Sexual harassment and #MeToo behaviors by men need to stop. But to get them to stop, we need deep, rich conversations that provide insight, thoughtfulness, and breakthroughs. Right now, the biggest impediments to the necessary insights and breakthroughs are the terms that emerged from the #MeToo discussion: Consent, Objectification, Patriarchy, Entitlement, Privilege, and Toxic Masculinity. Self awareness will be key for men as they come to terms with #MeToo, particularly as society opens up and COVID begins to fade. Let’s look at these six terms in hopes that they will not lull people to sleep in a smug confidence that they all know what they are talking about.
Consent has become a rallying call by commentators on #MeToo, but as one looks across the cultural spectrum, there are so many more voices and attitudes toward consent that it becomes a difficult place for men to get clear. It seems almost instinctual that men seek a code of ethics or a set of rules by which to live, yet the cacophony of women’s voices on the subject make it impossible to discern bright lines that will always work. Must consent always be verbal? Some say yes, and some say no.
Must consent be repeated every time? Some say yes, and some say no. Can consent be retracted? And if so, at what point? Organizations have gone to great lengths to define consent, and what becomes evident is that there is no consensus on what it means. Plus, codes tend to offer men a pass — by meeting the requirements of the code one no longer needs to confront real life in his own authentic way. He can excuse himself by claiming he had permission. And consent does not stop the harassment so many women deplore — the harassment of a man’s attempts to win permission, i.e., win consent.
Privilege, and especially white male privilege, has been used to try to describe advantages white men have in society. Many men make assumptions about the meaning of privilege and thereby get defensive. I would challenge men to learn to hear it differently in order to let the defensiveness drain off of it. There are advantages to being male that are built into our social structures, and we need to be able to see them. Most men are unaware of our advantages, but that doesn’t mean they do not exist. Awareness is the first step toward empathy for others who don’t share the same advantages, but awareness doesn’t increase when one gets defensive. Rather than get defensive when we hear the word privilege, we can ask ourselves: “There’s that word. Where is my opportunity to learn something here?” That alone can take us a long way toward healing.
Toxic masculinity comes up often in discussions of #MeToo. The term seems to have different meanings, including macho behaviors, a male superiority complex, controlling and sometimes violent behaviors, sexual pursuit and/or predation, and so on. Control of feelings, never showing emotion, and avoiding anything that might be termed feminine is crucial. There is no doubt that these things are toxic.
But the discussion of toxic masculinity then goes in one of two directions. One direction identifies role models and cultural icons as guides toward this kind of behavior, and the solution is to change the movies, change the heroes, and change the stories. While cultural imagery may be helpful to change, it is not in and of itself a solution to toxic behavior by men.
The second direction one usually hears is an instruction or plea for men to get in touch with their feelings. This plea is well received by men who know how to do this, but for those who don’t have that skill, it merely identifies an incompetence. While naming this is an important start, men need to go the next step and develop their ability to get in touch with their feelings. For men who are not in touch with their feelings, these feelings can be very distant, and in many cases the men have been damaged enough to know instinctually that simply touching those feelings could be explosive. They don’t want to reach out for help, but they also do not want to explode. Sensing the danger, such men avoid the emotion altogether.
Objectification provides a dilemma. On one hand, there is the terrible dehumanization of women that happens in pornography, prostitution, and sex trafficking. On the other, there is the idolization of women and beauty through cultural images that results in a kind of chauvinism and superiority complex. If there is a third hand, it might be the engagement with attraction — an experience all men have. The dilemma is that attraction almost always begins without knowing the other person, which therefore feels like objectification.
As a result, men may feel like it is a sin to appreciate a woman’s beauty because that objectifies her. Men have asked in discussions groups: “What am I to do with the experience of being attracted to a woman I do not know?” Aware men who seek to do the right thing find themselves confused by this notion. To me, the only answer can be deeper self-knowledge and the authentic integrity of our own souls. If objectification as a term takes us there, it is helpful. Too often, discussion of this term stops at the outrage and men are left confused.
The real root cause or patriarchy is hierarchy, especially as it has been imagined since the dawn of modernity in the 1500s. Patriarchy, by its root meaning, is a society guided by fathers, and it seems to me we could use more good fathers who would not tolerate #MeToo type behaviors and teach their boys how wrong it is. Because we lack such guidance, it is hard to see how “patriarchy” is an accurate term to define the problem. Hierarchy, on the other hand, is how we organize society, and it is the root of the notion of “power over” rather than “power with.”
Hierarchy is reinforced throughout capitalistic culture and is actually the source of most of the privilege discussed earlier. The rising force of egalitarian structures, including #MeToo as a movement, is challenging hierarchy, and the hierarchy itself is reacting in forms such as white supremacy, nationalism, and sexism. While patriarchy implies that men are higher up in the hierarchy (and they are), it also implies that the answer is to switch positions — i.e., move different people into different areas of the hierarchy. Complaints about the hierarchy are accurate, but the real focus should be on dismantling the hierarchy itself, not playing musical chairs to put different people in different seats.
Entitlement attempts to capture certain aspects of privilege and patriarchy that are in a man’s attitude. To a large extent, this attitude is simply one of superiority mixed with misogynistic tendencies, and those have roots in social assumptions. Yet this belief in superiority does not always result in entitled behavior, and entitled behavior can result without this belief in male superiority, per se. So my question is: How do men become entitled?
One way often begins with generous sacrifice, which turns toward entitlement as that generosity becomes entrapment. Men providing for their families can go this way, especially if the man’s work is antithetical to his sense of greater calling. When he begins to feel trapped, the mind begins to ask: “And what do I get for this? Am I not entitled to something in return?” If the man is successful, he may add a growing arrogance to that attitude, thus infusing it with even greater energy. For men who recognize entitlement in their own attitude and seek to address it, these may be fruitful roads of self-reflection and insight.
I hope these words open doors to self-awareness and insight that lead men toward their own authentic response to #MeToo. Rules, codes, and guidelines for appropriate behavior only go so far. Through #MeToo, women have offered men an opportunity to break out of the stereotypical cages in which we have imprisoned ourselves, and from which many of us have offended women. While I offer gratitude to the women who spoke and provoked such awareness, I also offer a challenge to the men: Let us seize this opportunity to know ourselves better such that we may be better people — for ourselves, our partners, and the community around us.
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Anthony Signorelli authors books and articles on men, #MeToo, postcapitalism, climate, green energy, political history, poetry, and books. He is the former editor of Inroads: A Journal of the Male Soul, co-facilitated men’s groups in the wake of #MeToo, and has published six books.
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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