Are We All Wrong About Men?

I’ve now had one too many conversations with men about a particular topic. That topic is disturbing. It makes me really angry. It shows the lack of conscious parenting. It shows the lack of permission for children to be vulnerable. It shows that maybe…maybe there is a reason that men are dicks. Some men, anyway.

And the topic is Childhood Sexual Predation, Molestation and Abuse.

I’ve known plenty of stories and have lived through abuse from siblings. I’ve heard of little sisters being assaulted by older brothers, sexually and otherwise. My brothers were no angels, but I had cooties and the abuse never went that direction. Thank God.

And that is usually what we hear of. I have friends who are school counselors, therapists, nurses, and doctors. I hear about the girls and their abuses. And there are plenty. But…and this is a bit BUT…women are, more and more allowed to speak out against their abusers.

More and more, there is less and less shame around being abused. The conversations sound more like, “Tell me about it.” and “I really want to help you.”. And less like, “What were you wearing?” and “How much did you have to drink?”. Thank God.

But there is more to the story. As a woman, I have a love-hate relationship with men. Because I am heterosexual, men have been the source of most of the grief I have suffered, the traumas I have endured, and yet, some of the joy and pleasure. I feel like I play a game that requires a delicately tuned-in scale.

When men hurt women, it is easy to name the power differential, the deeply embedded societal teachings of oppression against women, and cite a hundred examples of that kind of abuse right in our own families. It’s everywhere.

In “good” families and in “bad” families alike, this kind of abuse lives, feeding on our silence as it’s main food source.

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But what about our men?

I know, men should know how to treat women respectfully. Men should keep it in their pants. Men should not take what is not offered freely. Men should…a lot of things.

But they don’t. I would venture to say that nearly every man on this planet, at some time, has abused a woman, out of ignorance or full knowledge. It happens. I’ve been the recipient of that as well as most other women.

But what about men?

What about them, and the fact that their mothers were not present as they “raised” themselves? What about the fact that so many of them had older sisters who abused them, sexually and physically? What about the fact that they had no fathers to teach them said “respect” for women?

My children, who had it pretty good, with uncles galore and a present grandfather, still had no father to teach them respect. If he taught them anything about women, it was that he hated feminism, that women didn’t deserve to be his bosses, and to blow off women’s requests and needs. They saw that in our home, very, very often. Thank God we talk about all of that and they don’t blow me off and use demeaning language like he did. Thank God my daughters are feminists and my son is very supportive of their independence. Thank God.

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It wasn’t until 2018 till I had my eyes opened to the pain of men. Yes, of course, you hear about “those” stories. The little boys being abused by priests, the way churches pay off people, and the utilization of this thing called a “hush clause”.

But, here I was, in the woods of northern California, camping with and training a group of people from all over the world. And there was one particular man who drew my attention. The first time we circled up to do introductions and open up about why we were there, what we intended to gain, and our hopes for our own growth and expansion, I heard pain in his voice.

It was a pain that was familiar to me, but I couldn’t quite put a finger on it.

Over the course of the week, I learned, intimately, what that pain was. He had grown up in the same church as I had. He was one of “those” stories, having endured abuse by an authority figure. He never spoke of it, until he told me, that week.

His pain had led him down a rough path. He had left the church and married, married, had a child, and then left his wife. There were drugs, mostly illegal, used and pain numbed. And years later, here we were, sitting in the midst of gorgeous bay trees in the dry creek bed.

He was there, searching for something else to ease his pain. He had found the practice I was teaching that week, but more than that, he had found me. And I don’t mean to toot my own horn, here. I was there for work, but I was also there for connection…the kind of connection that only happens when we are safe to be vulnerable. And he needed someone who knew the parts of him that people outside our religious culture just cannot understand.

And that week, we both found something beautiful. I was able to hold him, figuratively, as he worked through his pain, his anger, betrayal, and loss. Luckily, there was time that week. There are no words to express all I learned that week…the kind of humility I walked with after that. I felt honored to have been there and prepared to listen. He was a gift.

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Since that time, I have learned about other men’s pain. I have heard stories of older sister’s abuses. I have learned about their friend’s abuses. I have heard about the neglect of mothers. I have learned about the abuse of fathers.

Mostly, I have heard the pain of silence. There was no one to hear their voices as children. And there has been no one to hear them as adults. Their marriages typically reinforced their silence, by adding different kinds of abuse to the table.

They chose wives who could not be intimate with them, who were shut down emotionally. They chose wives who slept around with anyone and everyone, without regard for their marital commitments. They chose wives who were chronic liars. They chose wives who physically and sexually assaulted them.

Why men would do these things makes more and more sense now. Not only do they have big wounds around having no fathers (which is a topic that is on the table of discussions), but they have lasting wounds around their mothers, sisters, and then subsequently, their wives.

How can we expect our men to respect and listen to us, women, if we don’t allow them the space to express their own pain? Yes, it’s hard to listen to, especially if we are the ones who are triggering old pains, not yet uncovered, let alone healed.

I wonder if we have it all wrong, sometimes. No matter how much I want to point a finger and blame men for so many of my problems (which might not be inaccurate), that is not the full truth.

Those men are just products of their environments like I am. We cannot expect them to be loving, kind, intimate, and vulnerable with us if they have never seen that kind of relationship being modeled before.

I think of this as a mother, as a sister, and as a partner. I have a job that is three-fold if I am going to leave a legacy of healing and connection.

Am I going to listen when men speak? Am I going to put my own pain in my back pocket along with my ego and make space for them? Am I going to listen to my own son, who is a man, my own brothers, who are men, my father, who is a man, and my partner, who is a man?

How am I going to do that well? I tell you something, I am going to keep trying, no matter how badly I fuck it up today…and tomorrow. Because if we can change this tide by looking deeper than that top layer — their behavior — then I’m ready for a change.

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This post was previously published on medium.com.

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