):
Yes, it is indeed all men—and by that they mean this: all men are agents of the Patriarchy, and potential predators as well. Granted authors, Aaminah Khan and Melissa A. Fabello say that some of their best friends are men, just as Yankah said there are white people he befriended:
There are men that we love very much – men around whom we feel mostly safe and unthreatened; men who, in fact, support, respect, and take care of us on familial, platonic, romantic, and sexual levels. Not every man has violated us individually; for most of us, there are plenty of men that we trust.
We know what you mean by “not all men” – because on a basic level, we agree with you.
But there’s a caveat, for even the “good” men not only are potential predators and sexists, but need therapy or training to escape that mindset. Here’s the “J’Accuse” (the emphasis is theirs):
But the socialization of men is such that even a good man – a supportive man, a respectful man, a trusted man – has within him the potential for violence and harm because these behaviors are normalized through patriarchy.
And as such, we know that even the men that we love, never mind random men who we don’t know, have the potential to be dangerous. Surely, all people have that potential. But in a world divided into the oppressed and the oppressors, the former learn to fear the latter as a defense mechanism.
So when you enter a space – any space – as a man, you carry with yourself the threat of harm.
. . . But what makes (yes) all men potentially unsafe – what makes (yes) all men suspect in the eyes of feminism – is the normalized violating behaviors that they’ve learned, which they then perform uncritically.
Make no mistake: When you use the phrase “not all men” – or otherwise buy into the myth of it – you’re giving yourself and others a pass to continue performing the socially sanctioned violence of “masculinity” without consequence, whether or not that’s your intention.
In truth, the only thing approaching defiance against this kind of violence is to constantly check and question your own learned entitlement – and that of other men. But you can’t do that if you’re stuck in the space of believing that “not all men” is a valid argument.
I guess it’s not good enough to say that you’re trying hard to be a good “ally” to women, and to examine your behavior to ensure that you treat the genders as equals, as I think most of us do. No, you have to admit that you bear the Stain of Toxic Maculinity (and Toxic Whiteness) and then labor mightily to expunge it. As the article says:
So we wanted to call you in, well-meaning men, to talk about these four points that you’re missing when you claim “not all men” as a way to eschew responsibility for patriarchal oppression.
Because it is all men, actually. And here’s why.
Here are the four reasons we’re all guilty, and why women should look at us side-eyed, and forever (EF’s text is indented; mine is flush left):
1.) All Men Are Socialized Under (And Benefit From) Patriarchy.
Because here’s how it works, my friends: Living in the United States, every single one of us is socialized under patriarchy – a system in which men hold more power than other a/genders, in both everyday and institutionalized ways, therefore systematically disadvantaging anyone who isn’t a man on the axis of gender. As such, we all (all of us!) grow up to believe, and therefore enact, certain gendered messaging.
For people who aren’t men, this means that we’re socialized to feel less-than and to acquiesce to the needs of the men in our lives. And this doesn’t have to be explicit to be true.
When we find it difficult to say no to our male bosses when we’re asked to take on another project that we don’t have the time for, or to our male partners when they’re asking for emotional labor from us that we’re energetically incapable of, it’s not because we actively think, “Well, Jim is a man, and as a not-man, I can’t say no to him.”
And all men are at least passively complicit in this patriarchal system that rewards male entitlement. We see it every single day.
This is regressive in the sense that while it argues that sexism is widespread, and I think it is, it also claims that women have all been victimized by it to the point that they have become passive Stepford Wives. It’s regressive because statements like this don’t empower women, but disempower them, infantilizing them to the point where their passivity is entirely the fault of men. This is the exact antithesis of First and Second Wave feminism. Yes, there is truth to some women being beaten down by sexism, but the cure for that is not just to write articles blaming men, but call them out when they treat you like that. In other words, the authors assert that the cure lies solely with men, which ignores the fact that every group that has ever attained equal rights in the face of bigotry has demanded those rights, not just blamed the Other Side for its behavior and expected to be handed equality.
2.) All Violations (Big and Small) Are Part of the Same Violent System. Apparently even asking a woman out, and feeling bad when you’re rejected, counts as Patriarchal Violence (my emphasis):
Picture this: A well-meaning man offers a woman a compliment at a bar. He has no sinister motive, and he is – after all – in an appropriate setting for flirting.
When the woman rebuffs him for whatever reason (she’s in a relationship, she’s not into men, she’s just not interested), the man feels snubbed – because he was polite and respectful, but not rewarded for it.
. . . . After all, men know that being gentlemanly is the “right” way to “get” women, and therefore expect on some level to be rewarded for that good behavior. But if that sentiment drives some of his disappointment, then that’s a sense of entitlement, however small.
Such a man isn’t an outright abuser. But his learned entitlement makes him potentially unsafe for women to be around. And it’s hard to see that sense of entitlement from the inside, let alone question it or start to break it down.
I have no words for this accusation. To say that a disappointed and rejected male is “entitled” and “potentially unsafe for women to be around” is to say that all men are unsafe to be around, for all of us have been rejected and felt bad about it And that, of course, is the point of this article: to make all women fear all men.
3.) The Impact of Your Actions Is More Significant Than the Intent. My emphasis below:
Cool. You didn’t mean to contribute to the objectification of queer women when you made that lesbian porn joke. Perhaps you even think that you’re so “enlightened” as a “feminist man” that we should just know that you “didn’t mean it like that.” In fact, maybe you even think that you were being “subversive” when you said it. Okay.
But from a woman’s perspective, that doesn’t matter, because we still have to feel the effects of that mindset every single day – and your bringing that to the foreground has a negative impact on us, no matter what the hell your intent was.
Many men don’t do hurtful things maliciously. They may be doing them subconsciously, adhering to the ways in which they’ve been taught to behave, as all of us do.
Other men, of course, are intentionally violent. But the effects of both can be incredibly damaging.
Surely, we’re less likely to harbor resentment towards someone who stepped on our toes accidentally than we are towards someone who stomped on them with malevolence – especially when accountability is had and an apology is issued. But our goddamn toes still hurt.
To a gender minority, there’s very little difference between the impact of inadvertent and intentional harm. A man who makes you feel unsafe by accident is as harmful to you as one who does it on purpose.
Again, a mindset like this is incapable of discriminating against an unthinking, sexist remark and a sexual violence, just like it’s incapable of seeing a difference between touching someone’s shoulder without permission and a violent rape (both count as “bad behavior”, but they’re just not the same, morally or legally). To lump together all forms of sexism—even “microaggressions” that may not even be sexist—as “violence” is another way to infantilize and victimize women. Again, I emphasize that no woman should be subject to unwanted attention (save, perhaps, being asked out by someone who gracefully accepts rejection), but to equate a lesbian porn joke with intentional physical or sexual violence is not only mistaken, but actually eliminates the chance to reduce sexism. A sexist joke can be called out, and perhaps the joker taught a lesson, but a man who sexually assaults a women needs far more drastic intervention.
4.) The Depth of Work to Be Done Is Avoided By Most Men. As a professor, I interacted with male and female students (perhaps some transgender people as well, but I never knew), and, especially in graduate courses, constantly assessed whether I was ensuring that the women were treated as equals and their achievements appreciated. Did I prevent them from being talked over by men? (Yes, this happens.) Did I ensure that a woman with a good idea got credit for that idea, rather than the man who affirmed if immediately afterwards? (Yes, this happens, too.) I suspect that many of us do this kind of stuff, making a conscious effort to treat women as professional and moral equals, which is the right thing to do. But that’s not enough, not for the Everyday Feminists (their emphasis):
We want to trust that your good intentions will lead to positive actions, we do. But here’s what we need you to understand before that can possibly happen: What you’re asking us to accept from you will take a hell of a lot of work on your part – and we’ve seen over and over again that many self-proclaimed “allies” just aren’t willing to do it.
Being a “safe” man – hell, being a feminist man – is more than just believing yourself to be and collecting accolades from others about the minimal work that you’re doing not to be an asshole.
Doing the work means really doing the work – getting your hands dirty (and potentially having an existential crisis in the process).
But what do we do? Apparently spend much of our lives micromanaging our behavior exactly the way the authors want:
Hint: You are “like that” – especially if you’re not actively fighting patriarchy. And claiming that you’re “not like that” doesn’t negate patriarchy – it enforces it.
Fighting learned male entitlement means assuming the burden of vigilance – watching not just yourself, but other men. It means being open to having your motives questioned, even when they’re pure. It means knowing you’re not always as pure as you think.
It means assessing the harm you’re capable of causing, and then being proactive in mitigating it.
Most of all, it’s a conscious decision to view every individual’s humanity as something exactly as valuable and inviolable as your own.
And it means doing it every single moment of your life. Point blank, period.
We have to monitor not just ourselves, but all other men, and do it every single moment of our lives? But what about other progressive issues? Will we still have time for those?
What we see her is pure entitlement: “My problems are the most important, and you’d bloody well spend all your time pondering them and fixing them.” This is very close to Catholic Original Sin, and to the demand, like Catholics hear, that one admit that one is tainted and then beg for confession and an absolution that, apparently, comes more easily from God than from feminism.
Although Everyday Feminism is an over-the-top site to me, it’s not that far removed from Leftist Feminism, and I wrote this post because the women who write stuff like the above may well be our future leaders. Surely all of us want a world where women are afforded equal respect, dignity, and opportunity. But I’m not sure I want a world in which women are taught that all men are potential predators, that the solution lies only in men, that there are no “good” men, and that the onus of fixing sexism is not discussion and demonstrations, but men’s acceptance of the accusation that we are tainted and better spend the rest of our lives accepting it and fixing it.
And after you’ve worked on your toxic masculinity, you can take Everyday Feminism‘s “Healing from Toxic Whiteness” course. Click on the screenshot below to sign up; it costs only $97:
